Marisa Linton: 'Write the novel that’s in your heart'
BY Maya Fernandes
6th May 2025
Marisa Linton was a student on our Writing YA & Children’s Fiction – Three Months course in 2019. We caught up to discuss her debut YA fantasy novel, The Binding Spell – out now from Chicken House.
Read on to discover the inspiration behind the novel, Marisa's literary inspirations and her advice for writers looking to incorporate supernatural elements into their writing.
Marisa, you studied on our Writing YA & Children’s Fiction – Three Months course in 2019. How did studying with us impact your approach to writing?
I’ve published several books on academic history, but writing commercial fiction is a whole different craft, and there’s so much to learn. The course marked the moment when I took my writing future into my own hands and developed a new direction. Some academics can be a bit sniffy about fiction aimed at a wide readership – several even asked me if I would write under a pseudonym! Fiction writing has many challenges, and isn’t a career for the faint-hearted, so I’m really proud of what I’ve achieved.
The course was just what I needed. The biggest moment for me came after I submitted the second extract from the novel I was working on to Catherine Johnson. When we talked about it, she told me my writing already had all the qualities I needed to write publishable fiction. That was a big milestone for me in developing my self-confidence as a fiction writer. It’s this same novel that won the Times/Chicken House competition in 2023, so I like to think that Catherine knew how to spot a winner, even though it had a long way to go from the version that she saw. I still write academic history, but I now have two writing identities: historian and novelist. Both are part of who I am.
Many of our students find their writing community on our courses – are you still in touch with any of your course mates?
I’m in close touch with several of them. We formed a writing group – the Pinklings. Our friendship began with reading one another’s work for the course, endured through the long dark nights of the pandemic that began just as the course ended, and deepened as we supported one another’s efforts to keep writing, and to secure publication. We kept one another going; we chat on WhatsApp, we’ve been to literary festivals together, attended one another’s book launches, and met for dinners and all kinds of events. The support and friendship of the Pinklings is the most important thing for me to come out of the Curtis Brown experience.
It’s tough out there in the world of querying and submissions, you need huge reserves of perseverance and resilience. The actual creative work of writing is done in isolation, of course, so you need people in your life who understand what the writing means to you, and genuinely want to help you. My advice to anyone trying to make it in this uncertain industry is to find a writing group, or to create one. There’s nothing like that connection to keep you going through the hard times.
Your debut novel The Binding Spell is a YA contemporary fantasy that won the Times/Chicken House competition in 2023. It’s been described as ‘dark academia meets Mexican Gothic.’ Can you tell us a bit more about the novel and the inspiration behind it?
They say – write the novel that’s in your heart, the story that only you can write. That was true for me. The Binding Spell came out of the classic fantasy stories, folklore and fairytales, mysteries and adventures that I read as a kid. But I wanted to put my take on that tradition into a setting that twenty-first century readers could relate to. It’s about a 17-year-old girl and her siblings who go to live in a remote village where their archaeologist dad is working on a dig. He uncovers a hidden grave – and all sorts of horrors break loose. The book resounds with the ancient Celtic past, druids and witches, but there are also young people dealing with rural poverty, early bereavement, parental depression, and the struggles of being a young carer. There’s also an intense romance, but it’s all quite dark, and the question of who you can trust is very much to the fore. It’s a bit The Wicker Man meets This Country.
You’ve mentioned being inspired by authors like Alan Garner, Agatha Christie and M.R. James. What is it about these writers in particular that really resonate with you?
Alan Garner’s stories were some of the first I ever read; that sense of a hidden magic, grounded in ancient legends and folklore, seeping into the contemporary landscape, is so powerful, and still haunts me. I did a reading from The Binding Spell recently and a couple of people in the audience said it reminded them of Alan Garner – I almost cried in public.
M.R. James was the absolute master of the ghost story, and an originator of what we now call ‘dark academia.’ His tales of scholars, librarians and archivists who explore where they shouldn’t and uncover arcane secrets, are timeless models of how to evoke a deepening sense of unease in the reader, that escalates to fear and dread. He made weird things happen just on the edge of a character’s sight. At first the character barely notices, but slowly they become aware that something’s not right.
Agatha Christie’s sheer skill as a writer is often underrated. As a writer I’ve found that there’s so much I can learn from her. She can evoke a character, an atmosphere, a situation, with a few deft lines. When you consider when her books were written, her dialogue is surprisingly fresh and modern. She makes her characters feel real, their emotions are plausible, and their motives work. The plots, the twists, it’s all so masterly. Not a word is wasted. She knows exactly what she’s doing and where she wants us, her readers, to go – and we go there. Like a conjuror, she continually manages to misdirect us.
What does a typical day of writing look like for you? Do you have any rituals?
I usually write in the kitchen, in between doing all the other domestic stuff. When things are going well, I can work anywhere. When they’re not going well and I get stuck on the plot, going for a walk can help. A change of scenery. Or taking a bath – that was one of Agatha Christie’s tips, and I figure if it worked for her, then it’s good enough for me. A lot of my ideas come as I wake up, maybe as half-remembered dreams, when I’m still relaxed and sleepy. So I keep a notebook beside my bed, to try and capture them before they disappear.
What advice do you have for writers looking to incorporate supernatural and fantasy elements in their work?
I know this doesn’t work for people who are writing high fantasy where the entire world is an invented one, but for me it’s important to keep the fantasy grounded, so that it takes place against an everyday, seemingly realistic, backdrop. It makes the fantasy feel more real when they come. So the character might be doing something mundane like the washing up, while bickering with their family – and they look out of the window and see something in the darkness of the garden that doesn’t make sense. That shouldn’t be there.
What are some recent fantasy novels you’ve enjoyed?
I recently finished Sunrise on the Reaping, Suzanne Collins, her new prequel to The Hunger Games. It’s outstanding, but it’s also quite traumatic to read as it deals with the high cost of resistance under a repressive regime that operates a ruthless system of propaganda and manipulation. It reminds me very much of 1984. Right now, I’m reading Susan Stokes-Chapman’s The Shadow Key, and really enjoying it. It’s all the sort of things I love – mystery and legend, with a background in Welsh folklore, a historical setting, and haunting characters.
Finally, what’s next for your writing journey?
After I finished writing The Binding Spell I turned to adult fantasy and wrote a novel about a young woman in Edwardian Britain who becomes an occult detective. It’s dark academia, in the tradition of Sherlock Holmes and M.R. James, but seen from a female perspective. I’m itching to reveal more about what’s happening with that, but can’t say much at present. Just watch this space.
Get your hands on a copy of The Binding Spell.
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