GREETINGS, BOOKWORMS! I’m Aisha Kandisha, Head Librarian at Kandisha Press. Join me in the dusty stacks of the library I will never leave again as I chat with some of my favorite Women in Horror. Today we feature author Stephanie Ellis!
Stephanie Ellis writes dark speculative prose and poetry. Her novels include The Five Turns of the Wheel, Reborn, and The Woodcutter, and the novellas, Bottled and Paused. Her short stories appear in the collections The Reckoning and Devil Kin. She is a Rhysling and Elgin Award nominated poet and has written the collection Foundlings (with Cindy O’Quinn), Lilith Rising (with Shane Douglas Keene) and Metallurgy, as well as appearing in the HWA Poetry Showcase. She can be found supporting indie authors at HorrorTree.com via the weekly Indie Bookshelf Releases.
What made you want to become an author? Did you have an “Aha!” moment when you knew you were born to write? Or perhaps a beloved book inspired you?
I have been a voracious reader from a very early age, to the extent my mum would take my books off me! Yet I never considered writing anything myself nor did I ever have conversations about writing or hear about people becoming authors. We were much more ‘channelled’ in school so it didn’t cross my mind.
However, as I got older the idea drifted across my mind, finally crystallising when I returned to work after a career break when my children were small and taking a part-time job in their junior school as a librarian and then a little later as full-time librarian in a secondary school. I read a lot of the books on the shelves and I was thinking I could do that but once I started, it became like reading – something I couldn’t not do. I began with short stories and submitting properly when I was 49/50, gaining my first successes then. My first novella, Bottled, was published early 2020 and The Five Turns of the Wheel, my first novel, later that same year. I will be 60 this year and I hope this helps other women who come to writing late. Our lives are often so busy caring for family and juggling jobs that anything else gets left and only later can we carve that time for ourselves.
What do you believe are your strengths in writing? And when you feel you need to improve on a particular writing skill, how do you go about it?
I believe I can tell a good story and hopefully original ones at that! A strength in my tales tend to be developing atmosphere, particularly important in folk horror and gothic horror, both favourite subgenres. Like reading, I write as if I am watching a movie in my head and because I feel so ‘present’ I try to make sure that I include the senses – what I am seeing, hearing, touching. I will admit to forgetting about smell though, I actually think that is the hardest sense to describe. I also bring in my own memories which help me include realistic aspects, whether it be the light of a rural dawn, the cold stone of thick castle walls or the absolute pitch black of a mine. Life experiences and memories are as a much a resource to be mined as any other information system.
I have got a few books on writing, always bought with good intentions but they don’t tend to work for me. I’m someone who wants to be ‘doing’ rather than practising via specific exercises. My teacher is, and always has been, the material I read. I read widely, cosy crimes and scandi noir as a break from dark fiction, though they, too, are dark! I’m reading a lot of non-fiction as well as I’ve started writing dark historical fiction, not to mention my current novel WIP, an alternative history of Britain circa 1913 under Bonaparte rule (as we lost at Waterloo) and which has a lot of humour and a murder!
Reading a good book always sends me back to my writing determined to try harder.
What are your thoughts on the book industry today, or more importantly, about the book community? Do you feel it is getting harder or easier to make it as an independent author these days?
Honestly, it’s tough and being an older female writer also seems to add a certain level of invisibility. That said, the size of the industry is so huge that it really is hard for a writer to gain traction. Subsequently, social media has played a big part in developing book communities which in turn has caused issues. Much as it is denied, there are cliques and you can find yourself ignored, there are those who will happily use others to climb the ladder and then there are the dramas, the cancellings, the comments made that can pretty much destroy either a person’s confidence or career. I’ll be open here and say that comments made during the time of the closure of Silver Shamrock, my first publisher, were incredibly harmful to authors, including myself, when we had no part in the issue involved. I will never forget how some of those comments made me feel (destroyed is putting it mildly) and I will never treat another person like that.
Does this imply a disillusionment with the community? Perhaps a little. I left Twitter because of the changes and the dramas and I think many writers are currently in a state of flux as they search for alternatives and try and rationalise their social media presence. Being an indie author, you need to work out how to market your books and it is overwhelming. I’ve been thinking on my approach a lot and have just joined Joe Mynhardt (Crystal Lake Entertainment) Shadows & Ink platform. It’s a serious place to talk books, writing, marketing, publishing with a real focus. Yes, there’s places to chat but there’s none of the nonsense elsewhere. It’s early days, but I have hopes this is going to be a really useful place to be, a proper community of writers. It’s about the business of writing and that’s what I need to develop, although I’d much rather just write books!
I have work coming out with small press publishers but I also put my own work out and I’ll continue to carry on with this hybrid approach. One day I’ll figure out what works for me, but it won’t stop me telling my stories!
Tell us about your work. What story are you most proud of?
I write a mix of dark fiction. I have a folk horror series: The Five Turns of the Wheel and its sequel, Reborn. The third, Mother’s Night (Rise of the Hare Witch) is with a beta reader. These books feature aspects of my own rural upbringing and have allowed me to indulge in some nostalgia whilst developing a universe which incorporates aspects of Celtic, early Anglo-Saxon, and Norse mythology, all real interests of mine. I’ve had such fun with the characters in these books and have a real soft spot for the ‘villains’ at the centre of the stories. My most recent novel, The Woodcutter, is also a folk horror but not part of the series.
In addition, I’ve a bio-horror novella, Paused, and a gothic novella, Bottled. All these have been published via the wonderful Brigids Gate Press who rescued me when I lost my first publisher.
I’ve also co-authored a poetry collection with Cindy O’Quinn, the Elgin-nominated Foundlings, and horror novella in verse, Lilith Rising, with Shane Douglas Keene.
In addition, I have had a number of short stories published and I continue to write this form whenever a submission call grabs my attention. I think short form is a good way to hone your skills, build a cv and test an idea.
I honestly can’t say which I’m most proud of though. They all mean a lot to me. I think I would, at the minute, go for the Five Turns world. I’ve built a universe there with these characters who keep coming back and causing mischief and it is still evolving. It’s a place I can go into with complete ownership and is a wonderful playground.
What are your upcoming works and plans for the future?
I have a post-apocalyptic/sci-fi/dystopian horror, The Barricade, coming out with Lycan Valley Press. It’s currently out on edit but I hope to hear some sort of timeframe in the near future. It’s one of those ‘what if’ scenarios. What if the world was supposed to be ending so the great and the good went below ground into protected bunkers and left everyone else above to cope on their own? And what if the world righted itself and those below wanted to come back but those above refuse?
I have a gothic horror novella, Enough Rope, which will probably be out next year. No specific details yet but it is with a publisher. This one is set in the Asylum of Shadows world, the Victorian East End of London
A short story, Into Oblivion, will feature in Coy Hall’s The Scythian Wolf press inaugural anthology, Death’s Other Kingdom. I’ve written a few short stories which are out on submission at the minute so there might be more – I hope!
Poetry hasn’t been neglected with a slasher horror novella in verse which is at final chapter stage, co-authored with Shane Douglas Keene.
I have a number of plans! This year is to complete two poetry projects, the one mentioned with Shane and another one that’s been bubbling away in the background with Cindy O’Quinn.
I am working on my non-horror humorous alternative history murder mystery, Twiggy Voo, and then when that’s done I want to return to the world of the English Commonwealth, the period after the Civil War when Cromwell rules. I wrote a dark historical/mystery fiction set at that time (Women of the Witch Eye, it’s currently out on submission) with the intention of creating a series so this will be the second, moving the characters back to London at the time of the Putney Debates when the soldiers were milling around the capital. It brings witchcraft, religion, murder and politics together. Well, that’s the intention!
And what I would really love to do is write a cosy crime series. So many things to write and so little time!
What I want to show with these plans is that you can write as widely as you read. You don’t have to restrict yourself to a particular genre, just tell your stories and enjoy it.
KANDISHA PRESS 