Interview - Stephanie Ellis

After talking with her earlier on the site, I'm pleased to once again welcome back Stephanie Ellis to talk about her latest book "The Woodcutter," how it came together, and several other features about the book.

Me: Hello and thank you for taking the time to do this. First off, let's talk about your new novel "The Woodcutter." Where did the concept of this come from?

Stephanie Ellis: I wanted to write a folk horror that was not set in the same universe as my Five Turns of the Wheel novel and its sequel Reborn. In particular, I wanted to play with the modern-day focus on reality shows and recreations. I had seen Derren Brown’s show a few years back on TV where he had fooled someone into thinking zombies really exist. I wanted to set a reality show in the countryside, playing on an old legend, which was set up so viewers would believe it was actually real. It was a test of how far you could fool someone – and I will say there are layers of this within the book so I can’t say too much!

And whilst folk horror often involves the arrival of strangers in a community where something isn’t quite right, I wanted to explore that idea a little more. By having two returnees (Alec Eades, whose father owns the village bookshop, and Oliver Hayward, the new major landowner in the area), both of whom had left the area at a young age, they were not ‘true’ strangers. I wanted to see how much the past and its rituals still claimed them – and if would they fight against it.

Me: How did the concept of the universe within here come about?

SE: Folk horror for me is generally very much rural (although it doesn’t have to be) and I have an exceptional fondness for the names attached to many of our villages and rural landmarks in the UK. A lot of names are quaint, often reflecting the nature of the area or a particular person or legend, and it’s a naming system used frequently in ‘cozy’ murder mysteries, eg Midsomer Murders, which I love. If you’re going to write about a Woodcutter, what better name for a village than Little Hatchet, and a wood abandoned by God – well, there’s GodBeGoneWoods, both in an area called The Devil’s Axe. I specifically made these up to lean into that traditionally ‘cozy’ vibe, although the results are anything but!

The woods themselves, as well as serving the needs of the legend, also contributed to isolating the village by surrounding pretty much most of it. With only one road in and the presence of this mass of trees, it very much adds to that sense of being cut off from everything. Landscape has always been a primary character in my writing and its presence here, the form it takes, is vital for the progress of the story.

A further inspiration can be found in 17th-century pamphlets produced with woodcuts of bizarre doings and descriptions of the Devil at work. I have a great interest in the 17th century and it seemed the most natural time to create a source for the origin of the legend.

Me: What kind of relationship did you envision for the characters to have here as the story went along?

SE: It’s very much a story of the building up, and then destruction, of trust. Alex finds the family he’d left behind and begins to bond with them, only to be apparently let down. Oliver Hayward is regarded with complete mistrust by locals simply by virtue of being the ‘big landowner’ and they have a wariness typical of small communities.

There is also another issue in the trust each has in themselves. Their experiences lead to self-doubt and mistrust of what they see and hear, and also the complete opposite, trusting themselves to the extent it results in tragedy. Both are very much unreliable narrators and the reader experiences the same sense of disorientation and confusion that impacts Alex and Oliver.

Me: What, if any, issues did you have while outlining or writing the story did you encounter?

SE: I never plot, I just write the story as it comes but I had to really focus to hold the threads of this story together. I knew that having unreliable narrators might cause confusion and I had to reread with care – and get a friend (writer and editor, Alyson Faye) to beta-read it for me. She always points out any flaws!

Me: Have you noticed any difference between your writing style now compared to your work in previous collections you’ve written?

SE: I think my writing has tightened up a lot since my early days. That’s pretty much down to the editors I’ve worked with along the way who’ve made me aware of mistakes or shown me how to do something that bit better. I also think it’s because I’ve kept writing – and reading. If you keep doing both you will naturally improve.

Me: Once it was finally written, what was the process for having it published?

SE: Steve and Heather at Brigids Gate Press had already published my other folk horror work and I offered this one to them to read. They both liked it and agreed to take it on. After that, it was a straightforward process of getting it edited and formatted. The publicity side is handled by Mickey and Aimee at Creative Edge, though I still actively promote my work on social media.

I will say it’s not normally as ‘easy’ as this. I have other works out on submission like so many writers and am playing the waiting game to hear the results. If those turn out to be a ‘no’, then I will be searching for other publishers. So that’s the write, submit, and submit - again and again and again – a process that is usually typical. I tend to go to HorrorTree.com to see if publishers have opened to submissions and also look for ‘open windows’ which some of the larger imprints occasionally offer for unagented authors.

Me: Lastly, what else are you working on that you'd like to share with our readers? Thank you again for your time!

SE: I am currently working on the third novel in the Five Turns of the Wheel series. It has been slow to get it going, simply due to other things in life-impacting my time! This one is set during Yule and focuses very much on Mother’s Night (Modranicht) and as a festive time of year, it means I can have some fun with rituals and old characters. Mother’s Night might possibly be its title.

I am also working on a slasher horror novella in verse with Shane Douglas Keene. He’s US, I’m UK so it’s a bit back and forth. We’ve been working on it a while now but I don’t think we’re that far off the end. Shane is cheerfully writing the ‘slasher’ side of it and killing off a load of people! We’ve used a variety of verse forms and I think it’s quite an original work. I do hope people like it when it’s eventually published as I love what it’s become.

Thank you for inviting me! I hope people check out The Woodcutter and let me know what they think!