This is the second in our new interview series for Foofaraw, Author autopsy, in which we speak with the writers of our short fiction to find out “where their ideas come from.”

🎙️ Anthea Jones

Read Anthea's story, Questmas Quackers, on Foofaraw now!

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What makes a better pet: a chicken, a turkey, or a duck?

As the proud owner of two spoiled rotten ISA Browns, Waffle and Morris, who may or may not spend great chunks of time indoors lounging about on cushions watching YouTube, ‘chicken’ is the only correct answer to this question.

Obviously, it's not Christmas as we are publishing this, but what inspired the setting of this story?

I initially wrote this after seeing a Weird Christmas anthology call, at a time when I was becoming deeply obsessed with text-based games as storytelling vehicles. I remember being in ALDI, and seeing a turducken in a box and wondering if they were raised together, cradle to freezer kind of thing, and the story pretty much wrote itself after that.

What’s your experience with text-based games?

I grew up in the era of Police Quest and King’s Quest on floppy disks, although my absolute favourite memory is my dad owning Leisure Suit Larry, and us kids playing it in secret and beating him to the end.

Also, more recently, Strong Bad playing Vampire's Castle on YouTube had me in actual tears of laughter. The combination of game sass and persnickety language requirements just hit me with the most intoxicating wave of nostalgia.

Are you a vegetarian? Is there any animal welfare thought behind this story?

I’d say I’m 90% vegetarian at this point. There’s definitely an animal welfare aspect to this decision and the story, and I adore birds and absolutely do not eat them.

What book are you reading right now?

“Dungeon Crawler Carl” by Matt Dinniman—I am a teensy bit obsessed and totally in the Princess Donut Princess Posse Fan Club. I’m reading the Webtoon at the moment. And because I am never reading just one thing, I’m re-reading“The Lightning-Struck Heart" by T.J. Klune, and I just started “We’ll Prescribe You A Cat” by Syou Ishida.

Do you have anything you'd like to share or promote?

My friend Ben Daggers writes the most brilliant side-splitting gut-punching short fiction, but is also a magician who’s been on Penn & Teller, and as if that wasn’t enough, he ALSO creates escape rooms—highly recommend if you’re ever in Japan. He is hands down the coolest person I know, and everyone should do themselves a favour and bask in his awesomeness.

Thanks to Anthea for taking the time to chat with us!