Interviewing Angela Slatter

Helllooo!!

Last week I reviewed the darkly magical All The Murmuring Bones by A G Slatter (I LOVED IT) a fantastic trip through a land of story where the ghosts and monsters are real. Angela very kindly agreed to talk to me about the book and some future projects to look forward to as well!

How would you book tempt All The Murmuring Bones?

Oh gosh. I guess it’s a kind of a gothic fairytale fantasy with a dash of a heist and road movie thrown in? Not one, but two creepy house! Count ‘em! Two! Kelpies and selkies and mer, oh my! And if that doesn’t work, then I shall simply say that my mother and Alix E. Harrow’s mother both loved it.

In the afterword you mention several short stories helped create this world. How did that evolve?

Basically, it all started when I wrote a story called “Sourdough” back in about 2007. It was published that same year in the Strange Tales II anthology edited by Rosalie Parker of Tartarus Press. I kept writing other stories in that weird little fairytale universe and eventually there were enough for a mosaic collection – Sourdough and Other Stories (Tartarus Press) – back in 2010 and it was a World Fantasy Finalist in 2011. I kept writing until there were enough stories for another mosaic collection – The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings (Tartarus Press) – in 2014, and it won the World Fantasy Award for Best Collection the next year. There was also a novella in 2015 (Tor.com), Of Sorrow and Such, then another mosaic collection in 2021, The Tallow-Wife and Other Tales (Tartarus Press). THEN came All the Murmuring Bones (also in 2021, from Titan Books), which is the first novel in that world. I just … kept going … it’s just my own little fairytale world for grownups, with influences from old tales that many people know, and with my own take on them.

Miren seems to be awakened by the strange journey she goes on compared to how many stories often just made leading women just live happily ever after with a prince. Did you want a woman who could take the world on herself?

I wanted a character who could stand on her own two feet. I think Miren knows very clearly what she doesn’t want. She knows she can handle whatever the strange world throws at her, and she won’t rely on anyone to save her. I don’t think she’s just a stereotypical “strong female lead”, but rather someone who reaches inside herself to discover her own resolve and resources, then makes her way in the world. The life she starts with is not one she wants; the life her family try to force on her is definitely not one she wants; so she makes a journey to find out the truth about herself and to establish what she does want in life.  

Why do we enjoy folk tales like the ones in this story even now? Are they always cautionary tales in disguise?

I think there are generally lessons to be learned from such tales. I mean, the messages are wrapped up in magic and strangeness, but they generally relate back to taking care of yourself and your loved ones, watching out for wolves in the woods and elsewhere. I think they’re just our oldest tales, and different cultures all have different opening lines that tell the audience “This is a fairy tale.” When someone says “Once upon a time” or whatever the equivalent is from your childhood, you kind of listen up. It’s a sort of a spell to guarantee attention.

What else can we look forward from you in the future and where can we find out more?

I am currently finishing my second novel for Titan – it’s currently called Morwood and it’s another gothic fantasy set in the Sourdough world. It’s a bit more of a horror-y ghost story with a tiny bit of a Frankenstein vibe to it. And I have just sent the manuscript for a novella called The Bone Lantern to Marie O’Regan for her Absinthe imprint at PS Publishing – that one is related to the stories in The Tallow-Wife and also to All the Murmuring Bones. After that, I honestly am not sure what I’ll be doing! There’s a short story collection coming out later in the year from Brain Jar Press, and also another one of my writing guides in the Brain Jar Writer Chaps series – the first one is You Are Not You’re Writing & Other Sage Advice.  The second will probably be called What to Do When You Don’t Have a Book Coming Out.

You can find out more at www.angelaslatter.com, my Facebook author page is https://www.facebook.com/angelaslatterauthor, Twitter is AngelaSlatter, and Instagram (which is basically filled with dogs, photos of food and books) is rather unoriginally angelaslatter.

If there was one book, not your own, that you could get everyone would read what would it be?

Oh, at the moment it’s still Alix E. Harrow’s The Once and Future Witches. And if you’ve already read that one, then pre-order her novella from Tor.com A Spindle Splintered.