Leopoldine Core, "The Skull"

It’s December 20. Leopoldine Core, author of When Watched, steers clear of Facebook Marketplace.

How would you describe your story?

LEOPOLDINE CORE: It’s about someone who feels horror and anxiety at having inherited a human skull.

When did you write it, and how did the writing process compare to your other work?

LC: A few years back I wrote a very loose sketch of the story, outlining the basic premise. And this year I fleshed it out over a period of a couple weeks. The process involved overwriting, then cutting it back down—and keeping all the parts that made me laugh. Horror needs humor. 

What kind of research went into this story?

LC: I didn’t do any research. I really did inherit a skull and it really did horrify me. And I really did give it away. Many of the details were changed but the feelings and their arrangement reflect my experience.

What, to you, makes the short story a special form? What can it do that other kinds of writing can’t?

LC: There’s something foreverish about short stories. At the end of a novel I feel a finality and a lonesomeness. The novel always dies at the end and I always miss it. 

But short stories, because they present such a small portion of a larger reality, tend to give the impression of continuing long after I’ve reached the end. Partly the story goes on in my mind. But it also gives the impression of persisting elsewhere—in some realm I can’t enter that I’m nonetheless comforted by. I get this feeling even if the story has a dramatic ending where someone dies or something—the story doesn’t die. The short story as a form is just so peculiarly alive due to being partial. There’s something supernatural about the experience of reading them. 

Where should people go to learn more about you and your work?

LC: www.leopoldinecore.com.

What's the best gift you've ever been given?

LC: I like being given things I can eat. When I’m given a bouquet of flowers I feel a little sad because I can’t eat them. They seem in the realm of something you could eat but no. I like being given chocolates, teas, spices, or a meal. Once I went to someone’s house and they prepared the most delicious soup. It was a recipe that only everyone in their family knew. I think often of that soup.

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