Kate Coe

There are many writers out there; self-publishing their stories and creating fantasical worlds for readers to discover. But finding them can be hard. We like to think that these anthologies help readers discover new-to-them authors. We know we did with Kate Coe! Though she started writing reviews for SFFWorld.com earlier this year, we had no idea she wrote her own fiction as well. We were quite surprised by her imaginative story and hope you will be, too.

Kate Coe

What inspired you to write a story about a map?

I loved the idea of a map not being a piece of paper; a map being something that gives you a trail, a place-marker, a path on which something else runs… maybe life or fate. And somewhere in the Otherworld, in the depths of Fairyland, is there someone who can map out fates?

Do you have a special place where you go to recharge your creative muse?

I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky…although I haven’t sailed for years, the sea winds always recharge me.

Can you tell us about a time when you wished you had a map?

This was a time when we did have a map, but we just didn’t pay enough attention to it! They’re only useful if you actually use them…I was on Dartmoor (a moorland area in the UK) with a group of fellow-teenagers. We were being overly optimistic with our route from one campsite to another, and we somehow went the wrong way. Hey, it happens…except this time, our route took us over some suspiciously marsh ground. The sort that squelches worryingly under your boot. The sort that moves as you step on it. The sort that leaks water into your footprints and you have a cold realisation that you’re walking over a weed-and-bog-covered-lake…we got out of there, very fast, and took our map’s polite warnings of ‘marshy land’ a little more seriously after that!

In your story, Mapping Out the Future, your spunky protagonist, Ghost, feels as if she’s part of a larger world. Can we expect to see more of her?

Ghost is part of a wider world and story, so if you like her or want to know more about her world – or the nagging feeling that someone was watching her – then keep an eye out!

Kate Coe is a writer of fiction and fantasy, and blogs at writingandcoe.co.uk. She writes the GreenSky series of novellas, is a librarian in real life, and fills her spare time with web design, reading, cross-stitch and DIY (which may or may not involved destroying things).

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