Evolution is Inevitable - an interview with Adrian Tchaikovsky

Adrian Tchaikovsky attracted plenty of favourable attention with his 2008 debut novel, Empire in Black and Gold, the first in the Shadows of the Apt series. By then, he'd already been writing for about a decade and a half and this momentum continued to drive him on. He now has more than 40 published Fantasy and Science Fiction stories to his name - novels, novellas, anthologies. He won the 2016 Arthur C Clarke Award for his novel Children of Time, a story of humanity’s struggle for survival on a terraformed planet, and his latest novel Doors of Eden will be published in paperback by Pan Macmillan's Tor on 22 September 2020. 

The Lincolnshire born author studied Psychology and Zoology at Reading before working in law and developing a full-time writing career. He is a keen gamer and live action role playing, and also an amateur actor. He now lives in Leeds with his wife and son. In 2019 he was awarded an honorary doctorate of Arts from the University of Lincoln.

Adrian Tchaikovsky, author of science fiction and fantasy, creator of worlds

Adrian found time to talk with Kim Vertue for The Scrawl about inspiration, speculation, evolution and the fall and rise of civilisation, among other things...

What was the first book you can remember reading that really hooked you and carried you off into its world?

Dianne Wynne Jones, Power of Three. Still a book I revisit. It not only provides a wholly immersive fantasy world in and of itself, but it then pulls not one but two switches of perspective on the reader. Absolutely blew my mind. The other contender is probably Pratchett’s Strata for very similar reasons, but I think I must have come to that a bit later. 

What ‘woke you up’ to the idea of being a writer?

Weirdly, it was Weiss & Hickman’s Dragonlance books. I’d been a keep R.P.G.er for a while by then, and here was someone’s D&D campaign written up as a set of novels, and I thought, ‘I could do that.’ And, of course, I was 18 and clueless and I absolutely couldn’t, but I kept cracking away at it and eventually I got there. 

What have been your favourite books or authors, and what did you learn from them?

Gene Wolfe and Mary Gentle, for their complexity of world and writing and the fantastical games they play with their readership. Peter S Beagle for his poetic prose and exquisite use of language.

What are your favourite stories from other media formats? 

The recency effect says I should mention Dark, which I’ve just finished and completely blew my mind. My favourite films are probably Arrival and Ex Machina, really intelligent science fiction put forward with an understated subtlety. For TV, I’m a big fan of Farscape, which I think was just about the perfect mix of heart and mind when it came to characters and writing. I loved Blacks Sails as well, for something more recent. For comics, I’m a big fan of Kieron Gillen and Paul Cornell, and I love both incarnations of Umbrella Academy.

We understand you role play. Would you say this was a major source of inspiration for you?

I absolutely do, and my first books, the Shadows of the Apt series, evolved directly from that. Gaming is definitely still an influence, but so is just about everything I come across. It all goes into the mill.

When developing your ideas, does world or story come first? Or do the characters? Does it vary? 

World first, always. My characters and plotlines arise organically from the worlds I want to write in. I always want to explore somewhere, and when I’ve worked the world up to a sufficient level of reality, the people, their concerns and their fracture points will arise organically out of the setting.

In Doors of Eden you have fun describing various ‘evolutions’ and how other civilisations may have developed. How did you dovetail research into speculation until if felt exactly right for your story? Do you consult ‘boffins’, for example?

When I’m writing what I’d consider ‘hard SF’ (for a given value of same) I do try and get the science as right as I can, which will often mean consulting actual boffins. The acknowledgement of Doors has quite a list of people who’ve helped me by informing beforehand or fact-checking after – same for Children of Ruin where I had all sorts of fun talking spaceship design with the experts. 

Do you ever have to resist spending too long on research?

Sometimes I have to abandon something when it turns out my limited understanding of the science was way off the mark. Children of Time was originally going to use time distortion from travelling at near-light speeds instead of the repeated wake-sleep pattern that Mason goes through, but it didn’t make logical sense, and I think what I ended up with is better.

You include LGBTQ and alien characters – this is a great tradition in SF, yet there is heightened sensitivity around interpreting another’s point of view which is linked to this creative freedom. Do you have a checklist or approach in developing these characters, to succeed in such a rounded way?

I don’t have a checklist per se. I try and work with what I’ve learned from people I know, and beyond that I just do my level best to step out of my place of relative privilege and empathise, and treat people like people. 

I’m not usually trying to write about that aspect of a character, because I suspect that’s where I would cross a line. But I do feel it’s a duty to write about a diverse cast, because the world is a diverse place, and also, it makes for a more interesting book that one that’s wall-to-wall people like the one I see in the mirror. 

As for the aliens – I love to write aliens. I love to make them complex and, ideally, present them from inside their own sensoriums and minds. 

Doors of Eden also has a sense of hope around its ultimate scenario which makes for a satisfying read. How do you use plot and structure – do you know the ‘destination’ and work your way back, or run the scenarios so that they are a surprise to you as you go? 

I plot and plan heavily, and can’t really imagine trying to write any other way - although who knows, maybe one day I’ll do the other thing, though it feels like jumping out of a window and trying to knit a safety net on the way down!

Do you map out the outline scene by scene, and if so, does this take longer than writing the first draft?

I don’t always stick to the plan, and the midsection of any good story always has a certain amount of fluidity, but most of the time I have a good idea of where I’m going and that lets me build a lot of structure like foreshadowing in on the first pass, and usually gives me a first draft that is the right shape and doesn’t need serious tinkering.

Have you developed a writing regimen and routine, if so, could you describe it? For example, do you usually write in a study with a lovely view? Do you listen to certain music to evoke certain moods, and do you have a favourite food or drink to help you along? 

Right now, I write every day, mostly in the morning. I listen to a lot of music, mostly film and game soundtracks most of the time. I would normally get out of the house to write, but right now going to a coffee shop isn’t really an option, so I’ve got used to writing at home. 

How has your writing developed? Has feedback from fans and other media fed into this, as well as speculation on the ‘interesting times’ we are living through?  

I hope I’ve got better as I’ve gone on. I think my actual style is still being honed, and I can look over earlier work and see how I might do things differently now. I try not to be reactive to the way people perceive my work, but if I’m being honest it does have an impact, and I do try and take on board valid criticism – which is still a hard thing to do even after so many years in the game. 

Thank you, Adrian Tchaikovsky, hopeful SF seems something that we need more than ever! 

Adrian Tchaikovsky was talking with Kim Vertue

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from The Scrawl archive

Heather Dyer - Brought to Book

Heather Dyer is an award-winning writer and academic whose books for children have been adapted for BBC Radio and are now studied in schools. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund and has designed and led courses for Aberystwyth University, Bristol University and the University of Worcester. Her area of interest is the psychology of creativity and how this can be understood and applied to art, writing, education and life in general. She has recently been involved with delivering workshops as part of the Arts Council of Wales Lead Creative Schools scheme. 

Here she talks to Remy Dean for The Scrawl about writing for children, letting go of our preconceptions, revealing truths and making new connections…

Heather Dyer
 (author photo by Kona Mcphee)

Having recently read and enjoyed The Girl with the Broken Wing, I was wondering what you might have been reading when you were the age of your intended readers?

That’s nice to hear! I loved books that took characters from their real world into a magical world via a door in a garden wall, or a magic wardrobe, or a chair that flew. I wanted to escape along with them. So, I loved writers like C S Lewis, E Nesbit, Enid Blyton – and I loved The Ogre Downstairs by Diana Wynne Jones.

What is your earliest memory of reading a book that really wrapped you up and carried you off into its world?

Once you start remembering, more memories surface, don’t they?

I remember being taken to ballet lessons when I was about five, hating it, and noticing an open picture book that had fallen down behind some chairs. I longed for it, but I wasn’t allowed to pick it up for some reason. The lesson was probably starting. I remember being read to at school at the end of the day,

 ...and I remember sitting alone, reading The Five Children and It when I was seven or eight, and laughing out loud. My laugh shocked me out of the story and I started flicking through the pages, marvelling that all those words had been put down in a certain order, and that they could take me somewhere else and make me forget where I really was.

The Fish in Room 11 and The Girl with the Broken Wing by Heather Dyer

The Fish in Room 11 won the Highland Council Children’s Book Award in 2004, then The Girl With the Broken Wing was listed as one of 'Richard and Judy's Best Children's Books Ever' in 2007 – quite an accolade! How has this affected your attitude to writing and your follow-up books for children?

I don’t know if I can blame it on publication, but I developed a long writer’s block after The Girl with the Broken Wing, which lasted years. I wrote every day but found I could no longer intuit a storyline that held together. I couldn’t understand it – neither could my publisher.

I began reading about creativity and practicing mindfulness, and that was the start of my research into the psychology of creativity. My creativity returned only when I’d surrendered all ambition, and the children’s book I’m writing now has a different theme to my previous books. It’s a time travel adventure.

So, you have been researching the psychology of creativity for some time now and are a consultant fellow for the Royal Literary Fund, and also teach courses you have designed for both academic writing and creative writing for several universities, including the well-respected Living Creatively course at Aberystwyth University… 

My doctoral research was about the links between the creative process and mindful awareness. In both, there’s a moment where the ‘self’ is lost or forgotten. It’s as though our egoic self - or conditioned thinking - must momentarily stop in order to allow new insights to appear and growth to happen.

How do you go about teaching that?

In my workshops, I help people generate creative insights by giving them activities that allow them to step outside of what they already know and let go of what they’re attached to. I help them tap into their unconscious and make new connections.

I believe that mindfulness and meditation helps by allowing us to step outside of our conditioned thinking, and gain new insights.

Was there a time when you ‘woke up’ to being a writer? 

Even now, it feels a bit uncomfortable to say ‘I’m a writer’. I’m not sure what it means, really. Are you only a writer if you’re writing a book that’s going to be published? If so, saying ‘I’m a writer’ feels like tempting fate, because the book I’m writing now may never get published.

Having lived in Scotland, Wales and Canada, how much would say your environment affects your creative writing, and in what ways?

I always draw on places I’ve been for locations in my books, so Wales features quite a bit – directly or indirectly.

Do you have any kind of ‘tried-and-tested’ writing ritual or regimen?

I just try to put in an hour in the morning, before all my other jobs. It’s always hard. But I find by doing a little bit each morning, ideas keep surfacing in bits of downtime throughout the rest of the day. It’s about keeping it near.

Is there a favourite tipple or treat when writing?

I’m trying ‘mate’ teabags at the moment. Mate is drunk a lot in South America, I believe, and it’s supposed to be a healthier alternative to coffee. It’s like strong green tea.

Where do you do most of your writing?

I write at an awful desk that’s just a folding table…

Can you describe what you can see from there?

I have a view that looks out over the oil tank in my backyard. In the other direction I have uninterrupted views of the mountains. But when writing, the view doesn’t seem matter, you only need to see the landscape of the story. It is nice to look up now and then and see a long view, though, to rest the eyes and the mind. I think the transition from narrow to wide focus helps creative insights happen.

What, if any, do you think are the duties or responsibilities of a writer?

To try and reveal truths? Or perhaps more accurately, to try and feel the ‘truth’ sentence by sentence and allow it to reveal itself to you.

Regardless of the genre in which you working - for children, poetry, academic, etc. are there any basic ‘rules’ that you feel always seem to apply?

Being truthful and accurate. Sidestepping one’s own ego.

Thank you, Heather Dyer!

Magic in the City by Heather Dyer

Heather Dyer was talking with Remy Dean

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Candid Schott - Ben Schott is Brought to Book

Ben Schott is a man of many talents – he is a brand strategist, public speaker, photographer, journalist and author. He created a range of quirky, informative reference books (the first, Schott’s Original Miscellany, was published in 2002) that were an immediate success, and became bestsellers translated into 21 languages.

Jeeves and The King of Clubs is his first novel, in homage to his literary hero the late, great P G Wodehouse. It is a fresh tale of Jeeves and Wooster which involves - among other things - the secret corridors of Whitehall, espionage and what really goes on behind the closed doors of St James’s Clubs. It is fully approved by the Wodehouse Estate. 

Kim Vertue asks Ben Schott some questions for The Scrawl...  

Ben Schott
(author photo courtesy Hutchinson)

In the acknowledgements for your book, you describe what it was like to be given your first Wodehouse book, and the lasting impression it left. What was the first book you remember that really ‘hooked’ you, transported you, as a child? 

Almost certainly something by Roald Dahl, and quite probably Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I remain dazzled by Dahl’s ability to write like an adult for children, and to create so many diversely fantastical worlds that, decades later, remain fresh and vivid and real.

Did your decision to write fiction, after your success with the non-fiction Schott’s Almanacs, arise mainly from your admiration for P G Wodehouse? I note that your comments are quoted on some of the reprints of his books... 

I approached Jeeves and The King of Clubs not with a grand, personal vision, but as a deadly serious frivolity. My aim was to create a fabulous, literary 'Heath Robinson machine' – deploying all of the pulleys, levers, gears, cranks, and lengths of knotted rope offered by the Woodhouse oeuvre to create the finest, funniest, and most charming Jeeves and Wooster novel possible. In this endeavour, I was aided immeasurably by fifteen years of researching and writing Miscellanies, which goes to explain why there are a dozen pages of endnotes at the back of the novel. You can’t keep a Miscellanist down!

Which is your favourite P G Wodehouse book?

Ah… well, this is like being asked to pick a favourite nephew – especially in the Jeeves & Wooster cannon. Outside of that milieu, probably Psmith in the City, or one of the many golfing stories. Plum nails the irrepressible optimism (and baffled disappointment) of all duffer golfers, of which I am one.

Who are the authors - other than P G Wodehouse - that have inspired you, and what have you learned from them?

Where to begin?

I love the detail and structure of Virginia Woolf; the profane absurdism of Tom Sharp; the comic complexity of John Finnemore; the linguistic acrobatics of Tom Stoppard; the dark farce of Evelyn Waugh; the languid calm of Anthony Powell; the ear for dialogue of Victoria Wood (and Alan Bennett); and, well, I could go on. Indeed, there’s a scene in Jeeves & The King of Clubs inspired by Edward Gorey’s The Curious Sofa.

As a photographer, do you use visuals to inspire your writing process?

When planning Jeeves & The King of Clubs I did create a complex, multi-coloured fold-out schematic of the plot – detailing what would take place at every point of every day during the week in which the action occurs. Also, I doodle quite a bit when thinking.

Jeeves & the King of Clubs
by Ben Schott

Do you have a favourite treat or tipple while writing is under way? Perhaps a Jeeves restorative cocktail - just for research purposes? 

Coffee. Coffee. And, coffee. Did I mention coffee?

Also, when words are flowing, Champagne. And when words get sticky, Champagne.

What is your writing ritual and regimen? Do you have a daily routine, are you a ‘panster’ or ‘plotter’? Do you write by hand or by smartphone, etc? 

I tend to do my best writing in bed - with coffee - before the day has started. The lion's share of writing is done on a laptop, but I hand-write scenes I find particularly tricky. I use my phone to jot down ideas, words, or phrases when I am out and about, and something even dictate short passages as a voicemail to myself. I set myself no word-count targets, and am deeply suspicious of the 'daily routines of famous authors' infographics that populate the web.

What manner of research did you undertake for this homage to the late, great P G Wodehouse?

The central seam of my research was into the language of the period. I pored over dictionaries of historical slang, and trawled through the Oxford English Dictionary for words and phrases that captured the cadence and rhythm of the 1910s, ’20s, and early ’30s.

They key to Wodehouse, I believe, lies in the choice of every single word, and my aim was to evoke each character’s unique vocabulary and tone. There is, for example, a world of difference between Jeeves saying “Sir.” and “Sir?” – and when he utters an “Indeed, sir?” the floorboards should tremble a little. I also delved deep into the history of London’s Clubland, private banking, bespoke tailoring, auction houses, and transient gambling establishments. All feature in the book.

What message do you think the life, times and books of P G Wodehouse have for today? 

What the world needs now, is laughs, sweet laughs … to coin a lyric.

P G Wodehouse was given the Mark Twain Prize in 1936 ‘for having made an outstanding and lasting contribution to the happiness of the world’ – do you think the world needs more happiness in these exciting times? As someone who gives inspirational talks for business, can you offer us any reasons to be cheerful over the next few years?

I’m not sure anyone who has heard me speak would describe my presentations as “inspirational”, and I can think of few reasons to be cheerful now or in the near future. All the more reason, then, to escape at speed into the sunlit uplands of Wodehouse and Wooster.

What are your writing plans and ambitions for the future?

Plans? Ambitions? Oh, dear me no.

Thank you, Mr Ben Schott!

For more Ben Schott  news, updates and info check-out his 

Official Website

Jeeves and the King of Clubs: An homage to PG Wodehouse 

by Ben Schott is out now (Hutchinson, £16.99)
click HERE to preview / purchase

History, Hearsay and Heresy – an interview with Dee Dee Chainey and Willow Winsham

Folklore Thursday has become a weekly highlight for well over 30,000 'followers' around the world. The twitter feed regularly breaks the internet - well not literally, but it does often hit the limit of 2,400 tweets per day, that is roughly a speed of 100 tweets per-hour… 

It all started back in 2015 and within a year it became one of the fastest growing hashtags, attracting the attention of the national press with articles in The Independent and on the BBC… It is a social media success story built on love, not money, by a small group of friends dedicated to the gathering, sharing and preserving of folklore from around the world. The Folklore Thursday webzine has grown into the hub of a global community and whilst its content may be great fun to browse, it has also become and invaluable repository of folklore wit and wisdom…

So, what is folklore and why are we still fascinating with it in our modern high-tech world? The stories we want to see and hear again and again, in best-selling novels and blockbuster movies, more often than not, have their roots in the traditional age-old tales re-told down the generations. Knowingly or inadvertently, most horror and fantasy writers are drawing upon folklore. Folklore begins as a way of preserving ideas and knowledge but, a little like Chinese whispers, often gets weirder and more interesting through the ages.

In this extended Brought to Book special for The Scrawl, Remy Dean, an occasional contributor to the Folklore Thursday webzine himself, talks to its co-founders, Dee Dee Chainey (above left) and Willow Winsham (right), both popular writers with academic backgrounds and an evident enduring enthusiasm for folklore…

Dee Dee is the author of A Treasury of British Folklore: Maypoles, Mandrakes and Mistletoe, which was published by National Trust Books earlier this year, and Willow’s second book on the history of witches, England's Witchcraft Trials, is out now in paperback.

REMY: Hello Dee Dee and Willow! Can you introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about your backgrounds?

DEE DEE: Hi, great to talk to you today, I’m co-founder of the Twitter hashtag day, #FolkloreThursday, and the associated website, which we like to call an online magazine. I’m also a writer, mostly working on folklore projects.

Before my work in writing and folklore, I was actually a heritage education manager, working in schools, and also with charities and museums. One of my favourite projects was working with the Liverpool International Nordic Community, a local cultural heritage initiative which involved promoting Scandinavian heritage within Liverpool schools and the wider community, since a huge number of people from all over Scandinavia settled in the region as it was a port, and there’s a long history of Viking links too. The other was as outdoor education manager for a forest school – it was a lovely place, based on the Scandinavian nursery model, so we spent most of our days outside in the forest garden and woodlands looking at all kinds of heritage: tangible, cultural and natural. A good few years ago now, I injured my knee while walking and ended up with a long-term injury, which meant I couldn’t do any active, outdoor work for around two years. All things have an upside though, as this is what led me to refocus on writing – things usually work out in the end!

WILLOW: Writing-wise, I’ve been scribbling down stories and things that caught my interest since I can remember; my first epic written at the age of five charting the adventures of Cat and Dog has been lost to time, which is probably for the best!

Later on, due to some really inspiring history teachers at school, I developed a passion for the subject, but never saw it as more than a hobby, despite taking two history courses at college. I was all set to start a Social Work degree but had a change of heart at the last moment – I took a year out to travel, then enrolled on a history degree programme and, academically, never looked back.

After uni, I worked with adults and children with autism and other special needs, but continued to write and research in my 'spare-time'. After leaving work when my daughter was born, I realized writing was what I really wanted to do, and have spent the best part of the last decade slowly but surely making that a reality!

REMY: What were the first books you can remember reading that really grabbed you and carried you along?

DEE DEE: I’d have to say a group of books: the Ladybird series of fairy tales. I remember reading those, and having them read to me, when I was really small. Two of my favourites were The Tinder Box and The Little Mermaid. I was fascinated by the hidden rooms under the tree in the first, and the ‘Daughters of Air’ in the latter. Strange, the things that grab you as a child and stay with you!

WILLOW: My first favourite reads as a child were the Ladybird fairy tale books, too! Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Red Riding Hood... I had them read to me, over and over, and continued to read them when I could do so myself. The illustrations have stuck with me for years, and I’ve managed to track down some of the same editions to share with my own children.

REMY: Do you have an all-time favourite book, or one that you have re-read a few times?

WILLOW: Now that is a hard one! If I had to pick just one, it would probably have to be Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. It’s the book I’ve read most out of any, and I’ve come back to it over and over again throughout the years. It’s my reading equivalent of comfort food! The message I took from it as a child was that girls and women should strive to be and do whatever they want and shouldn’t be held back by expectations – later on, discovering a little more of the struggles the author faced throughout her life, that central message became all the more poignant, and one I never forgot. I’m Looking forward to my daughter reading it when she’s ready, and the boys too!

DEE DEE: Yes, a really difficult one! A few that I’ve read as an adult come to mind, but I’d be hard pushed to choose just one, since they’re all so different. I seem to keep buying copies of Dolmens for the Dead, and I think Lefebvre’s The Production of Space is just incredible; I also love His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, Neil Gaiman’s Stardust, and Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle...

My favourite as a child was The Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton – I was just entranced by the idea that you could pop your head up at the top of the tree and be in a different land each time. I think I’ve probably carried that idea with me through life, and maybe taken it a little too far – I’ve lived in so many places, and travelled around for such long periods, it does seem a little like living up at the top of the Faraway Tree sometimes! I think books do really change your way of thinking, and can really define so many things about a person and their life. You can learn so much about someone – their dreams and fears – from the books they read.

REMY: What recent books have you read and thoroughly enjoyed?

DEE DEE: That’s also really difficult! I tend to read different types of books at once, at different times of day. One I’ve just finished – my evening and weekend reading – was Melissa Harrison’s All Among the Barley, a novel set in Suffolk, just before the Second World War. It’s a tale of how a rural community deals with changing times, the gradual disappearance of traditional culture, and how folk culture can be appropriated by certain unsavoury ideologies. Really brilliant stuff. My morning reading is currently Shanon Sinn’s The Haunting of Vancouver Island. It’s a series of ghost stories, written from a research angle and looking at the historical perspective, but the thing I like most about it is how it gives an insight into such different landscapes and cultures from those in Britain, from First Nations history to the colonisation of British Columbia. It’s also surprisingly spiritual.

WILLOW: I’ve recently finished two books. The first was Swansong by Kerry Andrew. It follows a young woman, Polly, who is attempting to escape her demons by taking a trip to the highlands of Scotland. What she doesn’t count on however is becoming entangled in a web of myth, folklore and legend in an increasingly terrifying chain of events that unfolds around her. I won’t spoil the ending, but you won’t be disappointed – my only complaint is I lost a lot of sleep as I couldn’t bring myself to put it down several nights in a row!

On the non-fiction front was Ghosts of Wales by Mark Rees. It is a superb look at tales of ghosts and haunting from the Victorian archives, and Mark’s depth of research and knowledge, along with his passion for the subject, really shines through. Definitely one for anyone with an interest in things that go bump in the night!

REMY: Who have been your favourite authors, and what have you learnt from them?

DEE DEE: I love fantasy authors like Neil Gaiman, Philip Pullman, but also Terry Pratchett – mostly for the magic in their writing, but also their skill with making the language twist and turn in such clever ways. My favourite non-fiction author has to be Aubrey Burl, as he delves into the world of archaeology, something which can be really dry if done badly, and he keeps it all so factual and sensible while still imbuing the world with such magic. So timeless.

In terms of what I’ve learnt from them, I’d say for sure that even facts can have feeling, and need to be put in a social, personal and emotional framework – that’s the only thing that makes writing unique. And to never be afraid to put yourself in your writing – to bend the rules and try new ways of doing things – that’s the only way to find your authentic voice and say something that matters.

WILLOW: Another tough one to call, but Enid Blyton definitely has to be on the list; I devoured many of her books as a child, and I think those instilled a love for adventure and the magical in writing – along with the importance of a good midnight feast!

More recently, Ben Aaronovitch is a firm favourite – as well as writing a cracking series filled with folkloric references, he is a master at peppering seemingly innocuous clues throughout his work that then turn out to be major plot points later on.

Green Man illustration by Joe McLaren
from A Treasury of British Folklore
by Dee Dee Chainey

REMY: Do you have writing rituals, or a tried and tested process?

DEE DEE: I write every day since it’s my day job, but I think the thing I’d have to say is constantly reminding myself that 70% of writing is in the editing, so the first draft doesn’t need to be perfect. If you aim for perfection your writing is always stilted, and often never finished.

I tend to write things twice: a dry, factual version just to get down my ideas and the bits and pieces that need to go in – but always read your sources first, and then write; you can check the facts later. This way your writing is more natural, and you emphasise the bits that stuck with you, rather than merely rewriting your sources bit by bit!

Then I go back and rewrite it in a more ‘human’ way, and try to add-in how I really feel about the topic, which I hope brings a little more emotion and magic to my writing – I think it’s important to always try to write with honesty and passion. Who wants to read something that doesn’t really say anything about the world, or why your topic is worth writing or reading about?

WILLOW: One thing I have learned over the years is that waiting for the “right” moment to write really doesn’t work for me! Especially since becoming a mother I’ve really had to hone the ability to snatch any little moment that presents itself, for instance, while my toddler naps, and my big two are doing their maths work. I’ll often email ideas or rough paragraphs to myself on my phone when on the bus or the kids are at a class. I’m a firm believer in the throw words at the page approach. If you have something down – anything – you have something to work with and mould and tidy later. There is nothing more daunting than the blank page!

REMY: What motivates you to write?

WILLOW: It sounds utterly cliched but it’s true – I don’t think I could not write? If I had no way of recording them, I would just write the words in my head! Some people knit, or make cards, or paint – my creative outlet is - crafting words - which is lucky really, because I am utterly terrible at making anything with my hands!

There are days, obviously, when it’s harder to get those words down on the page than others. At those times, the satisfaction of seeing a piece of writing grow and take shape as it edges towards completion spurs me on – being able to fashion the words into something that is meaningful and enjoyable to other people is a lovely motivation when things are tough.

DEE DEE: Hmm, difficult! I’m one of those people who is always thinking a million things at once, I often say I have 8 different thought tracks running in my head at once (although I’ll admit at least track 8 is gibberish!) I tend to constantly analyse things, and make connections, while also thinking about some sort of myth or strange place I read about, with a whole track dedicated to cake and what I’m having for dinner. I’ve always told myself stories as I‘m walking, or even pottering round the house, whether it’s about the landscape I’m in, or just watching ideas lead on to the next like tree branches. It’s probably just a natural thing to put those down on paper, to capture them, and also to take some of the things out of my head – once I’ve written them down I can file them away to be used later and then forget about them. I actually have tens of Trello boards with different themes for snippets and ideas that I come across. It’s a great way of mapping the ideas, and physically dragging them round to make different patterns and connections. I used to use post-it notes, but I can’t always read my own handwriting! Did that even answer the question? I’ve probably jumped from track three to six without realising – it tends to happen a lot!

REMY: What are you working on at the moment?

DEE DEE: Are we letting the cat out of the bag yet Willow? I’m assuming we’re not! What I can say is that we’re working on a project together at the moment, and we’re very excited about it, so watch this space!

WILLOW: As Dee says, we’re keeping quiet on our joint endeavour for a while longer!

DEE DEE: I’m also putting something together myself about folklore and landscape. Again, it’s too early to say too much, but it’s something I’ve wanted to write about for a long time, and I’m finally getting round to it!

REMY: Can you tell us about your involvement with Folklore Thursday and how that came about?

DEE DEE: I think it probably came about from Willow and I spending too much time thinking about folklore in all honesty! We were on Twitter, joking about running off to the Efteling fairy tale theme park. That got us thinking about how, while there were quite a few existing hashtags to share general tales and writing, there was no central place to share or find out about folklore. We just decided to create that place, as we knew a lot of people on Twitter were already passionate about it. We were surprised how much it took off, but pleased, obviously!

WILLOW: Founding #FolkloreThursday with Dee Dee was one of those happy accidents that you look back on years later and can’t imagine things being any different. As she’s already explained, the idea came about from an initial conversation, and since then the project has developed and thrived in a quite thrilling fashion. It still amazes me daily how many people take part and the huge show of enthusiasm and support the hashtag has received over the last three years – we are looking forward to hopefully many more to come!


DEE DEE CHAINEY AND THE LORE OF THE LAND…

You have written A Treasury of British Folklore: Maypoles, Mandrakes and Mistletoe for the National Trust – how did that come about?

I did! They actually emailed me, and asked if I knew anyone that might like to write it. I replied with: I would! Luckily, they didn’t see that as too churlish, and seemed quite happy with the idea, so the project went from there.

A Treasury of British Folklore by Dee Dee Cainey
(click image for preview or to purchase)

Why do you think people are so interested in folklore? …and becoming more interested, it seems!

I think folklore really taps in to something primal in all of us. We are often told stories from when we’re tiny, so I think hearing folk and fairy tales can be quite comforting in one sense. I also think the symbolism and tales really tap in to something that we all share, and teach us the social norms of our own cultures and humanity as a whole – it’s a way of learning the do’s and don’ts of life, and we all like a bit of drama with that!

There are also many other types of folklore too, like foodways and crafts, and I think people still love those. Often recipes are something that are passed through families, or are specific to a region or town. Because of that they really tie us to other people, and even bring back memories of ‘our gran’s pies’, or ‘granddad’s stew’, and when we cook them for ourselves it’s an opportunity to share that cooking with other people, and then share the food we’ve prepared (my favourite bit!) In essence, I think folklore gives us a sense of belonging: to a community, both local and global, but also a sense of place – it locates us in the world, and helps us negotiate our identity, as well as giving a sense of how to navigate the world.

What gave you the confidence to write as ‘an authority’ on the subject?

To be honest, I think for a lot of my younger days, I thought people were better skilled than me, better equipped, more prepared. One of the major things I’ve learned as I got older is that’s just nonsense!

We are all just as able as everyone else if we put our minds to doing something; that’s the only secret to confidence – choosing to have it! And I think that with that realisation also comes the awareness that since we’re all able, we all have a responsibility to contribute and give our voice to the conversation, in the areas where we have something to offer.

Heritage is something I’ve always been passionate about – I remember making labels for my ‘museum’ and charging people an entrance fee when I was about 6 years old, and I’ve been obsessed with it, in all its forms, since then. I studied archaeology at university, along with aspects of mythology, theology and cultural heritage, and ended up specialising in two things: how landscapes are linked with the creation of personal and social identities, and how heritage should be ‘presented’ and interpreted for the public –community education, to sum it up more simply. In essence, this is at the root of my approach to heritage in general, and probably why #FolkloreThursday came about, as it’s about trying to get people involved in their own cultural heritage, and share that with other people. Writing a book on the cultural heritage of Britain – from tales to traditions and beliefs – is really just putting down what I’ve always worked with on paper. The biggest challenge was actually trying to be comprehensive enough to make everyone feel included in the book, and find something relevant to them and the places they know with such a small word count!

It was also quite difficult to summarise some of the more complex mythologies and debates into something bite sized, without ignoring the fact that folklore morphs and changes over the centuries, and there’s often more than one version. I feel that, in the end, the book isn’t telling a story of Britain, it’s there to draw people in to their own story, and do something with the things within the pages – folklore is never static or done with, it’s a living thing, so the book should be seen in that way: as a resource and a starting point.

illustration by Joe McLaren from A Treasury of British Folklore

What is folklore?

Gosh, there’s a question! We’ve asked a lot of different people to write articles about this for us for FolkloreThursday.com, as there’s no one definition to rule them all, unfortunately. Many people interpret it differently, but it basically covers tales, beliefs, traditions and practices passed on from one person to another throughout a community. So that can mean fairy tales or folk tales, but also myths and legends – including sacred stories.

What folklore definitely doesn’t mean is that something isn’t true, or is just nonsense – calling a sacred story or religious text folklore is in no way taking away from its value, validity or sacred nature, it’s just saying it’s a shared belief that is passed on.

Folklore also covers things like folk art, traditional crafts, dress, and recipes, also urban legends, and even things like ghosts and internet memes. It’s so many things! I’d recommend taking a look at some of the articles on site written by some folklore academics like: Lyne S McNeill, Paul Cowdell and Jeana Jorgensen 

Folk Horror is a genre that really seems to be taking hold again (after its 1970s heyday) what would you say are defining features of that genre and do you have any tips for what to read or watch to get an idea of what it’s all about?

I think when people talk about Folk Horror people automatically look to films and books, but I think there’s so much more than that now; it’s pervading so many areas of art, music, and there a whole new depth to it – it’s almost becoming an identity. There’s a huge conversation about what people are calling ‘the English Eerie’, and Robert MacFarlane wrote a great piece on this a few years ago. Melissa Harrison definitely needs another mention here.

Adam Scovell is the go-to guy for this, he’s the folk horror film expert, for sure, and has written the defining book: Folk Horror: Hours Dreadful and Things Strange. Also Folk Horror Revival is a main hub, obviously – do check out Andy Paciorek. Thom Burgess creates amazing graphic novels, and you should definitely rate John Reppion and Leah Moore’s work as part of the genre, and John’s Spirits of Place project. David Southwell’s Hookland is just amazing, you can find a lot out about that from his Twitter account. And of course Paul Watson for photography and art. Hare and Tabor too. The music from the scene is quite amazing, like The Hare and the Moon, The Heartwood Institute and Revbjelde.

It’s very much linked to psychogeography, which some people prefer to call ‘landscape punk’ – check out Gary Budden and Influx Press, also Cat Vincent, and Gareth E. Rees.

I’ve probably missed out loads of names, and I’ll kick myself later! I’ll just end with saying that if you haven’t watched The Wicker Man, you haven’t lived!

I think rather than give you a quick definition I’ve just pointed you in different directions, haven’t I?

Plenty to be going on with - thank you!

WILLOW WINSHAM AND THE WITCHES…

You have written two books about witches can - Accused: British Witches Throughout History and England's Witchcraft Trials – can you tell us a little bit about how you approached the subject?

My interest in history has always stemmed from a fascination with the characters within – the details of their lives, whether dramatic or ordinary. As a reader, I cut my teeth on historical biographies and so I guess it only follows that would influence my approach in my own work. From the outset, where the witch trials were concerned, the lack of focus on the individuals became glaringly apparent – these deeply fascinating women and men were being shown in flashes to illustrate wider trends and themes in the history of the witch trials, but very rarely presented as central to the text. I wanted to turn that around, making the accused and the accusers themselves the focus of my books.

Why do you think people are interested in witches?

I think people are drawn to witches for a number of different reasons. The tragedy of so many of the cases holds an undeniable fascination, as does the dramatic nature of some of the better publicised trials. The lure of magic and mystery also draws people in. A lot of people also identify with the plight of those persecuted, I’ve had several people tell me they feel a connection with these cases in one way or another. I think, ultimately, once you strip away the glamour, what you have is ordinary people, living ordinary lives, caught up in situations and events beyond their control – that is going to speak to people and draw them to the subject.

Did you have a ‘mission’ when you set-out to write the books? (I’m assuming you may think that witches have been much maligned and misrepresented in some accounts.)

As a historian, the facts and getting it “right” are hugely important to me; striving for that, even if I don’t always achieve it, is at the centre of my work. As an extension of that, in these two books, I wanted to address the huge amount of sensationalism that has been written about witches and witch trials over the years. Such grossly over-inflated figures and claims really muddy the waters, doing the individuals involved a great disservice as they are obscured behind assumptions and exaggerations. I wanted add something to the steadily growing body of work out there that attempts to redress the balance.

I also had a personal curiosity to satisfy, to see if my concept for the books would work, to see if I could pull off writing a whole book, if I could pull it all together. I like to hope that I have been mostly successful in that aim, but only time will tell!

   

(click cover images for previews or to purchase)

What makes your two books different from each other?

Accused focuses on the stories of 11 different women who were accused of witchcraft across Britain’s history, from the 14th century through to the 20th. Each chapter acts as a telling of her story, not just the accusations made against her and the outcome, but also an exploration of her life as a whole. By extension, it allows comparisons and contrasts to be drawn across several centuries of British history, between beliefs in magic and witchcraft, and also society and communities as a whole.

England’s Witchcraft Trials looks at five of England’s major witch trials from the 16th and 17th centuries, the ones people are most likely to have heard of, such as the Pendle Witches and the atrocities committed under Matthew Hopkins. There’s still the biographical element though within each case, exploring the backgrounds of the main players. This books is, due to its subject matter, a study of a shorter period of time, looking more closely at the main period of witchcraft prosecution in England.

Is there a third witchy book on the way?

Personally, I’d love to do something with the growing collection of accounts of 19th century witchcraft accusations I’ve been amassing over the last couple of years. People tend to assume that all that stopped with the passing of the 1736 Witchcraft Act, but belief in witches and accusations went on well into the 20th century, and the material out there makes for fascinating yet harrowing reading. It’s definitely something I want to explore more in the near future.

Media – particularly movies – seem saturated with witchcraft and witches. Which witch flicks would you say have got it ‘right’, or closest to?

To be totally honest, I tend to avoid media portrayals of the subject! If I do watch, I look at a film or show for what it is – if its primary aim is entertainment, I try to go along for the ride, not sit and pick it apart – and if I can’t, I quickly switch off!

I’m also an utter wuss and easily freak myself out – I’m fine when I’m watching something, but that night is another matter. I still can’t look in a mirror after dark thanks to an episode of Supernatural – I’ve learned my lesson!

One exception however is The Witch. It was a really gripping movie that has stayed with me months later and is definitely on my re-watch list. It operated on so many different levels, taking the viewer on a journey through a blend of history, folklore and belief – one that I’m happy to break a habit for and sit and dissect!

Sounds a bit like a description of Folklore Thursday!

- Thank you, Dee Dee and Willow!

Huge thanks to you for inviting us!

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Folklore Thursday webzine

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Dee Dee Chainey and Willow Winsham were talking with Remy Dean 

if you enjoyed reading this interview, you can...

check-out Willow's own blog, The Witch, The Weird, and The Wonderful - HERE

and you can read Remy's contributions to Folklore Thursday - HERE

Red Sparrow Writers Brought to Book: Remy Dean, Kim Vertue and Zel Cariad

The Red Sparrow Press is a new publisher promising us 'great books for young aviators of the imagination' and will be launching their first titles later this year. A few weeks ago, The Scrawl found three Red Sparrow writers in one place - at the Sci-Fi Wales convention, in North Wales - two veteran authors and one brand-new voice… So, for this special edition of our regular Brought to Book section, we asked Remy Dean, Kim Vertue and Zel Cariad about the words that have influenced, inspired and entertained them over the years.

Kim Vertue, enyoying an ice cream at The Dragon Café
Remy Dean, kissing The Red Sparrow during a reading at Plas Tan y Bwlch

What was the first book you can remember reading that really absorbed you and carried you off elsewhere?

Remy: That would be Elephant Adventure by Willard Price. I can remember sitting in school, during a reading class and I was at the back reading a book of my choice. It was the first time that the words I was reading disappeared and I started seeing what I was reading instead. I was in the jungle and then I heard the teacher’s voice calling my name, because it was my turn to go the front of class to do the reading test. It was like being pulled out from a dream. That’s when I first had an inkling of the magic of good story-writing. I then devoured the whole Adventure series over the next few years, in the right order, some of them I read more than once. I named my first goldfish Hal and Roger after the Hunt brothers in the books.

Before that, I had the Paddington books read to me and they were great. My brother used to finish reading one and we would go straight round the library for the next.

Zel: Black Beauty, it was an abridged version, I can’t remember the story that well. I enjoyed being able to read it and I remember it was good and had a horse in it.

Kim: Heidi was the first book I read entirely on my own and enjoyed in a spirited away sense.  We lived among the slag heaps of the St Helens coal and glass-making industries, so the idea of all those big mountains captured my imagination.  Also it focusses a lot on learning to read, the magic of how those words suddenly start to make sense and come alive.  I liked the idea of sleeping in a hayloft, eating grilled goats cheese and looking after goats too.

The Narnia books were great too.  Our teacher read the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe to the class and I read the Silver Chair on my own straight way.  I liked the misfit heroes involved - Puddleglum of course – and the insight into the common fairy tale idea of being enchanted.  It was very difficult to break the enchantment of the silver chair and, for once, free a Prince rather than a Princess. I read the rest of the Narnia books in quick succession after that and I think Voyage of the Dawn Treader remains my favourite.

I loved Elyne Mitchell’s The Silver Brumby which I read when I was about ten.  It struck me as a more ‘grown up’ book even though it was in a learn to read series, and it was so clear yet poetic in its description of the Australian bush that I have wanted to visit there for real ever since!  I also love the way the speed and strength and sheer exhuberance of Thowra, the Silver Brumby, is described.  It reflects the way you feel as a kid when you just have to run everywhere and you feel pretty darn invincible.


Do you have a favourite book, perhaps that you have returned to more than once over the years?

Zel: All the My Little Pony book series, I probably have read Rainbow Dash and the Daring Do Double Dare a few times, and also the My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic comics, the first four-parter, The Return of Queen Chrysalis, and Zen and the Art of Gazebo Repair are my favourite stories… Princess Luna’s continually changing T-shirts! Ha, ha… ‘Best!’

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Panels from The Return of Queen Chrysalis (left)
and Zen and the Art of Gazebo Repair 

I really love my Dragonology books! The Field Guide to Dragons is wonderful, I like how it documents dragons just like they are real, which maybe they are! Also, the Drogonology Chronicles - series of novels - which are great adventures. The illustrations, too, fantastic pencil drawings!

Oh, and the How to Train Your Dragon series… So basically, Ponies and Dragons for me!

And, The Land of Neverbelieve by Norman Messenger is a book I like a lot, the illustrations are nice and the ideas are great – really imaginative, I never get bored with that one, it’s like a world. I also keep going back to my factual books about science, animals and the real world.

Remy: I have a few favourites! Watership Down – I read that about three times a year as I was growing up – definitely more than a dozen times. I could speak fluent lapine and I used to play bob-stones with my pet rabbit. Recently, I read it to my daughter, twice, so far. I think it is the best Fantasy story ever written, and an inspiration to any writer of imaginative fiction.

When I was around seven or eight, my brother read Jonathan Livingston Seagull to me in one sitting, and it affected me profoundly. It is a book I returned to later and re-read many times as a college student. I use to buy extra copies to loan out or give to friends. It’s about the nature of reality, what it means to be free and transcending the bounds of physical limitations through imagination. I read it to my father during his final days, when he was in hospital… just before he transcended his physical limitations.

My brother also read the The Flies in the Market Place to me, from Thus Spoke Zarathustra, when I was very young - he didn’t mind challenging me and my little mind at all – and Nietsche has been a friend to me ever since. I have read most of his key works and they took me on a path right back to William Blake!

Songs of Innocence and Experience, I have already written a piece about why William Blake and this book are very important to me… You can read that on the I’m Hot Goat weblog.

Ham on Rye, by Charles Bukowski… pretty much anything by Charles Bukowski. I discovered him through the film, Tales of Ordinary Madness, starring Ben Gazzara in a definitive performance. I always saw and heard Ben Gazzara whenever I imagined Henry Chinaski… Then, a neighbour of mine lent me Ham on Rye when I was a living in Stoke-on-Trent. I had never read anything like that. The prose is the clearest, most beautiful word-wielding I know of. Even the most lowlife, unpleasant passages have that ‘twinkle in the eye’ that make them readable. No other writer does that as well. The humour and humanity really leap off the page. Also, I believe that Bukowski is a philosopher, the most original and alternative philosopher this side of Nietsche…

Marco Ferreri, Ben Gazzara and Charles Bukowski making Tales of Ordinary Madness (1981)

Snail, by Richard Miller, which could well be my favourite book of all, if I was really forced to select just one. Again, I first came across Snail in my formative years. I was a student, working on my final degree projects, which included a short film about teenagers ‘discovering themselves’ and racing snails. The college had taken a group of us to help with the re-design of The Brewery Arts Centre in Keswick, which, for some reason had a display case of model and soft-toy snails! So the synchronicity was really kicking-in there. Then I came across the book, simply titled Snail. I knew nothing about it, never heard of Richard Miller at that point, but there was a quote from William Burroughs on the cover and art by Clive Barker, and so with that and all the snail synchronicity I took a chance and bought it and it was a total delight - intelligent, flippant, funny, profound. Richard Miller is a truly great and hugely underrated writer!

Kim: I read Wuthering Heights when I was about 12 and have re-read it regularly since, each time with fresh understanding of the characters. It is still vibrant and gothic and unique. I love the use of main narrator Ellen Dean to portray the passion and tragedy which plays out between Cathy and Heathcliff and those in their wake.  It is ultimately a happier ending for their heirs which offers hope for the human condition. I am a great fan of Emily Bronte’s nature poetry too, and love the fact that like Emily Dickinson she wrote it mainly for herself, to better understand her own environment and inner world.

I regularly re read Picture of Dorian Gray each time with fresh insight. Oscar Wilde’s fairy tales too. Also Dracula, Poe, and I have re -read the Sherlock Holmes stories a couple of times…  I should update my Victorian Gothic taste! I have a fondness for Colette and Daphne du Maurier - Rebecca, My Cousin Rachel - although I have not re-read them for some time.


What is the most recent book you have read and thoroughly enjoyed?

Zel: Apart from My Little Pony books, I would say the Bartimaeus sequence by Jonathan Stroud. They are funny in parts and exciting too. I liked the characters, especially Bartimaeus himself, the wise-cracking immortal demon…

Remy: Yes, I think I have to agree with Zel on that one. I recently read the Bartimaeus books as part of the research before I interviewed Jonathan Stroud… for The Scrawl!

One of Shaun Tan's evocative illustrations for Tales of Outer Suburbia

Before that, Shaun Tan’s Tales From Outer Suburbia, profound and poetic short stories which brilliantly stitch together narrative image and text, I don’t think anyone else has done it so effectively, not since Blake. Shaun Tan has become one of my favourite contemporary creatives.

Kim: I really enjoyed the Bartimaeus books too!  A brilliant entertaining read.  Bartimaeus rocks.  I also enjoyed William Gibson’s The Peripheral, what a great tour of ‘what might be’…with characters you really want to win through.  Also Iain Banks, The Player of Games - working my way through the Culture novels again - for its breadth of vision... and Peter Hamilton’s The Great North Road. A true epic fantasy of future tech space exploration and detective story interlinked.


You have all recently ventured into co-written territories… What was the co-writing process like for This?

Zel: It was fun because I basically got to listen to it as it developed and say when I thought things didn’t work or if an idea needed improving, but that was very rare, because it was written well. Generally, we just chatted about story ideas on dog-walks and took a lot of inspiration from our surroundings, mountains, woods and lakes… I came up with a few random bits, I remember describing the attack of the snaky brambles. Oh, and Lucky too, who I think is a really important main character.

Remy: Zel is my resident expert of all things fairy and dragon-related. Her main roles were creative consultant and first reader. Basically we discussed ideas on walks, and then I wrote chunks and did test readings, when Zel would let me know if it sounded alright and if it was believable enough… if something needed to be explained more clearly, or if I had over-egged anything. She also ensured I described characters and places in enough detail to paint the picture, but still left enough room for imagination. One thing she does really well is ask the right questions.

...and for Welcome to the Dragon Café?

Kim: Co-writng on the Dragon Café has been great fun. I enjoyed how Zel and I snow-balled some quite wacky ideas into even funnier ones!  She really helps with her feedback on what works and how much extra description I need to give for it to unfold like it does in our heads. Remy is great with his encouragement and feedback too.


Which writers have you learnt the most from?

Remy: John Foxx, particularly the work with his band, Ultravox! He more-or-less invented the ‘New Romantic’ identity – ‘riding intercity trains, dressed in European grey’. I love the pictures his words can conjure up and how his lyric patterns just trip along – he taught me a lot about how to use the form of a word to help with the flow of a phrase.

A rhythmic pattern of words - John Foxx in the days of  Ultravox!

I am probably informed more by song-writers, Scott Walker, David McComb, Dave Graney, Ian Anderson, Kate Bush, Lydia Lunch… As for ‘writers’, then Bukowski - his prose has elegant simplicity and crystal clarity, without trading-in any of its poetic beauty... and, I have read so much Graham Masterton over the years that I may have absorbed something from him - by 'osmosis'.

Kim: All of the above feature large as my influence and sound track too… I love how songs can kick start the imagination when you least expect it.

I have a great debt to the clear elegant prose of writers like Bukowski and Hemmingway.  Also the stream of consciousness of Virgina Woolf’s The Waves, and the be-bop prose of Jack Kerouac – On the Road and Maggie Cassidy among others. Emily Bronte of course! James Clavell – I loved Shogun, its breadth and generosity. Also, Len Deighton – I love his spy thrillers, particularly the Samson Trilogy. The vitality of his prose and character portrayal is a real inspiration. The list could go on!


What are you working on at the moment?

Remy: Still recovering from writing the final draft of This – which should be available after Halloween this Autumn. Just underway with the next book, titled, That. They’re the first two in the This, That and the Other trilogy, which is an epic fairy tale fantasy that can be enjoyed by younger readers too. I am also developing my 'Corky, the Cicorc Conwy' story as a children's picture book.

And, for grown-ups, I am looking into finding an outlet for Dark Arts. It was developed as a six-part television drama, a couple of years ago, with the BBC in mind. So far, it is in the form of teleplays, but it’s going to work well as a series of short stories, or novels… Dark Arts is a period piece, set between the Wars, and deals with art, magic, horror and psychiatry… Think of a Hammer Films production of Brideshead Revisited, adapted by H P Lovecraft!

Zel: Helping with That, and I am always planning my own stories and comics. I have even finished a few of them! My latest series is currently broadcasting in my own head…

Kim: Finishing up on revisions for Welcome to the Dragon Café for release soon, yay! Other ideas constantly bubbling away too…including a story for young adult readers, Supermoon, and some Science Fiction.

Thank you Zel, Kim and Remy!

Non-fiction books by Remy Dean include biographies and critiques of Nick Cave, Henry Rollins, Nine Inch Nails, Nirvana, Suede, Lydia Lunch, Celine Dion(!) and more recently the web-active history of art textbook, Evolution of Western Art.

His works of fiction for grown-ups include Scraps, a novel, Final Bough, a tale of the supernatural, and the recent short story collection, The Race Glass.

This ...is going to be epic!
The new novel by Remy Dean with Zel Cariad

His forthcoming novel, This, is an epic fairy-tale-fantasy and is his first book for children and young adults. He is currently Writer in Residence at Plas Tan y Bwlch, the Snowdonia National Park's Study Centre.

Kim Vertue has written a novel and several short stories under different pen-names which have all been published internationally and in translation. She has also written for magazines and contributed to weblogs. Welcome to the Dragon Café is her first book for children and will be published soon by The Red Sparrow Press…

Zel Cariad is eleven-years old and is currently acting as creative consultant and first reader for Remy and Kim.

For more info and updates, check out The Red Sparrow Press website

and have a look at the offical Remy Dean author website