Welcome back to another round of #SundayStories where you can learn about the inspiration behind one of the stories from my new collection, When We Come Back.

This week takes a look at the final contemporary story in the collection, “In the Year 2000.”

Here I visit one of my old haunts, Atlantic City, where for a period in my twenties, I spent countless days and nights. The casinos were rich with characters from where I drew inspiration for many years before the scene lost its allure. I don’t know that I’ll ever return to Atlantic City, but I’ll always have the stories that resulted from my time spent there. This one bounced around for many years in many incarnations, until enough time had passed, and I suddenly realized it was some strange hybrid of a contemporary piece and a period piece. Approaching the final re-write from the perspective of it being a period piece allowed the story to really come to life.

You’ll also notice references to Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania (where the main characters grew up) and Andrew Wyeth, as the first incarnation of this story was likely written around the same time as “Coldspace” and Andrew Wyeth’s death.

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Add When We Come Back to your Goodreads “Want to Read” pile.