The Graves on the Mountain by Joseph Dodd was highly commended in the 2021 2021 Author of Tomorrow

The Graves on the Mountain: Fresh-faced anthropologist Henri Theroux accepts a job, as an assistant to Professor Angus MacArthur Heyward. The disgraced archaeologist’s work has made him a laughingstock. However, after joining Heyward in the Egyptian wilderness, Theroux begins to be drawn into the professor's extraordinary discoveries. Together, they investigate the graves on the mountain…

An Interview with Joseph: 

WNSF: What is your favourite book? 

It’s quite hard for me to pick my favourite book. It’s always changing, but one that’s definitely high on my list is Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. It’s got a bit of everything: intrigue, sea voyages, battles, danger, and excitement. Jim Hawkins is a protagonist you can cheer for, and Long John Silver is such a complex antihero. It’s just a great, classic piece of adventure fiction.

WNSF: Who is your favourite author? Or one who has inspired you and why?

The author who has had the biggest impact on me is Brian Jacques. His Redwall series changed the way I understood writing and storytelling, and even though I haven’t read the books for years, Brian Jacques is still a big influence on me.

WNSF: What was your favourite subject at school? 

My favourite subject was drama. It’s a wonderful way to express your creativity. You get to work closely with friends and build your own confidence. It’s such an open canvas compared to other subjects.

WNSF: What does ‘adventure writing’ mean to you? Why did you choose to try your hand at an adventure story?

I love writing in the adventure genre because, when I’m writing a story, I like to be excited by the journey as much as I hope the reader will be, and adventure fiction guarantees that.

‘Adventure writing’ could mean any number of things, but I think one sign of a good adventure story is when the writer creates new worlds within the one we know. For me, this is done best by Jules Verne. In Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea you have a professor, who thinks he understands everything about the ocean, who goes on an adventure that convinces him that there’s so much more to learn. Phileas Fogg’s travels in Around the World in Eighty Days represent each culture on Earth as its own little world, at a time when Britain thought it owned the planet. Verne’s work expands the reader’s horizons, and that, for me, is great adventure writing.

WNSF: If you could ask an author anything, what would you want to know?

I’m not sure why, but the question I always want to ask an author is: ‘What’s your favourite book?’, or ‘What book influenced you the most?’ I think every author’s choice would be different and surprising. It’s like asking a comedian what makes them laugh; you might get an answer you’d never expect.

WNSF: Who would you consider one of your heroes and why?

The first person who comes to mind is Steve Backshall, presenter of Deadly 60. Like the late, great Steve Irwin, he’s an amazing conservationist who brilliantly reveals how exciting and beautiful all animals are. His shows are full of action and journeys through wild places. His energy and joy on-screen are infectious, and his humour and generosity also make him such a positive role model.

WNSF: Where do you find inspiration for your stories?

I wish I knew! Sometimes my writing starts with an idea for a character. Or maybe I think of a question, and I write the story to try and answer it, and other times it might just be an interesting concept. My initial ideas come from all sorts of places and inspirations.

WNSF: What is the most adventurous thing you would like to do, or place you would like to visit and why?

I’ve got a very long list of ideas. Probably the most adventurous of them would be to visit an Antarctic research base, or a rainforest like the Amazon or the Congo. More realistically, I’d like to do the Land’s End – John O’Groats walk, which goes the full length of Great Britain. I think that would be a healthy, personal journey.

WNSF: If you could time travel, where would you go and why? 

I’d go back to London in the late 1500s and watch a Shakespeare play at the Globe. You can’t beat the original cast!

WNSF: What three words would you use to describe your story?

Supernatural – Mystery – Archaeology