Welcome to a pair of bookends, the book Club You Can Carry Anywhere.

I'm your host, Hannah mat Donald and I'll be bookend in the conversation with some of the most exciting voices from the bookish world today on the podcast.

I am delighted to be bringing back one of my favorite writers who just so happens to be one of my best friends.

Emma Hinds is a queer writer based in Manchester.

She has a master's degree in theology and the Arts from the University of Saint Andrew's.

Emma has written multiple pieces for theater and is the author of the well known fan fiction series The Heir to the House of Prince, which currently runs out over a million words and has received over a million hits.

Emma has written two historical novels for adults, The Knowing, which was published by Bedford Square in January last year, which was a Sunday Times historical fiction book of the Monk and received praise from The Guardian, Diva Magazine and Red Magazine, to name a few.

Their second adult novel, The Quick and the Dead, was published also by Bedford Square in January this year and was described by the Times as an exuberant novel for fans of the Gothic and the unlikely.

But what the hid to talk about today is their latest book, a ya fantasy novel that is your new romancy obsession, and that is a Witch Law, which is out now and published by Osborne in the UK and Wednesday Books in the US.

And here's Chatt all about it.

Hi, am you live here?

Now?

I sound quite good, don't I?

When you send me up like that?

I do sound quite good.

When you were like and it's described by them, Oh, I'd forgotten, so.

You face pick up when I said the Times quote we love to see it.

Yeah, I love it.

You know the drill before we dive into you in your book, I have to ask your least favorite question, but my favorite question, which is what are you currently reading?

If anything?

Oh?

Oh, I didn't prepare for.

I am I am.

I am reading the whole by Hiroko.

Or you Amanda Amazing And that is a really teeny tiny book that we picked up.

Yeah.

I love how I say I'm reading it, but really what I'm doing is like when I have breakfast in the morning, I'm reading it for like fifteen minutes and then putting it down.

But there's something wrong with that.

Yeah, but I could read it.

I could sit for an hour and I'd finish it, but you would.

Yeah, but also your brain is quite full at the moment.

It's quite full.

Nobody wants to live there.

It's an overcrowded neighborhood.

Yeah, it's a lot.

And I do want to ask you about this because I think it's honestly like I'm incomplete are review in how you've managed to juggle over the last couple of years writing your historical fiction for adults, and then you've also been writing ya fantasy, which is obviously where you've produced witch Law, and I just want to know how that has been.

Obviously, as your friend, I like a pretty good idea, but for the listeners, what has that been like to juggle all of that at once.

It's been pretty mad.

Yeah, it's been pretty mad.

I mean I can't really speak to like any other experience because this is the one I'm living.

But where of like other writers who debuted at the same time as me, are on a completely different timescale, and that comes with its pros and cons.

Like, I think there's benefits and bad things about both, So like to be like completely transparent.

The benefit is like financial So for everybody out there who's wondering how writers make money, predominantly.

When we're starting our careers, Like I've obviously been writing since for like ten years, but my career didn't really start kind of in the in this kind of mode that I'm in now, in the sense that I was over the tax bracket.

That's how we can measure it.

Did you have to legally play tax for your writing before twenty twenty four?

No, I did not.

And so like for writers at the stage of career that I'm at now, we only really make money on the front end, which means that we only make money when we sell something.

So we get like money when we sign, money when we submit a draft, money when we publish, and then like hopefully royalties will come in and all of that will build, like that's what you really hope for.

But yeah, at the moment, it's all on the front end.

So the pro about like having two books out in a year and that kind of situation is that there's it's more financial security.

The con is just just show so much less time than what other people might be playing with if they maybe have a book out once to one book out a year or one book out every eighteen months.

There's just there's much less time to kind of think and research and really be in a book.

And that's probably the biggest kind of challenge.

But also I don't know, We'll see there's a question like do I do I know any other way to be I.

Mean, I find it really like incredible because obviously you're in it.

You're in the trenches, you're you know, trying to produce all these words, and like you will be having creative brain that's going into meltdown when you've got all these deadlines coming at you, and like you know, you're probably not able to take as much time to enjoy it because you're like I need to get onto the next thing.

I need to get onto the next thing, like we all do as creatives.

Obviously you will have times where, like you launch party, you'll be having a good time.

But again it's like if you're engaging with readers of your work or whatever, it's still you know, it's still has that same intensity.

Whereas like from an outside perspective, knowing that there was a point in time where like you were just trying to like get an agent and you were just trying to get your work seene to now see that like you know, you've you're signing contracts for new exciting projects and you're you know, you've got three books out into the world.

Like it's just so like incredible to know that there was a period of time and I think for a lot of people out there that are just starting out, like that's a really hopeful thing to know that like there was.

This hasn't just like magically happened for you.

Yeah, yeah, it hasn't magically happened.

And I think like there's such a so there is and I'll always be the first to like say this is that there's a huge element of luck in like publishing.

There's also like there's always privilege like involved in it.

Like there's a privilege that I don't even really like see it in for in myself in the sense that I'm like a white person being published, Like just the numbers in terms of people of color are published compared to being a white person being published, Like I already know that there's like a there's an ease for me in coming into this world that there isn't going to be for other people.

Yeah.

Absolutely, And you know.

I'm also aware that like coming at it as a person who has like a chronic illness, like I wouldn't have been able to do this if I didn't have somebody who was financially supporting, like making rent, basically because I stopped being able to work.

As you know, but most people though probably don't know, is like I stopped being able to work in twenty eighteen because of my chronic illness, and I wouldn't have survived if I was married to somebody who could like take the reins and for so many And that's like the power of dual income, really, right, And that's the power of We've been I've been a relationship, a committed relationship since I was eighteen years old, So that's like years and years of that kind of stability that then allows me to, you know, be able to not work because I can't work, Like you know, there are people who have my illness who when they can't work, like it collapses their life, right, like all sorts of terrible things has happened and they lose like housing situations and all of that.

Like it's been really horrible being a writer having an illness.

But like I've been able to do it right, I've still had my house, and I've still had my life, and I've had my friends, and I've been able to access the medication that I need and things like that.

So like that's a level of privilege as well.

And they're like loads of people who everybody has a different thing, but the fact that, like the economy is so rough and life is so hard, Like it's hard enough just to like get words on paper or get in the headspace to write in this like partic universe right now.

And I'm dedicated to doing it every day.

It's my job.

But like for people who love to be creative and are like getting home at the end of a long day, Yeah, for everybody who's out there who's like wanting to write and wanting to be creative and things like that, it's I always want to be like you know what, there is there's a level of like it's not just that I worked hard, like I did work hard.

Yeah, I'm not undervaluating my work, but like there's I had help, right, Yeah, it's not that I'm a genius and lightning is drug.

I will argue that you are a genius.

Thank you support, but yeah, it's yeah, I get No, I get where you're coming from.

Yeah, I had support.

I had people in my corner pushing me up and fighting for me.

And and some of it is sheer luck, Like it's just complete luck that I sent a manuscript to an agency and the person I sent it to didn't want it, but passed it on to somebody else who became my agent.

Sheer luck.

But like, you know, having the people around me who encouraged me and kept me going through that process, Like that's you know, that's other people and support, and that's why, like community support is so important for creatives really.

And on that note of community, I think it's time to dive into your new book, Witch Law.

Yeah.

I know we kind of got up on like a little artist tangent bit.

We did.

But we love getting on our pedestals, don't we.

And I do think it's an important conversation to be having, Like you said, like the economy is shit and the arts is in a horrendous state, and the fact that you know, we have to rely on you know, it's only if you're in a position where you're able to rely on somebody else that's bringing in more money than you, you know, to support you as a creative, Like it's just a really bleak position to be in.

Really, Like, yes, there's a kind of privilege that comes into that.

But like, you know, if my boyfriend's like helping out with like food shopping because I can't afford it, because you know, even though I'm working multiple jobs, I can't make ends me Like, is that really a position of privilege that he's able to pay for the food shopping.

I don't know.

I don't.

I don't see it as that, Like I would prefer to have my own money to.

Yeah, no, I know exactly what you mean, and I feel the same like as a person who wasn't able to work.

Yeah, this is the year where I've like made my own money's significant enough to like be a contributor in the house from writing, and part of that is due to better health than some of that is like jobs and contracts and whatnot.

But like, yeah, at the time, it doesn't feel like a privilege to be like, oh, I have somebody looking after me, especially if like we're not talking neither of us are living lap of luxury.

We're talking like okay, somebody can cover the rent, and you're horrified all the time.

Yeah, yeah, literally, like if your car breaks down, you are terrified every time you go on the motorway because you're.

Yes, it's actually so funny to me the representation of Emma's and I'm doing quote marks here life of luxury now it is not sailing around the Amalfi Coast on a yacht.

It's like Emma used their advance on healthcare for the illness that they've been dealing with for years, and also fixing the shower that had been leaking for you.

Oh yeah, the shower was tragic.

I remember yours, be like I could fix the shower.

I know.

It's a beautiful time, but we do need to get onto your book because that's what you are here to promote.

And start by telling the listeners a bit about witch law and give us a little synopsis of it.

Least favorite thing.

Okay, sorry, it's all right.

So which law is about?

Called Lando, who is having a really terrible time.

They live in Manchester in modern day Manchester.

They go to school there.

They attend like College of Witchcraft.

They are a bad, bad shape shifter and a bad bad witch because they cannot do magic of any kind.

They can't even control their shape shifting powers, and they had that we were involved in a terrible tragedy the summer that the book starts, which resulted in the death of their girlfriend, Elizabeth.

And they returned to school in the autumn, and they are very unhappy and have been experiencing like episodes of suicidal ideation and that kind of thing, and are there a real outcast at school.

And then on the first day of term they meet a new student called Bastian who is transferred from a college in London, and Bastian tells Lando that there is a reservation spell that they could use to resurrect Elizabeth, and all they would need to do is steal a book and it goes from there.

Basically, they get into all sorts of shenanigans.

They travel all over the Northwest, and yeah, it's a love story, but it's also a story about recovery and identity and finding yourself in grief and learning to forgive yourself.

And it's also, I hope, quite funny.

I wanted it to be quite funny.

I mean it is, and I think, I mean, you know how much a love You're right, and I'm always telling you this, but I feel like it was a really like fun adventure novel whilst also exploring like, you know, some dark and heavy themes and topics, but you still somehow manage to make it like fun and funny and you know, an enjoyable read.

Like I didn't feel drugged down at any point.

I mean me and you love like dark fiction anyway, So I don't know, but.

Yeah, it's as it was very different to write a book for young people, specifically a book for adults, but I very much had a certain type of young person in mind, which is kind of like young person I was, but also the young the kind of young person who I used to work with, who are like, have a really dark, funny sense of humor, who make a lot of like suicide jokes and kind of edgy and a little bit pretty and feel like they're on the outside looking in.

And that's kind of the young person that I had in mind when I wrote it, and particularly young people perhaps who are either like struggling with their own mental health or like struggling my own queer identity or gender identity, because that's a big part of Lando's journey is coming to a sense of like self acceptance about who they are and how they exist in the universe.

So yeah, but I hope the jokes are good.

They are.

What would you say, you know, because it obviously is your first time writing a YA what would you say the things were that were important to you when writing for a YA audience?

Like, were the specific things that you had in mind?

Yeah, so I I've always wanted to be a writer since I was a kid, but I would say that like it formed into like a real possibility of that actually being a job that people did because I don't know.

I think when I was a child, I sort of thought that writers will ordain to like priests, do you know what I mean, somebody else chose them.

Yes, you got to do it.

And it was only when I became like a young teenager that I really realized, oh, like, no people choose to do that.

I could choose to do this and it wasn't like necessarily a a career path that was particularly like illuminated for for me as a person, Like we didn't I didn't know anybody like there are people who know people who've grown up being right.

That's something that I think is really fun for me now as like an aunt and like a godparent is knowing that, like the kids in my life will grow up knowing somebody who's a writer.

That makes me really happy.

But like I didn't know anybody who was, Like it was like the twelve degrees of separation was beyond.

It was like a million degrees, right, But I knew I wanted to be one and and I just like I really carried this desire to write books for people like me because I struggled a lot as a young person with my mental health and it was untreated, and those were really dark periods of my adolescence and for me, like books were such a light in that time.

And when I read, and I read something new, and it felt like somebody was speaking to me about the problems that I was facing in my life.

It's like they were they were saying that I wasn't alone.

So I think I've always carried that kind of desire from that period of my life, and this was a chance to kind of fulfill it, to be like, you know what, I'm going to write the book for the young person that I was right, going to write the book that I needed when I was fourteen, kind of the book that I didn't know I needed, or fifteen or sixteen or whatever, and really kind of connect that, and I think it's a book that I probably have been trying to write since I was a teenager, maybe, like I wrote a lot of fantasy stuff when I was a teenager, Like so bad, just torturous.

Would say it?

Would you say it was fantasy books?

That were the books you speaking about?

Books that you needed?

Did you find those books that you needed?

And was it were those books fantasy or was it that you needed to end up writing this for yourself for your pastself?

Yeah, I think I found things that I needed in different places.

So I didn't read it like a lot of queer literature when I was young.

I think that would have been very, very taboo in the culture that I grew up in.

But I do remember reading The Color Purple and that being like a big deal.

We read it at school and that made a really big impression on me in terms of like, oh, there are lesbians, they exist.

Yeah, And I think in terms of yeah, I did read a lot of fantasy when I was a young teenager, people like Pullman and Holly Black, But yeah, I also read when I was very young, like Jacqueline Wilson and all of her books, and I think some of her stuff that was about mental health really stuck with me, particularly like Illustrated Mum.

But I've really identified with Marry Gold as a teenager.

It helped me to know that other people felt the way that I felt on the inside that kind urged that she has to self destruct.

So I don't know if I found everything that I was looking for.

And I think that's part of why, because I wrote all the way through my teens, so I was always writing stories and books, and they were usually books about terribly depressed teenagers.

So I think I was also writing what I needed.

And this is kind of like we got to the eventual point where which law has kind of been able to pull everything together.

Yeah, I wanted, And I mean, you've done an incredible job of exploring that experience, and I do wonder how it was for you stepping back into that kind of young person's perspective, because I think we do often forget what that was, Like, I mean, you know, might think back and traumatize ourselves.

But I don't really have a problem with it.

Like I it's something that somebody one of my other friends says to me, is like, oh, you write teenagers, so well, you're so good at and like because like one of my narrators in my fan Fix series is two of my narrators in my Family fan Fix series are like sixteen and seventeen, so like I've spent a lot of time in their heads.

But also I have majority like written young characters, Like the Knowing Floor is seventeen.

Yeah, it's my protagonist in The Knowing and the Quick and the Dead Hit is like only nineteen, in which law Lando and Bastion are sort of like like eighteen, nineteen years old.

So I think actually a big part of my writings so far has been about like revisiting those experiences and sort of giving them voice and writing them out.

And yeah, I think it will be.

It won't be this book and my next adult book unfortunately, or my next Ya book, but I'm looking forward to a time where I can write somebody like in their thirties, like we quite nice.

I thought you were going to say I can write someone that's happy or something.

Oh no, that's probably never happened.

Yeah no, it wasn't like it wasn't like it was scarring or anything.

To Also, you know, Lando's there's there is a lot of like Lando's feelings that I've experienced, but they're not all exclusive to my own teenage experience.

So like all of the stuff about grief that kind of comes from my adult experiences, some of my adult experiences with grief, and like the gender dysphoria stuff that's like maybe from older parts of my life.

Like, so it's it's not like, yeah, it's not like it was a traumatic experience to bring Lando's history to life.

And I think writing teenagers are quite fun because they are so unruly and selfish, and I like that it's fun to be in the head.

And sometimes in edits, we did run up into this thing of like Lando's unlikable, and I was.

Like, well, yeah, yeah, they are, like they're going through a lot.

Yeah, anybody with the best will in the world struggles to like go through something really hard and not be a jackass occasionally.

Yeah, But like if you are a teenager with like no emotional support, which is those experience because they are magically isolated, you know, of course you're going to be a bit of a turd.

I mean, yeah, I was thinking, like Lando is like this really spiky character, and you know, but they have been going through it, like they've had their fair share of like trauma that it's kind of like, well fair enough, like you would be, wouldn't you.

And I do want to ask about their relationship with their parents, because I think your relationships with your parents are like it's your most formative relationship and it can have a real impact on you.

You know how you're raised, how your parents speak to you, how you engage with each other, you know what that dynamic is, like, what the household feels like, and also you know whether you're accepted as you are.

And I think all of those things are really interesting to look at in terms of I certainly look back now at like what my household was like and how that's affected me.

Now, could you tell us a little bit about creating the dynamic that Lando has with their parents and how that might affect the way they are now.

Yeah, I mean, I'll be honest, Like in the first draft, there were no parents.

Oh really, well, yeah, there were no parents and like the very very first draft, and then I kind of had to reckon with Yeah, they probably need more of a backstory as to like what is going on?

What were they were they like an orphan?

Like what was the they just were absent, like Lando's parents are absent.

Yes, that's kind of the point of them is that they are not neglect full material in a material sense, and neither are Bastian's parents.

But both Lando and Bastian experience different types of like emotional neglect from their parents, and in Lando's case, I'd say it's probably more extreme because their parents, both like Lando's parents, have frustrations with Lando because firstly because they're not shaped appropriately and then also because they are not gender conforming in the way that they want them to be.

So that produces a lot of trauma in Lando in feeling of like always their parents of wanting them to change and they don't accept them how they are, and their memories of their home life are that they were kind of a prisoner in this situation that they couldn't get out of unless they unless they kind of conformed or tried to conform, and in some cases they were just not able to conform at all.

And originally I just I had that as part of who Lando was, but I wasn't didn't really have it on the page.

And then my agent at the time, Philippa Milne Smith, who used to work at SOHO was just kind of like, yeah, we need to actually like see the parents, you have to them on the page.

So I added in like some memories, but also there's actual moments with both Bastian's dad and Lando's mum which were kind of interested to bring to the page.

I think with BASTIONI it was really important that it was his dad rather than his mom who was the most absent.

Some of that was like a little bit of like a racial dynamic and not wanting to play into a stereotype.

Yeah, but also to do with like highlighting how Bastion connects to like his own sense of like manhood and masculinity through magic, because Bastian's father has like rejected magic completely.

With Lando's mom, I think the reason I wanted to put the mom on the page on and the dad is their dad is inherently like a very powerful and authoritative figure, whereas their mom her authority comes from like her beauty and her charm in a way, like when she meets Bastian, he's immediately charmed by her, like it's almost like he can't help it.

And I wanted to highlight how that experience can be for a young person who has like a charismatic parent behaves a different way in public than they do in private, and how it can feel when you kind of clash in those situations.

I think very often a child feels like they are being shown up to be unruly, truculent or disobedient or rude or unpleasant, but really they're responding to who the parent truly is rather than responding to the charm of the moment.

And I feel like that's a very specific childhood and teenage experience that comes from having to live in a house with a person who's paving a certain way.

And so I wanted to get that moment on the page where like Lando pushes back against their mum and feels all of that kind of like social awkwardness.

It's not about this moment, but if you just look at it that at this moment, it looks like Lando is just being rude or unpleasant.

So, yeah, they ended up in the book, and I think it's better that they are there.

Probably, Yeah, No, And I do think it tells you a lot about a person.

And I think, you know, the first time Bastian watches that dynamic playing out, and I think for both of them when they go into those homes and see that dynamic, They're both like, oh, Okay, this is why they are.

You know, this is maybe contributed to why they are the way they are.

And I do always think that's an interesting thing to find out about person.

And there's also a moment where Lando is asking this is separate from the parent thing, but when Lando is asking Bastian about because both Bastian and Lando have experienced some form of loss, and Lando's asking BASTIONI about their loss, and they're asking how somebody takes their tea or coffee and how that can really like tell you a lot about a person.

And I think it's those details that are just really interesting to find out about somebody because it can tell you so much.

And I know that there's a drastic difference between how you were brought up by your parents how you might take your bro but I do think those details are important.

Yeah, And I think the reason I think I put that in there is that details about like how is another way of like memorializing people who are lost as well, is that we like take small habits of theirs and and really like cling to them or or want to remember how they did that certain things.

Yeah, and to me, like a cup of tea or a cup of coffee is one of those things.

And I think that's probably just like comes from my own experience with like my grandparents and how they the way that they drank tea is like so specific to them, and it's like a night.

It's a way of like you sent me that thing.

We talked about it.

The passage in that book that's all about like how you love someone is like how you remember the things about them?

And I think that's what it's really about, is like Lando asking Bastion, Like this question about how someone has taken their tea or their coffee is really like like how how how do you love them?

Like how I've loved them if they existed, like or how would you show love to you?

You're asking that kind of question, which is really kind question to ask when somebody's gone.

I think it is a really like, you know, nice question to ask and really thoughtful because I think often when you meet somebody and they've lost somebody and they're speaking about it, it's often the question of like, oh, well, how how did they die?

And not like you know, how did they live?

Rather like is the more.

It's the the question that you want to answer is what weoure they like whilst they were living, rather than you know how it's not the awful stuff that you want to get into, do you know what I mean?

You don't get the opportunity to to speak about the way that person lived anymore.

So I do think it's a nice gift that Lando sort of gives Sebastian, is the opportunity to give those details.

And I do want to ask you a bit more about grief and sort of how that came to be such an important theme in the book, But I don't know how much you can say without it being spoiler territory.

Well, I think it's okay to say, like it's a book about grief because like a character dies in the prologue.

Yes, and by the way, the first line is the day she dies is beautiful.

Yes, exactly, so like people, it's not a spoiler.

Yeah.

I think grief can be like such an isolating experience, even going through it with people who loved in the same way that you did.

And I think loss is something that's particular I was interested in this in like exploring loss in teenage years, particularly because part of that comes from when I was at school, we had like a couple of deaths, and it is a bizarre thing when a school aged person dies quite suddenly or tragically, because it's like everything still goes on, like you have to you still have to go to school, you still have to put on your uniform, and you know all of the like world still turns and you kind of it's different in a way to an adult experience where maybe you have a little bit more agency and adulthood, you can you can make changes about your life.

But even if you've entirely changed as a person in your teenage years, you can't be like, you know what, this loss has really changed me.

So I think I'm going to pack up and move to Australia.

Do you know what I mean?

You're stuck in being a teenager.

And that's something that I wanted to write about, that kind of place of isolation and then finding somebody who helps you understand your own isolation.

And Lando's journey is a journey of like realizing, oh, I've actually been quite broken for a really long time.

I didn't realize how broken I was.

And here's somebody who is shining light on that and it's uncomfortable, but it's also making me feel seen for the first time in my life, which I think is a very true process.

And it speaks to me as well to the unique thing of being a teenager when someone kind of like builds the world for you, kind of living it together in a new way that you didn't realize you could do before.

And I think I had a lot of experiences like that as a teenager, where I would meet somebody and they became my whole world very quickly, and I wanted to capture some of that.

And I don't know if it's unique to being a teenager, but it was unique to my teenagers.

But I do think there is something unique about not necessarily unique.

It is quite a universal versaal thing, like finding love for the first time.

Is that what you mean?

Yeah, I think, But it's more than love.

It's like being seen and finding.

Yeah, yeah, it's not.

It's I always think it's like when somebody completely opens the world up for you, yes, that you never have had before, And I think that's it is part of that is love, But it can also happen like in friendships or family relationships or anything like that.

But in this book.

It happens like through romance.

Yeah, yeah, and it is a beautiful little romance that happens.

I wrote a romance, but even you, I mean you, you did write a romance, but you also you know, it was all your usual.

It was your usual style of why is everything so hard?

Let them just be happy and run off into the sunset.

And I was like, no, never, not going to happen.

I love to write angst like I love to write an It's my favorite thing.

And like, yeah, I written nearly two million words of fanfic or just on angst alone, empowered by it.

I just love it.

I think it makes the being so much more worth it.

Yeah, although I'm not above just leaving an angsty ending, you know, I loved that.

I'd be like happy to swim and angst from beginning to end.

It would, yeah, be quite happy for like is to think they're going to live happily ever after and then throw them off a cliff at the last minute.

Like I do love those kind of books, though, you know I did.

I did wonder when they went to the edge.

I was like, where are we going here?

Such a dark reading, Hannah.

Only you, because.

I've known you you've done to my character exactly.

You're just like, where are the stones?

You bring out the stones and stone someone to you.

No, it was it is for me a very very happy ending, and yeah, it's it's it's a different set of skills.

I think, a convincing happy ending.

Yeah, and in a way that's not so saccering that it's it's I think it has to feel earned, and it has to feel like they've really worked very hard to get there.

So making your courages work so hard, I just it's not.

I mean, I I don't.

Yeah, it's I guess it's just not my skill set.

I think there are people out there who can write books where everything's easy, but I'm probably not want I.

Don't skill set.

I think it does make it more interesting to read, but I just know going into it that I have to mentally prepare myself that you might destroy me, not mentally emotionally.

That was another thing that I really liked about writing for young people is that, like young people are very high stakes.

Yeah.

Yeah, Like your first love is like a great love, and like you have no sense of perspective on it, so you can't like go forward twenty years and learn that like everything's going to be okay and everything's to change.

Like the torture that you feel in being bullied age fourteen or fifteen is so intense and deep, and your first heartbreak is so intense, and your first experience of like somebody dying, even if it's not somebody that you love very much, like in the way that Lando was in love with Elizabeth.

It's so powerful.

And I wanted to spend some time in those places because it's kind of like a rare privilege really because the older character gets the less reason they have to be so drum like such drama queens really basically yeah, and I love the drama, Like the teenage drama is so much fun, and they are silly and they do make sweeping generalizations and they feel everything really deeply, but also lots of really bad shit does happen to them, So you.

Do write their love story so well.

And I think or write like like teenagers love high stakes, still have drama, Like I've been there, and you know, first love and falling in love and you know, unrequited love for things that I experienced and you know, thought I was like living out the most devastating heartbreak ever because somebody didn't want to be with my boyfriend.

Those important moments to hold on to.

I'm just there are there are different ways of writing this type of book, I think, But for me, I'm very much a person where I'm like I want my main characters to be in deathly peril like kind of every third chapter, right, you know, like want of the stakes to be really high.

So that's what we have in which law is that you know, there's the spell book, but then there's all of these magical creatures that they have to deal with, and so like every third chapter or so, they're like meeting a new different type of deadly magical creature and having that and like that for me is like where the real fun is.

Because when you throw like fantasy characters into a life or death situation, and that gives them like permission to open up in different ways, and it also gives them like permission to touch is the other thing.

So like you're trying to say somebody's life, like, oh, you might grab them by the hand and or you might like throw yourself against them and in bodily form to roll down a hill to stay from something that's coming.

All of that like physicality.

At the start of the book, they are essentially strangers.

Like every time that they risk of their lives together, they are physically getting more comfortable with each other.

Yeah, and that's always I think that's really fun and it's always like a lovely little challenge to write of, like how are they gonna, you know, get to know one another, don't get closer together whilst also maintaining their emotion boundaries and their emotional distances.

And the I think the the intimacy of magic was a really sort of exciting thing to be because you obviously know the feeling of when somebody first touched your hand or and like their knee like goes near yours when you sit down next to each other, and you know, like all the buzz around that.

But I think for these characters, because you know they're involved in the world of magic, it's like those sorts of things when they first come into their dynamic become like a I don't know, it's an extra layer of excitement for them.

And I do want to get more into the magic aspect of things, because fantasy isn't obviously my usual language, and it's not something that I've read a ton of but I wondered what it was like to build these magic systems in the world of Witch Law and creating those spells.

Could you tell us a bit about that.

Yeah, so, well, the thing that you mentioned earlier was like their magical like there's a sense of magical connection between them builds throughout.

I realized as I was saying it, I started backtracking because I panics and was like, is that a spoiler?

I don't know.

It's like we don't don't about it, but I think the idea of like, yeah, this idea of like magical connection being kind of like a metaphor for like what we experience as humans when we connect with another person is something that I'm always interested in.

I've realized, like I probably realized in writing the second book in the s Witual world that like it's something that I'm not quite like done with yet, but it's like a huge part of my my fanfic explorations, like an original detail that I brought to that world, which I've kind of like then brought over to Which Law even just in the way that like so for in in the Air to the House of Prince, there's like the colors of the like two of the main characters magic they correspond with the colors of the magic of the characters in which Law just as like a little way of like giving a nod to like my Prince readers, who, like, you know, they've been part of this commun Like I've been writing that that fit for like since twenty twenty one, so like it's something that I hope honors the fact that those people have put like a lot of investment into me, Like they've given me a lot of support and love, and now hopefully there's like a story they can actually buy of mine that also like has a little hint to like how it's been part of my journey.

But yeah, magical connectivity between two people is something that I'm always really interested in exploring because I think it's just such a fun fun thing to look at human connection through in building like which Law as this world for me, it's kind of like it's magical realism.

So it's not high fantasy.

It doesn't need a map.

Thank god.

I'm not a map person and I'm not like shading map book.

Okay, I understand it.

I just I was I was really bad at DV in school, right, anything that involved orienteering and I don't know how to use a compass, I don't know how to read the map well, and like I'm sick of.

Being judged for it.

Basically it's so fair.

So I'm never going to write a high fantasy never ever, ever, And so I like to stay in magical realism.

And so the Manchester the it's kind of like an alternate reality.

So the world that I've created is identical to ours.

Well, it's not identical to ours, but a lot of the features of it are the same aside from this key component of it's an obsession of mine and it always will be, which is like the witch trials, Yeah, like the sixteen hundreds, and it's basically it's a history of witchcraft that's based on this idea of so if we what if witchcraft was real?

And then in the sixty hundreds, when the witch trials happened, loads of those witches were killed out, and essentially witchcraft just became like this minor religion, and that like all of the power was lost, nearly all of the powers lost, all of the spell books, all of the resources.

It was essentially like a witch genocide that happened.

And now in twenty twenty one when the book is set, witches are just kind of like how we today view modern Wiccans, which is like it's a religion, but it's basically ineffective and magic is not as interesting or as useful or compelling to us as science, which makes a lot of sense to me as a person who was brought up very religious in a community that had a strong belief in miracles and the gifts of it.

So I kind of but like, my reality now living in this secular world is most people are like, well, miracles don't happen.

Things that do happen are just kind of weird, like whatever.

So it was kind of taking that mode of the relationship between those two things that like, that's how people in the world of witch law non in which people will view witchcraft.

They'll view it as a kind of silly religion that has some beliefs and produces a few sparkles, but like it's not going to change your life or important science.

And then under the surface of that world, I wanted to have a deeper power that's hidden, which is like magical creatures, so that includes shape shifters and then basically anything that's ever happened in British folklore.

Ever, I'm like, it's real, that's real.

That's real in this world.

So anything that's happened is real.

I didn't know.

Sorry, I didn't know about is it Bogarts?

How do you say that?

I didn't know that that was like a mythical creature that was specific to Northern England.

Yeah, I didn't know that.

Well, I actually get them in lots of places, so they there's Boggot myths all over I'm pretty sure they're all over the UK.

And also there's a different you get different versions of them all over the world basically, and yeah, so, but there is a specific one in bog At whole Cloth, which is so I have an amazing Reader's Digest book which is Folklore of Great Britain and Ireland, and like I course you do.

Have read it back from nobody surprised, and.

It's so great because it like goes through it county by county.

So just like reading the Northwest bits and like being like which bits do I want to put in?

Which creatures do I want to put in?

Which do I want to put in?

So everything that appears in which law is a myth or a legend that is associated with the Northwest, so like the Black Shock of Manchester Cathedral, that's a real haunting story from the nineteen hundreds, well from the eighteen hundreds, fish late eighteen hundreds, and yeah, everything is like connected.

That's why the Wizard's Cave at Orderly Edge like features is such a central part of the book because that is a kind of intensely northern magical location.

So many other fantasy authors have written about it kind of included it in different ways in their work, so it just felt right that it needed to be included in mine.

And it has lots of myths and legends associated with it full stop anyway, so it's such a Yeah, like the island that we live on has such a tremendously rich culture and folklore history.

I just wanted to include as much of it as I could.

So it's just tremendously fun because it's just got to be like, what do I want to make real?

Everything?

Yeah, pretty much everything, And it gives me so much potential moving forward in the world because like, I can make anything real that I want to make real.

The rule is it just like has to be connected to me to like the land in some way.

And we know how much you love your research, so oh, yeah for it.

I just realized that I'd never even asked about the fact that Lando is a shape shifter and why it was that experience specifically that you wanted to explore, because I think I don't know if I've ever read about a shape shifter.

So this is to be blamed on.

My friend, who is an artist in the United States goes by the Instagram tag a Love Unlaced.

You can find their work online it is Selsey so NSFW.

But they were complaining they read so much paranormal and fantasy romance, and they were complaining about the lack of like non binary shape shift representation in fantasy literature, and I was sort of like, feels like we can do something about that.

Feels like that's possible to tackle, and that's all like, it's not that they then were like, oh, this is the book that I want you to write, blah blah blah.

This book is very different to anything that they maybe would have wanted if if they knew that I was going to be like writing a book off something that they said, yeah, but it's it also just fit really well with what I wanted to achieve in a story like I knew that my main goal was, like teenager was depressed, wanders into a world of like magic and fantasy and gets like gets caught up and doesn't feel like they fit in, and then it just, yeah, it made sense to use shape shifting and to like develop a society where there's there's still kind of I think sometimes we think magic societies would fix everything, you know, is that there's that kind of feeling.

And there's a lot of also fantasy literature that focuses on like the the prejudice between like magic people and non magic people, Right, that's common, But I wanted something that looked at levels of prejudice within a magical society out separate from humans, and so incorporating shape shifters gave me that opportunity.

But also, like, shape shifting is a big part of folkloric stuff, Like there are so many tales that incorporate the changing of form or the shifting the idea of somebody a creature that looks like somebody that you think you know and is actually an important a devil trying to get hold of you or doing something like that, Like, there are so many folklore stories like that, so I felt like shape shifting is an integral part of like how we understand ourselves through folklore and the kind of stories that we tell, so and it was just yeah, I just tried it and it worked and I stuck with it, and now.

We have it.

I thought it was it was really fun to read because I, like I said, I've not read Yeah, I don't think I think I can converletely say I haven't read the perspective of a shape shifter before.

I didn't think I've read anything about a shape shifter, so that was completely new to me.

And I think, like, I've read so much about like witches and about like you know that being fantasy or whether it be about like the Witch Trials specifically, I've read so much about that, but like nothing on shape shifters.

So I think that was a really interesting thing to read.

And also reading it from the perspective of like a non binary person and all the sort of issues that might come out not only in the how they're treated in the world of magic, but also how they're treated in their own kind of personal life outside of the magic world.

I feel like is carefully so that I don't spoil anything but I think.

I think something that I liked about exploring it was like Lando's unique experience of gender dysphoria and what they experience as a person in that situation.

But like, there there would be it's very specific to them, you know, there would be like another kind of person who's non binary who maybe would like flourish with the kind of powers that they have.

But Lando can't use their powers, right, so they feel constantly stuck and constantly misgendered and misunderstood because they don't have any control over their own body.

And that was sort of important for me to put in the narrative is that they're not this incredibly competent, magical person who has this power at their disposal and can do all of these crazy cool things.

They really can't do anything, Like they can't do even the simplest of spells, and so they're kind of handicapped in the narrative, right, And that was the story that I sort of wanted to tell, is about powerlessness really and the feeling of like emotional helplessness but also being like disconnected from the structures around you that give you power.

So, yeah, there was something that I wanted to explore.

See you know, I was going to love the representation of Manchester in that I loved all the touch points and how much of a a visual reading experience it became.

Because you know, there's places that for anybody that knows and loves Manchester like we do, you know, it's our home city, like you know's there's places that you just give so many nods to, you know, our favorite coffee shop, shout out Ezra girl, we love it, but and this is called Ezra's.

And we have the John Rylands Library which is a beautiful place.

But you just give like so many like Stevenson Square, like just so many places that like we've walked around or walk past or been in and it was just so nice to see all of that.

Was it always going to be a Manchester Yeah?

I mean, let's be honest, like so much British magical fantasy can be centered around London and there are people who are most fiction.

Full stop, yeah UK based.

There are people who are doing like versions of it and stuff like this, Like it's so cool that like Juno Dawson's Her Majesty's Secret Coven, like like that has Manchester in it, has hebden Bridge in.

It, like, oh, I didn't know that.

Yeah, but it does.

You know, still have London moments and things like that, but like it's much more diverse.

But part of that is just that there are key players in the game for the last twenty years who have been produced very London centric.

Yeah books, but that's you know, that's just what happens.

And I think it's just hopefully it just makes people kind of want to hang out in Manchester, like it's a fun place.

It's so much fun.

And the fact that like all of this folklaw is just so close to us.

It's like right on our doorsteps on it's under the streets that we walk in.

Like there was so much Manchester folklore that I didn't have a space to include, Like I really had to think.

I was like, I know, I want something.

I wanted something to happen just outside the city.

So that was like a Fallowfield kind of moment.

I wanted something to happen in the city.

I knew I wanted something to happen on coast, like because I needed them to go away for a night and come back, and I knew I wanted to use the Wizard's Cave at Oldly Edge so like I had like these dots and I needed like a Manchester moment, and it was so hard to choose like what folklore story I wanted to like engage with and bring into the story for all that, because there's just so much.

There's so many like cool hauntings and ghost stories and so much in Manchester that's connected to magic.

And I mean I've written Manchester magic into the Cook and the Dead because with John d who was like in Manchester, and it's just there's just so much that I could have used.

And I had so much fun pulling it all in.

And it was really funny when Dell, who was like one of the first people who read it, read it, they were kind of like, do you walk up Deansgate from like from from some Peter Square to the John Rylance would you say that you walk up?

It?

Would that I walk up Deansgate to get to the John Rylands from some Peter Square.

We have like the whole conversation about when the world up because it is flat, but like do you go up with it?

Was just like I would say that it was really fun to kind of put all of these like little bits in and yeah, even just in some of the lily, really silly things, Like it was really important to me to like talk about the ginkgo cheese in Stephenson Square because like in autumn they produce these beautiful yellow cut leaves all over the square.

Yeah, or just and I wanted to like have a moment where they're in sant Anne's Square with the tulip fountain because like that's such a nice place to sit and be, and I like have a reference to like the Emmeline Pankhurst statue, yes, and the Reading Girls statue at the at the Central Reference Library, and just like all of those places.

I really wanted it to feel as much and lived in loved City as any kind of like description of like London.

You know.

Yeah, I did think when they go into Deumdark College and they get into the Lift, the lift reminded me of the Lift Hotel.

As it is is based on.

Oh my god, I knew it.

I knew it.

I wondered when someone was going to get that.

So like is like physically in place kind of opposite nearly opposite Ezra and Gill where those studios used to be.

Well yees, they're no longer that.

So that's like the physical place of it, but the actual building is the home mill building.

Oh my god.

Yeah.

As soon as they said about pulling the I was like, that is the Anyone that has been in that lift.

Will know, yes.

And also the stone, the stone circles, and then like the common room is based on that top room.

It is such a gorgeous building, isn't it.

Like it's freezing cold and it's like a death trap in that lift and on those stairs.

But you can totally see it being like the perfect place for a magic college.

Like yeah, exactly.

So it's like it's.

Like that building but placed over by it.

Got you move that factory?

O god, I'd obsessed.

I do want to say that Carl Lord is a.

Content, yes, yes, that's fair.

Not a fan of that.

I think for.

Any like ya book, I think bullying and like school and the like inviting of teenage communities is something that you do like.

It does feel like something that slides in quite easy, is like, especially because it is very much like a college book.

So I really wanted there to be as much as there's a villain in this book, and I don't think there is like a straight villain.

He's just kind of like an ordinary dickhead.

But I wanted that experience to be on the page that like, one of the worst things about being a teenagers is you just have to go to school with complete cunts and you have no about it and you can't get away from them.

Is it's kind of the same as like going to work maybe in adulthood, but I don't know, I think that's not specific about the teenage experience that is uniquely annoy you.

Yeah, I don't miss that whatsoever, having to deal with horrible, nasty people and walking into a room and immediately being like they're in there feeling really on edge and you know, watching everything you do and say whilst they're about Oh my god, the thought of it is just awful.

So yeah, I did not like him.

I did get very excited about Beryl's cat, mister Pebbles, based on that because you wrote mister Pebbles is not a cat, he is a demon, and I immediately was like, Scout.

Yes, this this, this cat that currently looks so angelic on the camera is the demon on which mister Pebbles is based.

And also Bastion's dog, Renee, is based on our friend Sam and Laura's dog Emmy.

Yes, I did think so just I was just.

I think I was just lazy at that point.

I think it's lazy.

I'm not going to think of a new pet.

Are you kidding me?

It's going to that I like or don't like Scout like excuse me, yeah.

Not the vegan baby bells?

What was Lando thinking?

So many people would like made this?

Like people love that scene.

I don't want to spoil it, but it involves a bottle and yeah, it's just so it just makes people laugh.

I also got like an Instagram message of somebody being like repping the Unicorn grocery in Chilton, and they had like a Unicorn tote bag, which was like like loving the representation of the Unicorn grocery, which is, yeah, so Unicorn is a it's a vegan supermarket in Chilton, and that's where I.

Mean, you are are dairy free diva, so of course you would know about that.

Yeah, yeah, I got in like a little tears actually because like the place where Lando and Basting go on their first day in Chilton is called Barrio and I used to go out all the time for coffee, but it like closed down after the pandemic.

I think and now it's no longer that.

I was like, oh no, I'm going to have to change it.

And then I was like that the Mexican place, Yeah, oh my god.

Me and buy went there for food and loved it.

I didn't know it had closed down.

Well maybe I did.

I don't know.

Maybe I've been somewhere since and just not realized that it's not there anymore.

Very sad.

What is your You've written your editing.

I'm editing second ya book now.

Yes, but I've been told I can tell you all about it.

Yes, what can you tell us?

Okay, very excited.

The second book is what we call an equal, not a sequel.

Yeah.

So it's set in the same world as Witch Law.

So the title we need to reveal, a big reveal.

Okay.

The title of your second book is.

Nightcurse.

Yeah, and I'm very excited about it.

It's set in a magical library in the Peak District, and it is there are it's the same magical world.

So there's still witches and shape shifters and all of that, but this is the main character is a very particular kind of magical creature called a revenant, who are the undead.

So it's about an undead teenager and their life at a magical library in the Peak district, and there's lots of drama.

There's much drama it is.

Yeah, we're really excited about it.

It's the vibes are dark, academia, enemies to lovers.

That's where we're were living.

I can't Also in the North there's a Manchester scene.

There's a scene at Whales.

So yeah, oh my god, I actually can't wait.

Exclusive.

Yeah, I can't wait for that.

And I'm really excited that you got me reading more ya because I definitely don't read much of it at all.

And this was just really nice and really fun.

Like I said before, although there was you know, the themes of grief and loss and mental health and all the good stuff that we love, you know, it is.

It was a really fun, adventurous novel.

And I loved gallivanting around Manchester with Lando and Bastion.

That's why I love them so much.

When people are like, how do you summarize it, I'm like gay teens running around Manchester doing magic, Like that's the vibes.

We just wanted to be like.

That synopsis earlier.

Yeah, it's fun and I think I hope that it's fun for everybody, whatever age they're reading out.

I really enjoyed seeing that, like so many parents who are like thinking about reading it with like their young people are enjoying it and stuff like that, and that means a lot.

And yeah and yeah, just really excited for people to meet the characters in the next one.

Can't wait, and everyone go grab yourselves a copy.

I will be popping a link in the show notes for both UK and US listeners.

That is the only place it's available at the moment, isn't it.

Yeah, so it's UK and US and would make perfect Christmas breads, and I feel.

I agree, I would absolutely agree, And yeah, go buy sells a copy, guys, and come and tell us what you think.

We'd love to hear from you before I let you go.

M I do this is going to throw you into turmoil.

I do like to finish by asking for a recommendation.

What kind of recommendation.

It can be anything, books, TV, film, music, anything goes.

Okay, Well, I'm just gonna go off the cup.

I just watched the Knives Out movie last night at the cinema, and how was it?

I had a tremendously fun time Josh O'Connor was killing it.

I had O'Connor.

Yeah, yeah, I'm so so here for it.

And yeah, and for anyone who's looking for like Christmas presents for book Christmas presents for kind of middle grade readers, I would like to recommend my pal who is also working in the children's space, which is Ashley Thought who we love Ashley.

Yeah, second book, Spirit Warriors, came out this year.

His first book, The Boy Who Beat the Gods, was also great, and yeah they are.

They're great store, great adventure stories for anybody who's kind of reading at the middle grade kind of age and loves a fantasy adventure.

We love to see it back in the listeners.

Find you online, Emma.

You can find me mostly on.

Instagram at elphlf reads.

I also tumble so you can find.

Me on Tumbler at ELpH thirteen.

Even also find me on AO three on that same name, and yeah, that's me, but that's where I am.

I'm on Instagram, I'm on tumble, I'm on IO three.

And your books are all available in all good bookshops.

Knowing the Quick and the Dead and Which Thaw.

If you can, please do support your local bookshops, especially at this time of year.

We would love it if you did that.

If you're not one of your favorite indies.

All time.

Okay, so my favorite indies that you can order from wherever you are in the country.

You can get all of my books from queer Lette or a Manchester bookshop, but you can order from the online as well.

I also love Serenity Books in Stockport.

They are fantastic and tomorrow night I am going to the Wonderful Wave of Nostalgia bookshop in Haworth to talk about which Law there, so we'll give them a little shout out as well.

But we love the indies everywhere everywhere.

We definitely do.

This has been a joy.

It's always a joy to talk to you.

My life brighter.

I love you so much and I love your books and getting to what you go from strength to strength.

It's not so cringe, but you really are killing it and I'm so proud of you, and I love that I get to be your little cheerleader pocket.

Pocket sized publicy exactly.

I am at least strangling the things until they pass out.

So it's like.

We're never going to shut up if we carry on.

So thanks everyone for listening, Go grab a copy of Witch Law and go give them a follow.

And if you enjoyed this episode, please don't get to review and subscribe.

And if you want to give us a follow, you can do so at paraplens pod on Instagram and at Paraplekens on Twitter and TikTok.

You can also hear more of me and Emma chatting absolute shit over on patreons.

We do talk a lot of rubbish on there, but we love it and you will love it too, So thanks so much for listening.

Goodbye in two