If you feel a little strange when you gaze up at the full moon …
If you sense some greater power when you stand on a hilltop
With the skies arching above you …
If you’re touched by the presence of something unseen
When walking in the woods …
Then
... enter the world of Stonewylde …
One of my very favourite younger readers wrote to me and said,
“The story enthrals you, you gulp it down too fast but can’t digest the sweetness and excellent texture! YOU WANT TO SAVOUR IT but then it’s finished. You’ve swallowed it and you grow hungry for more.”
I loved this, especially as I think writing books is like cooking a special meal for guests. You put a lot of time and effort into preparing the food. You invite everyone to sit down and enjoy it. And then you watch their faces, hoping that it tastes good, hoping they like it and won’t leave half of it on their plates in disgust! And the best part is when they sit back after they’ve finished, full up and satisfied, and say “Thanks – that was wonderful.” That’s what it feels like when readers say they’ve enjoyed my books – but multiplied by a million!
 I lived in Dorset for nearly 27 years and love the place passionately. I always enjoyed walking in the hills and fields, through the woods and on the beach. It’s a magical place for me. The words I wrote at the top of this page are from the heart – that’s how parts of Dorset make me feel. I became a pagan several years ago after a teaching colleague said, “It’s not that I don’t believe in God, or a god, but more that the only time I feel really at one with any divinity is when I’m out walking in the hills.” I realised that’s exactly how I felt too, and this led me to explore the pagan beliefs and adopt and adapt them for my own. I love the festivals and what they represent (to me, the religion is symbolic and not literal). But the best time for me, when I really feel the energy, is at the full moon. I usually celebrate this, sometimes very simply with just a thought or a candle, and other times elaborately with a circle and symbols of the elements and using what some call “the power of intent” and others might call “casting a spell”. Paganism is about doing your own thing and not having to follow any rules or doctrine. It’s a religion to be enjoyed and explored. So I’m happy to call myself a witch.
I brought up my three sons alone in a small house just outside Weymouth in Dorset. During this time I trained to be a teacher, and had a wonderful career working with children and young people from ages 7 to 16. I really loved teaching – any of my ex-pupils reading this will hopefully remember what fun we had together. I whole-heartedly subscribe to the theory that educating a child is not about filling a bucket, but lighting a fire. I hope I lit many fires during my years of teaching – and it certainly kept mine burning brightly.
 I’d always wanted to write novels, and can’t recall how many exercise books I bought as a child, computers not having yet been invented. I’d start grandly with Chapter 1 – and then run out of steam by the second or third page. As an adult I found the same problem. I’d spend a long time trying to plan a novel, making notes on the plot, the characters, the pace … and then just get bored with the whole thing before I’d even started. But one day this all changed. I had a transformational encounter with a great golden hare in some woods. This changed me. I felt different afterwards. Then a while later I had another very profound experience at sunrise on the morning of Samhain in a labyrinth made of fallen autumn leaves. I knew then with absolute certainty that I would write, and that what I wrote would be successful.
I’ve known of Stonewylde for many years. The place is magical and there’s nowhere else like it on earth. I wanted to share it with others, but obviously I can’t take people there. So I decided to set my story of Sylvie in Stonewylde. That way everyone could discover all about how life can be when people live in harmony with nature. They could enter the world themselves, with me as their guide, and experience the mysticism and beauty of a place where the goddess lives and breathes in every leaf, stone and fold of land. Stonewylde would then become a real world to them, somewhere they could visit themselves whenever they chose.
 I started writing the books on November 9th, 2003. My boys thought I had lost my mind completely. I wrote in a white-hot heat, a frenzy of flying fingers, and couldn’t stop. I was still teaching at the time but managed to write for several hours a day. I was fat when I started, and slim when I’d finished. It took me just four months to write the first draft of a massive book – which I had to eventually split into three separate books. I didn’t make a plan or write down a plot line. I had a notebook where I’d jot down ideas and phrases, and names for the characters. I planned the calendar carefully, working out where the full moons would fall in relation to the festivals (because readers will know just how much the books pivot on the framework of sabbats and esbats). But other than this, I just wrote and it poured out of me like a torrent . I was permanently exhausted and jittery, but I couldn’t stop until the story was told. And then, after editing, cutting, refining and rewriting – I wrote a fourth book! And there’s one more to go in the Stonewylde series, which is all whirling around in my head and beginning to make impatient “let me out of here” noises.
After many years of being firmly and happily single, in 2005 I fell in love with a wonderful man. He’s as passionate about Stonewylde as I am (luckily!) and has helped me more than I can ever say. My boys have all grown up and are out in the world doing their own thing. I’ve moved away from Dorset and now live in Berkshire. It was a great wrench leaving the place I loved so much, and my teaching career and friends and family – but the time was right to move on. I’m heavily involved now in marketing and promoting the books, working on the next title, and answering e mails all day and night! It’s a great life, being an author. It’s taken me a long time to get here and realise my childhood dream. But there’s nothing on earth I’d rather do – except perhaps be able to live at Stonewylde.
Contact Kit at kit.berry@stonewylde.com
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