After posting the chilling story, Into the Blizzard and Out of the Cold, we sat down with R.P. Serin to pepper them with our questions. You can read and listen to the full tale here. There may be minor spoilers ahead!

Q1. Where did the idea come from?

The initial idea came from thinking about what might happen in the moments directly after an unexpected, little understood, apocalyptic event. I wanted to focus on someone as they go about their everyday life and explore how they react to such a sudden cataclysmic change. It didn’t occur to me at the time – I had the initial idea in 2023 – but I’m sure the whole Covid/Lockdown thing is in there somewhere. I remember, at the start of the first lockdown, watching reports of people fighting over bog rolls in the supermarkets. Some even snatched them from the hands of elderly shoppers. It shocked me, at the time, how quickly things began to break down. Sadly, it doesn’t shock me so much anymore.

Q2. How did you decide on your character? Did they just appear intuitivly?

When I tried to find my preparation notes for this story and was quite surprised to find that I hadn’t actually done any, so there wouldn’t have been much of a process of character development beforehand. The only things that I had looked at were a range of articles about county lines gangs in the UK, and the way they exploit children to carry out various illicit activities, so I think that the idea for Chloe must have come to me intuitively, prompting me into further research.

With this story the character and the narrative developed together as I wrote. Sometimes I have an idea of how each will turn out before I start writing, but I mostly like to start with a rough sketch and see where the story takes me.

Q3. I love what happens on the underneath of this story. I found there to be a lot of theme and meaning, etc. Do you focus much on this when you write?

With Chloe, I knew that she possessed a strength that would help her navigate the catastrophic event while those around her fell apart, and I really wanted to explore the idea that even the end of the world can be an opportunity for new beginnings, that life can start anew. Hope is word that often gets misused, distorted, and diluted. It often appears on banal ‘positive affirmation’ type social media posts, but it’s not the vacuous totem of emotional insincerity that it often presented as.

Hope doesn’t mean that everything is going to be fine, and it isn’t permanent. It shifts and changes as conditions dictate. A hope based on blind optimism can be harmful, even deadly, but a hope based on more grounded expectations, a hope that can adapt, can be a powerful force for change. This kind of hope is not the easy option, it takes courage. I’m not sure if any of this comes through in Chloe’s story, but it definitely formed part of its creation.

Some people who have proofread this story have expressed frustration at not knowing what happens next, that the story is unfinished. I always try to take feedback on board, and often make changes based on what people say, but I feel quite strongly that any exploration of what happens once Chloe has reached the station completely misses the point.

Q4. How much of your time do you spend writing short stories versus other projects?

It’s quite a sporadic process. I am always thinking of ideas, and jotting them down, but the actual process writing varies. This is partly because working shifts in the NHS, and being a dad takes up quite a bit of time and energy. Being autistic has some impact on this too – when I get the urge to write I go all in, when I don’t it can be very hard to get motivated. I am trying to remedy this though, by setting aside a set amount of time each day during which I sit down with the intention to write. If nothing comes, then nothing comes, if it does then I write. At the end of the period I stop, even if I think I’m writing something really good. I can’t remember where I got this method from, but I like it. I only set aside 20 minutes each day at the moment, but so far it’s been quite effective.

I’m also learning to play the Irish tenor banjo, which has been a great way for me to feel more connected to my Irish roots. At the moment I spend more time practicing this than I do writing, but I intend to gradually start extending my writing time, so this could flip at some point.

Q5. What other works do you have on the go? Anything you’d like to promote?

I do have a novel planned, which I’ve written a lot of notes for and completed a tentative chapter, but this is very much a work in progress and could well turn into the mythical novel that never appears. I nearly have enough short stories to put into their own anthology, which might be a more realistic prospect for the short term, if I can find a publisher who will be interested. I’ve also got a couple of completed short stories that haven’t found homes yet, and I’ve got several ideas lined up to start.

Linktree (www.linktr.ee/rpserin) is the best place to find my work, but I’m not on many social media sites. I am fairly active on Bluesky (@rpserin.bsky.social), and also have an Instagram page (https://www.instagram.com/r.p.serin).