Louise Wilford

Louise Wilford lives and works in Yorkshire, UK. She writes poetry and prose in a wide range of genres, but particularly enjoys fantasy. Her work has been widely published, most recently in 805, Bandit, English Review, Failbetter, Goats’ Milk, Jaden, Last Leaves, Makarelle, New Verse News, Parakeet, Pine Cone Review,  Punk Noir, River and South, Silver Blade, and The Fieldstone Review. In 2020, Louise won First Prize in the Arts Quarterly Short Story Competition, and was awarded a Masters in Creative Writing (Distinction). She was recently nominated for Best Of The Net. She is working on a fantasy novel for young adults.

Q: If you could travel back in time, which of the great writers would you like to meet and why?

A: Shakespeare, of course, because it would be cool to know who actually wrote the plays once and for all! I’d also like to meet Charles Dickens, as I think he would be good company, and George Eliot as I think she was a remarkable, highly intelligent person. Great Expectations and Middlemarch are among my favourite Nineteenth Century novels. I’d also like to meet Jane Austen.

Q: What is the first book you remember reading or having read to you as a child?

A: Books of nursery rhymes and children’s verse – but once I started reading myself, I was obsessed with Enid Blyton for years. The first book of hers I read was Naughty Amelia Jane. My favourite books of hers are the Five Find-Outers series. A few years ago, I re-read most of her books and thought they weren’t actually as bad as I expected them to be. As I was now a sophisticated adult reader, I expected them to be badly-written, overly simple and dull, but they stood up much better than I expected. Nevertheless, the first book I truly fell in love with was The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.

Q: Do you have a favourite quote? (From a book, film, song, speech…)

A: ‘Art should not reproduce the visible but make visible the unseen’ – Paul Klee, artist

Q: Is there a book that you keep going back to, and if so, how many times have you read it?

A: I have re-read all of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels multiple times over the years – probably ten to fifteen times, but not in the past decade as I’m saving them to re-read when I retire. I am a person who re-reads books she loves a lot – I often re-read Jasper Fforde’s novels too. I read The Lord of the Rings nine times in my youth.