The Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, outside Boston, is a private, co-ed college prep school founded in 1778. Alumni include former U.S. presidents, foreign heads of state, members of Congress, five Nobel laureates, as well as winners of Tony, Grammy, Emmy, and Academy awards. In 2020, Ralph Lam, then-editor of The Qualia Review, the school’s literary journal, read Don McLellan’s short story “Needles,” which had recently been published in Canada’s Into the Void magazine and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Following is Lam’s interview with the author.