Chat #25 - Amy Twigg
"Tarot has really helped order my thoughts, particularly with writing"
This interview is free to read. Paid subscriptions support artist honoraria.
Amy Twigg is a writer born and raised in Kent. Her debut novel, Spoilt Creatures, won the BPA Pitch Prize and was longlisted for multiple awards, including the Mslexia Novel Competition. In 2024, she was selected as one of The Observer’s Best New Novelists. Her second novel, Milk, Bread, Teeth, is due in 2027.
Discover more on Amy Twigg’s Instagram
26/03/2026, 19:33 - Finbarre:
Welcome, one and all, back to Tarot DMs with Finbarre. Today, I’m talking to Amy Twigg, who writes fiction with mud on its wellies and with a beguiling smile.
She is the author of Spoilt Creatures, a debut that announced itself with real force, with prize recognition, major attention, and a place among the Observer’s best new novelists.
Hello Amy, welcome to Tarot DMs!
26/03/2026, 19:35 - Amy Twigg:
Hello. It’s so good to be here. And I’m a really big fan of tarot. I have a gorgeous Jim Henson’s labyrinth deck. So yeah, I’m really excited to see what pops up.
26/03/2026, 19:36 - Finbarre:
That sounds like such a gorgeous, magnificent deck. I am a big fan of Labyrinth. I showed it to my kids who wondered spellbound what the hell was going on. And I think that’s the effect that it’s probably had on everyone throughout the decades. It is marvellous. I’m really curious to know, before we get into your cards, just talk me through what the major arcana is like and the various suits.
26/03/2026, 19:39 - Amy Twigg:
26/03/2026, 19:39 - Finbarre: I love the idea that if an unwanted card comes up (looking at you TEN OF SWORDS) you could briskly say “You have no power over me”
26/03/2026, 19:41 - Amy Twigg:
It’s a really beautiful deck and you know with some licensed products you kind of feel like the IP’s just been slapped on top of it. But this is not the case here. There’s a lot of attention that’s been paid to it.
The art is gorgeous and they’ve really sort of, they’ve thought quite carefully about how to apply Labyrinth to tarot.
So some of my favourite major arcana is the hangman, which is Ludo, if you’re familiar with Ludo, hanging upside down.
Justice is the wall of hands, which is pretty striking.
What else have we got?
Judgment is those two goats that guard the two doors. And then we’ve got the Suit of Poles, which are wands. The Suit of Junk, which I think is Cups.
Oh gosh, yeah. I’m not sure what the others are, but it’s a really beautiful deck.
26/03/2026, 19:41 - Amy Twigg: I do exactly this
26/03/2026, 19:41 - Amy Twigg: It’s also never steered me wrong!
26/03/2026, 19:42 - Finbarre: Tomas Hijo has really captured the unsettling earthiness that veers on the grotesque here. Love them!
26/03/2026, 19:43 - Amy Twigg: My best friend bought me the deck for my birthday, and I’ve never felt the need to augment or replace it - the deck’s perfect!
26/03/2026, 19:44 - Finbarre:
I love it when you find a deck that just feels right in the hands. Apart from my Rider Waite Smith deck that I’ve been carrying with me since about 1993, every so often I do fall in love with the occasional one. And the one we’re using today is one of the special ones that I found this year. As soon as I saw them, I had to get them straight away.
The deck itself is by the Theatre Deli and the Theatre Deli have created a tarot deck, 78 different cards from 55 artists in their community. Not all of them started out as artists, but they’ve put together something quite beautiful. There is so much originality, so many interesting questions that these cards pose. I’ll show you the box and then we’ll get on to the questions.
26/03/2026, 19:45 - Finbarre:
26/03/2026, 19:46 - Amy Twigg: This is brilliant. I feel like giving artists free reign over their interpretation of the cards must imbue it with particularly good energy
26/03/2026, 19:47 - Finbarre: The full project can be found here - https://www.theatredeli.co.uk/tarot and is well worth checking out. OK, so we’re in March and the theme is...
26/03/2026, 19:47 - Finbarre:
26/03/2026, 19:48 - Amy Twigg:
That’s so interesting because I was just giving this deck a Google and was immediately drawn to the art on the Strength card. This is intriguing.
26/03/2026, 19:50 - Finbarre:
Not only is the card delightful, but it has particular resonance for me this month.
Because round about January, where I fell over on a piece of black ice in the middle of the street and accidentally broke my ankle. Completely broke. It was like a broken clock. It has been put back together. And this month, well, this fortnight, is the first time I have actually been walking around. So I feel like this has particular resonance for me personally.
It’s that card of inner steadiness. It’s also emotional balance and patience. And I’ve had to have so much patience. And morphine, but mainly patience. It’s that thing of realizing that you’re not being overwhelmed by intense feelings, but you are ruling them yourself. It’s often a card of courage.
How’s March been for you so far?
26/03/2026, 19:52 - Amy Twigg:
Oh, I’m so sorry to hear about your ankle. Oh, black ice, treacherous. But it’s really interesting because I feel in some ways that we’ve had very similar Marches. So earlier this month, I had surgery, I had a laparoscopy to check out some symptoms and it turned out that my endometriosis has gotten much worse. And so, yeah, I had my surgery for that. And so the past few weeks have actually been me recovering from that. So it has required a lot of mental fortitude.
And, you know, like with the Strength card, it sort of teaches us that you can’t brute force your way into resolving every situation. Sometimes you have to be, you know, more ponderous. And that has definitely been the theme for me this month. Quiet inner strength.
So, yes, in many ways, it sounds like we’ve had very similar Marches.
26/03/2026, 19:55 - Finbarre:
I’m so sorry to hear that you’ve had a time of it as well. While you were talking, I put my thoughts together about your creative journey. And here’s your Strength question.
Spoilt Creatures, your book, wrestles with rage without softening it. What kind of courage does it take to let women on the page be feral. Wounded. Difficult?
26/03/2026, 19:59 - Amy Twigg:
That’s a really interesting question. I’ve never heard someone phrase it quite like that before. Because I think it’s so easy to assume that writing rage is itself an easy practice or a gratifying practice. And in reality, that’s not always the case.
I’ve always said that Sport Creatures was written during a really difficult time. I started writing it properly in lockdown. And the landscape for women was changing rapidly. Domestic violence against women was on the rise. And, you know, the violence against the trans community and Roe v. Wade had just been rolled back.
I think the lesson that I was learning is that even if you protest, your voice can be suppressed. And so the act of rage itself didn’t quite feel as freeing as it once did. It sort of felt transgressive again.
In a way that I feel women my age sort of hadn’t quite experienced yet. Unfortunately, I think every woman probably lives through a period where they feel like they can’t rage.
And I think the reason that we’re seeing so many books now about women’s rage is that is our form of transgression at the minute, that this is our rebellion. So it certainly wasn’t an easy book to write. And it felt important to show that the women of Breach House, their rage manifests in ways you wouldn’t necessarily think.
It’s not that they’re violent or vulgar. They certainly can be both of those things. But they’re also extremely caring. They are all intelligent women. I think we see their rage manifest in positive ways as well. They’re very self-sustaining. That to me is more interesting than writing, you know, people just screaming at the top of their lungs, which is cathartic, don’t get me wrong, but not necessarily the rage that I wanted to explore.
I think in relation to the Strength card, it’s a really interesting topic because rage can look like many things.
26/03/2026, 20:04 - Finbarre:
Now, depending on the second card, the Wild card, and the third card, which is the Gift card, we may be coming back to the topic of rage, possibly, hopefully something sunnier and brighter.
Speaking of sunny and bright, as I’m looking at this Strength card, there’s one particular thing here that I completely missed.
It was straight in front of me, and that is the strength drawn from the creature that’s here. I mean, I don’t know if it’s an emotional support lion, but it has me thinking. As you were healing yourself, and you were like me, you were probably with your feet up, I hope! Did you get the chance to get any fuss from your trusty beast?
And, if I can ask, do you have a picture so you can introduce them?
26/03/2026, 20:05 - Amy Twigg: Yes! Any excuse to talk about my emotional support beast, Dexter
26/03/2026, 20:06 - Amy Twigg:
26/03/2026, 20:07 - Amy Twigg:
Those are my most recent pictures of him as he’s an old man now. He’s just 10, 13, but he has been with me throughout the entire writing journey.
In fact, when I started writing Spoilt Creatures, it was in our previous house and my writing room was actually the tiny boiler room, which could basically fit the boiler, a tumble dryer and a desk, what constitutes as a desk.
And that’s where I would write the novel every day. And without fail, Dexter would be at my feet the whole day while I was writing. And yeah, he’s a Spaniel, so he’s a nightmare, but he’s our nightmare.
26/03/2026, 20:08 - Finbarre:
Oh Amy, that is a snorglesome hound, especially as he’s in that sunbeam there!
He looks like a fluffy cuddle incarnate.
26/03/2026, 20:08 - Amy Twigg: Look at him, he’s an angel
26/03/2026, 20:09 - Finbarre: Give him a ruzzle and fuss from me! Adore!
26/03/2026, 20:09 - Amy Twigg: I shall!
26/03/2026, 20:09 - Amy Twigg: An exclusive from me, I’m dedicating my next book to him
26/03/2026, 20:10 - Finbarre:
Thank you, Amy. I think if I ever write a book, I’ll be dedicating it to Dexter as well. That jumper is, it’s precious.
This is almost distracting me from the fact that we have card number two to do. I have the Theatre Deli Tarot in my hands, and I’m currently shuffling the deck as we speak. There we go. You might be able to hear that.
And I’d like you to reach out from wherever you are in the UK and say, stop when the moment feels right, and we’ll see what we get. Hopefully it’s a good one, but we’ll see.
26/03/2026, 20:12 - Amy Twigg: Stopppp
26/03/2026, 20:12 - Finbarre: Huh. Haven’t seen this one for a good while. You have the… *drum roll*
26/03/2026, 20:13 - Finbarre:
26/03/2026, 20:13 - Amy Twigg:
Iiiiinteresting.
26/03/2026, 20:14 - Finbarre:
Now Amy, tell me about your first impressions of this card, your creeping dreads, your initial joys. What vibes do you get?
26/03/2026, 20:17 - Amy Twigg:
This is so interesting because whenever I do my own tarot pull, I very, very rarely pull any Wands.
So the fact that they’ve popped up now is really interesting.
I feel overwhelmingly positive about the card, but that may have something to do with the lovely blue sky on the card itself and my tarot knowledge isn’t nearly as in-depth as yours is. So yeah, I would love you to enlighten me.
26/03/2026, 20:20 - Finbarre:
You know, stumbling upon this card is a little bit like meeting an exciting friend at a party. I have recently got this deck, and this card has never come up yet. And I didn’t do the thing of looking through each card one by one. I only look at them when they appear within a spread.
So, now I’m meeting it for the first time. I mean, traditionally, the Three of Wands is a card of expansion and momentum, seeing what comes next. I mean, the whole looking across the sea is that essence and vision. It often leads into business growth or creative development or long-term planning, waiting for news.
It’s positive, but with just a little sprinkling of patience required.
26/03/2026, 20:20 - Finbarre:
If it carried a message, it would say something like “You have done the groundwork, lift your eyes, and think bigger”.
26/03/2026, 20:21 - Finbarre:
So to condense all that down into a tarot question, I would say, as you stand with your feet planted firmly in success, which direction feels most exciting to you?
26/03/2026, 20:24 - Amy Twigg:
I think the card has come at a really interesting time because, creatively speaking, I’ve just handed in my edits for my next book, Milk Bread Teeth, but I’m also sowing the seeds of book three.
And actually, for the first time ever as an author, the idea for this next book has come to me almost fully formed, which, I mean, every time I ever heard another writer say that, I always just assumed it was nonsense. But it has now happened to me, so I can confirm it can happen.
So I’ve really been thinking a lot about this next world and this next story that I want to immerse myself in.
But also, personally speaking, as I mentioned, I’m just coming out of surgery, recovering from surgery, and I’ve learned a lot of new things about my body and, you know, sort of what that journey is going to look like going forward. And although, you know, like living with chronic illness isn’t easy by any measure, I’m actually feeling like I’m in quite a hopeful place in my life where, you know, the work is ahead of you, but it’s work that you’ve done before.
You can do it again and you know, you can improve on it. And yeah, that’s kind of how I’m feeling at the minute in life.
I’m feeling like I’m standing on a precipice at the minute, but it doesn’t feel scary. It’s intimidating, but it feels challenging in all the right ways. So yeah, I’m very happy to see that card.
26/03/2026, 20:28 - Finbarre:
The minds of writers to me are endlessly fascinating, especially as my brain isn’t quite geared up that way. And I always imagine that when you are creating a world, it must be a cross between a labyrinth and a kaleidoscope.
How do you synthesize an entire book or an entire story? Do you visualize it like a film? Does it come to you in words? Is it like you live it yourself and you write about the experience? I’m really curious to know more.
26/03/2026, 20:32 - Amy Twigg:
I think every writer is different. And I think it’s directly impacted by how you think generally. So you know, this anecdote of if somebody says the word apple, are you able to visualize it? You know, or how do you visualize it? Can you just think of the word? Or can you see the image of an apple in your mind’s eye? And if you can, is it in color or is it in grayscale?
You know, when I think of an apple, I can visualize it. I can visualize the texture of it. I can visualize the flavor of it. It generally means that I think in quite cinematic terms. I mean, I love film. I specifically love horror films. And I think horror is a great way to really dig, delve into stories and approach them from really interesting angles.
And I actually find that I’m really inspired by a lot of horror films. But when it comes to actually, you know, getting words down on the page, yeah, I see it already in my mind’s eye, like a film is playing.
It doesn’t necessarily mean that the scene has finished filming. But it is there in my mind’s eye, which has its ups and downs. That can actually mean that you sort of force yourself into this rigidity that you then are afraid to deviate from because you see it in your mind’s eye and it makes you afraid to change it. You know, you can’t be afraid to kill your darlings.
But yes, I think some writers think cinematically, but others I know will just, you know, they’ll see the words on the page and those are the words on the page. And neither approach is, you know, is right or wrong. It’s just how your brain is wired. And that’s what makes it so interesting, I think.
26/03/2026, 20:37 - Finbarre:
As a fan of horror and the unconventional, you may like your third and final card.
This is the guest card that’s been given to you by Joanne Harris, the writer of Chocolat and Vianne. And she has given you this card, which is going to be interesting.
26/03/2026, 20:37 - Amy Twigg: Joanne Harris, how exciting!
26/03/2026, 20:38 - Finbarre:
26/03/2026, 20:38 - Amy Twigg: Now THAT’S a card
26/03/2026, 20:38 - Finbarre:
Isn’t it? Okay, how do we feel about the Queen of Swords?
26/03/2026, 20:39 - Finbarre: She’s IMPRESSIVE
26/03/2026, 20:40 - Amy Twigg:
First of all, this card is sensational. The art is beautiful. I want to be her. I want to imbue this energy going forward. I think it’s brilliant that Joanne Harris has chosen it because it feels like a gift. It feels, yes, this feels like a good gift to have. I feel like I need this energy going forward.
26/03/2026, 20:42 - Finbarre:
I think so many representations of the Queen of Swords aim, try, lean towards impressiveness, but this card delivers.
It has to have the energy of being self-possessed. It needs to be unobtainable, but it needs to be imbued with wisdom and boundaries above all and a refusal to indulge confusion. Somebody who does not suffer fools. I do love this one. That card of strategic thinking, of expertise.
26/03/2026, 20:44 - Finbarre:
At the moment for Bedtime Stories, I’m currently reading The Magician’s Nephew to my two children. And I’ve forgotten how good it is.
I mean, obviously C.S. Lewis is brilliant. Well, The Witch and the Wardrobe, an eternal classic.
But in some ways, I prefer The Magician’s Nephew, especially when a queen, Queen Jadis, spoilers galore if you’re about to read the book, goes on a rampage through Victorian London.
She, from what I can tell, knocks out a couple of policemen by wrenching off a bar off a lamppost, bops them on the head, steals a horse, somehow has a knife from somewhere, waving it in the air. And anyone she doesn’t like, she just throws across the room. She’s wonderful.
She has big Queen of Swords energy.
26/03/2026, 20:44 - Amy Twigg: I like to think I am reaching the era of my life where I suffer no fool, beside myself
26/03/2026, 20:44 - Finbarre:
Amy, your last tarot question is this:
How do you edit your work with precision whilst preserving the wilderness?
26/03/2026, 20:50 - Amy Twigg:
I haven’t revisited C.S. Lewis since I was a kid, but that sounds wonderful. You’re making me want to go back to those stories. And that’s an excellent question. I think as you become, I think as time passes and you become a more confident writer, your instincts and your reflexes, like with anything, your reflexes, you know, they gradually hone themselves and you learn to trust your guts a lot more.
I think when I was editing Spoilt Creatures, I was trying to think in very technical terms, you know, what was moving the plot along and what wasn’t. And for my second book, I sort of, I allowed my subconscious to guide me a lot more, knowing which instincts to follow and knowing which directions to allow yourself to be pulled in and which ones to pull away from.
It’s not helpful advice, unfortunately, but it is the honest advice that I can give is that, you know, hopefully with enough practice, you will develop that instinct. And I don’t think you can develop those instincts and those reflexes without practice, practice, practice, but it gets easier. It does get easier.
26/03/2026, 20:52 - Amy Twigg: I have also heard, with each novel, the writing gets easier whilst the editing gets harder - and that is also true!
26/03/2026, 20:53 - Finbarre:
Direct and frank advice. How like the Queen of Swords.
Amy we have now almost got to the end of your interview and this is the time where you get to get out your own tarot deck and show me some of the wonderful visions from Labyrinth so pick up your deck if the cards and shuffle if you wish to.
Alternatively if one jumps out, there’s one particular card that’s caught your attention whichever it is, however you select it take a picture of it and I’ll pass it to the next guest.
26/03/2026, 20:56 - Amy Twigg:
26/03/2026, 20:56 - Amy Twigg: That would be the Page of Pentacles, reversed!
26/03/2026, 20:59 - Finbarre:
Okay, so somehow out of all of the cards that you have there, you’ve managed to pull out one of my nightmares from watching that film.
I remember the first time I saw that, and when the Junk Lady says something like, “Everything you’ve ever cared about is all right here”.
And then the, “What’s the matter, my dear? Don’t you like your toys?” I won’t do her voice. Saying those words puts chills down my spine even now. It’s a powerful card.
Thank you so much for that Amy
26/03/2026, 21:00 - Amy Twigg: I truly appreciate your Labyrinth literacy. I feel in safe hands
26/03/2026, 21:02 - Finbarre:
Well, I think that’s the finest review I’ve ever had. I mean, of course, that particular card, looking at it closer, looks more like a silly little dude who’s probably part of the Junk Lady’s family or connection. Yeah, we’re going to get some interesting replies from that particular card.
26/03/2026, 21:03 - Amy Twigg: Thank you so much for having me, this has by far been the most dynamic interview I’ve ever done! Tarot has really helped order my thoughts, particularly with writing, so today’s draw was fascinating
26/03/2026, 21:06 - Finbarre:
Thank you so much, Amy, for sharing your thoughts, your process, and some of those deeper undercurrents behind spoiled creatures. And please give Dexter a big scritch from me.
Thank you for listening and you can find out more about Tarot DMs at tarotdms.com, where guests share stories by text message and see what the tarot has in store for them.