Hello and welcome to this Track of Words author interview, where today I’m joined by Knicky L. Abbott to talk about her intriguing debut novella Tanglewood, coming in February 2024 as part of the next Luna Novella series from Luna Press Publishing! I love a good novella, and I’ve been eyeing up Luna’s range for a while, so when the opportunity arose to interview the authors of the 2024 novellas I jumped at the chance! In terms of Tanglewood, I was intrigued by the thought of exploring Barbadian folklore, so read on to find out more about this story, its characters, its folklore roots, its exploration of isolation and unbelonging, and much more.
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Track of Words: To start things off, could you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your writing in general?
KLA: Sure thing. I am Knicky L. Abbott, and I’m a Literatures in English graduate, full-time mom, and writer of speculative fiction. I was born and presently reside in Barbados with my daughter and our doggo, and I enjoy fitness and nature when I manage to make time for exercise and the great outdoors. I love beautiful things, books, art, animals, dreams, and above all else, stories. I am the author of the postcolonial gothic romance novella, Tanglewood, and soon to be the author of a sister work in fiction tentatively called Beyond Recall, but not before I complete my masters in Educational Leadership.
ToW: Congratulations on your debut novella Tanglewood coming out in February as part of the Luna Press novella series for 2024! Could you tell us a bit about your novella, and what readers can expect from it?
KLA: Thank you! Tanglewood is a postcolonial gothic romance set in a fictional 1840’s Barbados, that explores the isolation of the Irish Indentured and a unique original story for our local folkloric legend of the Steel Donkey. Readers can expect tragedy in a tropical island setting, secret love among endless palm trees, and an immersive and resonant experience of social isolation and unbelonging.
ToW: What do readers need to know about the main characters in this story?
KLA: Aoife NiCoillte is a descendant of the Irish Indentured on the island of Los Barbados. They are also known as eddie white mice; redshanks or red legs because of how easily their pale skin burns in the sun; backra referring to how they were made to sit in the back row of white churches they attended; or, more commonly, poor whites.
She is 28 years old and over six feet tall, with bright mahogany hair, dark hazel eyes, and freckles from the sun. She is as prejudiced against blacks as other whites but also isolated from other whites because of her inherited poverty. As a result, she often feels alone, afraid, mistrustful, and deeply lost. She is cruel but also a victim of cruelty. Both vulnerable and filled with vengeance.
After indentured servitude ended when her grandmother, her Nanna, was 10 years old, Aoife’s family continued to work at the nearby manor estate for minimum pay. When we first meet her in the story, Aoife lives in the gully behind Tanglewood Manor and has been for the past 10 years.
John Jack is a freed slave who was born into slavery but began working for wages after slavery ended. He is a black man of 24 years, with uncut, outgrown hair and a pleasant disposition. John is kind and quiet and thoughtful. He is very brave.
The nephew of Benga Jack – the housekeeper at Tanglewood Manor – John comes to work for the Williams family on his aunt’s testimonial. His daily chores as a groundsman often echo Aoife’s chores when she worked for the Williams family ten years prior.
While living on Tanglewood Estate, John befriends 13-year-old Bellouise Dubois – a dark shadow of the happy, precocious child she once was – who is blind in her left eye, her 8-year-old brother, Timothy, and their 10-year-old nephew, Elijah.
ToW: How does it feel to know that your debut will soon be on readers’ shelves (and e-readers), and people are going to be able to read this story?
KLA: It feels wonderfully surreal. I keep telling Francesca, Editor-in-Chief at Luna Press, that this is a dream I don’t quite yet know the meaning of. I’ve been the very definition of Alice in Wonderland since she signed me, haha, and it’s incredibly exciting.
ToW: What was the origin of Tanglewood? Why did you want to tell this story in particular?
KLA: Tanglewood originated as a tribute to my favourite fairytale, Beauty and the Beast. But I wanted to tell the story of how love can change people for the worse just as much as hate; I wanted to tell the story of my own isolation and unbelonging, my own loneliness. Of being found, of being lost. I wanted to tell a story of being, of how dark and traitorous it can be when people aren’t good and endings aren’t happy.
ToW: For those (like me) who aren’t familiar with the Steel Donkey, could you tell us a bit about this aspect of Barbadian folklore?
KLA: Absolutely! The Steel Donkey is a Barbadian folklore, founded on the superstition of being accursed; it appears as a wild, fire-breathing donkey, with flaming red eyes and a steel yoke about its neck, from which chains hang down, clangouring always behind it. It is also associated with the destructive act of stoning or rock pelting. But yet, despite numerous anecdotal sightings throughout the years, no one can agree on what Steel Donkey actually is. So, the folklore is there but there are no written stories about it, save this one.
ToW: How did you find working on a novella, as a story length/format to work with?
KLA: I found it very liberating. I knew I wanted to tell this story in as few words as possible. In fact, it’s a lot longer now than where it had even ended originally. That being said, I also knew I didn’t want to be constricted to a smaller word count than the one needed to write this tale well; I wanted just the right amount of room that would allow it to best unfurl.
ToW: What do you think sets novellas apart from a reader’s perspective, compared to other story formats?
KLA: To be honest, I haven’t read many, and this is the first one I’ve ever written. Having read a few more since signing with Luna Novella, I would say they are very more-ish indeed, like brunch or linner, they are an in-between kind of meal. Not so long and large they take you days and days to reach the end and digest the story read, not so short-lived and light they leave you peckish for more time and tale spent in the world created. That is what sets them apart in my opinion as a reader.
ToW: What are your goals, or aims, for this story? Is there anything in particular that you hope readers will take away from it?
KLA: To give anyone who reads this story – who feels they have no choice but to self-silence in a world that cannot hear them – a voice they can connect or even identify with, even if it isn’t their own. I hope the reader takes away what it’s like to feel as though your very being does not matter, no matter what you do. It’s not a particularly hopeful hope, I know, but it’s true for more people than you ever think of. And that’s the point. Some people are never thought of, never regarded, or considered. For some people that’s real and all they know.
Tanglewood is one of three Luna Novellas coming in 2024
ToW: Could you tell us a bit about your usual writing process? And was there anything unusual about working on this story from a process perspective?
KLA: I haven’t written in so long there are days there is a genuine fear in me that Tanglewood was a fluke, and that I will never write anything worthwhile again. Then there are other days when I am nothing but darting and flutters and outstretched talons for the very first words of the next story I write. On the days it tries to burst out of me, life itself be damned, I feel like I’m starved and only my stories can fill me up again.
I don’t know that I’d call it a process, but I jot down bits of inspiration, turns of phrases and feelings, insights into the heart, particularly when it’s overcast. I run those words and lines through my mind and watch the story take on deeper roots as it unfolds inside me. I write, and I refine as I write, until I feel like the work is done and I’m satisfied, or at least like there is nothing more I can do. I don’t think I’m any good at describing it better than that. That’s how it’s always been.
ToW: From a writing craft perspective, is there anything in particular that you learned during the process of working on Tanglewood?
KLA: That I don’t have to use the comeliest and most impenetrable adjective to describe a thing, haha. Some of the most profound words I’ve ever written are simple, and clean, and bare. Also, stories want to tell themselves, so badly. We should let them. A story knows itself better than we ever could. They are like trees in that regard. We get glances inside through the boles and portals, but stories have known themselves forever, even before the first word is writ, even before they are. We actually know them last, while they’ve known themselves longest. This story always was.
ToW: To finish off, can you tell us anything about what you’re working on next, or what you’re hoping to write soon?
KLA: I’m working on my Masters in Educational Leadership for the next half of a year. That said, as I would have mentioned earlier in this interview, I have a Tanglewood twin of sorts reaching out for me with its desire to manifest and become; a sibling story.
This other story will be greatly inspired by The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Phantom of the Opera and to a lesser extent The Little Mermaid, all interwoven with a different folkloric legend, that of the Heart Man.
The working title of the story is Beyond Recall, which is derived from a line in my country’s national anthem that goes, “These fields and hills beyond recall, are now our very own”. I’ve been wanting to call a work of fiction that for many, many years, and now I finally get to.
It’s going to be set in 1950s Barbados, which is an entire century after Tanglewood, and mostly inside a great estate house. It will be filled with big, spectral dark emotions and a lush, dreamy gothic atmosphere, very similar to its influences. I can’t wait to begin.
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Knicky L. Abbott is a Literatures in English graduate, writer of speculative fiction, and wild and lonesome soul. She resides on the island of Barbados with her daughter and their dog Calcifer, where she enjoys a life centred around fitness and nature spirituality. A connoisseur of wonder, of beauty and delight, her favourite things are books, bibelots, de ja vu, faeries, fine art, animal rights, telling stories, and dark, dreamy things. Her first novella, Tanglewood, was acquired on the 15th March, 2023 by Luna Press Publishing, and will be released in 2024.
Check out Knicky’s website for more information.
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Thanks so much to Knicky for writing such great, thoughtful answers and for giving us the lowdown on Tanglewood – which sounds fantastic! I definitely can’t wait to read it, and to find out more about Beyond Recall in due course. If this has piqued your interest, you can find out more in this blog post on the Luna website, and by checking out the trailer for the three novellas on YouTube.
Keep an eye out too for more interviews talking to the other authors involved in 2024!
Tanglewood is out on the 19th February as part of the Luna Novellas series – check out the links below to pre-order* your copy:
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*If you buy anything using one of these links, I will receive a small affiliate commission – see here for more details.