Just One Thing with Nicholas Guerreiro

An empty market street in Loulé, the town in Portugal where Nicholas’ family is based

September’s featured short story “Toyota Head” comes Nicholas Guerreiro, and we are so excited to share it with you! Check out “Toyota Head” if you haven’t already, and learn just one thing about how the story came to be:

“Towards the end of "Toyota Head," Bruce and the narrator eat a traditional Portuguese meal, one I've had many times when visiting my family in Portugal. The Algarvian vinegar carrots in particular are my go-to potluck dish. I often work a little bit of Portugal into my writing—usually a single word or phrase or image—in the later stages of the revision process. It’s a game to force me to pay attention to every individual word as I look for an opportunity to hide that secret signature. I sometimes edit out these private references in the final draft, but the image of biting the head off a tiny squid seemed to perfectly encapsulate the predatory nature of Bruce’s relationship with the narrator. If you ever have lulas, the key is to split them in half and remove the dorsal pen first, or else you end up with a mouthful of chitin.”