“Inspirations and Influences” is a series of articles in which we invite authors to write guest posts talking about their Inspirations and Influences. In this feature, we invite writers to talk about their new books, older titles, and their writing overall. Tomorrow, we publish the fourth short story in our Gods and Monsters season: It Came Back by Samantha Lienhard. Today, we are thrilled to have her over to talk about her inspirations and influences behind the story. Please give it up for Samantha, folks! When someone asks me where I get ideas for my stories, I often wonder what I should say. My inspirations are often unexpected sources, and It Came Back is no exception. In this case, it started with two things: a video game and a writing prompt. The video game wasn’t horror. It wasn’t even close. But one of its characters had an animation where his glasses would reflect back the light, making them look as almost as though they glowed white. Meanwhile, I was taking a creative writing class where we had to write scenes based on certain prompts. I don’t remember for sure what the prompt was—it might have been to write a scene […]