Much to my delight, this is my sixth story published this year, and it’s another turn in a different direction. As I recall, the genesis of the story was thinking about were-creatures and the fact that it’s almost always werewolves, with the occasional were-bear, etc. Almost always were-mammals. I thought I’d try a were-dragon. I don’t recall whether the word ‘wyrm’ emerged from that or I got to were-dragon via ‘wyrm’ > ‘were-m’.

The story quickly took a surprising turn with the appearance of ‘d...