The award-winning and Sunday Times best-selling British author Michelle Paver is arguably best known for her series of children’s books, Chronicles of Ancient Darkness, which began with Wolf Brother in 2004. Translated into over 30 languages, they have sold over two and a half million copies worldwide.
She has also written widely for adult readers. The publication of her first book, the historical novel Without Charity (published in 2000) was what prompted her to leave her first career as a solicitor and Partner in a City of London law firm and take up writing full time. Twenty-six years and twenty-three novels later, she has made a name for herself as a Creator of Legends, and queen of Gothic fiction. We wanted to know what makes Michelle…
Happy
Things have been quite muted emotionally because I'm looking after my elderly mother who's got Alzheimer's. So, it's not wild happiness but more a question of the small pleasures. The things that give me a little lift; that's incredibly important. I live on Wimbledon Common, and we have a local heron, so seeing the heron as I did this morning, that’s just nice.
Nice food… I think I was a peasant in a previous life – bread, cheese and butter. And, in terms of writing, it's when I’m struggling with a chapter or something, and I realise what it is that I'm doing wrong: that gives me a kind of lift.
It’s the small things which are big things.
Sad
As above, my mother. It's very unpredictable, as anyone with a relative with Alzheimer's will know. I think the days that make me sad are when she's most lucid. She's miserable because she can see what her life has become, and there's only so much I can do to make it better.
Angry
I get angry when people let their dogs worry the waterfowl on the Common – I have to stop myself from being the old lady who rants at them. And people who don't do their jobs, in whatever sphere. It’s okay to make a mistake and apologise, but if they put it down to a failure of communication (or something) and don't apologise, that can bring out the homicidal lawyer in me.
Confident
I think I am quite a confident person. I have my parents to thank for that; I had a happy childhood. So, I don't think I've had too much of a problem with confidence, which I'm very lucky about.
These days, what makes me confident is readers’ messages on my website. Connecting with individual readers makes me think it's worthwhile to carry on writing, which is lovely.
Reflective
That's a really interesting one. I think art. I've always loved Vermeer, and just contemplating one of those paintings in reproduction… Some music – Schubert, and particularly Bach. I never used to listen to Bach as a younger woman, and in just the last few years I've listened to him more and more. It seems to be endless in terms of what he can say.
... It’s a lovely word, reflective. It connotes still calm pools and a stilling down of life.
Inspired
The short answer is, I don't know. I think it comes from the unconscious – something will strike a chord and that will inspire me and I'll get a germ of an idea for a story.
Michelle Paver and Catriona Ward, with Suzi Feay, will be hosting an event entitled Masters of Gothic Fiction as part of the Oxford Literary Festival. “I love readers’ questions, and I'll answer anything about a book – as long as I've written it” For more information visit oxfordliteraryfestival.org.
Michelle’s most recent novel, Rainforest, was published in hardback by Orion (2025) and is due to come out in paperback in the autumn.
