The Literary Mirror

Why a field guide structure specifically, over something more conventional?

Grief doesn't arrive in chronological order, in my experience. It arrives in the order a bird arrives — sometimes common and everywhere, sometimes rare and gone before you've properly looked at it. The field guide format let me be honest about that instead of faking a timeline.

Is there a real birdwatching habit behind this, or was it purely a formal choice?

Very real. I started birdwatching the same year the relationship in the book ended, mostly as a way to leave the house without having to explain where I was going. The two things got tangled up in my head and eventually on the page.

You published a verse novel, The Weight of Empty Almirahs, the same year. How are the two books in conversation?

The almirah book is about objects outliving the people who owned them. The field guide is about a feeling outliving the relationship that caused it. Different vehicles, same worry, really — what stays behind, and what that staying means.