BackStory: Five Questions with Vanessa Couchman Author of An Encounter Between the Poet and the Mantis What inspired you to write ‘An Encounter Between the Poet and the Mantis’? Two things. First, I had just finished Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror…
BackStory: Four Questions with D.E. Hardy
BackStory: Four Questions with D.E. Hardy Author of What We Believed What inspired you to write ‘What We Believed’? This piece got its start in a phenomenal ekphrastic fiction workshop led by Meg Pokrass and Lorette Luzajic. In one exercise,…
BackStory: Five More Questions with Mandira Pattnaik
Five More Questions with Mandira Pattnaik Author of Kaala Paani What inspired you to write ‘Kaala Paani’? I visited Cellular Jail, Port Blair, India, some time back. Now a national memorial and museum, it was a colonial prison used by…
BackStory: Five Questions with Struan Gow
BackStory: Five Questions with Struan Gow Author of RRS Discovery What inspired you to write ‘RRS Discovery’? The RRS Discovery holds a special place in my heart, as I grew up in Dundee, where it is currently displayed. It is…
BackStory: Five Questions with Joyce Bingham
BackStory: Five Questions with Joyce Bingham Author of The Inheritance What inspired you to write ‘The Inheritance’? I was given a prompt to write about entering a room at a ghost story workshop. I found I was writing about a…
BackStory: Six Questions with Mary Byrne
BackStory: Six Questions with Mary Byrne Author of A Quiet Day in Hell What inspired you to write ‘A Quiet Day in Hell’? The house where we used to live in Normandy was an old presbytery built 20 years before…
BackStory: Four Questions with Karen Walker
BackStory: Four Questions with Karen Walker Author of The 1796 Spinning Wheel List What inspired you to write ‘The 1796 Spinning Wheel List’? Looking for my ancestors in The 1796 Spinning Wheel (also known as The Irish Flax Growers) List.…
BackStory: Five Questions with Nicola Davison
BackStory: Five Questions with Nicola Davison Author of Der Bibliophile What inspired you to write ‘Der Bibliophile’? I was searching online for something completely unrelated when I came across a photograph of book burning in Germany, 1933. It stole my…
BackStory: Four Questions with Q.Y. Tie
BackStory: Four Questions with Q.Y. Tie Author of The Peony Hairpin What inspired you to write ‘The Peony Hairpin’? For a while, harem dramas—period dramas centred on palace intrigue among the emperor’s concubines—were all the rage in mainland China. You…
BackStory: Five Questions with Lindz McLeod
BackStory: Five Questions with Lindz McLeod Author of Harald Hardrada Intensifies What inspired you to write ‘Harald Hardrada Intensifies’? I’d been thinking about Harald Hardrada for a while; he’s quite the character! I’d been teaching myself Danish ahead of a…