For fans of Wilder Girls comes a nightmarish debut guaranteed to keep you up through the night, about an idyllic small town poisoned by its past, and one girl who must fight the strange disease that’s slowly claiming everyone she loves.
We chat with author Ann Fraistat about her debut novel What We Harvest, along with writing, book recommendations, and more!
Hi, Ann! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
I’m an author, playwright, and narrative designer, who loves all things monsters and magic. Outside of writing, I’ve worked on stages in the Washington, D.C.-area as an actor and director. Other loves include reading, gaming, baking, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible. What We Harvest is my debut novel.
How has the start of 2022 been for you?
Personally, 2022 has been hectic. Surreal. Extremely exciting. Not only is my debut novel coming out, but my husband and I also just bought our first home! So, it feels like a new chapter in more than one way.
When did you first discover your love for writing?
There’s a Charlotte Bronte quote I love: “I’m just going to write because I cannot help it.” I can’t really explain it—this insatiable drive to create stories. But I’ve felt that way since I was a kid. One of the earliest stories I remember writing, maybe when I was nine or ten years old, was a parody of Lord of the Rings ever-so-thoughtfully named “Lord of the Baloney.” It starred a female version of Gollum. Ever-so-thoughtfully named Golla. There was also a scary story about an evil gerbil with one giant red eye….There was just always something. Something I was writing outside of school. I’d finish up my homework and then faceplant into writing fiction.
We can’t choose what drives us. For me, I just… can’t not write.
Quick lightning round! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!
Stay Out of the Basement by R.L. Stine. (For a stretch there, Goosebumps were the only books I would read on my own, to the point that one of my teachers had an intervention with me and begged me to try at least one book from another author. I did. But I also kept reading Goosebumps.)
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman.
When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore.
Your new novel, What We Harvest, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
We reap what we sow.
What can readers expect?
What We Harvest is YA feminist folk horror about an idyllic small town being devoured by a mysterious blight—one that infects not only crops, but animals and people, too. And it’s about Wren, the sixteen-year-old girl fighting back to save her farm and family against avalanching odds. Nature has turned against her community, disease decimates her neighbors and comes for her own family, and the American dream she once believed in has shattered around her. Still, Wren strives against the blight, even if it means unearthing the twisted roots beneath her beloved home.
You can expect: page-turning action, lush and eerie rural atmosphere, zombifying blight, exes-to-lovers romance, miraculous farms with crops like iridescent wheat and glowing ghost melons, eyes watching from the woods, corrosive small-town secrets, a potentially infected protagonist, and, last but never least, a very devoted zombie-dog.
Where did the inspiration for What We Harvest come from?
A few places. First of all, I am fascinated by the idea of beautiful horror. Often, the genre relies on dark and crooked shadows, but I loved how the movie Midsommar, for instance, embraced sunshine and flowers. That was the kind of imagery I wanted to pursue in What We Harvest. And the deeper themes grew from the reality we’ve lived with over the past several years.
But this specific story? Honestly, I was between projects at the time. Deeply burned out. And an image from a dream stuck with me: a glimmering field of rainbow-colored wheat. I sat down to explore it as a freewriting exercise, which started as a paragraph and eventually snowballed into an entire book.
At the time, I’d recently moved far from Maryland, where I was born and raised. That infused the book with a wistful longing for home, while my new surroundings in Texas provided the atmospheric inspiration of open space and sparseness. The book also came at a time when I was struggling to build my writing career, and many things I cared about felt not only out of my control, but also out of my reach.
What We Harvest, as it turned out, was the story I needed. All of it. The horror. The beauty. The endless grit of its characters, and the hope that can be found in that perserverance.
Now, I’d love if this story can give readers what they need, too.
Can you tell us a bit about the challenges you faced while writing and how you were able to overcome them?
One of the main things I had to learn while writing What We Harvest was how to trust myself. I used to write much more slowly, laboring over each word. With What We Harvest, I tried something new. Actively freewriting, trying to move so quickly I outpaced my conscious mind. This was a method I’d read about in The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.
The first draft was deliberately haphazard. A raw exploration of the story and world and characters. Letting the back of my brain do the heavy lifting.
And there were so many times when the front of my brain tried to jump in—questioning the worth of everything I was creating. Constantly asking, is this book, with its iridescent wheat and molten metal blight, too strange? But I’m so glad I didn’t listen to that self-doubt. Those turned out to be elements that so many people connect to! Precisely because they are strange.
So, yep, as far as writing goes, I’ve been hugging my inner-weirdo close ever since.
Were there any favourite moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I try not to play favorites with my characters… but I totally do have favorites. In What We Harvest, it’s Claudette. Stabby on the outside, but a secret softie inside. She’s the rough-and-ready heir of the Pewter-Flores ghost melon farm and the older sister of Wren’s love interest, Derek. Favorite hobbies include fixing tractors, shooting things, and cuddling with her sunshiny girlfriend, Angie.
Oh, and then there’s Teddy, What We Harvest’s zombie-dog MVP! After all, what could be more important than the relationship between a girl and her zombie-dog? When the book starts, Teddy is already blighted. But Wren can’t give up on her, not after raising her from a puppy. For better or worse, Teddy keeps coming back to visit. And I loved writing every minute of it. I used to co-own a dog-walking business, and ever since we shut it down in 2016, I’ve been in a state of permanent dog-withdrawal. While Teddy isn’t based on one particular dog, she’s an ode to all those pups I miss. A lot of love went into Teddy. It’s moving to see how many readers love her back.
What was the road to becoming a published author like for you?
Well, I’ve dreamed of becoming an author since I was ten. At age sixteen, I submitted my first manuscript to one editor. Literally one. Which I now find extra comical given all the rejections that would later come when I began to actually query. This was before email submission, so I printed that hulking stack of paper and mailed it off. Months later, I got a rejection letter—personalized and very kind. But it still broke my heart. So, I kept writing, hoarding manuscripts quietly on my hard-drive.
It wasn’t until 2017, at age twenty-nine, that I seriously started to query. Then those previously mentioned rejections started piling up. My big break came through Pitch Wars, an author mentorship program that culminates in an agent showcase. I was a mentee in 2018, and then again in 2019—that time with the book that would become What We Harvest. Technically, my debut is the fourth book I’ve written.
What’s next for you?
Next up is another standalone YA supernatural thriller/horror! It’s a mental health recovery story set against the backdrop of a haunted house. It’s full of seances and strange spirits and mysterious masks, and crawling with bugs and blue roses. I’m excited to share more about it soon!
Lastly, do you have any 2022 book recommendations for our readers?
I sure do. Wow, let me see if I can restrain myself here. Some spooky new books I can’t wait to read, in order of release, include: Horror Hotel by Victoria Fulton, A Far Wilder Magic by Allison Saft, My Dearest Darkest by Kayla Cottingham, Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White, Wake the Bones by Elizabeth Kilcoyne, The Witchery by S. Isabelle, The Undead Truth of Us by Britney S. Lewis, The Last Housewife by Ashley Winstead, Where Echoes Die by Courtney Gould, Direwood by Catherine Yu, The Restless Dark by Erica Waters, and The Whispering Dark by Kelly Andrew.
