An Interview with Malcolm Giles

I’m a UK national and English Literature graduate, now lecturing in English and cultural studies at a German university. Alongside my academic work, I’ve trained as an integral life coach, and my writing is informed by a long-standing interest in the relationship between consciousness, technology, and personal transformation. In exploring the evolving relationship between humans and artificial intelligence, science fiction felt the natural medium. This is my first novel. I also write poetry and plays, several of which have been performed at universities and festivals in the UK and Germany.

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What inspired you to start writing this book?

It was during a period when my work life was getting increasingly stressful and I realised that if I was ever to fulfill my lifelong drive and ambition to be a writer, I had to start now or be consumed! I had a couple of short story ideas already outlined. One of them quickly pulled me back in and the quest began.

Tell us the story of your book’s current title. Was it easy to find, or did it take forever?

My story takes place across two worlds—one of them planet Earth, England, the summer of 1916, and the other a distant moon called Dekateh, its inhabitants facing extinction. The story gets underway after the two central characters—each from one of the different worlds—meet up in a virtual realm: a shared mind which I called the Menywod. The Menywod enables travel across space and time—for history to be relived and potentially altered—at least in the mind, which is why events that occur there are only referred to as “tales.” So, yes, once I found the name, the title came easily.

Describe your dream book cover.

In the foreground, their backs to us, two figures are holding hands—on the edge of a ledge, staring out. Immediately below them is the deep chasm of a disused quarry. At the other side of the quarry, a desert landscape floats—an enormous mushroom-capped tower in its middle, the sky ablaze with falling missiles and dotted with enormous birds—winged machines with huge boulders held in their talons.

If your book had a soundtrack, what are some songs that would be on it?

Not songs exactly, but soundtracks like these:

What books are you reading (for research or comfort) as you continue the writing process?

The Master and His Emissary, Iain McGilchrist

Ulysses, James Joyce

My England, George Lansbury

What other professions have you worked in? What’s something about you that your readers wouldn’t know?

I was a principal manager in local government in London for more than a decade, responsible for supporting children’s access to play. I’m also a certified Master Integral Coach. I’ve been teaching English and cultural studies at a university in Germany for about ten years. I’m married to a psychologist.

Who/what made you want to write? Was there a particular person, or particular writers/works/art forms that influenced you?

I started writing plays in my twenties, inspired by Arthur Miller, Ionesco, and the work of Mike Leigh. In writing fiction and creating story worlds, the literature I read as a child, I realized recently, has had a big influence—The Magic Faraway Tree stories by Enid Blyton, The Ship That Flew by Hilda Lewis, and Tolkien’s work in particular.

Where is your favorite place to write?

In the kitchen, when I know I have the day to myself. It opens onto the living room and I can listen to my favourite classical CDs—the gentler piano works of Chopin, Liszt, and Schubert in particular.

What advice would you give your past self at the start of your writing journey?

Don’t be such a perfectionist! Get in the mood and then just let things flow without allowing the parent to butt in. That’s the only way to complete the first draft and the first draft is the treasure trove.

What’s one thing you hope sticks with readers after they finish your book?

A sense of completion and huge satisfaction that the labyrinth I built for them delivered at every turn.

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Are you a writer, too? Submit your manuscript to Atmosphere Press.