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Jaime Gill is a queer, British-born writer happily exiled in Cambodia, where he works and volunteers for nonprofits across Southeast Asia. He reads, runs, boxes, travels, writes, and occasionally socialises. His stories have appeared in Fractured, Trampset, f(r)iction, Oyster River Pages, Litro, New Flash Fiction Review, Phoebe Journal, Blue Earth and more. He has won awards including a Bridport Prize, the Luminaire Prose Award and New Millennium Writers Award, and been a finalist for the Bath Short Story Award, Smokelong Grand Micro and Oxford Flash Fiction Award. He’s also a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee and has been nominated for Best Of The Net and Best Small Fictions. He’s currently writing a novel, script, and yet more short stories. More: www.jaimegill.com. 
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Interview with Jaime Gill
about his story "The Explorer"
Honorable Mention for The Scribes Prize 2025
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What inspired this piece?
I spent two years backpacking around the world a decade ago, travelling from England to Australia without flying. It was one of the great adventures of my life and let to me upending my life and moving to live in Cambodia. A lot of backpackers are kids whose chief purpose is to get drunk in hot countries at cheap prices, but I would sometimes meet these older backpackers travelling alone, and wondered about their stories. That partly inspired “The Explorer.” It’s also a story about how fragile our lives are. In the last two years, my father, sister and a few good friends have died. Life feels like it has been designed to be beautiful and heartbreaking, an adventure and an ordeal. I wanted in a brief space to capture that and “The Explorer” is the result.
What draws you to the micro-fiction format?
As a digressive, rambling person whose first drafts are usually long, verbose and messy, I appreciate the precision and economy the micro format demands. I think the things that don’t come naturally to us as a writer are often the exact things we should try to do more of. The core of writing a good micro is to have a very clear idea of what you want to achieve and to be ruthless in the pursuit of it, clearing away all clutter. It’s a great challenge and when a micro really lands it can feel like a gut punch or a sugar rush.
Who are some authors that inspire you?
I always end up talking about David Mitchell, but he really has had a huge impact on me. I read his debut “Ghostwritten” - before he was catapulted into fame by “Cloud Atlas” – and was intoxicated. I love his adventurousness, the way his stories leap between different characters, countries, times and genres. I think he is one of the few writers who has a global perspective, having lived in two continents—as I do—and that feeds into a much more capacious world view and an insatiable curiosity I hope I share. I also revere John Irving, Edith Wharton, Junot Diaz, Philip K Dick, Ursula Le Guin, and some of the more canonical writers like Tennyson, Tolstoy and Forster. If it comes to current short form writers, then Kate Folk and Tony Tulathimutte have both dazzled me in recent years—it’s thrilling to read stories that could only have been written right now at this moment in time, and they’re both masterful in their own unique ways.
What's next on the horizon for you?
I’ve got a few stories I love coming out soon. In December, Waccamaw are publishing a heartbroken story I wrote about the AIDS crisis in late 1980s London. Growing up gay in the late 80s and early 90s, AIDS cast a long shadow over my life, and it’s a subject I keep returning to. I revere The Forge and am thrilled they have accepted a prickly, knotty and political story I wrote called “Ghosted”, which will be coming out in January. I also have three stories in the Oxford Flash Fiction Award anthology which will come out next year, and am stupidly proud of being the first writer to get three stories shortlisted. As for the future, I have a chapbook of interlinked stories about gay life in the 20th century I am trying to find a perfect home for, and also intend to use 2026 to write my big, sprawling novel about climate collapse and my many fears for the future. You can check my website, www.jaimegill.com, though it’s usually horribly out of date, or follow me on Twitter, Blue Sky or Instagram, where I blab on about new work.
Do you have artistic inspirations other than authors?
Absolutely. I’m as obsessed with good movies and television as I am fiction, and I’m probably more obsessed with pop music than any of them. I often borrow narrative techniques from cinema and would like one day to write novels with the scope and depth of an excellent TV show, something like Beef or The Wire. I also try to inject my stories with the same emotional fearlessness and moments of soaring beauty you can find in songs. I have a collage next to my writing desk which has pictures of Prince, David Lynch, Kate Bush, Pet Shop Boys, Pedro Almodovar, David Bowie, Bong Joon-Ho, Madonna, Frank Ocean and many more, and try to match them for creative daring and panache. I always fail, but I’ll keep trying.
I spent two years backpacking around the world a decade ago, travelling from England to Australia without flying. It was one of the great adventures of my life and let to me upending my life and moving to live in Cambodia. A lot of backpackers are kids whose chief purpose is to get drunk in hot countries at cheap prices, but I would sometimes meet these older backpackers travelling alone, and wondered about their stories. That partly inspired “The Explorer.” It’s also a story about how fragile our lives are. In the last two years, my father, sister and a few good friends have died. Life feels like it has been designed to be beautiful and heartbreaking, an adventure and an ordeal. I wanted in a brief space to capture that and “The Explorer” is the result.
What draws you to the micro-fiction format?
As a digressive, rambling person whose first drafts are usually long, verbose and messy, I appreciate the precision and economy the micro format demands. I think the things that don’t come naturally to us as a writer are often the exact things we should try to do more of. The core of writing a good micro is to have a very clear idea of what you want to achieve and to be ruthless in the pursuit of it, clearing away all clutter. It’s a great challenge and when a micro really lands it can feel like a gut punch or a sugar rush.
Who are some authors that inspire you?
I always end up talking about David Mitchell, but he really has had a huge impact on me. I read his debut “Ghostwritten” - before he was catapulted into fame by “Cloud Atlas” – and was intoxicated. I love his adventurousness, the way his stories leap between different characters, countries, times and genres. I think he is one of the few writers who has a global perspective, having lived in two continents—as I do—and that feeds into a much more capacious world view and an insatiable curiosity I hope I share. I also revere John Irving, Edith Wharton, Junot Diaz, Philip K Dick, Ursula Le Guin, and some of the more canonical writers like Tennyson, Tolstoy and Forster. If it comes to current short form writers, then Kate Folk and Tony Tulathimutte have both dazzled me in recent years—it’s thrilling to read stories that could only have been written right now at this moment in time, and they’re both masterful in their own unique ways.
What's next on the horizon for you?
I’ve got a few stories I love coming out soon. In December, Waccamaw are publishing a heartbroken story I wrote about the AIDS crisis in late 1980s London. Growing up gay in the late 80s and early 90s, AIDS cast a long shadow over my life, and it’s a subject I keep returning to. I revere The Forge and am thrilled they have accepted a prickly, knotty and political story I wrote called “Ghosted”, which will be coming out in January. I also have three stories in the Oxford Flash Fiction Award anthology which will come out next year, and am stupidly proud of being the first writer to get three stories shortlisted. As for the future, I have a chapbook of interlinked stories about gay life in the 20th century I am trying to find a perfect home for, and also intend to use 2026 to write my big, sprawling novel about climate collapse and my many fears for the future. You can check my website, www.jaimegill.com, though it’s usually horribly out of date, or follow me on Twitter, Blue Sky or Instagram, where I blab on about new work.
Do you have artistic inspirations other than authors?
Absolutely. I’m as obsessed with good movies and television as I am fiction, and I’m probably more obsessed with pop music than any of them. I often borrow narrative techniques from cinema and would like one day to write novels with the scope and depth of an excellent TV show, something like Beef or The Wire. I also try to inject my stories with the same emotional fearlessness and moments of soaring beauty you can find in songs. I have a collage next to my writing desk which has pictures of Prince, David Lynch, Kate Bush, Pet Shop Boys, Pedro Almodovar, David Bowie, Bong Joon-Ho, Madonna, Frank Ocean and many more, and try to match them for creative daring and panache. I always fail, but I’ll keep trying.
Interview with Jaime Gill about his story
"Halfway Up a Broken-Down Ferris Wheel That's Too Damn Old, Just Like Me"
Honorable Mention for The Scribes Prize 2024
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What inspired this piece?
On the most direct personal level I was once stuck up a ferris wheel with someone I liked very much and the experience must have been sitting in my memories waiting to be re-interpreted into fiction. On a more technical level, I wrote this during a phase where I was obsessed with the ‘first person direct address’ mode, where the main character narrates and addresses another. It creates a beautiful intimacy, and it was during my experiments with the form that I stumbled into the voice of this character, and the story almost wrote itself. I wanted to try and pull off the old John Irving trick to “cause a few smiles among the tough-minded and break a few softer hearts”, and hope this story managed some of that.
What draws you to the micro-fiction format?
I think all formats have their charms and challenges. As a reader, the delight of a really good micro is to feel like a whole world briefly opened up for you, like a small emotional explosion, or a beautiful vista glimpsed on a high speed train. As a writer, this is very challenging, and involves a level of precision in the editing process which can feel like brain surgery. But writers should always be challenging themselves, and there is a real joy in identifying a brief moment that is also a complete story, and rendering it at least semi-successfully.
Who are some authors that inspire you?
David Mitchell makes me want to give up writing forever and keep trying to be better, both at the same time. When I read “Ghostwritten” (his first book, before “Cloud Atlas” made him famous) I was bowled over by his linguistic brilliance, his gleeful genre-hopping, his humane intelligence, and the globe-trotting scope of his storytelling. I try and fail to write like him every time I open up my laptop. I also revere John Irving, Edith Wharton, Philip K Dick, early Clive Barker and the big Tolstoy doorstoppers, and have recently become infatuated with a new master of the short story form, Kate Folk. She’s dazzling. But I’m just as likely to be inspired by other art forms: Prince, David Lynch, Kate Bush, Pet Shop Boys, Pedro Almodovar, David Bowie, Bong Joon-Ho, and Lana Del Rey are rarely far from my thoughts. That’s not an exaggeration. I probably think of them all every week at the very least.
If you could continue writing your story after these 100 words, what would happen next?
I don’t know for sure, and I don’t think it’s my business to know. Whenever I write, no matter what length, I try to immerse myself fully in a character and their past and present. I need to know how they got to the moment of the story. But I don’t try and predict their future. If my character doesn’t know something at the time of the story, then I usually don’t know either, just as I never guess the futures of real people I know. Life is too unpredictable. In this particular case, I presume my narrator will do what he came to do, and release the ashes of his wife. And I guess he will live out the rest of his life still talking to her. I think that’s a habit he will be unable to break. But maybe I’m wrong? Maybe he’ll have a sudden surge of emotion and decide he can’t live without her and, as Morrissey once sang in happier times when he wasn’t a racist, “jump from the top of the parachutes”? I think the reader’s guess is as good as mine.
What's next on the horizon for you?
I have quite a few stories due to be published in the coming months, including one of my favourites, a 1950s gay romance called All The Things I’ve Never Done which should be out in Loft very soon, and a much darker modern tale called The Astronaut, which the wonderful BULL will publish. I’m also planning to start a new novel towards the end of the year, having written three execrable novels which will never be seen by another soul in my thirties. I’m also playing around with a few screenplays, though the novel will be my priority. And no doubt I’ll continue to write much shorter stories, I have a very long list of ideas and they can’t all be novels. You can find out what I’m up to at www.jaimegill.com.
What do you wish you'd known when you started writing?
That there is no such thing as divinely inspired genius. I used to have this idea that writers were almost mystical creatures, who were connected to some transcendental well of wisdom and intuition, and just poured their brilliance down onto a blank page, fingertips whirring in a trance-like state. This concept made me feel like a fraud every time I sat down and wrote something clumsy or flat out terrible. But the more I know other writers and collaborate with them, and the more I read very successful authors talking about their process, the more obvious it is to me that this is almost never the case. Everyone writes badly when they first sit down to try and capture a story. Sometimes they write so badly that there’s nothing to be done but forget that they ever tried. But sometimes there’s enough potential in that first draft to make it worth the painful and slow process of editing, editing, and editing again. Editing is where the magic happens. That’s not a terribly romantic concept, but it’s true. So write, write ugly, and then make it pretty. Or to paraphrase the punk rock icon Nick Lowe: “bash it out then tart it up later”.
Oh, one more thing. Don’t trust anyone who tells you that “show don’t tell” is an immutable law of writing. There are plenty of times when a bit of telling is much more efficient than laborious showing. “Show more than tell” is much better advice.
On the most direct personal level I was once stuck up a ferris wheel with someone I liked very much and the experience must have been sitting in my memories waiting to be re-interpreted into fiction. On a more technical level, I wrote this during a phase where I was obsessed with the ‘first person direct address’ mode, where the main character narrates and addresses another. It creates a beautiful intimacy, and it was during my experiments with the form that I stumbled into the voice of this character, and the story almost wrote itself. I wanted to try and pull off the old John Irving trick to “cause a few smiles among the tough-minded and break a few softer hearts”, and hope this story managed some of that.
What draws you to the micro-fiction format?
I think all formats have their charms and challenges. As a reader, the delight of a really good micro is to feel like a whole world briefly opened up for you, like a small emotional explosion, or a beautiful vista glimpsed on a high speed train. As a writer, this is very challenging, and involves a level of precision in the editing process which can feel like brain surgery. But writers should always be challenging themselves, and there is a real joy in identifying a brief moment that is also a complete story, and rendering it at least semi-successfully.
Who are some authors that inspire you?
David Mitchell makes me want to give up writing forever and keep trying to be better, both at the same time. When I read “Ghostwritten” (his first book, before “Cloud Atlas” made him famous) I was bowled over by his linguistic brilliance, his gleeful genre-hopping, his humane intelligence, and the globe-trotting scope of his storytelling. I try and fail to write like him every time I open up my laptop. I also revere John Irving, Edith Wharton, Philip K Dick, early Clive Barker and the big Tolstoy doorstoppers, and have recently become infatuated with a new master of the short story form, Kate Folk. She’s dazzling. But I’m just as likely to be inspired by other art forms: Prince, David Lynch, Kate Bush, Pet Shop Boys, Pedro Almodovar, David Bowie, Bong Joon-Ho, and Lana Del Rey are rarely far from my thoughts. That’s not an exaggeration. I probably think of them all every week at the very least.
If you could continue writing your story after these 100 words, what would happen next?
I don’t know for sure, and I don’t think it’s my business to know. Whenever I write, no matter what length, I try to immerse myself fully in a character and their past and present. I need to know how they got to the moment of the story. But I don’t try and predict their future. If my character doesn’t know something at the time of the story, then I usually don’t know either, just as I never guess the futures of real people I know. Life is too unpredictable. In this particular case, I presume my narrator will do what he came to do, and release the ashes of his wife. And I guess he will live out the rest of his life still talking to her. I think that’s a habit he will be unable to break. But maybe I’m wrong? Maybe he’ll have a sudden surge of emotion and decide he can’t live without her and, as Morrissey once sang in happier times when he wasn’t a racist, “jump from the top of the parachutes”? I think the reader’s guess is as good as mine.
What's next on the horizon for you?
I have quite a few stories due to be published in the coming months, including one of my favourites, a 1950s gay romance called All The Things I’ve Never Done which should be out in Loft very soon, and a much darker modern tale called The Astronaut, which the wonderful BULL will publish. I’m also planning to start a new novel towards the end of the year, having written three execrable novels which will never be seen by another soul in my thirties. I’m also playing around with a few screenplays, though the novel will be my priority. And no doubt I’ll continue to write much shorter stories, I have a very long list of ideas and they can’t all be novels. You can find out what I’m up to at www.jaimegill.com.
What do you wish you'd known when you started writing?
That there is no such thing as divinely inspired genius. I used to have this idea that writers were almost mystical creatures, who were connected to some transcendental well of wisdom and intuition, and just poured their brilliance down onto a blank page, fingertips whirring in a trance-like state. This concept made me feel like a fraud every time I sat down and wrote something clumsy or flat out terrible. But the more I know other writers and collaborate with them, and the more I read very successful authors talking about their process, the more obvious it is to me that this is almost never the case. Everyone writes badly when they first sit down to try and capture a story. Sometimes they write so badly that there’s nothing to be done but forget that they ever tried. But sometimes there’s enough potential in that first draft to make it worth the painful and slow process of editing, editing, and editing again. Editing is where the magic happens. That’s not a terribly romantic concept, but it’s true. So write, write ugly, and then make it pretty. Or to paraphrase the punk rock icon Nick Lowe: “bash it out then tart it up later”.
Oh, one more thing. Don’t trust anyone who tells you that “show don’t tell” is an immutable law of writing. There are plenty of times when a bit of telling is much more efficient than laborious showing. “Show more than tell” is much better advice.