Welcome to the Tuesday Telegrams, a semimonthly newsletter from award-winning author Naseem Jamnia. You're currently reading a writing-related Telegram, where I update you on projects, offer behind-the-scenes looks, delve into craft, and other publishing and writing topics.

Last week, I recorded an upcoming episode of Our Opinions Are Correct, the Hugo Award-winning podcast hosted by two of my favorite people, Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders. (I've been on twice before—you can listen to my thoughts on stories about empire and stories about public health.) This time, I talked about fungal science and the ways in which speculative fiction is way behind the curve in how we talk about fungus.

There's a great article by Carrie Sessarego in Clarkesworld that breaks down the usual modes for fungi in speculative fiction, which comes down to: it consumes, it controls, it competes, it is way too smart for us. Overall, it means that people are relying on old understandings of what fungi are and can do instead of thinking through all the possibilities afforded to us when we actually look at our (limited) scientific understanding of this taxonomic kingdom.

(Sidebar: Fungal horror in particular is having a moment right now; Mexican Gothic by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia led a resurgence in people's interest. While it doesn't use a different understanding of fungi for the story, it does use fungi in a novel way to reinforce the story's themes about colonialism.)

I won't rehash everything I covered in the episode—I walked through some basic fungal science and then talked about potential ideas for speculative fiction. What I will talk about now, though, is story structure, because it's something I've been thinking a lot about and don't necessarily have answers to.

In Meander, Spiral, Explode, author Jane Allison examines different physical structures found in nature to argue that we can tell different types of stories following those forms. So as I was working on the OOAC episode, I wondered: what would it mean to use fungal science as a basis for a new storytelling structure? What would mycelial storytelling look like?

(I love Meander, Spiral, Explode, but it is an advanced text, more literary analysis than craft book. Henry Lien's Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird is a more friendly and accessible "let's look at alternate story structures" craft book, specifically via Eastern storytelling traditions.)

Brief science lesson: When most people hear the term "fungi," they usually think "mushrooms." Mushrooms are what's called the fruiting body of certain fungal species, the reproductive mechanism by which that fungi's spores are released. There are many more species of fungi than there are mushrooms, in other words. The thing that almost* all fungi have in common, though, is hyphae, which is the cellular unit that creates mycelium. Mycelium is a horizontal structure; there isn't a mycelial hierarchy or distinct parts to it that does one thing or another. Fungi are their mycelium—that is where communication, nutrient exchange, decomposition, and growth all happen. Here's a great article that talks about some of what mycelium does! (Its author, Bethany Brookshire, is another OOAC guest host.)

(*Yeast are single-celled fungi, which means they can't, by nature, have multiple cells that would make up hyphae. But they can form what's called pseudohyphae if they're in colonies!)

Close-up of plant roots growing in dark soil, surrounded by white fuzz. — Those fine white fuzzies near the roots are fungal mycelium! They're vital to plant ecosystems. Image by David Clode.

So what, exactly, could a mycelial story structure look like? As I'm currently thinking about it, such a story would have to encompass key aspects of mycelium, such as:

Horizontal: No point of view or plot thread is prioritized over another
Discrete units: The story is not told all at once but, rather, in small portions like scenes and chapters
Emergent: The whole of the story reveals more than the sum of its parts
Exchange: Each subsection of the story in some way overlaps with others, potentially via characters, themes, motifs, dialogue, or otherwise
(And maybe, if we're bold) Decomposition: What we think we understand at the beginning is different from what we understand at the end

Writing these out, I can think of one book that accomplishes these things... and that is There There by Tommy Orange, which chronicles the events historically and more recently leading up to (and during) a pow-wow in Oakland. While I personally think Wandering Stars (the sequel) is a stronger book, I have always been struck by There There's scope and structure.

It's not quite a novel told in short stories, but in the earlier parts of the book, many of the chapters do feel somewhat standalone, and most of them are told from a new point-of-view character. Many of these chapters—and therefore, their POV character—are only tangentially or vaguely related to the pow-wow, especially those which take place in the past. The end is a cliffhanger, not providing tidy answers, and making us look back at the chapters leading up to it in a new light. And while some points of view make more appearances than others, there isn't one or even a few that feel like the "central" perspectives that the other characters are supporting. It's a good example of multiple characters who seem like the main characters in their own lives.

Ultimately, There There is a portrait of the multiplicity of Indigenous experiences in the US, and its structure reinforces that.

A table that breaks down the structure of There There by Tommy Orange. The table lists out 4 parts to each book on the vertical axis, and the name of each POV character on the horizontal axis. The cells themselves share what the POV is and what tense. — In many ways, *There There* is an MFA thesis novel; it's very literary. But it uses the structure to reinforce its themes and portray each individual as exactly that, individuals, even when reaching toward a larger story and truth. I made this table for my Cultural Storytelling class, trying to figure out how best to lay out what the structure looks like, and came up with this.

I bet, in general, hybrid or experimental would be most successful in whatever mycelial storytelling looks like, allowing the flexibility to mess around and see how to get across the elements I listed above. A novel in short stories makes a lot of sense for fiction. A novel in verse that doesn't prioritize any one voice may work, too. I wonder what it would look like outside of fiction!

News from The Glade: Classroom Visits!

Calling all teachers! I'm booking out classroom visits to talk about The Glade! Appropriate for grades 5-7, maybe grade 4 if your kids like spooky stuff! (The main character is 12.) I'm also available more broadly to talk about writing and author life.

Email bookings@naseemwrites.com to get more info!

Solidarity Corner

If you have organizations or causes you'd like me to spotlight here, please send those links my way. We get through these things when we do so together.

To help Palestinians facing genocide:

A list of verified mutual aid links
Gaza Funds spotlights current crowdfunding campaigns that are not getting as much attention
The Sameer Project
The Al Jawad School in Gaza
The Palestinian Children's Relief Fund
Crips for eSIMS for Gaza
The BDS Movement calls for specific brands to be boycotted in order to be effective in their targeting, but we can also be discerning individually. Here is another list of companies profiting off genocide. The only ethical consumption under capitalism is when we trace where the money goes.
A list of Palestinian-owned brands and Palestinian goods

To help others:

Community-supported initiatives for recent events, courtesy of author Sarah Gailey's Stone Soup newsletter
CARE provides both ongoing recovery care for those impacted by Hurricane Helene
A list of crowdfunding campaigns for displaced Black families, displaced Latine families, displaced Filipino families, and displaced disabled people from the LA fires, including affected small businesses
The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has pages for various international atrocious
A list of charities grouped by recent events around the world
Some resources to help Lebanese communities affected by Israel's bombings
UNHCR's donation page to help Syrian refugees
The International Rescue Committee's page on Sudan
Oman Tigray and the IRC's page on Tigray
IRC page on the DR Congo
The Center for Human Rights in Iran, which is not a mutual aid organization but does good work
Keep Iran Connected to the internet (unfortunately via Starlink)

An image of the cover of The Glade by Naseem Jamnia. An Iranian American tween with long wavy brown hair , wearing a blue-purple hoodie and jeans, stares up and away, her fists clenched. Around her are eerie glowing mushrooms and vines. — My middle-grade horror debut THE GLADE is now available!

Image description: Naseem's author signature with "xx," above it. The author signature is their name in Farsi.

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What could a mycelial story structure look like?

News from The Glade: Classroom Visits!

Solidarity Corner