1.- Could you introduce yourself to JamReads’ readers?
I’m a Scottish author of dark, strange and speculative fiction. Limelight is my debut collection, and I have two other novelettes published - Have You Decided on Your Question with Shortwave Publishing, and The Girl With Barnacles for Eyes with Tenebrous Press’ Split Scream Volume Five. I’ve also been publishing short fiction for a few years now, and you’ll find my work in magazines like Analog, Apex, Weird Tales, Flash Fiction Online, Shoreline of Infinity and more. My work is often inspired by Scottish folklore and my background in climate and nature policy and politics. I love exploring the intersections of genres, like with sci fi and horror in Limelight. I live in Edinburgh with my giant kitten Pippin, and feel lucky to have such an active writing scene in Scotland!

2.- How did you start writing? When did you decide you wanted to be published?
I know this is a bit of a cheesy answer, but I have been writing for as long as I can remember. I filled a notebook with stories when I was young and I insisted to my parents that I was going to publish them. Those stories of course remain in a box somewhere in my parents’ attic, but I have been writing stories since then, and it has always been my dream to see one of my books in a bookshop! I finished my first full novel as a teenager (a portal fantasy), and another when I was twenty (dystopian zombie book) - again, both of these sit in my author files, but I never stopped writing and dreaming of stories. Though, I’d had no formal writing instruction or courses, and so I decided to start taking it more seriously when I moved back to Edinburgh around 2017. I took a weekly writing course, and learned loads just by sharing work with other authors. I found a brilliant writing community in Edinburgh, and took every course I could find. I then started working on short stories around 2020, during lockdown, as I found the short form really let me explore stories in different ways and getting concepts down slightly quicker going from start to finish. I fell in love with short fiction, and that eventually led to my two forthcoming collections! It really is a dream to be publishing work, and though it’s not always been an easy journey, I feel lucky to be where I am. 

3.- Your (long-form) debut, Daughter of Fire and Water, was a Scottish folklore dark fantasy audiodrama. How was its inception?
I’ve always been a bit obsessed with Scottish folklore - from selkies to the otherworld to kelpies and fairies, these are stories I’ve heard growing up. In 2018, I started delving more deeply into Scottish folklore, using it as inspiration for a young adult fantasy novel, and I learned about the tale of Bride and Cailleach Bheur, both central characters to Scotland’s seasonal legends, representing spring and winter, respectively, and was really drawn to their story. It was while doing research on this area of folklore that I came across the work of 20th Century folklorist Donald Alexander Mackenzie. In his version of the story, Bride was held captive under Ben Nevis by the Cailleach. When free, the seasons changed. Exploring these stories altered both the course of my novel and inspired me to write my debut audio drama, Daughter of Fire and Water, which was released with the Alternative Stories and Fake Realities Podcast in 2021. While writing, I also wanted to explore modern themes like climate change, so drawing on seasonal folklore felt like a natural link. I have actually expanded this audio drama into a novella, which will be in my upcoming (June 2025) Scottish folklore-inspired collection with Luna Press - Dark Crescent. 

4.- In April 2023, your dark SF novelette Have You Decided on Your Question was published by Shortwave. What was your intention with Zoe’s story?
The story initially started germinating when I was wanting to explore something about my own unhealthy reliance I felt I had with technology and social media in particular. I also, as I’m sure many people have, found myself lingering on questions of where I might be if I’d made different decisions at critical junctures in my life. What if I’d taken that different job? What if I’d moved to a different city? Who might I have met, what would my life look like? I was also reading (and starting to get increasingly worried) about the data and personal info that social media and other apps are tracking, and predictive algorithms, and Zoe’s story jumped into my mind - “what if technology got to the point where it could predict what our alternative futures could hold if we’d made different decisions?” With that came a tale of gradual obsession and addiction to technology, and I wanted to show the dangers of this kind of encroaching of technology on our freedoms. I hope it hit the mark!

5.- You have two short story collections coming in the future, Limelight and Dark Crescent. Could you tell us a bit about both?
Limelight and Other Stories shares a lot of vibes with Have You Decided on Your Question. The stories in the collection explore dark near and far futures. The title novelette is about a young woman brought back from near death by experimental tech, only to find her parents had her altered before she woke, because they want her to be a star. Other stories explore various “what ifs”, with scary AI, dystopian bees, a house haunted by tech, ghost harvesting, digital afterlifes, alternate realities, and lost spaceships. One of my favourite blurbs from Laurel Hightower, author of Crossroads and The Day of the Door, and more, called it, "a glorious illustration of the intersection of science fiction and horror,” which is really what I hoped to do with it - hit that spot between sci fi and horror that I also love reading. You can find out more about it here. It’s out on 3rd September with Shortwave!
Dark Crescent is a little different, gathering seasonal tales inspired by Scottish folklore, landscape, superstitions, and omens. In this book, readers will find reinterpretations of common folklore creatures and phenomenon, like the Kelpie, Selkie, and Will-o’-the-Wisps, as well as lesser known, such as the Sea Mither, Ceasg, Marool, Sluagh, Ghillie Dhu, Nuckelavee, Baobhan Sith, and The Frittening, all with dark and strange lore around them. Moving through the seasons, from a darker Autumn and Winter to a more optimistic Summer, the often-interconnected stories cover a wide range of genres, including gothic, weird horror, speculative, dark fantasy, and solarpunk. Many of the tales are also inspired by nature, climate, and the environment, with feminist and eco themes throughout. It’s out in June 2025 from Luna Press Publishing - more here.

6.- How do you settle on the theme of a short story? Which aspect of preparing one would you say it’s the most challenging?
This definitely varies depending on the type of story. Often, a character jumps into my mind first, sometimes with a setting and then I start to shape the story around it. With my Scottish folklore stories, I was also trying to take known folklore tales and twist them in some way, often through different genre lenses, so I definitely experimented a little, but almost always I needed a character rooted in my mind before I began writing. One challenge for me is that if I don’t know at least a hint of how it’s going to end, I struggle to get started! I’ve experimented with free-writing to try to get over this block in my mind, but I think it’s probably there to stay - but once I figure out an arc and an ending, I love getting to work piecing it together!
With Limelight a lot of the stories came from real world fears of technologies, and asking a lot of “what if” questions - often imaging worst case future scenarios, or trying to take snippets of what certain tech could mean in a limited setting. But I also wanted to explore humanity in this, and while the technology sometimes provides the background and concept, I wanted the focus to be on relationships and character journeys.
With short stories, some come way more easily and if I get a strong idea in my mind, I sometimes just need to write it down there and then to get it out of my head. Other stories develop and change, and some of my favourite ones were written over a longer period of months, working a few hundred words at a time, and mulling it over a lot.

7.- Talking about Limelight, why did you choose this particular story to be the one naming this collection?
Limelight was actually how the collection came together. The novelette is about 15,000 words and I approached Shortwave initially with it as a new novelette  - a follow up from Have You Decided on Your Question. But with some discussion about how it might come together, I realised I had enough stories to do a collection anchored around it. Limelight contains a lot of the collection’s central themes in it, and because I also had a really visual image of it as the title I kept with it!

8.- During your career, you have shown versatility in your writing, dabbling between short and long form and genres. Would you choose a favourite format for your writing?
I would say I like them both for different reasons. Short form really lets me explore and grapple with concepts and themes in a more succinct way. I love that I can be a bit more experimental, and do a lot of genre blending in my short work. There’s also something very nice about often being able to finish a piece of work quickly, and then get it out in the world (not the same for long form!) Reading and writing short fiction has taught me loads as well, about storytelling, voice, characters, arcs, and style. I really love short stories and I’m sure I’ll keep writing them over the years!
Though, with longer form, there’s something really magical about spending time creating and living in a new world of your creation for many months (sometimes years), really getting to know the characters, building a setting, and pulling plot threads together. It’s a challenge, but one I really enjoy. I do find if I’m deep in a novel project, I struggle to write as much short fiction, so I definitely go through waves of working between both.

9.- How would you say your professional background has influenced your writing?
Most of my professional background has been working in political advocacy and comms, primarily on climate change and nature. I’ve been interested in climate change, nature, and the environment my whole life, and it is a cause that drives me professionally and in life generally. I do like to explore eco themes through my writing, whether through directly working on genres like solarpunk or climate solutions stories, or more subtly through engaging with landscapes and our relationships to the natural world. That’s true with Dark Crescent in particular, as I find Scottish folklore is so intrinsically linked with the environment. With Limelight, I wanted to explore some of the political themes as well, and though it doesn’t have as much of a climate lens, I hope it is in parts still radical and politically engaged in how it engages with alternative futures. In some ways, I think writing can be a way to explore fears and worries, and it’s definitely been that way for me as an outlet to deal with some of my anxiety about the real world, by exploring them in such (often extreme) fictional ones. 

10.- What can we expect from Lyndsey Croal in the future?
I have a couple of projects in the works and on submission, including two science fiction horror books - one with an astrobotanist journeying across a dangerous planet of strange fauna and flora, and another which is more of a pulpy horror in space, that I like to describe as being glitz, guts, and glamour. I’m hoping one of them may find a home soon…! I’m also almost finished drafting a near future deep sea thriller, with some horror elements - all the characters have secrets and there’s conspiracy galore, a friendly octopus, weird jellyfish, dual timelines, and a locked-room style setting. This project has been probably the most challenging one I’ve written, but I’ve also really enjoyed working on it - I hope I can finish it soon and get it out there! And of course, I’m working on a few short stories, and have some forthcoming with places like PseudoPod and Analog.