Welcome to the latest installment of the Witches Save the World Micro-Interviews! In honor of the upcoming Halloween/Samhain holiday, and in celebration of the release of Witches Save the World, Forests Haunted By Holiness will be featuring a series of interviews with the contributors throughout October.
Witches Save the World was a labor of love. Across these two volumes you will find poems, short stories, and essays celebrating the witch and their role as wisdom keeper, protector of nature, avenger of the forgotten, and defender of the oppressed. Individual poems and stories range from historical fantasy to contemporary horror to science fiction, with many questioning the nature and cost of honor, integrity, and freedom.
In concert with these interviews, one physical copy of Witches Save the World — either Hags, Harridans, and Hexes Gone Right or Covens, Cauldrons, and Curses Gone Right— will be given away at the end of the month! Two books, two winners! To enter the drawing, just comment below and share the interview on your favorite social media platform.
Ready? Let’s get started!
Forests Haunted By Holiness: What is the title of your story, and can you give us a spoiler-free summary?
Dylan Demasi: My story is titled “The Redhead Who Was Never Late.” It’s set in an alternate 1960s America where witches live in hiding, hunted by the government. At the center is a secretary in corporate New York City whose greatest strength has always been playing by the rules, until the rules change. It’s a tribute to the remarkable women I’ve known, and to those who have had to find their own power within systems, and around men, determined to control, diminish, or erase them.
FHBH: How did you go about writing your story? Lots of research? Or did you just wing it?
DD: This was one of the rare times when I mostly just dove in. I love urban fantasy and the clash between natural, innate power and the man-made power of institutions and industry, so as soon as I saw the theme, I knew I wanted to take part.
Very quickly, it also became a story I was writing for my partner. I drew inspiration from their green witch practice, their interests, heritage, experiences, and personality, along with their love of the 1960s and Mad Men, and mixed it all together. I sat down and burned through a rough draft to find the voice and structure, and a lot of it came surprisingly easily. I mostly just put this character into increasingly difficult situations and saw how she responded.
After that initial draft came the research. I dug into Irish spells, omens, sayings, folk beliefs, and their origins and context because I wanted their use in the story to feel respectful rather than decorative. Thankfully, I found some wonderful books from the country spanning different periods that were not only useful but genuinely educational.
Finally, I added a little of both my partner’s and my own experience with the sometimes crushing corporate world. Somewhere in the soup of all those things, the final story emerged.
FHBH: What draws you to the character and theme of “the witch”? What do you find so compelling about it?
DD: Witches have obviously gotten a pretty bad rap in popular culture for an extremely long time. That’s begun to change over the last few decades, with more positive, nuanced, and respectful representations, but I’m still drawn to the idea of people who find strength and power in nature, the world around them, and themselves and then use that power to create change, whether on a small or large scale. That feels more than worthy of being at the center of a story.
On a more personal level, as mentioned above, I’ve been lucky enough to know several women who consider themselves practitioners, and I’ve always been impressed and inspired by their strength, thoughtfulness, and the connection they find in magic, however they approach it. So I think people fighting against the concrete jungle using the actual roots it was built upon, so to speak, will always be something I want to shine a spotlight on.
