Goodreads asked Alex D.T. Baker:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Alex D.T. Baker Symbiont? Hard to say. I actually had the idea some 15+ years ago. Really the title had popped in my head long before the story was fleshed out. I don't recall what I was doing, but this title "Stairwell: Starring Jennifer" flashed into my head. Originally as an idea for a graphic novel. Stairwell became synonymous for each issue being a story of a different person's life as they played host to the alien. Eventually that morphed into Symbiont (because no one I spoke to understood what the hell the word Stairwell had to do with the story - a little too loose a reference). But that's how I get a lot of ideas - nothing particular happens - just an image or title pops into my head and the story builds around it as I think about it. often it's a visual process. I can "see" the story - like storyboards. So I just write to build around that.

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