Poured Over: Dana Schwartz on Anatomy

By Miwa Messer / February 1, 2022 at 6:00 am

“It’s about people following their passions, and it’s about falling in love for the first time whether that love is romantic, or with a professional industry.” Anatomy: A Love Story is everything Noble Blood’s creator and host Dana Schwartz loves in a story: spooky and fast-paced with a dash of romance, a perfect mix for the BN YA Book Club, and our pick for February ‘22. Dana joins us on the show to talk about her love of story and her creative process, finding her voice, the books that inspire her, explain the delights of reading historical fiction, and more.

Featured books: Anatomy: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz, The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, Little by Edward Carey, and Fingersmith by Sarah Waters.

Poured Over is produced and hosted by Miwa Messer and engineered by Harry Liang. New episodes of Poured Over land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays) here and wherever you listen to podcasts, including Apple Podcasts and Stitcher.

Full transcript for this episode of Poured Over:
B&N: Dana Schwartz, thank you so much for joining us on Poured Over. Anatomy: A Love Story is your new book. And it is our February Barnes and Noble YA book club pick. And holy cow. This is one of the best books I’ve read in a really long time. And my notes actually in..

Dana Schwartz: That means so much, I’m blushing. Thank you so much.

B&N: I’m so happy to hear that. My notes start with Hazel, Hazel, Hazel.

Dana Schwartz: Before this book was even a fully formed book, back when it’s just a series of ideas in a notebook. I had Hazel in my mind, I wanted this girl who was determined and lonely and isolated, and passionate and smart and a little weird. And the balance I tried to make with her the protagonist who’s you know, a young woman who lives in the early 1800s, who wants to be a surgeon and a time obviously, when that wasn’t really a path for women, because she comes from this sort of bubble both have privileged financial privilege, but also have just sort of social isolation. Because you know, her after the death of her brother, her mother just sort of retreats into this sort of Miss Havisham cocoon. Hazel has that delusional optimism, I sometimes think that teenagers who haven’t been exposed to the challenges of the real, quote unquote, real world yet have, she is so passionate and single minded and focused, and she hasn’t had anything in her life to tell her. You can’t go out and do the things that you want to do, which I think is both endearing, and obviously challenges that she has to deal with throughout the book. But it was very fun for me to write, I think with a lot of period pieces, and novels with young characters. I got a little annoyed because I think especially books aimed at young readers, the main characters felt dropped out of all reality and put just in that world, a proxy for the reader. But then this character is going around being like, Oh, this made up thing is terrible. Why are they doing that, like immediately can identify exactly what a reader is thinking. And I really, I wanted hazel to feel like a girl out of the 19th century, even though she has maybe more modern ambitions and dreams.

B&N: There might be more Hazels. We just don’t know about them. Because I mean, the way history gets written, we don’t get to hear about the women who are like Hazel, because they just didn’t get their stories told. Is this the book you were hoping that someone would have written when you were a younger reader?

DS: Absolutely. I was always drawn to sort of not horror books, but books with an undercurrent of spookiness that you couldn’t quite put your finger on. I love things that sort of left me when I finished reading them feeling aching, in a way I maybe couldn’t quite articulate. My favorite book of all time, was the Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. And obviously, all those stories jump around genre to genre and across, you know, hundreds of years. But one of the stories is the Fall of the House of Usher. And it’s a reference to the post or the House of Usher. But in this version, there’s it’s a house of murderous literary animatronics. And some of the visuals in that section were so haunting, they really stuck with me for the rest of my life. And I think that that was sort of my like, lodestar. He was sort of the lodestar really, for me of what I wanted a book to be.

B&N: When did you know that this was the novel you were going to write?

DS: I love Edinburgh. I traveled there first, when I graduated from college, and I just was backpacking through Europe as cheaply as I could, before I had to go into the real world. And I just fell in love with Edinburgh as a city, just the look of it, the feel of it, the history. And I think particularly the sort of McCobb medical history in Edinburgh like that there’s the story of Burke and Hare, who were two murderers, who basically just decided to bypass the grave robbing, and just kill people to sell their bodies to doctors. And so I think that sort of esthetic and time period stuck with me for a very long time, you know, ever since I graduated college, and I didn’t know what I wanted the novel to be because I didn’t want to waste my favorite period of my favorite setting and my favorite tone, and a book that I wasn’t ready to write yet or wasn’t fully thought out. And so it sat with me for a long time. And then gradually came together. As I was writing it, I knew I wanted it to be about a relationship between a woman who wanted to be a surgeon and Resurrection man, just because I think that those elements were so fundamental to the time period and the story that I wanted to tell. And then the other pieces slowly fit into place. I think sometimes writing a novel for me, feels like arranging furniture in a room where you have the pieces that you love, and then you’re like, Okay, this works over here and this works with this, but it doesn’t work with this. Okay, well, let’s try this here. Let’s try the desk against the wall and you just sort of have to rearrange until everything kind of feels right. So I had the big pieces of the setting and Hazel and Jack, early on, and then everything else I had to, you know, decide how the fabrics looked.

B&N: So when you’re rewriting, is it tweaking more than rewriting? Or are you just rewriting as you need to and in some cases, it might be something pretty significant.

DS: You know, plot wise, I sort of course correct as I go. I think as I’m writing my first draft, I it’s very like three steps forward, two steps back, three steps forward, two steps back. So I edit big stuff as I go. And I usually don’t move on until I know where I’m going. I think my bigger edits going back are character moments, sometimes I realize like, oh, I have a very clear idea who this character is in my head. And I raced forward through the story. And I have to go back to make sure I communicated that well through action, until I go back and tweak and add scenes. But I’m definitely like an anxious person and an anxious writer. And once I have the skeleton written, then I feel comfortable to play. But yeah, I edit big stuff as I go.

B&N: So one of the things I learned about you while I was getting ready for this show, was that you were pre med, yeah, college. And here we are.

DS: If I could talk to my like 12 year old self right now, she would be absolutely pinching herself. I come from a Midwestern family. And you know, no one in my life is in a creative field. And I just sort of assumed that you go out and you get like a capital J, job. I had never seen the blueprint of how anyone goes out and makes a living as a writer. And I love to write. Literally, from the time I was three years old, I would dictate stories to my mom and I would do the illustration. I mean, my unpublished masterpiece is the three ducklings that maybe one day will be revealed to the world. Writing and reading was the thing that I love to do my entire life. But I was good at science. And I think that a weird thing happens when you’re like a young woman, particularly who’s interested in stem like I love physics and chemistry, is I have really encouraging wonderful teachers. And so I thought, Oh, well, people write and read as a hobby. And then you have your job that you do. I actually went into college as a physics major, and eventually then shifted that more to the biology side. But I just thought that I’m good at science, I enjoy it. Writing is that fun hobby. And maybe one day when I’m a successful doctor, I can write my novel, and won’t that be nice. But if you can believe it, I was very unhappy. So I decided my senior year of college that I would throw everything I have into my dream of being a writer, I cold emailed hundreds of editors at online magazines and like begged them to let me freelance for them. And just like gradually clawed my way through a freelance career and started with journalism. I think one thing that really helped me get noticed was while I was in college, I created parody Twitter accounts that just, you know, they’re silly. Now, kind of looking back, it was the first time in my life where I got external validation and recognition for writing for humor for jokes I made like, I was like, Oh, I can be noticed by the outside world, the world outside this bubble. And it gave me the confidence to go for it. Although if you ask my mom, I’m pretty sure she would still like me to apply to med school. If it all goes belly up, I can still take the MCAT.

B&N: Well, I always heard that as long as you get through Orgo, you’re okay. Like, that’s the thing. I’m not a science person. But I do have friends who’ve gone through it. And they’re just like, if you can make it through Orgo, you’re okay.

DS: I made it through Orgo. You know, like, it felt like I was in the clear it. The only problem was, I really didn’t want to do it.

B&N: But anatomy feels like it’s the combination of a lot of different interests that you have. You’ve got this great voice in Hazel, and Jack, and there’s some other characters, but Hazel and Jack are the two we’re really going to kind of focus on, you’ve got this great idea of this young woman in 1800, Scotland saying no, no, I want to go do my own thing. I’m going to find my path in science, which her mother’s already got her married off to a cousin who the guy’s doing the best he can with what he has, but

DS: I think he was probably he’s in my mind, just like the classic 1817 like guy who thinks of himself as a good guy.

B&N: Absolutely. We’re gonna let readers pass judgment. But here’s Hazel, she’s enrolling herself, essentially in school science class. Yeah, and things get complicated from there, but you’ve got the Gothic bits. You’ve got Hazel, you’ve got Jack and they meet in sort of a slightly unexpected way, and you know, there’s a little bit of romance. But it seems that you can’t be as flip when you’re writing a novel like this, you’ve got to be all in on your characters and the story and where you’re going with all of this.

DS: That’s, yeah, that’s a really great observation. I think it was kind of terrifying to write this story. It was truly this time period, this setting, the slightly McCobb medical setting. I mean, I’ve been obsessed with Frankenstein, Edinburgh is my favorite city in the world. I put every aesthetic and time period and setting and story angle and character that I love into this story. And so the really scary thing was as a writer, like, am I wasting my favorite idea, when I’m not good enough to write it? Will it be as good as the version of it in my head that I want? So that was like, I think the first hurdle for me to overcome is just like trying to write this book in the first place. But then, yeah, it’s like, you look kind of like you, you said, it’s not an ironic book. It’s about people, following their passions, and it’s about falling in love for the first time, whether that love is romantic, or with a professional industry. And I think up until this point, you know, a lot of my writing for the Internet and books I’ve written before this point, have been sort of couched in a level of snarkiness and ironic detachment. I wrote a memoir that I talked about eating disorders and sexual encounters. And this book, I think, was scarier and feels more vulnerable to me, because there’s nothing more vulnerable than saying I actually really liked this stuff. There’s an uncoolness to being earnest. And I think that one thing I really wanted to accomplish with this book was show what it was like, one for me just to be like, This is everything I love in a book, here you go, here’s my open, bleeding heart, but also for Hazel, for her to actively, and ironically, have a goal and want to pursue that goal, and then also to meet a boy. And even if she thinks she’s cool, and smart and detached to have feelings for someone, which is an incredibly vulnerable place to be.

B&N: And you keep your characters humanity front and center. They are their own people. They do their own things. Did Hazel show up first? And then who showed up afterwards? And how did this all sort of come together? Let’s talk process first.

DS: Yeah, I had an image in my head of Jack. First, I knew that I wanted the story to be about a young woman who wants to be a surgeon just because that was so interesting to me. It was vaguely inspired by a surgeon named James Berry, who after their death, they discovered that they were actually biologically born a woman who either disguised herself as a man to become a doctor, or did the best they could to transition to live their life as a man. But that was sort of an interesting challenge of what if a woman wanted to be a doctor, what would that have been like? And that was a question that launched me into this book. But I had this image of a grave robber at night lit by moonlight in the gorgeous overgrown mossy cemeteries of Edinburgh and just this like spindly spider of a boy with a shovel, a spade, and messy hair and dirt all over his face. But aside from that, then Jack sort of got lost. Then I got excited by Hazel as a character and her motivations and her relationship with her older brother and younger brother and mother. You know, she felt like someone I knew and could write. And then Jack was a little different and a little more challenging. So I actually started writing the novel, fully from Hazel’s perspective for a long time. It was only late in the process that I decided that there would be elements of the story from his point of view. And it was only as I was writing this, that I got to know Jack as a character.

B&N: There’s a lot that Hazel goes through that will be familiar to present a reader, certainly, I mean, everyone’s parents can be very well intentioned, but their goals for their children may not always match what their children want. And Hazel is certainly in that position. And her mother is coming from a place where she wants to protect her child. She even says like, When I die, you will get nothing. Everything will go to your little brother, like, I know you don’t really want to do this, but you have to play along and get married because it’s the only protection you have. And in that world, it’s true. But oh, poor Hazel. She is not having it.

DS: Yeah, I mean, it’s that classic tension. I think even today, obviously parents want what’s best for their kids. It was probably the way when I told my mom that I wasn’t going to apply to med school. And then I was going to move to New York to try to make it as a writer. I think she believed in me but also was A little bit like, okay, but you need to protect yourself and look out for your best interest here, where it’s like, parents don’t truly only do what’s best for their kids. And even though Hazel’s mother, Lady Senate is maybe more narcissistic and inward focused. And, you know, a slightly exaggerated character, I do think the core of her that comes out is someone who fundamentally understands that 19th century, Britain is a place where a woman needs to get married, if she wants to have, what they thought, a functional life. And Hazel, I think, to her credit, early on in the story, does understand that to some degree, she wants her cake and wants to eat it too. And she sort of has been patrolled, basically, from birth to her cousin, which was a pretty classic thing back then also, if there are people in a family and one person has a title, and one person has an inheritance, and their cousins are related, it’s like, okay, well, they’ll get married, you could know from the time they’re children, even if obviously, the marriage doesn’t happen later. And I think Hazel was raised, knowing that that would be her future. So she almost takes it for granted. And then has also had this, you know, sort of optimistic idea of like, okay, yeah, I’ll get married. But also I want to do all these cool things that I’m interested in. And I think we’re the story sort of start to start coming to a head and realizing, okay, the way maybe I envisioned my life going is not the way it’s actually going to happen. And that’s a challenging situation, I think a lot of young people have to go through.

B&N: There are a lot of moments to in this book, where either you have an excerpt from a medical textbook from and, I mean, obviously, you’re making up all of this as well excerpts, but at the same time, it does feel very grounded in reality, and history is obviously one of your great loves. And you know, especially when it’s a little goth, and a little dark. So how much research did you need to do to fill in the gaps for Hazel?

DS: I did a lot of research, I love researching. I have a history podcast, where every other week I write a full episode that story from history. And I always feel like a detective getting to like fill in the details of the story. So I did a lot of research on the time period, and also the lives of surgeons during that time, the lives of women. During that time, I sort of made the choice to do those excerpts from medical textbooks and newspapers. It was inspired by George Saunders wrote this amazing novel Lincoln in the Bardo, where he does that he interrupts his main flow of the narrative with these excerpts. And I noticed as I was reading them that some were real, and some were made up, which was like, as a reader really unmooring in a fun way, because you’re like, sort of lost in his imagination. And so I wanted to use that device, all of mine are made up for almost every one of those excerpts, I there was a real world equivalent that I had, and read and skimmed and then flipped to suit my purposes exactly. But it was a fun way for me, to make the reader feel invested in this world and to give the world a sense of reality. But also to give them some exposition, like I’ve done a lot of history research, and I have to assume that my reader or my average reader probably doesn’t know quite as much about 19th century medical practices, nor should they. And so I wanted to give them quick little cliff note versions in between the chapters.

B&N: Did anything surprise you while you’re writing Anatomy?

DS: Yeah, I think it surprised me how modern a lot of writing about and from the early 19th century was, I think this is a lesson I feel like I should have learned by now. And but I continue to learn over and over again, every excerpt from actual you know, journals, and history books and medical textbooks from the time feel very modern. People had a different base of knowledge, but people were still people. And I think that that’s what I learned, or was reminded of while I was doing the research, and that’s something that I really wanted to carry through while I was writing these characters. I wanted people to recognize that even though people were alive 200, 300, 400 years ago, they still have the same fears, hopes, jealousies, crushes that we have today. I mean, this is really a book about it’s called anatomy of love story, and I think that that sort of was on my part like a bit of a pun, I think the love the great love story for Hazel is discovering her love of anatomy and and the medical field. That but it is also a story about her sort of finding her first crush, she was resigned her entire life to this marriage of convenience, so to say, and so it’s This fun, very teenage and hopefully very relatable experience to meet someone and just have this sort of inexplicable magnetic, static electric charge with them.

B&N: And you’ve mentioned a little earlier in this conversation that it’s scary, this earnest about relationships and people and where you are in the world and finding your own place in the world. But what’s your favorite part of Hazel story?

DS: I think my favorite scene and I don’t want to spoil anything, but she has a scene with Jack Who’s the other protagonist, where they’re down in a grave. And that was inspired a little bit by rumors and stories about Mary Shelley’s, the real Mary Shelley’s, affairs with Percy Shelley, when they first met and courting, I mean, I feel very lucky. It’s the most fun thing in the world for me that I got to write flirtation, romantic scenes in a graveyard, a very romantic place. And that was just the most fun, I had that scene in mind, from the beginning. And I almost like, saved it for myself as a little treat to get to write it because it was so much fun for me.

B&N: Okay, so were you writing this narrative in a linear fashion, or were you sort of putting together the scenes that you wanted, and then working around that,

DS: I wrote it in a narrative fashion, but a very skeletal one, I just wanted to get the through line to make sure the plot worked. And then I went back and filled in where I thought, characters needed growth or moments or, you know, scenes that didn’t necessarily advance the plot, but advanced character, or were just fun or important or worthwhile to read. And so I think, usually my process, and I am not one of those writers who thinks what they do is best because I was very impatient and excited to write just the spine of the story. And then I went back from there.

B&N: So as a reader, are you looking for plot first? Are you looking for character first?

DS: That’s so interesting, because I think ideally, both but that one of them bring answer. I think, for me, I had the plot in mind for this story. I had like the character pieces, and I knew that they had to be in certain places. And then I just worked backwards to try to make them as interesting and three dimensional as possible. But as a reader, I think I get annoyed if I can see the strings. I mean, writing is a magic trick, right? As a writer, you want it to feel like the plot is inevitable because of who the characters were. So in a perfect world, the best book is when you can’t even see the plot, because it’s just the characters making well structured character decisions. But as a writer, I started with the plot skeleton, and then tried to work backwards and disguise it the best I could.

B&N: I mean, you studied creative writing a little bit in college, right? You took writing classes, but you were a working writer for a really long time. And your journalism was in GQ and bustle and a few other places like that. So it’s not quite like you’re self taught, but you are learning as you go a little bit, right.

DS: I think I have this like fundamental insecurity because I didn’t major in creative writing. And I didn’t, you know, major in English literature. So I went to Brown for my undergraduate, which is a great school because there’s no core curriculum. So I will say like, after I took all my medical science and requirement classes, I was free to take whatever I wanted. And then I always filled in those classes of what I wanted to take with history and writing classes. So I almost always took a history and writing class every semester. And that should have been assigned when you get to choose where you want to take that I always took history and writing classes. But yeah, those to me, because in my mind, I was a pre med student with a hobby. I think when I actually became a professional writer, I did have sort of a chip on my shoulder of imposter syndrome because I hadn’t pounded the pavement like writing, you know, a ton of essays explaining symbolism and Moby Dick. But I was always a writer and always a reader. So I definitely got in my hours that way, even if they weren’t in an academic context. Once I decided that I wanted to be a writer, I really did throw everything I had into it. I moved to New York City after I graduated and began freelancing. I wrote for Mental Floss magazine for a really long time. And then I was an assistant at the New Yorker and an intern at the Late Show with Stephen Colbert and I got to freelance for GQ and write for bustle. I was a staff writer at The New York Observer. And then I became a writer for Entertainment Weekly, which is my full time job for a while and I worked for Entertainment Weekly in New York, and then actually moved with Entertainment Weekly to Los Angeles where I am now and then sort of transitioned over to books and television and podcasting full time. And I feel incredibly lucky that I get to make a living writing creatively. Like it’s something that I don’t take for granted. And I, it feels like a gift, which is not to say writing a book isn’t hard. I’m sure for some people, it’s very easy. For me it feels like running a marathon through pudding, and you haven’t drinking any water that day only cinnamon, but I have a lot of fun doing it. And I feel very lucky.

B&N: Here we are in Edinburgh. Here’s Hazel and all of her obstacles. But she’s kind of wide eyed about very little. I mean, she’s a grounded character. She’s very smart. She’s very earnest. She’s very much of her world. How do you as the writer, keep her humanity front and center and not let her turn into sort of the stereotypical plucky girl?

DS: That’s a good question. I think one thing that was really important to me, when I went into anatomy, was keeping the time period grounded and not exaggerated. And I think luckily, because I do this podcast called noble blood that’s often in period. I’ve gotten a lot of experience writing in period times, and in Regency England and post Regency England. And so I have that baseline of comfort, which I think made it a lot easier for me. I think like, because I had written you know, hundreds of 1000s of words of noble blood episodes, about characters throughout history, I was already pretty comfortable. By the time I started writing anatomy, being like, alright, we’re in the early 1800s, what’s going on. And then I think from there, I just wanted Hazel. To have flaws. I wanted her to be a little naive, I wanted her to be a little stubborn. One thing that annoys me sometimes in novels where a woman is very career focused, when then a boy appears, she’s like, I don’t have crushes on boys. I wanted hazel to be a young woman who wants to be a doctor and is passionate about that, but is also a teenage girl. And like, I don’t think young women need to completely desexualize that part of themselves or cut off a romantic side of themselves, if they want to also be successful in their careers. And I think that was something very important to me with hazel is that I wanted her to be a real teenage girl. That meant having career goals, but also noticing when a boy is cute.

B&N: And Jack’s cute. jacket here. Now you got that across to the readers. He’s cute. Yeah, he’s cute. But here they are these kids, and they’re living in a really rough time. I mean, yeah, Jack has no family support. He’s living in a theater. He’s got a rather dubious job, but he has a job. It’s a rough, rough time for these kids.

DS: Yeah, I sort of wanted them to be their personal lives before they meet to be sort of opposites of each other where Jack is someone with no safety net is like skin of his teeth getting paid cash under the table. You know, if he disappeared, no one would come look for him necessarily, you know, he has friends. But like, he’s someone who could completely fall through the cracks because he’s already in the cracks. Whereas Hazel has a family with title and money and position, she has every safety net. And she’s like, actively trying to force her way through the cracks. And so I think that was a contrast that I wanted to make very clear where it’s like, she’s coming from like a position of money and comfort and stability. And it takes her a while I think to fully understand what life is like for someone who doesn’t have that, who doesn’t have money, who doesn’t have family? And so that’s why I think when Hazel’s mom is first like, if you don’t get married, you will have nothing you don’t inherit property. Sorry, that is just the way the system goes. And Hazel, kind of poo poos that like, oh, yeah, but I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. I’m the exception. I think that sort of the naivete of being a young person who everything has always worked out for her up until that point. So she assumes everything will work out for her in the future. Whereas Jack is someone who knows, you have to do these things to get food on the table, or you’re going to freeze or you’re going to starve he hustles in certain ways. And so that was an interesting contrast, especially because I think so much of the book, hopefully is about the way the upper class and the lower class interact with each other in this society.

B&N: I thought you might be working on a sequel when I got to the end of the book, are we looking at a series? Are we just looking at a duology? Or do you not know yet?

DS: I don’t have a series in mind. I have a second story in mind, which is not to close the door and be like this is a two part series and I have the beginning and the end and then it’s door closed. I would just only want to write it if I have something fun and exciting to say because I assume always if it’s boring for me to write, it’s boring for someone to read. And so I would never want to be like yes, it’s gonna be a five part series and I’ll just keep writing as long as the checks clear. I think don’t know, I also haven’t gotten to the end of the sequel. I don’t know what’s going to happen. But as of now, I definitely ended anatomy thinking, well, if I get the chance, I want to leave the door open because I had so much fun writing these characters. And then I, you know, had an idea for a sequel what I wanted to do, and we’ll see how that one goes, I don’t know how it’s gonna end. This one’s exciting to me as I write the sequel. I’ve never written a book this way, where I know the pieces, but I don’t know where it’s going to end. And so I’m gonna learn as I go.

B&N: Earlier, you mentioned that Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles was an influence. And certainly Frankenstein has been an influence. What are some of the other books and who are some of the other writers that you go back to that you consider influences that you want other people to read?

DS: Yeah, this is gonna sound strange, because it’s the time the setting and time period is so different, but Margaret Atwood’s Oryx, and Crake is one of my all time favorite books. It’s in a unique world. And it leaves you with that taste of bittersweet baking that you can’t quite articulate. And that’s always the feeling that I’m chasing, oh, gosh, now I’m like looking at my bookshelf. Oh, Little by Edward carry, which is another influence on this book. Not quite the same time period, but a similar aesthetic and surgical tools and dresses, even though it’s slightly different context, Sarah Waters books, I think, for us to atmosphere Fingersmith is wonderful, because the plotting is unbeatable. But also the characters are interesting and compelling in the setting of just this sort of like crumbling mansion, I think was very influential on me. So off the top of my head, those are like books, I think that I read who I tried to capture a piece of that aesthetic. I also love the TV show Penny Dreadful. I mean, it’s a little bigger and broader. Maybe then then this book is and maybe what I was trying to do, but in terms of aesthetic, and character, it’s a lot of fun. So people who haven’t watched that, I mean, you have a treat in store.

B&N: It’s clear that you have a love of storytelling when you when you read anatomy, because the the way that people come to life in the way the history comes to life. And it is obviously your interpretation of Edinburgh in this world. But the story is really solid. And the people are really great. But are you more comfortable writing about history now than you are about more pop culture tree moments?

DS: I think I might be. I think it’s like, it just the thing that you’re practicing. Right? So I do this podcast that I talked about called noble blood, and it’s twice a month. And you know, I write all of these episodes. And so it’s like, I feel like it’s like Bootcamp for story structure. Every two weeks, I get a new, you know, I have a new idea or topic or person that I probably don’t know a ton about. And I look at their life. And I think, okay, where’s the story here? Where’s the opening? Where’s the beginning? The middle, the ending? How do I make this unsatisfying arc for a reader, or listener, rather, in this case. And I write it, and I read it. And I’m like, All right, next one, let’s go. So like it really is. It’s like writing story structure boot camp. I genuinely do love history. I just think it’s fun and rich, and I love those worlds. And I think probably I was nervous to write in history, because they always say write what you know, right? So it’s like, three years ago, I didn’t know a ton about 1800, Scotland. And now I know a lot. I don’t know if I’m more comfortable writing in history, but I definitely am like, in that mindset, and I’m definitely having a lot of fun with it.

B&N: What would you say to someone who maybe isn’t reaching for historical fiction as their first sort of book on their TBR? Like, what would you say to them just to say, hey, you know, come check this out. Come try.

DS: Sometimes historical fiction gets a bad rap. I think people who don’t read it, either think that it’s stuffy because they’ve read like, two sentences of war and peace, and they thought that was stuffy. So they don’t want to read any books that take place in the past, or I think people think it’s like bodice Ripper, a navy. I’m trying like the stereotypes. But I think like, people use history just or I do and a lot of my favorite writers use history, just as context to tell really human interesting stories. Like I wanted a book about the unknown, and a period in time where history was where surgery was a little gory and a little gross. And people were just discovering things. And there’s that frenzy of discovery in the air. And why not take a break from reality and go spend time in 19th century Scotland for a little bit? Yeah, yeah. I think people who haven’t read it, think that it’s going to be intimidating or stuffy or boring. And if I could impart any lesson, it’s that lesson that I have come back to through all my historical research, which is people are fundamentally the same no matter when they lived.

B&N: Is there anything that you have wanted to hit about the book that we haven’t? Because we’re dancing around spoilers.

DS: I would say the one thing that I hope readers take away is, I think sometimes people maybe saw that the title was anatomy a love story and assumed it was going to be a romance. One, this isn’t a romance novel, but I think, take that title with a grain of salt. I think love stories can look different, you know, in different contexts. And I think this is exactly the type of love story that I want young women and people always to, to read and understand that, you know, you can have a partner, but it’s not like that is the great purpose and meaning of your life. Nor is it necessarily the central focus.

B&N: Hazel really is. I really like this character quite a lot. And like you said, She’s stubborn. She is really, really stubborn.

DS: And brave, she’s braver than I am. And I think that’s the gift of writing fiction is I got to write a character who would do things that I would be too nervous to do myself.

B&N: You’ve also written what’s been described as a memoir slash personality quiz. But yeah, I think the personality quiz part is very funny. Thank you. But do you ever see going back to nonfiction? Or do you think, oh, no, I’m here. Now, this is this is the kind of work I really want to do.
DS: You know, when I was a young writer, like, like, very, like, just graduated college, coming up on, you know, trying to get noticed on Twitter, trying to befriend editors desperately trying to freelance for anyone who will have me, I thought that my only worth as a writer was things that I could give from myself, where I had personal experiences or stories or observations, like I had to sort of cut parts of myself away to give them to the internet in order to get noticed, and in order to get validated and get a byline. And so I think for a long time, I just sort of followed that current of thinking, like, Oh, if I have a sexual experience, I can write about it. If I have, you know, a trauma or past pain or something I’m struggling with, I can write about it. And it took me a while to become confident enough to realize that I had value as a writer, in fiction, and even noble blood, which is the podcast, but it’s fully written, it’s nonfiction. But it feels like I get to protect myself a little bit. It’s not that I regret ever being open and vulnerable on the internet, or in my writing. But I, it felt like the only avenue I had available to me. And now I feel very lucky that I can sort of save parts of myself and put other parts in my fiction.

B&N: Is that the advice you’d give a writer who’s just starting out? What would you say to them?

DS: No, because I don’t regret anything I wrote. And I don’t regret any experiences I had. And I just feel like I’m maybe moving into a different stage of my career, I would just tell a writer just starting out, to not spend all their time on Twitter, because it’s a bad habit. And it’s hard to break. Read a ton. And write about the things that genuinely interest you. Because if it genuinely interests you, that comes through, follow the people, the stories, whatever it is that you would talk about to your friends, follow that people are hungry for passion, and people are hungry for interest, and you will do your best work. If you’re following something you love. Like I started Noble Blood. I didn’t have any, like expertise or qualifications to talk about history, but I just was obsessed with at this point, like French and British history, following that passion. I think for any writer, whatever you’re interested in, whether it’s furniture history, your neighbors, your family, whatever it is that you can’t stop thinking about that you talk to your friends about. That’s what people want to read from you.

B&N: No, because I don’t regret anything I wrote. And I don’t regret any experiences I had. And I just feel like I’m maybe moving into a different stage of my career, I would just tell a writer just starting out, to not spend all their time on Twitter, because it’s a bad habit. And it’s hard to break. Read a ton. And write about the things that genuinely interest you. Because if it genuinely interests you, that comes through, follow the people, the stories, whatever it is that you would talk about to your friends, follow that people are hungry for passion, and people are hungry for interest, and you will do your best work. If you’re following something you love. Like I started Noble Blood. I didn’t have any, like expertise or qualifications to talk about history, but I just was obsessed with at this point, like French and British history, following that passion. I think for any writer, whatever you’re interested in, whether it’s furniture history, your neighbors, your family, whatever it is that you can’t stop thinking about that you talk to your friends about. That’s what people want to read from you.

DS: Yeah, I mean it’s the best of both worlds where I do get to keep writing about my twin passions, gross medical fiction and teen romance and also historical Royals.

B&N: Yeah, I mean it’s the best of both worlds where I do get to keep writing about my twin passions, gross medical fiction and teen romance and also historical Royals.

DS:

Thank you so much for having me. This was so much fun.