These Mortal Bodies is poet Elspeth Wilson’s debut novel. We caught up with her to ask her about her publishing journey.

These Mortal Bodies
By Elspeth Wilson
Published by Simon & Schuster

Congratulations Elspeth on the publication of your debut novel, These Mortal Bodies. Can you tell our readers a little bit on what to expect when cracking open its pages?

 Thank you so much and absolutely! These Mortal Bodies follows Ivy Graveson as she heads North of the border to attend an all-girls college at a prestigious ancient university. Once there, she quickly becomes drawn into an elite world of secret societies, privilege and riches. But as the parallels between the university’s twisted past and its presence become more striking, Ivy will have to decide how far she’ll go to belong and what exactly she’s willing to do for sisterhood. Think The Secret History meets The Crucible with a dash of Mean Girls. It’s really a novel with friendship in all its complexity at its heart with a whole lot of yearning and girls behaving badly thrown in for good measure.

As a debutant, what has your publishing experience been like for you so far?

It’s been a real learning curve. I’ve been so grateful to have the support of my wonderful agent and my team at Simon and Schuster who have been very reassuring, reliable, transparent and honest. I also have to give a massive shout out to the debut writers group that I’m part of! I’ve made so many friends through it and we like to joke that we act as a kind of unofficial union. It’s a fantastic place to turn for advice, consolation and cheerleading. I think community is always really important in the writing world as it can be a confusing, isolating industry with a lot of rejection – some of my favourite parts of the debut experience have been connecting with other writers. Lastly, I’m seeing this as just as the start of my writing career which helps put things in perspective and makes me excited for what might happen next.

Dark academia is having a bit of a moment in the literary landscape just now (as are witches and witchcraft!) What drew you to the genre? What did you want to explore in your writing?

I really wanted to explore the headiness of being at university and the formative years where we are spat out of our home environments with so many possibilities – and pitfalls – ahead of us. I’m interested in girlhood, femininity and gender relations and wanted to write in that area in a complex, nuanced way. Something I love about dark academia is a genre is that the characters are so flawed, and yet (nearly) all of them have redeeming qualities too. My novel definitely sits more on the campus novel side of the genre but there’s a lot of gothic qualities to it too. I love writing about soaring spires, ancient campuses, rich people behaving badly and outsider perspectives – all things which are very much central to the genre.

Do you have favourite stories on intense friendships that influenced your novel?

I actually read both these books after I wrote the novel but I really like The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer and The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue for their explorations of intense friendships. The book that really influenced my writing was The Secret History by Donna Tartt which is an absolute classic of the dark academia genre and has one of the most beautifully written, complicated friendship groups going. As a teenager, I also absolutely loved Brideshead Revisited and the yearning underpinning that definitely influenced These Mortal Bodies.

These Mortal Bodies is not your first book; you’re also a poet. Could you give us an insight in your approach to poetry and prose and how they interact with each other in your writing practice?

 I find this question quite hard to answer because their interaction is more something that I do than that I think about. Writing poetry certainly changes my editing style for my prose – I read out loud a lot when I’m editing and think about how each word is earning its space on the page. I tend to focus more of my time on my prose work and then see delight and freedom in the brevity of poetry. I also often handwrite my poems as opposed to typing them which feels like a nice change. That said, I’ve been working this year on a YA novel in verse so I am interested in exploring longer form poetry!

The next few months will see you promoting the novel. Do you like the non-writing aspects of a writer’s life? Do you enjoy events? What advice about the non-writing part of a writing career would you give to budding writers?

 I do really enjoy doing events! I love meeting readers and connecting with people and I think events are a great way of doing that, for me at least. I also enjoy chairing and I think being on different sides of literary events gives different skills and insights. There are other non-writing aspects which are more challenging and/or mundane such as lots of admin things! I have to be very protective of my writing time as I work on my second novel – I carve out specific time for that and try to use the times where I have the most energy to write rather than prioritising the non-writing aspects of writing like replying to emails. I tend to come to those when I’m more tired! That would be my main piece of career advice to budding writers – do what you need to protect your writing time and creativity. And in terms of promotion try to focus on what you enjoy – for your own sanity and also because it will show if you’re not enjoying it.

We hope you’ve had time to read this year too. What have been your favourite books you’ve read this year so far?

There’s so many! For anyone who wants a book to keep them awake at night (in the best way possible), I’d recommend Cuckoo by Callie Kazumi, This Immaculate Body by Emma van Straaten or Baby Teeth by Celia Silvani. On the lighter side of things, I loved The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang which has an amazing autistic MC and I also enjoyed the drama and paciness of The Favourites by Layne Fargo. I’m looking forward to reading an ARC of The Salt Bind by Rebecca Ferrier next, and on the non-fiction side Love in Exile by Shon Faye.

These Mortal Bodies by Elspeth Wilson is published by Simon & Schuster, priced £16.99.