1.- Could you introduce yourself to Jamreads’ readers?
Hi, Readers! I’m Alex, I’m the writer of Whisperwood and The Night Ship, as well as upcoming Tatratea and a bunch of short stories. I’m also the editor-in-chief of Tenebrous Press. I live a pretty rural life in the Transilvania region of Romania and roam the hills with my dog, Charlie. 

2.- When did you start writing for publication?
About five years ago! My first ever published piece was a tiny little drabble in a quarantine anthology. Before that I wrote grant applications, and for a grueling time, search engine optimized web content for all kinds of websites. It wasn’t until I found myself in fiction that things started to make sense.

3.- You are the editor in chief of Tenebrous Press. Could you tell us more about your role? 
My role is much like any other EiC; I decide our creative direction, pick which manuscripts or stories we want to publish and award, and then work with the writers to edit their release so it’s as close to their perfect vision for it as possible. When we have other editors, like we did for the magazine or how we work with Alex Ebenstein for the Split Scream series, it’s my job to be there to support them. But for Matt and me, “editor-in-chief” and “publisher” are not exhaustive titles, they’re just a rough idea of our main focus, because as a small press we share every task and duty between the two of us. We’re both dealing with the emails, slush reading or pulling in readers when needed, we both do art for covers or interiors when it makes sense, we do promos, I make e-ARCs, he writes newsletters, I deal with concerns and complaints, he sends copies to awards, it’s just a constant fair and reasonable distribution of labor. I’m mostly the point of contact for the creatives, he’s mostly the point of contact for Ingram’s customer support :)

4.- As Tenebrous Press could be paired with the term new weird horror, could you define new weird horror as a genre? Which particular releases of Tenebrous are you excited to share with the world?
I absolutely could not! I know many people would like to, but to me, genre is identity, and identity is fluid. One Weird writer might consider an aspect absolutely core to their genre identity, and that exact aspect might be missing for another Weird writer completely, and they can both agree they’re both writing in the genre. 
It’s certainly somewhere in the region of dark, though it can be comedic and romantic and any number of things at the same time. It often hinges on bold, strong concepts, big “what if” and “imagine that” ideas, and often frequently returns to a core that the unknown, within or outside ourselves, is what ultimately rules the universe, and we matter very little to it. It often presents other realities with little or no concern how we reached from here to there. Sometimes it plays with prose more than the usual Horror would, sometimes it plays with interesting formatting, often it blends a pile of genres in a way that always makes traditional publishing’s eye twitch. That’s my favourite characteristic, and it’s not always present! But I love it when it is. Some would say it’s mandatory for there to be little or no focus on comprehensible narrative, and I disagree, I find that self-limiting to the extreme. But we’re not all Weird in the same way, and that’s lovely.

5.- Your first published novel was Whisperwood. Could you tell us more about the ideas behind this novel?
It’s about a woman who moves into a remote village and finds herself having to adapt on the fly to strange people and a whole new reality. But really, it’s about all of us who feel like we’re constant outsiders, facing the world when we feel completely unprepared for it. 
With a little bit of folklore creatures stuck in.

6.- The Night Ship is your latest novel. How would you pitch it?
If you like the vibes of those old seafaring horror stories where a limited cast is stuck in a small setting and navigating the vast unknown, but aren’t super attached to it being water per se, and don’t mind a bit of philosophy and the fact that some questions just aren’t meant to be answered, then this is the book for you. 

7.- What would you say inspired you to write The Night Ship? Why did you choose this particular setting for your story?
A lot of the inspiration comes from driving around the area where I live. It’s vast and hillsy and so peaceful and so chaotic at the same time. There’s farmland and pasture all the way to the horizon. Often, during the high heat of August, farmers are harvesting at night, and you’ll just be driving on the ridge of a hill and you can see nothing but the road in your headlights, and off in the vast distance, some other headlights just minding their own business. It makes you feel small, but also, it makes you feel like you have room to breathe.

8.- Would you say that being from Romania has influenced your writing?
All of who we are influences our writing, always. The only question is whether it does so subtly, involuntarily; or whether we’re aware of it and in control. I’m certainly well aware of my influences, ranging from my upbringing to my favourite books to the history of my country and the folk tales my grandmother told me. 

9.- What does Alex Woodroe like to do in her free time?
Roam! And cook, and forage, and watch movies, and listen to annoyingly loud music while exercising. I learn repair skills and traditional crafts. Sometimes paint, sometimes play videogames, sometimes just go on some ridiculous ill-fated adventure with my sister. 

10.- What can we expect from Alex Woodroe in the future?
The next book after The Night Ship is coming out this October, actually! It’s a novella called Tatratea coming through Clash books and it’s cosmic, botanical, haunted house-y, alien-y, and thoroughly Weird. I am so madly in love with it I even did some botanical illustrations for it myself. Aside from that, I’ve started writing a new book I’m excited about, but I might actually take a little time to see whether I can get agent representation with this one. Fingers crossed. In the meantime, more short stories, maybe a collection soon, and eternally, vitally, Tenebrous! Tenebrous is everything. Tenebrous is life.