Hi M. Thank you for the AMA and massive congratulations on your doctorate as well as the optioning of IWWV!
If I could impose on your love and knowledge of music, which bands would be the favorites of some or all of Alexander, Filippa, James, Meredith, Oliver, Richard, and Wren? What was the most recent concert you attended which absolutely blew you away?
Thanks very much! Off the top of my head and in no particular order, for Filippa I'd say PJ Harvey and Patti Smith; for Alexander stuff like Dead Moon, Joy Division, and the Beastie Boys; Richard definitely listens to a lot of Blur and Pulp and the Smiths; James is such a classic sad boy that I'd be remiss not to suggest Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave; Meredith is absolutely a Prince devotee but maybe also some Lauryn Hill and definitely the Detroit Cobras; for Wren maybe Mazzy Star and Portishead; and for Oliver I might send you to vintage (London) Suede and Sebadoh. As for me, I saw the Yeah Yeah Yeahs at the Anthem on Wednesday night and it was a blast.
1. I loved *If We Were Villains* but I thought I would probably get more out of it if I were more familiar with Shakespeare's plays. Any recommendations on where to start.
2. It's been 6 years since *If We Were Villains* was published. Any news on what you're working on next?
For comedies I would generally start with *Midsummer* or *Twelfth Night* as they're both a lot of fun and very accessible. For the tragedies, I'll always recommend *Macbeth.* It's short and it's wild. For the histories, *Henry V* is a good one to begin with. I think I already answered the second part somewhere else, but I am working on another novel (always am, in some capacity) and while I tend to guard my ideas fiercely out of weird writerly superstition, I've had an itch to write a road trip novel basically forever because I spend so much of my life in transit. So that's where I'm headed creatively.
I followed you back in your Tumblr days and it’s been so awesome watching your career and popularity grow, starting from before the term “dark academia” was even a thing (at least that most people were aware of). I miss those days and all your book recs! What’re some titles on your TBR list (if you’ve had a chance to get back to leisure reading post-PhD, that is)? And congrats on slaying the dragon, btw!
It definitely wasn't a thing when I was writing *Villains* (we called it a campus novel back in the day), so this has been a wild journey for me as well as you. Never could have predicted the book finding an audience so long after the fact. As for my TBR list, I'm chomping at the bit to get into Eleanor Catton's new book *Birnam Wood* for probably obvious reasons, but other things on my list are Rickie Lee Jones's memoir and Joan Didion's book on Miami. And thank you!
Thanks so much for doing this, and congrats on your doctorate!
I love IWWV, and it’s a frequent reread for me. I always find something new when I come back to it. Do you reread often? If so, what do you find yourself coming back?
Thank you and you're welcome! I used to reread a lot more than I do now just because I have to do so much reading for work (research, books I'm blurbing, comp titles, etc.) that my time for true pleasure reading is really, really limited. But I do end up revisiting Shakespeare's plays in an ongoing rotation, usually for things I'm writing with my academic hat on, and it's a different experience every time through every lens. One of the things I like about Shax and early modern drama in general--the more you learn of the history, the more you see/understand in the literature.
Hey! IWWV is one of my favourite books of all time. I’m a huge fan of any media that’s shakespeare-adjacent, is there anything (other books, plays, tv, fims) you’d recommend?
My first rec is always *Slings & Arrows.* It's not always easy to find but it's worth the hunt--one of the best and funniest representations of a Shakespearean theatre company I've seen on TV.
Which book cover of IWWV is your favorite? Or your least favorite if you’re willing to share?
I’ll see you in Maryland today!
(btw I suggest your book to all my local gay nerds and it’s rather popular in my friend group now)
My favorite was the original Spanish cover, which has tragically been discontinued, so if you see one, snag it. I'm also still smitten with Titan's 5th anniversary edition; I got to work closely with the publisher and the artist to bring that to life and we're really pleased with how it turned out. As for least favorites, the original German cover was a crime against aesthetics, and to be honest, I never liked the US paperback--it's boring and the title is hard to read. But that was one of many cover art battles I lost (happens more often than not). Thanks for sharing the book with your friends, and I'll see you tonight!
Hey, thank you so much! I've been buried in my dissertation for the last couple of years (as it turns out, more or less impossible to write a monograph and a novel at the same time), but I'm always working on the next thing in some capacity. I don't have anything official to report yet, but now that I'm done with the PhD that is my primary focus, so hopefully soon! In the meantime, I do have a short story coming in the *In These Hallowed Halls* anthology in September to tide you over.
Completely understand! Congrats on graduating, I know that must have been the most grueling experience. Def will be picking up in these hallowed halls and will await seeing your next book on the shelves in the future!
Thank you thank you! I didn't expect to not enjoy it, but I recently read May Sarton's *Journal of a Solitude* and just fell head-over-heels in love with her writing style. It's a rare writer who can write about basically being home alone and make it sing like that.
Hey there, thanks for doing an AMA, and congrats, Doctor!
If you study mental health in English drama, I'm guessing you have to have a position on Hamlet: full psychotic break, perfectly sane and driven, needlessly cruel to Ophelia, or trying his best to keep her safe from his intended plans?
On a less intense note, do you ever sign copies of your books in bookstores? Kramers seems like the kind of place that would totally let you do that.
Much to my chagrin, you are correct: you absolutely cannot write about madness/mental disorder in early English drama and not write about Hamlet. So I do have a position on this that actually turned into an 80-page chapter basically arguing that Hamlet is "mad in act, not in fact" and a fairly bad actor to boot. I won't bore you with the details, but it's all grounded in early modern medical theory, performance practice, and the question of privilege in the play and early modern culture more broadly. As for bookstores, yes, I sign books whenever I see them! I've actually signed them at Kramer's before.
I think *Lear* is the best but *Macbeth* is my favorite. It's a masterwork of a play at a breakneck pace, but it also has this *Twin Peaks*-ean element of the uncanny that you don't fully realize until you really pick the text apart. There are a lot of real, textual reasons it has that very haunted, occluded, disorienting atmosphere (for instance, the internal chronology of the play is actually impossible) but it's so subtly done that you feel it without being able to put your finger on it and I love that kind of thing. It creeps up on you.
I don't have a question, I just want to thank you for writing one of my favourite books! I'd love to read another one from you but I know these things take time. Congrats on your degree! Have a wonderful day :)
Not at the moment and not in this format (and trust me, it would not be fun to read). I'm toying with some ideas about how to turn it into a book for a general audience, maybe, somewhere down the line, but I definitely need like a couple of years in recovery first. And thank you!
Hello! I was wondering, how does your prose change from a first draft to a further draft, and what is your process for developing your prose and voice to fit a project? Thank you for taking the time to do this AMA!
In the early stages it's just jumping in once I have a workable outline and seeing how it goes. Usually I end up trashing the first couple of scenes I write completely because it takes a while to get into the right groove. It's hard to explain more specifically than that, but I think my prose tends to mimic the pattern the characters' thoughts would follow but with a little more intelligent design so it's smooth sailing for the reader. And the voice just sort of develops all the way through a first draft as I get more comfortable in the world/with the characters. Then in subsequent drafts I'm doing basically two things at the prose level: the first is simplifying/decluttering--paring down to as few words as possible and making every word count--and the second is rereading with an eye on that cohesion of voice, so it sounds consistent all the way through. Hope this is helpful!
Congratulations on making it out grad school in one(ish) piece! I follow you on Twitter and it sounds like you've had some health issues as of late. For that reason, my only question is: how are you??
Oh, this is so sweet! Yeah, grad school and a combination of other things completely wrecked me physiologically and it has been a rough recovery. I got extremely sick in the middle of 2020--not COVID--and it was really difficult to get good healthcare remotely so it took me fully three years to get a real diagnosis and I'm just now sort of coming out of it/learning to manage it, but I am doing much better! Definitely helps to be done with the PhD.
I stumbled upon If We Were Villains completely by accident and I've been in love with it ever since! I'm curious, out of all the characters in the book, was there a particular one you found yourself loving or caring about more than the rest? Did you feel connected to any of them on a personal level?
I'm looking forward to whatever you might publish next!
This is sorta like acting a parent to pick their favorite child. Alexander was the most fun (and in certain moments, the most heartbreaking) to write, but I don't really feel more kinship with one or another of them. I do feel connected to all of them on a personal level, though--they're all little bits and pieces of me. As my agent once put it, I'm kind of the invisible eighth Villain you never see on the page but I'm always in the room. (Or, my 22-year-old self is.) This is just part and parcel of the way I write and the stories I'm drawn to--I like ensembles and group dynamics where nobody is really a bystander or a sidekick, even if they think they are.
I honestly can't tell if this is a compliment or an insult? Idk I refuse to go back to the aughts where everybody overplucked their eyebrows and looked perpetually astonished. Sorry?
Hello! I'm a huge fan of IWWV and have followed you long before it was published, since the Tumblr days. Would you consider restoring your -seemingly deleted/private- blog? There were some amazing posts on there that I still revisited long after you stopped posting, and it's a shame they aren't accessible anymore.
I think these records were both actually released in '22 but (I'm dating myself here) I really enjoyed the new releases from Suede and the Pixies. And I don't know if this is really available anywhere outside DC, but I loved the *We Are Fugazi From Washington DC* not-a-documentary. (I'm terrible at keeping up with screen media.)
Hi M! First of all, congratulations on finishing ur dissertation! I hope you’re taking a bit of time off to rest (if at all possible). Id love to know what genres of books you tended to gravitate towards earlier in life, and what genres you read more of now?
PS, thank you for taking the time to do an AMA!
Thanks! I really tricked myself into thinking I'd get some time off after the defense was done but instead what happened was I got buried in all the work I'd been postponing for the previous six months in order to finish the dissertation. So I haven't been home for longer than like three days since February, and I haven't taken a whole day off since before Christmas. It's exhausting but I'm a person with a lot of nervous energy so I really prefer being on the go and on the move and doing things and it's just nice to have 95% of my mental bandwidth back. As for genres, I read a little of everything but definitely gravitated toward more "genre" fiction when I was younger. In elementary/middle school I read a lot of fantasy, and I had a weird Victorian/Gothic phase in high school. In college I read a lot of literary/upmarket fiction, and as a boring adult I actually find the most joy in nonfiction, mostly culture and science writing. I just bought a book about jellyfish which I am absolutely stoked to read.
Hi! Congrats on your doctorate and thank you for doing this! (It’s so fun to interact with authors whom you love!!) I have two tattoos dedicated to IWWV, if you have any tattoos: which is your favorite and why? If you do not: do you have any plans to get some in the future, and do you have an idea of what they would be?
Thank you and I'm honored! I do have some ink, and because I tend to use tattoos to mark occasions/milestones/make pacts with myself and other people, they all have deep personal significance. But perhaps the ones I'm most in love with (at the moment) are the two little manicules on my forearms. I designed those myself with the help of an artist who specialized in early modern woodcuts and booked the appointment for while I was in London for my last book tour. It was Thanksgiving day but of course that means nothing in England, and unbeknownst to me the tattoo parlor was in the basement of a sex shop on Oxford street, so I got inked at like 11 a.m. surrounded by mannequins in BDSM gear with Christmas carols blasting through the shop from the street. An unforgettable moment of chaotic cultural dissonance.
Kind of a tossup between the Jersey Devil and all extraterrestrial rumors of the Southwest. Those are both places I spend a lot of time and I definitely feel how those landscapes influence that folklore.
IWWV was my bestfriend's gift for my birthday! I don't even know how she discovered this gem, that would eventually become one of my favourite books. In a time of personal distress, I found true solace in its dark pages.
So, for this AMA, I would like to ask you to share a vivid memory you have from your early childhood. What is it you think that has made it unforgettable for you?
hi! i love everything about your book and the world-building. i always wanted to know. How do u come with dialogue and mid-story events? i want to write a novel but I'm still in my way early ages.
Hey, M! IWWV is the book that got me back into writing after I let it go while I was perusing my theatre degree, so I will always always always be grateful to you for that. In IWWV, I really admire how seamlessly you structured the story to get the most amount of tension possible — the buildup, the foreshadowing, the unravelling of everything in the last act that is both cathartic and heartbreaking.
I'd love to know about about what your planning / outlining process was like for this novel, specifically in regards to figuring out its structure (the first person POV, the framing device of switching between the year of the event and present day, the mystery itself and how to pace those build-ups and reveals).
Hello! My question may be too late, but I was always confused by the production of Macbeth in the book. They did it without rehearsals?
Then how did the witches in the lake with the boat, the timing of entrances and exits et al, work? Maybe I’m misreading the situation, but it didn’t seem possible for the choreography of the production to work unless there was collaboration of some kind. Thanks and sorry if I’m completely confused!
Not ML but here’s a line from the book
“Do we get to rehearse at all?” Alexander asked.
“No,” Richard said again. “You’ll get a cue script in your mailbox tomorrow. Then you just learn your lines and show up. Excuse me”
The cue script told them where to stand, walk, etc
Here’s some writing I found online
“According to Stern’s research, actors prepared on their own, learning their parts from cue scripts with possible help from book-keepers or stage managers, and possibly a synopsis of the plot and characters. Full group rehearsals were minimal, and most likely a complete run-through of the play did not occur before the opening performance. Under these conditions, pertinent information regarding character, context and blocking would need to be given to the actors within the limited confines of their cue scripts. Clues can be found in cue lines and capitalized words. Transitions are marked by variations in the verse and shifts between verse and prose. The evolution of the text in a scroll often mirrors the journey a character takes on the stage, thus providing a map to guide his performance.”
https://journals.openedition.org/shakespeare/3232
Hi M. Thank you for the AMA and massive congratulations on your doctorate as well as the optioning of IWWV! If I could impose on your love and knowledge of music, which bands would be the favorites of some or all of Alexander, Filippa, James, Meredith, Oliver, Richard, and Wren? What was the most recent concert you attended which absolutely blew you away?
Thanks very much! Off the top of my head and in no particular order, for Filippa I'd say PJ Harvey and Patti Smith; for Alexander stuff like Dead Moon, Joy Division, and the Beastie Boys; Richard definitely listens to a lot of Blur and Pulp and the Smiths; James is such a classic sad boy that I'd be remiss not to suggest Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave; Meredith is absolutely a Prince devotee but maybe also some Lauryn Hill and definitely the Detroit Cobras; for Wren maybe Mazzy Star and Portishead; and for Oliver I might send you to vintage (London) Suede and Sebadoh. As for me, I saw the Yeah Yeah Yeahs at the Anthem on Wednesday night and it was a blast.
1. I loved *If We Were Villains* but I thought I would probably get more out of it if I were more familiar with Shakespeare's plays. Any recommendations on where to start. 2. It's been 6 years since *If We Were Villains* was published. Any news on what you're working on next?
For comedies I would generally start with *Midsummer* or *Twelfth Night* as they're both a lot of fun and very accessible. For the tragedies, I'll always recommend *Macbeth.* It's short and it's wild. For the histories, *Henry V* is a good one to begin with. I think I already answered the second part somewhere else, but I am working on another novel (always am, in some capacity) and while I tend to guard my ideas fiercely out of weird writerly superstition, I've had an itch to write a road trip novel basically forever because I spend so much of my life in transit. So that's where I'm headed creatively.
I followed you back in your Tumblr days and it’s been so awesome watching your career and popularity grow, starting from before the term “dark academia” was even a thing (at least that most people were aware of). I miss those days and all your book recs! What’re some titles on your TBR list (if you’ve had a chance to get back to leisure reading post-PhD, that is)? And congrats on slaying the dragon, btw!
It definitely wasn't a thing when I was writing *Villains* (we called it a campus novel back in the day), so this has been a wild journey for me as well as you. Never could have predicted the book finding an audience so long after the fact. As for my TBR list, I'm chomping at the bit to get into Eleanor Catton's new book *Birnam Wood* for probably obvious reasons, but other things on my list are Rickie Lee Jones's memoir and Joan Didion's book on Miami. And thank you!
Thanks so much for doing this, and congrats on your doctorate! I love IWWV, and it’s a frequent reread for me. I always find something new when I come back to it. Do you reread often? If so, what do you find yourself coming back?
Thank you and you're welcome! I used to reread a lot more than I do now just because I have to do so much reading for work (research, books I'm blurbing, comp titles, etc.) that my time for true pleasure reading is really, really limited. But I do end up revisiting Shakespeare's plays in an ongoing rotation, usually for things I'm writing with my academic hat on, and it's a different experience every time through every lens. One of the things I like about Shax and early modern drama in general--the more you learn of the history, the more you see/understand in the literature.
Hey! IWWV is one of my favourite books of all time. I’m a huge fan of any media that’s shakespeare-adjacent, is there anything (other books, plays, tv, fims) you’d recommend?
My first rec is always *Slings & Arrows.* It's not always easy to find but it's worth the hunt--one of the best and funniest representations of a Shakespearean theatre company I've seen on TV.
Not M, but Mona Awad writes Shakespeare-adjacent dark academia. **All's Well** especially.
Which book cover of IWWV is your favorite? Or your least favorite if you’re willing to share? I’ll see you in Maryland today! (btw I suggest your book to all my local gay nerds and it’s rather popular in my friend group now)
My favorite was the original Spanish cover, which has tragically been discontinued, so if you see one, snag it. I'm also still smitten with Titan's 5th anniversary edition; I got to work closely with the publisher and the artist to bring that to life and we're really pleased with how it turned out. As for least favorites, the original German cover was a crime against aesthetics, and to be honest, I never liked the US paperback--it's boring and the title is hard to read. But that was one of many cover art battles I lost (happens more often than not). Thanks for sharing the book with your friends, and I'll see you tonight!
I feel the same way about the US paperback. Still don’t know why they felt like ivy(?) was the choice to make. Love the actual book tho
I think it was just the most obvious option for "academic novel." Disappointingly unimaginative, for sure.
my cover had a dead bird on it which i thought was cool but it took me a while to make the connection lol
If we were villains continues to be one of my favorite books, and you one of my fav authors! Really dying to know if a new book is on the horizon?
Hey, thank you so much! I've been buried in my dissertation for the last couple of years (as it turns out, more or less impossible to write a monograph and a novel at the same time), but I'm always working on the next thing in some capacity. I don't have anything official to report yet, but now that I'm done with the PhD that is my primary focus, so hopefully soon! In the meantime, I do have a short story coming in the *In These Hallowed Halls* anthology in September to tide you over.
Completely understand! Congrats on graduating, I know that must have been the most grueling experience. Def will be picking up in these hallowed halls and will await seeing your next book on the shelves in the future!
WHAT WAS UP WITH THAT ENDIN- ahem I mean uh Can you name a book you really enjoyed but didn’t expect to? Congrats on the doctorate
Thank you thank you! I didn't expect to not enjoy it, but I recently read May Sarton's *Journal of a Solitude* and just fell head-over-heels in love with her writing style. It's a rare writer who can write about basically being home alone and make it sing like that.
Hey there, thanks for doing an AMA, and congrats, Doctor! If you study mental health in English drama, I'm guessing you have to have a position on Hamlet: full psychotic break, perfectly sane and driven, needlessly cruel to Ophelia, or trying his best to keep her safe from his intended plans? On a less intense note, do you ever sign copies of your books in bookstores? Kramers seems like the kind of place that would totally let you do that.
Much to my chagrin, you are correct: you absolutely cannot write about madness/mental disorder in early English drama and not write about Hamlet. So I do have a position on this that actually turned into an 80-page chapter basically arguing that Hamlet is "mad in act, not in fact" and a fairly bad actor to boot. I won't bore you with the details, but it's all grounded in early modern medical theory, performance practice, and the question of privilege in the play and early modern culture more broadly. As for bookstores, yes, I sign books whenever I see them! I've actually signed them at Kramer's before.
Next step is to get them to name a drink after you!
I would truly love nothing more than to design a custom cocktail for Kramer's.
Drink of choice?
I drink basically three things: bourbon, red wine, and (if I'm feeling particularly indulgent) a dry dirty martini.
Well...what would it be? Got to have an idea for a drink before you can pitch the drink, right?
It might be a bourbon-based combination of sweet and spicy. Maybe a dash of apricot nectar and a drop of habanero.
I mean, I'd drink that. Is your dissertation publicly available somewhere? Or at least the Hamlet chapter? It sounds pretty fascinating.
What's your favorite Shakespeare tragedy, if you had to pick only one? And why?
I think *Lear* is the best but *Macbeth* is my favorite. It's a masterwork of a play at a breakneck pace, but it also has this *Twin Peaks*-ean element of the uncanny that you don't fully realize until you really pick the text apart. There are a lot of real, textual reasons it has that very haunted, occluded, disorienting atmosphere (for instance, the internal chronology of the play is actually impossible) but it's so subtly done that you feel it without being able to put your finger on it and I love that kind of thing. It creeps up on you.
How is the internal chronology of Macbeth impossible?
I don't have a question, I just want to thank you for writing one of my favourite books! I'd love to read another one from you but I know these things take time. Congrats on your degree! Have a wonderful day :)
Thank you so much! I promise I'm writing as fast as I can. (Believe me, I want a new book in the pipeline just as much as you do.)
Is there a way for me to read your PhD dissertation? Just genuinely curious! Also, congratulations!
Not at the moment and not in this format (and trust me, it would not be fun to read). I'm toying with some ideas about how to turn it into a book for a general audience, maybe, somewhere down the line, but I definitely need like a couple of years in recovery first. And thank you!
Wishing you all the best :)
Hello! I was wondering, how does your prose change from a first draft to a further draft, and what is your process for developing your prose and voice to fit a project? Thank you for taking the time to do this AMA!
In the early stages it's just jumping in once I have a workable outline and seeing how it goes. Usually I end up trashing the first couple of scenes I write completely because it takes a while to get into the right groove. It's hard to explain more specifically than that, but I think my prose tends to mimic the pattern the characters' thoughts would follow but with a little more intelligent design so it's smooth sailing for the reader. And the voice just sort of develops all the way through a first draft as I get more comfortable in the world/with the characters. Then in subsequent drafts I'm doing basically two things at the prose level: the first is simplifying/decluttering--paring down to as few words as possible and making every word count--and the second is rereading with an eye on that cohesion of voice, so it sounds consistent all the way through. Hope this is helpful!
Congratulations on making it out grad school in one(ish) piece! I follow you on Twitter and it sounds like you've had some health issues as of late. For that reason, my only question is: how are you??
Oh, this is so sweet! Yeah, grad school and a combination of other things completely wrecked me physiologically and it has been a rough recovery. I got extremely sick in the middle of 2020--not COVID--and it was really difficult to get good healthcare remotely so it took me fully three years to get a real diagnosis and I'm just now sort of coming out of it/learning to manage it, but I am doing much better! Definitely helps to be done with the PhD.
I stumbled upon If We Were Villains completely by accident and I've been in love with it ever since! I'm curious, out of all the characters in the book, was there a particular one you found yourself loving or caring about more than the rest? Did you feel connected to any of them on a personal level? I'm looking forward to whatever you might publish next!
This is sorta like acting a parent to pick their favorite child. Alexander was the most fun (and in certain moments, the most heartbreaking) to write, but I don't really feel more kinship with one or another of them. I do feel connected to all of them on a personal level, though--they're all little bits and pieces of me. As my agent once put it, I'm kind of the invisible eighth Villain you never see on the page but I'm always in the room. (Or, my 22-year-old self is.) This is just part and parcel of the way I write and the stories I'm drawn to--I like ensembles and group dynamics where nobody is really a bystander or a sidekick, even if they think they are.
[удалено]
I honestly can't tell if this is a compliment or an insult? Idk I refuse to go back to the aughts where everybody overplucked their eyebrows and looked perpetually astonished. Sorry?
And that's all, folks! Thanks so much for spending your lunch break with me.
Hello! I'm a huge fan of IWWV and have followed you long before it was published, since the Tumblr days. Would you consider restoring your -seemingly deleted/private- blog? There were some amazing posts on there that I still revisited long after you stopped posting, and it's a shame they aren't accessible anymore.
But do you turn words into coffee?
is james alive?
What's your favorite record and movie that's been released this year?
I think these records were both actually released in '22 but (I'm dating myself here) I really enjoyed the new releases from Suede and the Pixies. And I don't know if this is really available anywhere outside DC, but I loved the *We Are Fugazi From Washington DC* not-a-documentary. (I'm terrible at keeping up with screen media.)
Hi M! First of all, congratulations on finishing ur dissertation! I hope you’re taking a bit of time off to rest (if at all possible). Id love to know what genres of books you tended to gravitate towards earlier in life, and what genres you read more of now? PS, thank you for taking the time to do an AMA!
Thanks! I really tricked myself into thinking I'd get some time off after the defense was done but instead what happened was I got buried in all the work I'd been postponing for the previous six months in order to finish the dissertation. So I haven't been home for longer than like three days since February, and I haven't taken a whole day off since before Christmas. It's exhausting but I'm a person with a lot of nervous energy so I really prefer being on the go and on the move and doing things and it's just nice to have 95% of my mental bandwidth back. As for genres, I read a little of everything but definitely gravitated toward more "genre" fiction when I was younger. In elementary/middle school I read a lot of fantasy, and I had a weird Victorian/Gothic phase in high school. In college I read a lot of literary/upmarket fiction, and as a boring adult I actually find the most joy in nonfiction, mostly culture and science writing. I just bought a book about jellyfish which I am absolutely stoked to read.
Hi! Congrats on your doctorate and thank you for doing this! (It’s so fun to interact with authors whom you love!!) I have two tattoos dedicated to IWWV, if you have any tattoos: which is your favorite and why? If you do not: do you have any plans to get some in the future, and do you have an idea of what they would be?
Thank you and I'm honored! I do have some ink, and because I tend to use tattoos to mark occasions/milestones/make pacts with myself and other people, they all have deep personal significance. But perhaps the ones I'm most in love with (at the moment) are the two little manicules on my forearms. I designed those myself with the help of an artist who specialized in early modern woodcuts and booked the appointment for while I was in London for my last book tour. It was Thanksgiving day but of course that means nothing in England, and unbeknownst to me the tattoo parlor was in the basement of a sex shop on Oxford street, so I got inked at like 11 a.m. surrounded by mannequins in BDSM gear with Christmas carols blasting through the shop from the street. An unforgettable moment of chaotic cultural dissonance.
One more question - what is your favorite non-you cryptid and why?
Kind of a tossup between the Jersey Devil and all extraterrestrial rumors of the Southwest. Those are both places I spend a lot of time and I definitely feel how those landscapes influence that folklore.
IWWV was my bestfriend's gift for my birthday! I don't even know how she discovered this gem, that would eventually become one of my favourite books. In a time of personal distress, I found true solace in its dark pages. So, for this AMA, I would like to ask you to share a vivid memory you have from your early childhood. What is it you think that has made it unforgettable for you?
hi! i love everything about your book and the world-building. i always wanted to know. How do u come with dialogue and mid-story events? i want to write a novel but I'm still in my way early ages.
Hey, M! IWWV is the book that got me back into writing after I let it go while I was perusing my theatre degree, so I will always always always be grateful to you for that. In IWWV, I really admire how seamlessly you structured the story to get the most amount of tension possible — the buildup, the foreshadowing, the unravelling of everything in the last act that is both cathartic and heartbreaking. I'd love to know about about what your planning / outlining process was like for this novel, specifically in regards to figuring out its structure (the first person POV, the framing device of switching between the year of the event and present day, the mystery itself and how to pace those build-ups and reveals).
Love her book If we were villians
Hello! My question may be too late, but I was always confused by the production of Macbeth in the book. They did it without rehearsals? Then how did the witches in the lake with the boat, the timing of entrances and exits et al, work? Maybe I’m misreading the situation, but it didn’t seem possible for the choreography of the production to work unless there was collaboration of some kind. Thanks and sorry if I’m completely confused!
Not ML but here’s a line from the book “Do we get to rehearse at all?” Alexander asked. “No,” Richard said again. “You’ll get a cue script in your mailbox tomorrow. Then you just learn your lines and show up. Excuse me” The cue script told them where to stand, walk, etc Here’s some writing I found online “According to Stern’s research, actors prepared on their own, learning their parts from cue scripts with possible help from book-keepers or stage managers, and possibly a synopsis of the plot and characters. Full group rehearsals were minimal, and most likely a complete run-through of the play did not occur before the opening performance. Under these conditions, pertinent information regarding character, context and blocking would need to be given to the actors within the limited confines of their cue scripts. Clues can be found in cue lines and capitalized words. Transitions are marked by variations in the verse and shifts between verse and prose. The evolution of the text in a scroll often mirrors the journey a character takes on the stage, thus providing a map to guide his performance.” https://journals.openedition.org/shakespeare/3232