The more I wrote the more I realised there are steps everywhere
In the long tradition of writers who find in art a shelter against grief, Irish author Juliano Zaffino has arrived with a debut novel that asks how families survive loss when the stories they tell themselves are all they have. The Steps, rooted in the layered meanings of its title — stepfatherhood, addiction, biblical ascent — draws on autobiography without surrendering to it, offering instead a portrait of invented people who feel achingly real. Zaffino's journey to publication is itself a story about patience and connection, shaped by a decade of championing other writers' books, a PhD on Shakespeare's editorial afterlife, and a poem about a medieval dancing plague that somehow found its way into the heart of a Florence Welch album.
- A debut novel years in the making has finally arrived, carrying the weight of grief, stepfatherhood, addiction, and biblical myth inside a single, quietly explosive title.
- The book's central tension — a man who reconnects with a childhood love and inherits five grieving children — risks domestic thriller territory before revealing itself as something far more interior and urgent.
- Zaffino's poem about the 1616 Strasbourg dancing plague reached Florence Welch, who built an entire album around it, an act of artistic transmission so surreal he still hasn't fully absorbed it.
- His commitment to reading — including a year of consuming and reviewing a book a day — reflects a philosophy that writing without reading is a kind of wilful blindness.
- Three new projects are already in motion, suggesting a writer who has found his main road and has no intention of slowing down.
Juliano Zaffino's debut novel The Steps opens with Derek, a man who has reunited with a widowed childhood sweetheart and must now navigate the bewildering terrain of stepfatherhood with her five children. As accumulated grief begins to surface in the household, what might seem like domestic thriller material reveals itself as something more searching: an inquiry into how families survive loss through art, myth, and the stories they construct about themselves.
Zaffino describes the novel as autobiographically inflected rather than strictly autobiographical — minor personal details lend texture and authenticity, but the larger architecture is invention. The title operates on multiple registers simultaneously: the stepfather's place in the family, a staircase where someone falls, the Twelve Steps of addiction recovery, and Jacob's Ladder reaching between earth and heaven. These layers were not planned from the outset but accumulated as he wrote, each one revealing itself to a writer who had learned to look for steps everywhere.
Before the novel, Zaffino published a poetry collection in 2020 and has spent nearly a decade running YourShelf, a bespoke book-subscription service and podcast. It was through this work that he discovered Tramp Press, his eventual publisher. Poetry, he now reflects, was always the detour. Prose feels like the main road — though one poem has had an extraordinary afterlife. His 2021 piece about the Strasbourg dancing plague of 1616 found its way to Florence Welch, who built her 2022 album Dance Fever around it. Watching Welch perform Choreomania to fifteen thousand dancing people, Zaffino understood he had brought the plague back to life in exactly the way he had always imagined. He calls himself patient zero for that particular artistic transmission.
His relationship with reading is inseparable from his writing. In 2021 he undertook what he calls the deranged project of reading and reviewing a book a day, a practice that confirmed his belief that at least half of writing is reading. He also holds a PhD on Shakespeare production, examining how directors cut and reshape plays that were almost never performed in their entirety — a scholarly preoccupation with editing and intention that clearly informs his own work. Three new projects are now underway: a multiverse novel, a war correspondent narrative, and a memoir on art and obsession. He moves forward with the conviction that the scaffolding sometimes has to come down, and that every journey, for those who read enough, is a literary pilgrimage.
Juliano Zaffino's debut novel, The Steps, arrives as the work of someone who has spent years thinking about how stories hold us together. The book opens with Derek, a man who has reconnected with Sophie, a childhood sweetheart now widowed, and finds himself navigating the strange terrain of stepfatherhood with her five children. As their accumulated griefs begin to surface, Derek starts to question what he has actually invited into his home—a premise that sounds like domestic thriller material until you realize the real subject is how families survive loss through art, myth, and the stories they tell themselves.
Zaffino describes The Steps as autobiographically inflected rather than strictly autobiographical. The distinction matters. He drew on minor details from his own life to give his characters texture and authenticity, the kind of specificity that makes fictional families feel like they could be real. But the larger architecture—the plot, the central conflicts—is invention. The title itself operates on multiple registers. There is the stepfather's position in the family hierarchy. There is the staircase where someone falls. There are the Twelve Steps of addiction recovery. And there is Jacob's Ladder, that biblical image of ascent and connection between earth and heaven. Zaffino didn't plan all of this from the beginning. The layers accumulated as he wrote. "The more I wrote the more I realised there are steps everywhere for those with eyes to see," he says.
What emerges from The Steps is a novel about grief as something that demands expression. The five children in the book are artists and storytellers, and when trauma arrives, they turn to the mediums they love—art, narrative, performance—to process what has happened to them. For Zaffino, this felt inevitable. He cannot imagine navigating life without art and stories, and it seemed natural that characters who are passionate about these things in good times would reach for them in bad times.
Before The Steps, Zaffino published a poetry collection called All Those Bodies And They're Moving through YourShelf Press in 2020. YourShelf itself is a bespoke book-subscription service and podcast that Zaffino has run for nearly a decade. It was through this work that he discovered Tramp Press, the publisher of his debut novel. He sent them books to consider for his subscription bundles, and the connection was immediate. "They've never published a bad book," he says. Poetry, he reflects now, was always the detour. Prose feels like the main road.
There is one poem, though, that has had an outsized life. In 2021, Zaffino wrote a piece called Strasbourg about the dancing plague of 1616, a historical phenomenon he has long been obsessed with. Florence Welch read it. The poem lodged in her mind. In 2022, she released the album Dance Fever, directly inspired by Zaffino's work and the plague itself. When Zaffino attended one of her shows and watched Welch sing the song Choreomania to a crowd of fifteen thousand people dancing around her, he realized he had indirectly brought the plague to life in the way he always wanted to. "It is never not surreal that one of my favourite musicians wrote something inspired by something I wrote," he says. He calls himself patient zero for that particular artistic transmission.
Zaffino's relationship with reading and writing is inseparable. In 2021, he undertook what he calls the deranged undertaking of reading and reviewing a book a day. The practice taught him that at least fifty percent of writing is reading. Reading widely and constantly improved his own work through osmosis and inspiration, and it reminded him why books were his first and most enduring love. He is suspicious of writers who don't read. He also holds a PhD on Shakespeare production at the Royal Shakespeare Company between 1961 and 2021, focusing on how directors cut and edit the plays. Most people are surprised to learn that Shakespeare's plays are almost never performed in their entirety. The question becomes: does anyone actually want an unabridged four-hour Hamlet? What does a director do with comedies like The Taming of the Shrew when the language and sensibility have shifted so much that what was once funny no longer lands?
Zaffino is currently working on three new projects: a novel about multiverses, a novel about a war correspondent, and a memoir about art and obsession. He moves through the world with a particular philosophy about writing. Via his editors and the writer Annie Dillard, he believes that sometimes the scaffolding has to come down. The perfect is the enemy of the good. And every journey, he suggests, is a literary pilgrimage if you read enough.
Citas Notables
It is never not surreal that one of my favourite musicians wrote something inspired by something I wrote and a phenomenon I'm obsessed with.— Juliano Zaffino, on Florence Welch's album Dance Fever
At least fifty percent of writing is reading.— Juliano Zaffino, on the relationship between reading and writing
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
The Steps uses grief as its engine, but you've structured it so that the children process their loss through different art forms. Was that a deliberate choice, or did you discover it as you wrote?
I think it was both. I knew I wanted to explore how art functions as a kind of survival mechanism, but I didn't map out which child would turn to which medium. That emerged organically as I got to know them. They told me, in a way.
You've spent nearly a decade running YourShelf, reading constantly, holding a PhD on Shakespeare production. It seems like you're someone who thinks a lot about how stories are shaped, edited, cut. How did that inform writing a novel?
Absolutely. Understanding how directors make choices about what to keep and what to remove—that's deeply relevant to fiction. You're always deciding what the reader needs to see and what you can leave unsaid. The scaffolding question is real.
The Florence Welch connection is remarkable. Did you ever imagine your poem about the Strasbourg plague would reach her, let alone inspire an album?
Never. It's genuinely surreal. But I think that's what happens when you write about something you're genuinely obsessed with—it has a kind of resonance that travels further than you expect. The plague was already alive in my mind. She just gave it another form.
You describe poetry as a detour and prose as the main road. But that poem about the dancing plague seems to have done something prose might not have done. Do you regret calling it a detour?
No, because it was a detour for me. I needed to write poetry to get to the novel. But I don't think poetry is a detour for everyone. For some writers, it's the destination. For me, it was the path that led somewhere else.
You're working on a memoir about art and obsession. Is that partly about understanding how obsession—like your fascination with the dancing plague—actually works in a life?
Yes. Obsession gets a bad reputation, but it's also what drives creation. I wanted to explore that without judgment, to understand what it means to be genuinely, deeply interested in something and to let that interest shape your work.