We Call Upon the Author to Explain—Kristen Zory King

Ladies, Ladies, Ladies is Kristen Zory King’s debut short story collection, featuring 18 vignettes of utterly electric women. These women feel familiar. We know them from fables, myths, and cautionary tales. But here, in King’s writing they are modernized, drenched in both fantasy and reality. Their habits and trials are the same ones that compose our lives. Through them, we can more clearly see ourselves. King’s ladies proclaim, “You don’t need to stay sewn to your shadow. Fight hook and crook for this life of yours.” 

MRH: The ladies in your book are each so distinct, so vital. The details that flesh them—the smashed jar of salsa, the pink lipstick, the bathroom door left open—inspire real empathy. I am curious, how did you create these ladies? What were your inspirations? In other words, what did you steep yourself in while writing? Feel free to discuss TV shows, films, books, songs—anything! Take this as an invitation to discuss your research process. 

KZK: Many years ago, I spent a summer in the south of France working as a waitress at a small cafe. I was in my early twenties, escaping the heat of Las Vegas—where I lived at the time—and my first real heartbreak. In exchange for my work, I lived with the woman who owned the cafe, who also fed me and provided me with lots of local recommendations for my breaks and weekly afternoons off. I remember one such afternoon as I sat outside the cafe journaling with a glass of lemonade—a daily and near unbreakable ritual I had quickly settled into—she left to run errands remarking “you’re not the most curious of creatures, are you?” 

It struck me, that comment. What she meant was “you’re young! You’re cute! You’re in a foreign country and you’ve got a life to live! Get out there, love! Explore!” But what she didn’t understand is that I was exploring, albeit in my own soft way. While I have never been the bravest of adventurers, I have always been someone who finds great pleasure in pausing to ponder the world around me—the pale ladybug gently crossing the cobblestone; the cool blue of an early August morning through fogged window; the woman one table over who leans close to her companion to whisper “you’ll never believe who I ran into last night.” 

What I’m trying to say is that I frequently find myself drawn toward small details and delightful vignettes and that these moments feel, to me, as if they contain entire worlds. Ladies, Ladies, Ladies didn’t start as a collection—it started as individual vignettes spurred by details. Prior to these stories I had primarily written poetry and nonfiction. But early in the pandemic, I took an online workshop on flash with Kathy Fish and later a micro fiction class with David Byron Queen and found myself hooked, becoming obsessed with all the things I had previously noticed and recorded from my travels and daily life and fleshing them into slightly larger universes while I was stuck inside my increasingly isolated world.

After a few years, and thanks in large part to the kind and consistent encouragement of Stanchion’s Founder Jeff Bogle, I realized that I had quite a few pieces that seemed to fit in a similar sphere—women captured and crystallized in a moment, rather than a lifetime. And so I started to see what it would look like if I put their voices side by side. I have always been drawn to stories that feature strong female centric narratives, that aren’t shy of emotions like rage, lust, nor grief, which has certainly guided much of my writing and teaching across genre. But I remain most inspired by the world around me—not so much the macro, no, but the small and the intimate, the beauty in the oft overlooked or unsaid. 

MRH: In my interviews, I always like to invite the author to talk about their revision process. I am specifically interested in how you organized your stories, considering some of the characters make appearances outside of their vignette. The collection has a wonderful choral quality. 

KZK: Thank you, Marah! To build off the above, I toyed with the idea of a collection for some time but was far more interested in building each individual narrative than I was in creating a larger whole, so it took quite a bit of time to organize and edit the stories into a chapbook. Some of the pieces had intentional crossover, but most didn’t.

There’s a workshop I teach on Tove Jansson’s The Woman Who Borrowed Memories in which I ask students to make a character map for the story they are working to tell. Who are these people? Why are they here, in this story, or on its outskirts? How do they know one another? Why does that matter? Who is married to who? Who is in love with someone they shouldn’t be? Who hates their neighbor? Who told a lie one winter evening that changed the course of their life?

When I started putting the chapbook together, I did something similar—mapping out the larger universe to see where there was natural (or forced!) crossover. I then edited and sewed it all together from there and this, alongside the incredible editing of Katie Schmeling, helped me to see each individual piece as part of something larger, connecting dots so there was some sense of cohesion. As I revised, I tried to leave room for each woman to live independently within their own world, while also hinting—perhaps yearning for or occasionally visiting!—the worlds of the other ladies. The unifying thread, as you noted, are the choral pieces that use the plural first person, which I hoped would help tie the various experiences and voices together. 

MRH: I apologize if this question too closely resembles the question about organization, but I would love to ask what you believe connects these women? Why do they belong together? 

KZK: No apologies, I love this question! What I hope comes across as a unifying or connecting thread throughout the collection is that each woman—whether mad, sad, or simply bad—is consciously, aggressively alive in (and/or sometimes thrashing against) her own life. I also feel as though most of the women in the stories are also seeking something larger than themselves, but I’ll leave just exactly what that might be to the reader. 

MRH: I was constantly stunned by your first sentences. An exceptional example comes from “Neverland, New Mexico (Wendy),” “The only time Wendy reads her horoscope is when she is stoned, but as she has been stoned for the better part of three years now, she understands her heart more as celestial being than animal object” (23). Such a sentence offers an immediate intimacy with the character. Do you have any advice for crafting strong first sentences? 

KZK: That’s very kind, thank you! As a teaching artist, I often remind my students how compelling a first sentence can be in hooking the reader. This is especially true in a short form like flash—being brave and blunt in your opening is akin to winking at your reader, telling them, “Hey, I’m not saying that you can trust me here, but I am telling you that I’ll give it to you straight.” 

For a brief period of time, I would occasionally ask students to come visit me at a restaurant I worked in. When they arrived, I would ask them to recite their poems or stories like they were giving me their order. I think that’s kind of similar to what I’m trying to say about first lines—we don’t have a lot of time (on the page! On this earth!) so let’s get to the good stuff. And if you can make it pretty or fun or meaningful or whatever in the process, all the more power to you. But, as Denis Diderot states, always, always, always work to immediately “tell the thing as it is.” 

With regard to my own process as a writer, I do find that I am most often prompted by either the flash of a title or first sentence through my brain or a sharp, present detail that I know will be the heartbeat of the piece. When it’s the former, it’s pure, dumb luck for which I am always grateful. When it’s the latter, I hoard the detail in my notebook until I can find good use for it. I guess that’s kind of what writing is—persistance and chance. 

MRH: Finally, would you be willing to talk about your next project? I would love to hear more about it! 

KZK: Yes, I would love to! I put equal stock in my creative work as a writer as I do my creative work as a teaching artist. In addition, I believe that to be a teacher is to be a lifelong student, a role I take very seriously. I have always felt fortunate to find my purpose and place in learning communion with others and as such, over the past few years, I have been grateful to move through some very difficult challenges and big life events with the help of friends and community. I am also fascinated by the idea of vocation and the pondering of one’s work in the world. 

Last year, I found myself feeling very, very small and very, very lost. I always choose a word for myself around my birthday in August and a phrase to guide my calendar year. With all of this swirling through my mind—my role as teacher and student, my love and need for congregation, my desire to learn from and alongside others, and my disorientation in my own life—I chose the word “listen” to guide Year 34 and the phrase “Walk the Walk” to guide 2025. 

With all this in mind, from Fall 2024-Winter 2025 I am exploring a creative project on community, vocation, and spirituality called “The Wonder Walk.’ As a part of this, I’m facilitating a number of events, including community “Wonder Walks” alongside one-on-one hikes through Rock Creek Park, public installations, and more, to think and talk about our collective and individual work in the world. I am essentially spending eighteen months listening, most often while walking alongside both strangers and friends on one of my favorite hiking trails. What will I do with all this information? Honestly, I don’t totally know. My hope is to write a series of Substack posts and essays about what I’ve learned throughout this process (about myself! others! this big, bright, beautiful, brutal world!). But, you know, my palms are open and I am a big believer that art and creation is just as much about the experience and process as it is about the product. If you’re interested in learning more, feel free to be in touch at thewonderwalks@gmail.com or kristenzoryking@gmail.com.

Kristen Zory King is a writer based in Washington, D.C. Recent work can be found in Electric Lit, The Citron Review, HAD, and SWWIM, among others. In February 2025, her chapbook of flash fiction stories, Ladies, Ladies, Ladies, was published by Stanchion. She is currently at work on a collection of nonfiction essays exploring nature, spirituality, and community, among other projects. In addition to her work on the page, Kris is also a creative teaching artist, yoga and Pilates instructor, and graduate student at George Mason University. Learn more or be in touch at www.KristenZoryKing.com.

Marah Robyn Hoffman is a poet–turned–creative–nonfiction writer from Pennsylvania. Since graduating with her BA in English and Creative Writing in 2022, she has lived (at least briefly) in Tennessee, Michigan, Vermont, and North Carolina. She is currently an MFA candidate at the University of North Carolina – Wilmington. There, Hoffman teaches undergraduate students, works as the creative nonfiction editor of Ecotone, and hosts Write Wilmington. In the fall of 2022, she was the long-term writer-in-residence at Sundress Academy for the Arts (SAFTA). Her essay “Self Portrait in Cacophony” was recently published in Fourth Genre.