I studied a lot of shorter novels to figure out how to get that compression that I wanted while not losing any of the weirdness or reduce the characters to nothing. The books that really inspired me were Sara Levine’s Treasure Island!!!, Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Rachel Khong’s Goodbye, Vitamin, Marcy Dermansky’s Bad Marie, Carson McCullers' The Member of the Wedding, Rachel Ingalls’s Mrs. Caliban, and Katie Kitamura’s The Longshot.

The Time-Life book series Mysteries of the Unknown and Library of Curious and Unusual Facts: Mysteries of the Human Body. “The body, mostly salt water, is very hard to burn.”
The1997-1998 UT Lady Vols, especially Chamique Holdsclaw and Kellie Jolly Harper.
Ramona Quimby from the Beverly Cleary books

When Fabo sings “I’m starting to see spaceships on Bankhead” in D4L’s “Scotty”
Phoebe Bridgers’s Stranger in the Alps, which I listened to on a loop for the writing process.
Franklin County in Tennessee, where I have lived 27 of my 41 years on earth.

Johnny Storm the Human Torch from The Fantastic Four. He had beautiful blonde hair and it always made me happy that his ability to burst into flames did not harm his hair. That was maybe the first thing I decided about the kids bursting into flames. Their hair would be fine.
My friend’s dad, who kept trying to get me to buy crazy-expensive blue-green algae supplements from him when I was 18 years old.
My fire children, Griffith Fodder-wing Wilson and Patchett Halcomb Wilson.