Ally Wilkes
Author Interview - Ally Wilkes
Author of All The White Spaces
In the wake of the First World War, Jonathan Morgan stows away on an Antarctic expedition, determined to find his rightful place in the world of men. Aboard the ship, Jonathan may live as his true self - and true gender - and have the adventures he has always been denied. But when disaster strikes in Antarctica's frozen Weddell Sea, the men must take to the land and overwinter somewhere which immediately seems both eerie and wrong - and no-one is coming to rescue them. In the freezing darkness of the Polar night, where the aurora creeps across the sky, something mysterious and terrible has been waiting to lure them out into its deadly landscape.
Author Interview - Ally Wilkes
Author I draw inspiration from: Not an author of fiction, but I'm very much inspired by Ernest Shackleton, the famous explorer who tackled Antarctica several times between 1901 and 1922, and wrote both The Heart of the Antarctic and South. He has a total clarity that I find illuminating and inspiring, with moments of real beauty and lyricism interspersed with plain-as-a-pikestaff descriptions that allow you to appreciate the full range of his and his crew's experiences.
Author Interview - Ally Wilkes | Author I Draw Inspiration From
Favorite place to read a book: My little reading nook! It's a grey wingback armchair in my living room / office (I live alone, so there's never anyone complaining when books and index cards and whatnot take up the whole living area) with a reading lamp, footrest, and - the key luxury here - a heated faux fur blanket to keep me cosy. Despite always writing about cold places, I LOATHE being cold myself, and think there's nothing better than getting under a blanket with a good book and a hot drink.
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with: Harrowhawk Nonagesimus from Gideon The Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, because she could probably break us out of there (by turning the elevator to bones) while making some ice-cold sarcastic observations and wearing impeccable skull make-up. SWOON.
Author Interview - Ally Wilkes | Book Character I’d Like to be Stuck in an Elevator With
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author: I can't pinpoint a specific moment, I don't think, but I know it's been in my blood from a very young age. Above my writing desk I have a framed copy of the first "book" I ever wrote, with a hand-drawn cover showing a clawed hand reaching over the top of a gravestone under a full moon. It's called "The Thing That Came Out Of The Night" (so. many. fonts. I can't even) and appears to be about some sort of ancient eldritch werewolf-like creature, but also a mysterious hooded monk (?) haunting a graveyard. From the incongruously cheery "Alison Wilkes" sticker with hot-air balloons on it, I must have been somewhere under ten. I hope that little ghoul is proud of me!
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook: I used to be ebook only (chalk it up to moving house too many times) but I've noticed that since I've been able to justify buying physical books "for research", the number of bookshelves and carts I need has... expanded. The only one that I can't get along with is audiobook; I find my mind wanders like crazy!
The last book I read: The last book I read was Road of Bones by Christopher Golden. I absolutely love Golden's fast-paced supernatural thrillers, and this offered SUCH a promising setting - a highway in Siberia literally paved with the bones of gulag workers who died being forced to carve this icy path through the tundra! It took me in some directions I certainly didn't expect, and I loved the sense of chilly, deadly wilderness, and the sheer isolation of the road and the people who live on it. Definitely one I'd recommend.
Author Interview - Ally Wilkes | The Last Book I Read
Pen & paper or computer: Can I be difficult and say both? I always use my laptop for drafting and rewriting / editing, but everything else (plotting, planning, brainstorming, re-arranging, "thinking out loud") has to happen with pen and paper for me. There's something about that very deliberate connection with the page. For All The White Spaces I filled up six huge A4 lined notebooks with huge reams of notes about character arcs, continuity, weather conditions, maps... I often call my notebooks "my external brain" and that's definitely true - I'd be lost without them. In fact, I rarely take them out of the house as I'm so paranoid that I'll lose them and be somehow suddenly unable to complete the book!
Book character I think I’d be best friends with: So many great options, but I'd LOVE to hang out with Carrot from The Hollow Places by T Kingfisher: she's funny and laconic, loves coffee, has a taxidermied elk head called "Prince" and a collection of Mythos books, lives in a down-at-heel Wonder Museum, and is totally up for exploring other worlds behind the walls. I think we'd get along like the proverbial house on fire.
Author Interview - Ally Wilkes | Book Character I’d be Best Friends With
If I weren’t an author, I’d be a: Hmm. Well, before being an author, I was a criminal barrister for eleven years - but wouldn't go back to it! I'd love to say I'd devote myself full-time to my other great passion - aerial circus, in particular aerial silks - and try to get a teaching qualification (literally running away to the circus) but in all honesty my priority would probably be getting a day job that still allowed me to write at the evenings and weekends. Nothing all-consuming - I've been there done that!
Favorite decade in fashion history: I'm probably the least fashion-aware person who's ever fashioned. Shall I say... the 1980s? I'm a bit of a goth, so I'd like the giant boots and wild eye makeup.
Place I’d most like to travel: Surprisingly, it's NOT Antarctica - I think the cold would finish me off! But I have a real love of abandoned and derelict places, and would love to see the former whaling stations on the islands of South Georgia. Such fascinating, remote places with such an important part to play in polar exploration history (and Shackleton's grave, of course!)
My signature drink: Red wine or black coffee, depending on the time of day and how the writing's going.
Favorite artist: My favourite non-living artist is Rene Magritte, the Belgian surrealist - I just love his juxtapositions of the hyper-real with the fantastical, and the way he uses blue skies to produce an almost threatening mood. Another artist I have on my walls is Lasse Hoile, who's a Danish photographer and artist (and former death metal vocalist) who makes these very creepy images of faceless figures (often being menaced by their environments) in his "Grace For Drowning" series.
Number one on my bucket list: I'd absolutely love to see the Northern (or Southern) Lights! The aurora is a huge presence in my book - as an ominous harbinger of winter, darkness and something worse - and I would be so overwhelmed to see it for myself. Sadly, whenever I read that the Northern Lights are extending over parts of the UK, that definitely doesn't include London, which is very bright even in the darkest night!
Find more from the author:
Twitter @UnheimlichManvr
Insta @av_wilkes
FB @AllyWilkesAuthor
Author Bio: Ally Wilkes grew up in a succession of isolated – possibly haunted – country houses and boarding schools. After studying law at Oxford, she went on to spend eleven years as a criminal barrister, where she learnt how extreme situations bring out the best (or worst) in us. Ally is particularly fascinated by Polar stories and the exploration Gothic, despite suffering from seasickness and loathing the cold. Her debut novel All the White Spaces, set in the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration, is out in the US on 29 March 2022. Ally’s short fiction has been published in Nightmare Magazine and Three Crows Magazine, and she’s also the Book Reviews Editor for Horrified, the British horror website.
Ally lives in Greenwich, London, with an anatomical human skeleton and far too many books about Polar exploration. When she’s not writing, she’s usually hanging upside-down (like a bat) on her aerial silks.
