Poured Over Double Shot: Juno Dawson and Emma Törzs

By Jenna Seery / June 10, 2023 at 6:00 am

Powerful women, families of all kinds, fantastical adventures and so much more unite these two spellbinding tales.

Juno Dawson’s The Shadow Cabinet is the second installment in her series of witches, intrigue and the unbreakable bonds of friendship. Dawson joins us to talk about the importance of complex female characters, the response to This Book is Gay, the strength her characters find together and more with Poured Over guest host, Marie Hendry.

Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs finds two estranged sisters tasked with protecting the most important thing of all: the books in a magical library. Törzs talks about the challenging dynamics of writing about family, fairy tale tropes, her favorite things about writing fantasy and more with Poured Over guest host, Kat Sarfas.

This episode of Poured Over was hosted by Marie Hendry and Kat Sarfas and mixed by Harry Liang.        

Featured Books (Episode): |
The Shadow Cabinet by Juno Dawson
Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs
Her Majesty’s Royal Coven by Juno Dawson
This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson
How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran
You Need to Chill by Juno Dawson
The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri
Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez
The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty

Featured Books (TBR Topoff):
Unnatural Magic by C.M. Waggoner
Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine

Full Episode Transcript:

Marie Hendry
Hi, I’m Marie Hendry. I’m a bookseller at Barnes Noble and I’m so excited to be talking to the Queen of cliffhangers, Juno Dawson, author of The Shadow Cabinet the second book in the Her Majesty’s Royal Coven trilogy. Juno, hi, we meet again. I’m going to try to have the least spoilery conversation with you as possible. Do you accept the challenge?

Juno Dawson.
I accept, I’m ready. No spoilers.

MH
Can you give everyone a quick elevator pitch of the HMRC trilogy and what the heck is going on in The Shadow Cabinet?

JD
I can. So, Her Majesty’s Royal Coven is like an urban fantasy, for want of a better phrase, about a group of modern women who live in the United Kingdom. And they just happen to work for a government agency of very powerful witches and for as long as we’ve all been alive, there has been this government department, a government sanctioned Coven, working to keep us all safe from what they call supernormal threat, which is demons and the like, and evil Warlocks as well. The first book is full of drama, lots of drama, some very exciting and very spoilery things happened. So the second, the second book picks up straight after the first book, we have our transgender witch Thea who is still coming to terms with having undergone a magical transformation, and Leone is tasked with tracking down on Dabney Hale who is a rebel warlock who believes in magical supremacy so she goes off on a jaunt around Europe. without giving anything away, the character of Ciara is back. I think it’s gonna be impossible to talk about The Shadow Cabinetwithout talking about Ciara.

Yeah, I feel like we’re gonna have to just spoil a little bit of Her Majesty’s Royal Coven because…

I think it’s okay, Ciara is back. She’s in a coma in book one, but Ciara, who is Niamh’s wayward twin sister, she used to be a part of Dabney Hale’s rebellion. She is back. And we are heading towards the coronation, the coronation of high priestess. And we finally meet the Shadow Cabinet who are the humans who are one of a very limited number of people who know about the existence of witches. And that includes the prime minister as well. That’s who the shadow cabinet is.

I remember talking to you last year, and I was like, how dare you with that cliffhanger. So I’m so glad that you picked it back up like, there’s no guessing what happened right after that. You picked it up right where it needed to. So thank you, what kinds of powers do these witches have?

In my world there are four official kinds of witch. So you have mind readers called sentients. There are healers, there are elementals who can control the natural elements around them. And there is Oracles who can see the past and future see the great tapestry of time. And then there is a fifth illegal kind of witch, which are the necromancers which we do not talk about. And then some very blessed witches are Adept like Niamh and Thea— they possess more than one skill set.

And which of the witches do you must relate to?

I mean, I’ve said before about that they’re all me and it took me a little bit of time to realize that that was kind of how it was. I’m wearing my Spice Girl top at the moment. And I think that’s kind of why the Spice Girls appealed so much to sort of 90s girls because yeah, we all contain multitudes. You know, there are days where I feel decidedly “Scary”. There are days when I just want to be babied. There are days when I you know want to be quirky and outrageous and be Ginger Spice. And I think that’s kind of what I’ve done with the Covenant as well. Well, you know, you’ve got this incredible sort of the maternal-ness, you’ve got the rebellion of Leone who is always kicking against the door and then you’ve kind of got the kindness and compassion of Niamh and the complete devil may care attitude that Ciara has and that’s why it was so much fun to finally be able to give care advice and yes, she’s completely unhinged sometimes so um, I you know, Ciara does some outrageous things in this novel. She’s kind of me if I didn’t have that filter. Yeah, there have been times when I really wanted to tell people I think to their faces, but I don’t because I want to be liked, but there is a definite thread of Ciara within me and so it’s really nice to now finally have all five members of that girl group in place. Obviously Ciara was on the bench for all of book one but…

it’s so interesting because in book one, we don’t actually get to know her. We only get to hear about her from everyone and she sounds so terrible, horrible, scary, but you made her really complex, rounded person, where I was like, Oh, I see what she has gone through and how she ended up this way. What inspired her? I know you said you’ve got parts of her was it really just taking from like, the parts of you to make a person like that?

I’m so glad you said that because I mean, I did really, really worry about that and then a lot has been said about unlikable female characters, but it’s risk. A lot of readers really engage with those very morally gray female characters, but some readers not naming names, but my husband, when he’s read some of my YA fiction he’s like “I just didn’t like her.” And I’m like, well, complex female character, man. I wanted and Dabney Hale as a villain is quite irredeemable in the first book, you know, how Helena the character of Helena, you know, was quite villainous with some of the things she did. And she made some really bad choices. And so I wanted the same for Ciara. You know, she does some really unpleasant things. But I think she has a motive for everything she does. And what was really lovely is that from the beginning of the book, we realized that because of Ciara’s injuries in book one, she can’t remember vast chunks of her adult life. Yeah, her child, her childhood is more or less intact. But her adult life is a complete patchwork mess kind of. And so we go on that journey with her of her trying to piece together her timeline. And she’s kind of making this jigsaw of her own life and we start to realize that almost from childhood Ciara was almost doomed. You know, there was a prophecy about her as a child, and her life becomes this kind of awful story of self-fulfilling prophecy kind of. And I love her. I mean, I know I’m gonna go on the record right now at Barnes and Noble and say, she’s not a good woman she does some awful thing, she can be good. Yeah, she can.

I loved her too. I really love her. Cuz how much of that is like, expectations that were put on her that she was like, well, I guess I’m just bad, so I’m going to be bad. And how much of it is like, you know, seeing the way the world treated her twin sister who is angelic? And feeling that jealousy like if she was treated the way that near was? Would she have been different?

Exactly. And because they’re identical twins, that gives us a lovely, and you know, twins in fantasy fiction, you could do a whole kind of PhD on that. But I think Ciara, even more than most struggles, because there was a woman in the world who looks exactly like you, is treated differently. And it feels like, because a lot of characters in this book, do believe that Ciara is Niamh for so much of the book that he had the way that Niamh has always been treated and it’s really interesting to see that kind of, I guess it’s a bit aature versus nurture. And that’s kind of what Ciara has to work out, which is, is there something fundamentally evil about Ciara, or was she just treated very badly by both the men and the women in her life have treated quite badly?

Yeah. And even like, you know, when her college memories come back, when she starts getting into, you know, her bad years with her boyfriend and with Dabney, and there’s demons, I don’t feel like that’s too spoilery because there’s a lot of demons throughout. It’s almost like you could read it as like, yeah, those are evil aspects of her or it can be interpreted as like, she is a young person who feels unsure about her place in the world. And, unfortunately, a lot of young people who lack that self-confidence, get into experimenting with drugs and alcohol and, demons and bad boys.

I’m definitely not the first fantasy writer to use actual demons as an allegory for some allegorical demons. I mean, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, there’s a whole theory where monsters weren’t monsters, kind of what I love about Ciara is that she thinks she’s very in control. And I love how her narrative about herself is in kind of stark contrast to what you as the reader can see, which is actually she’s been very exploited and locked away. She’s very vulnerable. And you know, she would never admit that but I think hopefully the reader will see The she talks a very good game, but actually she is a very vulnerable young woman.

And I think there’s something to say to like about the other girls that grew up with her that see those redeeming qualities in her like Leone loves her. l loved her too. It seems like when they were young, she’s a little bit scared of her, but she still loved her. So she wasn’t totally bad and evil, like she thought it just, I really felt for her in the book.

I’m really, really glad because I was gonna say, I mean, there was a reason we didn’t start with Ciara in book one, that would have been a bold move. But I think obviously, there was plenty of shocks in book one. But it was always right from the very beginning of this trilogy, it was always going to be the case that Niamh was very much spotlight and book one and then Ciara would always come center stage in book two. That was always the plan. This is my first trilogy. I was very, very mindful of the middle book syndrome. And I think any author is very familiar. It can be the muddy middle, kind of the reviews have been so good. I’m so relieved. You know, as soon as the first few reviews came in, I think it was it was from America.

So it’s called Her Majesty’s Royal coven. Can you talk about the connection with Anne Boleyn and why it’s not going to turn into His Majesty’s Royal coven.

The Queen, rest her soul did die towards the very end of, this book was finished, this book was said and straightaway people literally the day she died, people were like on my social media being like, will you change it? So there’s a midway when the characters finally meet the prime minister who’s Guy Milner, when they meet Guy Milner at Whitehall, and he does point out shouldn’t it be His Majesty as well cover now? Because going forward, we will have kings for a good long while now. And I said initially I was going to change it. But then I was like, no, because these witches have served historically to Queens. In that Anne Boleyn, she was the founder. She was the first one to start the coven in in the early 16th century. And then later it was formally started under Queen Victoria. So it’s like these women have always served a queen rather than a king and I quite like that symbolically. We are and have always been her majesty’s vital coven since 1869, they have been her majesty’s royal coven.

Yeah, I loved that. And I was like, I’m so glad that it’s not turning into His Majesty’s Royal coven. It just wouldn’t feel right if they were serving the king.

I think with book two again, I would like to put this on the record. I was aware that there are issues around England’s colonial past which kind of doesn’t sit, it doesn’t sit very well with the idea of being a witch. You know, these women, and Ciara says in this book, she says we are weapons of an ancient goddess, you know, it all comes back to Gaia. It all comes back to this feminine divine from which the women draw their strength. So why are they serving this draconian archaic institution? You might tell that I’m not the biggest royalist in the country. So you might say, why are they doing that? And actually, in the first book, Niamh has quit HMRC, Leonie has quit HMRC, Elle has never worked for HMRC. So there’s only Helena in the first book who even works for HMRC. And I think in Book Two, you get an even stronger sense that all is not well, with this organization. It’s a bit like Sex in the City. The fifth character is HMRC. And the running through the whole trilogy, there is a narrative and a conversation to be had about structures and institutions. Obviously, Leone is fiercely against the institution and started her own rival coven and Ciara repeatedly questions, why, why would we sign up for this?

The conversation that they can have around institutional issues and hierarchies and how being part of it can be beneficial in a way but mostly it’s antithetical to what they really are as witches.

Again, now I’m writing book three at the moment so really don’t want to do with spoilers for Book Three, but that’s the conversation that will run throughout the whole trilogy. Which is how in the modern world can women work within patriarchal structures? And if Book One is about conflict between women, Book Two is about conflict between men and women and then Book Three will explore the role of women within a patriarchy. So that’s that and that was always the plan. And it’s it feels quite nice that obviously, I think I started HMRC in like, 2018. You know, it’s still the case that that three-part structure is still more or less accurate.

Oh, that’s great. That’s a really great flow. So what’s your process like? Does it differ when you’re writing fiction versus nonfiction?

Yeah, I mean, it’s been a while it’s been a while now, since I’ve written nonfiction because whereas before I used to juggle fiction and nonfiction now, I’m mostly juggling fiction and screenwriting. So if I’m if I’m not working on a novel, I’m working on a script. Right now, ever say never, but there isn’t any room to do more nonfiction, which is obviously interesting, because at the moment in America, there is so much conversation about This Book is Gay and What’s the T. I wrote This Book is Gay 10 years ago, yeah. But in terms of the process, now it feels like my career has entered like a slightly new phase where, you know, I was quite happy pottering along in total anonymity for the better part of 10 years. But you know, Her Majesty’s Royal Coven’s come through the roof. I mean, especially in the UK, it was number one and, and that brings lots of interest. And obviously, we’ve optioned television, as well. So there’s lots going on. And so it means now, ironically, I just have less time to write full stop. I mean, full promotion at the moment, but when I come back, I’m going to be touring the US in June. When I get back. Yeah,

You’re gonna do a storytime here, You Need to Chill. I read it to my son. It’s so cute.

So when I get back in July, I’m going like, emails off, fun off. And I’m going to not come out of my little house until HMRC three is done. And I’m really looking forward to it. That’s still my favorite bit of the job, when it’s just when I have nothing in my diary and I’ve just like, I have a whole day to write. Oh, it’s the dream. And I must admit, obviously, COVID was a living, breathing nightmare, but I wrote HMRC in 2020. And it was really beautiful to just spend that whole year kind of just really immersed in the world of these women.

It’s so wonderful that you were able to create during that time, I was just so like stalled on everything that I feel like I wasted that year home.

We can’t think of it like that because it’s only now that I realized how bad my mental health was during the year. You know, we are social creatures. We are not meant to stay home and not see our friends. And especially when you’re writing a book about female friendship as well, it was it was not the best environment to be writing about female friendships.

Do you do a lot of group texts? Well, there’s I mean, there’s a lot of group texts in The Shadow Cabinet.

That was kind of again, born out of the pandemic, which is, you know, zoom and WhatsApp.

Modern friendship is group texts all day long every day, right?

And I love how group texts have their own politics as well. Like you’ve got you’ve got the group chat, and then you’ve got the side group chat. But then there is the usually in any group chat there’s like the one person where you’re going to be like, can you believe what she’s just said?

So you mentioned This Book is Gay. Do you want to talk about it a little bit? So, last year, This Book is Gay became the ninth most banned book in the country. Wild. I read it and like, though, I’m not the intended audience, I think it’s an incredible resource for young people. Can you talk a little bit about how it came about?

Yeah, we’re going to wind back to 2012, a long time ago, I had been a teacher for a long time and one of my many roles when I was a teacher was I was a consultant for what in this country we call PSHE, personal social health education. And a thread of that is Sex and Relationships education, and I was really good at it. And I was sent all around all around the area to kind of best advise schools and how to deliver really sort of top notch PSHE. And when my publisher got wind of this, they were like, we need you to write something. You know, would you write something for LGBTQ teenagers? Initially, I was like, no, because I at that point, I hadn’t even started my own transition and if I didn’t feel I could, for example, I didn’t feel I could speak on behalf of bisexual people or lesbians because I had never done that, I’d never lived that life. And so it felt kind of hypocritical, but then I mulled on it a bit and I sort of said, well, look, what if I sort of did some surveying and did some interviews with lots of members of the community would that work? And they were like, sure. And I wanted it to have a voice and I wanted it to have a sense of humor. I’d read Caitlin Moran’s How to Be a Woman which was huge over here that year. But what about something a bit like that that’s kind of feels a bit like a big sister vibe, kind of and that’s how it came about. And the UK publisher were really cool. Source books in the US bought it immediately and it came out in the US in 2015 with very little fanfare. It didn’t even really make the first David Levithan, the amazing author gave us a foreword for the American version. But it certainly didn’t cause any controversy. It didn’t ruffle any feathers whatsoever until about I think it was about 2017, when it first started making headlines and you will notice by 2017, and we were into Trump’s America.

Yeah, it totally tracks with where we were.

Unfortunately, the first area where it was challenged was in Wasilla Alaska, which was Sarah Palin’s district. So the dominoes just started to fall. But still, to be honest, there was the odd maybe once or twice a year, there was a little bit of a fuss around it, but nothing on the scale that we’ve seen in the last 18 months to two years. It’s a strange loop. Like when Pen America or the American Libraries Association identifies which books are being challenged and they get more challenged, because obviously, the people who have made a real hobby out of challenging books, it’s almost like there’s been hundreds a shopping list that I just I just think that’s certainly not on the ALA. I mean, how sad is it that there are people out there who have made who have made a pastime, out of tracking down books, and trying to ban them, I think It’s bonkers kind of the last sort of 12 months have been quite challenging and it’s frustrating, you know, to be so willfully taken out of context,

If they even just gave it a chance and read it and try to understand like, this is something that is going to monumentally help young people understand themselves, and or the world around them. It’s not inappropriate.

No. And I think if you take a little snippet of context and tweet it, you know, anything, it looks wild. I mean, for one thing, the first thing they say is that this is a children’s book, and this book is absolutely not a children’s book. And we never thought it was a children’s book. It was published by a YA publisher, you know, so we were never claiming that. But most of the point a lot of these accounts have realized, you can’t argue with crazy, they’re tweeting saying it’s from This Book is Gay, it’s not from This Book is Gay. So they’re just literally screen grabbing any old stuff, and saying, Oh, my gosh, this is pornographic. And I’m like, well, yeah, but it’s not from my book, that’s from somebody else’s book. But by that point, the internet doesn’t care, the internet has already shared it 1000 times kind of, you know, so it’s kind of doesn’t matter if they then later say, oh, sorry, it’s not from Juno Dawson’s book. It’s a political tactic that’s in both the UK and the US, where both of our countries have very real systemic problems with poverty, fuel crisis, Europe is at war, you know, I think, certainly in the UK, it feels like our politicians are failing, the only people they have to blame are themselves. And so it’s much, much easier to talk about a book, to talk about, you know, trans health care, you know, than it is to talk about the real problems that are affecting our country. The difference in the US is that now that the right out of power, there’s been a very organized attempt to well, we can’t do anything centrally, we can’t do anything in government. But we can cause a lot of noise on a very local level. So you know, we can make noise in a school, we can make a noise in a library, we can picket a drag queen story hour. It’s not about children, and I’ve said this now Rolling Stone magazine, it’s not about if it was about children, they would be talking about banning guns. They would be talking about vaccines, there are so many ways that we can protect children, that that would be a much more efficient job than by putting a drag queen reading a picture book.

Yeah. And that’s one of the things I was saying last year during the formula shortage was like if they really cared about the babies, they would be trying to find a way to get food for the babies. It’s all been so unfortunately politicized. I have a friend who works in a Florida School district who has to attend to these, like banned books meetings. And it takes so much out of her as a person and as a parent. And since I became a parent, we’re having a lot of conversations about the approaches that we want to take. I feel like This Book is Gay, and What’s the T, they’re not for me, like the intended audience. But I love that you have taken these really big topics that have become unfortunately politicized. And you’ve making them digestible. And I think what’s more important is that you write with such kindness and love and acceptance, like your overlying message is like, this is normal. You’re okay. Everything’s okay. I really loved that. And What’s the T, you had a section for advice for parents and caregivers, my son is still very young, but I’m going to have these books on my shelf, I want to have them as a resource so that as he grows up, and he is naturally curious about the world, or perhaps himself, I can turn to these books and say, like, these are the ways that we can talk about these things. But these are the ways that you can help understand yourself. Did you ever think that would be a way people would read these books?

Oh, I really hope that was that was my— so first and foremost, I wrote it for myself when I was 15. And I think that’s true of my YA fiction, It’s true of Her Majesty’s Royal Coven, because I couldn’t quite find a book like it. So I thought, yeah. But I know from being a queer person in the world that a book or a film is so much easier to talk about than yourself. It is so much easier. And I remember with my mom talking about LGBTQ characters on reality TV, on Big Brother or the X Factor, and they were kind of like a conduit for us to have those really big difficult conversations. And so I really hope that What’s the T, This Book is Gay and You Need to Chill actually—

You Need to Chill is, I mean, so lovely. Really nice for little, little kids.

Yeah. And, and I know from when I used to teach year one, that wasn’t my favorite. I prefer the older kids. But I did a couple of years. I did a couple of years on the ground in year one, using picture books to talk about life is yeah, it’s the best way to do it. And whether it’s, you know, and it’s nothing is sadder than when I see books like Tango Makes Three being challenged, because it’s just a lovely Penguin, just let the penguin have an egg you guys. And that was what I wanted to do with You Need to Chill as well, because I know from being a teacher and from being a queer person, but it’s so much easier to kind of have that kind of safe space in the middle. I think with all three of those books, it’s just about hoping that they sort of find their audience just kind of, because I always felt that if This Book is Gay, or What’s the T could find that 15-year-old, queer or confused kid that it might really make a difference that they might just feel a bit less alone. I know a lot of people will say, well, we have the internet now. So you know that we don’t have a pressing need for nonfiction the way we once did. But I think the internet is really confusing.

Oh, yeah and scary and mean.

Like all these people calling my books pornographic. I wrote these books to counter pornography. I wanted young people to get high quality sex education, didn’t have to learn it from pornography, which is not sex education. You know, I don’t want young people to get their sex education from the internet. I want them to get it from speaking to a trusted adult or from a book like, this book is gay. So it’s kind of about hoping, hoping it finds people but obviously This Book is Gay. It’s been out for so long now. Yeah, I know that it really hasn’t. What’s really, really lovely and this has started happening in the last couple of years, fully grown adults. Now come up to me at events or even some became much more on the tube in London a couple of weeks ago, and said, you know, this book has really helped me to understand who I am.

That’s so nice.

It is and it blew my mind. This woman looked about 25 you know, this book is getting old. I hope he doesn’t mind me saying but lovely Joe Lark, he plays Charlie on Heartstopper he came he came to talk to me at an award ceremony last year. He was like, Oh my God, This Book is Gay changed my life. And I was kinda like, this is amazing because you just don’t know once the book is out, it takes on a life of its own. As much as we would like to think you do, most readers do not write you an email. They don’t tweet you, do not tag you on Instagram— most readers just read your book. And you never know and so it’s only really that woman on the tube a couple of weeks ago. Where you’re kind of like oh my gosh, you know, some random words that I wrote in 2013 sort of changed her life and that’s mad. You know, that is, if I sit with that, I start to feel a bit weird, because it feels like, you know, like the Galadriel with the ring, like, I want to give the ring back. It’s like, I didn’t know if I trust myself with that power.

Yeah, you’re like, who? Me? I did that?

I’ve just compared myself to Cate Blanchett.

Well, it’s, it’s so nice too because you’ve got the picture book, you’ve got these books for, you know, older kids, young adults. And then then then you’ve entered into the adult space with Her Majesty’s Royal Coven. And you’ve got this great representation. Because like, this is something I talked about with someone a couple of weeks ago, like kids are never too young to see that representation, I would almost prefer that my son go to a school that is inclusive and has these picture books full of different kinds of people, different shapes of families, different ways that everyone works, because that’s what he’s going to be confronted with as he enters the world. So you need to chill is a lovely book that has the grades you need to tell message while showing there are different kinds of people and that’s okay, why don’t we just calm down about it?

It’s not the kids I worry about. Yeah, cuz I think it’s gonna be fine. I’m in schools far, far less than I was when I was writing young adult fiction. But kids, don’t get me wrong, teenagers can still be really vicious, they’re just horrible to each other. They understand that our school community as a diverse community, I think it’s more about sort of adults. And I think it can even for me, you know, I’ve just turned 40. It’s quite scary sometimes to feel that society has moved on without you. Even I get that with Gen Z and you know, I really worry that I’m getting things wrong, and I’m saying the wrong thing. And I’m like a dinosaur age, even though I’m only like, I’m only a millennial, that’s why, you know, I mentioned this you know, Niamh is 34, and then Helena is 39. So, they are those kinds of upper millennial women. And, you know, that’s something that they’re dealing with as well, that kind of slight generational gap of they’re not boomers, they’re not Gen Z either. And they kind of feel a bit torn between the two kinds of right. It’s about trying to make sense of that. And I think that’s why I think there is a real power in writing a fantasy novel about which is, like, you wouldn’t know from the cover, you wouldn’t know from anything it says on the back, but it has trans characters, that one of the leads is mixed race, and she’s a lesbian, you know, and you just have a very diverse cast, but it’s not necessarily sitting on a pride display in a bookshop. And I think that I think that’s quite important as well, because I just think the dream for me is that you know, when you sit down to watch a TV show, or when you go see a Marvel film or when you when you go to a cinema that you just you’re just seeing society for what it really is, which is, you know, you might not like us, but trans people exist. We are part of the world, and we are not unicorns, we aren’t we are not sort of goblins. We are just sort of like real people who are in your world doing the best we can to take care of ourselves and our loved ones. And yeah, not a big deal. I mean, the end goal for me as an LGBTQ person is to become really mid, just like really boring and like just know, nobody would bat an eyelid.

Your author’s note at the end of This Book is Gay says in challenging times, it’s more important than ever, that we come together as a community and support one another. It all starts with kindness, compassion, and you. So I want to bring that back to Her Majesty’s Royal Coven and The Shadow Cabinet because I feel like these witches have seen some real danger from patriarchal, misogynist anti witch groups. And even with HMRC is issues that you’ve touched on a little bit before. It does feel like for the most part, their underlying message is community and support. Can you speak to how you created that atmosphere? You know, particularly for Niamh and Elle and Leone? I felt like it came through most for them.

I really do think that the best weapon of the patriarchy is to seek division amongst women, which is why I’m very sort of vocal about I think that women don’t need to like each other. I think it’d be very naive to say that all women should be holding hands and skipping down the road. It’s commercial in the 70s, I do not want to teach the world to sing. I do think there should be, because I think there is a natural sort of coalition between all women under patriarchy. And I think I think feminism has to be intersectional. I think we all have to recognize that different kinds of women face different kinds of oppression. But recognizing that, acknowledging that, but I do think we all have a common enemy. So that’s the allegory from Her Majesty’s Royal Coven, which is every single witch in that book has a common threat. And it’s this rising threat of the Tanis, the three fold demon, and that is that is my metaphor for the patriarchy. But the problem is when these women fall out, as they do in both book one and Book Two, all they do is they advance the aims of Tanis. And so that’s kind of what I was hoping to get across. Because when these women work together, even though they might not like each other, they disagree with each other on a whole bunch of things. Actually, that’s the real progress that needs to be made. And I think the way that the way— coalition, it doesn’t need to be friendship, it just needs to be coalition.

Yeah, that’s a great point. And the coalition when they do come together, they’re really unstoppable. And they’ve offered such a nice place to land for Thea too.

Spoilers but yes.

No not at first, but now, it seems like she’s doing so much better. I love to see the way that she has grown in this book, being a teenager is hard.

Things happen and again, it really is. It’s tough. And I mean, it’s really nice, because obviously, there are people that are like you quit writing YA. And I don’t know, I mean, never say never. But it was nice to sort of have the teenage characters of Polly, Milo and Sierra still, they come higher in the mix for the second book. It’s lovely that Thea has a voice now, in book one she is mute. Thea finally blossomed into the girl she was always meant to be and she has the voice now. But what’s really interesting is because the media is very obsessed, on the makeover portion of a trans person’s life, you see it with any famous trans person that everybody’s very fixated on the before and after, but then what happens next, is very rarely talked about. And so Thea is about to find out that there is a whole life waiting for her after what happened to her in book one. And I think there’s the assumption as well that the transition is going to be the hardest thing you ever do. But then you’re like, oh God, but now I have to date, and I have to finish school, and I have to get a job and I have to be a functioning member of society. And Thea is kind of figuring out that actually her life didn’t end in book one, her life is beginning and so she now is dealing with a whole bunch of sort of teenage dilemmas with the first rush of young love. But then all said let’s not forget she is the center of a very apocalyptic prophecy and that hasn’t gone anywhere either.

Heavy weight on that poor girl’s shoulders.

But she’s very pretty and she has lovely hair so at least there’s that. She’s handling it really well. She’s

She’s got a really good friend in Holly too. They’re so sweet together.

Spin off.

There you go.

Watch this space.

I love talking to you Juno. Thank you so much. This has been a delightful conversation. The Shadow Cabinet comes out in June. You Need to Chill comes out in June. I have them both here. Thank you, Juno. This is my favorite day.

Oh, thank you so much. Thank you for having me on. I will come back anytime.

Kat Sarfas
Hello I’m Kat Sarfas, forever bookseller at Barnes & Noble today we are joined by the brilliant Emma Törzs. Emma’s debut novel Ink Blood Sister Scribe is one book I can’t stop talking about, a spellbinding novel about estranged sisters, magical books, familial with loyalty and betrayal in the pursuit of power. Thank you so much for being here with us.

Emma Törzs
Thank you so much for having me. It’s a real delight.

KS
Yeah, so I would say I am pretty biased here, when it comes to books about books, just in general. But so in this case, we have a book about magical books, which was I would say it was pretty much going straight to the top of my TBR pile. And that’s really just scratching the surface. So there’s enchanted mirrors, and a forest family empire. There’s mystery, there’s drama, you certainly pack a lot of adventure and intrigue into this story. So of course, I have to start off with what inspired you to do so.

There’s a long answer and a short answer. The long answer involves like many months of sort of writing my way into this book without having any idea what it was going to be about. It was always however, about sisters, it started out I really wanted to play with fairy tale tropes. So I’m glad you picked up on a few of them, like the enchanted mirrors, you know, family loyalty is big in fairytales. So there were seven sisters at first, but they got whittled down to two, turns out it’s quite difficult to manage seven sisters. So I did know that I wanted to write a book about sisters in part because my own younger sister, I’m very close to her and she has been begging me for it since our childhoods to write a book about magic sisters. And I decided okay, it maybe it’s time for me to finally do that. So really, it started for her.

I love that. And that kind of brings me to those sibling narratives. If you have a sibling, which I do, and I also have a sister, so we kind of you know, it becomes very cozy, but whatever the relationship is sort of whether it’s strained or you know, relaxed, a sibling, it’s sort of like that one person in the world that truly understands where you’ve come from. And I love sibling relationships. I especially love the sibling relationships between Joanna and Esther, I think there’s so many moments between them that are so real for anyone that has a sibling, maybe not magical bits. accurately, sort of portraying the nuances in sibling relationships is really satisfying, at least for me to read. I know for a lot of people to read. So you said you drew inspiration from from your sister. Was there anything else? I know you said you started with seven sisters. So how? I’m sure that you were you were looking at sort of sibling narratives to sort of sort of built into the story.

I have one sister, a blood sister, let’s say. And then I have three stepsisters, two my mom’s side and one on my dad’s side. So I’m sort of wealthy in sisters for which I’m very, very grateful. I really love my stepsisters. So I was thinking also about the types of family relationships that are not quite as easily defined as just that one to one blood, siblinghood. You know, Joanna and Esther are half-sisters. And well, I consider them full siblings, there is that little bit of contention between them or not contention, but, you know, tension. And I think that no matter how close siblings are an age, or whether or not they’re fully related, the interesting thing is, yes, it’s somebody who fully understands your childhood in a way that nobody else will. But they’ve also lived a completely different childhood, right next to you in the same house with the same parents. And that is endlessly fascinating to me, you know, my sister, and I often talk about the different ways that we experienced our childhood, even though we were literally sharing a room for most of it. So I was thinking a lot about that. Also those like little differences that make people grow up differently and look back differently at the same experiences.

Yeah, I mean, you do hear, people, if they’re the firstborn, that the first and then the middle child or the youngest. And, you know, I think everyone’s experiences are different. But there’s, I think there’s something to that, you know, where in order, and I would say birthing order. I’m the youngest. And I wouldn’t like what some say about youngest, I wouldn’t agree with and other things where I’m like, in terms of experiences and like and how, yeah, it turns with, like, the parallels of your childhood versus like, my older sibling, and it’s interesting, and then now I have children, and I’m watching like, their dynamics kind of play out and I can’t help but be like, sympathetic to the baby and be like, you know, and it’s funny because my husband, who was the firstborn, well, you know, we’re sort of playing these stories out now in another capacity. And siblings in general—

Are super fascinating. My older sister heart was beating in sympathy for your youngest child.

You try to have overall sympathy, but you can’t. But when you have that sort of lived experience that you can’t help but have, possibly have certain biases, the family dynamics in general. And I think it’s really interesting to hear you say, yes, how would they not technically full blood siblings, half siblings, but you know, just seeing how close they were. And then, you know, I said, even as you grow up, as they get older, how relationships start to change, you start to become more aware of things and your differences. And so that’s just very, very interesting. And I want to get back to sort of the family and, and also the found family that that we see here in the book, but I want to talk about villains, because I love talking about villains. And you have created such a wonderful sort of like magic system. And then you have this like fantastical world that you sort of built. I feel like you do all of these this like framework. But you got to have good villains, and I really loved how you played with your antagonists. And I want to start with the library, which is like an institution not a person but a villain doesn’t need to be necessarily a person. I think many of us look at libraries as sort of like this beacon of goodness and knowledge and a place of preservation. And this library holds some dark secrets and obviously parallels to sort of, you know that absolute power corrupts absolutely, I want to talk a little bit about that, and how you sort of came to this idea of a library.

I really like that you said, villains don’t necessarily have to be individuals, they can be institutions. And I was thinking of certain, in my mind, villainous institutions, when I was thinking about building the library, mostly, I was sort of thinking about the very wide general institution of colonialism, and how in the name of quote, unquote, preservation, you know, Empire has taken over and taken as their own so much precious knowledge from other places. And, you know, it’s not a coincidence that the library is in London, or in England, because I do sort of associate that as like the seat of colonial power, as I understand it being a US citizen. And I was thinking about like the British Museum, there’s been lots of conversation about repatriation of sacred objects to different places that British Museum has taken. And I have a good friend who’s Cypriot and we had a really interesting conversation where we thought we had found an ancient, Cypriot amphora at a thrift store in Virginia. And we had like, all this conversation, like she was calling the embassy trying to repatriate this Cypriot amphora it turned out to be a fake. But in a really interesting way, like, it’s a fake, that is well known for being a really good fake, I was thinking about all those things like the repatriation of objects, and how institutions often under the guise of protection, or actually enacting damage, and being oppressive in general.

We kind of introduced this library, it is a little bit when you first start to read about it, you’re kind of like, okay, well, they’re just collecting, and then you kind of go into where they’ve been acquiring and how they’ve literally just sort of washed away certain — it starts off with oh, there’s all these like little collectors or all these families that hold these books and protect these books. And then they’re all sort of like, bought up. And then you kind of see this, like the monopoly and you kind of realize, okay, maybe our mission is not as worthy as we, is maybe not as good as you think it is. So yeah, it was just really interesting how it starts and like your thoughts on it, when you’re first reading about it, and then how you sort of continue and build that narrative around this institution, this empire. But then of course, there’s also the players behind this institution who made it, who know what it is. And so we’ll say it will start with Richard, who again, you kind of think of it like a loving uncle, and you do and the way you write it, you kind of get wrapped up in this that’s part of it like that, again, that one slice of what you’re seeing, and then you pull the rug out from under us and then you’re kind of like, How did I not see this all along? But you know, then you follow along. But So Richard, again, thinking you know, parallel have, like people who are in power, who, you know, maybe they came into it for the right reasons or they say they came into it for the right reasons, but really, you know, and then playing with sort of disinherited magic and bloodlines. It was really just really interesting. So where, where did you sort of pull that from?

Well, I think it was important for me to convey a sense of paternalism through Richard, because I do think that there is a kind of condescending paternalism that comes with saying, we can protect this better than you can, we can keep these things safe better than you can. And by you, I mean, you know, countries that have had things taken from them by colonialism and Empire. And that’s sort of like the very broad, description. But on like a character-to-character level, I did want there to be a feeling that Nicholas feels really safe with Richard and feels well kept by Richard. Nicholas himself is a resource. And so I wanted him to be sort of like a living, feeling, sentient resource, to this paternalistic person who really does want to keep him safe. You know, Richard has good reasons for wanting to keep him very safe. And I think one of them is perhaps affection. You know, we could argue about that. But I don’t think that there’s a total absence of that kind of paternalistic affection that comes when you’re trying to keep something safe. If you’re trying to keep something safe. It’s because you think it’s precious, and you’re going to treat it a certain way. So I was thinking about that as I was writing their relationship.

And then just to round out that that nice trifecta, Marum, and I hope I’m saying that character’s name correctly, and she I really struggled with, because it was this, she obviously has this ambition. And is that bad, she’s obviously when you first are introduced to this character, she’s one way, you think she is one character, as you will all have to read the book, once you get, once you get further on, you sort of uncover this other life that she had, and that, the ambition she’s had, and the path that that led her down, and I guess, you know, thinking of, you know, Richard is in more of that, that patriarchal patriarchy, you know, like, in that kind of center, and then her, and I didn’t want to, I mean, I’m throwing her in this sort of villain character, you know, category, because it may be in some parts, you know, or in some way she is, but I didn’t want to, I think I definitely like learning more about her and especially learning about her lives, you have wonderful, strong female characters here. Thinking about Cecily, and then Marum, and just almost the sort of gag order that the two of them sort of, get into just sort of protect their family. And it did sort of highlight a lot of these similar issues that I think women go through in their lives and that sort of delicate balance and ambition and protecting, feeling that maternal instinct to sort of protect your family and that balance, I think, that we’re all expected, as women to sort of perfect or to sort of be great, very graceful and it’s not it’s very messy. I just wanted to hear your thoughts on those.

Well, I said earlier that I was really interested in playing with certain fairy tale tropes. Because I just wanted to have a good time while I was writing this novel, of course, it was in the middle of the pandemic, I honestly just made a list of my favorite tropes and sort of checked them off as I dealt with them. But the evil stepmother or the dead mother or two tropes that come up constantly in fairy tales, and I really wanted to play with those. So Cecily is the stepmother and Marum is sort of a stepmother. Also in in a way like she’s Nicholas’ closest maternal figure. And I don’t think Cecily is evil at all, you know, I wanted to make her like a really loving devoted mother to Esther, even though she’s technically Esther’s stepmother. So Cecily is sort of one part of that evil stepmother. And then Marum is the other part of the evil stepmother, and a lot of the evil stepmothers are very ambitious people, they have clearly articulated goals and desires, even if their desires just to be the fairest and all the land, which is perhaps a shallow desire. But you know, also appearances really important when you’re trying to be a woman in power, you know? Not that you should like cut out the heart of your stepchild and eat it. Let’s not take it that far. But just thinking about playing around with the stepmother trope and that idea of ambition and power and how it might manifest for a woman seeking that type of power, which often comes historically through marrying or aligning yourself with a powerful person in this case Marum aligns herself with Richard. So I was kind of thinking about that. And also, I just wanted to have a good time. Like I said, while I was writing, and Marum was very fun for me to write. So there’s that little facet of it as well.

No, it is true talking about tropes. It’s so interesting, I think that especially today, and we have this sort of, like wealth of fairy tale reimaginings and people kind of playing, flipping the sort of traditional tropes, talking about the evil stepmother, or why does the mother always have to die. So, it was really interesting to see those mother figures, when that they’re dynamic. And it really makes sense when you’re saying how they are sort of like two sides of that evil stepmother trope that’s really interesting. And again, so for anyone who’s listening, who hasn’t read the book, you’ll just have to read it and you’ll see how wonderfully interesting it is. Alright, so getting to now my favorite little like, quartet, we’ve got Joanna and Esther and then we have Nicholas and Colin, and this sort of I love that there is sort of, you know, there’s queer representation with Esther there’s this sort of feeling of found family, when all of a sudden, when the four of them sort of come together, it feels just very like it clicks. And I think it clicks for them too, and I feel like fantasy as a genre can, I think be a safe space for the LGBTQIA community, and you can use it, you know, to highlight an issue to promote empathy or to sort of create on the other side to create a utopia where we there’s some kind of sort of escape to a place where certain, you know, maybe norms, or justices simply don’t exist. So what is your favorite thing about writing fantasy?

Oh, wow. What a great question. I was starting to formulate an answer about found family, which really is one of my favorite things. I was telling somebody, I just went to see the Dungeons and Dragons movie with my students have, I’m teaching a fantasy fiction class. And so we went to see the D&D movie. And they said, one of my favorite lines and all of fantasy, which is like, it’s time to get a team together. Like, yeah, I’m just such a sucker for it. I love a team. And I think one of the amazing things about fantasy is that readers, and I don’t want to generalize too much, because Fantasy has a long, long history. And we’re sort of at an exciting new bend in the road for that history. I

I think I would, yes, I would very much agree with that statement.

it is historically, you know, sort of for white men. And I, again, my students, and I were cackling over like the second edition of the D&D handbook. The first line is like, we have, we boast an enormous diversity of players. We have plumbers, electricians, we have people in cities, we have people in countries, and we even have some women. We were just, yeah. Like, okay, so you have like, diverse white men. That’s yeah, that’s funny. So, you know, there’s like that whole long history, which I love some books and that lineage. But I do think that we’re in this really exciting new time where people are coming to fantasy, for the best part of fantasy, I think, which is to experience a world that you don’t experience, day by day. And so people come to fantasy with slightly more open minds in terms of world building, you’ll read a book as like an American, maybe you read a book set in New Delhi. And there’s a certain amount of world building that you need from the writer as a Western reader to understand what’s going on. Or that writer maybe is writing for a nonwestern audience or an audience that’s more familiar with that location, and they’re not going to do as much world building. And I read these good read comments that are like, I didn’t understand half of what was going on the place names were confusing. Why are there all these wild foreign names? And you don’t get that in fantasy? You can name somebody like, Sam 399. Yeah, totally. So I think there is like, more willingness and patience to be with something that feels different or difficult to immediately understand. And I don’t think that’s the case for my book. In particular, you know, I think that my book is like pretty Western in a lot of ways. It’s set in the US and London, like, what’s more Western than that? And it’s like, not that the magic system is not super complicated, I don’t think but, you know, I read books like The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri, which is set and maybe correct me if I’m wrong. I think it’s like ancient India and I use ancient so loosely, because I’m like, what even does that mean? And when

Yes, like, how far back do we have to go categorizing things as like ancient.

it’s a very loose, loose categorization. But, you know, I read that book and part of the joy is discovering both a new magic and a new world and feeling the excitement of the unfamiliar to me, it’s unfamiliar to other readers, it won’t be as unfamiliar. Like some readers will come to my book. It’s not going to be unfamiliar. Anybody who grew up in Vermont will be like a ha, yes. The, the outdoor outfitter with the moose out front, we know that. Anyway, that’s a really long answer. That’s one of my favorite parts. I think, a fantasy right now in particular, that’s what gets me jazzed, though, I’m not necessarily a practitioner of fantasy.

No, and it is, you know, and I say that a lot now, and I think because, you know, I am sort of loving, whatever you want to call this sort of golden age, you know, Rainbow age, I don’t know what we want to what’s the best way to say it, but of fantasy because I think, you know, for me growing up, I there was these books did not exist, you know, and, and, you know, when you kind of came into fantasy, you it was a lot of you know, and I’m not gonna, you know, I made a lot of love of the Lord of the Rings, a lot of Lord of the Rings fan fiction, and that was, that was a safe space. For me, even though there’s, there’s pretty much no female characters. Not a lot of representation, you know, but it was like, Well, that was that was sort of my entryway. And that’s kind of, you know, I still loved it, I still loved the idea of, again, sort of like suspending belief for a moment, you know, and kind of entering, you know, if you can suspend belief and enter this world and sort of live in it, why can’t you open your mind to other things, you know, why can’t you totally suspend, you know, just, like, hear me out crazy idea, you know, maybe we should all think about human rights more. If we can think, you know, if we can, if people you know, out there who can learn, you know, learn elvish, like, maybe you can learn, like, it’s just, you know, like crazy thoughts. For me, even though there wasn’t this sort of broad community of fantasy writers and these amazing stories that we have now, there was still that part where it was like, if you can, if you can believe this, if you can live here and live in this world and accept this, then there’s, there’s hope for us all in a way.

I think at its best fantasy can do that it can open magical doors, and to other ways of thinking and other ways of seeing. And I think it’s doing that more and more lately.

Yes, I know, this is a standalone. And I know most fantasies are sort of, you know, everyone loves that big series. But this is a standalone. However, I have to ask in a world where maybe there’s a spin on who gets this spin off. And I want to say my bets are on Sir kiwi, but I’m here. I’m thinking like picture books really. Like, I think that we could do a lot there. But no, I don’t. You know, the novel again, it’s, it’s beautiful. And it wraps up and you feel good. Yeah, I feel like it could be open, like there are openings, but at the same time you feel satisfied, you feel fulfilled, then I always have to ask that question, especially with standalones. Like, who does no crazy world who gets the random spin off?

I will say, my party line is I have no plans to write a sequel, I did want it to be really satisfying to read alone. However, there was to be another book in this world, I would probably focus more on like those smaller enclaves of book communities. So like, the group in Boston would probably get some attention. And obviously, I think Marum would have to have a much more. Yeah, she deserves her own fondness.

No, I think she was so I don’t know. And maybe, maybe it’s like a motherhood thing. But like, I was surprised to how much I connected again, it’s not that she’s not an important character, but how much I sort of have feelings.

Good, I’m glad.

Feelings about her life and her trajectory as a woman as an ambitious woman. You know, and sometimes I think it’s an I’m sure, you’ve had instances, many instances we all have when you’re reading a book and, and it is those maybe noncentral. I don’t know, I hate to say non essential characters. I do feel like every character is essential in some way. But how what have they just strike you, you know, or they they’re the ones that like kind of nerve? And maybe it is because they’re not fully explored that we’ve had that sense of yearning afterwards to sort of know more about them. I don’t know.

24:51

Or I wonder if it’s that as a reader, you can just sense the many many pages that are on my computer and bookmark them. Like, you’re just like, I know it’s there.

25:04

I could, I could just like, it’s just that that’s that sense. I could feel it out there. There’s words and sentences and paragraphs, you know, that I can get to consume. And that is so interesting. I was just having conversation today about, you know, in fantasy. And actually this, this brings me to my next thing I want to talk to you about, which is your short fiction, how, you know, when you consume a lot of fantasy, I think reading like 500 600 700 page book, it’s the sort of that that’s the norm. Like, you just kind of, you know, you buckle up, and like, you’re ready for it as a fan, you kind of again, you’re ready to escape, you’re ready to sort of enter and suspend whatever beliefs and while I love a good epic, I also really love short stories. I feel like that’s either end, I’m either like, I’d love to hear that. Yeah. So like, I’m like, give me an even like, I feel like this is like the same with like, film, like, give me like a three hour extended edition I want and then I want to know, all the behind the scenes stuff, like give me that or give me like a 3030 minute like, how many episodes I don’t I don’t want anything, anything in between? I really love short stories, I really do. And it i I wish more people, you know, really understood sort of the what goes into making a short story and how that can even oftentimes, it’s sort of more difficult than being able to sort of plan through, you know, 600 pages. So you’ve written some very lovely short fiction, which you’ve been, you’ve gotten awards for, what is the biggest challenge? Or what are the biggest challenges, but also like the highest rewards for each?

That’s a really good question. And I think the answer is the same. Like the biggest challenge is also the highest reward for me in short fiction, which is that in a short space, you know, short stories, maybe 5000 words, as opposed to my novel at least is like 125,000 words. So that’s many, many more words. Many more multiples of five. So in like a 5000 word, story, every word is incredibly important, because there’s just not that many of them. So when I’m crafting a short story, it’s so deeply for me at the level of the language. And I write sentence by sentence like beat by beat, it feels really musical in a way, and I’m paying so close attention to like, the weight in everything, you know, like how the words are weighted, and where the balance is. And it feels like a fun jigsaw puzzle is how I’ve described it like trying to find that perfect word to slot into the sentence, so that it has the right cadence and the right meaning. And it’s really satisfying. But it’s also extremely challenging, because you just have a much more compressed space, at least for me, it takes a long time to figure out like what it is I’m really writing about. So if you look at my drafts of short stories, it’s like if a short story is 15 pages, that’s the end result. The draft is like 100 pages. Yeah, it takes me a long time to get there. And then once I know really what the story is about, that’s when I get to go back and do all that like minute fiddling, yeah, you know, to make it just feel tight and cohesive. And you do not have that in a novel as much like I really had to unclench a little bit in terms of like the sentence by sentence thing. For me, it’s still like, the greatest pleasure is the language of a book. So I still have to write sentence by sentence. I just like can’t do it any other way. I’ve tried to do the messy first draft thing, and it just really doesn’t work for me, I have to be a novel requires so much delusion. I’ve described it as like a delusion bubble. Like I have to believe, personally, that every sentence I’m writing will stay in the book, even though I know. Absolutely. Without a doubt it will probably get deleted.

Yes. But that’s good hope. Hope is not a bad thing. Yeah.

It’s just like, I have to be totally in it in that delusion being like, Nope, this is it, you know, yes, it’s the 10th draft of this chapter. But this is the draft that’s finally gonna stick. And I thought that the first draft to you don’t have to believe it fully for every draft, but it’s very, very challenging to be a sentence by sentence writer and also keep track of a big sprawling story. And you know, this book, I come from a literary background. So like I wrote literary fiction up until about five years ago, when I had a big sea change and turned my back on literary realism. And, you know, so a lot of my early work was literary realism. And my most of my published stories are still literary realism. But they’re not big on plot, and no one ever taught me how to do it. And so this book, ink blood sister scribe, I wanted to make it like plati. I was like, I’m gonna write like a plati book. And I had no idea how to do it. So I just kept throwing wrenches in and then trying to write my way through them and if it didn’t work, I would just delete everything and throw in another wrench and then break my way through that. But that like keeping all the wrenches in my brain was the biggest challenge and also one of the biggest pleasures. So that’s a very long answer.

No, but I love it. I think the challenge is the reward, you know, and so it’s not totally so it’s not uncommon to, you know, just say like, oh, it was, it was that again, you know, just seeing all of your, the short fiction you written and and just thinking like, and I know you’ve written you wrote a novel previous to this one.

Yep. I wrote a literary realism novel, which we don’t have to talk about. It will never be seen by any eyes other than me and my agent and that’s fine.

We’re allowed to sort of, you know, to grow and to explore. Yeah, what is next for you? Hmm, great. We going back to short but me like short stories. Are we like No, I, you know, let’s get let’s go back to the novels. We’ll let that let that stay for a while.

Yeah, I tried to go back to short fiction. And I feel like something cracked in my brain. And now I’m only thinking in terms of novels. So I think it’s going to it’s going to be another novel I have tentatively started work on a new project that I am excited about. I’m like, really hold things close to my chest. I don’t like to talk about them until they’re out there. But I will share with you four key words to the next project. All right. Bloom, broom, loon. Moon.

Oh, and they were like fabulous. I can draw so many words, my mind instantly stopped my fantasy brain. Yeah. So we started like, yeah, that’s a good one. A lot. A lot of symbolism.

I just took a weaving class. That’s another little clue. I made two scarves. I’m very proud of them.

Oh, gosh. Now, you should be first of all, you should be proud. I’m assuming this was a new skill. This is like,

Like, not one month ago when I took this like three day weaving intensive.

Any new skill, whether it be writing, like diving into a novel? I just think it’s so— I love to hear people talk about and I think and I don’t know, and I hate to say this, if it was like a pandemic thing, you know, where people kind of, you know, decided that learning new skills is something of worthwhile that you know, you are worthy of the time to learn at any age. Like it’s not basically if that’s something we’re like, Okay, you go to high school, and you know, maybe you go to college, and maybe you go to, you know, to graduate school, and then like learning stops. And I think that’s a problem.

Perpetual student, I’ll take, especially now that I’ve been a professor for so many years, I’m just like, I’ll do anything to sit in a classroom. I learned something. I love it so much. And I’m unsure usually into hobbies. I’m a big proponent of have a hobby that will never make you any money. And just enjoy yourself and be kind of bad at it. Be a weaver. Yeah, they will never be a scarf, chunky scarves, that all your friends will be like, oh, yeah, that’s really pretty. Uh huh. No, I don’t want that. So don’t waste your time.

When you’re like, huh, yeah, I’ll make one.

Just based on everybody’s getting scarves from now until forever, I’m fully in it, they’ll get better, I think,

That’s the thing with skills, you have to work at it. That’s, you know, I feel like I said, it’s my, you know, it’s funny when I’m talking to my little peoples, my children at this time, and just trying to invoke that, like, things, anything worth learning. takes time. Absolutely. So being on the other end of seeing that you want to be on the other end of, you know, the the teaching process, wanting to be a student. I always love to ask this question, to sort of kind of close things out. Because one, I’m always looking for great book recommendations. But I think it’s always nice to sort of talk about, you know, when you’re in your process, but then also just you know, that that love of other writers I think, so many writers have, and and just in general loving book recommendations from brilliant women. So what are you reading now? Or what was the last book that you read that you couldn’t stop talking about?

Oh, wow, these are really good questions. I get panicky every time anybody asks me for a book recommendation. So I have stuff on my wall that I’m looking at to remind me because you say what are you reading? And I’m like, I don’t think I’ve ever read a book in my whole life.

I’ve never read anything. Never even though you probably have a stack of books.

I just got on I was really lucky enough to see him. He came through Minneapolis, I went to see him talk, Chain Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, I’m so excited. It’s right next to my bed. I’m like, probably going to start reading it right after this conversation. And then I’m about halfway through The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez, whose first book The Vanished Birds is a book I could not stop talking about. It’s like a sci fi, space, opera maybe sort of thing. It’s not, you know, 500 pages when you hear space opera, maybe you think? Yeah, it’s like a nice, neat story. I was sobbing in public so intensely that like multiple people came over to see if I was okay. The first chapter I tell everybody read the first chapter. And if you’re not astonished at the beauty of the writing, and just in awe of the virtuosic performance of this writer than like there’s no hope for you. It’s one recommendation. Really? Yeah, so I am. I’ll read anything he writes. I’m like, just sold on Simon Jimenez. And I also just finished and really enjoyed The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by SA Chakraborty. Yes, it was just a rollicking good time, and about like a middle-aged mom pirate. And I was just complaining to somebody that there’s just no middle aged women and fantasy novels. And in fact, it’s like, the older characters and fantasy novels are usually like grizzled old, mercenary men. Yes. And this is sort of a grizzled, old mercenary pirate woman on the Indian Ocean, hunting treasure, and it’s yeah, it’s extremely good.

Yes, it is. Really? I can. I can. I will back that up as having read it. Yeah. And I loved and I think guess what, that’s pretty much what sold me on it. When I read I was like, so aging. Pirate mother queen like that queen. But like, in my head. I was like, so she’s a queen. Right? Yeah. Basically, reclaiming her, her let like her status, like reclaiming. You know, like, yeah, you know, kind of rewriting her story. And I was like, Yeah, I’m all and yeah, and then when you think about, like you said, from a fantasy perspective, put that in and you’re just like, get that doesn’t exist, like those stories. And it’s just, it’s really

A lot about like, the balancing of wanting to protect your child, but also being like a badass lady who wants to go on big adventures, which I have no children myself, but a lot of my amazing friends do. And I see that struggle playing out in like, you know, smaller ways. None of them are like, I’m gonna get on that ship and hunt down this missing girl. But the it is like it’s a constant struggle, you know, especially like, artistic friends who are like, I want to go on this residency or to this conference. But here’s this darling young person who is gonna listen.

Yeah, yes, yes, the constant is a constant struggle. But speaking of adventures, Inc, blood sister scribe, I have my like, very worn art copy. I have like, even one with that didn’t even have the cover. That was just like, I had, like, the blue one that I always wanted. I almost bought that one. And I was like, now what? A nice one. It is an adventure. And I think that the emotions and again, you know, with the characters, and I love the different point of views, and it’s just really brilliant and just fun. And like something where I feel like you know, when you when you are, you know, when you’re reading a lot of 500 Page epic. This while it was still like what, I think a little over 400 pages not you know, not nothing to you know. Yeah, it’s no doorstopper, though. Oh, no. But it’s also not you know, it’s not like it’s a you know, short novella, but it was just lovely. And it was such a wonderful time and I just to escape a little bit, and and hang out with these characters and hang out with them and, and sort of pull the parallels from this world into our own world. And again, make you makes you think and just sort of help helps you open your mind and understanding and it was really wonderful. And thank you so much for writing it

Thank you so much for reading it. Having me I feel like I am heard a lot about like colonialism, but I do think the book is very fun. I had a blast writing it. So I’m really happy to hear that you had a good time reading it.

So thank you again. This has been wonderful. Ink Blood Sister Scribe is out now.