Monica T. S. Flores and J. J. de Melo discussed De Melo’s work over a video interview.
The following is excerpted for clarity.
J.J. de Melo (he/him) is an author based in San Francisco, California where much of his writing is intimately tied to his background as a gay, Bay Area native with Filipino and Portuguese roots. As both a reader and writer, his first love is science fiction, especially anything slipstream or new weird. He also has a strong taste for literary fiction, horror, magical realism, and cocktails that blend any of the above.
He is an active member of the literary community at the City College of San Francisco, where he earned his Associate of Arts degree in Creative Writing. He also holds advanced degrees in Public Health and Epidemiology, working a double life as an author-scientist.
His stories have been featured in Fiction on the Web, Macabre Magazine, Space & Time, Sci-Fi Shorts, and elsewhere. In 2025, he won the editor’s choice award for fiction from Forum Magazine. In more recent developments, he has a story coming out in the Anthology of Dark Fiction from the Philippine Diaspora (DILIM Press) and is working toward his first full-length science fiction novel.
FLORES: I was so excited to speak with you because I personally love to read, historical fiction and memoirs, really immersive ideas about what happened in the past from a fictional bent. But as a writer, I don’t write that at all, I like to write sci-fi. And I really like what you write, because I feel there’s a lot of overlap. So, for me, it’s manananggal in space and that sort of thing. So, I was so excited to learn about your work as well.
I wanted to ask you, first of all, if you had a particular genre that you like to read that’s a little different from what you write about? Or, do you have a favorite author list that you’d like to share with us?
DE MELO: It’s funny how you bring up your reading doesn’t totally match up with your writing all the time. Obviously, we all read a bit of what we write, to fit into the genre, but me too, I do find myself reading a lot of mysteries and more contemporary literary fiction, but I don’t really get as much joy out of writing those.
Writing a mystery is a whole challenge in itself. For me, reading and writing sci-fi is definitely the bulk of what I get up to. Some authors that really cometoin front of mind, folks I’ll always read are Kim Stanley Robinson, Octavia Butler, Blake Crouch, and Jeff VanderMeer. I’d say those are probably the four, and I think all of them have influence into what I’m into reading and writing.
I lean maybe more toward the weird science world, you just have to read it and accept, “this is a weird world where this sort of thing can happen.”
I love Octavia Butler’s futurism and afro-futurism and taking real things from our society and past into the future.
I love reading stuff that’s in far-flung unbelievable universes too, but I think I like it a bit more when it’s rounded in our history and experiences.
FLORES: So interesting! Personally, I’m a fan of China Mieville, and the types of books that he creates are very similar to what you’re talking about…
It’d be great to think about encouraging people to envision what the future is like, and then placing them in there using our values, our history, our culture, our food, our legacy, just putting it a hundred, two hundred, three hundred, four hundred years in the future. So exciting!
DE MELO: Yes, there’s a lot of Filipinos. Even though not a lot of us are writing sci-fi, I think there’s a good chance there’d be a lot of us in the future, too. So, I think we make our mark.
FLORES: Is there anything on this path to publication that’s been somewhat surprising to you, or that’s stopped you and made you think?
DE MELO: Yes, I think really learning what a process it is.
Really, the fun part is the writing and revising, but submitting places, it’s tough. You have to do a lot of research to even know where to send these pieces, especially as a writer in the sci-fi space.
You can’t just be submitting to every literary magazine out there. Some are into that and some aren’t. It’s like any field: you have to do a lot of homework before, even if your writing is great. To have success, you have to get to know the industry a bit more. As an outsider who full-time works more in a science space, it’s definitely a learning curve.
I think I’ve hit my stride. If I finish a story, I have a gut feeling about where it should go. But I think earlier on, even a year ago, I’d finish the story, and be like, “I don’t know how to get this out there. So, I think that’s my main takeaway…
You just gotta do it. Not being afraid to at least, if something seems like, “I don’t know if this will be a fit,” you kind of try it and know.
FLORES: Tell me a little bit about your creative process and your inspiration.
DE MELO: I know that’s an awesome question and I’ve definitely gotten that before. So, you know, I’ve tried to reflect on “what is my creative process?”
I’d say I do tend to write certain types of sci-fi that are more grounded in real life, in lived experiences. I think lived experience really does help ground stories and makes me want to write about something. Even though I focus more on sci-fi, I’m usually commenting on something from real life, it’s almost reflective.
I’m a very visual learner and visual person, so a lot of my stories come out of these very visual ideas and daydreaming, something I’m interested in and then all of a sudden it clicks in my mind and it crosses with space sci-fi or cyberpunk stock image ideas, and then all of a sudden that clashes in my head with a fragment of a plot I’d been mulling over.
I’ll write things down short story ideas, something about this and this, and then eventually a couple of those will combine into something I feel compelled to write. Then, all of a sudden, I’m up all night writing bullet notes.
“Oh no, I’m in bed, so I’m not going to get up and go start writing the story, but I don’t want to forget it.” So I’m turning over in bed, pulling out my phone, vigorously writing notes because I don’t want to forget it in the morning.
I’d say that’s my process, all these bits slowly build up until I cross some threshold where I’m compelled to write. I have a lot of those bullets that I’ve never turned into stories, but maybe they will at some point, once they find the blend I’m looking for.
FLORES: Yeah, hard same, I have a long list of ideas, phrases, just suggestions, dream fragments, and yes, I do think that you as an artist, as a creative, you’re sifting all the time through what the universe is generating. And you’re pulling all these different threads together into a story.
DE MELO: Right. I’m not sure what really is that catalyst that finally triggers it into something I’m writing about, but it was in my phone for three years.
I really wanted to write something about scientists out in the desert. And, only last month it finally clicked: this is what I want to do with that. But it had been mulling in the background. Sometimes I start with setting, and it needs this plot point, or I’ll have a general plot idea, but it needs those other elements.
FLORES: Yeah, I believe it. And also just keep on sharing your work in progress. Can you walk through some of the ongoing themes that you find yourself continuing to to go back to in your work?
Do you think about your positionality in terms of the intersectional world we live in? I often wonder if you have more empathy and more ability to cross boundaries because of who you are. Your work is so much more expansive because in any situation, you probably can get three or four or five viewpoints out of it, just because of the way you are. Tell me about that.
DE MELO: Thanks for framing that. Thinking about that now, I guess that explains why I’m so into these cross-genre slipstream stories, because my life like that–growing up with so many facets of life, growing up multi-racial with different cultures, and then my day job is so different from when I’m off work… I want to be thinking about this creative space versus working as a scientist all day.
I think that definitely does play into the kind of writing I do like.
I’m trying to think of themes I’ve been focused on, because I love speculative fiction and I love sci-fi, but I’m not really writing high fantasy or space opera tales.
I totally appreciate those, but I also love reading the literary or mundane slice-of-life stuff and finding this weird space in-between.
It’s both relatable and unrelatable. I love playing with that.
I’ve been writing a story about being an American with Filipino or Portuguese roots, or having ties to another country and going there. That’s a very relatable experience, I’m going to this country my parents or grandparents are from, but then throwing in a magical element happening here? Or is this person just really confused with this experience?
I don’t want to give too much away from that story because it’s still a work-in-progress. That tends to be the theme I’m working with.
Another project I’m working on is about a scientist who’s stuck in his dead end job. And I feel that way some days, but the reason this scientist is stuck there is because it’s the apocalypse, and he’s stuck in his lab, and he can’t leave because there’s radiation poisoning outside. That’s not my experience, but at the same time, there’s elements that are relatable that I’m playing with there, that’s informing what I’m doing right now.
With my writing group, when this group was coming out with dark fiction from the Filipino diaspora, I was really excited because a lot of people who read my works-in-progress, they said, “yeah, you write a lot of dark and unsettling things.”
So, I was like, “All right, perfect.”
FLORES: I just have one last question coming up for you. I’d ask you to tell us a about your next idea. You mentioned a scientist in the desert, can you share with us about your next creative piece that you’re looking to get out?
DE MELO: Yeah. My next creative piece…
I’d say there’s two this summer I’m simultaneously working on. I’ve been writing a lot of shorter fiction that didn’t really break 5,000 words lately and I’ve done a bunch of that and enjoyed it, but I’m dedicated–I’ll commit to something a longer for once, and seeing how that goes.
So first is that story about scientists in the desert. It’s about this research station in the middle of the desert, and runaway apocalyptic things, the desert gets so hot that they’re stuck in this lab, and they can’t leave and the company they work for says “you just have to stay there and work, we can’t get you.” It’s a ridiculous situation, commenting on how people feel at work sometimes. I’m having fun with that one, and pulling on some other themes.
And then my other project, can’t tell what it’s going to be yet, if it’s novella-length, or short, or just a long short story. This novel idea, it’s a little less far along, but I’m excited to say it definitely has a Filipino protagonist.
You know some of my other stories that have been published, like Mind Reaper and Mind Sweep comment on this idea of “digitized memory.” So, I love working with that idea, I’ve had multiple short stories about it. I really want to work on this Filipino P.I. in Hawaii who’s investigating something going on in this world where there’s a mystery, but there’s also permanent memories. So, that one I’m excited about, that one I think will be a novel.
We’ll see how long it takes. But those are two projects I’m excited about right now.
FLORES: That’s very exciting to hear about! Thank you so much for joining us.
We’re so excited to work with you, collaborate with you, and get your stories out into the world. Thank you so much for taking the time.
DE MELO: Yeah, thank you. This has been awesome. I’m loving working with you and this team and it’s great to chat today.