Fire Season: Leyna Krow

2012 graduate in fiction, Leyna Krow, has made the inland northwest her home for the past decade since moving to Spokane for her MFA. Taking her love for Spokane and its culture, geography, and weirdness in general, she has chosen this place as the setting for her debut novel Fire Season which was published by Viking Press in 2022.

In an interview with Viking, Leyna mentioned that she not only took inspiration from other Spokane-based writers who use the unique location as settings in their own work like Jess Walters and Sharma Shields, but also from authors with work that features fantastical re-imaginations of  westerns such as Karen Joy Fowler and Colin Winnette. Therefore, Fire Season is not what readers would typically expect from a novel of historical fiction but instead is something unique in its style, scope, and genre. In describing her own writing, Leyna prefers the term “fabulism” which is considered a confluence of elements from multiple genres including horror, sci-fi, and magical realism, or simply “weird”.

Fire Season focuses on the historical 1889 fire that look place in what was then known as Spokane Falls and blends elements of historical fiction, place-based fiction, and fabulism into a piece of art that cannot be contained into a single categorization. Featuring three main characters with their own personal agendas surrounding the disastrous fire — a bank manager, a career conman, and a prostitute with the ability to see into the future — the novel follows how their paths intersect as they struggle with power, control, and relationships.

This is Leyna’s second book after her short story collection I’m Fine But You Appear to Be Sinking. She also has a forthcoming collection of short stories with Viking Press which focuses on women and their relationship with power.