LiteraryHype Podcast

OLIVIE BLAKE / ALEXENE FAROL FOLLMUTH: Writing under two personas

• Stephanie the LiteraryHypewoman / Olivie Blake • Season 1 • Episode 33

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00;00;03;04 - 00;00;21;23
Speaker 1
Hi and welcome to Literary Hype. I am Stephanie, the literary hype woman. And today's author conversation comes to you from the Tor booth at San Diego Comic-Con. 2024. I got to talk to you all of you Blake or Alexa and Farrell families depending on which name you know her by about her variety of books she's got 12th Night, she's got Masters of Death.

00;00;21;23 - 00;00;40;00
Speaker 1
She's known for the Atlas six and there might be some some information in here about some upcoming projects that haven't been announced yet. So without further ado, here's my conversation with all of you. Blake, welcome to Literary Hype. It's exciting.

00;00;40;02 - 00;00;41;13
Speaker 2
I'm feeling very high.

00;00;41;17 - 00;00;44;25
Speaker 1
This is the hype zone. Yeah, it's on is ultimate level of hype.

00;00;44;25 - 00;00;45;16
Speaker 2
Absolutely.

00;00;45;16 - 00;00;47;24
Speaker 1
What's it like, Ben, like for you at Comic-Con so far?

00;00;48;00 - 00;01;05;27
Speaker 2
Oh, this is the first year. OK, so first I have to preface by saying that, like, I love Comic-Con and I went and I think 2017 in 2018. And then I stopped being able to get tickets. And so I had to write a New York Times bestselling book in order to be here. It's so it was worth it.

00;01;06;25 - 00;01;07;16
Speaker 1
I mean, obviously.

00;01;07;23 - 00;01;11;13
Speaker 2
So my method my method was to, to write several books. But, you.

00;01;11;13 - 00;01;22;00
Speaker 1
Know, I mean, then that's how I met you the first time was here, and that's when I bought Atlas six because you were signing. And I was like, Well, I got to get it. Yeah. And now you've got so many books to talk about. Like, so to me.

00;01;22;01 - 00;01;22;17
Speaker 2
It's to.

00;01;22;21 - 00;01;27;21
Speaker 1
Your most recent release. We'll go with that one first. OK, officially.

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Speaker 2
What are we considering? My most recent release?

00;01;30;06 - 00;01;35;21
Speaker 1
We'll go with 12th Night, OK, Masters of Death as of this moment is not officially out in paperback.

00;01;35;21 - 00;01;40;03
Speaker 2
Right? Right. Although I am really excited about the paperback. It has an extra short story.

00;01;40;03 - 00;01;43;02
Speaker 1
We will we will discuss the paperback momentarily.

00;01;43;17 - 00;01;44;07
Speaker 2
Wonderful.

00;01;44;09 - 00;01;46;11
Speaker 1
We'll start with 12th Night. There's so many books to talk about.

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Speaker 2
It's OK.

00;01;47;11 - 00;01;49;07
Speaker 1
I had to think logically on this one.

00;01;49;07 - 00;01;58;25
Speaker 2
I'm really operating from a place of fear. I think just artistically. I started from a place of starvation. And so now it's like I've got to get it all out there in case they change their minds.

00;01;58;25 - 00;02;06;11
Speaker 1
Tessa Bailey has said that like, yeah, she had so many books before it happened one summer and that blew up. And then then she felt like she just had to keep going to ride the waves.

00;02;06;11 - 00;02;25;29
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. Because you never know when it's going to be pulled out from under you. But that's just those are the hazards of an artistic career. My husband always says that. He says that's the price you have to pay for the life you want to live. And I think about that a lot that like, you know, obviously in every job, there's pitfalls and in mind, there's the great fear of obsolescence.

00;02;26;11 - 00;02;34;18
Speaker 1
Which is understandable. But like the how do you take care of your mental health with that? Like feeling like you need to keep going just to keep it going?

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Speaker 2
Yeah, well, I'm in therapy oh.

00;02;41;03 - 00;02;41;20
Speaker 1
Good start.

00;02;42;07 - 00;03;01;20
Speaker 2
Yeah. And it's a thing I have to always work on. And I think some of it is the having boundaries for myself. I cannot spend too much time on social media. I just think it's bad. Like, even, even if I were to limit myself to only God, even if I could limit myself to only good reviews or whatever, it's still not like that's not a good mental place to be in.

00;03;02;26 - 00;03;27;25
Speaker 2
So I try to, you know, proverbially touch grass and just, you know, there's, there's my work, and that's something that I do, that I do it because it makes my brain feel like my best possible brain and like I'm doing what I should be doing. And thinking about what is interesting to me. And I exist in that space, and then I exist in the like, you know, mom and home space.

00;03;27;25 - 00;03;39;06
Speaker 2
And I try not to enter the place where it's like, what happens if it all leaves? What happens if I never deserved it to begin with? Those are places I'm just not allowed to go. Those are doors. I'm not allowed to open.

00;03;40;04 - 00;03;53;04
Speaker 1
OK, so 12th Night. Yeah, right back to the books. Yes, I am very rabbit Charlie today. It's fine. Yeah. So 12th Night, for anyone who hasn't seen this on social media or in a bookstore, you give us a little sneak peek at what this book is about.

00;03;53;07 - 00;04;19;13
Speaker 2
Yes. 12th Night is written by electing Cheryl Falmouth, which is me but it's my it's the name I use when I write for teens. So anything Y is by Alexa and anything that's adult is biology. And 12th Night is my celebration of girls and fandom and gaming. It's, you know, it's the perfect book to talk about here because there is fake Comic-Con and fake Dungeons and Dragons and very, very thinly veiled references to fantasy franchises.

00;04;20;22 - 00;04;55;17
Speaker 2
But it is a remix on the Shakespeare play 12th Night. It is really for me about the like, anger and who is allowed to become undignified in their anger and spoiler. It's it's not the teenage protagonists yeah. And I also just I think that there is not enough representation of bitches in, in media, like real bitches, you know, like a lot of times I read romance books where it's like, this is an unlikable female character, but like, I can get so much worse than that, you know?

00;04;55;17 - 00;05;22;27
Speaker 2
And I'm like, Yeah, right. Mentality. Yeah, yeah. No, I really think and this is like, as I'm, as I'm writing, I'm wrestling with this. I really think there is this sort of, like, objective, feminine narrator that we're all that is the lens we all have to use. Like, we have to write from within this particular woman and I wanted to fight that, and I wanted there to be a presence of someone who's just really, really pissed off and like, not because she's a cinnamon roll on the inside, but because the world is like.

00;05;23;16 - 00;05;47;19
Speaker 1
A dumpster fire yeah. Yeah. We've even got toys here that are dumpster fire. It's like, yeah, that's that's the world we live in. That dumpster fires are now our toys. Yeah. But anyway, so one thing I really love about this book, especially at the beginning, was how you dove into the mind of an athlete. Did you play sports or how did you find that inner athlete?

00;05;48;13 - 00;06;10;17
Speaker 2
Where do I start with this? I people have like people's entry points to this book has been have been very different. Some people are like, oh, I love what you said about gaming. I love what you said about fandom. And and some people are like, you seem to really understand football. And I was like, I do. I never missed a home game because I was in the marching bands but I didn't really love football.

00;06;10;17 - 00;06;32;27
Speaker 2
And actually the athletic parts of this story, I do like I do some stuff I like. I'm imagining my husband being like, come on, like, be honest. I box like once a week. But but with the athletic stuff, it actually is based on my husband and his proclivity for knee injuries. He was a running back. I was 12 nine is my pandemic book.

00;06;32;27 - 00;06;52;01
Speaker 2
And so I was kind of trying to make it as easy as possible for myself. I didn't want to invent a whole lot I really wanted to take the vibes of like Ten Things I Hate About You and those like nineties, 2000s romcoms. I made my character a running back because my husband was a running back and he's had like 11 knee surgeries.

00;06;52;01 - 00;07;15;15
Speaker 2
And, but I also wanted to focus on the idea of like when all of who you are is defined by something that has limits, such as your body, such as your knees, that's a really, that's a really stressful thing to have to come back from. I have like an agony aunt series that I occasionally dip into on YouTube.

00;07;15;15 - 00;07;28;14
Speaker 2
It's Oliver Blake is not writing. If you have any thing you need to discuss. And a few years ago, someone someone mentioned something about having been an athlete and now having this like alienation from their body. And then sort of feeling like, who am I now?

00;07;29;00 - 00;07;30;27
Speaker 1
Because 100% right?

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Speaker 2
Because I because I can't perform the way that, like, all of all of my value is in what I was able to do.

00;07;38;18 - 00;07;41;05
Speaker 1
Especially when you're athletic career and suddenly.

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Speaker 2
Yes. Yeah.

00;07;42;11 - 00;07;43;23
Speaker 1
It's it's hard.

00;07;43;29 - 00;08;10;05
Speaker 2
Yes. You know, and I understand that like just just from when you define yourself by anything like I think a similar thing is the being a gifted kid and then suddenly you're an adult and, and no one's giving you gold stars anymore. And it's like, well, how do I define myself in it? So it's kind of, you know, obviously not the same, but something that I wanted to approach, especially to the Duke Orsino character, because Duke Orsino is like he has he has really bummed.

00;08;10;09 - 00;08;11;23
Speaker 2
And I mean.

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Speaker 1
And that's another aspect of it is he also has all the family pressure on his performance. So talk a little bit about creating the family relationships.

00;08;21;01 - 00;08;53;09
Speaker 2
So it's hard for me to talk about one of my ways without mentioning the other so my other one is my mechanical romance and family conflict was a much bigger part of that plot. But I think because as an adult, I understand the impact that family can have on you and the way that it kind of like creates your mythology for you and how problematic that can be over time when you sort of look at look at how you're raised or how people treated you and not necessarily on purpose.

00;08;53;09 - 00;09;13;08
Speaker 2
Certainly in these books, every adult is doing their best, but those are things that like I think I would have wanted to put words to as a teenager or been able to understand like which parts of these which parts of this is good, what good things can I take from this? And what ways is this made me like in what ways is this a blind spot?

00;09;13;16 - 00;09;31;26
Speaker 2
And I think that's because as an adult, I understand that the way you have to love people is sometimes to just accept them as they are weaknesses that all weaknesses and all. And with my mechanical romance I remember there was a complaint. People are like, well, the parents never apologize or the parents never like they don't resolve the damage that's been done.

00;09;31;26 - 00;09;57;05
Speaker 2
And the truth is your parents are not going to apologize. To you. Probably. Yeah, probably. And I think why is a place where I felt is it felt safe to be like, here's the truth, here's the world, but here are all the reasons why it's still worth it to have these relationships and why it's still it's still important to look at the world with good faith, I think to understand that there are people like, yes, there are people who want you to fail, and that sucks and that's hard.

00;09;57;05 - 00;10;05;25
Speaker 2
And that makes people angry and it makes it hard to go throughout life. But there are also lots of people who want you to succeed and those are the relationships you should focus on.

00;10;06;01 - 00;10;11;03
Speaker 1
What was the most challenging part of creating your own version of the game that they're playing?

00;10;12;00 - 00;10;36;06
Speaker 2
So, yes, so 12th Night with a K is it's an MRP, so an online role playing game that's sort of based loosely on like World of Warcraft or like Witcher and I really love Ariana. So when I thought of the night and night Pine, I was like, Oh, knights, perfect. Let's do let's do a Camelot themed staying. Let's, let's have it.

00;10;36;26 - 00;11;02;04
Speaker 2
It also worked out because all of all of it there, Ryan is fan fiction, basically. And there is no like true King Arthur's story but some versions of it involves 12 nights at the round table. And I was like, perfect 12th Night. We've done it. Congratulations, team. But I actually speaking of the starving artist years, I, I, all I knew is that I wanted to write fiction and I wanted to like, live while doing it.

00;11;02;04 - 00;11;33;28
Speaker 2
And so I considered a lot of different writing careers, and one of them was like the possibility that I could write a video game because once I understood that there, you know, that story is such a massive part of gaming that I was like, oh, maybe that's something I could do. So I guess in the back of my mind, I always knew that if I was going to write a fantasy game that it would be based in Ariana and there would be the like, there would be the element of the quest and the sort of like feeling of the Renaissance fair of like existing in the world and wanting to be part of it.

00;11;33;28 - 00;11;44;14
Speaker 2
And yeah, so that was actually really fun and quite easy. It was like I said, I was trying to make this book as easy for me as possible because I, I was also pregnant and I had like two brain cells just like rattling around.

00;11;45;09 - 00;12;02;21
Speaker 1
And I, I got this on camera of the, because I got an arc of it all that you all fast. Oh, I was going through like playing ball and reading it off and I was like reading the names and I was like, wait, the author of Atlas six? So I have it on camera of me going, What? And like reading your, your acknowledgments, I'm like, who is this in my friend way?

00;12;02;21 - 00;12;16;00
Speaker 1
What? This is a much bigger get than we even realized. Like, we had no idea that you had the two names at that point in time. We, like, lost our minds so this one is a little bit of like, enemies to lovers.

00;12;16;00 - 00;12;24;14
Speaker 2
So I like to call this one Nemesis to lovers. So yeah, I'm being really pedantic about it, but like, they're not enemies because they're not trying to kill each other.

00;12;24;23 - 00;12;31;13
Speaker 1
And that's what I was going to ask about the enemies to lovers in the context of high school and how you cracked that to be a believable.

00;12;31;15 - 00;12;38;07
Speaker 2
You can't do enemies to lovers in a high school environment. You could. Ryan Murphy probably could probably.

00;12;39;05 - 00;12;40;06
Speaker 1
That would be bloody.

00;12;40;12 - 00;13;07;01
Speaker 2
Note to self we could, but and they're not rivals to lovers either because they're not directly competing for something. They just don't like each other but they also they dislike it's it's similar to enemies in that I think when you have enemies to lovers, there's a sense of mutual respect and that's what's so appealing about the ship that's like someone can hate you and still see the best in you that that's kind of a miraculous thing.

00;13;07;09 - 00;13;37;02
Speaker 2
And so so for these two to have these like they both have these separate survival techniques for existing in the world with all these micro-aggressions and they they take very, very opposite techniques. I mean, VI is very, very grumpy. And Jack is very much a people pleaser. His tail is wagging at absolutely everyone. And but for them to look at each other and for her to recognize like, oh, he's really like, he's really chameleon like he can really he understands what it takes to be liked.

00;13;37;02 - 00;13;45;28
Speaker 2
And he does it. And then he looks at her and it's like she doesn't care how freeing for them to recognize that about each other. It was like a really sweet place to start a romance.

00;13;46;19 - 00;13;53;11
Speaker 1
And this book was a Reese's Way book club. Barnes Noble Way. But yeah. What was that like for you?

00;13;53;23 - 00;14;10;22
Speaker 2
It was really hard to sell this book, actually. I mean, I mentioned it was my pandemic book, so I wrote it a long time ago and. Yeah, and a lot of people said no. And a lot of people were like, OK, we love all of you, Blake. Can she write us a fantasy? And it was like, well, no, that's if it's this book, though, I'm trying.

00;14;11;10 - 00;14;31;00
Speaker 2
How about this? Is the woman publishing it a really hard time trying to envision an audience that could love fandom and gaming and football? I think the real this is where I have to look around it. I know, I know, right? I know. Publishing is not they don't always know what's happening. That's the thing about, like, basically all industries, but especially publishing.

00;14;31;00 - 00;14;34;12
Speaker 2
Like, they don't know what the market is. Nobody knows what the market is.

00;14;34;28 - 00;14;36;04
Speaker 1
We're all just making it up as we go.

00;14;36;05 - 00;14;54;14
Speaker 2
I mean, I'm proof of that. I'm like 100% crowdsourced. All of you Blake exists as a person or as a as a persona because a bunch of people told their friends to read the Atlas six which is a book I did not even I self-published thinking, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That I was just like, you know, five people are going to read this, and that's fine.

00;14;55;20 - 00;15;04;12
Speaker 2
So anyway, publishing doesn't always know and you know, and again, big ups to Taylor Swift for making football relevant to young women.

00;15;05;16 - 00;15;06;28
Speaker 1
Thanks as a Chiefs fan.

00;15;07;14 - 00;15;09;07
Speaker 2
But. Yeah, yeah, right, right, right. Like I.

00;15;09;07 - 00;15;11;29
Speaker 1
Had 87 Jersey since I was nine years old from the.

00;15;11;29 - 00;15;49;09
Speaker 2
Team. My goodness, look at that. Living my life personal solid. If she could now just pick up 12th Night like yeah but you know you do you though Taylor it's fine. I'm happy you're happy but no, but seriously, the idea that I mean part of what the book is kind of railing against is the idea that, like, there are only certain interests that that bookish people only like certain things or that there is no overlap between geekdom and, you know, and so it was all of which to say when I heard about the race book club thing, I laughed at my editor.

00;15;49;10 - 00;16;07;11
Speaker 2
I was like, that's not, you know, she also delivered it in a really crazy way because Reece's book club has a partnership with Taco Bell which like talk about combining interests, OK? And, and so she did. She was like, it's a Reese's book pick, live.

00;16;07;11 - 00;16;07;28
Speaker 1
Litmus.

00;16;10;13 - 00;16;12;19
Speaker 2
So thank you, Lindsey, for the memories.

00;16;12;26 - 00;16;21;03
Speaker 1
Oh, that's so great. Well, and speaking of being a Barnes Noble pick, yes. I happen to know you two are the August paperback.

00;16;21;03 - 00;16;23;06
Speaker 2
Ooh, you know things.

00;16;23;07 - 00;16;23;17
Speaker 1
I know.

00;16;23;17 - 00;16;24;16
Speaker 2
Things. You know, the.

00;16;24;17 - 00;16;35;04
Speaker 1
Theater kit that we got for it is so much fun. Like Purple lace with skulls in it. It's great. So it's really Masters of Death. Yes. It's coming out in paperback very soon.

00;16;35;04 - 00;16;35;15
Speaker 2
Yes.

00;16;35;25 - 00;16;39;27
Speaker 1
So talk about what that book is and why people need to go pick it up.

00;16;40;06 - 00;16;55;00
Speaker 2
This book is OK. Like, if you're someone who wants to be a writer and you're not sure if there will ever be a market for your story or whatever like Masses of Death is my story about how the world is crazy because mass is it. So the Atlas X is the first is the book I had that went viral.

00;16;55;00 - 00;17;13;18
Speaker 2
It's the one most people know me for but Masses of Death was the first book I ever self-published, and it was completely like I didn't know what I was doing. I was writing it from a place of play that was like, I just want to write a book that has this tonality and it has these characters. I wrote it completely out of order and then tried to put it back together.

00;17;13;18 - 00;17;47;16
Speaker 2
It was a mess. It has it has very like fanfic vibes. I think there's like all the characters get happy endings, and it's something that was just very much not what the market wanted at the time. Like in 20, 17 or 18, people are like, Don't send us vampires. It's just going to get deleted, unread, whatever. And you know, to our publisher because like I love tours, but you know, there were dollar signs in their eyes that was like, OK, the Atlas six did well, maybe this one will too, but nobody expected it to be on the New York Times list for three weeks like that.

00;17;47;16 - 00;18;06;07
Speaker 2
That is that is a testament to, you know, there are some books that have a lot of research, publishing resources put into them. And Masses of Death was just a backlist title. There was no reason for it to do so well except that people really, really loved it. So if you're someone who really loves your work and you feel a passion for it, the market changes a lot just because they don't want it now.

00;18;06;07 - 00;18;40;22
Speaker 2
They might someday. And yeah, so I wrote this book in 20, 17 or whatever, and I edited it but I for the paperback, got to write an additional short story for it. So is the first time I was like dipping my toe back into this world and I wrote what is very much a fan fiction story. It's called Branch Goldberg's Book of Worlds, and he basically rates each world like a Yelp review and it was just so much fun for me to write it and to, to revisit that particular romance.

00;18;40;22 - 00;19;02;11
Speaker 2
And yeah, it's, it's just I feel so fondly about that book because it just is so me, I guess it's so much of what I was thinking and feeling at the time, and it feels like like a ghost of my past self kind of. And to see it be accepted is, is like retroactive acceptance as a human.

00;19;02;11 - 00;19;11;05
Speaker 1
So well, with the monthly picks, it becomes buy one, get one half off. What books would you put as getting half off with your book?

00;19;11;24 - 00;19;12;15
Speaker 2
Oh, my goodness.

00;19;15;16 - 00;19;44;15
Speaker 2
I OK, I think that is this. So masses of death is like the most wholesome of my all of stuff. Probably I think I would put it on a table with Alex Harrow. I know her Fractured Fables just came out in paperback Inked Blood, Sister Scribe, Amateurs, let's see. I always like at the best of times, I hope what I'm doing is something like White Teeth by Zadie Smith.

00;19;44;15 - 00;20;06;13
Speaker 2
Like I'm trying to achieve that sense of absurdity I mean, I think and I know that the pitch that the one that's on the the is if if L King wrote under the whispering door by T.J. Clune which is a fabulous I mean I don't know what that means. I don't know what that pitch means technically.

00;20;06;29 - 00;20;07;29
Speaker 1
But I it's so weird.

00;20;08;00 - 00;20;11;05
Speaker 2
I'm very happy to be associated with TJ's work.

00;20;11;24 - 00;20;13;27
Speaker 1
He's popular too. So yeah, it's true.

00;20;13;27 - 00;20;14;06
Speaker 2
It's.

00;20;14;25 - 00;20;15;20
Speaker 1
It's just a little.

00;20;16;01 - 00;20;37;08
Speaker 2
Oh, Light from Uncommon Stars by Rick Aoki. That's I mean, these are the books that have this real, like, sense. There's a, there's this driving existentialism that is approached with a little bit of, like, silliness, a little bit of banter and comedy. And looking at the world and seeing good things in it, I think is which is not something I always do.

00;20;37;08 - 00;20;44;13
Speaker 2
I don't in the Atlas Series, that that series is born from a place of like crippling nihilism.

00;20;44;22 - 00;20;51;07
Speaker 1
So you've got a lot coming out in the near future. What are you working on now with your next projects?

00;20;51;21 - 00;21;18;00
Speaker 2
Oh, yes. OK, so gifted and talented is coming out in the spring. It's essentially succession with magic, although my actual inspiration was the Royal Tenenbaums. I was really that was another one where I was trying to achieve the Wes Anderson tone, but it's essentially a sibling dramedy, which was really fun to write. And then in the fall, late summer, I think maybe August is a girl dinner, which is a satire about a cannibal sorority.

00;21;18;05 - 00;21;18;19
Speaker 1
That sounds.

00;21;18;19 - 00;21;39;00
Speaker 2
Amazing. Yeah, it's my I wanted to write about feminism and where I thought feminism was going and the like, Barbie Girlhood era. It's also kind of tonally my response to Fleischman is in trouble, which I love Taffy. I love taffy, I love Long Island. Compromise is also really, really good. I'm really enjoying it, but it was so depressing.

00;21;39;00 - 00;21;56;00
Speaker 2
That was probably the most depressing book I read last year. And so I kind of wanted to have an answer to that. And I don't know if it's much more hopeful, but I think it was it was in conversation. It was in conversation with that book, as well as The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe, which is quite old.

00;21;56;00 - 00;22;11;18
Speaker 2
That book is from I think it was written in the sixties and it was very similar to Fleischman. And then it was like, Women Can't Have It All is the moral of the story. And I wanted to dig a little deeper than that. I was like, Why are we well, why are we turning to this idea of a universal girlhood?

00;22;11;18 - 00;22;15;17
Speaker 2
Why are we turning to this? You know, the girl dinner meme is very funny.

00;22;15;27 - 00;22;16;20
Speaker 1
Hilarious.

00;22;16;20 - 00;22;20;19
Speaker 2
Yes. And a really great starting point.

00;22;21;16 - 00;22;27;05
Speaker 1
And there's another book that you did not mention that I happened to know about. Oh, your graphic novel debut. Oh.

00;22;27;20 - 00;22;28;28
Speaker 2
Am I allowed to talk about that?

00;22;28;28 - 00;22;34;20
Speaker 1
Publishers straight told me to ask. Oh, my God. OK, yeah. Yeah. So you can talk. He's like, it's not announced, but you can ask.

00;22;34;26 - 00;22;51;09
Speaker 2
Oh, my God. OK, great, great. I also forgot to say that my short story collection, January, is coming out in October. Whatever, though. We're going to talk about Claire and the Devil, which so people who are familiar with my work know that I've worked with the Illustrator Little Camera for a long time. She's definitely a huge part of why the Atlas Six went viral.

00;22;51;09 - 00;23;13;20
Speaker 2
She does all my interior illustrations for the most part, and we write a webcomic together called Claire in the Devil, which is adapted from a short story that I wrote. And we decided we wanted to keep going. And so we're publishing under can I say that in print? I don't know if that's been announced. Oh, OK. So we're we're publishing Claire on the double under the new first second imprint.

00;23;13;28 - 00;23;15;08
Speaker 1
23rd Street.

00;23;15;08 - 00;23;43;29
Speaker 2
Third Street. Which is so incredibly exciting. The art is amazing. It's jaw dropping. I mean, we're going back and revisiting the old the old stuff, as well as like the new series and everything to come and like, it's so great. It's, there's basically going to be a total of seven seasons and seven, seven different like types of art and it's really and it's, it's an examination of morality and arts and what it means to be an artist.

00;23;43;29 - 00;23;45;29
Speaker 2
And it revolves around a Faustian bargain of course.

00;23;46;09 - 00;23;50;04
Speaker 1
So our last question, since this is literary hype, what books are you hyped about?

00;23;50;12 - 00;24;08;13
Speaker 2
Oh my God. I just read the Ministry of Time by Kelli Caitlin Bradley. I think it's excellent. I, I don't know what I was expecting when I picked it up and it was very different. I loved it very much. It's, it's like a, I'm going to call it a little bit sci fi, although I noticed it isn't shelved in sci fi.

00;24;08;13 - 00;24;27;00
Speaker 2
So anyway, and then also I'm Waiting for You by Kimbo Yang, which is for short stories and like two, two and two that are interconnected and they really like rewrote the way that I exist in the context not I don't mean to make that a coconut tree me it happened.

00;24;28;13 - 00;24;30;24
Speaker 1
Well, thank you so much for taking time to talk with literary hype.

00;24;31;07 - 00;24;32;08
Speaker 2
Thank you so much.

00;24;34;26 - 00;24;55;16
Speaker 1
Thanks again to all of you for taking the time out of your crazy Comic-Con schedule to talk to me about her books, including 12th Night at the Sixth Masters of Death other projects that are coming up. If you'd like to check out all of these books for yourself, the links to do so are in the show notes. If you enjoyed this conversation, don't forget to subscribe to the literary podcast give us some stars and share it with your friends.

00;24;55;16 - 00;24;58;00
Speaker 1
Thanks for listening to the Literary Hype podcast.