VanderMeer's journey into Area X

Via the 2015 BSFA shortlist, I discovered Jeff VanderMeer's From Annihilation to Acceptance in The Atlantic, which turns out to be every bit as delightfully paranoid and slippery as the Southern Reach Trilogy itself:

Sometimes, you have to change your coffee shop, too. At the end of one increasingly jittery week of writing, the barista asks me, "Feel any different?" "In what way?" I ask. "I dunno," she replies, "I’ve been adding more espresso shots to your coffee, gradual, to see what would happen."

Truly fascinating stuff...