We chat with debut author Stephanie Willing about her middle grade release West of the Sea, which is a lyrical, heart-filled coming-of-age story for fans of cryptozoology—and anyone who has struggled to find their place in the world when they feel different. PLUS we also have an excerpt from the first chapter to share with you at the end of the interview!
Hi, Stephanie! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hi! My name is Stephanie Willing, and I’m so happy to be here with you. I write speculative middle-grade fiction, and West of the Sea is my middle-grade debut. I’m also an audiobook narrator.
I’m originally from Texas, where I was homeschooled in a Christian conservative home. Now I’m a vaguely pagan exvangelical, bisexual, elder millennial raising two amazing young boys and watching a lot of Bluey.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
Before I could even write! I have an old journal from when I was pre-literate where my mother would write down for me the stories I told her about the pictures I drew of swans, unicorns, and dinosaurs (my tastes haven’t changed much). Once I could write for myself, I wrote poems, stories, letters, everything. I was always reading, and re-reading, and begging for more books. As I got older I became very serious about ballet, and then later, acting, and I eventually recognized that all these passions were connected through a deep love for story.
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!
- Whisper the Winged Unicorn.
- Probably Whisper the Winged Unicorn
- Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. This book feels like a disquieting dream of a place you recognize but you can’t quite remember. Also, if you’ve ever had the slow horrible realization that everything that makes up your worldview might be a lie, this book is a shattering metaphor for that.
Your debut novel, West of the Sea, is out August 15th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Roadtrip, friendship, Texas, cryptids, dinosaurs. If I could buy five more they would be sisters, parentification, queer, coffee, peacock.
What can readers expect?
It’s a funny, heartfelt adventure about a girl trying to find her mom—a mom who might not be inhuman. It starts in a small farming town and then rattles across the state of Texas in a borrowed coffee truck to the Gulf of Mexico. It’s science and magic and family and especially sisters.
For my money, I think this book is both a scream into the void and a love letter. Yes to dinosaurs and Texan skies, but also to little kids who don’t understand why their mom won’t get out of bed, and to big kids who block out the world with headphones but still cook meals for their siblings and make sure the laundry is done. To maps and myths. To queerness and queer family. To the deep-rooted feeling that if anyone ever knows who you really are, they’ll reject you—but being brave enough to be yourself anyway.
Where did the inspiration for West of the Sea come from?
The structural legacy is undoubtedly A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. If Wrinkle took place in Texas, it would be this book.
But my story first took root when my best friend took me home with her to her family’s wheat farm. When I saw the fields rippling under the moonlight, they looked just like the ocean. I thought, what if there were mermaids out there? The story has changed a lot since then! From mermaids, it became selkies, and after selkies, I invented a Texan cryptid called a kitskara, a shape-shifting creature that can live on land or sea.
The heart of the story, however, is about Haven, a twelve-year old girl whose mother is depressive (and secretly a kitskara), who is scared she’s becoming a “monster” too. That draws directly from my own experiences with my mother and her mental illness, as seen through a fantastical lens.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
One of the perks of being a kitskara is that Haven sees ghostly dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures anytime she’s near or touching fossils. As a longtime dual dinosaur and cryptid fan, I loved writing the scene where Haven sees a plesiosaur rising out of a man-made lake like a Texan Nessie. I want to see that!
From the character side, Haven’s big sister Margie has a lot of anger from how abandoned she feels and the ways she’s had to shoulder her mother’s responsibilities. Personally, I love reading (and writing) angry women and girls because like so many, it wasn’t an emotion I was really allowed to express growing up. Letting Margie be angry and critical, while at the same time she so clearly loves her family, was a dynamic I really wanted to explore.
What do you hope your readers will take away from reading West of the Sea?
While I hope everyone enjoys the dinosaur sightings, a silly peacock, the complicated but devoted sister dynamic, and the awkard friendship that grows between Haven and her new neighbor Rye, I really hope that kids put the book down knowing that they’re not responsible for their parents’ happiness.
What’s next for you?
Tapping into more female anger! I’m writing a middle-grade horror novel about the youngest students at an elite ballet conservatory that promises to turn out perfectly behaved girls by the end of the first term. It’s kind of The Stepford Wives for twelve-year olds, but with monsters and a big Nutcracker performance.
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
My favorite picture book right now is Emile and the Field by Kevin Young—I want to live between its covers. For heartfelt middle-grade cryptid content, I highly recommend the novel-in-verse Dear Mothman by Robin Gow. Nat Cassidy’s forthcoming horror novel The Nestlings is a terrifying delight for adult readers who like re-envisioned monsters. And you can’t go wrong with Axie Oh. If you haven’t read The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea, run. Go get it.
CHAPTER ONE EXCERPT
Country girls don’t get scared when things go thump in the night. There’s always some critter out there making noise and trouble. So when I heard the scratching out back, I didn’t think too hard on it.
A low rumble, a scrrritchy sort of sound, and my brain put two and two together: there was an owl with a tummyache scratching at my window. It made perfect sense.
Scrrritch.
Wait, no, it didn’t.
Thump. Scrrrritch. THUD.
I shoved myself upright and rubbed the sleep grit out of my eyes.
There was a face at the window. It had a long, snaky neck and a sharp, pointy beak. Looking at me.
My heart jumped up past my throat and choked off a scream.
But then I slumped against the headboard. I knew that face. It was Harry. My dang peacock. Presumably hoping for breakfast in the middle of the night.
He had no sense of time. He had no sense period, but then, neither did I.
Moonlight spilled over the bed, illuminating me and the fossil I’d fallen asleep holding. I’d scooped this stony relic off one of Mama’s cairns in the weak hope that she’d come looking for it.
I’d actually thought stealing a fossil would do something, like get a reaction.
Mama could smell a fossil five feet out of the ground, so it stood to figure she’d be drawn to this one too, and then I’d get to say goodnight to her before she locked herself in the bathroom to soak in the tub for hours. Again. If I got really lucky, maybe she’d even smooth my hair, or sing me our old lullaby, or scold me for messing up her stack of stones. I wasn’t picky. I’d take anything other than how I became invisible to her at night.
Scritch. Thump.
A draft of cold air rustled the room, and I pulled the quilt up around me. I was almost twelve, not a little girl anymore. I shouldn’t need Mama to come say goodnight to me. It would be better if I learned to not need her, like my big sister, Margie, had.
Scritch scritch SCRATCH.
“Ugh, I’m coming,” I said. Keeping the quilt, I scooted out of bed and stomped over to where my peacock watched me through the window. I pushed the pane up until there was only the screen between us.
Harry scraped and rustled inside a decrepit old wheelbarrow that Mama had parked under my window and made into a flower box. She was always taking broken things and turning them into something beautiful. At least, she used to.
“Harry, it is not breakfast time,” I told him.
He clucked and spread his fan of tail feathers. He was only one year old, so it wasn’t impressive, but I never let on. There was a lot he didn’t know. He’d been born in the drought, and if it ever rained, he’d probably think the sky was falling.
“Yes, you’re very handsome, but not even the handsomest birds get fed before six a.m.”
I scolded him, but I wasn’t really mad. I got it. Sometimes I woke up lonely too and went hunting for a snack.
The night air smelled warm and dry. I wasn’t sure why I’d felt such a chill in the room when I woke up. I let the quilt fall to the floor.
I looked past Harry to our wheat fields. They rustled in endless silver waves under the moon. But the stalks were weak and not as tall as they should be. If the drought didn’t break, we’d be out a year’s harvest, and the lines in Papa’s face would get deeper. Mama would sink even quieter, Margie would get angrier, and I’d . . . I’d be fine.
Harry pressed his face against the screen, and I pushed my hand against the shape of him. He chirruped.
The house was silent. I listened for the soft splish–splash sounds of Mama soaking in the tub down the hall, but she must’ve gotten out while I was asleep. Or maybe she’d dozed off in there. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Thunder rumbled, and I realized I was squeezing the fossil tight in my right hand. I hadn’t noticed I was still holding it.
I frowned. If there was thunder, there should be clouds. And if there were clouds, the moon wouldn’t be this bright.
“Go back to the coop, Harry,” I said. “Papa’s gonna feed you in a few hours.”
Harry closed his fan, bobbed his head, and jumped to the ground.
And that’s when I saw the dimetrodon in the vegetable garden.
