Violet Lichen Books

Press Release – Violet Lichen Acquires They Call the Place Wild by Rae Mariz
For Immediate Release 4/3/2026

Lexington, KY: Violet Lichen Books is excited to announce the acquisition of THEY CALL THE PLACE WILD by Rae Mariz. Pitched as Richard Powers’ THE OVERSTORY meets the Brothers Grimm and Slavic folklore, this novella is a lush dark fantasy about the stories we’re told and the stories we make for ourselves.

Two young Belarusian sisters live near the Białowieża Forest, the last of the great primeval forests that once covered Europe. Dasha is the shadow sister: dark in nature and demeanor, unlovable to all but Natalya, the sister of bright laughter and generous heart who Dasha will follow anywhere.

So when Natalya is taken away across the forest by a man who promises her everything but intends only nightmares, Dasha does what she’s always done: she follows.

However, deep in the woods she meets the folk, refugees of the industrialized world whose tales were once told across Europe and beyond. Displaced and sequestered in the shrinking old-growth forest, their stories have been distorted or forgotten.

Dasha needs to rescue her sister, but a strange and powerful force would rather keep her in the forest, reweaving her into a longer story of the world and stealing her inner voice. To find her path out, she must learn who to trust, reclaim her voice, and forge her own story.

They Call the Place Wild is a masterfully woven tale that spirals outward, growing like rings on a tree and rippling with shadow and light. It is a love letter to refugees, the natural world, and folklore.  

Hawaiian author Rae Mariz lives in Sweden and is also an artist, translator, and cultural critic. She’s the author of the YA sci-fi THE UNIDENTIFIED and the climate fantasy WEIRD FISHES, and her short fiction has been featured in khōréō and Solarpunk Magazine, finalist in Grist’s third annual Imagine 2200 Climate Fiction contest, and made the shortlist for 2023 IAFA Imagining Indigenous Futures Award. 

THEY CALL THE PLACE WILD  is scheduled for release in February 2027 and is the fourth slated release in Violet Lichen’s lineup, following ECO25 the second volume of The Year’s Best Speculative Ecofiction anthology in November 2026. It has distribution through IPG. 

Marissa van Uden, Violet Lichen’s EiC, said: “They Call the Place Wild is exactly the kind of novella I hoped to find for the Violet Lichen Books catalog. It’s beautiful and humane, it speaks to the meta-crisis our natural world is facing and how all parts of the ecosystem are impacted– including humans–and it plays with storytelling and folklore in a way that challenges the reader but rewards them deeply for their attention. It’s also about a very real place, one of the last great old-growth forests still standing, which makes it a timely work as well.” 

Violet Lichen is an imprint of Apex Book Company, which has published award-winning titles such as Plague Birds by Jason Sanford (Nebula Award Finalist for Best Novel and Philip K. Dick Award Finalist), Danged Black Thing by Eugen Bacon (Philip K. Dick Award finalist 2023), and the Weird horror cult hit Greener Pastures by Michael Wehunt.