Picture of Janine Milne: provided
Short.Sharp.Stories is a platform showcasing established and emerging South African short story writers. For the 2025 anthology, Power: Short stories that light the dark, writers imagined “power” in fictional terms – how it influences and affects us, including political and personal power, and the ever-present issues of loadshedding.
In this Short.Sharp.Stories interview, Vuyokazi Ngemntu chats with Janine Milne, author of the short story “There are worse gods than us”, a story of quintessential power and a struggle that happens in the most unlikely of places.
Janine Milne is a literature and creative writing graduate from Unisa. She has somehow accumulated five dogs in her mountain cottage near the sea, and is thus a full-time dog slave while earning her bread from freelance writing. She has had poetry published in three Sol Plaatje European Poetry Award anthologies and in Stanzas, and won the McGregor Poetry Prize in 2017. She has also previously had a short story published in the Short.Sharp.Stories anthology Die laughing and in the Bloody parchment horror anthology. She is currently toiling on her first novel.
What inspired you to write “There are worse gods than us”, with its quirky and unusual plot?
When I considered the topic of power, I went down a rabbit hole. I started with notions of an all-powerful God, and then brought it down to a microcosm – a tiny village in the corner of a suburban basement. I had thought of creating a story that kind of read like a graphic novel of sorts – a series of images like a comic book or the picture books I so loved as a child – and I ran with that. Then Peter and Clare emerged.
As the couple observe this “civilisation”, Peter embodies the villain with a Machiavellian will to power, while Clare takes on a more healing, spiritual role. How did you develop them as you went along?
It is funny you ask, because when my mum read my story, she was immediately like, “Yeah, that was X, wasn’t it?” It was kind of a nonfictional person that I started with and created Peter from – but just parts. He was a composite of a collection of the uber-intellectual people in my life who “refuse to conform” and create philosophical and political or artistic excuses for being cunts. Excuse my French.
I often play a game where I ponder what I would do with the world if I were God. Like, turn all the paedophiles into a human centipede, or stuff a live hand grenade up a certain world leader’s arse (rhymes with “stump”). It was just a step from there into picturing what a Machiavellian narcissist would do if they had ultimate control.
As for Clare, I would love to say she was me, but she is a better person. If Peter is Nietzsche’s will to power, she is his counterfoil – the will to serve. That being said, I have been somewhat the villain in my relationship, so perhaps I identify more with Peter?
Peter comes off as a bit of a dirtbag initially, yet we feel sorry for him when he gets hurt towards the end. How does this character arc serve the story?
Shame, poor Peter. He is very similar to a man who once held me in his thrall, a raving socialist. This guy looked down on so many things – an Olympic scornmonger if I ever met one. He was a profoundly miserable man, and he took a giant bite of my pretty little heart.
Is this a vengeful fantasy played out? Perhaps in part. Also, Peter is a great counterfoil to Clare – the old, faithful dichotomy of head versus heart.
How did you manage to write a story that is full of humour, yet also violent?
I am not sure who said that “humour is tragedy plus timing”, but I think humour and violence have a long relationship in our collective psyches.
Almost all of my stories involve an element of violence, whether physical or psychological. I like to explore violence, because it is in these moments that people drop their facade, the carefully constructed mask they create for the world and themselves. And death is always there in every mundane moment, the headlights shining behind you as you are driving in the dark.
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And death is always there in every mundane moment, the headlights shining behind you as you are driving in the dark.
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As for the humour, it is part of death – the fear of it, the impulse toward it, our capacity for violence. It is how, despite the world we live in of sanctioned genocide and rape and the glorification of mass murderers – and the monsters of our secret selves – we can, and do, laugh. (Picture Mel Gibson shouting in blue, “They can take our lives, but not our humour!”)
With the words of historian Lord Acton in mind, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” could you speak to the theme of power? Is this something you agree with?
Sure. I have seen it in my life in microcosm – the shift in personality when a colleague gets promoted, or when a “sweet” friend I knew from childhood married some fat, rich motherfucker and transformed into a Downton Abbey mistress of the manor overnight, spewing vitriol about her domestic workers eating her biscuits.
In a way, power exposes us, the worst of us. Part of us is kept in check by our evolutionary social hardwiring.
Does power corrupt absolutely? I suppose that depends on your moral fibre. Gawd, I sound like one of the Catholic nuns who attempted to lobotomise me with their notions of an omnipotent Caucasian wizard.
I am not saying it would corrupt everyone “absolutely”. But usually, people who aspire to power are total wankshits to begin with.
So, if you considered a message readers could glean from this story, what would it be?
I’m not really a “messagy” type of writer; I just hope to evoke some kind of emotion in my readers. If I make a reader feel something, I consider my writing a success.
That said, every writer offers a unique vision of the world in their writing. I suppose mine would be to live rather in your heart than in your head. To know that control over this mystifying reality is an illusion. And to watch out for giant fingers, of course.
I found an insightful quote by Ursula Le Guin in Jeff VanderMeer’s Wonderbook that explains my feelings well: “Art frees us, and the art of words can take us beyond anything we can say in words.” I wish our teaching, our reviews and our reading would celebrate that freedom, that liberation. I wish that, instead of looking for a message when we read a story, we could think, “Here is a door opening on a new world: what will I find in there?”
Your story interestingly intersects many genres, from allegory to surrealism to horror. Can you name any local writers who write in these genres, whose work influences yours?
I like to straddle genres, which makes me a nightmare to market. I take the what if and give it a crack enema. I fought so hard against my natural inclination towards crazy; I tried to keep it neat and tidy, but that's just not me. I am a strange girl in a strange world. I love writers who embrace the absurd, the impossible and the downright strange.
I am also a consummate potty mouth, so I am very liberal with my “fucks”, as you may have noticed. Sorry, mum.
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And yes! A shout-out to the amazing Lauren Beukes, whose imagination and talent are blazing the trail for writers like me. Helen Oyeyemi is another great inspiration, as her stories are so beautifully written and explore the magical along with the prosaic. Ivan Vladislavic is another master of blending the mundane and the absurd, especially in his early short stories.
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And yes! A shout-out to the amazing Lauren Beukes, whose imagination and talent are blazing the trail for writers like me. Helen Oyeyemi is another great inspiration, as her stories are so beautifully written and explore the magical along with the prosaic. Ivan Vladislavic is another master of blending the mundane and the absurd, especially in his early short stories.
Of course, I’d love to ask for any book recommendations for early-career short fiction writers who want to hone their craft?
Oh, hell yeah! I think I spend a third of my life reading books on the craft; it’s the most powerful procrastination tool in my writing-avoidance arsenal. Here are some of my faves:
- Robert Olen Butler: From where you dream. A mind-blowing book about getting deeper into your subconscious and finding your creative flow.
- Chuck Palahniuk: Consider this. Palahniuk has some very different advice on the craft that is pretty off the wall. As he is a devotee of Spanbauer’s dangerous writing, his extreme expression will bring out the anarchist in you.
- Rebecca McClanahan: Word painting. This book offers a deep analysis of the descriptive aspects of craft that will elevate your stories from meh to fucking yeah!
- Anne Lamott's beautiful Bird by bird. I am foremost a poet, and I can't stress enough how much writing poetry can illuminate your fiction. Especially in searching for those lateral metaphors that pull your readers into your vision in a visceral way.
- William Strunk: The elements of style. This is the Bible, guys, the nuts and bolts of the lonely craft. Not the easiest read, but a “write” of passage for aspiring wordsmiths.
What is your own process when it comes to writing short fiction?
I don’t feel really qualified to give advice, but I can humbly offer my process if someone can find something useful in it.
I am an avid hiker, so I like to do my thinking on the move while walking my five-dog pack each morning. I let my mind go and run through my thoughts until something pings. Then I do this elaborate dance of procrastination, where I flit about cleaning under pot plants and climbing the walls to avoid sitting down at my laptop.
Once I have mentally lassoed myself into one spot, I overcome my page fright by allowing myself to do a really crap first draft. I don’t delete anything; I just write spelling errors and everything until I have something that resembles the shape of a story. Then the real work begins: editing – or, as I call it, scratching for crack crystals in a shag carpet. This usually involves the following.
I start getting rid of anything that does not further the action or plot and tighten up my lines. If it doesn’t pay rent, it must get the fuck out.
I look for lazy writing and humdrum descriptions. My story is now like a movie in my head, and I can look around in it scene by scene. That is when I search for concrete and expressive opportunities I missed while I was describing it. Then I put things in to make my story more particularly me, or me as my character sees the world.
I look at my characters in the story. Their education, age, job and preoccupations should colour how they view the world and each other. I make sure that their dialogue also uniquely reflects these attributes.
I change everything from the start, because the story I begin is never the story I finish, so I reconstruct the bones from the bottom up.
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I change everything from the start, because the story I begin is never the story I finish, so I reconstruct the bones from the bottom up.
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Then I try and work on my opening lines, because they set the stage for everything. This is the doorway into your world, and you have to set the right tone.
Finally, I always read my stories aloud. That’s where I find where things don’t flow, so I can fix them.
When should we expect new writing from you?
I am currently in the throes of my first novel and fighting my unruly mind, which has gotten used to the world-hopping of short stories. I hope to have something to offer by 2026.
Vuyokazi Ngemntu is a writer-performer in Cape Town, South Africa, whose praxis uses poetry, song, physical theatre, storytelling and ritual to navigate epigenetic trauma and to centre indigenous knowledge systems in the creation of new black imaginaries. Her short story “Binnegoed” was selected as the overall winner of Ibua Journal’s 2022 “Bold: Food” regional. Her short story “Blood and ballots” was featured in The year's best African speculative fiction: Volume 3. Her work has appeared in World Literature Today, The Kalahari Review, Herri, Ibua Journal, Short.Sharp.Stories, New Contrast, Ake Review, Pepper Coast Lit, The Culture Review and elsewhere.
Power is available at good bookstores and directly from Tattoo Press: joanne.hichens@gmail.com.
Tattoo Press is an independent small publisher, specialising in contemporary South African short fiction.
Also read:
Short.Sharp.Stories anthology, Power: interview with Werner Labuschagne, author of "The killer"