As well as the Baba Jaga, her absolute favorite of them all.
There are throat-throttling spiders, vampiric zombie-hobgoblins, human flaying mermaids, and dragons. She also loved writing about monsters, which are all over the place in the novel. She had a lot of fun reinterpreting these places through the lens of fantasy. There is also a real salt mine that has a special cameo later on in the novel. Other settings are based off of the picturesque Tatry Mountains and one beautiful port city called Gdansk. She based one of the cities in her novel off of Krakow, including a nod to her favorite pierogi window in the city. While writing an early draft of the novel, she visited Poland for the very first time, and real places inspired many of the settings. She hadn’t even shown this book to anybody else.Īleksandra loved writing about Poland. She had never revised, pitched to any agents, or even gone through any sort of editorial process.
She soon realized that she didn’t know anything about how to write a novel. She had also wanted to be an author, but was far too shy to share with anybody else. The novel is the first she ever finished writing. After that, she became fascinated with Slavic and Polish, and “Don’t Call the Wolf” started taking shape from here. It was almost like the memory was waiting for her to locate it again. Early on, she came upon a description of the Baba Jaga, and she remembered her grandma telling Aleksandra about her as a child. When she died, Aleksandra learned more about her heritage as one way remembering her. She was once pretty disorganized when she would create stories, however now she is obsessed with planning and spreadsheets.Īleksandra’s first novel was inspired by her Polish grandmother. Medicine has made her a much more organized writer, while when writing she reflects on medicine. She also finds her work as a physician and a writer are complementary, and use different parts of her brain. Growing up, she could never quite choose between a career in sciences and arts, and feels lucky she can pursue both. When she isn’t busy writing, she spends most of her time with a thirty-pound black Norwegian Forest Cat called Mr. She grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia, and attended medical school at the University of Alberta. Aleksandra Ross’ earliest memories include sitting on the couch and listening to her grandmother read Polish folktales from her childhood.
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