Interview with Ella Baxter
Mackenzie Stolp
(she/her)
Ella Baxter (she/her) is a writer and artist. Her debut novel, New Animal was released in March 2021 through Allen & Unwin. In 2022 it will be released in the UK through Picador, and in the US through Two Dollar Radio. New Animal is also being developed into a television series by Lingo Pictures.
Ella is currently writing her second novel, Woo Woo, while working towards a new collection of death shrouds to exhibit.
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New Animal is the Demure Book Club selection for March and we cannot wait to read It with everyone. We are so thankful to Ella for chatting to us and releasing this beautiful book into the world.
WARNING: Some small spoilers in this interview!
Mackenzie: You are a visual artist and that was your creative practice for a while - what made you start writing? What is your history with writing?
Ella: I have always kept journals of ideas and drawings. They were filled with anything worth noting down, and then eventually the journaling turned into stream of conscious sentences, and then that turned into more complex, made-up stories. I am as surprised as anyone else that I wrote a book.
Mackenzie: Where do you find the inspiration for your writing? How much does your own life influence your writing?
Ella: I find humans extremely fascinating and I am constantly questioning why people behave in certain ways, in particular circumstances. I also don’t understand myself all that much so I try to write down my own behaviours and work out why I am the way I am from there. My life very much influences my writing but not more so than other peoples.
Mackenzie: What did your research for this book entail? Did you know much about mortuary work beforehand? Or BDSM clubs?
Ella: I did a lot of research into both industries and read everything I could about them. I interviewed a professional sub, a sadist, and a BDSM 101 educator. I went to a kink party, learned a little Shibari and joined Fetlife. To understand mortuary services, I read a lot of exams and hand guides from the certification courses. I also interviewed a funeral director, a mortician, and a death doula.
Mackenzie: As a Tasmanian it was incredibly exciting to me to read a (good) book set in Tasmania (it doesn’t happen often). Tasmania has a dark history and I definitely consider Tasmania the tortured, gothic sibling of Melbourne. Why did you choose Tasmania as the setting for New Animal?
Ella: You can really feel the landscape in Tasmania can’t you? There’s a very particular energy there and I was visiting when I wrote the second half of the book. I found the dark, brooding, gothic-ness of the island appealing as a setting for her rampant grief.
Mackenzie: Grief can be a hard topic to write and present to an audience because it is such a personal experience. How did you find writing about Amelia’s journey through grief? Did it affect you writing about such an experience?
Ella: I found it so cathartic. For a long time I found it difficult to articulate grief accurately. It took many rewrites until I stopped trying to imagine what she was going through and instead channeled my own feelings of it. It was intense but I feel better for it. The end scene means a lot to me and it has been barely edited at all. I am very attached to it.
Mackenzie: New Animal is being turned into a television series - which is just crazy exciting! How do you feel about that? Do you have much involvement in the show?
Ella: I am excited to see what they do with the characters. I am a consultant and I have a lot of faith in Jason Stephens the producer and Marieke Hardy the showrunner. The story is theirs now and I truly trust them with it.
Mackenzie: What are your favourite books and do you have any authors you’d recommend to our readers?
Ella: The Loved Ones by Evelyn Waugh. How to write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee. Tampa by Alissa Nutting. Wetlands by Charlotte Roch. The First Bad Man by Miranda July. Homesick for another World by Ottessa Moshfieg. In Moonland by Miles Allinson. Poetry by Plath, Warsan Shire and Rumi. Anything by Keats. I like a little George Orwell, Nietzsche, Foucault. I like the Dear Coquette blog. Melissa Febos. Shelia Heti.
Mackenzie: What will be next from you? Working on anything fun at the moment? You’ve said that you’ve already finished your second novel and are working on your third - can we get some insight into those books?
Ella: My second novel is about an artist who deals with her persistent stalker by hiring a psychic witch to lure and catch them, and it is finished but I am too scared to hand it over just yet. My third is just scratchings but it involves a single mother and a mango farm and aliens. Books are amazing and I love writing them, but they are such long projects- they take thousands and thousands of hours. I think working on a few smaller things is perhaps what I need next. Art wise, I am trying to find ways to soak my death shrouds in mushroom spores so that people can become mycelium colonies. Time goes on, art will be made, but if it’s good is anyone’s guess.
Grap a copy of New Animal here. If you would like to join the Demure Book Club shoot us a DM on Instagram (@demure.mag) or email us at submit.demuremag@gmail.com.