Eight questions for the interested and interesting: Sarah Lotz

Author and screenwriter Sarah Lotz spent close to two decades living and working in South Africa before returning to the UK in 2015. Best known for her hit novel The Three, Lotz moves easily between horror, thriller and the surreal, writing under her own name and several pseudonyms, and collaborating on cult-favourite series, including the Downside novels, the Deadlands trilogy and the Girl Walks Into … books.

In Lotz’s latest novel, How to Kill a Crime Writer (Jonathan Ball), reality and fiction blur in unexpected ways. After the sudden death of bestselling crime author Annie Morrisey, her daughter Niamh retreats to her mother’s country cottage to settle the estate and soon suspects there is more to the story. The fictional heroine from Annie’s books appears, almost ghost-like, to help solve her creator’s murder.

To mark this book launch, we put our usual eight questions to Lotz. From badgers to books, here’s what she had to say.

What’s the best book you’ve read in the past year? And why?

Seeing as the Trump administration is doing its best to irrevocably fuck up the planet again, I’m going to pick the book I’m currently reading: Wild Faith: How the Christian Right is Taking Over America by the fearless journalist Talia Lavin. It’s a brilliantly written, excoriating deep dive into theocratic authoritarianism and its insidious, Handmaid’s Tale-esque impact on American politics, the judiciary, and the rights of anyone who isn’t a white, evangelical, heterosexual man. I’m only halfway through it and it’s already giving me nightmares.

How do you keep fit?

Thanks to menopausal fatigue and anhedonia, keeping upright is a win these days. That said, I drag my battered old carcass out into the woods to walk the dogs every morning – it isn’t their fault their human has turned into a zombie.

Week-night, lowkey restaurant go-to?

I live in an isolated cottage in the woods in the depths of rural Shropshire, so if I want to eat something I have to microwave it myself! Despite its lack of facilities, I do love where I live though.

What is the one artwork you’ll always love, and why?

Maman by Louise Bourgeois (if you don’t know it and you suffer from arachnophobia, don’t Google it – it’s a dynamic, 30-foot-high bronze sculpture of a spider that truly deserves the cliché “awe-inspiring”).

It was created by Bourgeois as a tribute to and metaphor for her mother, a tapestry restorer, and I saw it in person over a decade ago in Tokyo when I was on a hastily planned book research trip with my own mum, who’d kindly agreed to accompany me to Japan.

Thanks to my trademark ineptitude, that whole trip was bonkers: unable to afford a hotel, we ended up staying in a (probably illegal) Airbnb apartment in a condemned skyscraper, got lost in the depths of the Aokigahara “suicide” Forest at the foot of Mount Fuji, and accidentally stumbled into a hentai exhibition (don’t Google that either).

The sculpture was poised outside the Mori Art Museum in Roppongi, and we came across it when we were blundering around the city, lost as usual. I never thought I’d be lucky enough to see it in person, so it was an incredible, serendipitous experience, made more so by the fact that it will always remind me of my own fearless and brilliant mum, who was an absolute trooper on that trip.

Do you have a hobby? What is it?

Before I was vampired by the menopause, in my spare time I was an ad hoc badger conservationist and hunt saboteur (anyone who gets their kicks torturing and killing animals for sport deserves to have their “fun” ruined in my book). I’m looking forward to going back to that when the HRT finally kicks in.

The one unusual item you can’t live without?

Dogs, books and KitKats aside, it would probably be a hat – the sillier the better. Every couple of months I shave my hair off with the dog clippers and though I haven’t regretted this cash-saving decision, my head gets cold (it’s often chilly here in the Welsh borderlands. I mean it snowed yesterday and we’re at the end of March).

Who was your high school celeb crush?

The designer and iconoclast Vivienne Westwood. It’s not everyone who can get away with being pants-less when meeting the queen.

Three songs that you’d take to a desert island?

I’m going with three impossible-not-to-dance-to tunes that have pride of place on my writing playlist, and which never fail to pep me up: Superstition by Stevie Wonder; Family Affair byMary J Blige; and God Walked Down by The Allergies.

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