Four Questions with Stephanie Ellis

I’m so excited to read Stephanie Ellis’s The Woodcutter, out this month from Brigids Gate Press. I’m grateful that Ellis stopped by to chat as she launches her latest speculative title.

Tamika Thompson: What is horror? 

Stephanie Ellis: Horror is a genre of many forms. Ask most people and they automatically assume blood and gore and jump scares, but that is only a small part of the category. Horror can be quiet, filled with creeping fear or dread, a growing realization that something is not quite right. It can be reflective of real life; books involving murderers, stalkers, those who manipulate and abuse are all horror in their own way, and even more so as such cases have been reported in the news making you realize it could absolutely happen. It can be psychological horror, where a person’s own mind plays tricks on themselves, misinterpreting what they see and hear. It is the dark side of humanity, which illuminates our immoral selves, challenges the idea of right and wrong and makes you ponder how far you would go if you were in similar circumstances. Horror allows a consumer to immerse themselves in a story and explore its themes and ideas but ultimately come safely out on the other side.

Thompson: What is the spookiest experience you've ever had?

Ellis: I haven’t really had anything that has outright terrified me. The worst times were the occasional nights when I would wake and see the shape of someone at the end of my bed. I always saw the shape when I woke suddenly and after a moment of focusing on the shape it would go away. My common sense self would tell me it was just a trick of the light and not to be so stupid! That instance of seeing it immediately on jolting awake however was always a scary one.

Thompson: What is the scariest book you've read and what about it frightened you?

Ellis: I don’t tend to get frightened by a book. I think the term ‘unnerved’ is probably a better word for my response to horror reads.

But I will admit to one frightening me a bit and that’s very much because of where I was reading it. Some years ago, when I first moved to Wales and was working there, I rented a small cottage in the village of Bryncrug. No.6 Tynywynllan was at the end of a row of cottages on the road leading out of the village (with fields behind the garden at the back), and once upon a time had been the home of Mary Jones, the girl who walked over the mountains to get a copy of the Welsh bible.

It was a dark and stormy night—so cliché but true!—and I was on my own, sat in front of a real fire and buried in Stephen King’s It. King has a way of writing that completely pulls you in, but as I read, following the children on their search for Pennywise, the murderous clown, I heard a creak from overhead, and then another, and then one on the stairs. I actually put the book down at that point— and yes, I investigated. The common sense side telling me I was on my own and there was nobody in the house so I went up the stairs, very cautiously. And I was right, there was no one there but it disturbed me enough not to want to pick the book up again in the dark. It was that total immersion matched with my very real sense of isolation that made it frightening.

Thompson: In your latest work, The Woodcutter, what do the legends of Little Hatchet teach us about fear?

Ellis: The Woodcutter is an old legend in Little Hatchet. He is a monster, a demon, immortal but needing a new body at times as his old one wears away. When he senses that time is at hand, he takes an apprentice to teach him his trade, before taking his body completely. The Church fought back against the Woodcutter, using prayers at the boundaries of the woods to ensure he remained inside, and then played upon the people’s fear to keep them in line.

What the legend shows is that people can believe pretty much anything when they live in an isolated community. When rational explanations are in short supply, more of the community are inclined to believe in the most extraordinary of situations.

The Reverend Chadwick, the last of a long line of ministers of his family in the village, has lost his faith and also dismisses the idea of a creature such as the Woodcutter. Only through accompanying another villager, who is a believer in the monster, into the woods does he begin to think such things might be true. But much like me reading It in isolation, he also sees and hears things in a place where the light can play tricks on the mind.

And fear allows those who have been set up as the Woodcutter’s possible apprentice in the reality show (which recreates the legend) to be manipulated for public and private gain.

The story is a search for the truth behind the legend of the Woodcutter but one which plays on this sense of seeing is believing and it has been written in such a way that, just like the main characters, the reader remains unsure as to who or what to believe until the end.

Fear can be irrational and as it is such a basic emotion in humans, it allows for belief to be suspended and all sense of reality distorted. It is this aspect which feeds through the story of the Woodcutter.

Stephanie Ellis writes dark speculative prose and poetry and has been published in a variety of magazines and anthologies, the most recent being Scott J. Moses’ What One Wouldn’t Do, Demain Publishing’s A Silent Dystopia and Brigids Gate Press’ Were Tales. Her longer work includes the novel, The Five Turns of the Wheel and the novellas, Bottled and Paused. Her short stories can be found in the collections, The Reckoning, and As the Wheel Turns. She is an active member of the HWA and can be found at https://stephanieellis.org and on twitter at @el_stevie.