June 2026 Newsletter – Meet Denarii Peters

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This month, I’d like to share an interview with Denarii Peters, last year’s winner of the Hysteria Writing Competition flash fiction category. Her entry, Spring Dream, Autumn Folly, was published in the Hysteria 11 anthology and will be available to read on the website later this year. Denarri is already a Crystal Clear Books author, and the latest volume in her Ross Ferris trilogy, House of Wraiths, was published at the end of May.

The Denarii Peters Interview

Are there any occupational hazards to being a writer?

Apart from the risk of developing tenosynovitis due to too much frenzied tapping on the keyboard? Well, I don’t recommend being an author to anyone who likes an undisturbed night’s sleep! Characters are selfish; they want their tale told NOW, at 2am, not at any civilised hour. And they like to be talked about. So, be prepared to watch friends’ eyes glaze over as you use them as a soundboard, while working out the wrinkles in the latest plot!

Then there is the uncomfortable feeling of no plot at all. You want to write. You always want to write. But what about? Ideas shimmer like silver fishes in a fast-flowing stream. What a shame your net has so many holes in it!

Where do you find your inspiration?

I wish I knew! And I suspect so do most other authors. Inspiration can be anything: the silver birch outside my window, passing a field of dying sunflowers, an unusual building… It’s out of my control!

Most often, it’s a question. I have a quirky mind, which likes looking round corners, observing and then asking, ‘Why? How? Who?’
My Ross Ferris trilogy has its roots in wondering, if such places as Heaven and Hell existed, how would they function? I grabbed an idea from the classic Powell and Pressburger film A Matter of Life and Death, where a young Richard Attenborough looks down into an office where hundreds of clerks file records. ‘It’s Heaven, isn’t it?’ he says. Probably, and if so, is Hell the same? From there came more questions: what would it be like spending eternity dragging unwilling victims to Hell? Would it be possible to escape? Where could you go to be free?

How do you remain sane whilst writing?

It could be argued I don’t! I disagree with myself, laugh, read whole passages out loud. I’m not a quiet writer. I’m also obsessive by nature: once the words are flowing, I can’t leave them alone; I have to find out what happens next. Which makes me more of a ‘pantser’ than a ‘plotter’, though most novels require both ways of working.

My husband keeps me grounded. ‘Come on. You’ve been at that keyboard for hours. Time we ate!’ He even occasionally manages to drag me away from the manuscript for a whole day. (Though I do always carry a notebook. Just in case.)

What did your best review say about your work?

The best review I’ve had (and from someone who isn’t either married to me or a close friend!) was penned by Dave Jordan, editor of the Anansi Archive, an organisation which runs regular short story competitions (well worth entering) who said this about ‘The Reluctant Reaper’ (the first book in my Ross Ferris trilogy.)

The Reluctant Reaper review:

AS an accomplished short story writer, Denarii Peters has, for many years, hooked readers with tales of the off-beat and macabre. Her substantial body of work has appeared in many on and off-line platforms and she has won awards for the brevity, wit and imagination she brings to these short stories. Her credentials as a novelist, however, are unknown. Until now.
With The Reluctant Reaper, Peters steps into different order of fiction that has seen many other writers fall by the wayside, confounded and overwhelmed by the immensity of the project and the complexities it presents. Simply put, writing novels is hell.
So it seems Hell is a fitting place for her to stage her premier, full-length tome. Hell as we might be unfamiliar with. Not a place of fire and brimstone – although, in her story, all that lies beyond the Final Door – but of politics, bureaucracy and romance, petty and epic clashes, strategic moves and nuanced interactions. All of which will please readers of action-driven, character-led narratives.
It centres around Ross Ferris, a former highwayman who is bad enough to fall into the clutches of Hell when he meets his end but good enough for us to empathise with his noble deeds. However, Hell it is for him and there he faces the choice of proving himself as reaper of recently-deceased souls or be sent through the Final Door to enter the inferno for eternity.
Ross avoids this fate by passing an ‘interview’ and joining the other reapers. It’s their task to escort the dead who have lived less-than-perfect lives to Hades. But there are great and conflicting forces at work. There are the forces of Heaven – angels, or Poodles as they are known to the reaper Hounds of hell – and much more intriguing powers within the hierarchy of hell itself. And it is the latter where this story takes up much of its time. The daemon Caffiaes, the scheming Joss, the lovely Caroline and a plethora of other souls – some with a heart-beat – to keep up the interest.
The story seems to be ultimately about redemption and whether a condemned man can really find a way of avoiding eternal damnation.
Given that almost all the characters are in hell for a good reason, Peter’s biggest challenge is to make condemned souls likeable and she succeeds for the most part although the deeds that committed them to Hell in the first place is a caveat to the reader’s wholehearted investment. She explains it thus about her main character: ‘bad maybe, but evil, no.’ And who can say which souls cannot be redeemed? That is a key question for the reader to play with. Do her characters offer enough for us to forgive them their mortal deeds?
At heart of this novel is a thumping machine churning out the action with every scene and relaying shifts in its paradigm. Peter’s prose is unfaltering with a momentum that will keep the reader turning the pages and her knack of sensing where the reader thinks this is going and then take it off in another direction is as dependable as ever. Indeed, with much to recommend it, the over-riding blessing of this narrative is its originality.
For that reason, it’s difficult to place The Reluctant Reaper in a specific genre but suffice to say that it will find a willing audience among both younger and mature readers.
To some, this may be a novel that’s Heaven-sent but in Denarii’s hands we are reminded that the devil has all the best tunes.
Dave Jordan

What did your worst review say about your work?

I’ve been lucky with reviews so far. The worst one was for a short story competition in which I received an ‘honourable mention.’ The reviewer suggested I might have won if had started the story in a different place, missing out the first few paragraphs. And he was right; the first line is sooooo important. It’s worth looking for the strongest part of the story and beginning with it: tell the tale ‘in media res,’ a nice big bang, then fill in the rest later (if you need it at all.)

Do you have any hints or tips for aspiring writers?

No one can tell you how to write. Your work is the culmination of all the books you ever read, the films you saw, the people you met and the way your inner monologue interprets your experiences of the world. All the tips in any of the books or courses can ever do is help you improve the language. You have to find the diamond for yourself. But improving it, cutting it to reveal the facets, the sparkle, the shine… Yes, that you can learn. And here is a short list of the tips I have found work for me.

Edit, edit and edit again. When you first write, you see only the story. It has no blemish because it’s the perfect tale told in the moment. So…

• Put it away for at least a couple of days. Now look at it again. Oops! Where did all that repetition come from?
• And what about the DARLINGS: those super, wonderful, marvellous sentences that really don’t belong? You must show them the door, even though you might shed a tear.
• Look at ‘was/were’ ‘that’ and other overused words. Can a more suitable word or phrase make the prose flow better?
• Read it aloud. Or better still, ask your computer nicely, and it will read it for you, with all emphasis on the ‘important’ words removed.
• Have someone else read it, preferably not someone who will worry about hurting your feelings. Seek out an honest critic! And having found them, LISTEN to them!
• Finally… A final edit.
• By now you’re sick of the whole thing, but trust me: it will have improved beyond recognition, while still remaining at heart the same story. Your story.

How do you choose titles for your writing?

The title is the first ‘grab point.’ Intrigue the reader, and you have your audience for that killer first line. I find the title once the story is finished. Often it’s the same one I gave it at the start of the process, but not always. ‘How To Murder a Ghost’ began as something quite different and ended up a version of the question which inspired it. (You’ll find the answer in my book of short stories, Will You Walk Into My Parlour.)

Are you jealous of other writers?

I believe writing is a hard craft to do well: an easy one to do badly. While I am not jealous of others success when it is earned, I do worry about certain ‘celebrity’ publications which owe more to ‘ghost writers’ (or even AI) than their own talent. I worry for new young authors, for whom being published is close to impossible.

How important are the names of your characters?

This question is difficult, because I have no idea why my characters have the names they do! I write… and the name is there. And almost always appropriate. A daemon called Caffiaes? Another called Claude? An angel who answers to Doris (well, sort of)? Very occasionally a name changes during the writing process, but it’s rare.

There are however a couple of things to be aware of. First, don’t use names that are too similar within a text. Julie and Jules as hero and villain would be an extreme example! Names date quickly; a contemporary Horace would be rare. If in doubt, consult a list of baby names for the period in which the story is set. No Luna in the eighteenth century, very popular now.

Have you ever wished you could do, or be, something else?

When I was young, I wanted to be an archaeologist. I also wanted to get married and have a family. The two were more than a little incompatible; being away for weeks at a time on excavations would not have worked for me. I decided to be a teacher: all those long holidays when I could dust off my trowel. Nice day trips to local digs… I soon learned the truth: teaching is not an occupation, it’s another obsession, the ‘long holidays’ eaten up with planning and preparing for the next term. I haven’t set foot in a trench for a very long time.

No matter. Writing is an even more encompassing obsession. And now I wouldn’t swap the life I have for anything. It would be nice not to have the arthritis that prevents me walking far and keeps an edge of pain to remind me it is there. But exchange my keyboard and active mind filled with questions and stories for anything else? Why on earth (or Even in Hell or Heaven) would I?