Backstory is tricky to interweave into your story effectively. Sometimes, it is introduced too soon, or all at once in one large info-dump. At other times, its power is undercut by giving it away for free before the reader has been primed to hunger for it, or by failing to take advantage of the motivating power of shameful secrets.
Alex Delmore wants out of her dead-end suburban town, but her parents are broke, her brother is an idiot, and NYU seems like a distant dream. Good thing there’s a genie in town—and he’s hiring at the Wellspring Mall.
Katherine Quevedo hails from Portland, Oregon, where she works as an analyst and lives with her husband and two sons. Her Pushcart and Rhysling nominated fiction and poetry appear in Nightmare Magazine, Asimov’s, Fireside Magazine, and elsewhere.
