Welcome to the fifth 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?
Jeremy Morris: The title of my short story is “The Children’s Crusade.” It’s about a journalist who interviews a famous writer/producer behind a series of successful books and movies about witches and witchcraft. Both interviewer and subject end up drinking too much scotch and as the tape rolls the questions become more pointed, and more angry.
FHBH: How did you go about writing your story? Lot of research? Or did you just wing it?
JM: Some of it is based on a couple bad Hollywood meetings. A lot of it is satire. And there’s also a nod or two to old legal dramas. I love a classic verbal duel between an honest prosecutor and a femme fatale with something to hide.
FHBH: What draws you to the character and theme of “the witch”? What do you find so compelling about it?
JM: When I was a teenager, I saw a coven in my hometown hanging outside an old clapboard house. They were dressed in robes, they’d hung a big red circle on a black sheet, and some of them were smoking. It was both the most ordinary, everyday scene, and also hinted at a mysterious world that lay just beyond my reach in a sleepy Northern city.
