Victoria Audley (she/her) is a folklorist, teacher, and ghost escaped from a gothic novel, currently haunting the coast of North East England. In her spare time, she enjoys knitting, baking, and playing too much D&D. When she grows up, she would like to haunt a seaside manor.
Author links: https://bio.link/vcaudley
Operation Olive Branch: https://linktr.ee/opolivebranch
GoFundMe’s Highlighted by Authors for Palestine Event: https://afp.ju.mp/#info
For the AfP event we have selected the following 3 families to help boost their fundraisers. The details below were taken from the OOB spreadsheet.
Mohammed’s fundraiser: GoFundMe
Mohammed’s Instagram: @mohammedalbaredei
Ibrahim’s fundraiser: GoFundMe
Ibrahim’s Instagram: @ibrahimwithi
Rula’s fundraiser: GoFundMe
Rula’s Instagram: @rula_mohammed
You were one of the authors involved with the Authors for Palestine event – can you tell us why you chose to get involved with this, and which of your works you put up as raffle prizes?
In any way I can, I want to use my art to do good in the world. Each of us has ways we can make the world a better place, skills we can use towards helping each other. There’s no such thing as useless talent – whatever you’ve got, there’s a way to use it for good. Especially in the face of great injustice, it’s easy to think there’s nothing you can do, but every small thing matters. If what you’ve got is spare money, that matters to Mohammed, Ibrahim, Rula, and their families. If my work can be a carrot on a stick that helps them, then that’s something I’m happy and proud to do. I put up all my published books up in one way or another for the raffle – a free copy of The Hunt and the Haunting and a discount code for everything else were participation gifts, and two copies of Crown of Ivy went out to bundle winners.
Do you find your sense of social justice and activism informs the philosophy of your writing, in terms of narrative and character arcs? If so, how?
It has to, I think. What you believe is revealed in your work even if unintentionally. I’ve always been really interested in what stories reveal about the author and their society, what they value and what their society values and whether those are supportive or opposed – it’s what drew me to study folklore: hundreds of versions of the same story from all over the world, with different focuses and cultural themes and commentaries woven into the poetry of them. I love people, I love our diversity and our eccentricities and our passions, I love all the ways we interpret ourselves and the world around us, and I believe everyone deserves the freedom and safety to live and thrive as their true selves. I think caring about those things shows in my work, certainly.
What drew you to the myth of Eros and Psyche for your latest book, The Sharpest Thorn?
I was re-watching one of my favourite films, Jean Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bête, and thinking about the references to Greek mythology in the film. I thought it was interesting, since the oldest recorded variant of the Beauty and the Beast story is the myth of Eros and Psyche, though that wasn’t the route the film took. I kept thinking how much I’d love a book that felt to me like that film feels, and as is so often the case, I had to write the book I wanted to see in the world. Eros and Psyche is one of my favourite myths – indeed, Beauty and the Beast is one of my favourite fairytales – so naturally it made sense to stick with that for this book.
The story takes place in an alternate, Gothic-flavoured Greece – how did you go about creating and developing this setting?
It’s again very much Jean Cocteau’s fault! Aesthetically, I wanted the story to reflect that gorgeous gothic fairytale setting. Gothic as a genre is just incredibly well-suited to Greek mythology: secrets in the walls, forbidden love, golden palaces in the sky built on a foundation of trauma, blood, and betrayal. This ended up being a story very focused on family and generational trauma, which is very central to both gothic and Greek mythology. I used a lot of the visuals of gothic to pathetic fallacy my way around Greece in this book, turning sun-drenched mountains sharp and cold, and warm seas dark and isolating.
What is your favourite part of the book (if you have one) and why? If you don’t, which bits were most enjoyable to write?
The chapters of Psyche alone after her betrayal were so much fun to write – a really golden opportunity to destroy the enchanted palace I’d built and leave her despairing in a gothic ruin. In the same stretch, my favourite part is when she finally gets shaken out of her stalking around in a haze of grief by Pan and the followers of Dionysus. Pan’s appearance in the myth is so small, and I really enjoyed taking the opportunity to flesh it out more and add in some more liveliness in opposition to Psyche’s dour mournful stage.
What three things do you want readers to take away from The Sharpest Thorn and why?
I always hesitate to prescribe what I want people to take away from my writing – I want to know what it sparks in you without any leading, what you got out of it and what about it speaks to you. But not to shirk the question: I hope it helps people who struggle with obligated feeling and not being able to feel the way it seems everyone else does. I spent a lot of time feeling broken, and I’m still not convinced I’m not, but at least I’m not alone in it. I hope people really think about what love means to them, and if the people in their lives show them that love. And simply put, I hope people enjoy it. If you don’t take any grand statement from it but you had a good time, that’s all I could ask for.
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