Author Alex Dunne on the inspiration behind and the writing of her new novel, Small Magics . . .
Back in 2013 I had a boring job. I’ve had other boring jobs since then, but this one had the distinction of being both boring and filled with plenty of downtime. With very little effort required of me, my brain started doing what it hadn’t done properly in a long time: wandering, daydreaming, and telling itself stories.
I had only recently come back to writing after a five-year hiatus. University had ended right in the middle of the worst financial crisis in a century, which prompted a sensible (read: panicked) decision to take on a master’s degree because “surely things will pick up again in a year or so”. Reader, they did not. What followed was a series of precarious employment situations, a lot of anxiety, and eventually a two-year working holiday visa that landed me in Canada.
Completely Lost
Somewhere in the middle of all that, I felt completely lost. Untethered from the things that made me, well, me. Coming back to writing in my mid-twenties felt like a tonic. I started writing the way I had as a child: with joy, abandon, and very little concern for whether any of it was “good.” No one was expecting anything from me, which meant I was free to play.
I wrote a lot of short fiction during that time, experimenting with form and tone while trying my best to find my voice as a writer. Some of it was bad. Some of it was really bad. But every now and then, buried among the nonsense, there’d be a sentence or a moment that made me pause and think, oh… maybe there’s something here.
Around that time, I also wrote a novel – the first one I ever managed to finish. It was about a woman in her mid-twenties who found herself stuck in a life she hadn’t really planned (write what you know, etc.), until one day she sees a building that wasn’t there before and is pulled into a world of magic, murder, and adventure. I called it Small Magics, and I was enormously proud of it. And then I closed the document and left it sitting on my hard drive for over a decade to gather dust.
Why, you might ask?
Why, you might ask? Despite loving the story and the premise, something about it never quite worked. No matter how many times I rewrote it, it always felt slightly off, like I was reaching for a voice that didn’t belong to me. When you’re starting out (or in my case, coming back to writing after a long break) it can take a while to figure out how you want to sound on the page. That’s not a bad thing – we all need to experiment and find what fits us best. It’s how we learn and grow as authors. But Small Magics, in its original form, always felt like I was trying too hard to be someone else. Eventually, I reluctantly let it go.
I went on to write other stories and books, most of which got shoved into the digital archives. Then, in 2018, I decided to take a punt on NaNoWriMo (the now-defunct global challenge to write a complete novel in 30 days during the month of November). That story became my first published novel, The Book of Secrets, a fantasy adventure for 9–12-year-olds inspired by Irish folklore and mythology. It was followed not long after by a sequel, The Harp of Power.
Fast forward to the summer of 2024. I’d lived a lot of life since those feral early-2010s days when I wrote like a monkey who’d accidentally acquired a typewriter, and I felt like I’d finally hit my stride as an author. Unfortunately, I was also completely burnt out. When my lovely editor Helen emailed to ask if I had any ideas for a new book, I realised, with some horror, that I had none. Zero. Not even a vague half-thought. My creative battery was completely drained.
Small Magics
And then I remembered something. There was a story. One I’d written many years ago. It had originally been written for adults, but maybe, with some serious reworking, it could become something for younger readers. On a whim, I opened up Small Magics to see what was there.
As it turned out, I still loved the heart of the story. It needed a lot of work, yes, but I could finally see how to make it into something that was truly mine. I rewrote Small Magics from the ground up. My main character, Molly, was no longer a disaffected twenty-something stuck in a dead-end job and reeling from a breakup. She became a young girl trying to find her place in the world, longing for friendship and family. The world she stepped into took shape quickly: a place filled with magic, but also with warmth and humour. A place where kitchen witches brew enchanted hot chocolate alongside market stalls selling vegetables and cheese; where griffins work in airport security and run marathons in their spare time; where Goblins in leather jackets are always prepared with an emergency stash of jellies.
At its core, it was still a story about adventure, magic, and belonging but this time it was written in a voice that finally felt entirely my own.
Incredibly Proud
I’m incredibly proud of the story Small Magics has become, and of the long, winding road it took to get here. If there’s one thing this journey has taught me, it’s that writers should never throw anything out. Even when a story doesn’t work out, it still has value – a character might find a new home elsewhere, a line of dialogue might resurface years later, or a premise might be reshaped or reworked into something entirely new. Even if none of that happens, the stories we write while we’re figuring ourselves out still matter. They’re proof that we’re learning, and slowly, imperfectly, becoming the writers we were always meant to be.
(c) Alex Dunne
About Small Magics:
‘Magic isn’t only found in old ancient forests or dusty old castles … it’s everywhere, all the time …’
Molly Flynn never had a place to call home until she was sent to live above a mysterious antique shop with Pat, Priya and their foster kids, Wren and Lorcan. Her new family are anything but ordinary, though, and Molly is soon swept into their world of small magics. But things start to turn frightening: someone is attacking magical creatures. No one is safe …
Can Molly and her newfound family defeat the dark magic before it’s too late?
Alex Dunne’s new children’s novel, Small Magics, is out now. Order your copy online here.
And read more Meet the Author articles on Writing.ie here.
