Five by Five: Debut author kicks off four-book fantasy series

By Max Bowen

Take a walk through the Wythic Woods with Tilly, Jess, and Zach as they journey to find Tilly’s missing cousin, Michael, who disappeared in the woods a year ago. In Vanishings: The Wythic Wood Mystery Series (Sparkpress, May 20), debut author Catharina Steel encourages young readers to step off their phones and step out into the world.

In this interview, Catharina talks about the creation of this new series and what we can expect in future books, as well as how her own life helped inform the story. We also learn about her main characters and the process of bringing them to life.


This book is the beginning of a new series. What can we expect in subsequent books?
There are four books in The Wythic Wood Mysteries Series as follows:

Book Two Working Title: Weredog Curse. Tilly wants to reverse the curse the Witch of Wythic Wood has placed on the weredogs in her territory, so they search for the cure.

Book Three Working Title: Ancient Magic. They search for the elves Clayton eventually tells them about, and the truth about the Witch’s goal is revealed.

Book Four Working Title: Elven Battle. Tilly and friends team up with a group of good elves to battle the Wythic Wood elves at the fortress within this forest.

I read that your own battles with anxiety are incorporated in this book. How so?
Like myself, Jess was being bullied at school, but I allowed her personality to show me how she would be impacted by this. I love being outside because I enjoy exploring, but it felt truer to Jess’s personality that she initially struggles with anxiety in the outdoors.

I draw from my experience with anxiety symptoms, and how spending time outdoors allowed my body and mind to relax. You can see the impact on Jess, while at Opa’s property, with how she becomes enthusiastic about her surroundings as the anxiousness dissipates—at least until they head into Wythic Wood.

How did you develop your main characters?
I allowed Tilly, Jess, and Zach to develop as I wrote the story. Early on, I decided to create a profile of each of them, which I added to during the initial stages of writing and editing. This gave me a snapshot that I could refer to if I felt unsure about their reaction as I edited the story and enabled me to draw out their personalities more each time.

The more time I spent on the story the better I knew them. My experience with this is similar to meeting someone and getting to know them better.

What is the Wythic Wood?
The Wythic Wood is a forest situated on the south side of Opa’s property. It’s a wild place which used to be inhabited by many ancient mythical creatures—before the evil witch made it her home. An elf of old named it by mixing the two words wild and mythical together to create the name Wythic for this ancient homeland of their people.

In this forest lives the witch, weredogs, black bears, ravens, green snakes and a group of elves ruled by Timitus. There are abandoned fairy tree cities, smokestacks, underground tunnels, a spelled cave and the witch’s castle.

How did you create the “Gobight” martial art?
I needed a character skilled in martial arts to train the children, so Mort, a good goblin, became their teacher. But how could children go up against goblins who have greater reach with their long arms and weapons at the ready with their sharp fingernails and toenails? These attributes made it necessary to modify fight stances, strikes, and blocks.

It made sense to come up with a name to describe this new style of martial arts. I replaced the “f” in fight with “gob” from goblin to get the name gobight—a goblin style of martial arts.