Rosalie Fox is a South African author with a background in Creative Writing and agriculture.
She’s an avid aviation history geek, and when she’s not writing, she’s working with her milch goats or in the cheesery… or at an airshow.
Her books delve deep into history and human nature, and you’ll find a fine thread of hope, grief and poetry running through her stories.
Hello there, I’m Rosalie Fox, and I write historical fiction and am obsessed with whimsy, vintage things, and aviation history. I’m married to the love of my life and research partner. He breeds Appaloosa horses, and I’m a goat girl with a herd of Alpines, and I run a small goat cheesery in my spare time.
Tell me a bit about your road to publication in South Africa
I studied BA Communication with Creative Writing, which led to my early traditional publication in a compilation by Fanie Viljoen many years ago, when I was still young and running wild. Life interfered then, and I didn’t write for a long time — until A Tale of Wild Geese came home to roost in 2023. The story had been haunting me since I was sixteen-ish and it’s so deeply in possession of my heart and soul, it was the most beautiful and healing thing to finally rewrite and publish it.
I’ve always had a vision for what this book-turned-series should look like, and the watered-down covers traditional publishing currently produces just aren’t it. That was my main motivator for self-publishing.
A Tale of Wild Geese and its sequel came out in rapid succession in 2023, and were followed by The Red Cross Letters in 2024. I’m currently writing another spin-off, carrying on with the family saga of our original Wild Geese. Its working title is A Flight of Plover,s and it’s set in the mohair industry post-WWII, featuring some amazing South African aviation history.
Are any scenes in the books based on real-life events?
I dip deep into history for my books — they’re very much a tribute to the men and women who went before us. The photographs might have been black and white, but their lives and feelings weren’t. You’ll find a lot of historical events woven into the fabric of my stories — the Battle of Britain, the war in the Philippines, the Battle of Crete, the boom of the mohair industry after the war…
If your book were made into a movie, which actors would play your characters?
Movies… now you’re talking, because A Tale of Wild Geese was always meant to be a movie!
Saoirse Ronan would do very nicely as Eleanor, with just a hint of Irish lilt in her voice. Sophie Turner would be a great Janice. Cillian Murphy would do Johnny Reilly perfectly — picture that ‘no fighting’ scene from Peaky Blinders. Danny, you ask? That’s hard, because I haven’t found anyone perfect enough to be Danny darlin’ yet.
What is your favourite childhood book?
I read voraciously and mostly way above my age as a kid, so that’s a hard one. I was obsessed with Elyne Mitchell’s Brumby books, Sarah Patterson’s The Distant Summer and Dalene Matthee’s Circles in the Forest, to name just a few. Oh, and Louis L’Amour! I still have over sixty of them on my bookshelf.
Tell me about your writing routine
Sheer chaos, usually. Mornings begin with critter care. All the goat and horse duties have to be done first, and then usually I tuck in for a 10:00 to lunch session. When the book takes hold, I usually try and do some afternoon writing too before the next critter care session… and sometimes book possession happens and I might just get up at one in the morning and write till breakfast time.
How do you celebrate when you finish your book?
The good old weep and sleep! Possession by the book usually occurs in the second half, and I struggle to stop or maintain a proper sleep routine. Endings have to punch me in the gut, and so I cry bitterly and then crawl into bed and catch up on the lost sleep for a few hours.
How do you select the names of your characters?
I don’t get a say. They walk in and tell me who they are, and I salute and say, “Yes ma’am.” With side characters, I’ll often pull up lists of 100 most popular names from whatever district and stick one together from the lists.
What inspired the idea for your book?
My heart’s darling, A Tale of Wild Geese, was inspired by Phil Coulter’s piano piece Lament for the Wild Geese and W.B. Yeats’s poem An Irish Airman Foresees His Death. A Place to Land was the natural continuation of Johnny Reilly’s story. Red Cross Letters came from nowhere. We were driving to town, and Richard Norwood knocked on the car window and told me who he was. I don’t understand it either, but here we are. A Flight of Plovers is once again the natural continuation of my original Wild Geese’s story… and The French Gull, yet to be written, was inspired by a story told by one of my readers-turned-friends at the launch of Wild Geese.
If you could spend a day with another popular author, whom would you choose?
Another hard question… Dalene Matthee told stories like no one else and I would have loved to listen to her. Apart from her, I have a long list of current authors who are the most wonderful people on the planet, and I would happily spend a morning with them!
Would you be friends with any of the characters from your book in real life?
Would they be friends with me, though? I love these people like they aren’t just figments of my imagination. I spend hours invisible, wandering through their lives, and I see snippets of myself and people I love in them. Yet, I’m not sure they’d want to be my friends.
Do you have a message for your readers?
There are holy things and golden moments in every day. Life is short. Find the small, beautiful things in everyday life, and embrace them with your whole being. The small joys right where you are now are everything. And live-live with every fibre of your being — and do and dream what you are passionate about. You were given a dream so you can grow into it.
Find Rosalie Fox online:
Amazon UK | Amazon.com | Instagram
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