Gina Nutt: In “Shell Island,” we meet a narrator on a family vacation in memory of her mother, who recently passed away. She takes a solo daytrip to an island, where she misses the last boat back and makes an unexpected friend during her one-night stay. What draws you to the surreal and oneiric in fiction?
Ashley Farmer: Part of it is selfish: I’m simply gladdest when I’m writing within these not-real-but-also-not-impossible worlds. That’s the straightest path to imagination for me, where it’s generative and fun, full of permission. Plus, the writers I’ve loved longest and learned the most from demonstrate how an absurd prism can reflect the nitty-gritty of an actual person’s experience—there’s a built-in tension between dreamlike and grounded elements that points to something true. And I guess there’s part of me that simply wishes life were just a little more absurd (absurdity-as-an-offering, not bad-absurd). For instance, I went to the real Shell Island on a real vacation this past summer, plucking up actual shells with my snorkel mask on, and while I didn’t get stranded overnight, maybe I wouldn’t have minded it, you know?

GN: The narrator’s unexpected island pal is a ghost, or a ghost-not-ghost. She’s dead and there. Supernatural, yet also casual about her afterlife among shells, sand, and water, all of which exists in proximity to an Air Force base. How do you see the natural world, the supernatural, and human-built environments complementing and contrasting each other in this story?
AF: Thanks for this question. Do you remember those ancient science books with sections of transparent pages that depict human anatomy? Each system—skeletal, cardiovascular, muscular—builds upon the other and comprises a whole body? I guess this is a convoluted metaphor, but that’s how I think about the different layers of Shell Island in this story: a layer of spirits, a layer of persevering nature, a layer of fighter planes in the sky, a layer of locals making their livings, a layer of tourists trying to have experiences, drinking rum punch and buying souvenirs. Together, it creates the world the narrator moves through, and she gets a glimpse of those different transparent pages.

GN: The narrator is different than an unreliable narrator. In addition to being somewhat accident-prone—she breaks a flip-flop, perhaps also her toe, and gets stuck on an island—she has these voicey gut-check moments throughout the story. These reflective occasions find her second-guessing herself and wanting to get the story right. Do you think characterizing a narrator as uncertain and prone to mishaps can enhance a reader’s trust in a story?
AF:  I hope so. Grief catapults you into such a foreign headspace, one in which certain elements of your life can become crystal-clear (your priorities, say, or the direction your life is taking) and other ordinary things become muddled (how to make morning coffee or parallel park without jumping the curb). So her shaky memory and striving for accuracy—as well as the momentum of her ridiculous mistakes—speak to that, perhaps. I think everyone has a time they look back on where they can say, “I just wasn’t myself.” Sometimes it’s almost with wonder, or like remembering a stranger. So hopefully people relate to her in that way. She just isn’t herself.

GN: What’s in your creative mosaic? Books, music, restaurants, films, visual art, fashion, ephemera, architecture, anything that energizes your writing.
AF: It always changes, but right now? Michelle Latiolais stories. Ross Gay poems. So much visual art, every day, because I work in that particular field and it’s, fortunately, around me like weather. Also: the weather, because it’s fall now. The early-dark. The desert, the Wasatch Mountains, the Great Salt Lake, sagebrush, pine sap. My big dog, my small cacti. Perfumes with raspberry and sandalwood notes. Coke Zero and elaborate seasonal popcorn flavors. The gym. The grocery store, even with its terrible lighting. The bathtub, where I can pretend to be in the ocean and where ideas come from.