The Erasable Podcast Episode 228: We All Have a Little Graphite In Us (with special guest Allison King, author of "The Phoenix Pencil Company")
Jul 22, 2025
Allison King, a novelist and software engineer, shares insights from her book 'The Phoenix Pencil Company,' which navigates themes of data privacy, family history, and LGBT love. The discussion highlights a fictional family's unique connection to pencils, merging nostalgia with the darker implications of surveillance. They explore identity through generational narratives and the role of technology in storytelling. King also delves into the art of pencil manufacturing and the balance between digital and analog identities, blending creativity and craftsmanship.
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Family History Sparked The Story
- Allison King discovered the book idea after reading The Last Boat Out of Shanghai and learning her grandparents left Shanghai during upheaval.
- She also knew her grandparents once owned a pencil company and imagined a family of pencil makers leaving Shanghai.
Pencils Reforge Memory And Cost
- The central magical mechanic is that family members can revive what a pencil once wrote by ingesting graphite and bleeding the words back out.
- King uses this painful act as a metaphor for the costs and uses of recovering stories and data.
Childhood Stationery Stores Shaped Her
- Growing up, Allison spent summers in Taiwan exploring stationery stores with writing pads and samples that filled her with wonder.
- Those childhood trips solidified her love of pencils and connected her to her grandparents' homeland.
