Dissecting Dorian Dawes
Welcome back to the Black Hare Press Dissecting Author interviews where we slice open an author each month to find out who they are, what they write, and what keeps their creative juices flowing.
Today in a special March sacrifice, we dissect Dorian Dawes and spill their writing secrets and author aspirations.
Who is Dorian Dawes?
Dorian Dawes is the author of several short stories and one science fiction novel. They’ve written essays for several feminist and queer websites, and once for the Huffington Post. They are proudly working class and continue to write between hourly wage jobs. When not writing they enjoy reading, videogames, and tabletop rpgs.
Connect with Dorian here:
Website: www.patreon.com/doriandawes
Amazon: www.amazon.com/stores/author/B007Y5ZSNI
Instagram: @doriandawes
Bluesky: doriandawes.bsky.social
Tell us about yourself. When did your passion for reading and writing start?
I’ve been writing short stories and books since I was a kid and have always been drawn to reading anything I could ever get my hands on. My parents used to talk about me reading the bible when I was a toddler, but I think I just wanted to feel the pages. It’s an obsession that never goes away I guess.
What drew you to your preferred writing genres?
Darker things fascinate me, particularly horror. When I was a teenager A Nightmare on Elm St resonated with me to the point that watching Nancy turn the tables on Freddy, tell him she took back all the energy she gave him, it gave me the courage to stand up to certain things in my life and community, and come out to my parents. It gave me hope, even as her story ends in horror, I thought it’d be worth it if it meant not living my life in fear. I come back to horror over and over, because for me it is better to look at the darkness with courage and find truth rather than hiding in a comforting lie.
What elements from your real life creep into your stories? i.e. Worldbuilding, character traits etc.
Everything I write is based on some material concern or question I’m trying to resolve in my own head. It’s where the whole thing starts. There’s a lot of me in Bartholomew, from his small size to community background, even his affection for bigger guys. The church he fights against represents the greater religious institutions I’ve been fighting my whole life. It’s hard for my life to not creep into my stories cause so much of it is using fiction to search for answers.
What’s your favourite part of the writing process?
I’m in love with the whole thing if we’re being honest, from conceptualisation to the early draft and outline, even down to the line editing in the final stages, but if I had to nail down the sweet spot? It’s probably around two to three drafts in, when I’ve started to see the story taking clear shape in my mind and on the page, and I know exactly what it is I’m making and can pursue that with purpose.
Do recurring themes appear in your stories?
My stories have a fairly big anti-authoritarian streak. Outsiders and marginalised people, even outside of those with marginalised identities along race, sexuality, and gender occur. I write about people who exist outside the periphery of society, who don’t quite fit in. As my writing goes on, I’m more frequently aware and critical of empires, and how living in one that benefits you even as it places its boot on your neck affects your humanity.
If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?
Stop trying to squeeze yourself into more conventional boxes to make yourself more palatable to others. You’re a freak. Own it.
Which other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you be a better writer?
Tiernan Blanchard has been a tremendous help to my writing. We send each other snippets and comment on each other’s stuff daily. He’s excellent at helping me go for stronger word choices, or encouraging when I have doubts about where I’m going. Overall a great sounding board and a fabulous friend.
What does literary success look like to you?
Somehow managing to get my stuff out there in the world while being able to survive financially. I harbour no illusions about my work becoming mainstream. I’ll take it if it happens, but currently I’m happy holding down a steady job I don’t hate while putting out work I can be proud of.
What’s brewing? What are your next big writing goals?
I’m currently working on a crime novel, and it’s dark enough to qualify for horror, but without all the usual genre trappings. It may be my most ambitious project to date, exploring small town nastiness without the filter of the supernatural that might serve as a comforting distraction from genuine human darkness. I’m both scared and excited to see where it goes.
In relation to your latest book:
How far would you go to escape a life of suffering and reclaim the power to shape your own destiny in a world where gods walk among mortals?
In a world where saints govern the chaotic dreamscape of the cosmos, Bartholomew Barnes is an unlikely rebel. Born into a life of oppression and grief in the swampy village of Geshren, his life changes irrevocably after a violent encounter with a vicar.
Guided by haunting visions and driven by a desperate desire for freedom, he sets out to challenge the omnipotent beings who claim dominion over the dream. Amid a backdrop of lush swamps, spectral forests, and a town caught between tradition and oppression, Bartholomew’s journey is one of self-discovery, resistance, and an unyielding quest for autonomy.
Bound by loyalty and haunted by choices, he must decide whether to embrace his human frailty or transcend it, risking everything for the chance to redefine his existence.
Filled with vivid imagery, complex characters, and an unrelenting exploration of agency and faith, this is a tale of defiance and resilience that delves into the heart of what it means to be truly free.
Releases 29th March, 2025
What sparked the idea for this book?
Initially, I found the concept of the magical school genre that’s very popular in children’s and YA fantasy to be a lot creepier than has ever been explored. There’s so much elitism baked into the premise, particularly when these characters go on to use magic primarily as a means of bolstering their careers or for military action. So the original version was going to be a deconstruction of that idea, of a magical school that’s an institution of a fascist empire, and it morphed into the pursuit of identity and freedom. By the time the adult version of this story came about, it’d become entirely about that pursuit with the fascist academy becoming merely part of the attempt to drill the identity and autonomy out of our protagonist.
What challenges did you encounter to finish it?
The biggest hurdle to finishing this book was actually what stopped it getting published in the first place. It started as a YA novel that I tried querying during the Covid lockdowns, and an agent told me it was too depressing and no one needed it. I shelved it for years until I took it out in 2023 and decided to make it even more depressing and brutal. Then it was easy!
Why did you choose Ligatia as the setting of this book?
I’ve had this setting in my head a good decade now, and it’s morphed and changed a lot over the years as I’ve grown as a writer and a person. Even in its earliest phases, the idea was to create a setting that was actively hostile even when it feels more picturesque and serene. The fascist theocracy its citizens experience has been so thoroughly normalized, they no longer recognize it as aberrant in any way. This version of that setting I wanted to make that feel evident from the very first page, where even dreams are no longer a refuge from horror.
How did you come up with the stars/MCs of this book?
Bartholomew was the easiest, he’s the closest to a self-insert this story has, though he and I differ in many ways there’s so much of me in him and in his struggle. His mentor Amaneth is a heightened version of every college teacher I admired who encouraged me to be myself and drew out the parts of me I used to be embarrassed by. Boris is the kind of boy I would have loved to have fallen in love with when I was younger, and his struggle is the mirror-version of Bartholomew’s, as they are both pressured to fit a narrow definition of masculinity neither wants.
Is there a particular message that you hope readers will take from the book?
The fight to live freely as your authentic self is not easy. In fact it is quite hard, sometimes lonely, and often painful. I think the next few years it’s going to get even harder, but it’s still worth it. God is it worth it.
What’s your favorite scene?
There is a scene after a sequence of particularly unrelenting horror where Bartholomew and Boris are lying in the dark together, talking softly. It’s deeply romantic. I tried to capture every time I knew I was falling in love with someone, not in the grand eloquent gestures, but in the still silence after we had found ourselves accidentally baring our souls.
Thank you, Dorian, for being our willing victim and spilling your writing secrets.
