We all love dogs, and we all love watching videos of otters.
But a seven foot tall otter dog with a taste for human flesh…not something I’d want to see on TikTok. Or in my backyard.
In my new interview with author Sherri Cook Woosley about her urban fantasy / horror novella Mother’s Instinct (paperback, Kindle) — the latest installment of eSpec Book’s Systema Paradoxa series — she discusses why she decided to get up close and personal with the Dobhar-chu, the 7-foot-long, human eating, dog / otter hybrid from Irish folklore.
Photo Credit: © Jen Snyder LLC
To start, which cryptid are you writing about in Mother’s Instinct, where do they live, and what do they do?
I’m very excited to write about the Dobhar-chu, a creature from Irish folklore that is a cross between a dog and an otter…if that cross was 7-feet long. So, it’s about the size of a crocodile, attacks from both the water and on land, and enjoys the taste of human flesh. Ewww!
The part that I found especially interesting, though, was that Dobhar-chu mate for life. If one of the pair is killed, the other will avenge the killing by hunting and then eating the attacker.
So, did you start out wanting to write about the Dobhar-chu and Mother’s Instinct is the story you came up with, or did you have the idea for Mother’s Instinct first and then figured out which cryptid to have it be about?
I’d never heard of Dobhar-chu before this project, but the more I read the more I needed to know so I didn’t get eaten by one.
First, water is terrifying. Sure, most of us love to go swimming at the beach or boating on a beautiful day, but we do that while making the decision NOT TO THINK ABOUT WHAT IS BENEATH OR ALL AROUND US. We blithely traipse through these other ecosystems content in our oblivion, never realizing we were within sight of a shark, just missed a swarm of man’o’war, or barely avoided being capsized by a pod of orca. We certainly aren’t thinking, “I’d better beware the Irish Crocodile while I wash my delicates,” but that might have helped a woman named Grace back in 1722.
Who is Grace? Well, the best recorded story of the Dobhar-chu comes from Glenade, Ireland and begins with Grace, who went to wash her clothes in the lake the way she had hundreds of times before…suddenly she’s attacked and killed by a Dobhar-chu, then the Dobhar-chu is killed by Grace’s husband, and then the Dobhar-chu’s mate chases the human husband into town where an elaborate trap is set for the creature. It’s a whole family feud with nothing left but a carving on Grace’s gravestone and a cautionary story passed down for generations.
Secondly, I was under the misguided impression that otters are those adorable, playful animals like the ones that we see swimming about in zoos, maybe holding hands to avoid separation as they lazily float around. Yeah…until I watched a video of giant river otters working together as a family to attack caimans.
Basically, the themes of family and loyalty surfaced from the horrors of flesh-eating cryptids and suddenly there was another side to the story.
So then where did you get the idea for the plot of Mother’s Instinct?
Once I knew it was set in Ireland, I had the opportunity to go back in time. My Master’s Thesis for University Of Maryland centered on the role of women in the mythology of Wales and Ireland as revealed in specific medieval texts. Is that a mouthful? The point is that, for this story, I imagined that I’d pursued the academic life instead of moving into teaching high school. Then I had to answer the question: What would make Rosie take her daughter to a monster-infested island? The answer: She was running away from something even more scary. At that point I was ready to write. You just have to find the right question, yeah?
The Systema Paradoxa novellas tend to be horror stories, urban fantasy stories, or both. But Mother’s Instinct sounds like it might have some cosmic horror elements, too.
Oh no! Why are you trying to hurt me? That question is my kryptonite.
Just kidding (kind of). I have a really hard time with genre expectations, so I’m going to leave that for those with more organized brains than mine. I wanted to tell a story about family and the sacrifices and violence done in that name from both human and cryptid points of view. So that’s what I did. I hope readers enjoy that.
Now, Mother’s Instinct is not your first published work. You have a novel out called Walking Through Fire, are about to put out a book for children called Postcards From A City Of Monsters, and have had short stories in such anthologies as Once Upon A Dystopia and Thrilling Adventure Yarns 2021. Are there any writers, or specific stories, that had a big influence on Instinct but not on anything else you’ve written?
So…Rhiannon is a major personality from the Welsh The Mabinogion (some call it The Mabinogi but that’s a whole rabbit hole about mistranslation) and she’s magical and decides who she is in love with and is a mother and also a horse goddess. She’s all of these things, and that’s what I feel like a lot of mothers today are struggling with because we want to take care of our children, but we don’t want to give up our own story but sometimes it feels like our society wants women to move out of the way for 16-year-old heroines to save the world. Like…I’m not ready to be shoved out of the way.
What about non-literary influences; was Mother’s Instinct influenced by any movie, TV shows, or games? Because, as you confess on your website, “I waste too much time playing Trivia Crack on my phone.”
Ha! That’s funny. I’m the moderator for my school’s Academic Team, so I try to use that as a cover for my need to play Trivia Crack or to track down other obscure stories and facts. For example, “trivia” or “three ways” is a reference to the Roman goddess Hectate, who is protector of the crossroads and witchcraft. She also has a black dog…wait, what did you ask? Oh, I suppose I was influenced by a romantic version of island life such as you might find in Maggie Stiefvater’s The Scorpio Races. How do you keep a secret on an island when everybody is always around?
And how about your pets, which, according to your website, include a, “…retired brood bunny named Storm, an off-the-track thoroughbred named Noche, and a foster fail black mouth cur named Gabe”?
Well, I’m happy to report that Storm, the retired bunny, found a home with a neighbor’s teen during Covid. At that point we repurposed the area into a chicken run. Gabe was supposed to be a foster; that was nine years ago.
Gabe, Noche
The Dobhar-chu, like the creatures in all of the System Paradoxa books, is a cryptid. One of your published short stories, “Gargoyles In Prague,” was in a short story anthology called Dark Cheer: Cryptids Emerging, Volume Blue. Is there any connection between it and Mother’s Instinct?
The story in Cryptids Emerging focused on my experience of being a parent of a child with cancer combined with my experience of living and teaching in Prague, Czech Republic.
Luckily, Danielle from eSpec Books found out about the anthology and, at a fantasy conference, asked me about my interest in cryptids because she had an opportunity…and now we have Mother’s Instinct.
Oh, and the publisher of Dark Cheer, Improbable Press, asked me to turn that story into an illustrated children’s book [the aforementioned Postcards From A City of Monsters].
So, is there anything else people need to know about Mother’s Instinct?
I wrote from the heart about what is truly scary and I hope audiences will respond accordingly.
Finally, if someone enjoys Mother’s Instinct, what novel or novella of someone else’s would you recommend they check out next?
Oh man, we’re tapping into my weird thinking again. Well. Hear me out. If readers like Mother’s Instinct then they might enjoy Piranesi by Susanna Clarke because it is also a mystery that is riddled with mythology.
