“Sometimes, out for a Sunday drive,/ I’ve seen odd fauna in the sooty woods:/ a stiff/ stag jutting from a sinkhole, smoke/ issuing from his nose and eyes, as if/ he had been burnt alive.”

–Aaron Poochigia, Centralia, PA

With the bush fires in Australia, it’s important to be aware of the extent of the damage of natural disasters. Write from the perspective of the animals in the flaming woods. Imagine a forest spirit who mourns the loss of her home and children. What will she do to protect them? What will she do to guide the souls to the spirit world? An important aspect to writing stories is the layering of the story. The surface is what is literally going on, as I described above. However, the underlying story, or the metaphor, is the affect of the bush fires. How do you want to portray them? What message do you want to offer to your audience?