It crosses the Manhattan Bridge and the East River, so you get beautiful views from the train. So I loved the idea that there could be beautiful sunset moments. If they're between this stop and this stop, is there sun on their faces or are they underground? But I love the Q because it’s actually one of the longest lines and it has a very long stretch above ground and it goes from deep Manhattan all the way to Coney Island. It’s really interesting to have a consistent setting in a book that moves. I would take notes on every stop, which stops were underground, which stops were above ground, what the trip between each stop was like. Purely for aesthetics, I liked the Q line because Q for “queer.' So I actually took a research trip to New York, and I was sitting on the train with a notebook and I would ride it from one end to the other. When I was first researching it, there were a few lines I considered. My first book was very fantastical and very high stakes, and I loved the idea of taking it down to the very small, mundane and making that into something that could be just as magical as anything else. What if that was true? What if it was a story where you fall in love with somebody who only exists on this train, on your morning commute? It kind of spun out from there, just this idea of public transit magic. You see a beautiful stranger on a train and you fall in love for like half an hour and then you go your separate ways, but in your memory, they will always be crystallized on that train and you can never imagine them anywhere else. I was really fascinated with that idea, and I was fascinated with the classic strangers on a train trope - the idea of a public transit crush.

I live in New York now and I realize the subway is pretty mundane, but there is a certain level of magic to vanishing into the darkness with a bunch of strangers and reappearing somewhere else and you’ve all entered into this liminal space together and emerged together. There’s a million things to love about New York, but I was really taken with the idea of the subway. I had taken a trip to New York a few years ago, and I’d been to New York a few times, but it was the first time I’d taken the subway a lot.

One last stop book cover