C.M. Rosens's Blog, page 6

Author Spotlight: Miranda Kate/MK Boers

I wanted to be a film director. I could see it clearly in my mind throughout my teenage years. Then I went to college to study Theatre and realised it wasn’t going to be quite that easy, so I turned to directing words on a page instead. And it works – most days.

Under the author name Miranda Kate, I have been featured in several Flash Fiction anthologies, and write sci-fi fantasy, horror and dark paranormal fantasy. Under the author name M K Boers I write dark psychological thrillers. I originate from Surrey, in the south of England, but spent my teens moving round the country and travelling to other countries. Since 2002 I have lived in the Netherlands.

Author Links:

Website: mirandakateboersauthor.com

Bluesky: @purplequeenpub.bsky.social
Facebook: @MirandaKateAuthor
Instagram: @purplequeennl

As an author of horror, psychological thrillers, and dark sci-fi fantasy, as well as paranormal fantasy, what draws you to these genres, and do you see threads of connection between them in your work? If so, what?

I’ve always been drawn to the dark and disturbing, or slightly off kilter. Coming from an abusive childhood means that happy endings and feel good stories are not realistic for me.

Having witnessed and experienced such real, tangible horrors, dark fictional tales don’t affect me in the same way as others, in fact, back then, they helped me escape and see that it was possible that things could be worse. I could relate to the fear and the suspense of uncertainty in a much more visceral way.

It meant I consumed a lot of horror and sci-fi fiction through my youth and it informs my writing. I tend to try and write what moves me, makes me think, or what horrifies me. I also try and make it emotive, getting right into the characters and how they think and feel, so the reader can do that too. The more I do that the more satisfied I am with the end result.

The connection for me is that I write characters people might not like to begin with but then I give the reader another view or perspective that makes them soften and feel sympathetic, even supportive of that character. I did that in Sleep, my psychological thriller, or domestic noir. Lizzy murdered her husband and his lover, which is known from the outset, but I show the reader what drove her to it. I like to leave the reader thinking about the situations and the characters.

My ultimate goal is giving them a book hangover. Most of my horror is psychological – and it can get very dark.

Let’s talk about your Tricky series, Tricky’s Tales, a dark fantasy series set in a post-apocalyptic world. The first book is Dead Lake. What inspired this book, and did you know it was going to be a series, or did you start it as a standalone?

I used to host a weekly writing event called Mid-Week Flash Challenge, using a picture prompt to inspire writers to write a piece of flash fiction (anything under 1000 words – or in this challenge, under 750 words).

I started this back in 2017 and ran it for 7 years. It was a way to keep me writing regularly. It helped me come up with fresh ideas and characters, and Tricky, the main character in Dead Lake, arrived in one of them.

After that, she started to pop up fairly regularly and once I had about twelve pieces, I realised she had a much larger story to tell and started working on what that would be. And then I realised there was a series in her tales. She’s quite a persistent character when she has something to say, and one I really enjoy writing.

How did you develop Tricky’s world for Dead Lake, and what came first – the worldbuilding or the character development?

I’ve always loved speculating on what the aftermath of a post-apocalyptic might look like. And when I watched 2012 (the disaster movie) it very much provided me with a base for Tricky’s world (tectonic plates shifting).

I am more of a pantser than a planner in my writing process, so it formed along with the story as did the character development – though I’d say the character was there first.

Tricky has a very defined voice and way of talking in my head, and I’d already written about what happened to her mother in one of the pieces of flash fiction, so I used that as a basis for how she would show up in the world, and how it skewed her reaction to people and her ability to trust, feeding her suspicious nature. But she is also funny, (at least she thinks she is) and she loves men.

I also found I had to map the landmass out to stay on track. I kept a sort of running map while I wrote the trilogy, and that helped me keep things straight. The completed map appears in the books too.

Can you tell us more about the integration of New Age practices and crystals/stones with the post-apocalyptic world, and the powers that people possess? How did this come about and what is the internal world’s logic/magic system that makes this work?

I was originally inspired by The Crystal Singer series by Anne McCaffrey, which I read in my teens – how singing to crystals can activate energy – but I was then more recently inspired by a fellow writer, Lisa Shambrook, and her first book in The Seren Stone Chronicles (hopefully the second one will be out soon). In her book the apocalyptic history of the land had thrown up new and magical crystals, and so I brought a similar idea into Tricky’s books: that new elements had come to the surface and old elements were lost, and they can be combined to produce magical results.

I very much believe we are all made of energy – in fact every thing in our world. That everything vibrates at different frequencies. I also believe in energy light healing and the different light colours they take, so it wasn’t a big leap for me to use that concept and entwine it in the idea of it being used by individuals with advanced sensitivities. And those skills can be taught and enhanced. The idea of witches started centuries ago (there’s actually a witch-weighing museum not far from me) and they were people that knew how to use nature and natural elements to heal, so I expanded on those concepts.

As for trees, and communicating with them, after reading Lab Girl by Hope Jahren, I really saw them as more sentient and finding out things like them creating the opal mineral in their structures sort of interconnects it all.

And I’m also fascinated by the concept of time, and have other books where I have dabbled in parallel worlds and time travel, so this had to be something Tricky could do, though it can be extremely tricky – hence the character’s name!

Tell us more about Tricky as a character – how did she evolve as you were thinking and planning and drafting, and were there any surprises along the way? If so, what were they?

Tricky, like many of my main characters, reflects a lot of the parts of me. I wanted her living in a world where she wasn’t shamed for enjoying men, and flirting, and having fun with them without having to commit to them – though she has experienced heart-break too. This leads to her always pushing away her feelings, which a lot of people do.

She reminds me a little of my best friend who lives in Australia, and I had her in mind at times. And I also had another writer friend in mind too, Michael Wombat, who I knew would love this character.

It helped me keep her light, and also bring humour through some of the very dark situations. She’s ballsy, sassy and full of attitude – and extremely stubborn. But she cares about people, is loyal. In some ways a lot of things I am and aspire to be! So far she hasn’t really surprised me, but there’s still time!

Will there be any more books in the series? If so (and even if not!) what can readers look out for in the future?

Oh yes. I am currently working on a collaboration with three other authors (Michael Wombat, Victoria Pearson and Lisa Shambrook), set in another fantasy world called The Summer Realm created by Michael Wombat. Each of our characters is sent on a quest, in a different area of the land (there is already a working detailed map), to save the realm which is under attack by dragon-like creatures from another world. The magicians in this world have been able to call Tricky into it to help them.

We each write our chapters, and then Michael Wombat will ‘pleach’ them together (weave). It’s going to be a trilogy from the word count we have gathered so far. The first draft is almost complete. I’m very excited to bring this to fruition. I’ve always wanted to write a story with this group of authors. There’s a lot of opportunity for spin-off stories from this trilogy, but also, at some point in the future, I plan to bring about another Tricky series, though other books are vying for my attention – I have another psych thriller gestating, and also an occult horror. As a writer my creative mind never stops!

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Patreon Launch! (Ko-Fi is still King)

As Ko-Fi is not everyone’s preferred place of support, I’ve decided to launch a Patreon as well. My Patreon will have the same content as Ko-Fi, so don’t switch if you’re a Ko-Fi member!

Patreon is also digital only, and priced at $5 for Eldritch Acolytes and $10 for Eldritch Disciples.

Disciples get access to everything. ($10)

Acolytes get access to some eBooks and all monthly letters. ($5)

Check it outCollections

I’ve kicked off with 6 letters that Ko-Fi members got in 2021, and I’ll be adding to these until Patreon catches up with Ko-Fi. Then both sites will get monthly fiction at the same time.

Letter Collections will be Dirty Dozen collections covering about a year at a time.

eBook Downloads have their own eBook Collection, and Acolytes can download two out of four, while Disciples get all four. One is a Ko-Fi member exclusive download, which is the Eglantine Pritchard backstory short.

The Sussex Fretsaw Massacre is available in audio and eBook in its own collection. I will be adding the short stories to this collection, so you also get the shorts I published alongside the novella in The Sussex Fretsaw Massacre and Other Stories.

Patreon Tier Pricing Notes

The tier prices are for the following reasons:

International postage for my £5.00 tier has gone up to £3.20 per letter, so I’m not really making a lot on these tiers! I would ideally like more Ko-Fi members on my £3 and £1.50 tiers, but also, I know I’m under-pricing these. I’m not going to raise the price of Ko-Fi, but I am able to have Patreon at a higher price.
*Patreon takes a bigger cut than Ko-Fi does, and it is priced in USD, while I will be paid in GBP. The US$ is lower than the British Pound, and the conversion rate goes up and down like a yo-yo. So by pricing the two digital tiers at $5 and $10, I’ll make around £3 for the $5 and maybe £6 for the $10, once the fees come off.
*I don’t have capacity to add to the number of people I send handwritten things out to. This will remain exclusive to Ko-Fi, capped at 10, and I have 2 spots left. I’m not adding spots, so it’s one in, one out! So with Patreon, it’s digital only, and Disciples get the full number of eBooks and letters and everything that I put on there. Acolytes get some eBooks free to download and all the letters!
*If you’re like, why would I support on Patreon though when I could support on Ko-Fi and get more for less? Why indeed! Join my membership on Ko-Fi while I still have spots left on my top tier!Joining Up

If you want to join Ko-Fi as a better deal, please do!
ko-fi.com/cmrosens/tiers

If you want to support me on Patreon, please do! patreon.com/c/CMRosensWrites

Audio Release for Yelen & Yelena Chapter 20: A Mortal Ending

SEASON FINALE. Yelena, Yelen, and Velna must all come to terms with the situations they are in, and face some very difficult decisions.

CW: on page suicide, threatened execution, body horror.

ListenRead Along

Music Credits:

Kevin McLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

Intro/Outro : Quinn’s Song: The Dance Begins

Soundtrack: Quinn’s Song – A New Man, Bittersweet, Leaving Home, Redletter, Morgana Rides, The Stages of Grief, Midnight Tale, Achaidh Cheide. SCP-x4x, Giant Wyrm.

GET THE COMPLETE AUDIOBOOK – narrative only.

Ko-Fi: £5.99 download: ko-fi.com/s/76d9e16243
Itch: £5.99 download: cmrosens.itch.io/yelen-yelena-audiobook

Itch.io Ultimate Bundle of eBooks and Audiobooks for £15.00: 
itch.io/s/153308/ultimate-bundle

Contents of the Ultimate Bundle:

Pagham-on-Sea
THE CROWS – audiobook narrated by the author
THE DAY WE ATE GRANDAD (eBook)
THE SUSSEX FRETSAW MASSACRE (eBook of the novella on its own)
THE RELUCTANT HUSBAND (eBook)
OVEREXPOSURE (eBook)
THE SOUND OF DARKNESS (eBook)
THE FOLKLORE OF PAGHAM-ON-SEA (vol. 1) (eBook)
THE SUSSEX FRETSAW MASSACRE AND OTHER STORIES (eBook and mp3 files: a collection of Ricky short stories, the novella included, plus audio files from the Eldritch Girl podcast bonus episodes of the novella, narrated by the author, in 3 parts to download and keep as mp3 files).

SFFH
THE SNOW CHILD (eBook)
YELEN & YELENA (eBook)
YELEN & YELENA (audiobook)

Cover Update: The Day We Ate Grandad

The Day We Ate Grandad has had a makeover! I’ll be sharing the cover for newsletter subscribers too, with a special newsletter-only discount code to use in my Ko-Fi shop (25% off my eBook box set).

Subscribe here: cmrosens.com/newsletter

As you’re here…. look at this gorgeous cover by Sarah M. Whittaker of whittakerbookdesign.com:

The three books together at last! (Note that TDWAG is indie pubbed and not with Canelo).
All 3 covers were designed by Sarah Whittaker.

The Crows has 1 interior illustration at the back – by Thomas S. Brown.

Thirteenth has 1 interior illustration at the back – by Thomas S. Brown.

The Day We Ate Grandad has 5 interior illustrations throughout, in family portrait style – by Thomas S. Brown.

Below is an example of Tom’s art, which you’ll find in The Day We Ate Grandad.

Katy Porter by Thomas S. BrownFind out More

Author Spotlight: Amanda Leanne

Amanda Leanne began reading at a very young age and has been writing since grade school. She is a prolific reader, book collector, and writer with an interest in all aspects of art including sewing, painting, sculpting, jewelry design, soapmaking, and various other hobbies. After spending nearly a decade working on her degrees in forensic sciences, abnormal behavioral science, and neurological psychology with the prospect of joining the FBI ViCAP unit, Amanda’s health took a turn for the worse. Daily struggles with her medical issues hasn’t stopped her from pursuing her childhood aspirations to become an author. She currently lives with her spouse (Kris), her son, and their menagerie in the mountains of Northern Alabama.

Leanne writes non-fiction as well as fictional novels. Her non-fiction books and articles delve into topics such as medical conditions, true crime, psychology, and crafting. Her fictional stories delve into horror, psychological, mystery, thrillers, eerie tales, science fiction, and paranormal worlds.

Author Links:

Website: amandaleanne.com

Find her on most social media platforms @theAmandaLeanne

You have a number of books out, but let’s talk about Darkling Cloud, which is a standalone. What inspired this book and its titular feline?

We have seven cats, but the oldest is this Maine Coon mix with the tortoise shell coat that always sticks out in crazy directions and she has this constant look like she is fixing to rip your face off, and yet she is a complete baby.

My love for our felines, all rescues from various times, made me want to write a book about some sort of crazy cat creature. Then I had this amazing photo of Luna walking toward me and I edited it to look super cool and then started to formulate.

I used my husband’s story of how he found Luna crouched up in the tire well of his truck as my starting off point for this supernatural tale about a man and his cat.

What rep can we find in Darkling Cloud, and how have your own experiences shaped your writing and explorations of this rep?

Darkling Cloud has several Cherokee characters and references to their language and lore spurred by part of my own ancestry.

There is also a point where Caleb, the main character, makes mention of trying to hook up with a woman and says he has been with both men and women but at the moment that was his preference, something that I am familiar with due to my own pansexuality. Sometimes I want to be with one gender over another depending on my preferences at the time.

Can you talk us through your process to creating your characters? E.g. How did you develop your MC, Caleb, and has Caleb changed much from the first draft of this novel? If so, how? 

Caleb is very loosely based on my husband but his personality became his own very fast. He starts off as a simple man with a very simplistic life just getting by day to day.

As Darkling Cloud comes into his life and he begins to experience all the crazy supernatural stuff, he starts to fill out with his own feelings toward morality and survival really shaping who he becomes as a person. His interactions with other characters and his growth was something the BETA readers really liked.

One of your WIPS is Iris, a Gothic Horror set in the 19thC. This is a very different setting to contemporary Appalachia! What is your process here for working in a more historical setting? What kind of research and reading do you do?

My love for horror started with Poe, Shelley, Jackson, and Stoker. I have a fondness for the Victorian gothic aesthetic, something highly embraced in my own personal style and in my home, and I have been wanting to write a book in that setting for a long time.

Much of my research is due to my reading of so many books and stories that takes place in a more historical setting.

Even books like Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre as well as the historical settings in Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles helped color my views of a gothic world.

You have described Iris as Beauty and the Beast X genderbent Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde – how are you blending romance and horror, and what about that combination appeals to you?

As a little girl, the neighbor girl and I played “vampire countess” instead of house. We were in a pretend castle and were vampires with our vampiric husbands. In the late 80s and early 90s we didn’t have the internet to entertain us and my mother was a big fan of horror movies and books. My earliest exposures to anything romantic were things like Annabelle Lee, Dracula, and Interview with the Vampire.

The entwining of dark and even villainous characters with a romantic plot line was something I fell in love with very early on. I grew up in a community of eccentric and alternative people, a biker group my parents were a part of, and so weddings were black leather and black lace. It stuck, I suppose! I also felt there wasn’t enough representation of lesbians in a dark gothic fairy tale like setting and wanted to explore the idea of both the morally gray and even occasionally evil character falling in love with the damsel in distress.

Share with us some of your favourite reader responses to your work so far! 

I recently got one of those bucket list check mark reviews that compared me to Stephen King and the Twilight Zone and it made me so happy I cried. With Darkling Cloud, the BETA response was profoundly positive. The development of Caleb’s character and of course the amazing Darkling herself was absolutely adored. I love my twists and have gotten mostly very positive responses to them, and Darkling Cloud has been no different. One person told me that they couldn’t stop thinking about my story for days afterward and that is truly a compliment to any author.

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Audio Release for Yelen & Yelena Chapter 19: The Embrace

In Chapter 19, the 15th episode of Series 04, Yelena confronts the Mortress and learns what she must do to save her world.

CWs: death, some depictions of bones and impalement.

ListenRead along

Music Credits:

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

Intro/Outro: Quinn’s Song: The Dance Begins

Soundtrack: Gregorian Chant, Devastation & Revenge, Morgana Rides

Early access to the full episode and season finale – Chapter 20 – is available here on Ko-Fi:
ko-fi.com/s/91e2d4a4cc

GET THE COMPLETE AUDIOBOOK – narrative only.

Ko-Fi: £5.99 download: ko-fi.com/s/76d9e16243
Itch: £5.99 download: cmrosens.itch.io/yelen-yelena-audiobook

Itch.io Ultimate Bundle of eBooks and Audiobooks for £15.00: itch.io/s/153308/ultimate-bundle

Contents of the Ultimate Bundle:

Pagham-on-Sea
THE CROWS – audiobook narrated by the author
THE DAY WE ATE GRANDAD (eBook)
THE SUSSEX FRETSAW MASSACRE (eBook of the novella on its own)
THE RELUCTANT HUSBAND (eBook)
OVEREXPOSURE (eBook)
THE SOUND OF DARKNESS (eBook)
THE FOLKLORE OF PAGHAM-ON-SEA (vol. 1) (eBook)
THE SUSSEX FRETSAW MASSACRE AND OTHER STORIES (eBook and mp3 files: a collection of Ricky short stories, the novella included, plus audio files from the Eldritch Girl podcast bonus episodes of the novella, narrated by the author, in 3 parts to download and keep as mp3 files).

SFFH
THE SNOW CHILD (eBook)
YELEN & YELENA (eBook)
YELEN & YELENA (audiobook)

Publishing News! (Accepted into an Anthology!)

Hello everyone, just a quick update: I’ve had my body horror short story, “Along the Xylophone Road”, accepted into an anthology from Black Hare Press.

I have updated my Fiction master page – see this site’s main menu and click “My Fiction” to view all my publications so far! Click on the covers of the books to go to their landing pages and find all their links in one place, including audio options.

Many thanks to all those who took a look at it for me and helped me polish it up! You’ll be able to read my sad decaying revenant story (1.2K words) from 31st October 2025. You can pre-order this anthology via the link below.

Step into a world where flesh betrays, bone revolts, and the boundaries of the human body dissolve in terrifying ways. This anthology drags you through skin-crawling tales of mutation, transformation, and grotesque obsession. Within these pages, writers dissect what it means to inhabit a body—revealing the fragility, the horror, and the dark beauty that lies beneath the surface.

From the monstrous to the strangely poignant, each story peels back a layer of the human condition, exposing nerves, sinew, and secrets best left buried. Dare to look closer—there’s something alive, and it’s waiting for you just under the skin.

Preorder now

Jackson P. Brown on Urban Fantasy, London Magic, and the Black Girl Writers Mentoring Programme

Jackson P. Brown is a writer from London, an anime and manga enthusiast, and the founder of Black Girl Writers — a mentoring programme for aspiring Black writers.

After winning Penguin Random House’s #WriteNow competition in 2020, she signed a 3-book deal with Del Rey UK for her debut adult fantasy series, GETHSEMANE.

Listen to the episodeRead Short Author Spotlight

Author Links:

Website: jacksonpbrown.com

Instagram: @_JackPBrown
TikTok: @jackpbrownauthor

PREORDER FOR 10 JULY 2025 FROM DRYAD BOOKS:
https://www.dryad-books.co.uk/product-page/the-reaper-by-jackson-p-brown

Pre-order your copy from Dryad Books (UK) to receive:
A bookplate signed by Jackson P. Brown
An A5 print featuring Gerald, one of the main characters, by Jess @thejessc0deIntroduction

CMR: Welcome back to Eldritch Girl, and I have Jackson P. Brown with me. Jackson, would you like to introduce yourself to everyone?

JPB: Hi, yeah, I’m Jackson, I’m the debut author of The Reaper and that comes out this summer, July, and it’s an urban fantasy set in London.

CMR: I’m so excited for it, I literally found your TikTok and was like, I need to interview you.

[Laughter]

CMR: I’m really excited. I’ve already pre -ordered.

JPB: Oh, thank you. Yeah.

CMR: And so you’re going to read an extract from The Reaper for us.

JPB: Yes.

CMR: When you’re ready, would you like to just say a little bit about the extract for people who obviously don’t know what your book is about yet, then you can launch into it?

JPB: Sure. So this is actually from the prologue and it is the main character is going through his awakening on his birthday for his powers.

So this is The Awakening.

Extract from The ReaperPreorder: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/455385/the-reaper-by-brown-jackson-p/9781529907193

Impatience had brought him to Camden Town. He should have stayed at home. Slipping away from the high street, he found a hiding place between the crevices of an end of terrace alley. Unfocused shapes reached towards him from the sky in soupy ribbons like membranes of pale star matter, and he pressed his back against the cold brick wall, his breath becoming haggard and raw in his throat.

The ribbons grew thicker, pulsing and growing until the deluge surrounded him, congealing over his body making it difficult to move. He inhaled deeply, letting the air out in quick, measured gasps. When he was covered completely, the outside world faded to nothing, and his awakening began.

His ancestors brushed against him, their touch filled with understanding and tender warmth. When they offered their energy and power, he grasped it firmly. As it seeped into his flesh, every fibre of his body began to change. Their power caressed his skin, his bones, his marrow and joints, and as it sank deeper and deeper into his flesh, it pushed him across the border of his previous existence.

When he finally opened his eyes, the entrails of the galaxy had vanished, leaving the horizon clear once more. He let out a deep breath, revelling in the feel of his new self. Now he could finally step into his rightful place as heir. Now he could finally be who he was destined to be. But the stars maintained their watch.

Interview Transcript

CMR: I love the entrails of the galaxy. Oh my God.

JPB: Thank you.

CMR: That’s such a powerful image.

JPB: Do you know, I was really proud of myself when I wrote that.

CMR: So would you like to tell us who that main character is and a little bit about him?

JPB: Yes, so that is the main character, Gerald Reaper. He is the actual Grim Reaper. That’s what the story is about. And he hails from an ancient tribe of supernatural assassins who travel around the Sahara. And because they are all born with this killing curse, for millennia, they’ve been hired as secret assassins. And so each of them are sent out.

One is in New York, one’s in London, one’s in Paris, and they’re stationed there. And they’re hired by the world’s elite to basically assassinate each other’s enemies and and rivals and things like that, and so the humans don’t
know about them, they just know the legends of the grim reaper, but this is actually the origin story of them, in this, in my story, so um yeah, that’s who he is, and on his 27th birthday he comes into the full fullness of his powers.

And I chose 27 because it’s like a little reference to the 27 club, um I just thought it would just be kind of a cool little — not cool, but it’s like a little reference, you know, a morbid reference to that, so um so that’s what’s happened in this 27th birthday.

CMR: I love that though as well because that is a really good morbid reference but also I think like having a 27 year old protagonist is like, it’s really good isn’t it because they’ve got more life experience and you can kind of… so it’s not, it’s not… is it YA or it’s new adult?

JPB: What they call it is crossover. I think sometimes New Adult sometimes implies a bit of spice. This book has steam, but it’s not spicy. It’s not spicy.

CMR: And what about your other character, your other main character?

JPB: Yes, so that’s Amy St. Clair. So she’s not an ordinary woman. She’s an empath and she hails from a long line of empaths from Jamaica originally. It’s her grandma who was like her mentor. But by the time the story begins, her grandma has passed away. And so Amy has been living by herself in South London.

And it’s only after her grandma passed away did she realise that all of the little silly little stories telling her about how… ghosts exist and there’s really weird things in this city, that’s when Amy realizes that she can feel them as well. And so her empath abilities allows her to feel the presences and the auras of non-human entities as well, but because she’s so isolated and lonely she doesn’t have anyone to talk to about these powers so she spends most of her evenings after work she works in the library just trawling around London at night just observing these creatures without them knowing and she writes little notes. It’s almost like she’s writing notes to her grandma beyond the grave and telling her all the stuff that she can see and the things that she wishes she could tell her grandma, you know, that she’s passed away.

And that’s when she, on the same night of Gerald’s awakening, she actually feels it happening. She feels his awakening and she tries to meet him. And she goes on a little hunting journey, trying to track him down and think, what on earth did I just feel in the atmosphere right now? So that’s Amy.

CMR: Oh, I love that. I also love the fact that she felt something that was like the entrails of the universe, and went, I want to know what that is.

JPB: She’s very curious. She’s very curious.

CMR: Yeah, I like that. Yeah, that’s really cool. And I also love that it’s — so it’s an urban fantasy. It’s set in London, where you are from, obviously. And yeah, and I was just really interested about where did you get the ideas for this book from, and why you set it in your home city?

JPB: Yeah, it’s actually interesting. So when I was a teenager, I had like various different mental health traumas and issues. And so I had to attend these outpatient appointments in central London. and so every day when I had to — not every day, every week — I had to attend these really long boring outpatients appointments, and on the way there, I had to pass under this little um, a bridge, to get to the hospital entrance, and I just used to have a daydream of like pressing a brick in the wall and disappearing into this city underground London, where there’s all these magical creatures just like Alice in Wonderland like, I have fun and just forget my life, and so that’s kind of how
the concept of this idea of just this community existing alongside London came from.

And I kept an obsession over it you know as the years went on, thinking about it, and thinking about the politics of this community in this strange, like you know… Who is in charge of all the supernatural creatures, and what do they do and what are the neighbourhoods like in this weird town?

And so as I was developing that, the character for Gerald, he kind of came to me first before Amy, Amy was a very late addition. And so I had him, and he lived in St Pancras station, in the clock tower, so yeah that’s just how it all came to be.

CMR: That’s really cool. Do you think your own experiences of living in London really helped kind of shape the politics of the undercity and all of that kind of stuff, because like I know a lot of urban fantasies tend to set things in kind of metropolises, like big… you know… and London is a very popular one as well, like Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London is one of them, and then you have quite a lot set in New York obviously, and other big American cities. Were you tempted at any point to set it somewhere else or was it always like this is a very London book for you?

JPB: Yeah I think to me it’s always just such a London book because as I thought more of the characters, I just couldn’t help but associate them with parts of London. So like, Amy’s from Streatham and then Gerald, he lives in King’s Cross, so I just had all these…. I had it all just mapped out about where everybody is and where all of the characters would like to hang out, and it’s just… To me, I just thought it was really interesting. And what if you just went somewhere like you went to Tesco? And you didn’t know that the person behind the till was like a witch or something?

You know, so those are the things that was always in my head and I thought it would be kind of fun, so there’s so many references to London places in the books that I think some of the reviews, I think one person said that it was so weird reading it because she goes to some of the places that are mentioned in the book, so it’s like, that’s what I wanted people to be like, “oh I know that place”, and look at it differently when they’re out and about.

And for me that’s how I thought about it, because London is, it’s just so much, you know, it’s the only place I’ve really lived to be honest with you. I’ve lived a couple of places in the UK, but it’s always been London. So even when I’m traveling and I see a place and I think, oh that looks like a weird little, weird shop, I wonder if that could be a story there, some, you know, witch or warlock or something lives in there, or something. So yeah, it always had to be London.

CMR: I know a lot of books set in London use stereotypes of the city, and I was wondering how you felt about that as well as a Londoner, like, reading books where you have like stereotypes of London or Londoners, or everyone’s kind of homogenized, so yeah so how did you work with your characters and your setting to try and avoid that and bring people a taste of like the real London, or the real fantasy London I guess?

JPB: Yeah, yeah, I… Do you know it was more all the time I was facing it, a lot of my own experiences I think even being in London and sometimes hearing about how London is portrayed in the news, for example, you know; it’s just either this really really rich place that everyone lives in like Notting Hill, and everyone’s at the cafes, or it’s just like everyone’s just stabbing each other, and
it’s just a terrible terrible place, so it’s like, you can never really get a nice in between.

And so I was very conscious to ensure that a whole range of Londoners was portrayed, so there are rich people in the books, but they’re the ones that are more corrupt, so they’re the ones that start working behind the scenes to like, you know get back at their enemies and things and yeah it does highlight about the class issues in the city as well.

And so I just wanted to portray that from my experience being like a working class Black person living in London, and seeing how sometimes it could be portrayed in a very negative light depending on who is kind of telling the story in the media and how as you said how it is portrayed by people outside
of London.

I think it’s only in recent years I think that people have even understood just how ethnically diverse London is, and how there’s so many different things you could do, and how many things, just what is here, um and I do think there has been like some good recent portrayals, some interesting portrayals of London from Londoners, and from people that’s from here, to give it a bit more of a realistic picture.

And I like to hope that The Reaper can be added to that type of media as well as something that’s accurate and a nice portrayal of the city, yeah.

CMR: Yeah my friend lived in Stonebridge Park and so like not the nice bit of like yeah so I used to know that little bit, and I’m like, I could see it, I can see there being a fantasy kind of you know, like you get on the train I’m like, I don’t think some of the people are on this planet.

[Laughter]

JPB: I mean, I think a big part of it is, I think when I first read Rivers of London, because I read that when it, that first book, when it first came out, which was quite a few years ago now, I remember just being so inspired at the time, because I was, at the time, I was kind of drafting up ideas for, you know, this series, and I just thought, oh, this is exactly what I like, it’s very witty, and it’s fun, and it gives you, like, a nice upbeat version of the city that you know, but it gives a bit of a twist to it, so, yeah.

I was touched but also really intimidated when like the publisher as they’re going around doing the promo they say for fans of Ben Aaronovitch, because I’m just thinking oh my gosh, like but yeah.

CMR: I was thinking as well about the the kinds of magic that you’ve created
for the fantasy London, because from the sound of it, it’s also just as diverse as the demographic of London so you have like the ancestral magic and the Saharan, African feel to Gerald’s powers, yeah, and then you have Amy who’s British Jamaican and you have like her heritage I suppose?

JPB: Mm, it’s inherited.

CMR: because it’s kind of inherited as well, coming through, and what other kinds of things did you play with? I’m really interested [in] how you developed this and how you decided what those powers were going to be, and yeah, tell me a bit about your world building!

JPB: Yeah, yeah, so um, so alongside you know, you have the human world upstairs, there’s a city underneath, downstairs, it’s like this weird warped version of London, and I really did think about what kind of things did I…. what books do I like, and what mythical creatures do I like, so yeah.

We have witches and warlocks, [they] are separated in terms of like the type of things that they can do. So with witches they more do like herbal kind of magic and they use the natural remedies of the earth, whereas warlocks, they do the same thing but they will crush their magic into powder and put it in little jars and then that’s where they store their spells, so just to make it a bit funny. And mages who had their staffs.

So I was just thinking all the creatures that I like, so witches, warlocks, mages, vampires, werewolves, we’ve got paranormal stuff in there, but I thought how to make it be interesting?

So the werewolves in this story, they obviously they transform with the full moon and things, but before and after, they get their own version of like um premenstrual sickness, almost. So in the lead up to the full moon they get really sick and they have fevers and they’re not really… they’re unwell, and then after, immediately after, it’s the same thing.

And with the vampires as well, same thing, they can’t go out in the sunlight, and then they drink human blood but the blood that they favor the most is from humans that share the blood type that they had when they were human before they were turned into vampires.

So it’s those little things that I just tried to put a little twist on. We have so many things there. And so what I did, I pictured the city and I thought, OK, where would the witches live? So the witches, they live in this place called Willow Drive. And then the warlocks, they live in their own opposite city or their own opposite town.

And I tried to think about what would happen in terms of like their class system.

So the witches, some of them are more middle class then, or the more middle class side, and that. We have that kind of tension there, and a lot of the warlocks are seen as more working class.

And they have a whole hierarchy of the families who founded the city in the first place, and they kind of lord over everybody.

So yeah, there’s just a lot of that stuff I tried to weave in even though they are all ethically diverse, I think the community of that city, like the magic city, is more plagued by class issues, and the founders of the city and who has the the strong lineage and things like that. So that’s what I was trying to play with in terms of the conflicts between each of the different magic communities.

CMR: I love that. So when Amy, who is an empath, comes into the magic city, where does she fit in the class system of downstairs?

JPB: Yes, so she is actually treated quite poorly by everybody because she’s a human. She doesn’t have, you know, magic blood. She just has a magic power, and she doesn’t know about this city. And so when Gerald introduces her to people, they’re very wary of her because they’ve all thought, well, even though we’re all messed up in this city, we’re still better than humans because we are witches, we’re warlocks, we’re mages. We can do things that humans can’t even imagine.

And so it takes a little while for them to warm to her but because she’s so resilient and she comes from a background where even though she had a lot of love from her grandma, her mother didn’t get the empath powers and that always caused a massive tension between them, and so she’s estranged from her mum and her father and so she’s had to… she’s already had those experiences of being treated in a strange way because of her powers and because she’s a bit special, but she’s still a human, so she does kind of deal in her own Amy way, she just, you know, she can be a bit stubborn and she’ll she can give what’s, what she’s taken as well, she’s fine to cuss back, so um that’s how she is, and because Gerald is protective of her, he will always like back her up and say right, don’t talk to her like that, you know.

CMR: I’m so excited about the dynamic between Gerald and Amy as well, because they come from very different like social backgrounds as well, don’t they, so yeah, yeah, how are you playing with with that?

And I think like, some listeners may not understand British class system. I have talked about it a little bit on this podcast before with Sab who’s S.R. Severn who is also a London British author who writes steampunk pirate romance, and we were talking about the class system with her a bit because she also plays, funnily enough, with class, in her fantasy world. I think that’s just something if you’re British you just can’t get away from.

JPB: No.

CMR: If you live here, it’s just deeply ingrained.

JPB: Of course, yeah.

CMR: But yeah, just to say like I think for people here, the class system is about how you’re born, and it’s not about how much money you have.

JPB: Yes.

CMR: It’s about how you are — also, how you present as well.

JPB: Yes.

CMR: So you can aspire to be middle class if you’re working class, so that’s the working class people who do not have a lot of money but always act like they do, they try and be better than everybody else around them by comparison, so there’s that element to it, like the nuances.

JPB: Yeah!

CMR: And it’s also not… I don’t know, like it’s not a homogenous thing, like every class layer has its own nuances and has its own kind of things going on inside it.

JBP: Yes, yeah.

CMR: And so you can be from the same class background but you can have different like stuff going on. This is very different to American class, right, so if you suddenly win the lottery, or if you’re a Russian oligarch or something, or you’re a footballer, or you’re making millions, you’re not actually upper class, you are middle class but super rich, and the super rich is like a whole new category that we had to invent because middle class people and working class people suddenly got too much money. And I think that’s what people don’t wrap their heads around. Like, no, no, you’re still working class, even if you won the lottery and you’re now a millionaire. Like, that doesn’t matter.

JPB: It’s so bizarre, isn’t it? Because it’s like when people talk about someone like the Beckhams, they will see them… They’re so rich that they’re literally hanging around with the princes and royalty, but people will never see them as anything more than working class, because that’s where… you know that’s where he’s from, he’s from a working class background, and that’s just how they will view someone like that which is so strange. So maybe not Victoria, but yeah.

CMR: I feel like the Beckhams now have more social currency than they did when they started out right? It’s not because of their money necessarily, it’s because of how they present themselves?

JPB: Yes!

CMR: And how they’ve continuously moved in those circles and they kind of — yeah, and they’re also quite beloved, and they haven’t had a serious scandal that they haven’t weathered and I think because they’re celebrities in the public eye that’s really helped, and so people kind of go to the Beckhams if they want street cred or social cred.

JPB: Yeah, yeah.

CMR: But yeah you’re right, like he’s still just a working class football guy like he’s not…

JPB: It’s so weird isn’t it?

CMR: It’s weird yeah and like I guess middle class now at best right but even though he’s working class background but they’re now kind of upper middle class, yeah super rich, yeah. The British class system is bonkers.

JPB: Yeah no it is it is because I remember trying to… I think the first time I ever really learned about it properly was when I was in secondary school, and our teacher was saying to us look, your class goes down to even the newspapers you read, you know? If you seem to read The Guardian or The Times it means one thing, if you read The Sun it means another thing, like even from your newspapers and your, your names.

Like, you know, what names people will give their children kind of indicates what class they’re probably part of, and it’s just really really bizarre isn’t it?

CMR: Yeah and like the more I think about it I’ve never met a middle class person called Liam or like Kieran or Kyle.

JPB: No, no. It’s so bizarre because some of their names are really unusual. I’m really like, I didn’t know there was a name, but you know.

CMR: Evian.

[Laughter]

CMR: Do you know the comedian Daniel Foxx? Because he does a skit on that.

JPB: Really? No.

CMR: Yeah. And it’s like ‘bedtime stories for privileged children’ and they’re all called things like Chlamydia. Like, Tarquin. Tarquin and Hugo.

JPB: Yeah that’s right actually, the names is what I play around the most because of like Gerald he’s an assassin so what normally happens is a name is assigned to his book that’s his target for that time and I think it has to be someone who’s really rich someone who another like elite person would want to have killed, and so I literally have, I’ve gone through…. Arlo, I’ve gone through… I think I have a Tarquin somewhere and I’ve had like had to really like honestly the poshest names possible, so I’d like to think that somebody I think someone from the UK would get it, when they’re thinking these names are crazy because I’ve tried to think of the poshest or ridiculous names that would be like a politician’s son or, you know, someone who’s from like a peerage or, you know, something like that.

CMR: Yeah. And it’s either that or it’s just like they’re named after some kings. It’s like William, Richard.

JPB: Yes.

CMR: Not usually a John. And it’s always like, call me Will. You know, they’re trying to be…

JPB: Yeah, like down with the people.

CMR: So where does Gerald fit in in the class system and the downstairs?

JPB: Yeah, so he would actually be like upper class, because he’s from Africa and he knows his actual lineage, and like Amy who’s from a Jamaican family, which means that she would have been of like a… an enslaved heritage from Jamaica, so he knows his lineage he knows his background he knows where his people are from and they’ve been this ancient family that’s been getting all that all of the money for like millennia from all these, you know, other elites who use them.

He lives in the Renaissance Hotel in St Pancras right in the clock tower, and so there’s so many things that he doesn’t really understand, so even though he’s 27. He knows so much of the world, but there’s some parts he just doesn’t really clock.

So downstairs, there is like a really impoverished town. It’s like a huge estate, sprawling estate, where all of the poorest of the magic community live. And one of his targets in this book originates from that town downstairs. And so, yeah, Gerald makes an offhand comment like, gosh, you know, with his talent as a warlock, he shouldn’t have been doing all this nonsense that I have to assassinate him.

Then Amy has to say… Well, yeah, because when you come from his background, you’re more likely to do those things. You know, you wouldn’t know, because you’re basically royalty.

And he’s like, OK, you know, it’s not something that he’s ever experienced, because she’s from Streatham, which is like, you know, a working class area of South London. So she’s seen that all the time. You know what happens when you’re in a poor place and how crime is normally high in those places. So even their friendship is him learning how much he doesn’t actually know about the world.

He knows so much, but he knows so so little and even when there is a point where they have to meet a Viscount who’s one of their little informants for some information, and as soon as Amy gets into the room she can feel in the air through the auras in the air that the Viscount actually is a bit racist, but it’s not it’s something that Gerald never noticed because he’s saying we’re both of the same social class, you’ve been polite to me, I’ve been polite to you, and Amy’s feeling, thinking, no, this guy doesn’t like you. He’s quite perturbed. He doesn’t understand how you are the same class, because that’s not what he’s used to as a human, he’s used to just having white people around him.

So it’s even those little things that you have to teach him about the nuances that even if you are both of the same social class, even that can still exist, even within those areas, so yeah, I think their dynamic is really interesting in terms of what she teaches him and what he teaches her. They both get something out of it in terms of, he reveals to her the whole world of you know, downstairs, and magic, and all these crazy things, and she’s showing him more of the social side, and why people might do the things that they do, and what’s actually behind their little polite smiles and their little ways of working that he can’t feel because he’s not an empath, and she can feel it.

CMR: I love that yeah, and I was like, what would they talk about? Like coming from two completely different backgrounds. I love it. Like, yeah, I really love the working class versus upper class [thing]. I was thinking where I’ve seen that dynamic before. And I think like the best one is the Inspector Lynley mysteries.

JPB: It’s so true though.

CMR: I do love that dynamic. Where she’s basically telling him not to be a twat every single episode. I think that works really well. And so this is going to
be like in a series, right? How do you — are you allowed to say how you think their dynamic is going to develop?

JPB: No, I definitely can say, because I did put little subtle hints throughout the book. They will turn into something a little bit more. It’s difficult because the whole point of Gerald is that he’s cursed. And so he will never be able to touch her because the curse is in his hands. So when he removes his gloves, he
can’t actually physically touch anyone because that’s how they die. It’s a major issue between them.

And also there’s that whole like, it’s almost forbidden because he’s thinking, this is actually quite a dangerous relationship to have. I’m an assassin, I’m like extremely powerful, I don’t want to ever hurt her or put her in anything that is not right, and she’s also thinking, gosh, is this wise? Am I supposed to do something like this?

So yeah, I just finished the manuscript for book two and I gave it to my editor last month and so I’m waiting to hear back from them to see what they think about it, but it’s much more angsty in that area with their little thing, trying to understand what what are we right now, and so then we come to conclusion in the next book.

But yeah, as the books go on they’ll work it out, yeah.

CMR: I do like angst but presumably there must be a way around it otherwise they wouldn’t have other little reaper children?

JPB: Yes, yeah, it is literally they have to wear special gloves on their hands yeah literally.

CMR: Oh God.

JPB: Yeah, it’s really sad. I don’t want to spoil too much because it does — there is a part right in the epilogue that explains how a reaper is born and what happens to their hands yeah at a point.

CMR: Oh all right, okay I’ll leave it there but like, super intrigued. So you’re also, apart from being an author, you’re also the founder of the Black Girl Writers Mentoring Programme. Would you want to tell us about that?

Because some of that I think is like how you got published and stuff. Was that through a mentoring? You won a competition, right? And then you got…

JPB: Yes.

CMR: Yeah. Tell us about that.

Black Girl Writers Mentoring ProgrammeBlackgirlwriters.org

Email: info [at] blackgirlwriters [dot] org

Twitter: @BlkGirlWriters

IG: @BlackGirlWriters

Founder: Jackson P. Brown
Communications Lead: Moyette Gibbons

The aim of Black Girl Writers is to connect professional mentors with aspiring writers who identify as Black women for free. Black in this sense includes women of African, Caribbean, Afro-Latin, African-American, and Bi-racial heritage. Women includes cis, trans, and non-binary. We are based in the UK, but accept applications internationally.

These mentors are a mixture of editors, writers, and literary agents.

We will forward your details to your chosen mentor (subject to availability). After an introductory email, you and your mentor will then organise weekly, fortnightly, or monthly sessions together. Monthly mentorships should last between 2-4 months unless your mentor decides to keep you on for longer.

We are currently running on a first come, first served basis, which means mentor spaces get filled very quickly. If your chosen mentor is no longer available, we will work with you to arrange a session with our 1:1 standalone mentors as an alternative.

On rare occasions, we will be unable to find a suitable mentor for your application, but in such cases, we aim to organise a private, tailor-made group session to give unmatched mentees the opportunity to speak to an industry professional in a safe and confidential environment.

Due to increasing demand, we will periodically close our applications. Application windows will generally run from late April-May, and then late October-November. We will close submissions once we reach 30 applications.

We also organise free writing events with publishing professionals throughout the year. These are a great opportunity to network and ask your burning questions to literary agents, editors, authors, and directors. We always announce our events on the news page.

Future plans of Black Girl Writers include regular meetups to discuss our WIPs, offer support, and collaborate on anthology projects. All of these things will be achieved by potential lottery funding. Please watch this space for future announcements!

JPB: So I’d written one book and it didn’t really do well. So I was querying it, and it didn’t do well. And then I wrote another book. and I queried that as well and it didn’t really go anywhere, and then in 2020, just before lockdown, I think Kit De Waal tweeted about this programme called Penguin Write Now and it was my friend who… she messaged me, and said, oh you should enter the book into Penguin Write Now.

So I did, not knowing that because it was lockdown everyone in the country who had a book written or half written spent that time to finish their books, so they all entered it. I think almost 4 ,000 of us applied that year, and I had no idea. If I knew the stakes of that, I would never even tried, but I did, and so [there were] several different rounds, and finally I got onto the programme.

It’s just like, you spend a year with an editor, they help you with your manuscript and then at the end of it they see if you can take it up to acquisitions. It just so happened that a few different editors at Penguin got The Reaper so at this point I had changed and I resubmitted The Reaper to the programme, and then two different imprints wanted it, so it had to go to auction. I had no agent so I had to find one to help me broker the deal in the auction, so that’s how The Reaper got published.

But with Black Girl Writers, it actually… I founded it around the same time in 2020, so I had just once again just before lockdown because I didn’t know what was happening in my book and why I was getting so many rejections, so I entered like a master class course that helps you with your book and you get feedback from an agent, and maybe at the end you get to pitch it to like another really big agent and it was really expensive, I think it was almost two grand [£2,000.00] and I was paying in like instalments.

Yeah, it was kind of funny because only when I left, because the big thing why I didn’t want to leave and pull out is because of that pitching session with a big agent, this huge agency. I didn’t realize until I actually looked more closely, that agency didn’t even represent Science Fiction or Fantasy. So I didn’t have a chance of ever being by them in any way. So it was a bit ridiculous really.

But what I think tipped me over the edge is the, yeah, the leader, the course leader, she didn’t seem to be very impressed by my work. She liked my writing, but she didn’t like the subject matter. So at the time, this was a race-based dystopia set in London, and I could tell that she was uncomfortable with the content, and basically she just had an issue as like as a white woman she just felt like you know it wasn’t right what I was saying, and she said that I’m gonna have to try really hard to convince the reader that such racism could happen in London, and she was saying that like you know you can’t do a book that has both class and race in it, you have to try to separate them and everything.

CMR: What??

JPB: So I thought okay… I know, it was really bizarre. And in the end I just thought I’m gonna have to withdraw, so I withdrew, and said oh I can’t afford it anyway, I’m really sorry, and then I would go politely. But I was so frustrated. I thought, gosh, I wish I had had some sort of programme like that to go to where there’s like a big agent, that kind of industry connection that you just never get to have. And I thought, what can I do about this?

I want to know why I can’t get published, or what I’m doing wrong with my books that I can try to publish. And so, yeah, like in like a few days, I just set up a website and I just started tagging loads of different publishers. At the time — I know now Twitter’s a bit of like a bit of a weird place, but at the time all of the agents were on Twitter, always tweeting, so I just tagged loads of them… does anyone want to be a mentor for this programme, I’ve just set it up.

And it just so happened this was just on the cusp of a lot of the protests that was happening around that time for the Black Lives Matter [movement], and so a lot of them was really keen to like to join in and take part, so by the time summer had ended, I had like, gosh, I had people from Harper Collins and from Penguin Random House and Hatchette, and like some of the big, big literary agencies were involved. And it’s just continued to grow from there really, which I’m really happy about.

So yeah, this is our fifth year. We’re going to try to do something special because it’s like our five year anniversary.

And yeah, I’m really happy with it. We have had quite a few people that’s got signed to agents and… I think in our first year, somebody got a book deal, a two book deal with Virago at Little Brown. Yeah. Yeah. And we just we did an open submission day with Simon and Schuster this year. And it looks like one of the people that they’re going to get, they might get published, because they’re just currently working with one of the editors now, Simon and Schuster with their book.

So, yeah, like I’m really happy with how it’s turned out. And yeah.

CMR: That’s amazing! Oh congratulations and I hope that the fifth anniversary goes really well whatever you choose to do for its special event! Yay! I was just…. race and class don’t go together [makes “what the fuck” face].

JPB: I know. It was really bizarre, yeah.

CMR: In London.

[disbelieving laughter]

JPB: She kept on saying it, and she kept on trying to like make me separate it into two different books but I thought like I thought it just went I just thought it made sense but
she just didn’t like it.

CMR: So as somebody who grew up in a very working class area in South Wales where it is literally 98% white, race and class absolutely do go together.

JPB: Every time I tell it, because I thought it was me that had the problem, but when I tell the story, people… they’re just like no.

CMR: No it’s that… it is not you, you do not have a problem, like no, bizarre. Anyway I’m so glad that um the mentoring scheme really picked up and everything and that it’s still going strong after five years, yes amazing.

JPB: Thank you.

CMR: So I really hope that more people get success stories and publishing deals and various [things] from it because that’s really cool.

And before we run out of time, I would like to give you space, would you like to plug anything that is happening for the next year or coming year for you?

JPB: Well yeah I do have um at the moment, we do have a bit of a pre-order campaign that’s happening at the moment with Dryad bookshop. We’re giving away a free print and a free bookplate if you pre-order before the 10th of July.

They’re a really lovely, lovely bookshop and they’re like a local indie science fiction and fantasy bookshop. So they were nice to collab with me to do this art print and book plate giveaway.

Also, the second thing is at the moment I’m still writing. Hopefully my agent and I will be able to sell something that I’m writing at the moment, which is a… very dark kind of horror-based two book series that I’ve been writing in the meantime, in between the edits for The Reaper.

CMR: Thank you ever so much for coming on the podcast, it’s been an absolute pleasure to talk about The Reaper and hear about all of the things that
you’ve got going on, especially your mentoring programme, and yeah I wish you all the best for your book launch in July.

JPB: Thanks so much Mel, thank you.

Author Spotlight (Trad Release): Jackson P. Brown

Jackson P. Brown is a writer from London, an anime and manga enthusiast, and the founder of Black Girl Writers — a mentoring programme for aspiring Black writers.

After winning Penguin Random House’s #WriteNow competition in 2020, she signed a 3-book deal with Del Rey UK for her debut adult fantasy series, GETHSEMANE.

Author Links:

Website: jacksonpbrown.com

Instagram: @_JackPBrown
TikTok: @jackpbrownauthor

PREORDER FOR 10 JULY 2025: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/455385/the-reaper-by-brown-jackson-p/9781529907193

First of all, congratulations on your book deal with Penguin! What inspired your debut urban fantasy novel, The Reaper? 

Thank you!

Quite a few things inspired the novel: people I know, my love for London, my Jamaican heritage, my everyday experiences, and of course the madness of the British government and the UK’s difficult relationship with race and class, but The Reaper has two specific origin stories.

A major aspect of the novel is the magical city beneath London, Downstairs. This idea came to me when I was a teenager attending one of many psychiatric outpatient appointments following a period of mental illness.

I had to pass under a dark railway tunnel to get to the therapy office in London Bridge, central London, and one day I imagined pressing a brick in the wall and escaping down a chute to a new, fantastical land, Alice in Wonderland style.

Soon, I kept daydreaming about the city hiding under London, and all the different creatures that lived there and how they interacted with the human world. It underwent many names and was originally called The Cave.

I was so obsessed that I wrote a self-insert novel about a girl who feels like an outcast and discovers the city. It was my second full length novel and I finished it when I was 16. Strangely enough, many of the characters from that novel are in The Reaper today – they’re just properly aged up and much better written!

As for the other origin: I’ve always had a fascination with death and Grim Reaper stories, and I once wrote a short story about a Grim Reaper called Maxwell and the schoolgirl who discovers she’s the only one who can see him. When I told my mum about it, she gave me her copy of Mort by Sir Terry Pratchett because she said my irreverent take on the Grim Reaper reminded her of Death from Discworld.

Doubly inspired, I rewrote my short story in college and entered it into a writing competition set up by the English department. I won second place and my prize was a 3-course meal at Pizza Express in King’s Cross, which was very posh and fancy for me! I sat right by the window in view of King’s Cross and St Pancras International Station and just basked in the knowledge that I was enjoying a nice meal in a nice place because of my writing.

I think Gerald, my Grim Reaper, was born on that day. Of course, Gerald lives in the clocktower of St Pancras Station, and he likes to go to Pizza Express from time to time.

Can you tell us more about the intersections of culture, identity, race, and the British class system that readers will find in the novel?

Basically, readers will find these realities weaved into the characters, settings, and conflicts in The Reaper: London is a multicultural city – I often view it as a Vatican of sorts, as it has its own unique culture and politics that isn’t replicated anywhere else in England.

London just moves differently.

It’s also extremely expensive, and the disparity between rich and poor grows daily. We have a strange proximity to these things: when the Grenfell tragedy happened a few years ago, we all watched horrified as this huge block of flats in the middle of a sprawling council estate (known as the projects in the US) burned so violently, claiming over 70 lives of mainly immigrant, working class, ethnic minorities, and just a couple roads down there were people like Simon Cowell living in luxury.

England has other diverse cities, but London is the poster child, which means that for a large portion of Britain (which is mostly white), it’s viewed as a failed state. You will hear right wing pundits speak of “no go zones” created by Muslim communities where white people can’t visit, and others blame the high crime rates on “multiculturalism gone mad”.

Outside London, there are cities like Luton (Andrew Tate’s hometown) where a longstanding tension between whites and Asians exist, all fuelled by far-right Islamophobe Tommy Robinson, whose English Defence League regularly stages intimidation marches in the area.

London itself has seen many periods of white flight – where white families have fled to neighbouring cities to escape immigrants. So it leads to a multitude of reductionist contradictions from people who don’t live here: that London is filled with privileged rich people, and it’s also a hot bed of poverty and crime, and the main perpetrators of this crime are ethnic minorities – particularly Black people and Muslims.

At the same time, there are cultural differences between different ethnic groups within the Black diaspora. My main character Amy is of Jamaican descent, which means she’s a direct descendant of slavery, and her family would have immigrated to the UK during the Windrush Era post WW2. Her understanding of working class issues as a Black Brit of Jamaican heritage would be different from Gerald, who is a rich, highly privileged man originally from a dimension based in the Sahara Desert.

Gerald, although Black, regularly liaises with the British elite (which is white) because of his assassin job. He and Amy live two totally different lives, which is why, as they’re tracking down the antagonists of this story – a warlock and witch of extremely impoverished backgrounds – Amy has to remind Gerald that the case is more complicated than “criminals = bad”.

Can you tell us a bit about the worldbuilding process for your novel – how well do you know London, and how did you go about creating the hidden world beneath it?

I went on a crazy sociological rant about London just now. I’m sorry! But yes, I know the city very well. It’s my home town.

I once lived way out in the middle of England for a year of study and it was like going to a different country. There was nowhere to buy ethnic food, all the shops closed mad early, and one afternoon there was some nationalist parade going on in the town centre where a group of men and women were dancing around in blackface, waving England flags! I was appalled, packed my things and ran back to London.

Creating Downstairs was a process that took many years whilst I tried to map out the different races and how they’d interact with each other. I wanted to create a city that was as diverse as the one up top, and equally affected by its class issues.

There’s a social hierarchy Downstairs dominated by a series of “old families” that were involved in the city’s founding. In the novel, there’s a working class district called Cruickstown that’s based on the notorious real-life Aylesbury Estate in South London which has since been knocked down, turned into luxury penthouse apartments (prices start from around £700k), and the original occupants have been moved outside of London to poorer towns.

One of the antagonists of The Reaper is from Cruickstown. I’m trying to show that class inequality can exist anywhere and that it’s a conscious effort to divorce the mind from typical capitalist ideology.

Apart from the more challenging elements, I used a lot of pop culture and urban myths to make Downstairs fun. For example, you have to play the elevator game to enter the city, and there are abandoned and mysterious locations all over London “Upstairs” that the residents of Downstairs like to use as hiding places and social haunts.

What were the challenges for you in creating the characters of Amy and Gerald? What is your character development process like?

Gerald came to me fully formed. His name, appearance, way of speaking, and mannerisms all just fell into my lap. He was easy to write, and I see him as almost a parody of an affluent Londoner who’s out of touch with every day common life.

Amy was harder. She’s the audience, discovering this new world at the same time as the reader.

In my early drafts, my editor said she needed to be fleshed out more as sometimes she felt 2 dimensional. I gave her a stronger backstory and delved deeper into her heritage and the relationship she has with her deceased grandmother, explored the trauma she contends with after being disowned by her parents due to her strong empath powers, and I worked to show the reader how all these feelings of empathy affect her on a mental and emotional level.

An early critical reviewer said they liked Amy and her powers, but didn’t care for anyone else. Although the review wasn’t too favourable, I counted it as win as it meant I succeeded in fleshing her out! Another reason why Amy was hard is because her sense of loss and bereavement are very raw, and during the writing of this novel, my mum unfortunately passed away suddenly and unexpectedly, so there were times it took an emotional toll on me to write about Amy’s grief while I was still struggling with my own. I do think being able to empathise with Amy on this level made those moments much richer in the story, however.

What parts of the book did you have the most fun writing (if you can share without spoilers)?

Any time Gerald gets to show off. He’s the Grim Reaper, which in my story means he’s a supernatural creature that’s been born with a killing curse – but he’s the Awakened one of his family and he has additional powers that no one else has.

Other magical creatures are scared of Gerald, and although he’s often soft spoken and endearing, it’s really a front he puts on to allow him to fulfil his assignments efficiently.

He has a whole arsenal of tricks and powers, and when his mask comes off and he assumes the role of killing machine, it’s a bit exciting!

I hope people enjoy seeing a Black male character in this role – although, Amy is a necessary counter measure to bring him back to earth.

Can you share some early feedback that you’re really proud of for this novel, and let us know if there’s anything else in the works?

My biggest achievement so far has been a review from the legend herself, Charlaine Harris, whose Sookie Stackhouse novels really got me through some dull moments in university.

She said she loved the world building and called it a “truly amazing first book”.

I’m currently finishing up the manuscript for Book 2.

The stakes are higher, the will they/won’t they tension is much more explicit, and we get introduced to some of my favourite characters of the whole series.

I can’t wait for people to read it.

Outside of this series, I’m writing a duology also set in London that deals with demons and dubious pacts made with hell! They are both standalones but share some themes. One is a dark fantasy/literary horror and the other is a horrormance.

Like This? Try These:

Audio Release for Yelen & Yelena Chapter 18: Meeting the Mortress

In this chapter … things go downhill. But not, we hope, for the lovely indie (and trad) authors who have a shout out at the end of the episode! Head over to cmrosens.com to check out my 2025 Author Spotlights and you’ll find a whole host of books awaiting you.

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Listen nowRead along

CWs: loss of bodily autonomy, violence

Music Credits:

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

Intro/Outro: Quinn’s Song: The Dance Begins

Soundtrack: Devastation and Revenge, Final Count, The Stages of Grief, Gregorian Chant, Morgana Rides

Spooky Conference Season

Designing the Mortress’s realm and the worldbuilding I did around this for Yelen & Yelena inspired a workshop that I delivered online in 2024. This was the Designing a Hellscape – Worldbuilding Workshop at the last Romancing the Gothic conference in 2024, Devils & Justified Sinners, which commemorated the 200th anniversary of the publication of James Hogg’s novel, Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner.

My workshop kicked off the 2-day online event, and was entitled: ‘Create a Hellscape: Using Theology in World-Building’.

These are annual events, and the 2025 conference has just been announced!

This year it is celebrating 100 years since the publication of M.R. James’s A Warning to the Curious, and the 2-day online conference will be focused not just on this book, but on ghosts and the supernatural in fiction more generally. There will be an author panel with Nghi Vo, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and Suzan Palumbo, so if you want to hear them talking about modern supernatural short fiction, get your Early Bird ticket now!

Dr Sam Hirst: “THE BIG REVEAL! You can now buy tickets for our 2025 online conference ‘A Warning to the Curious: Celebrating 100 years of M R James ‘A Warning to the Curious’ Talks! Workshops! Events! Author roundtable with NGHI VO, SILVIA MORENO-GARCIA and SUZAN PALUMBO! buytickets.at/romancingthe…” — Bluesky

Buy Tickets

Romancing the Gothic presents its fifth annual online conference over two days – 23rd and 24th August. The conference celebrates 100 years of M. R. James’ A Warning to the Curious and Other Stories with a series of talks, events, workshops, live readings and an author round table with Nghi Vo, Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Suzan Palumbo.

The conference is designed to cover different timezones so the days are long. People are recommended to come for as long as they want. The talks and sessions are recorded so that you don’t miss anything even if you can’t be there in person for specific times/sessions.

Early Bird Tickets, Concessions and Free Tickets

There will be early bird discounts on tickets until 30th June 2025. Concession tickets are for students, the unwaged, retired people or anyone whose economic situation makes it necessary. We also offer a limited number of free tickets for those who cannot pay the ticket price, please email sam@romancingthegothic.com for more information. You can donate a ticket for those who are unable to afford to come.

Accessibility

We have live auto-generated captions. We provide slides and, where possible, scripts before the conference with alt-text for images. We have regular breaks and encourage people to take part in ways that are most comfortable for them. There is no forced participation.

If you have any accessibility needs, please get in touch at sam@romancingthegothic.com and I will do my best to make sure these accommodations are provided.

PROGRAMME

Saturday 23 rd  August

10.00AM – 10.30AM – Introductions

10.30AM – 11.30AM – Panel 1 – Jamesian Architecture (panel chair: Brontë Schiltz)

Octavia Cade – Opposite Architectures: The Jamesian Well as Inverted Lighthouse

Helen Grant – Stained Glass and ‘The Treasure of Abbot Thomas’

11.30AM – 11.45AM – BREAK

11.45AM – 12.45PM – Keynote – Darryl Jones – A Warning to the Curious: ‘flying Time and all it had taken out of my life’

12.45PM – 1.00PM – BREAK

1.00PM – 2.30PM – Writing Workshop – Mimi Manyin – ‘Summoning the Ghosts in Haunted Objects: A Study of MR James’ Ghost Stories and Crafting Cautionary Tales’

2.30PM – 3.15PM – LUNCH

3.15PM – 5.05PM – Panel 2 – Archives and Archaeology (Panel chair: Rebecca Stone Gordon)

Amy Leblanc – Think about what you don’t get to see: Ghosts, Archives, and Images in Leanne Shapton’s Guestbook: Ghost Stories

Susan Maxwell – A Catalogue of Terrors: Archives, Fiction, and Archival Fiction

Mark P. Williams – Excavating the ()ole Complex: Re-reading M. R. James via Reza Negarestani; Or Chthonic Modernism of ‘Count Magnus’, ‘The Treasure of Abbot Thomas’ and ‘Mister Humphreys and His inheritance’

Tracy Hayes – Codicology releases Demons – The Antiquarian Gothic

5.05PM – 5.15PM – BREAK

5.15PM – 7.00PM – Panel 3 – Victorian and Edwardian Ghost Writers (Han O’Flanagan)

John Hartley – Streamlined with the spears of mysterious forces: anthologies of ghostly, supernatural and weird short fiction in the 1920s and 1930s

Stefanie Tegeler – Antiquarians in Frankenstein’s Footsteps? Reading M. R. James’s Characters as Gothic Mad Scientists

Kellie Miller – The Specter Speaks – the channeling of Feminine Voices in Victorian Ghost Narratives

Sontje Schulenburg – Overshadowed by M. R. James: The Supernatural Fiction of Eleanor Scott

7.00PM – 7.15PM – BREAK

7.15PM – 8.45PM – Panel 4 – Haunting Obligations: Political Ghost Stories (Panel Chair: Wade Newhouse)

Corinne Anderson – “She saw herself domesticated with the Horror”: a Comparative Analysis of Andrea Dworkin’s Right Wing Women and Edith Wharton’s “Afterward”

Beth Kusko – “Alone and Afraid: Hannah Arendt’s Understanding of Loneliness in Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House”

Wade Newhouse – “Seeing Dead People: Haunted Spectatorship in Ghost Story and A Ghost Story”

8.45PM – 9.00PM – BREAK
9.00PM – 10.00PM – Cocktail and Mocktail hour with Julia O’Connell (original recipes inspired by M R James stories!)

Sunday 24 th  August

9.45AM – 10.00AM – Introductions

10.00AM – 11.00AM – Panel 5 – The History Behind the Tale (Panel Chair: Kasey Waite)

Lukasz Haydrych – The dead speak?! The fear of wraiths in early modern Poland

Lily Bentley – Ghosts in the Courtroom: M. R. James’ ‘Martin’s Close’ and supernatural justice in Early Modern England

11.00AM – 11.15AM – BREAK

11.15AM – 12.15PM – Keynote – Zoë Lehmann Imfeld

12.15PM – 12.30PM – BREAK

12.30PM – 2.00PM – Panel 6 – Language and the Ghostly (Panel Chair: Julie Larson)

Jenny Amos – I seen it wive at me: an exploration of dialect representations in M R James’ Suffolk characters

Susan Vanderborg – Porpentine’s Ghosts: Kenning the Bodies, Exhuming the Poems

David Oakey – A corpus-assisted exploration of reticence in The Collected Ghost Stories of M R James

2.00PM – 3.00PM – LUNCH

3.00PM – 4.45PM – Panel 7 – Sound and Senses (Panel Chair: Evan Hayles Gledhill)

Kendra Leonard – Sound and Music in M. R. James’ Ghost Stories of an Antiquary

Jamie Stephenson – ‘A Dead Man’s Eyes’: Rethinking Gendered Tropes of Grammar in the Jamesian Weird Through Sound

Eptisum Laskar – Horror of the Mind, Horror of the Stomach: A Comparative Study of Supernatural Hunger in M. R. James and Bengali Ghost Stories

Allie Pino – You’ve Blown it Now: Who is This Who’s Coming?

4.45PM – 5.00PM – BREAK

5.00PM – 6.15PM – Workshop – ABS – (Title TBC: Theme – Exploring the Weird: Psycho-geographical exploration)

6.15PM – 6.30PM – BREAK

6.30PM – 7.30PM – Author Panel – Supernatural Short Fiction Today

Confirmed Guests: Suzan Palumbo, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Nghi Vo

7.30PM – 8.00PM – BREAK and Final Discussion

8.00PM – 9.00PM – Live Dramatic Readings of M R James with Robert Lloyd Parry