Small Spec Book Awards - Semi-Finalist Feature #4

After a brief hiatus due to an unexpected illness, I am back with the last round of SSBA Semi-finalists before I start featuring the Finalists and Winners! Check out the first, second, and third posts!

I have two wonderful books/authors left to highlight: More Bugs by Em Reed and Moon Dust in my Hairnet by JR Creaden.

Each author has been asked the same questions: 

1. What inspired you to write this book?

2. What was your favourite part of writing it? 

3. Where can we find you and your work? (socials, blog, website) 

 

More Bugs by Em Reed

Dumped, broke and stranded at her mother's house, Amy has few options for escape. Hanging out with her ex comes with getting to know his new girlfriend, someone who looks suspiciously like Amy's younger, straighter doppelgänger. Strapped for cash and desperate to be out of her mother's home, she ends up babysitting the UFO-obsessed kids of the hot working mom down the street. Over a dull, torrid summer in the Pennsylvania suburbs, strange lights linger on the horizon, and subterranean connections reach out their tendrils in the dark, signalling another, otherworldly possibility.

Buy the book here!

1. What inspired you to write this book? 

I originally wrote the kid's UFO sighting subplot as a short story around ten years before I started to work on More Bugs. That story seemed to connect to other ideas and characters I'd had floating around in my head since I was a teenager, and I tried to make it into a visual novel or narrative game, but it finally came together as a novel. It draws on the fascination I have with UFOs and the possibilities (utopic and/or horrifying!) of alien life since I've been a kid, as well as sense-memories of turn-of-the-millenium Pennsylvanian suburbia, and artists I admire who make very particular, lived-in feeling work, like George Kuchar, Lee Lozano and Chris Kraus. 

2. What was your favourite part of writing it? 

What was your favourite part of writing it? I really liked spending time with all of the characters, gradually figuring out what worked in terms of how they were feeling or would act in particular situations. I also love when you're revising and something chimes, like something you didn't even intend slots into place and echoes or reinforces another theme or element. I think those points where you feel compelled and curious about your own writing are when it's the most fun for me. 

3. Where can we find you and your work? (socials, blog, website) 

My website is emreed.net, which has links to my blog and newsletter as well as my writing portfolio. I'm also @dayofthemutants.bsky.social on Bluesky. 

 

Moondust in my Hairnet by JR Creaden

20-year-old Lane was perfectly happy living in her big sister's shadow. The great Faraday Tanner, who invented the gravdrive and inspired the movement to found the moon's first independent colony, was the unequaled voice of the post-melt generation. That is, until an unimaginable tragedy cut Faraday's legacy short.

Wracked with survivor's guilt, Lane embraces her job on the moon: lunch lady-which is more than her parents think she can handle. Her boyfriend's supportive at least, when he's not drooling over one of the new recruits. Lane tries to put the past behind her, committed to enjoying her kitchen work and dating her boyfriend and their new crushes. She even participates in planning Faraday's memorial, forcing herself to grapple with monumental loss.

But when colony goods go missing and vital equipment gets tampered with, Lane must band together with new and old friends to find the culprit and save her sister's dream.

Buy the book here!

1. What inspired you to write this book?

The main story idea sprouted because of how a dismissive tweet about food service took over the writing community in 2016, just as I was reckoning with my own diverse but not especially lucrative work history. I believe there’s dignity and value in all life, and I’m most interested in the stories of people who aren’t at the center of power. That became the seed of Moon Dust In My Hairnet, because I wanted a protagonist in a job people often scoff at (lunch lady) to be the heart and entry point for readers.

Also, I was wrestling with grief and legacy, particularly what it means to survive with a dream that used to be shared. Lane’s grief and disabilities are different than mine in many ways, but the displacement she felt became the thread that pulled me into her voice, where my weirdness, longing, and hope found a welcome home. 

2. What was your favourite part of writing it?

My favorite part of writing was allowing space for voice—letting loose into Lane’s language and processing to reach something chewy and layered. I’ve spoken about my synesthesia, how I experience words as textures and flavors. Letting that show on the page was thrilling and new, something I’d never fully given into before.

I also loved pushing the structure into places readers might not expect or see often, at the risk of being called “silly” or “imbalanced.” I wanted to nudge readers out of genre complacency, to make them pause and sit with dissonance. That tension between whimsy and gravity is deeply meaningful for me as an artist, and playing with that space is pure fun.

3. Where can we find you and your work? (socials, blog, website)

You can find JR Creaden on Instagram, Tiktok, Facebook, and Bluesky. Along with writing, JR Creaden offers editing and coaching services under the name, Heartwood Edits, all at their website. The best place for information about Moon Dust in My Hairnet is at their publisher. 

  

 

 

Thanks for reading! 

Want to keep in touch? Sign up for my newsletter or Find me around the web

Want to support my writing? Buy my collection: Thin Slices: A Collection of Horror Flash Fiction

Or: Help me buy more books on Ko-fi