Art, Fear and Transformation: A Guest Post by Ella Baxter

The author of New Animal returns with Woo Woo, a novel following Sabine, a multi-medium artist getting ready to open a photo exhibition. With the threat of a stalker, a flurry of social media validation and the ghost of Carolee Schneemann, an American visual experimental artist, Ella Baxter blurs the lines between reality and life in this gripping page turner. Read on for Ella’s exclusive essay on the terrifying, real-life inspiration behind Woo Woo.

Woo Woo is a story about bold art making, fear and transformation. I began writing Woo Woo while I was being stalked. Someone, who clearly knew me well, sent letters to me which were violent, sexual, and full of rage. For a long time, I was terrified. I took the advice I was given by police to bunker down, not respond, to not take predictable routes to and from my house. I learned self-defence and hid weapons in my bag and in all the rooms of my home. One night, I confessed to a friend that I felt like I was dying from fear. Being frightened had  begun to dominate everything. She reminded me that my art practice had always been to use life events to inform my art. I will always be grateful to her for encouraging me to lean in, and to write a letter back in response to this person.

Energised by the thought of being able to have a reply, I wrote for hours, getting out of my system and onto the page all the rage and hopelessness I had felt. I had twenty thousand words by the end of the week. A whole manuscript by the end of the month. Woo Woo came in a rush in the same way that making an artwork does. At one point I decided to follow any creative impulse that struck. The manuscript almost demanded it of me. I bought a ski mask from an online camping store and wore the mask while I wrote. I walked through my house wearing it. I stood at the window staring into the garden and imagined my stalker in the shadows staring back. The mask made me feel powerful. It made me feel creative. I bought two more. 

Although it began as a letter, it quickly morphed into a novel. The protagonist split away from me and became her own character. I wrote about art. About marriage. About violence and revenge. I steeped the writing in art by harvesting images from the internet and adding them into the working document. Performance art images by Anna Mendieta and Carolee Schneemann. Paintings by Tracey Emin. Sculptures by Damian Hirst. Words from Dante, Sappho, Plath. I studied books about obsession from writers such as Carmen Maria Machado and Chris Krause. Online, I looked at surveillance camera footage, read court transcripts of stalking cases, and scoured the internet to find footage of stalkers, evidence from home intrusions, photographs and victim impact statements. Writing Woo Woo was a wholly immersive experience.

I have always been an artist. I have a home business making death shrouds, but I also have sculpted giant cocoons and made cloth masks and public altars. I approached writing and thinking about Woo Woo as if it were a sculpture. I kept bending it, moving it around, it was tangible to me. Turning my stalker into a muse for my work has been one of the most creative things I have ever done. I am grateful for the respite from fear that the experience of writing Woo Woo has given me.

Photo credit: Mischa Baka