135. OLIVIE BLAKE IS BACK! Who do you become in the pursuit of art?

This week on LiteraryHype Podcast, a San Diego Comic Con tradition continues! Olivie Blake and I are chatting about her brand new book, Dreamland. It's a gothic Hollywood tale overflowing with Olivie's signature vibes. We're talking all about how the pursuit of art impacts a person, sexy pigeons (yes, you read that correctly), and her love of Los Angeles. Plus, she's spilling tea about her upcoming books and bringing all the chaotic energy you know and love from her (ie us together without adult supervision).

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Dreamland
Girl Dinner
Clara and the Devil Vol 1
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My Mechanical Romance
Masters of Death
The Atlas Six
The Atlas Paradox
The Atlas Complex
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Gifted and Talented

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Dreamland
Girl Dinner
Clara and the Devil Vol 1
Clara and the Devil Vol 2
Twelfth Knight
My Mechanical Romance
Masters of Death
The Atlas Six
The Atlas Paradox
The Atlas Complex
Januaries
Gifted and Talented

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Dreamland
Girl Dinner
Twelfth Knight
My Mechanical Romance
Masters of Death
The Atlas Six
The Atlas Paradox
The Atlas Complex

Transcript

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00;00;00;00 - 00;00;13;16
Unknown
Hi and welcome to Literary Hype. I am Stephanie, your literary hype woman, back with another author conversation for Literary Hype Podcast and this is kind of become a tradition at this point. It's not San Diego Comic-Con until I talk to all of you, Blake, at this point,

00;00;13;23 - 00;00;17;21
Unknown
this is our third year filming a conversation for you while at San Diego.

00;00;17;21 - 00;00;22;17
Unknown
But we had to move to a different place, so it threw us off. We weren't sure what we were doing.

00;00;22;20 - 00;00;25;29
Unknown
Just kidding. We know the vibes. It's chaos. It's craziness. It's super fun.

00;00;25;29 - 00;00;41;16
Unknown
And of course it's talking about books. And this time we were talking about her new book, Dreamland, which is Hollywood esque. I will leave it there and I'll let all of you tell you all about this book.

00;00;41;19 - 00;00;52;19
Unknown
Welcome back to literary hype. Woo! So this is our third year doing this. Yeah, but, it's not Comic-Con unless we've spoken to each other. Yes. We have to do a little talk for the people.

00;00;52;22 - 00;01;09;11
Unknown
For the people. But we broke tradition this time. Yeah. We're not your toy. Broke it. Broke it. Twitter decided that they needed bookshelves in their booth. Sorry. For some reason, we're like, we should, like, sell books. What? I know. So we're outside, and that's fine, because we get to be in the sun and enjoy the breeze instead of the muggy.

00;01;09;15 - 00;01;27;00
Unknown
It is. It is nice. I was a little bit worried. Humidity is not. It's not, it's not, it's not it. It's so humid this year. It is. But it's fine because you get to talk about your book that's about to come out. It's true. It's called Dreamland. Thank you. I was like, oh, you say it. We'll say it at the same time.

00;01;27;02 - 00;01;45;24
Unknown
But I don't I can't remember. You start because you have so many books. I do you. You're a little busy. Yeah. And this one's about to come out. It's showtime. This podcast comes out, and we'll either be just coming out. We'll see how fast we'll find out. Yeah. It's magic. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. Don't worry about it.

00;01;46;00 - 00;01;49;16
Unknown
At some point, this book will be in the world's called Dreamland. It's by all of you, Blake.

00;01;49;19 - 00;02;05;25
Unknown
Read it or don't. I mean, that's a good buy to have. Yeah. You know what? The choice is yours. Especially some people get, like, very, to nit picky about books sometimes. Yeah. So for you as an author, to have that mentality of, like, read it or don't.

00;02;05;25 - 00;02;08;07
Unknown
Whatever. Yeah. You know, the thing is, like,

00;02;08;12 - 00;02;21;15
Unknown
I'm a very generous reader. I'm there. I just want to have a good time. But I'm also a serial DNF. You know, some things are just not right for the moment. If it doesn't sound like it's right for the moment, it can wait. You can get it from your library.

00;02;21;20 - 00;02;23;02
Unknown
Come back to it later if it's not right.

00;02;23;06 - 00;02;41;16
Unknown
Whatever's mood reading is so. Yeah. Mood reading is so real. And, you know, I think that sometimes just, you know, like cloud culture on the internet, it's like, I need to read this so I can deliver my hot take. And sometimes you just gotta, like, let it cook. You got to be in the right place mentally to enjoy something.

00;02;41;24 - 00;03;04;08
Unknown
100%. Go with what you feel is all I'm saying. Yeah, absolutely. And this book. We touched on it a little bit last time. Yes. So if anybody hasn't already seen Dreamland out there on the internet. Yes, yes. What is this book about? What a good and valid question. So, do you remember? But this book. I'm pretty confident that last time I delivered the joke that it's like me before you.

00;03;04;13 - 00;03;23;23
Unknown
If instead of a man with a severe disability, it was a man who's maybe possessed by a demon, which is to say, it's nothing like me before you. So if I'm delivering that joke again in enjoy, I've got my dad chic and my dad jokes. This is what I bring to the table. Okay. Dreamland is about onions. She's an aspiring actress.

00;03;23;29 - 00;03;49;22
Unknown
She is 22 years old, which is categorically the dumbest age. But just like, don't worry about that. And she has. She's just kind of like, her big break has kind of fallen away. Let's assume that Netflix canceled it, and she is kind of desperate, and she gets this job offer when she's at a big Hollywood party to work for, sort of more of a, a movie star.

00;03;49;25 - 00;04;13;23
Unknown
Brad Pitt or Leonardo DiCaprio, who has a son with a mysterious ailment, and she is just supposed to be his companion. Like what? What could that mean? So it's pretty classically gothic in that there is, reckoning with the past. There's a sense of macabre. I was really trying to approximate the sublime, but it is also kind of a satire.

00;04;13;25 - 00;04;37;10
Unknown
About fame, about wealth, about, whiteness. Tanya is Filipino, but she's white passing, and it's something that she, like, reaches for in order to approximate power. And is she getting away with that? Who can say, And. Yeah, and kind of noir as well because it's, it's, you know, it's la it's, nihilistic, very cynical.

00;04;37;17 - 00;04;38;05
Unknown
I don't know.

00;04;38;06 - 00;04;55;13
Unknown
I hope you have fun. I just, you're just here for the vibes. I yeah. Like, I tried so hard. Anybody who's read your books knows what vibes you're bringing to the table. This one, this is a very vibes heavy book. This is a this is, you know, a lot of most of them are vibes first, but this one is really vibes, vibes, atmosphere.

00;04;55;16 - 00;05;07;11
Unknown
The sort of like there are red flags everywhere. Romance. You got a character who's kind of messy because she's so ambitious. She's so driven. For this one singular goal, she'll do almost anything for it.

00;05;07;14 - 00;05;14;20
Unknown
Yeah. Well, and you talked about her being Filipino and the goals, and she's got she's with her mom, and her mom doesn't really understand what she's.

00;05;14;20 - 00;05;38;09
Unknown
Yeah, I think she's wasting time. Talk a little bit about that. And like, especially in Asian culture, that is a big part of the arts being a waste of time. Not important. Yes. You just wasting your time. There's a really I mean yeah I mean I'm going to be I'm going to say even more generally, just like the, the immigrant culture, like being the child of an immigrant, there's this real like like you need to be safe to be to make it in America, you know?

00;05;38;09 - 00;05;59;10
Unknown
And in order to make it in America, you need to have a stable job. You need to have money. And you should probably marry a white man like that's kind of the vibe. And, and so, you know, and I wanted to have this character who is just so, so driven for this goal. But even even at the in the best case, you know, you work so hard and luck has to take you from there.

00;05;59;15 - 00;06;17;13
Unknown
So having, having being an artist, having a creative career, this feeling that like you're just kind of treading water until all of a sudden you get this phone call that changes your life. So, I mean, that's something I'm obviously very familiar with. People always ask me, like, when did you know you wanted to be a writer? And the answer is like, that's not a dream I was allowed to have.

00;06;17;13 - 00;06;38;23
Unknown
You know. And, you know, no, not no shade to my mother when I say this. But like, she really preferred that I would have finished my law degree and, and been a lawyer. And I think all those are like familiar, familiar hallmarks of having made it and being safe. And I understand that desire to create safety in a country that doesn't really want you, you know?

00;06;38;23 - 00;07;05;04
Unknown
So I get it. And that tension was sort of easy and sympathetic to build in, because you understand where both characters are coming from. And it's a very familiar feeling. Not that the arts aren't worth it, but that the arts are risky and and the person you become in pursuit of art is also risky. Who have you become as to be, dad chic.

00;07;05;06 - 00;07;19;23
Unknown
Sorry. This is who I've become in the achievement of art. I never know what you're going to say. And it's always like I'm never prepared. Interviewing you makes me realize how slow mentally I am. I'm like, I'm not fast enough to keep up. Sometimes.

00;07;19;25 - 00;07;25;26
Unknown
Thank you. You're so quick. That's a good. Okay. Yeah, yeah, it's. It's nice to know that I can be quick IRL.

00;07;25;27 - 00;07;44;25
Unknown
I normally have a lot of time to form my sentences. Yes, I was talking to somebody else, and they're like, I have really good comebacks, but I come up with them later so that my banter when I write banter, it's good, but it's better than I am in real life. I mean, I should say, you know, I should give more credit to my mother and that like one of the things that was very important to her was she taught me how to clap back, like from an early age.

00;07;44;25 - 00;08;01;12
Unknown
So I feel like she would never have allowed slow thinking, you know? So like so this is the kind of high stakes environment I was raised in. I'm like, ready? Let's go. You're going to be great about this. I know I'm very excited. In a normal income unmedicated way.

00;08;01;14 - 00;08;05;13
Unknown
So back to dreamland. Yes. What was your initial inspiration for this story?

00;08;05;17 - 00;08;19;10
Unknown
So actually, originally I started writing this story back when this is such a this is such a long story, but. So I got my young adults, my first book deal with my young adult book, my Mechanical Romance. That's the book that I got my agent for.

00;08;19;13 - 00;08;39;22
Unknown
And the way the publishing works is, you know, you get the the one book plus an option. So basically like a first look that they, they get the first look. And I was like, well, it's a children's imprint, holiday House. So I have to write another way, a novel. And I wrote 12th Night, and then I finished 12th Night with like 1 or 2 months before my son was going to be born.

00;08;39;22 - 00;09;05;26
Unknown
And I was like, I guess I'll start another project. But at that time, I already knew. I don't have that many ideas. I don't really want to stay in contemporary romance. It's just not my space. And so I was like, I'm going to write something that kind of bridges the aleck scene and all of this stuff. And so I had envisioned this plot originally where there would be like a young Filipina, you know, first generation American who gets this job working for a mysterious Hollywood family.

00;09;06;03 - 00;09;11;27
Unknown
And that there would be this speculative element of like, is it a demon? Is it mental illness?

00;09;11;27 - 00;09;29;00
Unknown
something that would kind of bridge that that romance and fantasy divide. And then obviously, all of you like stuff when it's own way. And so when we were revisiting the concept for Dreamland, which at the time was just untitled Hollywood Gothic, I was like, you know, I'd actually prefer to age this up.

00;09;29;06 - 00;09;47;04
Unknown
And it was really interesting taking Anya from 18 to 22 with the, the, the concept of it. When she was 18, a lot of stuff was happening to her out of her control. You know, when you're still a teenager and you're still at home, like you don't get to you don't have as much agency. Most of the things that you're pursuing or like it's because things are happening to you.

00;09;47;04 - 00;10;03;13
Unknown
So the plot was a lot more contrived. Jude was very different. And then I made her 22 and and so she was making these choices on her own. And then it was like, oh my God, why are you doing this? Like, I spent the whole book, like fighting with the character of Anya, like, why would anyone do this?

00;10;03;20 - 00;10;25;23
Unknown
And every time I would talk to people about, like, I can't get my heroine to, like, be a normal person, like, she's she's doing all this stuff that's like, why would what what normal young woman would do this? And I mean, were like, well, maybe she's just dumb or like, you know, like me. Like maybe she's just young and like, you know, and and I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00;10;25;24 - 00;10;42;01
Unknown
I was like, I can, I can get behind this. I can embrace this. This character who's just like all of this. It on some level, it is also a satire about modern dating, because you do kind of make these choices that are like, this is what I think love is supposed to look like. This is what I think romance is supposed to feel like.

00;10;42;03 - 00;11;02;09
Unknown
And so I'm going to make this choice and hope that it works out. And there's this mix of her being like, you know, she's she's 22, so she's not very experienced, but she sees herself as very savvy. And she is she's savvy, she's cynical, she's nihilistic. So she's like, I could never be fooled. Nothing could ever happen to me that I wouldn't see coming.

00;11;02;11 - 00;11;22;19
Unknown
Which is, you know, the classic, the classic early 20s experience 100%. Everybody thinks they're so smart. And their 20s. Yeah. And then you get older, you're like, oh, my God. Yeah. What was I doing? Best of luck to you. Have fun. Good luck children. Yeah. So on some level, the 18 year old Anya was actually, like, smarter and more cautious than the 22 year old Anya.

00;11;22;21 - 00;11;40;14
Unknown
You know, that kind of tracks. But, you know, at 18, you also have more hope for the future. And by 22, you're kind of like, oh, this sucks. Reality's different. Can I go back to living at home and not doing anything? Yeah. Or feeling like, you know, you just feel like the, you know, you have so much potential.

00;11;40;14 - 00;12;06;05
Unknown
You could be so many things. And then you realize that, like, the potential just recedes. It's just this imaginary line you'll never actually touch. It's true. At the beginning of this book, you really play with structure. And so like chapter one doesn't start till like page 16. Oh yeah. So because you've got directors notes and scripting and other things in there, let's talk a little bit about your decision to add in other written elements.

00;12;06;08 - 00;12;23;11
Unknown
I will say structure wise, I was, I had I wrote a play last year and so I got, I started reading plays. And what is interesting about plays is that they're none of them are structured the same way. And I think with the director's note, I was quite inspired by, you read a C by Sarah

00;12;23;15 - 00;12;30;21
Unknown
Rule, I want to say, but it's it's just this tiny thing where it was like in the beginning, a note about something.

00;12;30;21 - 00;12;55;00
Unknown
And I was like, oh, I love this. I'm going to do this, or I'm going to break the fourth wall a little bit, do this. Director's note. I also wanted to start with a play to like, get the vibes again, the atmosphere. I wanted it to feel Hollywood. I wanted it to introduce you to this worlds. And I really liked the idea of one of the things with that inspired Dreamland is, the Black Dahlia case.

00;12;55;00 - 00;13;23;19
Unknown
Not very, very loosely, only in the sense that, like with a lot of those big, splashy West Coast murders, there's this sense of like, who is a victim and who is going to be sensationalize and who actually gets attention. But it's also like most of those murders, and then being unsolved or whatever is because essentially because of like corruption on some level, you know, and like, it's it's not necessarily some genius super criminal.

00;13;23;19 - 00;13;27;09
Unknown
It's like, I mean, I really recommend the book Murder Land by Carolyn Frazier.

00;13;27;12 - 00;13;36;08
Unknown
I liked the idea of having all these sort of unnamed female victims that don't get that kind of coverage, being the Greek chorus.

00;13;36;15 - 00;13;53;10
Unknown
And of course, how do I introduce that? Obviously in a play format. And then and then I was like, oh, and we want to get like a glimpse of this, and then we want to hear Anya. And when I send it to my editor, I was like, I think there are too many introductions. Like there's like, you can cut whichever one you feel is weaker.

00;13;53;10 - 00;14;08;22
Unknown
And she was like, oh, they're all pretty good though. Like they all like you kind of funnel in slowly to the story. By the time you hear on your voice, you've heard all this other stuff to kind of set the stage the world for you. So, I'm just taking her word for it, but it works.

00;14;08;26 - 00;14;10;13
Unknown
The chapter names are really fun.

00;14;10;13 - 00;14;30;06
Unknown
And thank you. I was I was just my coworkers. I was like, we were all having a good laugh, especially the, LA weather. Yes. Thank you. Demon winds. The demon winds. Yeah. Yeah. Those are the kinds of weather. I just well, I think it's not fair when people are like, LA has no weather. It does, but it's almost all psychological.

00;14;30;09 - 00;14;48;15
Unknown
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. There's a there's a few in there that I was like, some of these aren't even going to be relevant. I'm pretty sure one of the chapters is just like, if a cop asks you how fast you're going, you're not obligated to respond. Like, I just want you to know that. Did you come up with all of them yourself?

00;14;48;19 - 00;15;00;07
Unknown
Yeah, a lot of books don't use chapter names anymore. Yeah, well, typically if I'm going to use a chapter title, I want it to be there for a reason. You know, who does great chapter titles is,

00;15;00;07 - 00;15;08;24
Unknown
The Unimaginable Life of Brian Jones by Lex Croucher. Incredible chapter titles. I think one of the chapters is like Brian's job is arms.

00;15;09;00 - 00;15;26;28
Unknown
That was one of my favorites. Anyway, I just feel like what I have always liked about my own art is that when I'm having fun, the art is better when I'm enjoying myself, and so that some of those chapter titles are irrelevant to anything, except I just wanted to tell you. Like, I just wanted to say this to you.

00;15;27;03 - 00;15;39;15
Unknown
Actually, one of my favorite ones is El Nino, which is which is in LA weather. But I was like, oh, you know, El Nino with the boy. And so it's called El Nino or boys Will be boys. And I was like, ha ha ha,

00;15;39;17 - 00;15;45;03
Unknown
I could just totally see you like writing? I'm just like, this is hilarious.

00;15;45;07 - 00;16;04;07
Unknown
So it applies on multiple levels, I love it. There is a game that this character plays on you. Yes. The, could I survive that game? So I was, curious. Which would you survive, or could you survive a falling from a falling in a car from a great height? So how would you survive that? No,

00;16;04;15 - 00;16;04;22
Unknown
like.

00;16;04;22 - 00;16;19;17
Unknown
Well, she does with herself. Play? How would I survive it? But this is a version of a game that I play in my own head where it's just like. I think in order to combat my own anxieties, I'm like, this is how I would survive this scenario. And a lot of it has to do with heights. It's like, what would I do?

00;16;19;20 - 00;16;37;22
Unknown
A lot of it was the animals in it were falling down. Yeah, yeah. And like, earthquake buildings fall down. I worry. I worry a lot about falling down, you know that's valid. Yeah. Because you play it's kind of two different games, both of which I play in my head as well. I'm kind of slightly OCD. So one of them is that could I survive it?

00;16;37;23 - 00;16;57;08
Unknown
Just like, look at a situation. It's kind of soothing. So like, it becomes a game of, like, how how would I survive the situation? And it orients Anya, which is good. And then the other game she plays is this, like, if I don't make it, it won't be because of me. Or, like, variations on the like a she keeps saying a prayer.

00;16;57;10 - 00;17;16;17
Unknown
If luck doesn't go my way, then at least I will have done everything. And like again, there's many variations on this little prayer, and it's just this, like these little mantras she holds in her head. And those are those are very personal. They are mine. They're my coping mechanisms as well. And I was going to ask about that as well, like the process of creating that.

00;17;16;17 - 00;17;35;05
Unknown
But if it's your own, then that makes it even more. Does Anya feel extra personal to you? I know, I mean, I, I think I've called her stupid, like, so many times. Like, no offense, but like, a little offense. I mean, I understand Anya is telling this story from an unnamed period of time in the future. Anya was like, this is what happened to me then.

00;17;35;05 - 00;17;43;28
Unknown
I had no idea. And you get the sense that she's reflecting on this. So I think even Anya presents herself as like, and here's this thing I did who can say why?

00;17;43;29 - 00;17;56;01
Unknown
Anya is not me, but there were a lot of elements that I was like, oh, this is a good opportunity for me to use this thing that I think the pursuit of art is obviously very personal.

00;17;56;03 - 00;18;25;23
Unknown
The city of L.A., I think this is the first thing that I am really setting in LA of my book. So this was like, this is my moment to, like, really explain what the city means to me and how I think there's a dissonance between how other people, how the world sees it, how Hollywood presents it. And then also the conflict in the city between the film industry that's kind of dying and just, just in LA because it's so expensive to film in LA that it's cheaper to build a set somewhere else, like an LA set somewhere else.

00;18;25;25 - 00;18;51;01
Unknown
And then the, the rise of, of tech and the, the corporate tech grifters and everything that's now owned by like, private equity or venture capital and just this sense that, like, everything is samey and so that the conflict between art and commerce, knowing that you can't be an artist without being able to make a living. So it was kind of it was really interesting.

00;18;51;01 - 00;18;56;03
Unknown
The setting is personal. The way that Anya makes her way through the world is personal. Anya herself is someone else, though.

00;18;56;10 - 00;19;17;03
Unknown
but with a, there is, a little character that I got to kick out of. And that is Alistair. I was I gets the pigeon, isn't it? Yeah. And, so when it, at what point did were you like, this story needs a sexy pigeon, actually. Well, after I wrote, after I wrote my mechanical romance, and again, I was like, I don't really have another idea that was.

00;19;17;03 - 00;19;38;08
Unknown
That was the one I wish I had. And so I asked my agent, I was like, what do you want to read? And she's like, oh, no one's ever asked me that before. And she gave me this list of like, books that she would want. And one of the things that she wanted was a romance between, pewter pigeon, like, do flying like it's a there it is a pretty intense thing.

00;19;38;10 - 00;19;58;15
Unknown
Like in Scotland, there's like old men who, they raise their pigeons and are just super obsessed with the, the mating patterns of their pigeons, you know, and like, it's competitive do flying. And those, those pigeons are, like, super expensive too. And she said that and I was like, sure, I'll write that. And then I wrote this instead.

00;19;58;21 - 00;20;26;16
Unknown
So like it actually started with the pigeon. Like the pigeon was the pivotal part here. And then everything else grew around the pigeons. I, I realized I was like, I'm so sorry, this is not a rom com about do flying. My bad. And then I think I was asked to do I actually I don't think I'm allowed to say yet, but a a like subscription.

00;20;26;19 - 00;20;42;12
Unknown
I wrote an extra short story and it's an epistolary do flying romance, and I was like, I hope this will do. It in your first post, do flying coming your way soon. It, yeah.

00;20;42;12 - 00;20;54;04
Unknown
Alister. Also, my agent's notes, when she is reading the book, she is like, I love it. One major note I have is you didn't describe the pigeon enough.

00;20;54;06 - 00;21;10;12
Unknown
So I went into more detail about the pigeon, and you mentioned that the reader knows that the pigeon does not die in this book. Yeah. The pigeon does not die in this book. The pigeon makes it. You gotta make sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, yeah. Don't, don't don't worry about the pigeon. Pigeon. Just gorgeous gams on the pigeon

00;21;10;19 - 00;21;12;03
Unknown
unharmed.

00;21;12;06 - 00;21;20;14
Unknown
You've touched on your why Ya books, which I love. Do you have any hopes and dreams of maybe going back to wire with another Alexa book?

00;21;20;20 - 00;21;29;00
Unknown
I don't not on the not on the horizon right now. Well, I did, I wrote a short story for, an anthology.

00;21;29;05 - 00;21;33;09
Unknown
the short story is called prophecy. And it was kind of like a gender bent tangled.

00;21;33;12 - 00;21;45;28
Unknown
Yeah. These kindred hearts. So I did write an Alexina story for that. It's really hard to do romance, to see it with word counts. So because you have to, like, I already struggle with romance because you have to build a whole world. But the point of the story is the romance.

00;21;45;28 - 00;22;09;18
Unknown
So the romance has to be the most developed part, so you can't get sidetracked, like I always do with other things that have to do with the fantasy world anyway, so why is not really my area, you know, coming of age stories? That's not like I'm really obsessed with power and what it means to have power. And whether it's always exploitation or that's my deepest power in 12th Night.

00;22;09;21 - 00;22;25;24
Unknown
Yeah, yeah, there is, but I also, I think it's more like I feel an obligation to the youth to be like, the world is a good place. And when I write for adults, I can be like, like, let's fucking play this fucking bullshit. Are you seeing this? Like, yeah, yeah, world is on fire and I don't want to do that to the teens.

00;22;25;24 - 00;22;46;27
Unknown
So, which is not to rule it out because I have told my agent that if I ever had to write another young adult concept, what I would do is satirize a, like, a school election, like, have two frickin insufferable nightmares that have to fake date in order to win. Like, like they want to go to a fancy college, you know?

00;22;46;27 - 00;23;01;05
Unknown
And they're like, we need extracurriculars, so we must we must campaign for cutest couple or something to make us look like normal people. But they would be like nightmares, right? And all the comments would be like, these are so unlikable. Like. And so this is why I probably wouldn't write it,

00;23;01;07 - 00;23;03;02
Unknown
but I think it would be so funny.

00;23;03;05 - 00;23;24;26
Unknown
I'm like page one. It was like I decided that what I needed was a boyfriend. And like, there we go first. Like, I got it. We're getting going. I've decided that this year I will become a girlfriend. Yeah, I am manifesting another way. I'm. Yes. Yes. But you also have Claire in the devil. Yeah. So that volume, which we got the scoop on that two years ago.

00;23;24;29 - 00;23;43;21
Unknown
Yeah. That's so yesterday. Yeah. But two volume two is coming. Yes. March. So what can we expect on this journey on volume two? So Claire on The Devil is kind of a it's about a Faustian bargain, multiple Faustian bargains. It's also about artists. This is a weird year where my two projects that were written really far apart happened to be coming out at the same time.

00;23;43;21 - 00;23;46;01
Unknown
So it's like, oh, she's just obsessed with one thing.

00;23;46;01 - 00;24;09;13
Unknown
it's, the seven deadly sins, the seven mediums, not arguably seven mediums of art. And so book one is lust and literature, and book two is, gluttony and theater. So, yes. So you can expect drama, kids and beautiful baked goods. Oh, wait, I have to say, the devil takes different forms.

00;24;09;13 - 00;24;31;11
Unknown
Claire is still, Claire is still a character, but another character is also introduced and the devil looks different to different characters. And in this one, the devil is this like dominatrix, just like so she goes so hard and she's a barista. So it's just an incredible it's just incredible costume designed by Little Cora. Just why would she be wearing that in the.

00;24;31;11 - 00;24;47;10
Unknown
Yeah, it's it's amazing. I just, like, every time I saw it, I was like, God, I'm so. I love this. And I was debating if I was going to say this or not, but since she said dominatrix, I'm going with it. Are you going to block people from following you because you have 69,000 followers right now on Instagram?

00;24;47;12 - 00;25;24;19
Unknown
Oh, do I finally, I had such a giggle. Finally. I'm mature. No. You're fine. Moving on from 69. I mean, it's a comfortable place to be. It's the only dinner for two. That's Childish Gambino would say. But on your Instagram ssi, pictures of you. Boxing? Yes. How does boxing help you as a creative? You know, actually, boxing has helped me as an artist in that, like, sometimes it's good to feel like because the art world and having a creative career, you don't really know where you are.

00;25;24;19 - 00;25;49;00
Unknown
You don't know where you stand. It's all very uncertain. So to have something like boxing where it was like, oh, I'm, I'm training, I'm working towards something, I'm making progress. It was like, it really saved my creative process, especially in the years where I wasn't going anywhere with my writing. So at least I was like, oh, I was, I'm boxing and I'm getting good at this and I'm training for this thing, and it's giving me the feeling of forward motion and then boxing itself.

00;25;49;00 - 00;26;05;06
Unknown
I mean, it's something I, wanted to do because I was writing a fanfiction called How to Win Friends and Influence People, in which a character was like part of an underground fight club. And so now I, you know, I try to put it in whenever I can. I'm writing a book about, it's called Untitled Assassin Wife.

00;26;05;10 - 00;26;30;16
Unknown
So there's quite a few fight scenes choreographing that with my boxing coach when I might that I don't know. I don't know where I am trying to drop to one book a year. I'm trying. So. So we'll see. I mean, because that is a lot of work to promote all of these books. Yeah, yeah, like, no offense, but this is the worst part.

00;26;30;19 - 00;26;46;09
Unknown
It is like the marketing, like when you start to become an author, you don't think about the marketing part and how to make Canva graphics all the time. Yeah. And how many times you have to explain what the book is, and it's like, I, it's none of my business with the book is I wrote it, it's now. Oh yeah, I am.

00;26;46;12 - 00;27;06;09
Unknown
So are there any other projects on the horizon that we should keep an eye out for? Okay. I think I'm allowed to talk about. So there's Dreamland. Claire in The Devil volume two will be in March. And then I knew for ya exclamation points. I think maybe last year or somewhere else. I was like, I don't know if I'm they're going to let me have this title, but they have let me have it.

00;27;06;15 - 00;27;12;20
Unknown
I am a powerful titan in this industry, and.

00;27;12;22 - 00;27;33;09
Unknown
So new for me. It came from a mistake that my publicist made where she referred to The Hunger Games as being by Susanna Clark, who's the author of, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. So I was like, I love this. I'm obsessed with this idea. I'm going to write it. So obviously it's neither The Hunger Games nor Susanna Clarke because I wrote it.

00;27;33;12 - 00;27;40;11
Unknown
But it's kind of it's a, it's, it's a dystopian satire about technocracy.

00;27;40;14 - 00;27;44;05
Unknown
Well, the last question we always ask, because this is literary hype. What books are you hyped about?

00;27;44;08 - 00;28;08;28
Unknown
Oh, okay. Oh my gosh. Okay. I most recently read the Lies of the Jungle by Moses Utomi, which was really good. It feels like a fairy tale. I really enjoyed it. And, what else am I reading? I am watching the little House on the Prairie adaptation, which is good, but I'm really enjoying reading Prairie Fires by Carolyn Frazier, who I already mentioned.

00;28;08;28 - 00;28;38;09
Unknown
I, I am obsessed with her, I guess. So it's it's about it's a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder. And I feel that this period of time from, like the 1860s, in the early 1900s, is a is a period of American history. We don't spend that much time on. Like, I know we learned about the Dust Bowl, but I, I remember it as like a day, you know, and so this is a really interesting period, especially because Caroline Frazier keeps referring to everything that happened during the Dust Bowl as a climate event.

00;28;38;11 - 00;28;57;03
Unknown
So it's kind of it's kind of soothing my climate anxiety in a weird way, to be like, okay, so a lot of these things have happened before or like also the Gilded Age and extreme wealth. This has happened before. And it was followed by, you know, the pendulum swing of of a government that might actually do something for you.

00;28;57;06 - 00;29;14;07
Unknown
Theoretically. Maybe. Wouldn't that be wild? So so I think it is. It is the one thing that has provided me a little bit of hope in recent times. So it's like, okay. Sometimes it feels like everything we're going through is super unprecedented. And that is, you know, not the case. But what context do we have for it?

00;29;14;09 - 00;29;16;26
Unknown
So.

00;29;16;28 - 00;29;34;13
Unknown
It's been great. Yeah. It's been good. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for hanging out with literary. Hi from San Diego Comic-Con. Yes a pleasure. It isn't Comic-Con until we've done this three years. That's an official tradition. Two years.

00;29;34;16 - 00;29;41;11
Unknown
Thanks again to all of you for hanging out with me for a third time at San Diego Comic-Con to talk all about Dreamland and what she's got cookin.

00;29;41;15 - 00;29;46;16
Unknown
I mean, there's she's talking like 3 or 4 books out. Guys like, this is t

00;29;46;19 - 00;29;52;25
Unknown
if you want to get your hands on Dreamland, the links to do so are down on the show notes for you, as well as where to find her on social media.

00;29;52;28 - 00;29;59;27
Unknown
If you enjoyed this conversation, don't forget to subscribe to Literary Hype Podcast. Give us some stars, leave a review and share it with friends.

00;29;59;29 - 00;30;02;21
Unknown
Thanks so much for listening to the Literary Hype podcast.