What is a typical writing day for you?
Every day is different. I live with my husband and our four children (aged one to fourteen) who are homeschooled, and our days are busy and slightly chaotic. I try to write for an hour or two daily; in the early morning before anyone gets up, or in the afternoon whilst my youngest has a nap, or late at night when all the children are asleep. I don’t always manage it. Sometimes, when I feel the need to spend a longer period of time with my work, or when a deadline is looming, my husband will take over all the parenting and I will hide in our bedroom with my laptop.
How have tales from the past influenced and underpinned your writing?
I am massively influence by folk and fairy tales, especially the Slavic ones my grandmother told me when I was young. They shaped my life in so many ways and took root in my imagination. I started writing in my thirties and my first works were retellings of Polish legends. These aren’t published – I think of them as my apprenticeship, they are how I learned to craft sentences and stories.
My first published book involved a reimagining of Baba Yaga. She is a fascinating and multi-layered character from Russian and Slavic folklore. I was terrified of her as a child, but I also noticed how in some of the tales she acted as helper to the hero, despite her being a cannibalistic witch. This ambiguity fascinated me and led me to explore the kinder side of Baba Yaga’s nature in The House with Chicken Legs.
As I researched Baba Yaga’s origins I discovered she is ancient, thousands of years old, and most likely evolved from Pagan Goddesses of Life and Death. I fell down a rabbit hole of wondrously inspiring legends, myths, and folktales that all fed into my writing.
My second book was born from my research into these old stories. In fact, The Girl Who Speaks Bear contains several folktale-retellings woven into the main narrative as betweenchapter stories, that ultimately help the main character, Yanka, discover who she is. This is no coincidence, as I believe ancient stories have survived for so long precisely