"You have to hold on to hope." — Juliet Marillier
Dutch folk singer Sophie Janna was 14 when she read Daughter of the Forest. Twenty-four years later she finally gets to ask its author the questions she's been carrying since. Juliet Marillier — the New Zealand-born, Western Australia-based novelist behind the Sevenwaters saga and the Blackthorn & Grim novels, and winner of the 2025 World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award — talks about the marriage that ended, the office job, and the first novel she wrote over three years purely to put her feelings on the page. She talks about being a musician long before she was a writer, about belonging to a druid order, about the trees in an Irish wood she was warned away from, and about the morning she lifted a magpie off a picket fence — a moment that became the opening scene of her new novel, The Amber Owl. Sophie takes the conversation into the song, and writes it back into the book that started her: the silent sister, the needle, and the word that must not be spoken.
New single "Hold On" by Sophie Janna — out 28 August. Stream/pre-save: https://ffm.to/holdon-sophiejanna
CHAPTERS
00:00 Welcome to Podsongs
00:40 Meet Sophie Janner
01:09 Falling for Daughter
02:43 Songs from the Books
04:13 Juliet’s Late Start
05:27 What Her Stories Are
07:27 Juliet Joins the Call
09:24 From Music to Writing
11:15 Writing Through Crisis
17:36 Music in Her Fiction
20:43 Roots in Scotland
25:07 Researching Wolfskin
30:47 Forests and Climate
35:39 Art as Activism
38:19 Self Doubt Reflections
40:35 Writing Battles Hard
43:18 Creating Despite Doubts
44:56 Rethinking Soulmates
49:27 Libraries And Access
52:46 Comfort Reads And Moomins
54:43 Finland Research Trip
58:29 Believing In Nature Magic
01:04:11 Magpie Rescue Inspiration
01:08:34 Signing Off And Aftertalk
SONG CREDITS
"Hold On" performed by Sophie Janna
Massimino Voza: drums, piano
Luigi Falcione: bass
Maurizio Sarnicola: electric guitar, mellotron
Mixed and mastered at Goldmine Records, Italy
GUEST & MUSICIAN
Juliet Marillier: https://julietmarillier.com
Sophie Janna: https://sophiejanna.nl
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