Micro-interview with Toeken

Please welcome Toeken, long-time collaborator and artist of “The Sons of Victor Levitak”  and “Unblooded Gospel” in The Future Fire #74, for this week’s installment of our microinterview series.

Art © 2025 Toeken

TFF: What was the image that really stuck with you from “The Sons of Victor Levitak”?

Toeken: This is kind of funny in a way; after reading and re-reading Rowley Amato’s superb tale I started getting visuals involving what I can only describe as a disgruntled bowl of stew. At one point I spent so much time painting hunks of meat, potatoes and lentils that I thought the whole piece would be just that; a painting of an angry meal glowering back at you. Amato’s story was a beautiful haunting piece that was a real education for me for me as I went about researching the visual cues I wanted.

TFF: How did you go about illustrating “Unblooded Gospel”?

Toeken: As is usual for me this started out as a much more abstract response to Justin Taroli’s fascinating text, which in turn then morphed into a series of disparate sketches and drawings that were of a multitude of images, hospital tiles, the color schemes of Mount Sinai hospital, wearable archictecture, rib cages, dirty bandages and scan codes. Was a real treat to compose and arrange, and a challenge to edit out the things that I thought might give the game away in the narrative.

TFF: What is the most “punk” thing you've ever done or made?

Toeken: Not sure if it qualifies as “punk,” but I can recall quite clearly a Sunday afternoon dog rescue back in 2011. A little mutt owned by some neighbours had disappeared down an uncovered bolt hole while they were out walking near the mountains. Had a few drinks in me and thought “Why not?” With help from some friends I roped up and went down after the little fellow. What I thought was a ten meter vertical shaft turned out to be close to forty meters. After hooking up the dog (a miracle the poor animal was still alive given the depth he’d bounced down) to the ropes I had to wait a good fifteen minutes before being hoisted back out. I’m claustrophobic. That was one of the longest waits I’ve ever experienced and for years afterwards I would wake up in the night sweating and panicking about the whole thing. Dog was a-okay though!

TFF: What's the most unusual or challenging medium you can imagine working with?

Toeken: I’d like to try screwing up an ice sculpture or two.

TFF: Can you tell us about an artist whose work you're particularly enjoying at the moment?

Toeken: The sculpting duo of Liquette-Gorbach, Sarah Ross-Thompson’s prints and the photography of Phil Penman. All fantastic, inspiring stuff.

TFF: What else are you working on now?

Toeken: I’m working with Gavin Chappell on the late Gregory H.Bryant’s Caves of Mars books, David Blalock on a ParAbnormal Magazine project and finishing up the first issue of Phil Emery’s Hammek graphic novel project.

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Reminder: You can comment on any of the writing or art in this issue at http://press.futurefire.net/2025/09/new-issue-202574.html.

Micro-interview with Lauren Ferebee

Lauren Ferebee, author of “Sentinel” in The Future Fire #74, joins us for a chat about omens, preservation and evolution in the latest instance of our microinterview feature.

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Art © 2025 Barbara Candiotti

TFF: What does “Sentinel” mean to you?

Lauren Ferebee: “Sentinel” was an interesting story to write because it took me a long time to get from the beginning to the end of the story—a few years. I found the process of writing it very meditative because I enjoyed spending time with the narrator in her solitary life. I remember starting with that image of the three dead birds and wondering what that omen meant. The story is kind of an oblique answer to that question.

TFF: Does there come a point at which some things are no longer worth preserving?

LF: I think preservation, from a nature/earth perspective, is a really interesting and thorny question, because I'm quite interested in rewilding and natural methods of restoring earth, such as mycoremediation. I don’t think preservation is the right word for the environmental work we need to engage in as we pass the point of no return for many climate issues. There’s a lot of evolution that needs to happen. There’s a lot of reckoning with the world the way it is now and how we move forward from that, because we cannot return. The inability to reckon with the present—the desire to preserve what is already gone—is so incredibly harmful.

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Extract

The morning after I dreamed about Hannah’s mermaid, three dead seagulls washed up on the shoreline. I took note of each one, their bent bodies limp on the sand, then lifted them by their feet, feathers dripping, to take into the lab. An omen, I might have called it once.

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Reminder: You can comment on any of the writing or art in this issue at http://press.futurefire.net/2025/09/new-issue-202574.html.

Micro-interview with V. Zixin

We’re very happy to introduce V. Zixin, author of “The Better Ends” in The Future Fire #74, who joins us for this week’s microinterview.

Art © 2025 Carmen Moran

TFF: What does “The Better Ends” mean to you?

V. Zixin: “The Better Ends” was born out of my love for America. I grew up here as an immigrant. It’s a story so common as to be archetypal to the national identity of the United States. Certain promises are made in pursuit of that identity. One is that you will be just like anyone else. Another is that you are utterly unique, and that is worth celebrating. The nation is stronger when it is diverse, and yet only real when it is whole and undivided. The alien is loved, feared, and suppressed in equal measure, and I cannot help but find this contradiction tantalizing.

TFF: Do you have a lucky charm?

VZ: Yes, my editor! He’s been reading my stories since high school, and I’m still honored that he takes the time to go through and provide sanity checks for whatever new tangents I send him. So much of writing can be solitary that having a consistent first reader is worth its weight in gold.

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Extract:

We were both teenagers at the time. Or near enough, anyway. Neither of us knew when our birthdays really were. Children didn’t seem to be born in Shenzhen. They materialized around alleyways and market stalls before being adopted by the proper enclaves. I was dressed up in a set of scratchy overalls and had found a nylon jacket that almost matched the shade of leather I was looking for. The cardboard cutout on my head was supposed to be a cowgirl’s hat. I was wearing a pair of boots that my brother had died with.

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Reminder: You can comment on any of the writing or art in this issue at http://press.futurefire.net/2025/09/new-issue-202574.html.