A Q&A with Charlotte McConaghy, Author of March Indie Next List Top Pick “Wild Dark Shore”

Bookselling This Week: Remote locations always make for such amazing settings, and immediately add atmosphere to any story. But Shearwater is inspired by a real place, and if I recall correctly, you visited Macquarie Island as research for this title. Would you tell us a little about choosing this setting? What about Macquarie inspired you, and how did you develop that inspiration into what we see of Shearwater?

Charlotte McConaghy: I had known about Macquarie for a long while before this book, as I have scientist friends who have worked, or had the opportunity to work, down there on the research station. So I was aware that it was an amazing, remote and difficult place to visit, and always filed it away in the back of my mind as somewhere I’d like to explore as a potential setting. Then the idea of a remote seed bank containing the world’s seeds — a kind of doomsday vault — flooding from melting permafrost was inspired by the Global Seed Vault on Svalbard, and suddenly a Macquarie-inspired island felt like the perfect fit. I did travel to Macquarie on a research trip, I took my partner and one-year-old son, and it was a lifechanging experience. The island is unlike anywhere I have ever been, or will ever go again. It is rich with strange, otherworldly wildlife, the colors and textures and sounds are overwhelmingly beautiful, and there is also a sense of history there, there are remnants of the oil exploitation of the 1800s and so the island has a grim, haunted feel to it, which completely changed how I approached the tone of my novel.  

BTW: Though your last several titles have been distinct stories, they all share a common thread of being immersed in nature, and the characters’ (and humanity’s) connections to it. Do you want to tell us more about this common theme?

CM: I do find myself drawn to writing about our connection to nature because we live in a time where so many of us (oftentimes myself included) are so completely disconnected from it, much to the detriment of this planet, and ourselves. I think I must write from a place of deep wish fulfilment, and fear. Each of my novels takes a look at the wildness both beyond us and within us, but they do so through a different emotional lens. Migrations came from a starting point of sadness and loss, Wolves started from a place of rage. Wild Dark Shore is about fear. Fear of how perilous the world grows, fear of the future we are facing, fear of the life we are leaving to our children, and how we are going to keep them safe. Ultimately, I think it’s an exploration of how we love in the face of this fear, in the face of loss. And the great thing about starting out from these difficult emotional spaces is that I get to then write through them and into their opposites, I’m able to find an immense amount of catharsis for my characters and for myself, and I hope the readers too.

BTW: These past few years, you’ve given us several titles with mystery, suspense, and some romance! What’s next for you?

CM: Probably more of the same! Ha! I can’t imagine ever wanting to write a book that doesn’t have mystery, suspense or romance — those are cornerstones for me. But what form it will take is what I’m currently exploring. I have a big idea, it’s an ambitious project that will build on some of the themes I’ve explored in my other work, but in quite a different way. So watch this space.