Interview: “The Bone Nest” by Tami Veldura

When bone witch Nariah Boyd is called to a haunted parking lot on the city’s edge, she expects another ghost, another forgotten dead. What she finds instead is a nest—of bone, of memory, of sorrow so vast it reshapes the world around it. As a mother spirit stirs in the marsh, Nariah must reach deep into her lineage of lullabies and quiet power to honor the dead and preserve what still breathes.

Interview Questions

Did the story start with the ghost, the water, or something else entirely?

Since the theme is Hauntings, I knew right from the start this story would be set in my Bone Witch universe, which means the ghosts were built in from the start. However I hadn’t written a story with a watery ghost before, so that took the tale in a new direction.

Was there a moment where the story changed direction on you?

I thought at first this was going to be a murder mystery since it starts off with a dead body, but I should have known it would be a story more about connection! Nariah’s stories almost always solve a problem, but it’s usually not a mystery.

The Bone Nest beautifully blurs the line between haunting and healing. What inspired the crocodile spirit and her bone altar?

Something you discover quickly when you get into animals and their facts at a young age is that TV and movies are happy to turn any beast into a monster if it’ll sell. Crocodiles are one such victim. Did you know that a mother crocodile will defend her nest while her eggs develop? She listens for the peep peep chirps of her babies, carefully digs the eggs up, and will help her children hatch by gently piercing the eggs with her teeth so the hatchlings can escape. Then she’ll gather them up by the dozen in her mouth and carry them all to the water—because hatchlings may be on the menu for shorebirds and fish, but not if mama is around!

The humming motif—especially as passed down from Nariah’s mother—feels central to the story’s emotional core. How did that element develop?

I always try to stretch myself as a writer with my short stories. In this one, I wanted to connect Nariah’s past with her present in a solid way. Once I realized the croc story was not a murder, but about motherhood, I knew the connecting piece had to be about Turquoise, Nariah’s mom. The humming developed spontaneously from there.

The setting is such a vivid blend of city ruin and wild reclaiming. Is it based on a real place or entirely invented?

Nariah’s city is very loosely based on my childhood experience of San Diego. I say loosely because obviously San Diego doesn’t have any swamps taking over old parking lots. There’s a significant transformation that comes over the area after the vampires Rise. Magical, spiritual, and liminal spaces appear anywhere humanity isn’t present enough to drive them out. This is one such spot.

Do you plan to write other stories in this fascinating world?

There are already many stories in the Bone Witch world! The first 10 will be collected in two volumes: The Rise of the Bone Witch and The Life of the Bone Witch, and launched on Kickstarter soon. You can follow that project here.

What are you working on now—and what’s fun or exciting about it?

SO many things. Right now I have a novella series on my table. A gay harem vampire romance that has 3 books available in my website membership exclusively. Number 4 arrives in March. There are 10 novellas planned total and the series will go to Kickstarter first. All news flows through my newsletter, which readers can sign up for here and get a free Bone Witch story!

About the Author

Tami Veldura is an enby/aro/ace author of queer fiction. They have published short stories in anthologies Fresh Starts, Hauntings, Love Among The Thorns, Love Is Like A Box Of Chocolates, Street Magic (a Diamond Quill Book Of The Year winner), the magazine Galaxy’s Edge, and they are a contributing member of the scifi magazine Boundary Shock Quarterly. They publish new work every month, crossing every genre, but always featuring queer characters and found families.

Find out more about Tami at tamiveldura.com

Read the Story

“The Bone Nest” appears in Haunted Waters, available now from Blackbird Publishing.

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