Author Interview: Kailum Graves

What effect has folklore had on the way you see the world?

Folklore has made the world feel less finished to me. It suggests that ordinary places—lanes, bus stops, rental flats, takeaway shops—might have another layer humming underneath them if you look from the wrong angle. I like that. I think we need stories that make reality feel porous, especially when reality is being extremely rude.

What stories help you understand your surroundings and inform the way you interact with the world?

I’m drawn to stories where the strange arrives through the everyday rather than announcing itself with trumpets and a fog machine. Stories about hungry ghosts, household spirits, tricksters, saints, cursed bargains, haunted roads—all the things that suggest the world notices how we treat each other. They make me pay attention to small acts: who gets fed, who gets forgotten, who is expected to keep moving even when they’re falling apart.

What political messages from folklore resonate with you?

The idea that power is often ridiculous, greedy, and very punch-able. Folklore is full of kings who think they own the forest, landlords who get outwitted by peasants, monsters who are really just consequences wearing teeth. I love that folklore often sides with the hungry, the exhausted, the strange, and the underestimated.

Do you see folklore as resistance, and if so, to what?

Yes. I think folklore resists the idea that only official stories matter. It pushes back against tidy histories, polite explanations, and systems that tell people their suffering is just “the way things are.”

What role do folklore and speculative fiction play in our modern world?

They give us a way to talk about unbearable things without flattening them. Capitalism, grief, loneliness, climate dread, burnout—sometimes realism can describe those things, but speculative fiction can make them visible. 

Do you think of folklore as a thing of fear and warning or of mysticism and magic? Or both?

Both, definitely. Folklore is magic, but it’s rarely cosy magic. It often says—yes, wonder exists, but so do consequences. Don’t break the promise. Don’t mock the stranger. Don’t take more than your share. Don’t assume the shortcut is free.

What do you hope the readers get from your piece?

I hope readers feel a little less alone in their exhaustion. I also hope they laugh, then feel slightly ambushed by tenderness, which is my favourite emotional pattern. Mostly, I hope they come away thinking about the people who keep the world moving while the world barely notices them.

What are the themes you are exploring? 

I’m exploring burnout, gig work, grief, mutual aid, urban loneliness, and the strange holiness of being fed at exactly the moment you’ve run out of ways to keep going. The story is also about time—how modern life shaves it down to the bone, and how people are constantly asked to be faster, cheaper, more available, less human.

What aspect of the modern world is your piece commenting/reflecting on?
It’s reflecting on the absurd cruelty of convenience culture. We press a button and food appears, but someone has to ride through the rain to make that magic happen. I wanted to look at the human being inside the app—and then, because I am apparently incapable of leaving reality alone, I made the app accidentally open a mystical delivery route between minutes.

What folklore traditions do you take inspiration from? 

I’m inspired by urban legends, saint stories, ghost stories, roadside shrines, household spirits, and the kind of local myths that begin with someone saying, “No, this actually happened to my cousin.” I love folklore that grows out of a community trying to explain something strange, painful, or beautiful that official language can’t quite hold.

Tell us a little bit about yourself as an artist/writer:
I’m an Australian writer interested in the places where humour, grief, weirdness, and tenderness start sharing custody of the same sentence. My work often circles the human condition through speculative or absurd premises, because apparently I find reality more manageable once it has a haunted customer service department or a time-bending delivery rider in it. I like stories that are funny until they aren’t, and then somehow still are.

If you were a cryptid or folkloric creature, which one would you be and why?
Probably a slightly anxious house spirit who rearranges your books at 3am and leaves a biscuit on the kitchen bench if you’ve had a bad day. Not malevolent. Just emotionally overinvested in your wellbeing and your shelving system.

You’re a forest-dwelling hag and you find an intruder in your garden. What symbolic plant, animal, or object are you turning them into and why? 

I’d turn them into a kettle. Not as punishment exactly—more as a reflective opportunity. They’d have to sit still and hold warmth.

There’s a mysterious figure that lives near your village. Would you heed the warnings of the elders or venture into the unknown? And what everyday object are you taking with you for protection?

I would absolutely tell everyone I was heeding the warnings of the elders, then venture into the unknown twenty minutes later because curiosity is my most legally problematic trait. I’d take a phone charger. Not because it would protect me from evil, necessarily, but because I’m tired of the cursed 3% battery warming.

Read Kailum’s story in our second issue, available via our website www.folkloricmag.com

You can also follow Kailum on Instagram @kailum_graves