Welcome to the sixth 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?
Kit Muse: My story is titled “Weather Witch on Main Portal” and in it an older weather witch goes along with a younger colleague to the portal he discovered while out storm chasing. She thinks it’s a hoax until the portal actually opens.
FHBH: How did you go about writing your story? Lot of research? Or did you just wing it?
KM: I had written the short story for my subscription reader group, Muse Happen, where the younger weather witch discovers the portal, and knew he needed help. Having someone older and wiser come along and make a discovery certainly fueled my inspiration. I tend to write by the seat of my pants, letting the story unfold for me, so there was little research involved. I mostly just had to hang on and keep on typing.
FHBH: What draws you to the character and theme of “the witch”? What do you find so compelling about it?
KM: I like playing with the idea of a witch and since my fantasy universe is our own world with magical entities and characters overlaid into it, I thought it’d be fun to have an older woman, either peri- or post-menopausal as the character. She’s tagging along thinking it’s a hoax, but what if it isn’t, and that’s what inspired the story.
I feel like witches can be subversive characters if they lean into their nonconformity. And it’s fun in some ways to play with the idea of witch and gender to get out of stereotypes.
