Bookwild - Body Swapping, Dark Academia & Personal Magic: Petra Lord's Queen of Faces

Episode Date: February 3, 2026

This week, I talk with Petra Lord about her debut genre bending fantasy-sci-fi-dark-academia book Queen of Faces. She shares the eight year journey of writing the book, how she injured herself while writing it, and how fantasy worlds are so effective for social commentary.Queen of Faces SynopsisAnabelle Gage is trapped in a male body, and it’s rotting from the inside out. In Caimor, where the magical elite buy and swap designer bodies like clothes, Ana can’t afford to escape her tattered form. When she fails the entrance exam to the prestigious Paragon Academy, her last hope of earning a new body implodes. As the clock ticks down to her last breath, she’s forced to use her illusion magic to steal a healthy chassis—before her own kills her.But Ana is caught by none other than the headmaster of Paragon Academy, who poses a brutal ultimatum: face execution for her crime or become a mercenary at his command. Revolt brews in Caimor's smog-choked underworld, and the wealthy and powerful will stop at nothing to take down the rebels and the infamous dark witch at their helm, the Black Wraith.With no choice but to accept, Ana will steal, fight, and kill her way to salvation. But her survival depends on a dangerous band of an impulsive assassin, a brooding bombmaker, and an alluring exile who might just spell her ruin. As Ana is drawn into a tangled web of secrets, the line between villain and hero shatters—and Ana must decide which side is worth dying for. Check Out Author Social Media PackagesCheck out the Bookwild Community on PatreonCheck Out My Stories Are My Religion SubstackGet Bookwild MerchFollow @imbookwild on InstagramOther Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrianMacKenzie Green @missusa2mba 

This week I got to talk with Petra Lord about her debut fantasy novel, Queen of Faces. I am thoroughly obsessed with this. This will be one of my top of 2026. The audio is fantastic. The story's fantastic. The world building is fantastic. If you loved Academy for Liars by Alexis Anderson as much as I did, I think you will really love this one too. And it's part one of a series. So this is what it's about. Annabel Gage is trapped in a male body. And it's rotting from the inside out. And K. Moore, where the magical elite, buy and swap designer bodies like clothes, Anna can't afford to escape her tattered form. When she fails the entrance exam to the prestigious Paragon Academy, her last hope of earning a new body implodes. As the clock takes down to her last

breath, she's forced to use her illusion magic to steal a healthy chassis before her own kills her. But Anna is caught by none other than the headmaster of Paragon Academy, who poses a brutal ultimatum, face execution for her crime, or become a mercenary at his command. Revolt bruise and Camor's smog-choked underworld, and the wealthy and powerful will stop at nothing to take down the rebels and the infamous dark witch at their helm, the Black Wraith. With no choice but to accept, Anna will steal, fight, and kill her way to salvation. But her survival depends on a dangerous band of an impulsive assassin, a brooding bombmaker, and an alluring exile who just might spell her ruin.

Anna is drawn into a tangle web of secrets. The line between villain and hero shatters, and Anna must decide which side is worth dying for. This was, I think, a 16-hour audiobook, and I blew through it in like two days because I was so obsessed with it. I could not stop listing. I love the concepts, the idea of, like, wealthy people being able to rotate through different bodies. And Petra really dives into a lot of different social themes through that. And we talk about that. And we also talk about how she actually injured herself writing this book. So if you want to know what that's about, let's hear from Petro Lord. So I am super excited to be here with Petro Lord to talk about Queen of Faces, which if you've been listening to the podcast, you probably heard me talking about it

nonstop for like a week. But thank you so much for coming. I mean, I'm excited to talk about it. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah. So this is such a unique. I've learned that like some of my favorite fantasy has like the dark academia in it. And I love the blend of like dark academia and fantasy.

But there's also the cool concept that it's living in a world where basically if you're rich enough, you can buy multiple bodies and switch your consciousness or you call it. the pith you can switch it between different bodies so there's so many ideas going on what was like your initial idea to start writing it yeah so i first got the idea for the story 10 million years ago in 2017 which is almost a decade ago now kind of still can't believe that i was in a film school uh for undergrad and i essentially just envisioned this fantasy world where people had the ability to swap between bodies. I kind of started with the world before I actually did any plot or characters,

which is somewhat unusual for me. I think I've always been a fan of cyberpunk stories. I don't know if you've ever seen like Ghost in the Shell or Red Altered Carbon, which are wonderful stories. I need to read that one. where technology sort of enables you to swap your mind between different bodies. And I think that makes all of these really fascinating questions about identity. I think the body that we're born in is something that we take for granted a lot,

much like gender. So I wanted to do sort of a fantasy version of that. And I wanted to kind of bring the trans experience into that. yes i saw one of your posts about how you kind of been working on it for eight years essentially um and the first thing i think i had been reading it and like talking about it nonstop and so i was telling my husband i was like you can kind of tell that it took eight years because the world and everything like it feels so real like i was just so immersed in all of it so i feel like he was probably worth it overall even though i'm sure there are times you were like can i

just finish this? It was a completely crazy journey. And to be honest, I don't. I don't really recommend that anyone else take the exact path that I took whenever I'm asked about advice for writers or whatever I'm like. So first thing, don't do what I did. It was very crazy and very inefficient. And I probably could have done it in a much shorter time span if I hadn't gone about it so wildly.

Yeah. Well, did you always know you wanted to write? Like, it sounds like you were in film school, so there's some interest in stories. But did you, when were you like, I want to write an novel, basically? I mean, I think it's a pretty cliche answer, but I have been excited about the prospect of being an author since I was a child. I imagine everyone says that, but it's still true. They really, it really isn't everyone. Wow. Okay. That's really interesting. For me, it was since I was a kid. It's a lot of people. With my, when I was a kid, I wrote these comics with my older siblings about the various family cats that we had. And they were essentially a rip off of like Star Wars and Power Rangers. And it was about like our family cats who had to fight all of these evil dogs.

So I've been a big sci-fi fantasy person since I was a kid. I also wrote all of these, I had all of these ideas for stories, and then I would write, like, a really cool table of contents for the story. And then I wouldn't actually write the story itself because I had no work ethic because I was a child. Right. So I guess I've been interested in this stuff for a while. When I was a teenager, I think I shifted more into the film and TV side of things. I think I love storytelling in general, and I don't necessarily have a strict allegiance to medium. So I went to film school at NYU, and I studied TV writing.

That's what I have my degree in. But when I first started working on this project, I was in film school, I sort of saw it as a weird, fun side project, kind of like a creative playground where I could do whatever weird nonsense I wanted. I didn't have to worry about getting it like commercially viable. I didn't have to worry about budget. One of my favorite, favorite things about writing and prose is that you can write as many explosions and dragons as you want, and no one asks how much money it will cost.

Yes. So you can go all around the fake country create. Exactly. So essentially the more time I spend on this, the more obsessed I became with it. And it became this sort of overriding, all-consuming passion by the time I graduated. And then when I was in the middle of my Hollywood job hunt, it was March 2020. nothing of course happened in the world

in March 2020 Oh my gosh Of course not So I was essentially unemployed Stuck at home with my parents Separated from all of my friends I got really into this project I became like a intense

Intense intense workaholic And then I checked so much I gave myself nerve damage Like I gave myself this serious nerve injury that I still sort of have 10%. I'm about like 8% and 90% recovered now, but it's called Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. It's a injury that is often gone by computer programmers and professional baseball pitchers because it essentially has to do with your shoulder. Wow. Basically it like pinches your nerves at the shoulder. It was really, really painful. I

couldn't type. I couldn't even wash dishes without all of this pain. But I decided that I wanted to traditionally publish this book. And so I needed to do like a ton and a ton of editing

on it because it was like 2,000 pages long and a mess. Wow. So for a year and a half, I used dictation software to essentially rewrite the whole thing.

Wow. Oh my gosh. I had like a Bluetooth trucker headset with like a microphone and I dictated like every single sentence. I was like period, new line, press tab. Wow. And it was excruciatingly difficult and often slow. Yeah. The computer is not always good at picking up your made-up fantasy words when you dictate them into a microphone.

But I feel like it also definitely improved the craft a lot in a lot of weird ways. I think one of the most common pieces of writing advice that I think people will say is like read your own work out loud. Because it gives you a real sense for the voice and the rhythm of things. Yeah. And so I think being forced to do that, I think, has helped the pros flow a lot better for me. Yeah. Wow, that is some dedication to getting that story done. But yeah, I say, in terms of writing advice, don't do what I did.

Don't write half a million words on a random weird side project. Injure yourself and then voice type to cut it down to one fifth of the length before you query. Don't do that. Oh, my gosh. I know 2000. that would, oh, that would be so hard. But I feel like maybe that's why it still feels so fleshed out because it actually was so fleshed out.

And then it sounds like you kind of had to go like pick what are the scenes that like matter the most or like kind of say what you're wanting to say. It felt sort of like like boiling down stock, you know, just boiling off all of the excess bits until what you have is just like really, really concentrated. Yeah. Yeah. that makes a lot of sense um i really thought the magic system was really uh cool too so that you kind of tie in elements of like if you grow personally that's how you kind of grow your magic too and there's kind of

it was making me think of um like in gymnastics when people come come up with a new move and then it's like their move you have this kind of this concept of a codex that was like always reminding me of that were like people kind of create their own magic too to kind of like contribute to it so what was building that magic system like i'm a big fan of magic systems uh i love coming up with them i love playing around with them i feel like uh having a good magic system is like i don't know having a really good foundation for a story uh in terms of the codex stuff um a lot of the the inspiration for like everyone has their own unique special power actually comes from shonen anime. There's a lot of miscellaneous, like really good anime in which like every character has a unique power,

and I think it's a really fun way to set up a magic system. So that was sort of one of the first basis for that. In terms of the character development angle of it, sort of, you know, like in order to grow your codex, you need to grow as a person, and like as you go as a person, you sort of gain new branches onto your codex. And that's me, I sort of, I sort of see this story is a story that's fundamentally about like transformation and self-discovery and personal growth. And I wanted to weave that into the fundamental roots of the story as best as I could. And so I see, I see the magic system as part of that. And so I guess one angle of that is the body's bopping, but I think another angle is the codex stuff because as one character says, magic is the art of changing yourself.

Yeah, I love that line. A lot of my, you know, favorite sci-fi fantasy stories tie in character development to, you know, gaining new powers or understanding your own power. Like, I don't know, the Empire Strikes Back. Avatar did some really amazing examples of that, you know, tying character into power. And I think I wanted to do a very literal version of that. Yeah. And it does make it like a coming of age story, too, is the kind of interesting part of approaching it that way. And it was, even you were saying some other people have when I was reading it. I had just read Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler recently. I need to read that. And her, oh, I think you would really enjoy it based off of what I've read. It is like top of my TBR for

after I come back from book tour. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure you're about to be busy. But it's, the main character is a pastor's daughter, but she has hyper empathy. And so there's like a, it's her musings on what spirituality versus religion is kind of part of it. And so she talks about how to her like goddess, God is changed because it's like the ability to transform and like do new things. So it was reminding me of that too. And I really loved that book as well. something else that gets repeated a couple times throughout the book. I'm not going to give it context.

So it's not any spoilers. But it's body is privilege, memory is privilege, name is privilege. And I thought that was so powerful. And you hear it early in the book too. And then you see how that was like so much almost maybe like a thesis or like a theme, main theme of the book. Can you talk about like writing around those concepts? Yeah, so that that phrase is a phrase that one of the main characters, Wes's mother says,

as sort of a cruel thing, I think, to twist the knife into, to Wes. And this isn't really that much of a spoiler because it comes very early in the book. Okay, yeah, it happens really. or this character essentially gets ousted, which is in this world the rich noble families. If you significantly disappoint your parents, they can essentially force you out of your own body, remove your name, and replace you with someone else. And so it goes in with the idea, you know, body is a privilege, name is a privilege. I guess I see that as sort of a dystopian angle to the world in which something as fundamental to your identity as your name or your body becomes something that is commodified that is sort of treated as this thing that, you know, people feel entitled to rather than, you know, a fundamental right. and so I see that phrase as sort of

one of the the darker, uglier perspectives in the book. I think it's important that all the characters are able to advocate for their own point of view in the most compelling way possible, even if they are villains. I think when I think of that phrase, I don't know. Have you seen a Mad Max Fury Road? It's a great movie.

Oh, yeah. There's that bit at the start where, like, a Morton show has the water, and he's giving the water to everyone, and then he cuts it off, and everyone is, you know, dying of thirst. And he says, do not, my friends become addicted to water. Kind of something that is fundamental to the human experience that is suddenly sort of treated as this commodity that can be snatched away. by the powerful whenever they want. So I guess that was the thing that's just behind that line. Yes, yeah. And then that kind of gets into the body swapping too, which I thought it was fascinating

because I felt like it is emblematic of the trans experience as well as some like other things that I felt like I was noticing too. Because like sometimes when you like switch into someone else's body, body, you're like, oh, wow, this person has been carrying like all of this physical pain. And so it also kind of deals with what you were even talking about at the beginning where, like, we don't even have control over which body we are born into. And there are all kinds of reasons you might end up wishing you're in another body or you may feel like it doesn't reflect your gender or who you are.

So you kind of talk about like using the body swapping to talk about bigger topics. too. Yeah, so it is actually interesting. The body swapping stuff was originally intended to be, you know, more directly a purely trans metaphor. And I think, you know, obviously that's how most people interpret it. But I've also been, you know, seeing as, you know, various reviews and stuff have come in. I think I've seen people with like chronic pain or chronic illness actually relating a lot to the main character as well, which was, I think not the original intent. but I think it's a super valid reading of the story. And I definitely don't want, you know, only trans people to be able to relate to the story.

Because I think, aside from, you know, the fact that, you know, transformation and self-discovery are things that happen to all of us. I think most of us at some point will feel alienated from our own bodies, you know, distant from our own bodies. And I think that is... that is sort of an experience that I wanted to capture. I think, you know, gender dysphoria is obviously, you know, a very big way in which that can happen, but it's also certainly not the only way in which that can happen.

So, I very much wanted the body swapping to be a very broad, all-encompassing metaphor for all of those varying things. Yeah, because it was even reminding me as well, like even health care, we don't all have equal access. Well, and it's gotten worse. Oh, my God. But even like with health care. It's, I know. Yeah, we could probably talk about that for a couple hours itself. But it was making me think even of that where it's like you don't get to pick like basically like I'm hyper mobile.

that was where the pain when she like shifted into another body, I was like, oh, yeah. Like sometimes with doctors, they'll be like, you want to address pain so you don't get used to it. And it becomes like your baseline. So then like when you're a different body, you're like, oh, wow, that actually did really hurt. But with health care as well, in some ways, the rich people in your book being able to just cycle through bodies or like by different bodies, again, was reminding me of how we have

people who like can't get cancer treatment because like things are out of control um that was superintended as well like run by greed uh yeah sort of uh yeah how how health care have be has become so privatized and so uh limited to the wealthy and how easily it can bankrupt you i think that was definitely a thread that i wanted to pull on a lot as well uh that and also i think the the beauty angle of I think beauty is also something that is so often, you know, restricted to the super wealthy and the super privileged. And has, you know, I think, I feel like beauty standards in a lot of ways feel like they skyrocketed. And at the age of social media, there is all this. Yeah, there's like Instagram face.

To have all this tremendous beauty and to be seen and to be seen is perfect. and the scene near the start of the book where the main character Anna sort of enters the magical academy and she sees just how like terrifyingly beautiful all of these perfectly sculpted faces are. I think I very much wanted to portray that as a scene of the ultimate privilege and power and beauty and health that sort of coalesces inevitably

around the top of the pyramid scheme. Yes. That's what it's such a harsh book title, but that was why when I started reading, I was like, this reminds me of one of my favorite series I read as like a middle schooler or high school, something like that,

but uglies by Scott Westerfells or Field. I can't remember. I've not read the book. I've seen the movie. I heard the books better. Oh, yeah. I forgot they made a movie on Netflix. Yeah, LeBron Cox was in and everything.

thing. Yes. I can't believe I forgot that it was even a movie. But yeah, it was reminding me of that because it's a similar setup where like once you're like wealthy enough and old enough, like you basically just have your whole face and body remade so that you can be part of the pretties population, which is the second book in the trilogy. So yeah, it is fascinating thinking about who has access to it. And then also how then beauty standards give you access to other stuff. in some ways if you look a certain way. Totally. And I kind of think, too, with the wealthy family's daughter who gets ousted from her body into a male body. And it's, I feel like I could be wrong. My interpretation was like maybe she hadn't ever thought she would be more comfortable in a male body. But like when it happens.

Definitely. Definitely intended. Okay. Yeah, and so it was making me think about that is like, so like was that kind of about too like, okay, it made me think about two things. One, it really could be that experience. Like you just maybe have never thought about it because you've either been conditioned a certain way. And then the flip side of it is I'm like, could more people be tolerant and understanding of it if they actually experience being in another body? So were those like some of the thoughts you were kind of thinking about? you were writing it. Oh, for sure. I feel like one of the unique things about being a trans person is that you sort of get to experience gender from both sides often. And I think that that gives me a certain empathy in terms of understanding

the various experience of what it feels like to be perceived as you know, whichever gender and I think the experience of body swapping would also sort of have that effect

and I think in terms of that particular character I very much intended him to be a a person who did not sort of understand his own identity all that well until he sort of swapped into this more masculine body and realized he was more comfortable with it. And honestly still has a lot to come to terms with in terms of his own identity,

but someone who sort of took his own gender for granted until that particular moment, and sort of realizing that that greater level of comfort and alignment. Yeah. Yeah. And then so our, I mean, the main character in the sense that it's who we're hearing about the synopsis the most. She basically, she really wants to get into the magic school, has something happened that keeps her from doing that. and then is basically told like you're going to be killed for this crime that you committed or

you can become my assassin is essentially what happens which is such a like uh kind of like a even like a thriller thread to it is what it even kind of reminded me of too um but you kind of use that story line to to talk about uh like classism and even i would almost say colonial or imperialism, one of the two. And was that, I feel like fantasy does such a good job of being able to explore those themes. So is there something kind of like about fantasy that drew to writing about that stuff as well? I think I am drawn to fantasy in general, I think just because I find it incredibly compelling. But I think independently, I am also drawn to two themes of classism and colonialism and

imperialism because I find myself drawn to those things and they feel so so fundamental to the world that we're living in and especially to the time period that we're living in. I'm certainly not, you know, intending to to write a book that is, you know, exclusively about, you know, current events. I like to think that a lot of this stuff is is very timeless, even though They are very fresh in particular horrors we're experiencing right now. But I wanted to explore all of those things, I think regardless of whether I had been writing fantasy or not, but I do agree that fantasy makes a really compelling backdrop for those things because you can explore them, but you don't have to be quite so literal. You can kind of paint very broadly with the mess. metaphor. Yeah. I think it kind of works too as a like, not like exactly and if you know, you know,

but like some people are going to be reading it and are going to be, are going to like be like, be like, oh, this is like this that's happening now. And in other cases, it might be the first time someone has read a story and because it's like fiction and removed from like real life, it's sometimes I think it's easier kind of to like Trojan horse the theme. in for people who maybe have never thought about it before too. So I love how fiction can kind of do both of those things. Ideally, you will not need a social studies degree to appreciate this book. If you do, then I've definitely not done my job as a storyteller.

Right, right. So the other thing that I thought had me so wrapped up in the story, too, is we, are getting multiple perspectives and it was kind of reminding me in the sense that I was trying to think of something that I could explain it quickly to someone. It also kind of reminded me how like Game of Thrones we spend so much time with like different families and then all of a sudden they are clashing and so now we're invested and know the motivations of multiple people but then they're up against each other. So the character dynamics get so intense. And I felt that way reading this one because they're kind of all a little bit morally gray, which I think we kind of all technically are too.

But I loved those dynamics of them kind of like pitted against each other, but we also still care about all of the characters. So what was it like kind of building that part out? Yeah. Was my George Aramarden influenced that obvious? I'm a big song of Ice and Fire fan. Nice. I think I love doing multiple POVs because I think it's a cliche but true that everyone is the hero of their own story. So I love getting these varying morally gray perspectives, and especially when those perspectives are often enemies, they're often clashing.

And then we sort of get radically different perspectives on the same event. in the same world and I think we get a much more well-rounded understanding of things and it feels I think very easy to empathize with with different characters and I also really love first person for that I I feel like first person you can just really get so deeply into a character's thought process and really understand their train of thought in a way that you can't really do it with like third person quite as much. Yeah. And so to me, that is one of the things that I, I honestly, it's one of the things I love best about pros in general,

like one of the things that you can't do easily in film or television. And it's also something that I love about first person. I really wanted to do two first person POVs for this story in particular, in part because first person doesn't really involve referring to yourself with a gender pronoun quite that much. Oh, yeah. So a lot of these characters, particularly Wes, but at points in this story, a lot of these characters don't necessarily cleanly know their own gender identity, and they don't necessarily cleanly see themselves as a he or a she or even a they. They just see themselves as an eye.

And so I really wanted to take the the reader into that perspective. Yeah. I had not even thought of that. I had noticed while I was reading, I was like, this is kind of fascinating because obviously when you're reading, well, I guess not for everyone. I've learned not everyone has like the picture, like a movie happening in their head. But that is the case for me.

And it was fascinating because like even with Anna, who is like, she's in a male body, but it's because her like initial female body was I thought that there was that powerful sentence like we buried my body when I was nine years old and I was like it just like sets the tone I had it written down I was like driving so I was like hitting the like bookmark on my screen because I was like it's early on too and so it also like really sets the tone for the world that she's living in but it was interesting like imagining her because they all swat through different bodies at different points. And so it was fascinating having like the separation of like the character in terms of their personality but also like remembering which physical body they were in.

And it's kind of it was just kind of cool. It was cool to have them moving through different ones but still be very aware that you're with the same person or personality or soul or whatever you kind of, whatever clicks for people. in that sense. So I thought that was, I thought that was very cool. I, I, I certainly do a lot of playing around with that concept, I think. Yeah. In this story, we have like young people in elderly bodies. We have elderly people in young bodies. We have like one person in two bodies. So I very much wanted to, to take that, that body swap and concept as far as I could in ways that were, were entertaining and compelling

and kind of led to unique character dynamics. Yes. I didn't forget, forget. But the character in two bodies was so cool. I thought that was very fascinating. And it was like, I don't think it's necessarily spoilers to say. They had to stay near each other for its work. So there's also like more suspense added because of like that constraint. And I think that was the other thing.

Some of the like big battles or showdowns. whatever showdowns? Is that even the right? I don't know why I said that word. But, um, maybe it is the right one. You're, you kind of are like, okay, but who, who is actually who? So it also like raises the stakes and the suspense when you know that people could be, like, swapping through different bodies physically. I definitely, I definitely like playing with that, that tension. Yeah. Yeah. And doing reversals like that. And then they, Yeah, and you were talking about the beauty standards too. And like some of the bodies will have like kind of like permanent makeup on like different kinds of makeup.

And it was just like fun. Yeah, just seeing all the different physical representations people could do of themselves. Yeah, that was one of my. If they were rich. One of the world building things that I enjoyed writing was that like for like rich bodies, the whites of the eyes will have like little flex of silver or like little flex of gold in them. Yes. Sort of signify the expensiveness of the body.

Mm-hmm. Which, yeah, still has parallels to just society today, basically. And with like the, so I always love the dark academia part. I think I kind of mentioned that at the beginning. And was that always, because you said you kind of, built the world first. Yeah. So did the like story of Anna wanting to be in the magic school?

What I guess I'm actually kind of asking like when did the plot points kind of come to you and like what were they? Yeah. So in terms of the magic school stuff, came up with the body swapping first and I sort of tried a bunch of various different approaches in terms of what I thought would be the most compelling character and the most compelling story. to tell. Actually, originally the character, Ori, was the original protagonist before I decided that someone who was sort of an underdog and a reject and an outsider would make a more compelling

main character. I think, for me, I love Dark Academia. I love Magic Schools. And I think, one, but I sort of see the appeal of magic schools and to a lesser extent of like dark academia in general as sort of a changeling fantasy of sorts. Like, you know, you're living this, this boring, ordinary life. And then one day you are swept into this world of wonder and magic. And, you know, you get to be validated as one of the chosen ones. You know, you get to be magical. You get to be special. you get to be validated as one of the elite.

And I think that makes for really entertaining drama. But I think in the real world, that is something that rarely, if ever, happens to us. I think more often than not, you know, the world does not tell us that we're special, that we're chosen, that we're elite. The world kicks us in the teeth, and it reminds us that we are boring and ordinary and replaceable. And I think even among extremely successful people, you know, rejection is a universal experience. Yeah. There's a lot more people in the world that have been rejected from Harvard or Oxford than have ever gone to Harvard or Oxford. Right.

And I think I wanted to tell a story where you didn't get that instant validation, where you sort of got that deep sense of rejection. I think more importantly, how you move forward after that rejection. How, you know, when the world tells you that you don't belong, you sort of, you know, say to hell with that. And you decide to step up and move forward on your own. So I think that was sort of how I envision the magic school element. Yeah. Yeah, I just, I love, I just love dark academia. And that's, it's not that I do.

don't read tons of fantasy, but I didn't, I think I was like learning, especially last year, like which subgenres of it I end up loving the most. And I do think it's, it's dark academia. It just works for me. It works for me in the real world, too. Yeah. And I think, I think you can kind of, that's another thing I can talk about forever, but even how we are educated and like the importance of having access to it. gaining knowledge in general. I think it works well just for thinking about those things and how important they are too.

So the other thing I was wondering, you said you had like 2,000 pages written. And I know it is, it's listed as a series. I don't know if it's like a duology or a trilogy or if you even know. At least three books. I'm hoping for four. Or would be my eye

Well, I am too. I think that would be awesome. Do you Yeah. Do you know like what your next one will like how it's going to I know you can't really give spoilers but how it's going to continue and is it going to. Was any of like what you removed were you like oh maybe I'll use these in other books? To an extent. Though the cutting it from you know 2000 down from 2000.

thousand pages. I didn't actually split it. It was a clean. The start and the end points were the same and I genuinely just fully compressed the whole thing, which was much, much more painful than just chopping it up, but I think also led to a better product in the end. One of my favorite writing bits of advice that I've heard is play your cards early. It forces you to come up with new cards. I think it's important to, when you have something cool, you don't like delay and wait 10,000 years to get to it. You do it now, and then you come up with something else

that is also compelling. You don't, you know, do delays and arbitrary slowdowns on the story. On the book two of it all, I am actually currently finishing up the copy edits on book two. So book two is basically done. I am doing a final read-through right now, and right before I go off on tour, I will be sending that in to my editor. So book two is basically done. Oh, that's exciting. So for anyone who reads the book and is wondering where book two is, it is almost definitely going to come out a year after book one.

Nice. All bets are off. I haven't started book three yet, and it's going to take a lot of hours. but book two is definitely going to be tightly on schedule. Yeah. I was always wondering with stuff like that too. Like I remember like with Breaking Bad was one of the shows where they were like, no, we're not, we're not trying to go on and on and on for like a million seasons.

Like I have a story I want to tell. And like Vince Gilligan has talked about how I know and Better Call Saul. And Pluribus has been great too. Oh my God, Cloribus. I can talk about Plymouthus for like hours. Oh, I know. There's so much. It's why I tell people, I'm like, it's definitely not a show that you can just recommend to everyone.

Like, some people are going to be like, oh, this is really slow. And I was like, but the people who are interested, you're going to want to talk about like every little detail. But he's talked about, like, he still kind of knew where he wanted the story to go even with multiple seasons. and then he kind of filled in each season. So do you also know the ending that you're heading towards? Oh, for sure. I know the ending I have. I already, in fact, have a very generic, not generic, but broad outline for what the final one or two books is going to be in terms of the general scope.

So I very much, I have a pretty good sense of where the characters are, what the development's going to be, what the really, really big events are going to be. So I'm a big, big outliner. I cannot put my pants on in the morning without an outline. Yeah. I have a tremendous respect. I'm always impressed by people who don't. I feel like I would have to.

Yeah, I genuinely, I can't write a scene without an outline. Like, I need even at the really detailed, like, dialogue level. when I write a scene, I write out every single beat in like a bullet point form. And then I turn that into an actual prose written scene. To me, I can't like concentrate on like stringing words together and coming up with the story at the same time. It needs to be like one or the other. Right. Well, I'm excited to know that the books who will be out.

I mean, a year from now is a long time, but I'm glad we're not going to have to wait forever. And I just can't wait to hear or to read, listen to the whole journey that you have planned. Yeah, I do always ask at the end to if there are any books you've read recently that you really love or if there are books you just like always recommend to people or just one. It doesn't have to be multiple. In terms of, I have two answers. In terms of the book that I always recommend to people, have you read World War Z? by Max Brooks. No, I have not read it.

Came out in 2006. It's sort of an oral history of a global apocalyptic conflict with zombies told like a war history. And it's incredibly tight. It's incredibly compelling. I adore it. It's an incredible, incredible work of art. I recommend it to everyone. In terms of what I've read.

And in 2014, it won an Audi for its audio book, for anyone who's... Its audiobook is amazing. There's like a million different celebrities on it. Like, all these random celebrities that you would never even imagine. Because the author, Max Brooks, he's actually a Nepo baby. He's Mel Brooks's son. He wrote on S&L. But he's the real deal.

He's really, really good. But because it so happens, he knows a lot of celebrities, I think. And, uh... Oh, that's cool. It's an unbelievably acted audio book with all of these, these incredible actors. Uh, in terms of what I've read recently, um, have you read, uh, The Raven Scholar by Antonio Hodgson? I have it.

It's incredible. I think she's the next George R. Martin. Oh, wow. It came out in April. It's like, uh, it's a, it's a story about like a sort of contest between various groups of people who are going to become the next emperor, but there's intrigue, there's a murder, there's tension, it's just

on like a pop-borne entertainment and on a fundamental craft level. I think she's the next door to Arboron. I think it's amazing. Wow. I actually get to do an event with her in the UK, which you what? Sorry? Oh, sorry? I was talking over you. What did you say?

Oh, not a novel. Yeah, I'm going to actually get to do an event with Antonia and the author in the UK, which is like, I'm going to be struggling to restrain my, like, fan-girling tendencies in front of her because I think the book is just, like, so unbelievably good. Yeah. I mean, you've sold me on it. This sounds fantastic.

And it says Dark Academia, too. So I am. You will totally. I want to be both of those now. The dark academia side of things. The main character is, like, a total nerd. Yeah, oh, that's my favorite. I am definitely a total nerd myself.

When you said you had nerve damage, I thought you said you had a nerd injury, and I was, it was kind of funny for a second. It's also that is the thing. It is a nerd injury. I know. At first, I was like, well, I mean, it fits. Yeah, I am going to be listening to both of these sometime soon. I can tell. These sound fantastic.

But yeah, thank you for coming on and talking about yours. Thank you so, so much for having me. Yes, as of the day this is airing, everybody can go buy it, however you prefer to read it for my audiobook people. I loved the audiobook and I highly recommend doing it that way if that's something you like. But yeah, hopefully everyone goes and reads it and then we can all read the next ones over the next few years. Thank you so much. Thank you.