Q&A: Senaa Ahmad, Author of ‘The Age of Calamities’

We chat with author Senaa Ahmad about The Age of Calamities, which is a genre-defying, mind-bending collection of absurdist, funny, and speculative short stories.

Hi, Senaa! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?                                                                            

Hi! I write and publish short fiction from a small apartment in Toronto, where I’ve lived for many years. I’m especially drawn to stories that live in the blurry space between genres, to ornate or surprising language, to the moody and the strange.

When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?

I was one of those kids with their noses permanently stuck in a book, even before I knew how to read. I come from a family of very avid readers and storytellers and it was just the thing to do. It was hard for me to believe there was a world outside of books and stories, and I inhabited them far too deeply from a very young age. I remember sobbing and sobbing because I’d borrowed the last book of the Little House series from the school library but I didn’t want to read it, because then I’d reach the end of the Ingalls family’s story.

Quick lightning round! Tell us:

• The first book you ever remember reading: A Tweety and Sylvester picture book, which is how I learned to read.
• The one that made you want to become an author: I wish I had a good answer to this. I’m sorry to say that the moment I understood what a writer was, I knew I wanted to be one, and solemnly started writing in notebooks to practice.
• The one that you can’t stop thinking about: Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera, a marvellous maze of a novel.   

Your short story collection, The Age of Calamities, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?

Historical figures in genre-bending situations.                                                                             

What can readers expect?

Alternate histories with a bit of horror, humor, anger, and absurdity. An Anne Boleyn who can’t be killed, even though Henry VIII keeps trying his best. The vengeful ghost of Joan of Arc who resurfaces in a small Ohio town during the 1920s. Historical figures who are sent across time and space, given their own movie franchises, and trapped in sentient houses. 

Where did the inspiration for The Age of Calamities come from?

For years I’d wanted to write a short story that gently tugged a historical figure out of their expected environment and into someplace new and fantastical. Eventually I realized I wanted to write a whole collection around the concept.

I’ve also kept a long list of inspirations to draw from, works that play with convention in astonishing ways, including Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, Italo Calvino’s Cosmicomics, Sofia Samatar’s Tender, Kelly Link’s Magic for Beginners, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.

Was there a particular story that you really enjoyed writing or exploring?

I’d probably say “Choose Your Own Apocalypse,” which is set in Los Alamos on the eve of the first atomic bomb test. Radiation begins to poison the environment in a John Wyndham-esque way, and then J. Robert Oppenheimer goes missing.

Writing the story was a multi-year experience, because I wanted it to feel atmospheric and eerie but I kept bumping up against the practical mechanics, how to write a seemingly interactive short story while trapping the reader inside of it. I read Choose Your Own Adventure books and did lots of research on the Manhattan Project, much of which didn’t make it into the story. I watched walkthroughs of first-person videogames and read structurally strange short stories like Sofia Samatar’s “Meet Me In Iram,” and kept experimenting with drafts to see if I could get it right. It was daunting and enjoyable at the same time.

Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?

Each story came with its own peculiarities, but taking time away was always one of the best remedies. A few months later, sometimes a year later, I’d figure out the answer, or at least a temporary answer to get me to the next draft.  

What’s next for you?

I’m working on a novel, Eleanor Is the Cruelest Month, about a town haunted for years by the many ghosts of a teenage girl.

Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up this year?

The list is ever-growing but includes We Computers by Hamid Ismailov, Violet Allen’s forthcoming Plastic, Prism, Void, and Claire Oshetsky’s also-forthcoming Evil Genius. A few days ago I learned about Edwin Abbott Abbott’s Flatland, an 1884 novella narrated by a square and populated by polygons, and naturally I’ve put it on hold at the library.   

Will you be picking up The Age of Calamities? Tell us in the comments below!