New Episode - On Writing Dark Fairytale Retellings with Kell Woods
On Writing Dark Fairytale Retellings
In the Intro
In this episode of Writes4Women, Pamela Cook welcomes Kell Woods, an Australian historical fantasy author and the brilliant mind behind the debut novel, AFTER THE FOREST.
Living by the sea, Kell's passion for stories led her to study English literature, creative writing, and librarianship, and she’s spent twelve years in libraries while crafting stories reminiscent of the fairy tales we grew up with.
Her book, set to release in October across various publishers, reimagines the classic Hansel and Gretel story, transporting them to the 17th-century Black Forest. The narrative combines love, fairy tales, magic, and history, probing the aftereffects of a magical childhood and the complexities of 'happily ever after'.
Pamela, who typically doesn’t lean towards fantasy, found herself captivated by Kell’s beautiful writing and the fresh spin on a familiar tale. The book also touches on societal themes, like how the 'different' are treated and the resilience it sparks in individuals.
If you’d like to learn how to propel readers through your own novel, the latest round of Pam’s popular online writing course, ‘Turn up the Tension’ begins on October 4th. Previous course participants have loved using the insights they gained from the course to enhance narrative conflict, tension and pacing in their work.
Stay tuned to hear more from Kell about her enchanting debut, AFTER THE FOREST.
Episode notes
Are you curious to uncover the secrets behind crafting a captivating debut novel? What about the art of weaving fantasy, history, and fairy tales into a spellbinding narrative? Today, we're thrilled to have debut novelist Kel Woods with us, painting a vivid picture of her journey from a childhood filled with magic to becoming the author of AFTER THE FOREST. The book is a fascinating amalgamation of love, magic, history, and a retelling of the Hansel & Gretel fairy tale—promising to leave you enchanted.
We dive deep into Kel's writing process, exploring the challenges she faced, from finding an agent to maintaining historical accuracy. We also discuss the inspiration she drew from fairy tales and how she skillfully infused her narrative with historical elements. As a debut author, Kel opens up about her struggles and triumphs, offering valuable insights for aspiring writers. In addition, we explore the unique themes in her novel and the powerful message it delivers about acknowledging and embracing one's uniqueness.
Towards the end of our conversation, we switch gears to talk about the business side of writing and launching a novel. Kel shares her tips on time management, the importance of professional feedback, and how to effectively promote your book online. We celebrate the book launch and discuss the joy of connecting with readers. Whatever your relationship with writing—whether you're an aspiring author or a fantasy lover—this episode is an insightful journey into the universe of storytelling. Tune in and be prepared to be inspired.
Episode Chapters
(0:00:00) - About AFTER THE FOREST by Kell Woods
(0:03:46) - The Journey to Becoming a Writer
(0:11:49) - From Writing to Publishing
(0:21:28) - Influence of Fairy Tales on Fantasy
(0:31:02) - Themes in Contemporary Fairy Tales
(0:41:49) - Editing and Publishing a Book
(0:50:09) - Business Side of Writing and Launches
(0:57:49) - Book Launch and Event Promotions
Transcript
0:00:37 - Pamela Cook
Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Writes4Women. This week's guest is Kell Woods, an Australian debut author of the Fabulous After the Forest. Kell is an Australian historical fantasy author who lives near the sea with her husband, two sons and the most beautiful black cat in the realm. Kell studied English literature, creative writing and librarianship, so she could always be surrounded by stories.
She's worked in libraries for the past 12 years, all the while writing about made-up and not-so-made-up places, people and things you might remember from the fairy tales that you read as a child. The debut novel AFTER THE FOREST will be published simultaneously by tour books in the US and Titan books in the UK and Harper Voyager in Australia and New Zealand in October this year, with the second untitled novel coming late in 2024.
AFTER THE FOREST is an absolutely beautiful book that I just devoured when I was sent an early copy of it. It's probably not in the usual genre that I read I don't tend to read kind of fantasy or fairy tale books but I'd heard so much about it and Kell is a follower of the podcast and I've connected with her on Instagram and I really wanted to see what the book was about, so I started in on it and was just absolutely mesmerised by the beautiful writing and the way that Kell has taken a very familiar tale of Hansel and Gretel and made it into a completely new story.
So she takes it into the future, when Hansel and Gretel are older and the main character is Gretel. But we're going to hear more about that from Kell as I chat to her over the course of the interview. So the book is set in the Black Forest of Wurttemberg during the mid 17th century and it's a dark, compelling and enchanting meld of love story, fairy tale, magic and history that explores the repercussions of a childhood filled with magic and how happily ever after isn't always so happy. It's going to be a real pleasure to chat to Kell today on the podcast about AFTER THE FOREST and I highly recommend this book to anybody out there who wants to read.
Something that is beautifully written will transport you to another place and time, remind you of that beautiful, magical world of the fairy tales that you loved as a child, but also really make you think about things like how people are treated when they're different, how our society as a whole treats outsiders and how that can really spur those individuals on to standing up for themselves and finding their place in the world. So let's get on now and chat to Kell Woods about AFTER THE FOREST.
Kell, thank you for coming on the podcast Rites for Women. It's such a pleasure to chat to you about AFTER THE FOREST, which I've just told everybody in the intro that I absolutely loved, and I can't wait to talk to you about it. So congratulations, because it's an absolutely fantastic debut.
0:03:41 - Kell Woods
Oh, thanks so much, Pam. Thank you for having me on the podcast.
0:03:44 - Pamela Cook
It's lovely to have you, Kell. I'm really interested in your kind of background with writing and how you got to the point where you are. Before we actually get to talking about the book, could you tell us a little bit about your writing history and when you realised that you wanted to be a writer and how that passion developed for you?
0:04:04 - Kell Woods
Sure, I'm one of those annoying people and probably boring people that say I always wanted to be a writer, since I was a little kid and I am one of them. I remember being little and I had to do some sort of little quiz. You know how they give kids like the little questionnaire and they have to answer all their favourite things. And I wrote I found it recently and it said what do you want to be when you grow up? And I said an author or a vet of large animals.
0:04:32 - Pamela Cook
I like the specificity there had to be large animals, because I was horse mad.
0:04:39 - Kell Woods
So it all makes sense and I still do love horses, but yeah. So I always wanted to be a writer and I was always writing stories and poems and just generally nerdy and good at spelling, one of those kids always reading books that were way too grown up for me. And then I continued into high school and I loved English and did all the advanced stuff and studied. I loved it. And then went to uni and I did English, literature and creative writing. I did a double major in an arts degree, which I really loved but was a bit useless.
I ended up studying information and libraries as well so that I could work in that industry and because I really wanted a job that would complement writing, because I always wanted to write and my dream was always to have something published.
0:05:28 - Pamela Cook
So did you keep you? Did that degree? Were you writing through your teens and into your adulthood? Is writing something that you've always done?
0:05:35 - Kell Woods
Yeah, I was always writing terrible sort of fan fiction type things when I was a teenager, based on movies I loved or books I loved, but I think you have to do that. That's how you learn, isn't it? I think?
0:05:45 - Pamela Cook
Absolutely.
0:05:47 - Kell Woods
Yeah, and then I did a few. I remember doing a few sort of very epic high fantasy stories in my early twenties. That never really got finished because I had children and I went back to uni and studied some more and then really I got to that point in my life I think I turned 30 or I was in that kind of age where my kids got a little bit older and I said to myself what did I really wanna do? What do I really wanna do?
I had that moment and I really wanna write. So, yeah, that's when I really thought I'm gonna write something completely new and really try and finish it this time and really have a go. And that was how I started working on AFTER THE FOREST.
0:06:28 - Pamela Cook
Brilliant. Was it a long term sort of project for you, Kell, after the first?
0:06:34 - Kell Woods
Yeah it was. It took me a long time, mostly because I would stop and start because I had young children and I went back to uni and we were building houses and moving and all that life sort of stuff. So it was. I ended up. I put it away a few times because I found it was not making. I was unhappy and cranky because I was getting how you get interrupted a lot when you have young children and I struggled a bit with feeling annoyed, not at the kids, just generally annoyed.
Yeah, cause like I, just when I start writing I get a I just, I don't know, probably the same you lose yourself in the project and I kept getting ripped out of it mentally. So I did put it down and step away from it quite a few times. It was years that I worked on it, but if you look at the amount of time that I spent it was much less, probably three years something like that, Right yeah.
And then I actually read BITTER GREENS by Kate Forsyth and went, oh, that's an amazing book, that's the kind of book I wanna write. So I started going to Kate yeah, and then I realised that Kate teaches, and so I was like this is the person that I need to go and do, cause I was doing classes at the Australian Writers Centre and I was always going to workshops and classes that whole time and always working on it. And then, yeah, met up with Kate, did some classes with her. She's an amazing teacher.
0:07:50 - Pamela Cook
Yeah, I've done a course with her. I think I did a workshop at the Romance Writer's of Australia one year with her. And I follow a lot of her stuff online and that she's a brilliant, fantastic teacher and so knowledgeable.
0:08:02 - Kell Woods
Yeah, yeah, and so generous and kind as well.
So I ended up going on a retreat with Kate as well and then while I was on the retreat she mentioned that she does one mentorship a year through the ASA, that it's highly competitive and that's how you can get a mentorship with her. And I was sitting there thinking I'm gonna get that mentorship, that's mine. I was like I really want that and I got it. I applied for it and I got it.
And then I had the chance for Kate to do a structural edit on my manuscript and she helped me. She did about three edits. She was very generous with me, she liked the book and she thought it had legs, so she was instrumental. I feel like it was such an invaluable opportunity to have her looking over my work and telling me how bad it was and then telling me how to fix it.
0:08:53 - Pamela Cook
Oh, fantastic, had you finished the draft, Kell, when you started that mentorship with Kate?
0:08:59 - Kell Woods
Yes, I think I had. I think I had a shocking first draft. Some parts of it had been like the beginning of the book I remember had been. I had edited and rewritten, set over and over again and I was getting to that point where I wasn't getting anywhere with it because I kept going back to the beginning and trying to perfect everything. So the beginning of the book would have been in better shape than the end. It may not have even had an end, I think. I just wanted to send them maybe the first few chapters and a synopsis and a cover letter and a little bit about myself, and I think I had to give them the entire book. I really can't remember now. So that was amazing. I think the ASA is still doing that mentorship?
0:09:39 - Pamela Cook
I think they do, yeah, and I think writing New South Wales also runs mentorships, so yeah, so would you say that was a really important part in your sort of path to publication.
0:09:49 - Kell Woods
Absolutely yeah, and if I couldn't have gotten Kate because it was competitive and I know that probably there were more people than me who wanted her to mentor them because she's great I probably would have ended up saving my pennies and paying for someone to do an manuscript assessment on the book.
Yeah, because by that point I realised that I needed someone more knowledgeable than me and someone who knew about structure and how to make the story tight and good and page turning. I think that's where you get that. Feedback is when a professional gives you that kind of assessment or an order, like Kate. So I think they are, yeah, crucial, amazing, and I would have saved up and paid.
0:10:32 - Pamela Cook
I would, yeah, I would have done that gladly to get back, and did you do after you've worked through that with Kate, and you obviously continued revising it and all that sort of thing and you remember the point at which you thought, or did you get to a point where you thought, yes, it's ready, I'm ready to send it out?
0:10:49 - Kell Woods
No, I don't think I was ever ready to send it out. We got it to a point where Kate was happy with it and I think we both knew there was nothing more really that I could do with it. I think I did three rewrites with Kate. She was incredibly generous and then she was like okay, it's there, it's ready. I think you should start submitting it. I was so terrified I don't think I ever felt, oh, okay, it's perfect. And I even now don't think it's perfect. I'm too scared to look at the finished book now.
0:11:16 - Pamela Cook
Once it's finished. Yeah, that's it. You never look at it again.
0:11:19 - Kell Woods
No, I can't even look at it because I'm like there's gonna be something that I've realised, that you could tinker on a book forever, couldn't you?
0:11:26 - Pamela Cook
Absolutely.
0:11:27 - Kell Woods
Yeah, but I had to learn that before I was like I'm gonna make it perfect, I'm gonna get it perfect and killing myself. And that's not how it works, because you can go back over and find a word that you were happy with six months ago and then suddenly you're not as well, like you changed too.
0:11:42 - Pamela Cook
You gotta get to that point, don't you, where it's just okay enough, it's gotta go.
0:11:46 - Kell Woods
Yeah, it's gotta go. We weren't there. I knew that there were probably things that weren't working in the book, but Kate felt that it was ready enough that we could start sending it out. Kate recommended that I look for an agent, because the book isn't set in Australia, because it's set in Germany and it's fantasy. It was something that might be worth looking into pitching it overseas. So we went that way with it and then I did look at Australian agents. It was all during COVID. This was all in 2020.
A lot of agencies weren't even open for submissions. I don't think any Australian agents were interested in fantasy. So this fantasy was just like no fantasy and I was like I can't cut it out, because there's magic and all sorts of you know.
There was only, I think, one who was interested and I got some amazing feedback from her, but she wasn't. I wasn't right for her, she didn't take me on, and so then I started looking at overseas agents and then, yeah, I was pitching to agents in the US and the UK and I think it was my first or second round pitching. My agent got back to me and said can you send me the full manuscript? That was the most exciting moment.
So, yeah, I sent her the manuscript. She asked for it the same day. So I sent that to her on Sunday night and she received it on Sunday morning in the UK. And then when I got to work on Monday morning I quickly checked my email before I started work and she had said can you send me the full thing?
So she asked for it Sunday night. So she kind of got into it on that. And it was a Sunday too. I didn't even expect her to look at her inbox that day, so that was a bonus too. And then by Thursday we were meeting and zooming and she was offering to represent me. So it happened really fast with her.
There's several Australian authors on the table and she's working. She used to be a publisher, so she's very knowledgeable, and she's worked in publishing in Australia as well, so she's quite familiar. Yeah, so I didn't. I felt really comfortable with her because she knows the Australian industry. She's great. Nice.
0:13:56 - Pamela Cook
It's really interesting, isn't it? That whole fantasy thing here. I know that Australia is a much smaller market, so I guess that's probably why but fantasy is a segment of that market. But yeah, it's just I've heard that before from other fantasy writers that trying to get an agent or even a publisher to take on fantasy a mainstream publisher is really hard here.
0:14:20 - Kell Woods
It is. I think with fantasy you tend to need to get a deal or go well overseas first, and then it tends to be, and then it tends to come into Australia. I like most fantasy we have here that you see has come from the UK or is a part of a Commonwealth right, so I don't. Getting it off the ground here is quite difficult because it's a small market. I get that, I think, when HarperCollins do fantasy, so I think they're one of the only ones in Australia and I'm with them.
0:14:50 - Pamela Cook
Was it very long after your agent picked you up that she was able to get a publishing deal for?
0:14:54 - Kell Woods
Yeah, it was because she's a very hands-on agent and she edits.
So when we met there were two she asked me was I willing to do more work on it? And I said yes straight away, cause I knew that, like I was still not sure it was a hundred percent right, and I said, yep, a hundred percent, ready to do the work.
And so we got into it. She did a structural edit, which was amazing, and then I spent a few months like maybe, I don't know, now three, four, five, maybe longer not even actually I don't know. Maybe, delete that pan, cause I don't know.
0:15:31 - Pamela Cook
Okay, yeah, I'll get that bit.
0:15:33 - Kell Woods
No, I probably spent some months, a few months, working on it and then she started pitching it in the States and the UK.
0:15:44 - Pamela Cook
Yeah, yeah, and then you were doing the structural edits, let's say with the agent. So about picking up the pace or the tension or kind of functioning those turning points in the story, cause that's pretty close to getting it across the line to a publisher. So what sort of things were you working on with the agent in terms of refining that?
0:16:05 - Kell Woods
That sort of stuff was tight, cause I'd been meant to, I'd been with Kate and she's really good at the narrative structure pacing. So the actual major things didn't change. They did pretty good work. So the overall structure was in good nick.
It was more things like the minor characters. Okay, I remember I'd named all of there's a gang of mercenaries and I had named them all and was laboriously trying to make them all their own characters and it was like, well, there's just too many of them, you don't even need to name them, Kell, let's just streamline this for the reader. So it was more of those making greater, less historically accurate, because in those times women would have been, they wouldn't have spoken up or pushed back.
0:16:49 - Pamela Cook
It's a really fine line, isn't it?
0:16:51 - Kell Woods
I struggled with that because I said to Julie, my agent, I said, yeah, but it's historical, it's historical fantasy, and I'm trying to make this it's I've done all the research Like it's meant to be historical.
And she said, yeah, but you're also writing fantasy, you're allowed to make her strong, you're allowed to change that character. And so that was really hard for me because and you would know that, pam like when it's history, it's like you really want to stick to what was true and I don't think it would have been easy for women to have pushed back.
There just weren't many options for women to be vocal and strong. So I really had to think about her as a character and I think just things like conflict, like there were some of the relationships between the characters that weren't quite working, like I think I had to change. Greta was angry at one of the characters for half the book for a reason that really wasn't strong enough, and so I had to go back through and change that relationship, which was really hard actually, because every single time they spoke to each other they had to be changed.
0:17:52 - Pamela Cook
And especially when you've worked on it for all that time and done so many different revisions like it's so hard to actually see that it's great to have somebody else pointing it out for you, but then you've got to actually go in and do that work, having yourself so.
0:18:05 - Kell Woods
Yeah, yeah, and it was all that delicate stuff like dialogue. It would be going through and just like delicately changing the conversation between two characters to just make her not as. Yeah, so it was a delicate kind of stuff. Yeah, if that makes sense. It wasn't big enough. The structure of it was good and the beginning, the first. Like Kate and I worked on the first page because that first page is really where it's gonna, that's gonna make a huge difference.
So I was. The beginning was good. I think the structure was tight. The ending I find really hard, even though I've planned and I know where it's going, they are really hard. So I think we worked on the ending quite a bit too.
0:18:47 - Pamela Cook
So it went out to quite a few publishers. You were saying and how long roughly did it take before somebody jumped at it? A few weeks.
0:18:55 - Kell Woods
I think it was a couple of weeks. Okay, that's good. Yeah, it's pretty quick. It was pretty quick. There was interest in the States. Yeah, TOR came on board pretty early, which was amazing because they were my dream publishers as far as international not that I even really dreamed really about international, but as far as that they were like a dream publisher and I couldn't believe it when they were interested.
And then there was one of the other big five publishers over there that was interested as well. So they had a little bit of two and throwing and we had meetings and it was all very surreal. I was in shock the whole time. Looking back, I don't think I even appreciated how amazing it was, because I was just so shocked. And so then we ended up going with Torneau and they've just been amazing. And then from there the sub rights were sold through to Harper Collins and then also Titan Books.
0:19:42 - Pamela Cook
Okay, brilliant and we're gonna actually get on to the actual book in a minute, but are they gonna have? Is that a simultaneous release in all three territories?
0:19:50 - Kell Woods
Yeah, yeah, they're also the UK, and the US are coming out on the 3rd of October and then Australia are coming on the 4th. When you put the time differences, it will be almost the same.
0:20:03 - Pamela Cook
I reckon there's gonna be a lot of champagne popping in Huskison over that 24 hour period.
0:20:11 - Kell Woods
Yeah, we're having an event in Husky. So we're having a local launch Excellent, yeah, in Huskison, which will be really nice, and my publisher is coming down to have a chat with me. But we haven't put it out, we haven't really publicised that yet. That's, it's coming, but yeah, it's gonna be exciting. And then we're yeah, we're doing a launch in Sydney as well on the 10th.
0:20:31 - Pamela Cook
Okay, we'll get on to talking about that. Go through Now to lead into talking about After the Forest. It's obviously based on a fairy tale and you were saying that you were inspired by Kate Forsythe's Bitter Greens, which is about the Grim Brothers and the early fairy tales that evolved. Where do you think your love of fairy tales has come from?
0:20:55 - Kell Woods
Ah, look once again when I was a little kid. So I was the kind of kid that was dressed up as Maid Marion most of the time and pretending to be a princess, and with a sword probably as well, and being a mermaid at the beach. I was like that kind of kid and I always was a really big reader and I loved fairy tales. I remember reading the Princess and the Goblin, which is really one of the first sort of fantasy novels. I had a copy of that and I loved it. So, yeah, that was always there.
And when I would have been maybe 18, 19, I read Juliet Marrillier's DAUGHTER OF THE FOREST. I don't know if you've ever read that. Oh, it's beautiful. It's a retelling of the Six Swans fairy tale where they turn into swans and the sister has to weave with nettles, like really painful, and she can't speak the whole time. It's just amazing. And so Juliette set that in like Dark Ages Island and it was this amazing historical fantasy that had this beautiful love story running through it and was rich and vivid and just made that fairy tale real. And so I loved that book.
I've got my original old ballad copy on my bookshelf and Juliette is one of my favourite writers, and so then I read BITTER GREENS and I was like, oh yeah, this is the kind of book that I love. Yeah, this is it, this is it, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna, this is what I'm gonna write. And then it was a matter of hunting around for a fairy tale that I could work with and have a go at, and I chose Hansel and Gretel, I think because I hadn't seen any novels about that. Yeah, because they're kids. I guess it's not as easy to imagine them in novels, so I just made them grow up.
0:22:41 - Pamela Cook
It was such a great move. Honestly, I think that would have been an instant appeal for agents and publishers, because it's something just so different and just to transport those characters into the future, yeah. They're an old hood, but still set back in that kind of historical time period.
0:23:00 - Kell Woods
Yeah, it seemed. That seemed really fun to me. That was a really oh, this is an interesting idea, this would be fun. And then thinking about all right, so if I'm gonna make them, if I'm gonna make this real and gritty and make them real people, how would they be now? What kind of grown-ups would they be? Surely you don't just live happily ever after you've been through something like that, especially in a time that was structured and superstitious and about the 30 years war had just finished, so that was a religious war and so incredibly superstitious, scary witch hunts, all the witch trials were happening in that time, and so when you start to think about it in that context, it gets very interesting. It does.
0:23:41 - Pamela Cook
So if we go any further, you better tell us what the book is actually about. We know it's based on the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale, but give us the blurb.
0:23:51 - Kell Woods
Yeah, so it's Hansel and Gretel, 15 years after, after they were children, and they're still living in their little little village in the black forest and they're still troubled. Their times are still tough. Gretel is a gingerbread baker and she has this amazing red hair, and because she was the one who pushed the witch, she's viewed with a little bit of superstition and mistrust by the villagers. And Hans is about to lose their house because of a gambling addiction that he has, and he's often on the drink and a bit selfish and reckless and wild. So they're dealing with their trauma and the repercussions of that horrific childhood, and their fathers have passed away. Their mother died right back when they were kids.
That's when it all started in the fairy tale. So they're their own little family, and then when dark sort of magic comes back to the forest and men are found dead in the woods, ripped apart by some unknown beast, their stakes start to lift and Gretel's oddness and difference becomes even harder for the villagers to ignore, as well as her red hair.
0:25:02 - Pamela Cook
And, yeah, she might have to start fighting for her life all over again kind of yeah so you really like when, as we all know, if you really look at a lot of fairy tales and analyse them, almost there is a lot of darkness in a lot of fairy tales. So I'm guessing that you have taken those elements of that darkness and really pushed them a lot further. Is that your kind of way of operating with that storyline? Is that?
0:25:30 - Kell Woods
Yeah, yeah, I like horror.
I like dark stuff, I like scary stuff and I, when I was still working on it, when maybe it first got published, and I was telling people, I've got a book coming out, I've got a publishing deal, and they were like, what is it about? And I'd say, oh, it's a retelling of Hansel and Gretel and a couple of other fairy tales which wind in not just Hansel and Gretel, but the other ones are a bit more subtle. They would say, oh, is it for kids? And I was and I'm like it is not for kids yeah, not at all it is not and it's.
I think yeah, it's that kind of darkness and that, to me, is also the history. It's a fairy tale. The fairy tale is quite dark and scary and gory, but history was really dark and scary and gory too. Which tales are horrific, they are terrifying, and yeah, so it all, just those two things, the history and the fairy tale, pushed together, it did get pretty dark yeah. I had to do content warnings for it and I was like, oh, this is rough, I've got them all.
0:26:28 - Pamela Cook
Gore, blood well, I don't think that's what makes it so gripping. Honestly, I just couldn't put it down. I'd read a bit when I go to bed and then I'd pick it up in the morning. I'll just read one more chapter, a few pages, and then I'd be like no, I've got to keep going. It was like the edge of your seat at that point, particularly as it continues on. I don't want to give any spoilers. I think you've done a fabulous job of blending those different elements.
You've got the kind of fairy tale element and drawing on their childhood stuff. You've got the witch elements coming in and there's even a sense of, like you were saying, with the hands, being the gambler and drinker and all that stuff. This is sort of super imposing as well as quite contemporary Social issues. I think. Was that something that just came naturally?
0:27:14 - Kell Woods
I wasn't thinking about contemporary issues at all. Really, I Was very focused on what life would have been like in that little village. But the thing is, I don't think people are that different to how they would have been back then. I was thinking I would get nervous about going to large social events, and that's probably how people felt in 1650. Yeah, I don't know, sometimes you look at the past and you think that people are almost like two-dimensional cutouts.
You don't really think of them as having inner lives and phobias and fear, trauma and all that stuff. But they would have had it. So I yeah, I don't think I ever really thought about it in that way. It probably just came out of my own experiences too, though. Yeah, no, I Didn't mean to do that, but I guess whenever you write, that does happen, doesn't it? You just, you can't help it. It has to come from somewhere.
0:28:07 - Pamela Cook
It's inevitable isn't it yeah? So with the historical time period you were saying, 1650, Kell is that the time period in which the original fairy tale would have been set?
0:28:18 - Kell Woods
No, I think Hansel and Gretel is a lot older than that. I think those sorts of tales come more from the 1400s right in Europe. There was a famine. There was a really bad famine in that time and that's when tales about Abandoning, abandonment and cannibalism, that kind of thing came through. There are records people did leave their children in the forest. That was a bit of a thing because they couldn't feed them. And also there are Instances of cannibalism, especially during the Thirty Years War. There was a really bad siege in a little town called Bracic and which isn't really very far from the Black Forest, and there were tales that people were eating each other when they were besieged.
It didn't take very long for me to dig a little bit deeper into the Thirty Years War and into that period for it to get really dark. It's pretty, that's a pretty horrific period. The Thirty Years War was rough. There were big armies of mercenaries moving across what is now Germany. It wasn't Germany then but just pillaging, slaughtering, taking all the food. So people were.
It was a famine really. It's really bad. It was a rough time to be around and a lot of people died, a lot of civilians, yeah, and it was a really difficult time, so you, I didn't have to scratch much off the surface to get really dark and then combining that, of course, with the witch trials and then, which of course, is highlighting, you know, the the role of women in In society and that whole aspect of suspicion and anybody who was slightly different being targeted.
Yeah, that kind of feeds directly into the war, because generally, which trials would happen historically when there had been times of upheaval or times of famine or war or Any kind of upheaval and disruption and darkness in society, they would look at witches as a force because they only had religion, they didn't have science. It was all very superstitious.
So, yeah, two of Germany's Biggest and most infamous witch trials, which were at Weisberg and Bamberg and I mentioned Bamberg in the book you probably remember they happened during the 30 years war and so there's a direct connection between war and famine and plague and witch trials. Wow, it's really interesting because I guess they have. You have to blame someone, right?
Yeah, that's yeah. And of course it would be the women, especially the older women. Older women who weren't married and didn't have any male relatives were a target. They were easy prey but they didn't have anybody to defend them and red hair really was a sign of witchcraft and devil, a connection with the devil. But yeah, there was a lot for me to work with.
0:31:02 - Pamela Cook
Tell us a little bit about Gretal as she appears in the book.
0:31:07 - Kell Woods
Obviously, we don't want spoilers, but whatever you can tell us about her as the main character, yeah, she is about 23 when the book starts and she still lives with her brother in their little house on the edge of the forest. She is a gingerbread baker and she, which I love , made a little bit of stuff up and I made it so that when the kids left the witch's house when they were children, she took the witch's recipe book, her grimoire.
Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I had to add a little bit of something in there Just to make the fairy tale connection tangible and to have something that was from the witch's house, so that, just for that link, so that that was the witch's book, and so she bakes this gingerbread that is Addictively delicious.
It's this magical gingerbread that I smell so good and it's like almost lures you towards this intoxicating gingerbread, and she sells that at the markets and at festivals, that kind of thing, and that's how she keeps money coming in, because Hansel is pretty useless. As I said, she's got this amazing red hair, but to her it's not amazing. She hates her hair because it's a Mark of the devil and witchery. And, yeah, she's a bit isolated and cast off from the rest of the village and quite lonely.
0:32:23 - Pamela Cook
Yeah, so you had a lot to work with in terms of having a character who goes on a journey of change, didn't you?
0:32:31 - Kell Woods
Yeah, absolutely, by the way, I really that was something that I really looked at. She's how she's gonna change throughout the book and how she's gonna end up at the end of the book and what is special about her. I'm interested in the fact in the fairy tale that it was the little girl that pushed the witch and saved the brother.
It wasn't the boy, it was the girl, and I know that women would have done most of the chores and the housework and cooking in that time and I understand that she probably put hands in the cage or Hansel in the cage or Hansel in the cage, because she would have made the little girl help her around the house or whatever, and Cook.
But I felt that was an opportunity to make Greta a little bit More special and a little bit more different. Like, why was she treated differently to her brother? He was meant for eating, but she was, she was not. She was allowed to wander around the house and help and do things.
So that I found that a little opportunity to make Greta perhaps more interesting and different and there's something about her that is different and there's a reason that she's not fitting in Society, and then by the end of the book. She knows why and that's part of the story is her kind of Getting over that shame and guilt and all the horrible stuff that happened to her as a kid and to stop blaming herself and maybe just loving herself a little bit, which I think a lot of women have to go through. That.
0:33:52 - Pamela Cook
I think so too. That's what I mean. I think you've done a really great job of Kind of taking that universal story like you say, it's contemporary but it's also universal of a woman being in a situation and then coming up against all these obstacles which is what we do, of course, in fiction and then just showing that that change in her. So it could be a story of a woman now in a similar situation, just as it was a story in a fairy tale or a story back in the 1600s.
0:34:24 - Kell Woods
Yeah, and sometimes I, people who aren't into fantasy are a bit dismissive. It might say I don't read fantasy. I'm like, yeah, but maybe try it, because it's not just about fantasy, it's about people. Yeah and that's the day that's a good book is the kind of book that you read because you want to see what happens to them and you worry about them.
Yeah and I think you can have that in any genre, in any kind of book. You know what I mean. I love books where I am so invested that I am so worried about them and that's what keeps me turning the pages. So I'm happy that you said that. That's great that you felt like that.
0:35:02 - Pamela Cook
We've talked a little bit about that historical time period in which it's written and Obviously you must have done a lot of research into it, like you were talking about the 30s war, but just daily life there for the people and what it was like. How hard was it to then blame the changes that you wanted to add into that historical time period? Did you find yourself resisting changing that, that history? How did you go about doing that?
0:35:26 - Kell Woods
Most of the magic in the book was people believed in it like its folklore and superstition. So people believed that a witch or a wizard or whatever you want to call it that kind of person. They could put a magic salve on a belt made of wolfskin or wolfskin and put that on their bodies and they would turn into a wolf and they would run with the devil.
0:35:50 - Pamela Cook
Okay, so they make sure. Beliefs of the time.
0:35:53 - Kell Woods
Yeah, I didn't make that up. There's a whole bunch of weird stuff in this book that I didn't make up. That was real. That people believed. They believed in witches, they believed that there were people who changed their shape. They believed that bears were the devil's creature and would. All the horrific stuff about bears. That was true.
The bear had a really bad reputation in early modern times. It used to be revered. So in mediaeval times bears were like gods. Bears were a sign of nobility and strength and you'd have to go out and kill a bear to prove your manhood and all that sort of thing. But by the time this story came around, lions had taken over as the powerful, wonderful, interesting.
Yeah, if you look at emblems and heraldry and all that kind of thing, by this time lions were the favourite and bears were in the bad books. So I didn't have to. That's all real. I think there's some element of the way that the village perceives the bear as being the devil's beast and it will lure you and it will. All this weird stuff. That was all historical. I didn't make any of that up, and the shapeshifting came straight from history as well. A lot of the witch stuff. There's only a few things in there that I actually did make up to be honest with you, it must have been gold when you found all that out.
It's funny because I did it at uni. I started a topic at Macquarie when I was doing my English degree and I did a lot of history as well, and I did this amazing class called Coming to Modernity Europe from 1400 to 1800 and that was my first taste of the early modern period and we did things like executions, capital punishment, witch hunts, witch trials, shapeshifting werewolves, all of it and all of that stuff. It's funny. It all ended up in my book.
0:37:45 - Pamela Cook
I really liked it.
0:37:45 - Kell Woods
It was a really fascinating time and I really like the early modern period too, because it's that in-between period it's not mediaeval, which feels sometimes a little bit distant and hard to. I find it's a little bit too far back, but that the early modern is wild enough and people still believed enough and that was old and superstitious enough that a lot of good stuff's happening, like narratively not good stuff was appalling and you wouldn't want to live there.
And then, if you get further in towards the 1800s and the Industrial Revolution, people stop believing so much in superstition and religion and science becomes part of them. They're more rational. Yeah, yeah, like I think that that kind of period flowing back into the mediaeval and in the sort of 1700s too, there's a lot of opportunity there to dip into the really amazing historical things going on.
0:38:39 - Pamela Cook
Yeah and there is a bit of a love story threaded through the story. Did you want to talk about that at all, Kell?
0:38:48 - Kell Woods
Yeah, that's funny because I didn't. I never pitched it as a romance. No, I don't. It's like a subplot.
0:38:54 - Pamela Cook
Yeah, it's an element of the story, but I love reading books that have a love story in them.
0:39:00 - Kell Woods
I'm not a poster, that at all, yeah, and I really wanted something for Gretal. She's lonely and has no family and it's been a bit of a hard time, so I really wanted to have someone who would support her and see her for who she is.
0:39:18 - Pamela Cook
Like you say, it doesn't overshadow the rest of the story. It's still very much about her and her struggling with these kinds of antagonistic forces that she has against her in society, and that kind of comes in as part of it, but it's not overwhelming.
0:39:32 - Kell Woods
Yeah, it gets woven into the story, I think so that it's there, it's part of it and it hopefully will raise those stakes more like I was thinking about raising stakes, and so that seemed a good way to make that sort of second half of the book more exciting and have something else to worry about, because that's what you want to do, isn't it?
0:39:52 - Pamela Cook
Like you want to make the readers worry, yeah and, like you say, you've got to raise the stakes and you've got to make things harder for your characters, and I think sometimes a lot of early writers resist that because, like you say, you want what's best for Gretel and you wanted to end up in a good place. But sometimes doing the hard stuff to them along the way can be really quite challenging, can't it?
0:40:13 - Kell Woods
Yeah, and that's what I think makes a book really fun to read. Oh my god, look how much we all loved Game of Thrones. Terrible, terrible things happening to those characters, but you couldn't look away. I love those books, yeah. So I was thinking that would be another way to up the stakes, to add another sort of fairy tale in as well.
I remember early in the process thinking Hansel and Gretel probably doesn't have enough to stand on its own as just a Hansel and Gretel retelling. It's gonna need some other characters and it's gonna need some other, some other part of the story, and so that's why I ended up choosing two other fairy tales as well, and I won't say much about them, because it's nice, if you're into fairy tales, when you read books like that and you pick them up as like finding Easter eggs.
0:41:01 - Pamela Cook
You get the surprise.
0:41:02 - Kell Woods
Yeah, if you like fairy tales, you'll probably start to notice them straight away. But yeah, and it just gave a way to weave those other tales through, add some different little subplots and hopefully raise those stakes.
0:41:17 - Pamela Cook
What would you say? Your favourite part of writing the book was your favourite part of the process in the books? Some people love the early stages where they're not even writing and they're just creating. Some people love the drafting, some love the revisions. What is it for you? What's your favourite part?
0:41:32 - Kell Woods
“I love it when you get your editorial letter and you edit back on that structural edit, that really big, chunky, powerful editing, where you really get that structure down. I love that. ”
I love it when you get your editorial letter and you edit back on that structural edit, that really big, chunky, powerful editing, where you really get that structure down. I love that. That's where I feel like yes, where you see a lot of progress. I'm waiting to get my edits back on my second book at the moment and I'm really excited because I know that there's parts of it that are rubbish.
I can't wait to get in there and fix that and make it better and see how I can make it beautiful. I really only think about who I have to get it back to at that time, like I'm thinking that'll be my publisher and my agent and really try and fix it so that it's better. I'm not afraid of the work. I really like the work. I would keep going on after the forest.
I don't know if it's healthy, it's probably a really unhealthy mechanism. I like the edits.
0:42:28 - Pamela Cook
Yeah, me too, I like the revision I like seeing, like you say, that improvement in it.
0:42:32 - Kell Woods
Oh yeah, I hate the first draft. I've realised I really don't like the first draft. It just feels like you're writing vomit like rubbish and so you've got to get to that length and it just feels like a really hard thing. But once you have the book, it's great because you can fix it and mould it and shape it and make it great and get people to help you. Oh, what do you think, even just having an editor is such a gift.
0:42:57 - Pamela Cook
Yes, would you say. That's the most challenging part for you: the draft, the first drafting part.
0:43:03 - Kell Woods
It was for my second book. I don't remember it being as hard after the forest, but I didn't have any deadline then or pressure. So I think that was more about working through them. It's not just a hobby that I do in my spare time now, it's actually my job now. So I think that's probably why I got a little bit frozen like a little bit stage-struck.
0:43:26 - Pamela Cook
I think that happens to a lot of people.
0:43:28 - Kell Woods
Yeah, that makes me so much happier to hear you say that too, because that's the impression I'm getting is that it's not easy. The second book isn't easy because, also in the back of your head, the back of your mind, you're thinking can I even do this again?
0:43:41 - Pamela Cook
You've spent a long time generally on the first one, haven't you? And it's had a long evolution and you haven't had those pressures of the deadline and giving it to other people until right at the end. And then suddenly we want another book. When can you have it ready? You've got a year, or you've got two years or whatever, and it's oh, I mean that's a big part of that pressure. That happens with the second novel.
0:44:04 - Kell Woods
Yeah, absolutely. So I don't know, maybe I hated the first draft this time because I was worried that it wasn't good. I think you have to let yourself just write rubbish for the first draft, don't you Like it's not, it's most of this crap, and I was having trouble with that because I was worried about not being any good.
So a little voice is always telling you that you're not good enough and that it's terrible. And what are you doing? And they're going to see that you're actually hopeless. And why did they even give you this deal Like that little voice, right? So maybe that first draft was hard because of that, I don't know, but I definitely prefer editing.
0:44:41 - Pamela Cook
Yeah, yeah so with the second book, Carol, like this would have been quite a different process for you, I imagine. And obviously you've got an agent and you've got your publisher and editors through them. You had the mentorship with Kate and a whole variety of different things that you did with that first one. Has it been like a super different process for you this second time round in actually getting that draft down? Is it something that you already had in the pipeline or was it something completely new that you were starting?
0:45:08 - Kell Woods
I've been working on this one for a while because it was a two book deal. So when we pitched after the forest, my agent, Julie, had already said so what else are you working on? And I said I've got a couple of things, and one of them is this book. And so she went yeah, that's the one. So then she pitched that to Tor and we already knew that this was what the next book was going to be. This was what the fairy tale was going to be.
So I knew that from 2020 and I'd already been working and thinking about it and just jotting down things for it before then, because I got some more good advice from Kate and she said when you start pitching, when you start submitting to agents and publishers, have something else up your sleeve so that if they say to you what are you working on next, you can say I'm working on this and you can give them an Opsis and you can show you that you can work and produce more than one book.
So, luckily yeah, luckily I had got that ready. So when I was getting after the forest ready, I also had a synopsis. So if anybody asked me, yeah, this is what I'm working on, so I already had this as the book that. I'd already had and yeah, I knew and I'd had time to think about it, but then it was my first time of even editing and going through all of that and because I have three different publishers, there was different lots to do for after the forest in each territory, and so there was quite a bit of work and I felt like the second book was almost like the neglected second child it hasn't had as much time and love.
But I'm getting it now. So I think it's okay. Yeah, it's getting used to the whole thing, yeah.
0:46:46 - Pamela Cook
I guess you've got something a lot of people don't have on that first experience. You've got three different publishers that you're dealing with and in fact I wanted to talk to you. I'm just going to do a little screen share for the people who are watching on YouTube. Here we are. So, here's your three different beautiful covers. And your website is absolutely gorgeous, Kell, and it's such an amazing brand.
0:47:10 - Kell Woods
Thanks, I worked really hard on it.
0:47:12 - Pamela Cook
She did it herself. It's lovely. It's beautiful. Thanks, so highly recommend everyone have a look at that. So if you're listening to the podcast, pop on to Kell's website and have a look at the three different book covers for the US, the UK and Australia.
They're all quite different, so that must have been a really interesting process getting the covers sent to you, and then did you have much say in what any of the covers looked like, or how did that whole conversation work with each of the publishers?
0:47:41 - Kell Woods
Yeah, they were all different. We started the tour like the American was the first cab off the rank and they really wanted something that would stand out and be different. They didn't want it to be too dark. They were very amazing. They asked me my thoughts. We talked about design as I got to have a look at different artists and that's really exciting. Oh, we're sending you through this potential artist, what do you think of their work? Can you get to have a look and a think? And it's just great and exciting. So I had quite a bit of a say in the tour with the US cover and I really love it. I think it's really unusual. I really, yeah, it's very clever.
0:48:24 - Pamela Cook
It's got lots of different elements in it. Each time you look at it you notice another little piece of the puzzle.
0:48:30 - Kell Woods
Yeah, in earlier versions there was blood dripping off the hand and it was a little bit. It was a little bit scary and just toned it down a little bit and yeah, I really love that it was designed by Andrew Davis, who's a UK based designer. And he also designed the Australian cover.
So he got to do it in the book twice, which was lovely. So he did the Australian cover and Harper Collins had a really Harper Voyager, had a really strong view of what they wanted, and so I pretty much just let them go for it, and I knew Andrew was doing the cover too. So we talked about what I wanted, about something with the tentacles and something with red hair. I really wanted red hair on the cover, so I got all three of them.
0:49:17 - Pamela Cook
Yeah.
0:49:17 - Kell Woods
Red hair, red hair on the tentacles, foxes and wolves and a bear and that sort of magical fairytale feeling. And that's the direction that Harper Collins went and Andrew, it was really interesting actually emailed him and said oh my God, you're working on the book again. The brief was really different, like the two covers that he's done, I think are quite different. I think he enjoyed that process and the UK went for a much more, I think, more, more romantic.
0:49:44 - Pamela Cook
The closer you are, isn't it? Yeah, square characteristic and a mystery. It's really pretty. Every time I look at them, I like a different one each time. They're all beautiful in their own way.
0:49:54 - Kell Woods
Yeah, I think so too. I like them all.
0:49:57 - Pamela Cook
How lucky are you to have three beautiful covers for your one book?
0:50:01 - Kell Woods
I know it's really cool. I'm very lucky. I'm still pinching myself about all of this. I really am.
0:50:08 - Pamela Cook
Which leads me to my next question. Kell, Like you've gotten through that writing process and you're now getting into the period where it's almost launch time and you've had to do some social media. How are you finding all that business side of things?
0:50:21 - Kell Woods
There's a lot of it. Actually, that's something I really have to work on, just getting used to that. I think having it on in your own business which my husband has done for his entire life pretty much, and he used to say to me, you can never switch it off. There's always. It's always something that needs to be done in the back of your head, and I understand what he means now, because I have trouble switching off.
But I really like doing all the socials and there's just a lot to do because everything I'm doing is done three different times, even the time zones. So I made myself a little thing that had what the time is in the UK and like trying to find when I should be posting things and how to time everything. And also, I'm really wary of annoying everybody in my Instagram feed, but it's always looking at me all the time Like I don't want to be that person?
0:51:10 - Pamela Cook
Yeah, I know, but I think you have to be, because you have to remember too that not everybody sees everything you post.
0:51:18 - Kell Woods
Yeah, that's true.
0:51:19 - Pamela Cook
While you feel that you're bombarding people with it, not everyone's going to see it. People are all so excited for you at launch time and they're happy to see your numerous posts, so keep going.
0:51:29 - Kell Woods
I like seeing the posts. It's a real countdown, isn't it? There's that real feeling of oh, it's only two weeks and it's only a week, and it's incredibly exciting. I like watching them. Other people do it too. So yeah, I'll have to just get over that. But I have started scheduling posts to go out at 2 am and I've noticed that when I get feedback on Meta, it's saying this is the best time a day for you to post, and it's 2 am.
0:51:53 - Pamela Cook
Right.
0:51:54 - Kell Woods
So there's obviously I've been doing it more at that time, but also, hopefully, it's getting seen more when I'm asleep, which is just the weirdest thing.
0:52:02 - Pamela Cook
It's selling books in your sleep, yep yeah.
0:52:06 - Pamela Cook
And how are you finding fitting all this in everything that you're doing with your kind of home life and your family life, Cause it's a big change. Like you were saying, it's now your job and you've got everything else to do, of course, as well.
0:52:18 - Kell Woods
Yeah, luckily, my children are in high school now. My sons don't really want to talk to me very much. Oh, that makes it handy. Yeah, it's good timing in that respect. There are ones in year eight and ones in year 11, about to start year 12. So they have their own lives and they're also quite autonomous, which is really nice, because this would have been really hard when the kids were. If I did this when my kids were little, it hats off to all those writers who do this, with tiny people coming into their office and meeting them.
I think that's amazing. It's a real juggle. And I only work part-time outside of this now too. So I work two days a week Outside of a day job in the museum, which is great. I really like my day job. Yeah, it's busy. I'm not gonna lie. I work seven days a week, but I don't think it's any more busy than any other author who has a family and a part-time job and commitments.
0:53:16 - Pamela Cook
Yeah.
0:53:17 - Kell Woods
I'm very grateful.. I'm happy. This is what I dreamed of living the dream.
0:53:21 - Pamela Cook
Yeah, I'm gonna let you go because we've been chatting for a while, but I'm just before you go, a couple of things. What advice would you give to people who are out there maybe working on their first manuscript and Keen to find a publisher and to get it out into the world? Is there any kind of bit of advice that you think are really important things for them to remember or to take into consideration?
0:53:42 - Kell Woods
Yeah I would say don't give it to your friends and family to read. Just try and get it in the hands of someone who knows, like a publishing professional or a teacher, a writing teacher, a creative writing teacher, another author, if you can get a Mentorship or if you can pay for a manuscript assessment and do that. When you've got the book to the point where you think you can't do anything Elsewhere, that you've done several drafts and you just think I can't Physically do anything more, I need somebody else's opinion on this. I wouldn't give it to friends and family.
I don't think that's a good idea and I just don't think they know really how to help you unless they are a publishing expert or an author, and Sometimes it can be really Awkward when they don't like the work and they have to lie and you know they're lying and yeah, so I would just try and get really good feedback. And that might mean saving up a little bit and getting paying for someone through the 40 Australian writer centre.
And also, when you get that feedback, do what they say, listen to them because people are experts and Professionals for a reason, and if they tell you that there's something about your manuscript that needs fixing or isn't quite working, just do the work. I would say just take it on board and do the work, because I think that's how you get it Into a good place. I think that's a good place. I think that's how you get it into a good place. And go to classes, learn to read.
0:55:07 - Pamela Cook
And never stop. There's always more to learn, isn't there? Yeah?
0:55:10 - Kell Woods
Always, always. Yeah, I've still got writing classes. I love them. I just like listening and learning about writing. It's fascinating.
0:55:21 - Pamela Cook
Yeah, absolutely I get it, yeah, and you learn. I learn something from everybody that speaks to me, which is fantastic and that's great to kill. The question I often like to end the podcast with is what would you say is at the heart of your writing?
0:55:36 - Kell Woods
Oh, my writing probably means that I Want to make you escape and disappear into Another world like I. I'm all about escapism. I read to disappear and escape into something else like I. It's entertainment, I suppose, in a way. But I also like beauty and whimsy and darkness. That's probably at the heart of my writing. When I write, I like to disappear into the beauty and the whimsy and the darkness and I hope that whoever's reading the book will also disappear as well and Get immersed in that sort of other Other world, that kind of magical world.
0:56:21 - Pamela Cook
That's why I read yes, it's that escapism you certainly do in after the forest, so congratulations, because you've achieved that and I'll wait for the next one. Are we allowed to know what fairy tale the next one is based on, or is that a little?
0:56:36 - Kell Woods
I can't say much about it, but I can briefly say that it is about a fairy tale character who wishes that she had legs and not a shiny silver retail. Okay, we're going to the sea.
0:56:54 - Pamela Cook
Cannot wait. Where can people find you on social media?
0:56:59 - Kell Woods
Yes, on Instagram and Twitter or X, and I'm on Facebook. I'm most active on Instagram, so that's probably where you'll see more, and I have a website.
0:57:20 - Pamela Cook
Now, this is probably going to be coming out around launch time, so are there any kind of launch events if people are interested in coming along, or any book events that you're doing in the next month or two?
0:57:31 - Kell Woods
Yeah, so there'll be a launch in Husky. There's no tickets available yet. It hasn't been put online yet, but I am doing a launch at Kenakunya in the city on the 10th of October. I think that's a Tuesday night and I'll be in conversation with Kate Forsythe, so that will be fun.
0:57:49 - Pamela Cook
That one’s in my diary.
0:57:51 - Kell Woods
Lovely, so yeah, if anybody wants to come along and celebrate, that would be amazing. Oh lovely, that's the main one. I'm doing an inco, I'm doing an event at better red than dead, with Lauren Chater as well. Oh right 14. We're having afternoon tea at a Read Than Dead.
0:58:08 - Pamela Cook
So excited for you and yeah highly recommend everybody get out there and grab a copy of the book. So Thanks Kell, all the best with the next one and can't wait to see you at one of your launches.
0:58:21 - Kell Woods
Great, I can't wait to see you too, pam. Thank you so much for having me on and supporting the book. Thank you, I appreciate it.