TBR: Ann Fraistat

About the Author: Ann Fraistat

What would you like readers to know about you?

I’m an author, playwright, and narrative designer, who loves all things monsters and magic. Outside of writing, I’ve worked on stages in the Washington, D.C.-area as an actor and director. Other loves include reading, gaming, baking, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible. What We Harvest, out now with Delacorte Press, is my debut novel, and my second YA horror, A Place For Vanishing, is coming January 16, 2024.

What music do you listen to (if any) when you write?

Most of the time, I listen to isochronic tones, which are shockingly effective at boosting my productivity. Check out my favorite generator, if you want to give them a try! But fair warning: it can be a pretty grating sound, especially at first. If you play this without headphones, there’s a good chance your pets are going to bolt from the room. Otherwise, I sometimes listen to atmospheric soundscapes or instrumental music. I owe all of the action sequences in What We Harvest, for instance, to a killer remix of The Walking Dead theme.

What books or authors inspired you to become a writer?

There’s a Charlotte Brontë quote I love: “I’m just going to write because I cannot help it.” That’s been true for me as long as I can remember, and Brontë herself was such an inspiration to me as a teen. Her books provoked such deep and visceral reactions for me—really made me feel something—and I wanted to be able to do that for readers, too. A key inspiration for What We Harvest was Sawkill Girls by Clare Legrand, which made me see how hopeful horror could be, and made me want to delve into YA horror. And another was When The Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore. McLemore’s prose was so lush and lyrical, I found myself rereading every page, and that made me want to cultivate beauty in my writing whenever possible—beautiful words and images and settings.

About the Book: What We Harvest

What is your book about for those who haven’t read it?

What We Harvest is YA feminist folk horror about an idyllic small town being poisoned by its past. That comes in the form of a mysterious blight, which infects not only crops, but animals and people, too. At the heart of the book is Wren, the sixteen-year-old girl fighting to save her farm and family against avalanching odds. Nature has turned against her community, disease devastates her neighbors and comes for her own family, and the American dream she once believed in has turned to ash in her hands. Still, Wren strives to unearth her town’s deep-buried rot, and to rebuild a healthier future.

Readers can expect: page-turning action, lush and eerie rural atmosphere, zombifying blight, exes-to-lovers romance, miraculous farms with crops like iridescent wheat and glowing ghost melons, eyes watching from the woods, corrosive small-town secrets, a potentially infected protagonist, and, last but never least, a very devoted zombie-dog.

What has been your inspiration for writing it?

In spite of the blight theme, oddly enough, I first drafted this book in 2019, before COVID. The quicksilver blight is meant to suggest that the sins of the past, such as inequity and pollution, are still very much with us in the present. And the book at large invites us to examine: what is the price of our own dreams, and who is paying it? Have we taken the time to root out the blight in our own soil? Are we doomed to plant our futures on poisoned ground? How do we do better and move forward?

Personally, I wrote this story at a time in my life when I was feeling overwhelmed, like things in my life were not only out of my control but also out of reach. This was the story I needed to hear. All of it. The horror. The beauty. The endless grit of its characters, and the innate hope to be found in that perseverance. I hope it can be that for readers now, too.

What was your favorite scene or part of your book to write?

I have to give a shout-out to Teddy here, What We Harvest’s zombie-dog MVP! After all, what could be more important than the relationship between a girl and her zombie-dog? When the book starts, Teddy is already blighted. But Wren can’t give up on her, not after raising her from a puppy. For better or worse, Teddy keeps coming back to visit. And I loved writing every minute of it. I used to co-own a dog-walking business, and ever since we shut it down in 2016, I’ve been in a state of permanent dog-withdrawal. While Teddy isn’t based on one particular dog, she’s an ode to all those pups I miss. A lot of love went into Teddy. It’s moving to see how many readers love her back.

Where can your book be purchased?

You can find What We Harvest in paperback, hardcover, ebook, and audiobook wherever books are sold, or at your local library!

To the Future Writer:

What advice would you give to aspiring authors who want to write a book?

Embrace your inner weirdo. In other words, don’t self-censor. I’ve spent a lot of time over the years battling perfectionism and that critical inner voice so many of us live with. While drafting, I wondered if this book, with its iridescent wheat and molten metal blight, was too strange. But the strangeness of those elements is precisely what makes this book special to so many readers. Trust yourself and remember that someone out there needs your story.

What’s next for you? Any events, upcoming pubs, etc.

My next book, A Place For Vanishing, will be coming from Delacorte Press on January 16, 2024! It’s a contemporary gothic horror, in which a teen girl and her family return to her mother's childhood home, only to discover that the house's strange beauty may disguise a sinister past. I like to describe it as a mental health recovery story set against the backdrop of a haunted house, full of seances and mysterious masks, and crawling with bugs and blue roses. I can’t wait to share it with readers!