Aliya Whiteley (Three Things About Me, Light Reading and Mean, Mode, Median) is a Macmillan New Writing friend and she is kindly visiting my blog to tell me about her newest book: a short story collection.
Welcome, Aliya, and congratulations on your first collection of fantasy short stories, Witchcraft in the Harem. The book has been described as a reading experience akin to “being waterboarded by angels" and it's hard to think of an accolade any author would be happier to receive.
1. You’re best known as an author
of full-length fiction. Are short stories a new departure or have you been
penning them quietly on the side for some time?
I looked back through my records and found my first
short stories were published in 2003, so that’s a decade of writing them. The
short stories have always been my outlet for the wilder side of my imagination.
It’s great to collect them together for the first time.
2. Do the stories in Witchcraft in the Harem follow a certain theme? I have heard 'literary feminist
fantasy fiction' used as a way to describe them, is this an accurate way of
looking at your short stories?
I’m not keen on labels but I’m not unhappy with that one! The
stories are about things that matter to me, manifesting in different ways. I’m
interested in how women see the world because I am one (stating the blindingly
obvious there). I’ve always loved fantasy writing, because it gives me freedom.
If I need a magic box to turn up that contains the secrets of the universe, it
can. I think the stories are literary because I’ve always been fascinated by
the power of words and I try to experiment stylistically in ways that stretch
the reader. So, yes, as labels go, that’s not a bad one.
3. How do you decide the order in
which the stories go within a collection? Do characters and settings reappear?
My first thought on putting together the collection was
that I wouldn’t be able to find a theme, but when I started to look back
through my publishing history I realised I did have a number of stories that
dealt with the ideas of escape and capture, particularly for modern women
through becoming girlfriends, wives, mothers, whores, witches, bitches, and so
on. Then a process of trial and error led to putting them in an order I liked.
When Dog Horn Publishing expressed an interest in the
collection, I worked with a great editor who pointed out the weaker stories and
I replaced some, and changed around others until it felt right.
Both of my published novels were set in my fictional
seaside town of Allcombe ,
but that doesn’t make an appearance in these stories. There aren’t recurring
characters but there are certainly some key ideas in there.
4. Some writers (me included) find
short stories more challenging to write than novels, because of the space
constraints. Do you find this challenge stimulating?
I like the fact that it takes me a week and not a year
to write a short story! Novels take so much energy, and a lot of the challenge
of the longer form is, for me, to sustain the characterisation and meaning over
eighty-thousand words. Plus it’s difficult to be really free in a novel. I
can’t give in to the urge to have pterodactyls appear or to start writing in
blank verse instead. I’d say I find
short stories easier to write, but then I’m not one of those writers who
produces 100,000 words and cuts down to 80,000. I write 50,000 and have to put
stuff in…
5. Are you still writing
novel-length fiction and if so, what are you working on at the moment?
I’ve just
finished writing a fantasy novel in very much the same vein as Witchcraft in the Harem and feel that
I’ve managed to sustain those themes very well, so I’m happy with it. I’m
always writing short fiction and have stories lined up to appear in various
magazines and anthologies, so it’s going to be an exciting year for me.
Thanks,
Eliza, for letting me invade your blog!
Thanks for telling us about the new venture, Aliya.