Just One Thing with Emily Myles

Emily Myles’ flash “Volunteers” is quietly beautiful, and yet full of unexpected turns, like the night of vegetable thievery it follows. Here they share just one thing about the piece:

“When I started writing “Volunteers,” Bernadette and her husband interacted much more. It was a piece between two characters and it ended up just being unwieldy and uncooperative. I narrowed it down to just an evening in Bernadette's life, and it clicked into place. The story became more organic (pun not intended), about the loneliness and isolation of longing and marriage. I had her looking outwards at others for most of it—I felt like there were parts of Bernadette she was afraid to examine for herself, and that she was someone who kept herself busy thinking about things like tomatoes and street cats.”