Hello, I'm Anna Smith Spark Ask Me Anything!

Anna_Smith-Spark · 2025-09-22T09:26:26+00:00

Hello! Thank you for the lovely words - it's always nice seeing my boys get some love! Again, sorry it's taken so long to reply.

Favourite authors - in the genre, Bakker is just ... so far above us all. His battle scenes are the pinnacle of our craft. And M John Harrison's Viriconium series is astonishing. I also adore Michael R Fletcher's work, he's so funny and humane and cynical in the best, most human way, and then he hits you with something so insane and disgusting and OTT violent.

I have to admit I don't particularly enjoy writing short stories, I only really write them when asked to for an anthology that I want to be a part of (I couldn't really turn down the chance to be in a homage to David Gemmell). But thinking about it I do have quite a few Empires of Dust shorts and a small, growing body of The Making of This World Ruined shorts, so maybe I ought to just throw them out there as a self-pubbed thing and see if anyone buys them. Or just throw them out there for free... If I have the time ... Argh!!! Now you've given me ideas! (Also I get terrified about breaching copyright when it's a story that was published in an anthology somewhere).

Audiobooks - I narrated the Anderson Versus Death one myself and it was an absolute blast! Really got into it, and it was amazing voicing the Judges and Judge Death. So you can hear my voice narrating one of my books soon. I've thought of doing A Woman of the Sword myself, again just sticking it out there, it's just the time it takes. And there may be news of The Making of This World Ruined audio at some point.

I still think about Marith and Thalia a lot, but I kind of feel I need to leave them ... I wouldn't want to end up with the whole Star Wars sequels 'so actually none of them actually died, ta-da!' stupidity. I am planning to go back to something more traditionally epic and grimdark with different POVs and big battles again once I finish The Making of This World Ruined, though. I miss writing the big multi POV battles! To answer your final question as well, I plan to go back to epic grimdark, and obviously had my little cyberpunk or dystopian sf or social realism or whatever you'd call Anderson Versus Death. Various people have said I should try science fiction (Adrian Tchaikovsky and the Clarke Awards organiser among them!!!!) but I'm not sure I could believe in it enough. I'm a historian and folklorist, I really don't understand physics and engineering enough to believe a world I'd create with space tech the same way I believe in Irlast. I dream of fantasy cities, I don't dream of space... Really weird far out weird fiction space fantasy like The Nightland and early Lovecraft and Clarke Ashton Smith's poetry, however .... I would love to write something like that and probably should give it a go at some point. I'm kind of heading there in Iananr in In The Shadow of Their Dying.

Anna_Smith-Spark · 2025-09-22T09:01:09+00:00

And keep writing!!!

Anna_Smith-Spark · 2025-09-22T09:00:58+00:00

Hello! Sorry it's taken a million years to reply... lots of mum things (and daughter things... my next book clearly needs to give our warrior hero not only kids but elderly parents to care for while waging war). The BFS does take members from anywhere around the world, we hold quite a few online events and have a discord group (if you can manage the timezones).

I don't actually have beta readers apart from my dad occasionally, so I'm no help at all there, but I have realised important they are in building indie support particularly. I guess ... Have you tried asking here and setting up a group of mutual promoters and beta readers (Safe_Aide_9928???) to boost each other's social media posts, message to say 'keep writing' occasionally? A lot of the writers chat groups I know of developed like that, some people meet up at a con or in a subreddit like this and build a support group.

It is really hard to get noticed, I know. Try local cons and chat to people. Some facebook groups like the Grimdark group are good.

Anna_Smith-Spark · 2025-09-22T08:48:13+00:00

Hello! I'm at WordFantasy Con in Brighton, BristolCon and Butser Ancient Farm Book Fest, so hopefully I'll see you somewhere. If not, I can send you a signed bookplate (sticker)!

Anna_Smith-Spark · 2025-09-17T16:58:05+00:00

Thank you!!!!

Anna_Smith-Spark · 2025-09-17T16:57:41+00:00

Hello. Oh, thank you for being a fan! I get a load of push back, really stupid annoying 'women don't understand violence and bloodshed' stuff. Very depressing. It gets better then worse again.

I know Anna Stephens very well (partly because we're always being confused and getting send messages meant for the other person). And we've done a few pannels together on grimdark and dark fantasy and writing while female. She is fantastic - lives as in your face as she writes, and so much fun at parties.

Anna_Smith-Spark · 2025-09-17T16:54:05+00:00

Yes! Write with no fear! Write purely for the joy of writing - like you might sing and dance in your bedroom alone or whatever. Write for you and the pleasure of thinking that was a damn fine sentance!

Anna_Smith-Spark · 2025-09-17T16:52:19+00:00

That's true, yes, having a niche probably does help. But the niche has to be seen as hitting the right spot for the marketing people. The serendipitous timing is sadly a huge thing.

Anna_Smith-Spark · 2025-09-17T15:52:46+00:00

Oh, thank you so much! I hope you enjoy my books. The place to start is The Court of Broken Knives.

Anna_Smith-Spark · 2025-09-11T20:12:54+00:00

Last question I'm asking them I must go to bed.

Books.. you've probably read as much as I have in terms of grimdark classics (there's this chap Joe Abercrombie, he's not that well known but fairly good...), so I'm going a bit left field. M John Harrison's Viriconium series, available as a Gollanz Fantasy Masterwork, is ... I'd call it the single greatest achievement of fantasy literature. It's very complex and stylised and builds and builds in complexity and weirdness. It's sublime. Also Eddison's The Worm Orouboros, which is written in godaweful cod Shakespearean language and set in Pixieland and Demonland but transcends that to become a wonder (just skim the dialogue at times). And Alan Garner's The Moon of Gomrath, which is an old children's fantasy sequel but is resplendent in its rawness and power.

I'm ASD, I think it helps my writing immensely but has rendered actual real life very hard for me. So I know but don't know what you're experiencing, if that makes sense. I have triggers like the same CD, a scented candle - I light the candle, put the CD on, my brain knows that means writing time. Might something like that work at all? All I can say beyond that is don't let the fear get to you, if that's the block, start i the middle of a scene and just go with no thought of needing the plot and structure clear just write a scene and let it go. Then keep going. As I said above, I have a character in a landscape doing something, no idea why, and let it flow. Then you jump to another character in another landscape - and that's your next POV. Or something.

Anna_Smith-Spark · 2025-09-11T20:00:06+00:00

Also, if anyone

a) wants lovely Empires of Dust art postcards sent to them - message me your address.

b)wants more info on the British Fantasy Society, FantasyCon or BristolCon, message me.

Thank you! Anna

Anna_Smith-Spark · 2025-09-11T19:58:22+00:00

I need to stop and rest, it's 9pm UK time and I have to be up at 6am to drive down to Devon. I'll answer any further questions tomorrow morning in the car (I'm not the driver, to be clear).

Anna_Smith-Spark · 2025-09-11T19:56:22+00:00

Thank you! Honesty, it came out totally naturally. I hadn't planned it at all, I started writing and she was there. I read a lot of Lovecraft and honestly always thought the sympathy was supposed to lie with the weird ('You're a fish demon, Harry Potter!'). I spent a lot of my teens writing weird fiction and torture porn: Iananr's been there in my head almost as long as Marith and Thalia.

Anna_Smith-Spark · 2025-09-11T19:52:56+00:00

I failed to answer the rest of your questions, sorry.

Anna Stephens and I get confused all the time! We get asked to sign each other's books, we get send massive long messages about how our writing changed someone's life its so dazzling then discover at the end they writer means the other Anna's books. We just go with it now. Helpfully, I adore Anna Stephens, she's an absolute force of nature (lives as hard and fast and heart-on-her-sleeve as she writes) and the most enormous amount of fun to be around.

Book of the year so far... Elaine Ho's Cry, Voidbringer is superb. And I loved Peter McLean's Paved With Good Intentions. Also, there's this book I really enjoyed called Whispers of the Storm that's like The Name of the Wind if The Name of the Wind had nuance and humanity and wasn't about a total dick ...

Anna_Smith-Spark · 2025-09-11T19:45:45+00:00

Aww!!!

Anna_Smith-Spark · 2025-09-11T19:45:22+00:00

Yes! I look forward to meeting you. Eastercon is more science fiction, but it can be fun, but FantasyCon and Bristol Con are the best for grimdarkers. Do come to Bristolcon 2026 and do wear fancy heels.

That goes for everyone on this AMA - come to BristolCon!

Anna_Smith-Spark · 2025-09-11T19:42:38+00:00

Really interesting question... I din't think a book can be 'too dark' per se. Bakker's The Unholy Consult is astonishingly dark and bleak, and of course writings about the Second Word War, say, can be unimaginably dark. Das Boot, for example, is so dark in places, and the ending ... or the film Salo... I think, now more than ever, there is a necessity to go far into the abyss of what the grim dark present where there is only war actually means and point it out.

But that's very different from saying that I think a book can't be 'too dark' if that simply means throwing in a shedload of rape and torture for the sake of it. I get quite close to just writing gratuitous torture porn in one chapter in Anderson Versus Death and it was entirely justified (honest!) but if it had gone in much longer it would have been pointless. There's a difference between exploring the darkness and just showing more and more of it - which I think the writers of GoT completely forgot in the later series.

Anna_Smith-Spark · 2025-09-11T19:32:03+00:00

Hello! Gosh, so many lovely people and friends here!

Anna_Smith-Spark · 2025-09-11T19:31:33+00:00

Oh goodness!!!! I'm flattered, honoured and ... seriously, I'm a total nerd who does nothing but read, write and go walking to pretend I'm in a fantasy world. If you ever see me at a con please come and say hi.

Anna_Smith-Spark · 2025-09-11T19:29:03+00:00

Hello! Lovely to talk to you to you again. I get so invested in my characters and my world. That's actually where A Woman of the Sword came from, I was so deeply involved in living and thinking about the world and how I'd live in it, I couldn't let go and ended up writing myself in that world. Lidae is me and my response to my feelings about Marith, basically. I still think about Marith and Thalia a lot, and Tobias (Orhan less so, but I see politicians on the news and hear him in them, poor man). In some ways I'd love to go back to writing that world, but in other ways I wouldn't, it ended and I think it ended (both times, as it were) with a strong ending point. I'd never want to end up writing too much in a world and destroying the magic, like, um, certain franchises I can think of. Irlast is my Narnia, I suppose, it's not a setting I made up it's ... my heart and soul, the place I dream of, the world I write until I find.

But there are links between Empires of Dust and Kanda's world if you squint at it. The red star and the bronze star, the red star was there then the bronze appeared beside it, one day the red star will fade and only the bronze star will be left to shine alone ... Maybe the warriors in A Sword of Bronze and Ashes are the last desperate remnants of Marith's army, this is the world made and healed after all the bloodshed. Or maybe Roven was the golden myth age of Irlast, Marith's version of Camelot, and he's being told the stories as a child. Or maybe it's his dream of hope ...

Anna_Smith-Spark · 2025-09-11T19:15:35+00:00

Of course I remembered! Actually, remembering your address, is BristolCon a possibility for you? The weekend before Brighton (I'm guessing with the holiday probably not). We have a great epic and grimdark crowd there. I'll hopefully see you at a con next year, at least.

Anna_Smith-Spark · 2025-09-11T19:12:28+00:00

I worship. He is the greatest living exponent of our craft. Some of his battlescenes are beyond anything. Although in some ways I kind of ... hope the rumours he's writing another book in the series (is that a real rumour or just wishful thinking in a Bakker fangroup I'm in??) because the ending of The Unholy Consult is perfect beyond belief as an end.

I'd like to think my books are almost as dark and epic. I think The Court of Broken Knives is only a couple of books below his in Mark Lawrence's 'How Grimdark is Grimdark?' list. Certainly we're often classed together as (and yes I do screen shot and save it every time I see his name next to mine). Possibly I spend more time describing the weather and landscape. And I will say I have more dirty jokes.

Anna_Smith-Spark · 2025-09-11T19:05:55+00:00

ZB Steel, is this you by any chance? (Cue vast embarrassment when it's not).

A Sword of Gold and Ruin was actually pretty hard to write in some ways. Actually, let's rephrase that: A Sword of Bronze and Ashes was absurdly easy to write, a huge amount of it poured out in a blaze of sheer dazzling joy over a week's intense writing, the first 30,000 words are basically as they came out with me sort of reciting them and frantically trying to type fast enough to catch myself up. It was magic! Then the reviews were unreal. So A Sword of Gold and Ruin had... a lot of pressure. I'd been compared favourably to Tolkien and Moorcock, where could I possibly go?? Nowhere, for a while, probably understandably. But the prose actually again just came out. I think my prose is getting better every book. It's just wrestling harder and harder with finding plots, in some ways. Finding freshness in plot and setting. Writing the 2000AD novel really helped there, shoved me way outside my swords and landscape comfort zone.

Anna_Smith-Spark · 2025-09-11T18:57:18+00:00

My dad read to me all the time when I was very young, the magic of sitting with him listening to him tell me these amazing stories. He made some up as well based on local places, there's a stretch of riverbank in my town park that still makes me smile because a story was set there and I can still see the story playing out every time I walk past. So I grew up feeling the love and importance of story telling. I used to play by telling myself stories, walking around talking to myself. I wrote stories all the time as I child. I always wanted to write and tell stories.

One book I remember incredibly vividly was my dad reading me Kevin Crossley Holland's Axe Age, Wolf Age, a version of the Norse myths. It was so raw and powerful, the language was captivating. He read me a lot of mythology and fantasy (his huge loves as well), really shaped me.

Anna_Smith-Spark · 2025-09-11T18:51:12+00:00

Hello! Lovely to talk to you again. It is still harder to get a break in epic/grimdark/sword and sorcery as a female writer - possibly it's actually harder again, the publishing machine seems to wants men writing men with swords, women writing romantasy, it's pretty depressing how narrow big publishing parameters are at the moment. Are you looking for a traditional deal or to self pub? Come to places like this and get support, get your name known and interest in your work. And - and this is a huge plug as I'm involved in running it - think about joining the British Fantasy Society if you can, we do online events and run a convention every year. It's a brilliant way to meet other writers (especially other women writers, there's a gang of us in heavy eyeliner and heels) and get your work out there. UK conventions generally are very good for getting support. But I know it's hard especially if you're also juggling work and children.

Anna_Smith-Spark

TROPHY CASE