Shelf Reflection is our series where we explore the bookshelves and reading habits of some of our favourite authors. In this latest instalment, author Ella Baxter talks to us about listening to Dune, turning horror into art and her new novel, Woo Woo.

Images: Supplied.
Woo Woo explores what it means to make art in the present moment. What was the inspiration behind this book?
It was desperation rather than inspiration. I wrote Woo Woo while being stalked anonymously. It felt like an act of rebellion to write a response back to the person who was trying to terrify me. I inadvertently made a muse of my stalker and the fear and the fury. Woo Woo is my attempt at turning horror into art, while writing about a woman doing the same thing. It was all very hall of mirrors for a while.
What books did you find critical to the writing of your own?
I found permission to write like this in the poem ‘Rape Joke’ by Patricia Lockwood, as well as the television series I May Destroy You by Michaela Coel. I also read and re-read In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado. Lots of gothic horror. Laurie Moore and Ben Lerner. Snake by Kate Jennings was a huge influence. Danez Smith, particularly the poem ‘this strange dowry’. All of it fed into my work.

Images: Poet and author Patricia Lockwood (Penguin Books), I May Destroy You (BBC, 2020) and In the Dream House (Serpents Tail, 2020).
What are you currently reading?
Nothing. I am having a short break from books while I launch Woo Woo. I will dip in and out of the Dune audio book, which I have been making my way through for the last three years. Gun to my head, I couldn’t tell you the plot, but I enjoy the floral nature of sci-fi.
What does your book collection look like?
It looks like a pile of books on a mantle. It is dusty and has no order. Most are second-hand. Some I have lugged around with me for decades. I was into a lot of alternative belief bullshit in my twenties, so there’s lots of astral projection nonsense. A lot of books about different gods and religions. Then came the inevitable no gods, no masters phase. Then wicca. Paganism. Pantheism. There was a spike in general science for a while, Richard Dawkins et al. I can track my life through the books on the shelf.

Image: Supplied.

What kind of reader are you?
I’ll read anything, although I am more likely to pick up a book based on recommendations. I tend to stick to writers I like, so if I read one book and enjoy it, I will hunt down anything else the author has written. Cusk was like that for me. I read everything, but then it was as if I had eaten carrots for a week and I thought if I never read another Cusk, I’ll be fine.
What books are you constantly recommending other people read?
The Body Keeps the Score. I Love Dick. A Swim in the Pond in the Rain. Tampa. Dante’s Inferno. NightBitch.
What’s next for you?
Blessings, I hope.
Woo Woo is out now via Allen & Unwin.