Of this story, appearing in the Fall 2011 issue, writer Anthony Varallo recalls:

I wrote “Think of Me and I’ll Know” during a time when I was writing a lot of short-short fiction, for reasons that still aren’t clear to me now, but likely have something to do with avoiding the novel I was working on at the time.  The working title for the story was “All Quiet on the Western Front” (great title, but already taken, alas) and the story ran about five pages or so, a story about a guy who gets into an argument with his wife, goes to the library, recalls reading All Quiet on the Western Front in high school, goes home, and finds his son’s lost cat.  The end.

I thought it was an okay story, but, at five pages, it both seemed too long and too short.

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Jamey Bradbury responds to a few question about her story, which appears in the Fall 2011 issue.

How did this story come to be? When is its birthday?

This story’s honorary birthday is Thanksgiving because the idea for the story was born out of a real-life trip I took to Trout Lake (on the Resurrection Pass Trail in Alaska) over Thanksgiving Day weekend: Four days, a weekend-high temperature of -5 degrees, and an incident during which my co-campers nearly burned down our public-use cabin.

If this story was a bird, what kind would it be?

The state bird of Alaska: the ptarmigan. (A male ptarmigan’s mating call sounds like he’s laughing at a bad joke.)

What was the last thing you read that took the top of your head off?

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett. I did not expect to be swept away by this book, but it completely transported me.

What’s the best piece of advice you would give to your younger writing self?

There’s never going to be enough time, so steal every minute you can.

Read an excerpt.