"The Happiness Institute" in Clarkesworld
Hi y’all,
“The Happiness Institute” was recently published in Clarkesworld! This is a story that I’m so, so proud of, and I wanted to take the time to provide some background on it. (Extremely mild spoilers if you read ahead without reading the story first.)
I first had the idea for “The Happiness Institute” in 2019, when I was still working in-person at my old corporate job. The second half of the idea came through in 2022: it should take place in the aftermath of a war, and it should be written in first-person plural because it had to be about connection. I had no idea what that might entail, so over the course of a week-long vacation visiting friends I read an excellent Theodora Goss short story in the first-person plural (I believe it was a “Miss Emily Gray” story) as research and noodled around in my ideas notebook. As soon as I got off the plane and back to my apartment, I wrote almost the entire first draft in a single sitting.
Then my writing group got to it. The first meeting made me feel like I was at a contentious book club meeting for my own book; people had wildly different interpretations of the ending, and they all felt extremely passionate about them. I love sowing discord and chaos among my dearest friends, so this was thrilling.
From there, it was just a revising slog. The craft elements that excited me (the first-person plural perspective, the switch to present tense at the end) were extremely tricky. Everything I tweaked to make the story structurally stronger seemed to reduce the impact of the ending.
I just kept chipping away at it. It never stopped feeling like a battle.
I think that’s part of why I’m so proud of this one: I stuck with it and trusted the process, and I actually quite like the final result.
All of this to say: I’m really happy with it, and I hope you like it as much as I do. Whatever you make of the ending.
I would love to hear from you about the story & what you thought of it or about the newsletter and whether this is the kind of thing you’d like to keep seeing as I have new stories out!
News
Keep an eye out for another story next month in Uncanny. Uncanny subscribers should already have access to it!
Short Story Log
I read “How to Kill the Giant Living Brain You Found in Your Mother’s Basement After She Died: An Interactive Guide” by Alex Sobel in Diabolical Plots recently, and it caught me totally off guard in a way I found delightful. You can read that here.
Love,
AnaMaria
P.S. Yes, the switch to present tense at the end is partially because I love it when Taylor Swift does that in her songs. No, I’m not sorry.