A Q&A interview with author Helen Parry
Helen Parry’s debut novel, A Scrap of Moss and Magick, an exciting, atmospheric magical adventure with a very distinctive protagonist, will cast its spell over readers. Helen Parry answers our questions about her book in this Books for Keeps Q&A interview.
A Scrap of Moss and Magick is your debut. Can you tell us about its path to publication?
It was a long path – and then it was a short path! And a bit magickal. I first wrote a complete draft while I was following a writing course at the Golden Egg Academy, although I’d been endlessly writing and rewriting much of it for a while before that. Then I entered it into some competitions, one of which was the 2025 Search for a Storyteller competition run by David Fickling Books and Arvon. To my utter amazement, my book was shortlisted!
I didn’t win – the winner was the wonderful When the Birds Wake Up by Jessica Mary Ellis – but DFB said they’d like to work with me on my MS. So we did, and then they offered me a contract to publish it and it was absolutely a dream come true for me.
It’s a wonderful story, magic(k)al with a Gothic edge. How did the idea come to you and how did it develop?
Thank you! I wanted to write something like Joan Aiken’s The Wolves of Willoughby Chase but with magick in it. Then I made a list of all the things that I’d like to see in a book like that, and then I proceeded to cram in as many as I possibly could. And somewhere in the many, many drafts, the characters began to emerge, and Thirza’s voice began telling the story.
Which authors did you read as a child and which have been the biggest influences on you?
I was lucky enough to grow up in a house full of books with parents who loved reading, my mother especially, and plenty of visits to the library. I read a lot – fantasy, school stories, classics, collections of fairy and folk tales, and, later, Scottish and border ballads. The writers who were the biggest influences on me: Joan Aiken, Diana Wynne Jones, Alan Garner, Susan Cooper, George MacDonald, Leon Garfield, Elizabeth Goudge, Beatrix Potter. And of course, I longed to visit Narnia!
Your protagonist, Thirza, discovers some upsetting truths about herself during the course of the story. How does who she is affect the telling and what were the challenges of writing characters who are keeping secrets?
We live the story through Thirza, so we’re dependent on what she sees, hears and feels, and I needed her to be observant and thoughtful. Her world is small – she’s never been far from Ruthyn in her life – and she accepts her place in it. The biggest challenge for me was writing in the present, as the story is unfolding. It was all too easy to chronicle every tiny event rather than keep the story flowing.
All my characters have secrets, large or small, although most of them aren’t included in the book. This was fine until we started moving scenes around and I had to keep track of who knew what and when!
Can you tell us about the editing process? As a debut, what was it like being edited, what was your editor’s advice in terms of structure for example?
I love the editing process! I’m a wibbler and very indecisive, so I like to know what other people think works and what doesn’t. My critique group and editor at Golden Egg gave me really good advice, as did the competition judges. Then my lovely editor at DFB pulled it up to the next level. Major changes along the way: moving some events around, removing a subplot and some extraneous scenes, adding scenes, giving Lord Wulfric’s character more dimensions, and putting more focus on Thirza and Cecily’s friendship. All of these made the book so much better.
Might there be more adventures for Thirza or are you writing something new?
At the moment I’m writing something rather different. But I love Thirza and her world, and if readers do too then I’m sure we’ll be going back there in the future.
A Scrap of Moss and Magick by Helen Parry is published by David Fickling Books, 978-1788454131, £7.99 pbk.
