In honor of the Novelists in November anthology’s
one-year anniversary, I’m thrilled to host Bethany Willcock, one of its eleven
authors. I thoroughly enjoyed her exciting and atmospheric mystery in this
collection, featuring the endearing Greenwood family, and look forward to
reading more of her works. We have similar tastes in books (such as classics
and other books with rich, evocative writing styles that tell compelling
stories), which is always fun to discover, so I just knew I would enjoy her
writing as well, and I was definitely right! Now, let’s meet her.
Hi Bethany! Tell us a little bit
about yourself and what you write.
Hi Kelsey! Thank you so much for
having me, it’s an honour to be here. And Hi, Kelsey’s readers! I’m Bethany
Willcock, author of “And As She Talked” in the Novelists
in November anthology. I’m a South African Christian homeschool-grad who
lives in a little seaside cottage in South Africa’s ‘garden province’, Kwa-Zulu
Natal. Other than writing, I run a home bakery called BakerStreat and work
part-time at a hair salon as well. I love everything vintage and cottagecore,
or which pertains to cats and coffee. I write mysteries, mostly historical, and
usually ones set in either the early Edwardian Age (Sherlock Holmes is a huge
inspiration for my writing) or the 1940s/50s (Agatha Christie is another huge
writing inspiration!). “And As She Talked” is set in 1947, two years after WW2
ended.
You have such an interesting life! What
was your initial inspiration for “And As She Talked”?
I’ve been racking my brain trying to
remember how I first came up with the premise for the story. I believe I’d
always had parts of it tucked away in the dark recesses of my mind waiting for
a future book to be inserted into. But I remember being inspired for the idea
of an author’s fictional characters seemingly appearing to her while she writes
after watching an episode of a TV show that dealt with a mystery involving mind
games. Also, I couldn’t help but wonder what I would do if suddenly the
impossible started happening to me; if cats began vanishing out of my own
paintings and reappearing in others; or if something resembling Autumn
Greenwood appeared in random corners of my house and scared me witless by
quoting lines of her dialog while I was trying to write “And As She Talked”! So
I thought it would be a fun and unique premise to explore, especially as it fit
in so well with the “Novelists in November” theme. I love reading mysteries
that have ‘explainable inexplicable’ events happening in them, such as ‘ghostly’
sightings that end up having a rational explanation (think Nancy Drew, or Jaime
Jo Wright’s books). I believe everything mysterious has a normal explanation,
and I so enjoyed writing a story that has a seemingly impossible answer but which
turns out to be quite simple after all.
I know I was also inspired a lot by a
stanza of Mark Van Doren’s poem, “The Storyteller”, which is where I got the
title as well:
“He talked, and as he talked
Wallpaper came alive,
Suddenly ghosts walked
And four doors were five.”
Your story premise captured me as
soon as I heard it, and it did not disappoint. How would you describe Autumn
Greenwood, the protagonist?
Autumn Greenwood is my favourite
female MC to date. She did her bit during the war, and now lives in London. She’s
a very neat and precise person, in the way she dresses as well as with her
paintings. She’s a rather successful novelist when the story opens, however
she’s been having some trouble getting inspiration for her new WIP, so she goes
to Mossfern Lodge which is owned by her brother Noah and his two young
daughters, to try to get some rest after WW2 and story inspiration. The
important thing about Autumn is that she likes to paint her characters and
scenery from her books as she writes, as this helps her form the story clearly
in her mind since she struggles to remember faces. She’s also the 1940s’
equivalent of a crazy cat lady, and cats play an important part in the mystery
she finds herself caught up in at Mossfern.
I loved Autumn. She’s relatable, like
someone I’d want for a friend, and she’s such a sweet sister and aunt to Noah
and his daughters. Was there a particular place that inspired Mossfern Lodge?
There was indeed! I’m so glad you
asked, Mossfern Lodge is my absolute favourite setting I’ve created! I just
wish it was a real place. I was inspired by my favourite classic fictional
house and setting, Misselthwaite Manor from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s “The
Secret Garden”. Mossfern is not anywhere near as grand a house as Misselthwaite,
but the grounds and location (although I never gave a specific location in the
book) are very similar. There’s no walled-up garden at Mossfern (that we know
of, perhaps, one will be discovered in a future Autumn Greenwood book!), but
there is a large pond with a mysterious willow tree growing on the bank, that
plays a huge role in the story. I loved the setting of Mossfern so much that I
drew a map of it, the house and the grounds, as well as the cute little cottage
Noah Greenwood built for him and his children to live in.
Fascinating! I wish it were a real
place, too, where I could go stay. So you’re a Sherlock Holmes fan … do you
have a favorite Sherlock Holmes mystery?
Ooh that’s a hard one, there’s so
many! Of the four full-length Sherlock Holmes books, hands down my favourite is
“The Valley of Fear”. The twist in that one left me speechless. But there are
so many of the shorter S.H. adventures that I love as well, so of those ones
probably “The Dying Detective” and “The Priory School” would be at the top of
my list.
Oh my, I haven’t read any of those
yet! It’s great to know I have more Sherlock Holmes to look forward to.
Let’s take a different track and talk
about the season that inspired our anthology. It’s fascinating to think about
how the Southern Hemisphere months are in opposite seasons of the Northern
Hemisphere. What is November like in South Africa?
Haha yes, so November here is actually the last
month of spring! It’s a really pretty month because all the flowers are finally
out in full force and there’s birds and butterflies everywhere and the sky is
bright and the weather warm and sunny. It’s the last comfortable month for us
before the dreadful heat of South African summer hits us!
How intriguing, and beautiful! Here
in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s hard to imagine November as a spring month,
but it’s much like our May. What is autumn like in South Africa? Do you have a
favorite thing about autumn?
Autumn is my favourite season and I
wait all year for it. It begins here in March, and ends sometime around the end
of May when the weather suddenly turns cold. Sadly, at the coast we don’t see
much change in the colour of the trees and leaves, but up in the Midlands where
I was born and grew up autumn makes the towns there look like they stepped out of
a Hallmark movie! My favourite thing growing up there, aside from leaping into
leaf piles, was the Royal Agricultural Show that was held every May; it was a famous
outdoor fair that featured all kinds of autumn-y things alongside the
livestock, and now I always associate the smell of crunching autumn leaves with
the Royal Show.
That sounds absolutely lovely. I’ll
have to go find pictures! The color change of leaves is one of my favorite
things about autumn, too.
To finish off with another bookish
subject, what authors inspire you the most?
There are so many authors who’ve
inspired me and helped shaped my writing over the years, but probably the original
and main ones were the good old classic authors like Laura Ingalls Wilder,
Frances Hodgson Burnett, Enid Blyton, Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Mary
Roberts Rinehart, and Anna Katherine Green. If I can ever write a book that’s
half as good as one of theirs, I’d feel that I’d arrived in life!
Those are fantastic authors, and you
are well on your way, Bethany! Thank you so much for joining us today!
Readers,
thank you for joining us, too, and if you want to further connect with Bethany and check out her books, you can visit her website Vintage Volumes. She's also on Instagram here. Also, it’s not too late to read Novelists
in November and enjoy it for this season. Here is the link; please do check
it out if you haven’t already. If you have read it, what did you think of “And
As She Talked”?
