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 |
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.
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.
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.
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