Interviewing Juliet E McKenna

Helloooo!

Eagle-eyed readers will note I’ve been catching up this year on the Green Man series from Juliet E McKenna. A fantastic contemporary rural fantasy series that uses local myths, modern life and all together some damn fine fantasy stories that have a growing and devoted audience. I rarely read series that closely together, but this could not be ignored any longer; and I had a whale of a time in the process. This year sees the release of The Green Man's Gift which delivered a deliciously spooky adventure and features the fae for the first time. I was lucky enough to get to ask Juliet some questions about these books.

How do you like to booktempt The Green Man series and its latest book The Green Man’s Gift?

I find highlighting the differences gets people intrigued. Thesebooks are like urban fantasy only they’re not… The action takes place in the countryside, the human caught up in supernatural goings-on is a bloke, and the scary supernatural figures are mostly female – because if you look at British folkore, that’s been the pattern since the way back when. It’s the woodcutter’s third son who goes on the quest and meets the witch in the woods, and has to work out if she’s wicked or not.

We tend in many contemporary series have skilled snarky wizards and yet with this series we have a much more pragmatic central character in Dan. What drew you to him as your lead character?

This whole series started with a short story about dryads stopping a road being built through their oak grove. I mention in passing dryads’ sons are mortal, but they’re strong and self-sufficient since they have to make their own way in the world, which was a lot easier when few people travelled more than ten miles from home. The more I thought about the practical challenges a dryad’s son would face in the modern day, the more possibilities I saw for longer stories. He’d be a loner who kept himself to himself, and these days, people can find that suspicious. He’d have to be self-employed, so he’d have to be a capable sort though. I know quite a few men like that in real life, but I couldn’t think of many in fiction. Then there’s the challenge of writing ‘a good guy’ which is trickier than you might think. Plus I really liked the idea of adown-to-earth bloke solving supernatural problems with his wits and everyday skills rather than finding the answer in some ancient tome.  

The series explores various myths of the United Kingdom which have grown with each book. As you’ve researched it do you see them as all separate regional myths or is it far more interconnected than we tend to think? 

What has really emerged for me is the way so much local folklore is tied to the different landscapes of these islands. I’d never really thought about that before, but the myths in the fens and the myths in Welsh mountains are as different and distinctive as those places. So are the local interpretations of more common folklore figures, such as the spirits of place in woods and waters. They became intertwined with local stories, as historically, people who rarely travelled more than ten miles from home sought to explain their world. That’s extremely useful for a writer. Just because Dan knows what a Midlands dryad might think, that’s not necessarily going to tell him how a Wessex hamadryad’s going to react. 

In 2022 what do the fae represent to us? 

That’s a tricky one! Any answer lies somewhere between ‘no clue’ and a PhD dissertation. My best guess at the moment? In some ways, I see them becoming associated with the longer term interests of the countryside, and of the animals and birds, the woods and the waters, which have been overlooked for too long. Issues around climate change, floods and droughts, and concerns over sustainable farming mean we have to rethink our relationships with the natural world, and we need to do that sooner rather than later. The fae can be seen as a personification of these things, perhaps? 

As the series has grown, we now have a wider cast of characters and starting to see links between the storylines. Has this evolved organically or is there now a Green Man Universe masterplan? Does that allow you to play both with the format and who is telling the story more?

At the moment, Dan’s world is growing organically, which seems appropriate. I’ve written fifteen epic fantasy novels over four series where I’ve always had a masterplan hidden away behind the curtain, and I love doing that. These books are completely different, which is a new and fascinating challenge for me as a writer. I visit various places and read the distinctive myths and history in books I pick up from local museums. I listen to the news and keep current with rural issues … and I start to see how these things could intersect in a story. As I realise where the everyday and the supernatural might clash, I wonder how Dan might get involved. I ask myself what Dan could do to sort things out, and what might get in his way. That inevitably turns up surprises which carry the plot further along. At the moment I’m wondering what the ongoing bird flu crisis might mean for Dan’s girlfriend Fin and her family. 

There are certainly other things I could do. Writing from Dan’s first person viewpoint necessarily imposes limits on what can and can’t be in the particular tale I’m telling.  I’ve already got around that by writing a short story from Eleanor’s perspective. That was fun, as well as an opportunity to explore how Dan appears to others. I might well take another look at this world through other people’s eyes. Maybe more than once.

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

Since readers are enjoying the Green Man books, I’ll be writing another. At the moment I have a couple of ideas coming into focus, so between now and the end of the year I’ll be doing a fair bit of reading to see how those thoughts might intertwine. For a complete change of pace, I’ve written a steampunk novella that was published earlier this year; The Golden Rule, from Newcon Press. Next year I’ve got a feminist Arthurian novel coming out from Angry Robot, The Cleaving. I thoroughly enjoyed getting back to writing a sword and sorcery tale. 

There’s news on these books and a whole lot of other things on my website, julietemckenna.com. I’m on Twitter for the moment at least, on Mastodon and Facebook. Something I must do as social media gets ever more fractured and fractious is set up a newsletter.

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

This is Not a Game, by Walter Jon Williams. It’s an excellent thriller that keeps you guessing with twists and turns. You’ll be laughing at one minute, then dry-mouthed with apprehension a few pages later. The book and its sequels have a lot to say about our relationships with technology and with each other, online and IRL - not that you’ll necessarily notice that while you’re absorbed in finding out if Dagmar Shaw is going to get out of her current predicament. 

If you’re now even more booktempted the others in the series are: -

The Green Man's Heir by Juliet E McKenna — Runalong The Shelves

The Green Man’s Foe by Juliet E McKenna — Runalong The Shelves

The Green Man's Silence by Juliet E Mckenna — Runalong The Shelves

The Green Man's Challenge by Juliet E McKenna — Runalong The Shelves