Laura Evans: 'I wanted to write something with ritual and tradition woven through it'
BY Maya Fernandes
25th Jun 2026
In this interview Laura Evans, author of the debut gothic horror Little Wild, shares her advice for creating a believable magic system.
'I wanted magic to creep up on Margaret, as so much else does over the course of her story; and for it to be at times ambiguous whether what’s happening is really magic at all.'
We caught up with Laura to discuss her views on unreliable narration, the folkloric influences that inspired her debut novel and her horror reading recommendations.
Little Wild is rich with atmospheric descriptions of the Suffolk woods and the decaying lodge. How did you approach building that setting? Were there particular literary or folkloric influences that shaped the world of the novel?
So many influences! It’s impossible (for me at least) to write about woodland and not also have these at least vaguely in mind, e.g. Hansel and Gretel, Robin Hood, Henry VIII out hunting, the Green Man, the Mabinogion. A hazy sense of Iron Age people’s weaving things out of willow – and other such historically dubious ideas, but that’s the timelessness of woods and forests at work; the knack they have of making the past feel closer. Whether we like it or not, writing about them means writing under a weight of history and meaning, and the choice we have as writers is how much to lean into that association versus subvert it.
In terms of specific, conscious influences: I’ve always loved nature writing, and I’m sure there’s more than a trace of Roger Deakin’s Wildwood – and, more recently, Robert Macfarlane’s, Dan Richards’ and Stanley Donwood’s Holloway – in Little Wild (among many others). Daniel Mason’s North Woods is set in New England, not old, but does something remarkable with place and (no pun intended) rootedness. As for folklore – before I even had a plot in mind, I knew I wanted to write something with ritual and tradition woven through it, that wasn’t tied to any particular folk story, but would give me freedom to play around with invented stories and beliefs as well as real ones. There’s also a good sprinkling of Greek mythology, Christian ideology, some fairly weird confectionery-based voodoo – basically it’s a hodgepodge of ideas, knitted together under the shade of oak, ash and thorn.
The novel is narrated entirely by Margaret, who recognises that she isn’t always a reliable source. What drew you to writing from the perspective of an unreliable narrator, and how did you decide what to leave ambiguous for the reader?
This is such an interesting question! A lot of early reviewers have been calling Margaret an unreliable narrator, and I understand the impulse – she isn’t always the most clear-sighted, or the easiest to understand – but to me the term means a narrator who deliberately sets out to deceive or confuse the reader, which Meg never does. I don’t think it’s necessarily the case that she’s addressing the reader at all. I just think she’s human: an imperfect recorder of events, as all of us are. If anything, there’s an honesty in her admitting she’s bemused by what’s happening to and around her – she doesn’t attempt to impose meaning on situations she doesn’t understand. But I’m also a die-hard believer in ‘the death of the author’ – there is no single correct interpretation of a work, because it comes to life uniquely in each reader’s mind – and if some readers feel she’s unreliable, I don’t think it’s my place to argue.
The novel sits in the space between gothic horror and magical realism, but the magic feels organic and emotionally driven rather than rule-based. What interests you about ‘soft’ magic systems in fiction, and what advice would you give writers trying to create a magic system that feels believable?
‘Organic’ is such a good word for how I wanted the magic in Little Wild to work. The world of Snare House is the world of 1930s Suffolk, albeit in the middle of a fictional heatwave that may or may not have been unwittingly willed into being; a more rigid and rules-based system would have turned it into something more like alternative history, where magic would be, if not an acknowledged part of the world, a force consistently at work on it. More importantly, I wanted magic to creep up on Margaret, as so much else does over the course of her story; and for it to be at times ambiguous, to the reader and to Meg herself, whether what’s happening is really magic at all.
I won’t pretend I made a conscious decision to write a ‘soft’ magic system; I didn’t set out to write a system at all, and maybe that’s the point. Here’s my highly inexpert take. In the real world, the one we actually inhabit, there are things pretty much all of us intuitively understand about the universe (you throw a ball in the air, it comes down); there are things only some people, e.g. physicists, understand, and even then only to some extent (relativity; thermodynamics; quantum mechanics); there are things no-one really understands (consciousness; quantum mechanics). You, the writer, might have a completely solid idea of the rules of your world’s magic, in the same way physicists understand how the Large Hadron Collider works – but are most of your characters physicists? To me it feels more convincing, ironically, to have a magic system we learn about by prodding the edges of it and guessing at its shape, than one that appears on the page fully formed. It doesn’t mean there isn’t that rigorous underpinning, but most of us move through this world without really considering why balls drop or water evaporates or hot things burn. And we mostly do alright.
Are there any horror novels you’ve been particularly enjoying recently?
Most of the horror I’ve been reading lately has been short stories rather than novels, largely because I’m enjoying trying to get to grips with the form. Shirley Jackson, obviously, is unequalled for that creeping discombobulation – I’ve probably thought about the sucker-punch at the end of The Lottery at least once a week since I first read it, years ago – but I’ve also been dipping back into earlier classics, like M.R. James’s Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad (possibly the scariest ghost story I’ve ever heard read aloud). I didn’t realise until recently that James wrote a children’s book, The Five Jars, which isn’t straightforwardly horror, but does contain some of the horrifying elements we’re used to seeing in his adult stories. (Children in the 1920s were presumably made of stern stuff.) It’s magic and folklore and the natural world, at times utterly bonkers, and absolutely deserves a read.
I do have two horror novels on my immediate TBR list that I’m itching to get to. One is Solace House by Will Maclean, and the other – recommended by Uli at the amazing indie bookshop Gay’s The Word – is Spoiled Milk by Avery Curran. Sapphic Gothic boarding-school weirdness? Erm, yes please!
You studied with us on our flagship London Writing Your Novel – Six Months course. How did your time with us shape your approach to writing?
Just getting accepted onto the course was transformative for me, because it was the first time I’d had real, concrete, external validation of myself as a writer. That was the point where I stopped tinkering with flash fiction and abandoned novel openings and began to take writing seriously. We were hugely fortunate to have workshops with CBC’s Anna Davis and to be taught by the incomparable Erin Kelly, and the novel I initially started under their guidance took shape over the following six years, latterly with the help of my brilliant agent, Cathryn Summerhayes. That novel didn’t make it to print, but it taught me a huge amount about how and how not to write, and without it I don’t think Little Wild would exist in the form it does.
CBC gave me a reason to be hopeful about my writing, but it was also a dose of realism about publishing, and I think that’s stood me in fairly good stead over the past decade or so. It’s natural when you’re starting out to have unrealistic expectations, because it’s in many ways a very positive and encouraging industry, and we often don’t hear about the knockbacks and frustrations (both are part of the deal, in spades). But it’s important to go into it with your eyes open, and CBC are brilliant at encouraging without sugar-coating the likely challenges.
Many of our students find lifelong writing friends on our courses. Are you still in touch with anyone you met on the course?
I am! Three in particular: Amita Parikh, Rachael Revesz and Rachel Green-Taylor. We have a WhatsApp group, try to video chat every few months, and occasionally workshop each other’s writing. It’s also been lovely to hear from other friends from the course as news of the book has come out. It’s been nearly 12 years since we all pitched up at the Curtis Brown offices for our first workshopping session and everyone’s lives have changed significantly, but many of us are still writing.
And finally, what’s next for your writing journey?
I’m working with my brilliant editor, Maddy O’Shea, on a second novel. While that takes shape, I’m hoping to spend some time developing my short story writing; I’m in awe of anyone who finds it easy to write short-form fiction, which always feels so much less forgiving than a novel. The plan is a) read a lot, and b) really focus on craft and what makes a short story work. I don’t think as writers we ever stop developing – at least, I hope we don’t – but sometimes a systematic approach is needed.
Get your hands on a copy of Little Wild, out now from Mantle (Pan Macmillan).
Laura was a student on London Writing Your Novel – Six Months course in 2014.
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