We chat with debut author Madeline Claire Franklin about The Wilderness of Girls, which follows a troubled teen who discovers a pack of feral girls in the woods and is swept up in the ensuing mystery: Are the Wild Girls of Happy Valley lost princesses from a faraway land, as they believe, or are they brainwashed victims of a deranged kidnapper?
Hi, Madeline! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hello! I’m a queer, neurodivergent, invisibly disabled author of weird fiction for young adults, and a practicing witch (Taurus sun/moon and Scorpio rising if you’re interested in that). I have two cats I adopted in college who are about to turn 16 at the end of June, another cat who came with my partner who is The Devil (and we love him accordingly), and two dogs who are both half Pomeranian. When I’m not removing fur from my clothes, I like to take the dogs on long walks through the park, visit obscure and/or niche museums and galleries, and occasionally hit up karaoke night. Sometimes I play random musical instruments I’ve collected, but I’m not any good at any of them, and that’s okay.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I wrote my first “fan fiction” (that term didn’t exist at the time) when I was in kindergarten after seeing The Last Unicorn movie and becoming so obsessed with that world that I wanted to spend all my mental time there. I enjoyed creative writing assignments all through school, but it wasn’t until I read The Raven in fourth grade (and realistically did not understand most of it) that I saw all those beautiful words and their arrangement and thought I want to play with those. And I have been ever since.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: Monster at the End of This Book by Jon Stone (Author), Michael Smollin (Illustrator)
- The one that made you want to become an author: The Crystal Star by Vonda N. McIntyre (it was the first Star Wars EU book I ever read and it painted such a lush and complicated universe, taking one of my already favorite stories and expanding it into something with so much more heart and soul…it made me realize novels could do a lot that film and TV can’t.)
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: The Mirror Visitor quartet by Christelle Dabos. It’s the first book series I’ve ever read twice back to back, and I want to read it again!
Your debut YA novel, The Wilderness of Girls, is out June 11th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Feral girls, magic, sisterhood, & hope.
What can readers expect?
This story gleefully defies easy categorization so it’s best to cast any genre expectations aside. It has the feel of a contemporary fairy tale with the curious pulse of a mystery, plus a large dose of simmering feminist rage. Judging from reviews so far, I’d recommend keeping a box of tissues nearby.
Where did the inspiration for The Wilderness of Girls come from?
Inspiration for this book came from many, many places, not least of which being my own feminist awakening in my mid-to-late 20s. Around that same time I read a fascinating book that I recommend every chance I get: Women Who Run With the Wolves by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés. The whole time I was reading it, something in me was going Yes. Yes. Yes. That book was just the beginning of my understanding how much and how deliberately girls and women have been tamed over the centuries to fit some gross patriarchal ideal of femininity (which is not entirely what that book is about, but it was where my attention stuck). It helped me see in my own life how this taming had become a generational trauma that nearly every mother passed down to her daughter; even my own mother, who I had always seen as something of a feminist, still passed a lot of that on to me. Eventually I started to wonder what I would have been like–what any woman might be like–if they grew up empowered and outside of patriarchal influence…and my wild girls were born.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
The whole thing was an interesting exercise in exploring concepts and trusting my instincts, so much so that I don’t think I really knew what I was trying to write until after the whole thing was done. But I really enjoyed writing the metafiction parts of the book (the memoir excerpts, news articles, transcripts, etc). There was a lot that had to be cut because I enjoyed it so much! But it was fun to be able to dip into a different voice and show the story from a very unique angle, usually how the rest of the world was perceiving the Wild Girls of Happy Valley. If I had to choose though, my favorite favorite part to write was the TikTok Live transcript.
This is your debut published novel! What was the road to becoming a published author like for you?
Long! I have been trying to get published since I was 20 years old (and I’m not ashamed to say I just turned 39). I’ve had my fair share of near-misses, “we love this, but we don’t know how to market it” rejections, and moments where I wondered if I was even cut out to be a writer at all. But I’ve known deep in my bones, since I was about 10 years old, that I am a storyteller. So even when I’ve felt the most hopeless and dejected, there’s always been a note of “so what? It’s not like I’m going to stop writing.” And then I keep writing.
What’s next for you?
I have a second book under contract, but I can’t share too much about it just yet. It’s another YA, but this one is going to have more monsters in it (both real and metaphorical), and instead of a “modern fairy tale” vibe, I’m shooting for more of a “modern Olympian myth” feeling.
Lastly, what books have you enjoyed so far this year and what are some you can’t wait to get your hands on?
I really enjoyed Girls Who Burn by MK Pagano (not out until July 16) and Perfect Little Monsters by Cindy R. X. He (out now). Both are YA thrillers with very different vibes but both kept me up late going “one more chapter…” trying to figure out who the murderer was! Books I can’t wait for: Night Owls by A.R. Vishny (Sept. 17, ‘24) which is about Jewish folklore inspired vampires (!), and Flyboy by Kasey Leblanc, which is already out, I just haven’t had a chance to read it yet (but it’s next on my TBR!). It’s about a boy who visits a magical circus in his dreams to escape reality where his trans identity remains a secret.
