Welcome everyone, I’m The Li-Bury-An, and today we have a spotlight on Rowan Hill
What was your worst blind date?
That is the discussion that opens up when one reads Rowan Hill’s piece in The One That Got Away. On the night when a wildfire burns across the land, Kate takes revenge on a blind date gone wrong– horribly wrong! Kate, who has been disfigured in a previous inferno, is hoping her latest date will turn out to be different than the rest. He isn’t. And what ensues is a wild chase across a burning landscape. Although she is an accomplished writer, I was surprised, shocked even, to learn that this piece was Rowan’s first venture into short fiction. Her writing is masterful– you can almost feel the flames licking at Kate’s heels as she searches the brush. Rowan’s use of foreshadowing is also incredible, cleverly disguised until the author chooses to reveal it, and leaving you nodding your head in surprised admiration.
“Kate snorted. She hadn’t evacuated once since she inherited the place. She was shaped by the yearly fires, literally and metaphorically. She expected them and planned on them to accompany her through the new year. They were as expected as Christmas. Fire was an old friend.”
From “Date Night Ablaze” by Rowan Hill
Today, Rowan talks about how she came up with her story “Date Night Ablaze” for THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY : Women of Horror Anthology Volume 3. Out now from Kandisha Press!
“The first time I heard ‘The one who got away’, I thought, “oh man, what would it be like if ‘he literally got away'”? From there, it came to who was chasing him? Someone who either really loved him or someone who really hated him. Really hated him. I always try to write to my strengths and use environments I’m familiar with but perhaps places/times audiences don’t get to visit often. This time, it was the Australian Bush in bushfire season, which we have all heard about last year (and honestly, for Aussies every year).
As to implementing it, I always remember that advertisement for Margaret Atwood’s Masterclass. You know the one, where she instructs everyone to ‘start in the middle’, “It was deep inside the wolf”, etc. It’s sometimes much more exciting to be thrown into the middle of a hunt than seeing the prey released and the chase begin. Anyway, thank you, Margaret (am I terrible if I took her advice but didn’t buy the class?), and thank you, Kandisha Press!”
Rowan Hill is an author currently on hiatus as an ESL Professor and living on a volcano in Sicily. She loves writing flawed female protagonists and has found they work well in extreme environments. She has writing credits with Cemetery Gates, Kandisha Press, and Curious Blue Press. All of which can be found on her website http://writerrowanhill.com.
Twitter: @writerrowanhill
Instagram: writer.rowan.hill
KANDISHA PRESS 
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