Hello everybody! It is a week of Eloises here at Golden Books Girl, as today I’m finally sharing an interview with Eloise Williams. As you may be able to guess these questions were written a while ago as there have been a few delays, but I loved doing this and I’m absolutely thrilled to finally be sharing it. I desperately want to do more interviews in 2024 so if you’re an author reading this and you fancy it, please get in touch!
Hi Eloise! Thank you so much for being here today!
First of all, can you please describe one of your newest releases the Curio Collectors for us in 5 words? Secrets. Quest. Victorian. Friendship. Scrimshaw.
Almost all (or perhaps all?) of your books have been set in different periods throughout history. Which has been your favourite to research and write? Are there eras you haven’t explored yet that you’re keen to use in the future? I love history. The strange and interesting ways people used to live and the things they found commonplace which we find unusual today. Writing something historical always feels like unravelling a puzzle. It’s as if you are drawing a curtain back and saying to the reader, have a glimpse of these people, they were real, they had feelings, and this is how they lived. I love having the opportunity to bring the past to life again. My ideas often come from visiting historical places. A love of Highgate Cemetery and Kew Gardens were two of the things which gave me the idea for The Curio Collectors. When I added in the Foundling Museum, an interest in botany, a fascination with curios, and an exploration of what it would feel like to have no fixed point as home, everything came together. I adore writing about the Victorian era. There’s something endlessly intriguing about it. I think perhaps it’s because it isn’t all that long ago really and yet it feels so strange and other. As I like to include odd elements in my writing a lot of my stories seem to sit nicely there. I don’t put any boundaries on my curiosity though, so I don’t know when or where my next story will unfold. I just follow my interest wherever it takes me.
You were one of the editors for the Mab anthology which came out in the last few years, and it tells stories from ancient Welsh legend, an area I really want to learn more about. What are some of your favourite stories, characters and so on from Welsh mythology? I love legends and Wales is a land steeped in story. The red dragon on our flag always makes me feel very proud. The Mab was such an interesting project to be involved with. When I went into schools to work with young people, I’d ask them what they knew of the stories of the Mabinogi and so many of them had never heard anything about it. Matt Brown approached me with the idea for the anthology and I have to say that I snapped his arm off! It’s a true joy to see the impact it has had on young readers and the creative work that is being done in schools as a result. It’s very difficult to choose favourite legends as I find them all interesting. It’s testament to the power of stories that ancient tales still resonate today. I suppose the ones I like best have a strong sense of nature and the wild at their centre. I used sea morgens – water spirits who drown men – as my inspiration for The Tide Singer and Branwen – a character from the second branch of the Mabinogi – and her ability to communicate with birds as a starting point for Wilde. There are so many brilliant Welsh legends to discover, and I find a new favourite every other week.
Another fun thing about the Mab, which I’m asking an astonishing amount of questions about considering I’ve not yet read it, is that acclaimed actor Michael Sheen wrote the foreword. If you were to have another famous figure write a foreword or perhaps narrate an audiobook for you, who would you choose? Haha! I hope you enjoy it when you get around to it! We were so lucky and grateful to get Michael Sheen involved and he has been brilliantly supportive of The Mab and of other projects. He is the perfect person to have written the foreword and I couldn’t replace him with anyone, even in my imagination. If there was ever a King of Wales… I retold the story of Blodeuwedd – a woman who is conjured entirely from flowers – and the person who springs to mind as the perfect narrator for her story is Charlotte Church. I love her grounded Cardiff accent and her strength as a person. She’s also undergoing her own transformational experience, so I think she’d identify with Blodeuwedd and her transformation from flowers, into a woman, into an owl. Yes, The Mab is full of strange stories which take unexpected turns!
On the topic of Wales, you were the first ever Children’s Laureate for Wales. I’d love to hear about that role and what it entails? It’s a role which champions literature for and by young people. I was very nervous about taking it on because it sounded extraordinarily posh, and I’m most definitely not. I gave myself (and my imposter syndrome) a stern talking to. I wanted to encourage the young people of Wales to see themselves as an integral part of Welsh literature, to help take the elitism out of becoming an author, and to be a part of levelling the playing field for working class writers. I felt a need to convey the message that words belong to every one of us. I’m a quiet person so some elements of the role took me very far outside my comfort zone, but I felt it was worth feeling uncomfortable at times to get that message across. It’s an enormous honour to have been the first Children’s Laureate Wales and sometimes I still can’t believe that I did it.
Your latest book the Curio Collectors follows characters who deal with mysterious objects and making up backstories for them. What’s the best curio you’ve found, and what was the accompanying story? Which object (whether personal or a famous one) would you most like to possess? I like to collect things as I walk along the beach or the riverbank. Crystals, marbles, perfume bottles, sea glass, river china, gloves, shoes, toys, bottle stoppers, inkwells, hag stones, all sorts of things. I get especially excited if I find pieces of pottery with letters on which give me a clue to what they were originally, or where they came from. When I find something, I wonder about the hands it has passed through and make up backstories for the item. I don’t place as much value on bought curios as found things, but I do fancy digging around a dark and mysterious backstreet market and finding a coffin-shaped poison bottle. Worth nothing to the Curio Collectors when they find one, but a collector’s item now. I got the idea for including a poison bottle in the story from an episode of Antiques Roadshow. You never know when ideas will strike!
You’ve now written two books for Barrington Stoke, who are a wonderfully inclusive publisher of novellas for anyone who hasn’t yet heard of them. What would you say are the differences in writing a novella and a full length book? What are the main advantages/challenges of each? I love writing for Barrington Stoke. My stories tend to have lots of twists and turns so it’s a real challenge to tell them in so few words. It means that every word needs to doubly earn its place. My weakness, and greatest love in writing, is description. I like to write reams of it in a very Dickensian fashion. That has to be cut back on with all my stories but especially with my Barrington Stoke tales. There’s a real challenge in telling the story without extra flowery bits of language whilst still making the words sing, and as well as unnecessarily lengthy descriptive passages, I also love a challenge.
Also on the theme of writing, what’s your writing routine like, if you have one? Do you have any unusual habits or quirks? I wish I had a writing routine! For a long time, I thought that perhaps I was missing some fundamental ingredient because I didn’t have one. I tried copying other’s routines. People would say that they wrote more clearly if they started at a ridiculously early hour and I’d think, that’s it! That’s the fundamental thing I’ve been missing in my writing. I’d set the alarm for five and jump out of bed eager to start work in my pyjamas. That would last for about two days and then I’d give up. Other times I’d hear the magical term ‘night owl’ and I’d think, yes of course! That’s why the early bird writing didn’t work for me. I am a night owl. I’d start writing in the evening and into the wee small hours. Again, a couple of days later I’d be struggling. Eventually I just realised that I’m not a routine person and I never will be. As far as quirks go, I like to listen to music which goes with my story. I make a playlist -excellent task for those fellow procrastinators – or choose a soundtrack from a movie, and that connects me to my manuscript really quickly. Also, I like to have the smell of the manuscript with me. Sounds strange I know, but I think about the main setting or vibe of the piece and choose a scent to go with it. I’m currently wafting a car air freshener about for my current work-in-progress.
Finally, can you tell us what you’re working on at the moment/will be releasing next? Am I right in sensing there may be more adventures for the Curio Collectors on the horizon? The Curio Collectors are travelling on inside my head at the moment and getting into all sorts of scrapes and adventures! Who knows if they will ever let me share another of their escapades? I’ll ask them if they’ve been caught up in any mysteries lately. I suspect they probably have. I’ve been working on something exciting, and I’m hoping it will find its place in the world, but I’m not allowed to tell anyone about it yet! I’m waiting to see if the car air freshener worked its magic. Not a sentence I ever thought I’d say. QUICKFIRE
Because of your gorgeous Instagram photos of the sky, do you prefer sunrises or sunsets? I love both! This is an impossible question! You’ve chosen my two favourite times of day. I suppose sunsets because I love the lavender light, the last squawk of blackbirds and spotting bats. Game show you’d most like to go on? The pop one where you sing the next lyric. I can’t remember what it’s called. Animal you’d most like to be for a day? My dog, Watson Jones. He has the best life. 3 books you’re excited for in 2023? Only three!? Jodie by Hilary Mckay. Fablehouse by E.L. Norry. Deadly Deep by Jennifer Killick.
Thank you so much for reading! Have you read any of Eloise’s books, or have any on your TBR? What would your answer to the sunsets vs sunrises question be? Let’s chat in the comments!
Amy xx
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