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Witchcraft in the Harem – interview with Aliya Whiteley

Aliya Whiteley’s new collection, Witchcraft in the Harem, is being launched on Monday 13th May. It was published by Dog Horn Publishing. I have a chat with Aliya about the reasons behind its writing and what’s in store in the future.



1) This such a varied collection – from Penelope Napolitano and the Butterflies to Galatea, the opening piece. Were you aware of trying to create something with light and shade?
 

There is a lot of difference in tone between the very dark Galatea and the light touch of Penelope Napolitano, although I think they’re both stories that deal with the question of getting lost in your own dreams. I put together the collection with the intention of letting my comic side as well as my serious side show through. But I think even my lightest comedy falls on the black side, to be honest.


2) Galatea is quite a short (perhaps flash?) piece? (Or perhaps just short-short). The ending interested me in its suggestiveness. I wondered if you think that flash fiction particularly needs ambiguous endings?
 

I think ambiguity can be effective in flash fiction as it gives the piece scope and breath, into which the reader can put their own interpretations. I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary, but maybe I’ve seen more successful flash fiction that utilises that tool.

Galatea comes with a great mythical framework attached simply by using that word as a title, and I think that does a lot of the hard work of creating an atmosphere and expectations. We know this story already, in the many forms of Pygmalion, and so we’re looking for parallels regarding creation and manipulation. So I suppose what I’m saying is that any tool that makes space within the tight structure of flash fiction is worth using.


3) Though Galatea is clay she comes to life and what her ‘maker’ does is quite graphic. Some of your previous work has tackled difficult themes. Do you write with overarching themes in mind (ie the representation of women) or do you just write the story, whatever that might be?!
 

I like the surprising and the shocking, and I like to write about the issues that concern me. I made a decision a few years back not to limit my imagination, so stories go where they want to go, and I very rarely make an effort to control them in terms of theme. I did write romance and crime before deciding speculative fiction best suited my natural voice, and I found the fantastical and the dangerous always attempted to creep into those genres. From a commercial point of view that’s not great, but I never felt happy with the things I wrote that obeyed the rules of those genres.


4) How do you plan a collection and its structure and placement?
 

These are stories I’ve written over the past ten years, and I’ve written in many genres over that timespan. So when I decided I wanted to put together a collection of my fantasy stories, I looked through what I had written previously and tried to achieve some thematic similarities. Once Dog Horn Publishing became involved and the editing process began my thoughts became clearer on what I was trying to achieve and so some stories were replaced. The last story in the collection, Strands, was a late addition. I wouldn’t call it a fantasy story, but it has a dreamlike quality and I think it’s a great end to the book. But it’s only through working with the material, arranging and rearranging it, that I began to get a feeling of where the pieces belonged.


5) What happens after the first book? I know you’ve been publishing for a good while now (Mean Mode Median was 2004). Do you every wonder/worry about finding new themes or stories?
 

Not at all. I was surprised to find that Witchcraft in the Harem has a cohesive feel to it, and that I could choose fifteen or so stories from my catalogue that had thematic similarities. Each story feels very different to me when I’m writing it, and they never have the same starting point. I realised a lot of this collection is concerned with motherhood, and that’s because I have a young daughter, but really I’ve not seen that theme appear in the stories I’ve been writing over the last twelve months. Right now I’m all about the role of information access in society, and that’s producing some very different and interesting stories that I’m proud of. It’s strange in the business of publishing that you find yourself often talking about novels and stories that you left behind, emotionally speaking, months ago. But that’s healthy. I’d hate to be stuck in the same place, rewriting the same plot, over and over.


6) Who are you reading at the moment? And what short story writers do you particularly rate?
 

I look out for anything that Nik Perring writes. I loved his collection of flash fiction from Roastbooks, Not so Perfect. Also, there’s a great lyrical writer of short stories, Tom Saunders, that I very much admire. His collection, Brother, What Strange Place is This? is one of my favourites.

Right now I’m reading a lot of Muriel Spark. I know I’m really behind the times but I just discovered how brilliant she is, particularly Memento Mori. My favourite short story at the moment is Ursula Le Guin’s The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas. What a story.


7) Do you have any useful tips for students who are trying to make the leap from assignments to publishing?
 

I did find it quite helpful still to work within a structure sometimes. You get used to the false constraints of assignments – so many words, on a certain theme or using a certain character – and I still sometimes apply those sorts of constraints. I’m a member of a writing workshop and we set challenges for each other. Some of my best work has come out of the weirdest starting points. For instance, the story 1926 in Brazilian Football started out as an exercise in randomly visiting a Wikipedia page and using it as a title. I love that story because it overcomes the constraints of the title and that helps the writing to feel free and irreverent.


8) That dreaded question…what’s next?
 

I’ve just finished a literary fantasy novel that I’m very proud of, and I’m looking for a publisher for that now. There are short stories coming up in places like Kaleidotrope and Per Contra, as well as an anthology of the best of Smokelong, so it’s going to be an exciting year for me. And I’m writing new short stories all the time so there’s always something in the pipeline.


Thank you!

Between the Hours of Two and Four (in progress)

(Some more in-progress work. Inspired by my Cath Nichols’ poem, Fathom . Originally published in Cake) 

 

This is how they are assembled, when he comes in from the lonely outside. Two bodies, arranged on a faded mushroom sofa. Legs and arms stuck into any place there is space, like that childhood game with the straws and marbles.

The infant sleeps in the other room, its breath catching in its throat.

It is 2.31am.

The man’s chest is bare, his stomach toned though slightly slack with impending middle age and his desk job. An open-mouthed sleep in the manner of the exhausted, the oblivious. He is handsome in a worn, gentle way. Much like his manner. The woman is curled on one side of the settee, echoing the shape of the baby in the cot in the flat’s narrow second bedroom. A slip of silk and lace, a fleck of baby food staining the stomach, hangs from knotted shoulders. She frowns in sleep.

Artefacts that contrast their paling relationship surround them. Photographs from places of sunshine, a camel, smiling in sunglasses, coiffured cocktails, the wedding, confetti freeze-framed, walls of books. Travel guides and cook books, conservation. These things belong to the both of them. Both the man and the woman are doctors, one of the brain and one for the body. Separate shelves for each of their professions. Analysis and isms, biology and healthcare.

It is this reason, this goodness and direction, that means she will not experience her child develop. He understands the word; ironic.

The light from the dusty blinds is the colour of crab-meat. It soaks in between the gaps where the blinds don’t quite close. Similar to the slatting of the blinds, the alignment of their bodies. He surmises that, although they look quite snug, it is likely their proximity is more likely due to the lack of surface area on the sofa. Because for the man, there is someone else. Or at least the possibility of that. The dilemma sits with him in waking life, festering between meetings and clients, and suggests itself in dream, blocks of warm feeling he experiences guilt over on waking.

A film plays. Something about aliens and far-off planets. A team of astronauts fleeing a flowering, inevitable cloud of dust. The sound is off. Their screams, within helmets, are mute. The pictures reflect on the woman’s folded, foetal legs. Bands of flickering colour, highlighting the place where he will soon touch her. Directly atop the heart.

When the infant was conceived, the woman saw, or her medical brain imagined, a heightened pulse, the plump of red blood cells, streaming. A sound like twisting rope, and a flash of constructing, binding DNA.

And then, a bracket of silence; the anticipated beat of another life.

When he touches her heart, the skin will pink, as the organs she transplants do when they take and the body accepts the alien. Adapting. It will later deepen to aubergine and begin to pain, like a bee sting. She will wake then with a flash, a clot of breath in her throat, hand to her chest. You would think that’s where it ends. She would slump back to sleep where they had fallen after the long day. But the vision will play on. The woman will witness the excision of herself from life, the dissolution of her interior on fast forward. Greying and decaying. Its inevitable crumble.

But then the baby will cry.

The woman will stumble to her feet and tend to the infant. She’ll hold her child to the bruising, stinging heart and soothe it, and breathe. For a while, at least.

Neither of them are religious, but this does not matter. 

Back in stock

As a new, and indie author, the joys (aka confusions) of book distribution are things I'm learning about. Despite everyone's best efforts, it's been a good while since Killing Daniel was in stock on Amazon. It's now back! (Which is nice). There's only one copy, but apparently an order results in them ordering more, thus replenishing blah blah...

Anyway.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Killing-Danie...

You can always download a preview here or get the kindle, but still, sometimes paper feels best.

Meanwhile, I'm still steeped in drafts of The Lemonade Girl... Talking lemons, missing girlfriends and multiverse theory.

Hope you're all reading something nice. Am reading The Night Rainbow, by Claire King, which is just lovely.
Killing Daniel

someone mentioned I was 33 and I realised it was true

Hm. 

On an unrelated manner, I hid the Jog Blog because it was far too stressful. I’ve discovered a few things about this jogging malarkey, however. One, I’m more competitive with myself than I thought. Two, I prefer jogging alone. Three, jogging alone can result in mad arguments with self that often start with no one would know if…

you stopped every couple of minutes

you just went home

you walked the whole way instead

Except me. I would know. Hm. So why am I doing it? It’s for guide dogs and the Manchester 10k – you can sponsor me if you like here. (There’s a text one that lets you do a quid.)

Other stuff. Reading some lovely stories and collections for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. Read one in Cynthia Rogerson’s ‘Stepping Out’ in particular that provided a startling realisation for the children in the story (that they were now without their mother). Finally getting round to paying people back for being so kind about Killing Daniel. People have taken the time to review and give ratings and spread the word and I’m making a big March effort to get my thoughts down about all the books I’ve been hoarding.

A couple of friends have had some great news. Debz Hobbs-Wyatt’s novel is getting published by Parthian and someone else I can’t mention something else about is happy right now. Fingers crossed. Felt really happy and also justified in some way, knowing that it really can all be about the slog. That slog will pay off, one day. So many people in the last few weeks are proof positive of that. Write, work and it will happen. Well done ladies I also have some nice news that I can’t yet mention…

What else, issue #12 of the SWAMP journal is up. It’s based out of Newcastle University, Australia and for CW postgrads. Got a submission for them? I guest-edited this one which is nice, given they published ‘Wonderland’ a while ago.

I also went back to Salford Uni this month to give a reading and talk about Unthank Books. Spotted some familiar faces on campus and felt, well, just a tiny bit proud. (First time round at Salford/uni did not go well for me).

If you missed the interview I did with those lovely people at Phoenix FM, Gaia Holmes and William Thirsk-Gaskill, you can listen again here. 

I’ll leave you with a semi-ridiculous question – jogging makes your boobs bigger? Fact/fiction?

PS Maybe moving to Wales to live by the beach with a dog named Granville.

 

Phoenix FM radio interview.

This is a two part interview with me on Phoenix FM. All the songs were themed around the book, which was lovely. And there was cake. Hosted by Gaia Holmes and William Thirsk-Gaskill.

(It should be the second one down)

phoenixfm.co.uk/shows_themes_for_drea...

Killing Daniel giveaway

Launched on World Book Day, there is currently a giveaway to win copies of Killing Daniel. All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning a signed copy is to request it from the link below.

Good luck!

http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sho...

The Manchester 10k & Guide Dogs Association

Meet Josie, also known as the Yogi Bear (Picture above). Not smarter than the average bear, or dog, but a wonderful companion to my nan for many years. After my nan died, Josie the guide dog became our beloved family pet.

My nan, who was registered blind, always said that Josie gave her the confidence to go outside. To walk straight and not hunched because she had faith in Josie to keep her safe.

For those who know me, I am not athletic, so this is a personal challenge to in many ways. I’d love to raise a little money to help the guide dogs association keep helping people like my man to be independent.

Hope you can help!

Sarah

x

Just Giving

Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate – I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

So please dig deep and do

Meet Josie, also known as the Yogi Bear (Picture above). Not smarter than the average bear, or dog, but a wonderful companion to my nan for many years. After my nan died, Josie the guide dog became our beloved family pet.

My nan, who was registered blind, always said that Josie gave her the confidence to go outside. To walk straight and not hunched because she had faith in Josie to keep her safe.

For those who know me, I am not athletic, so this is a personal challenge to in many ways. I’d love to raise a little money to help the guide dogs association keep helping people like my man to be independent.

Hope you can help!

Sarah

x

Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate – I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

So please dig deep and donate.

The Syllabus of Errors – review

Or

Twelve Stories of Obsession, Loss and Getting in a State

£12.00

Buy here:

Unthank Books

Amazon

Book Depository 

 

I have seen people comment on how this sequence of stories needed to be savoured and considered and that’s definitely true. There are layers within each of these stories and connections that create a fascinating latticework of ideas, theme, time and character.

 

My favourite moments in the collection were those that most clearly explored the intimacies of relationships. The first two stories were perfect for that. Island Gardens starts in London, though flits to Moscow and, briefly, to Spain. This movement in memory, thought or place is echoed in the technique. Storming the Bastille contains similar movement. Greg and Nikki are a young couple who have been dating for two years, though have yet to have sex. Only in the Hotel de Crillon, she says. At one point, when Greg has been ‘held up’ (I won’t ruin it) and they have gone back to the Hotel Vivienne (definitely not the Hotel de Crillon), you think they might finally make love for the first time. Except the narrator skids away, commenting from a place and experience years ahead.

 

‘Six years later, in a hotel room in the Marais, Greg will pace and fret – the room reminds him of her, this night, the two years.’ The movement allows us to reflect on this moment, which we return to, now weighted down with future knowledge, older and unable to see this moment with the excitement and promise as the two of them might. It’s not deflating either, it doesn’t strip the story of its purpose which you might think it could. The sensitivity and skill of the writer needs to be acknowledged here and the way this story ends is all the more beautiful for it.

 

Not forgetting Stokes’ trademark humour that I enjoyed in his debut novel Touching the Starfish. The contrast between Grant in Island Gardens and the Reverse English he (fatefully) meets is hilarious:

 

‘You well bate, blood?’

 

‘Pardon?’…

 

‘You done now, blood, I’s banking.’

 

The Syllabus of Errors is a fascinating collection of discussions on the ephemeral nature of life. The transience and impermanence of love which can be, as we see from one of the characters, Ludo, who dwells on a past love, utterly enduring. The physical movement, the almost dizzying layers of place, together with the temporal movement echoes, for me, the reality of us. All the hopes and disappointments. We’re the sum of every obsession, loss, and ‘getting in a state’ that we experience.

 

Occasionally I felt a little dense to appreciate all the complexities of the Syllabus, but that’s something to do with my C- awareness as opposed to the A+ writing (that was cliché, wasn’t it?) That’s as maybe, but this collection certainly isn’t and contains stories to read and return to and which, somehow, will change and expand and alter, just as you do.

You can follow Ashley on Twitter @AshleyJStokes

The Jog Blog

So it’s all that Elizabeth Harris’ fault. Am not good at not following through on ideas (hers) but am jogging for the doggies (guide) for the Manchester 10k. My nan had a guide dog: the yogi bear.

This blog may publicly humiliate me into completing the barnados plan (and not spelling publicly like pubically) which, have looked ahead, includes something athletic for 75 minutes. That’s quite upsetting. So far, I very much like the rest days.

Day 1

Half an hour jog to and from chippy. Required lengthy break before the ginger rice thingy. Not the best idea ever. Still, managed. Complain to bloke about legs being broken. He comments that haven’t broke a sweat so I haven’t worked hard enough. Place ‘L’ sign to my head at him when he’s in the kitchen. He sees.

Day 2

Buy snazzy, motivating jog clothes in TK Maxx. Not the tight ones. Male shopping assistant asks if I’m a dancer. I quite want to pretend I am. Don’t.

Day 3

Jog to post box and what not. Post back the love film (Brave, mde me feel sick). Two birds etc. getting bored of Bridget Jones style blog style. This is the, er, 10’s. Irene Kara plays on the radio. Rest day tomorrow = warm, fuzzy glow. Agree to go on BBC radio tomorrow. Jog to Preston?

Free shipping

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That's nice, eh?

Killing Daniel