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Special Edition: Upcoming Interview With Charlotte Wood, Author of "Stoneyard Devotional"
If you could ask Charlotte Wood a question about her work and her writing, what would it be?
Blake Reichenbach
February 25, 2025
I try to include my “Hey, guess who’s coming on the podcast” alerts in standard newsletter editions when possible. But since this one is coming up between scheduled newsletters, I wanted to make a special callout.
Upcoming Inkwell Insights podcast guest Charlotte Wood published Stone Yard Devotional in 2023. In the years since, it’s a novel that has only grown more pertinent for readers.
Let’s take a peek at how the book’s publisher describes it.
Burnt out and in need of retreat, a middle-aged woman leaves Sydney to return to the place she grew up, taking refuge in a small religious community hidden away on the stark plains of rural Australia. She doesn’t believe in God, or know what prayer is, and finds herself living this strange, reclusive existence almost by accident.
But disquiet interrupts this secluded life with three visitations. First comes a terrible mouse plague, each day signaling a new battle against the rising infestation. Second is the return of the skeletal remains of a sister who disappeared decades before, presumed murdered. And finally, a troubling visitor plunges the narrator further back into her past.
Meditative, moving, and finely observed, Stone Yard Devotional is a seminal novel from a writer of rare power, exploring what it means to retreat from the world, the true nature of forgiveness, and the sustained effect of grief on the human soul.
In Stone Yard Devotional, Wood explores themes of solitude and the motif of retreating from modern life. What drew me to it– and to Wood– was the universal experience I’ve observed in myself, coworkers, and friends of feeling burnt out and wanting to retreat to a place of quiet and stillness. In recent months, one of my long-term coworkers left our employer and is taking time to ski, explore carpentry, and volunteer on a flower farm. His example caused me to step back and ask myself what I would like to do if I felt like I had the opportunity to take a hiatus from the corporate world for a time.
Unlike the protagonist of Stone Yard, I don’t foresee myself entering a monastery or joining a religious order. Instead, my pursuit of solitude would likely lead me to a horse farm or the mountains.
In Conversation with Charlotte Wood
In the upcoming podcast episode with Charlotte Wood, we’ll be unpacking:
The themes of solitude and the desire to escape from modern life
What keeps Charlotte writing after seven novels and three nonfiction books
Creating character-driven stories that are rooted in inner turmoil
The lessons Charlotte has learned over her writing career
and more!
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