In the lead-up to the release of Hope: The Thing with Feathers, I’m going to be posting mini-interviews with my fellow ToC-mates! You can pre-order Hope: The Thing with Feathers here.
“The Lay-by-rinth” is a tale of a future that has taken as many twists and turns as a labyrinth. Matt works along the old M25 making food stops and Waypoints with Avi, a wanderer from America. Avi’s Waypoint ideas are mystical and intricate, not unlike the feather vein fungus that has consumed and crumbled the old cities. But what meaning will these Waypoints of old ruined tech give the pilgrims who walk the cracked asphalt, or to Matt, still seeking someone to call home?
Writing can be a tough profession and authors at all stages tend to get “no” more often than “yes.” How do you cope with rejection?
I tend to approach submissions with the spirit of a keen but inexperienced player lobbing balls at a basketball net. So each miss is just a prompt to try again, but I make sure I indulge in unbridled ecstasy when I get a slam dunk. I find sharing rejections with fellow writers in a spirit of hangdog humour helps too.
What’s your go-to strategy to feel better when life or the state of affairs gets you down?
As a sustainability professional who often has to look at the climate crisis in the face without blinking, this is a regular challenge. I often reflect that the future is always uncertain, which means that doom is never a foregone conclusion, any more than the perfect outcome.
What book or books have changed your life or the way you see the world?
Four Ways To Forgiveness by Ursula K. LeGuin. It’s such a sophisticated and deeply moving take on redemption, and the many forms that can take.
Anna lives in London and works for an environmental charity. Her short horror fiction has appeared in Mslexia, the Gothic Nature Journal and the anthologies ‘Rock Band’ and ‘Rewired’, published by Ghost Orchid Press. Her essay, Bihexuality in The Craft, is published in the Off Limits Press anthology ‘Divergent Terror’. In 2022, she won a poetry competition hosted by Hot Poets, a project which pairs poets with scientists to create work that transcends the doom and gloom of climate change, and focuses on mitigation and solutions. ‘The Moon Doth Shine’ won the 2023 XR Solarpunk showcase. Her eco-horror novella ‘Phengaris’ is now out with Nefarious Bat Press.
Learn more about Anna at annaorridge.com.