Ray is an author, a mother of four, and a Creative Writing Coach from Essex. Her debut trilogy, Earthlings, Dominion, and Land of Hope and Glory, have won multiple awards and were overnight bestsellers, having secured a three-book publishing deal with Chronos Publishing. A firm believer of magick, Ray can often be found stargazing under the moon with a tarot deck in one hand and a strong cuppa in the other.
How long have you been vegan?
I’ve been vegan for almost nine years now (Veganuary class of 2018!), and my life has been impacted more and more each day since. When I began making the changes to live a more compassionate lifestyle, other aspects of my life began to change, too—from what I believed about myself, who I spent time with, what I chose to do for a career to being blessed with children (thank you Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen App!) and so much more.
Veganism was almost the stepping stone in aligning with my true self, and to anyone reading this who feels lost, or like they’ve become out of touch with who they are and what they want from life, I cannot express just how much connecting with nature and animals helps rekindle that balance, and from there…magick happens.
What first inspired you to become vegan?
This question is like an onion. There are so many layers! The honest answer is the simplest one (isn’t this often the case with life?). I love animals.
“Well, duh…,” I hear you say, “All vegans do.”
But that’s what I mean! So many people love animals, like truly, full-heartedly LOVE animals. And yet, they’re not vegan. And I was one of these people, for nearly thirty years of my life.
I have loved animals from the very first second of my existence on this planet, and yet I have been complicit in causing animals immense suffering and ultimately, securing their death at the same time. The two just don’t sync. And yet, this is the daily reality for so many people. Or at least, it was for me, for a very long time. My love for animals was intertwined with my love for rare steak, scrambled eggs, mature cheddar cheese, Cadbury’s fruit and nut chocolate, calamari rings, minted lamb chops…you get the point. A smorgasbord of food became more important than the lives of the animals I claimed to love.
It’s an uncomfortable truth that I believe many of us might need to sit with. Once going vegan we can often forget there was once a time that (unless born vegan), we were not.
My realisation of the above is what began this journey, and I am grateful for it. As it happened at a time where I was faced with losing my dad to pancreatic cancer, and other areas of my life falling apart around me. Veganism was one of the many blessings that helped me stand on my own two feet again and not only find myself, but to embark on a quest of becoming the version of myself that deep down I’ve always wanted to be.
What led you to write books with vegan themes?
I write stories with vegan themes to try and save animals. In a nutshell that is the extent of why I wrote the trilogy.
And—perhaps a better question—why books and why writing as a means of exploring these ideas?
This is where I will either speak to a part of your being that needs to hear this, or I will lose you completely. My imagination is my superpower. It always has been. As is my ability to write stories that not only create empathy but that also get people fired up, empowered, and so close to the edge of their seat in frustration that they might get the urge to launch my book out of the window. Then run back outside and grab it because they simply must know how it ends.
I opted to use literature as my form of activism, as I knew this was my strength, my peaceful form of protest that could reach people in a way that has yet to be tapped into at its full potential. The power of epic fantasy is truly unfathomable (think Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and the Hunger Games-type hype). It is a niche with the unlimited capacity to reach people of all ages, cultures, beliefs and values, and not only to reach them, but to move and inspire them too.
So, I figured that’s what I would do. I closed my business and started writing stories to connect people with nature, animals, and magick instead. Now I’m lucky enough to do this full time and to travel the UK teaching others how to do the same through creative writing workshops, and next on my list, is to build a creative writing app to connect even more people with their unique stories too.
We’ve all got a story bubbling away in the cauldron inside of us, I implore you to journal on this a moment … What is yours?
What a fantastic image of a reader launching your book out the window—then going out to pick it back up again! Brilliant. I hope readers do this with all your books. Can you name all your books for us?
Land of Hope and Glory. (Earthlings Book 3)
I figured if I was going to write an epic fantasy, I may as well name them in homage to the documentaries that had such a huge impact on my own journey. If someone searches for my books and opts not to read them, they may stumble across the documentaries and watch them instead…they’re free to watch after all.
Having grown up surrounded by animals—including rescued chickens—I was delighted to see the chickens holding so much power in your first book. Like all the animals in your books, the chickens have important messages to share about their experience of life on Earth. Why did you begin with chickens?
This is a question that students often ask me with genuine confusion: “But Miss—why chickens? Lions would have been more realistic!”
To which I smile ruefully. Because if animals truly were to gain speaking voices and unite together to rule over humanity, the reality is that lions wouldn’t hold the numbers to do it. We have hunted them nearly to extinction. Less than 25,000 remain. How would so few control 8 billion humans? They couldn’t.
But the 33 billion chickens in existence at any given time—if they held voices and vengeance—could they rally together 1.7 billion cantankerous cows and 1.2 billion seething sheep as henchmen and unite to overthrow our species, making us the food source instead of them? It’s a particularly harrowing (and, OK, I know—insane) prospect, but that’s what makes the story so gripping. And why storytelling is so important when it comes to impactful activism.
Anything can happen in fiction.
It also helped to add a hint of humour to the worldbuilding, too, making the subject less heavy. A novel is more likely to appeal to a wider audience if you hold the ability to make a very serious subject not quite so serious.
Your books are filled with significant animal characters. Can we hear more about animals you have known in real life and which of your characters in the Earthlings Trilogy may be inspired by them?
In truth, most of them. The villain is named after a feisty cockerel whom I took in along with nine of his brothers and sisters. My son’s nursery had an Easter hatching experience (I know, I know, don’t get me started) and I rehomed ‘Alan’ and five siblings to my writing retreat in Norfolk and visit them regularly. The remaining four siblings found homes at an animal sanctuary in Essex.
The canine companions in the story are mostly after dogs I have met, and the main two, Phoenix and Freyja are based on my own rescue dogs. Freyja, a brindle Staffordshire Bull Terrier, is the main character Peridot’s Familiar and can wield her magick through their connection, which reflects our bond in real life as I swear, she is me, and I am her. We are connected. Sisters for life.
Phoenix, oh Phoenix. I miss you every day, boy. He was a beloved rednose Pitbull and my brother. He passed away whilst I was writing the end of the trilogy and this is the reason for the lengthy gap between Dominion and Land of Hope and Glory (LOHAG). I couldn’t write. How could I? He was there in the book, but not in reality. It was too painful.
But then Phoenix sent an angel down to help me. A rednose Amstaff (American Staff) and she had his eyes. She was abandoned around the time the XL Bully ban came into the UK, left tied to a lamppost in the freezing cold under a dripping wet willow tree with no collar, no name, no nothing. I took her in and within a week my writer’s block began to dissipate.
Willow appears in LOHAG, a saviour in the story as well as in reality. She’s part dog, part kangaroo, and full of so much love. There are more too, but it could fill another two pages; so many characters in my books are influenced by real life earthlings.
And in the human realm, who are some of your literary and creative inspirations?
I grew up reading in my bedroom, on the sofa, in school, at the library. I truly cherish books. Stories are everything to me. I started with Enid Blyton’s series The Faraway Tree, and I still have the books to this day. I can’t wait for my sons to be old enough to read them. I believe my love for magickal, faraway worlds began here, so it almost makes sense that I created one of my own.
As I grew, my love for young adult (YA) fantasy evolved. If a story held witchcraft or magick within its pages, I was more than likely going to read it. Weyward by Emelia Hart I really enjoyed.
I have a newfound love for whimsical fiction, too. Matt Haig (another vegan author), TJ Klune, and Clare Pooley are my current must-reads. Stories that reflect the realities of humanity, how we think, feel and act as people on this bizarre planet that we are blessed to call home.
I appreciated what Ryan Mizzen had to say about the Earthlings Trilogy in a 2023 review of your work. Mizzen writes, “The fact that [the Earthlings Trilogy] sits within the YA category is important, as it has the potential to influence how younger generations think and interact with the world.” How did you come to know you wanted to write for young adult audiences?
In truth, it came down to what I enjoyed reading. Which, at the time, was YA fantasy.
That, and I believed it to have the widest scope for readership and commercial viability to reach an unlimited audience numbers wise. The fictional tales that went on to become blockbuster movies and have avid fans in multiple countries across the globe, all shared one thing in common. They were based on books written for young adults.
The Hunger Games. Mazerunner. Divergent. All major movies based on YA fantasy trilogies.
So, it made logical sense to me to write one, too. I am grateful for the impact that Peridot’s tale has had on a relatively small readership (to my knowledge approx 6,000 readers to date), but if it were to become a film—a million readers could follow. And if that many people were to read (or watch) the Earthlings tale, I believe it would change the world.
That’s my dream anyway.
Your stories are very well-suited to the YA epic fantasy world. What are your future writing plans—do you hope to write in any other genres or reach additional audiences?
I teach at schools frequently, which I love doing, and I wanted to create something more age appropriate for primary school students, so I’ve written a selection of children’s picture books, which will be published next year.
The title is a work in progress, but the series follows a young boy and girl who stumble across various forms of wildlife in need of help, and with the help of their trusted cape, they transform into a mini wildlife champion and save the animal or insect and save the day. The idea was to portray how anyone can help nature, no matter how old or young we may be.
Teaching has become an unexpected part of my writing journey, and I was surprised to find that I’m pretty good at it, so I’m leaning into that before I write another novel.
I’m currently building a Creative Writing App centered around mindfulness and meditation to guide aspiring authors towards the book they were born to write (we’ve all got one inside us that wants to be written!). I’ve learnt so much on this journey; writing Earthlings changed my life in so many ways. That’s the power that fiction holds, and I think my next step is to help others experience this (should they feel called to) as well.
The app is called Soul Story and is set to launch in January, and I’m equally nervous and excited about it. It’s like launching Earthlings all over again, so I know I’m onto something important.
That being said, I’m itching to book my next writing retreat, go see Alan and his brothers and sisters, and write my next story. I think the world needs magick more than ever right now.
Ray Star and her books can be found at https://www.raystarbooks.com and she welcomes readers to follow her on Instagram and Tiktok via @raystarbooks.
