Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil

Poet and translator Lima (Mother/land) makes her fiction debut with a collection of surreal stories centered on the devil. In 1999, an unnamed Brazilian American writer sleeps with the devil. After that, the devil continues to drop by at different points in the writer’s life. Within this collection, listeners will find an unusual ghost haunting someone’s mother, a vending machine that serves up tiny humans, and a metafictive piece that showcases various writing workshop critiques. Though the stories have unusual and even diverging premises, they are tied together by the main narrative of the devil and what the stories say about the creative process. “Idle Hands,” the story told through critiques, is a standout example, but the other tales show how all aspects of a writer’s life (their childhood, current events such as the 2016 election, and the immigrant experience) contribute to their writing. Narrator Taylor Harvey’s placid voice helps listeners meditate on the story’s individual messages, portraying the devil as one who seems sad about humanity’s folly.