Brittany Amara

Brittany Amara is an author, screenwriter, actress, and model with a passion for science fiction and fantasy that ventures beyond space and time. She loves writing about curious aliens, morally gray protagonists, other dimensions, rifts in reality, and all things playfully wicked. When she’s not working on something new, Amara can be found stargazing, collecting stuffed animals, and baking pumpkin bread. She grew up in Bronx, New York, and graduated summa cum laude from SUNY New Paltz in 2021 with a degree in digital media production, creative writing, and theater arts. In 2024 she furthered her storytelling journey at Queen’s University Belfast. Since then, her work in various genres has been recognized by film festivals and writing competitions across the globe.

Amara's new novel is The Bleeding Woods.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

The story behind The Bleeding Woods’s title is actually very special to me. Its very first incarnation was simply called The Woods, since I like to give all of my stories codenames as they lounge in the “dreaming phase.” Later, my beloved antagonist, Jasper, insisted he take center stage, and so the title switched to Jasperwood. His suggestion reigned supreme until the final stages of editing, when my publishing team suggested we try out some alternatives.

After weeks of brainstorming, I asked one of my closest friends if she had any ideas. She followed my question with a question, “What are some things the book wouldn’t be the same without?” I started rambling through a handful of disjointed elements ranging from thematic to aesthetic. “Blood”, “woods”, and Jasper’s unrelenting desire to make his sinister mark on the world kept returning. The Bleeding Woods flowed from her lips as intuitively and effortlessly as a stream. We paused in stunned silence, then in unison, muttered, “It’s perfect.”

I immediately sent an email back to my publisher, and we all fell in love. I think The Bleeding Woods harnesses the essence of the story from both a direct, visceral perspective and from a more symbolic one.

To me, the inclusion of a The channels Jasper’s inflated sense of self-importance. It could have just been Bleeding Woods, but Jasper simply wouldn’t have it. He relies so heavily on the idea that he is above humanity, and that his presence is one of borderline divine retribution. There’s a lot of power in labelling something a The, and he feeds off of that power.

The Bleeding Woods portion of the title is where our intent to express gory intrigue meets layers of symbolic undergrowth, pun intended. Of course, a lot of blood spills in Blackstone Forest. At this point, the soil is more cadaver than earth. The trees themselves are victims of Jasper’s, twisted and mutated to decorate his domain. However, the mere existence of the forest is due to the monstrous blood that coats human hands. That is to say, it takes a monster to make a monster, and Jasper and Clara are very much made-monsters. This forest doesn’t just blossom from blood; it was born in it.

What's in a name?

I absolutely love the process of naming things in my work. Sometimes, the names find me more than I find them. I’ve known Jasper would be Jasper and Grayson would be Grayson from the start. However, Clara’s name has shifted many times over the years.

Before she was Clara Lovecroft, she was Selena, then Alina, then Odette. Selena and Alina were both references to light, moonlight to be specific. I wanted to convey the idea that she is a force of light, but one surrounded by deep, suffocating darkness. In order to glow, she must reflect and alchemize all that comes her way. I toyed with the idea of calling her Odette later on because of Swan Lake, a ballet in which a woman faces the horror of turning into a swan against her will. Much like Odette, Clara feels cursed by what she turns into. In the end, I think I landed on Clara because I liked the idea that she finds clarity within herself by being as bright a light as she can in the world.

Unlike Clara, Jasper and Grayson have always had their names. It wasn’t until later in life that I researched their meanings, and was delightfully surprised by their synergy with the story. Jasper is said to mean “treasurer”, and his role is very much one of keeping what he deems to be treasure (Clara). Grayson, on the other hand, is said to mean “son of the steward”, and a steward is someone meant to look after others. I can’t dive too deeply into his name without touching on spoilers, but I will say it serves up a serendipitously delicious double meaning.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?

My teenage self would be positively delighted by my novel, but I can’t say she’d be surprised. I wrote the very first version of The Bleeding Woods when I was only thirteen years old. After a particularly creepy drive with my family, I raced to my laptop and typed up a short story about a demon hiding in the forest that had just run alongside our car. I printed and proudly toted it around my middle school the next day, telling all of my teachers and classmates that I’d just become an author. I am genuinely starstruck every time I hold my book in my hands now, because every time, it feels like my younger self gets the chance to say, “See? I was right!”

My teenage self believed in me without question and without fail. Nothing could sway her confidence, and whenever I harness her energy now, I become just as feral and unshakeable. This book wouldn’t have existed without her fearlessness. Therefore, she wouldn’t be surprised by this, because she knew I could do it all along.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Beginnings are definitely more difficult for me than endings. The Bleeding Woods’s beginning has changed so many times over the years because I just couldn’t settle on a good place to “set up the portal” into this world. It has started at the gas station, in the lab, at Jasper’s creation, at Clara’s conception, and so on and so forth. There were so many options. Inevitably, the publishing team jumped in to help out, and we decided on a more linear approach. We start with the moment Clara realizes she is doomed to mutate into a full-fledged monster if she can’t find a suppressant for her inhuman power.

Endings, on the other hand, are a lot easier and more fun to arrive at for me. I may have an inkling into how things resolve, but oftentimes, the story itself surprises me. My inklings and expectations are superseded by the flow of the story, more alive than it’s ever been. With beginnings, I’m tasked with building a portal. With endings, something otherworldly takes over, and the story’s conclusion only becomes clear as I arrive at it.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

This is one of my favorite questions to receive about my work. The answer varies from story-to-story, but I think there are shades of me to be found in each one. Sometimes, I am of the characters; I bleed the same astral blood, so to speak. Other times, I am in perfect alignment to meet the cast, albeit from a considerable distance. Regardless, there are shades of me to be found in everything I write.

In the case of The Bleeding Woods, I don’t have a direct in-story incarnation. Clara is the main character, but she isn’t me. She’s more like a distant friend who reached out her hand and offered to help me through what I’d been going through at the time. Together, we ventured through Jasper’s forest to process our pain, different in nature but similar in sentiment.

Jasper, Grayson, Jade and Joey are part of Clara’s world, and so, they became part of mine. She introduced me to them, and over the course of many drafts, we got to know one another. I definitely have to note that it was Jasper who found me first. I’ve felt connected to him for years. To this day, I suspect there was some kind of portal hidden in upstate New York, and through it, he sent forth a ghostly, “Hello~”

Jasper may appear as the antagonist of this version of the story, but only because he agreed to. Through him, at this moment in infinity, Clara and I both got the chance to process our pain. There are other versions of The Bleeding Woods where he gets to step into a more heroic role. There are even stories completely separate from this one where I’ve had him meet my main characters. Jasper’s a complex entity, one I’m grateful to have collaborated with to make this novel a reality.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

In my experience, I’ve found creativity to be something of an interconnected web, and artists across space and time hold keys for one another whether they know it or not. The first major piece of media to offer me a key so that I might unlock my own creative doors was Marvel. Both the comic books and movies filled me with such unparalleled wonder. Experiencing those stories felt like coming home, or at least, locating many paths to many homes.

Music has this effect on me, too. I couldn’t even begin to quantify the number of times I’ve heard a song and physically felt gateways blasting open in my mind. Suddenly, an onslaught of ideas, like impossible memories, pour through, and I’m left scrambling for my keyboard to type it all out. My current favorite artists are Midnight Kids, Avicii, and Bebe Rexha.

I suppose life itself is full of these keys if your heart is open to feeling them and your eyes are primed to see them. I once saw a terrible video of a praying mantis attacking a hummingbird, and in the midst of my horror, I “came up with” a story idea. Another time, I heard a clown’s nose squeak, but somehow sadly. In some small, inexplicable way, that too was a key. They’re everywhere, waiting just as eagerly to be found as I am to find them.

Visit Brittany Amara's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Bleeding Woods.

Writers Read: Brittany Amara.

The Page 69 Test: The Bleeding Woods.

--Marshal Zeringue