Author Interview: Mel Reeve
Tell us a little bit about yourself as an artist/writer:
I'm a writer, archivist, and stone circle enthusiast living in Glasgow. I write about themes of heritage, place and identity. My work often deals with the experience of reckoning with our past, whether that’s ancient or more recent.
I’ve had work published in a range of places, including Gutter magazine, in an anthology by 404 Ink, by Knight Errant Press and more, as well as narrative non-fiction in The Skinny, Diva magazine, and others. Recently, I won the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival Writing Awards Grand Jury Prize 2024, and in 2020, I won the Glasgow Women's Library Bold Types Prize 2020.
I’m an editor for zine distro Fear of Making Art Press, and I run the Bi History project, celebrating and preserving bisexual+ and LGBTQ+ history.
What stories help you understand your surroundings and inform the way you interact with the world?
Stories and folk history have always been a big part of my life. I grew up in Wiltshire, an area of England with an incredible wealth of Neolithic stone monuments and hill figures. These ancient monuments and the stories told about these places were a formative part of both the physical landscape around me and my own internal landscape.
I would daydream about the purpose of Silbury Hill - the largest artificial mound in Europe, crafted entirely by human hands over 4,000 years ago. People used to say that an ancient king slept within, or that it was created by the Devil himself, carrying a bag of dirt in order to crush Marlborough (a local town I knew of as the place we would make an annual pilgrimage to in order to buy my school uniform). Sometimes, under a blazing hot summer sun, I would sit in the grass within the standing stones of Avebury, the largest stone circle in the world.
These places and their imagined origin stories were all around me during my formative years, and perhaps because of that, I find myself fascinated by what folklore can tell us about how we see our pasts. Much of the folklore I grew up with is fantastical and dreamy, full of devils and goblins, but it also often feels fearful, full of warnings and retribution.
In the end, it ended up being the artefacts on which the stories are based that remain with me; I can reach my hand out to ancient stone monuments, scattered across the fields and farmland of where I grew up, or stumble upon an ancient cairn hidden in a Scottish forest where I live now, and feel in touch with something bigger; I can tell my own stories about these places and what they mean to me.
What was your favourite story growing up?
The story of the Wiltshire moonrakers goes something like this. On a clear night, with a bright full moon hanging in the sky, a group of smugglers came to retrieve some illicit brandy which they’d hidden in a pond in the town of Devizes. The moon was so full and yellow, perhaps a Hunter’s Moon, that it was perfectly reflected in the waters of the pond.
Hidden in the nearby bushes after a tip-off from a local snitch, a lawman was lying in wait for the brand smugglers. Unaware of this proverbial snake in the grass, the smugglers combed the silver water of the pond with big rakes, looking for their brandy.
At the sight of the smugglers and their rakes, the lawman burst forth from the bushes, full of righteous indignation and ready to confront them, sure that he’d caught the smugglers up to no good. But the smugglers were cunning and told the lawman (in broad West Country accents) that they were simply trying to get the yellow cheese from the pond. The lawman easily believed that these simple men were fools, trying to rake the reflection of the moon in the pond because they thought it was cheese.
I’ve always loved this story because it contains several of my favourite things – getting one over on overzealous cops, a strong West Country accent, and good cheddar. It’s also got some great associated imagery, I have a pin badge from the Moonrakers Bowling Club that shows a crescent moon wrapped around a shimmering pond, and the eager smugglers with their rakes. It’s a story we see often in folklore, that of the common people banding together against the establishment.
What political messages from folklore resonate with you?
To me, the stories of folklore are so often about community and collaboration, standing up against something wrong in order to protect yourself and those more vulnerable than you. However, I think it’s also important to recognise that folklore can also often teach us a lesson about how fear of the ‘other’ can unite people in a way that we must be wary of. Fear is a big part of folklore, and these stories often show us how it can lead us to rash action and hasty judgements.
In the stories, the hero is always right about the evil they’re coming up against – whether that’s the devil carrying a clod of earth to crush the town of Marlborough or a sleeping, ancient king within a mound – but real life is rarely that simple.
People can also become deeply attached to misapprehensions of historical fact because of folklore, which is when things can escalate into conspiracy theories.
What are the themes you are exploring? What aspect of the modern world is your piece commenting/reflecting on?
My story ‘Endless Sleep’ is technically about an ancient creature that wakes from a long sleep at the bottom of a small loch in Scotland (based on Abie’s loch for any locals interested). But it’s really about the experiences of the people who see a truly ancient part of their landscape and how it makes them feel. As the world grows, flourishes, and crumbles around the creature, it carries on oblivious to the changes, as immovable and eternal as stone.
I was initially inspired by the fact that there can be unique animals living within certain bodies of water, creatures that have evolved slightly differently in their own environment and have stayed there, isolated. I’m intrigued by the place where folklore and conspiracy theory intersect.
The story explores how it feels to see something and not be believed, how modern technology changes how we experience the world around us, and ultimately how fleeting our individual lives are to Mother Nature. It’s also a bit about climate change because at this point for me, everything is.
What do you hope the readers get from your piece?
I hope it introduces a tiny hint of doubt about what just brushed against your leg, next time you’re wild swimming.
If you were a cryptid or folkloric creature, which one would you be and why?
I’d be the Beast of Bodmin Moor, but I’d turn out to just be a house cat.
You can follow Mel on Instagram and TikTok @melreeve
Read Mel's short story "Endless Sleep" in our first issue, launching August 22nd!
[originally posted to Patreon on 24/6/25]
