Veronica Roth's Blog

I’m going to start with a big TL;DR because this newsletter will have a lot of INFO. The places I will be this year are: Los Angeles, Des Moines, St. Louis, Franklin (IN), Naperville (IL), Salt Lake City (for FanX), and New York City (for NYCC, but also another event!).

If you are in none of those places, you can tune into a Q&A with Maude’s Book Club on October 1st— info here!

But if you can make it out to an event, please do! It’ll be a great time to chat with me and other readers and (for the most part) support your local independent bookstore, which is very important for the overall book ecosystem.

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MIDWESTERNLY-BIASED TOUR TIME! Ope, sorry to the coasts, I’m (mostly) staying in casserole country for this tour. But I’ll be traveling for my upcoming book next year, too, so if you miss me this time around, I might be closer to you in May.

Monday, September 15th: Los Angeles, CA

at 7pm, with Olivie Blake!

Event Info

Tuesday, September 16th: Des Moines, IA

at 6:30pm, with Kali White VanBaale!

Event Info

Wednesday, September 17th: St. Louis

at 7pm, with J.R. Dawson!

Event Info

Thursday, September 18th: Franklin, IN

at 6:30pm, flying solo!

Event Info

Thursday, September 25th: Naperville, IL

at 7pm, with Holly Black!

Event Info

Friday, September 26th and Saturday, September 27th: FanX in Salt Lake City, Utah

My schedule isn’t confirmed yet, but if you’re attending the convention, you can check for updates here.

Friday, October 10th and Saturday, October 11th: New York Comic-Con

I’m on two panels, with a signing after each one.

Monday, October 13th: New York City

I’m doing an event with Cassandra Khaw, Micaiah Johnson, Yume Kitasei, and Julia Vee! Details TK but check this site for updates.

I hope to see you here, there, or somewhere!

<3,

V

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Hello!

First:

NEW BOOK OUT IN MAY.

Like a whole, full-length book! That starts a short series!

This announcement has been a long time coming. I sold SEEK THE TRAITOR’S SON almost exactly two years ago, and I started writing it in September 2019. So when I say I’ve been sitting on this for a long time, I really mean it.

I’d really love to tell you the behind-the-scenes story of this book, because I’d also like to talk about books of the heart, books of the mind, and books of the gut, as I think of them— but basically, about how some books feel different from others when you’re writing them. It’s going to be a bit longer, so if all you want to know is the quick rundown of this particular book announcement, read the above ^ but also, this is my quick pitch:

SEEK THE TRAITOR’S SON is a big romantic kinda-dystopian kinda-fantasy story about the daughter of a bounty hunter, the knight sworn to protect her, and the prophecy that ruins both of their lives. It comes out in May 2026!

And now, to dive in.

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You hear writers talk about “the book of my heart” sometimes; they mean a book that’s dear to them in some special way. That has always sounded lovely to me, but the phrase has never resonated. It feels at odd with my general ruthlessness. I maintain a little more distance from my writing; I will straight up cut 100 pages without batting an eye. (I know! I’ve seen me do it!)

But I think the phrase “book of my heart” expresses something important, which is that not every book feels the same way while you’re writing it. So here goes.

BOOKS OF THE MIND

Even though I started it in 2019, the story of SEEK THE TRAITOR’S SON is very 2020. My adult debut, CHOSEN ONES, came out April 2020, the second week of lockdown, and listen: that’s not the environment any author wants for a book release. I was constantly refreshing that scary map of Covid spread and then putting on my lipstick for online events, what the actual fuck. It kind of broke my brain, which is why I nixed my plans for a Chosen Ones sequel (not necessary; the book stands on its own) and wrote Poster Girl instead. And Poster Girl reflects the solemn feeling that had settled over me during that time.

This pretty much covers it. My island was called “Doom”

Chosen Ones and Poster Girl are books of the mind. I don’t want you to think that means I didn’t love them. What it means is that what got me excited about them was their ideas. I knew what they would explore (alternate history, for Chosen Ones, and deprogramming/indoctrination, for Poster Girl) and what shape they would take. I put their outlines together like I was putting together puzzles. Poster Girl, in particular, came to me clear and crisp. I’ve never had that kind of clarity while writing before.

But while writing this duo of standalones, I found it difficult to write a lot in one sitting. I’d also write two paragraphs and delete one, write two and delete one. This may sound very typical to some of you, but it was not typical for me— in general, I write fast and I write many drafts to find my way through a story. This lurching pace was really unsettling to me.

When I reread sections of those books now, hot damn, I am so pleased with how they turned out. I’m proud of me for rising to the challenge of both of them. I assume that throughout my life, I will write certain books this way, books of the mind. But not all of them. Because for me, there’s another kind of book, and I just can’t call them “books of the heart,” because that feels too tender for what they are to me. Instead, I call them…

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BOOKS OF THE GUT

While I was writing Chosen Ones and Poster Girl, I was also cheating on them with another project, nicknamed “A&A.”

September 2019! We were so young then…

A&A started with me rediscovering a snippet of a discarded project, and rewriting it with new characters and a new world that I invented by feeling my way around in the dark. In November 2019, I was done with the Chosen Ones manuscript and starting to do very early promotion for it. I remember coming back from a visit to my publisher to an empty house, my husband on his own trip. I started writing and I didn’t stop for six hours. No eating, no drinking, no sleeping. Full-on fugue state.

Around that time.

I had no plans and no ambitions for this project. I was looking at it with the cynicism of the industry at my back, looking at it like it was silly because it was romantic and indulgent and full of wish fulfillment. But whenever I was between drafts, between events, between whatever, I would get it out again, and usually I would start over.

Yes, really: I would start over from the beginning over and over again, with some change, big or small, that I wanted to experiment with. I’d write in a new POV (first person? third person?) or create a new love interest (a woman? a man?) or play with genre (science fiction? fantasy? somewhere in between?). I’d make the main character harder or softer, soft-spoken or bitter. Once I even tried to write it as YA (that did NOT work).

These early drafts (all of them written in the same Scrivener file) amount to 429,214 words. For those of you who don’t think in words, that’s about four Divergents.

Or approximately all four of these circled books combined.

Eventually I told some writer friends about this project that kept stealing my focus. But I made sure to emphasize that it was just a silly project I worked on to let off steam while I was writing this difficult-but-rewarding, moody book of the mind, Poster Girl. I wasn’t taking it seriously. One of them replied to my big explanation of the book with the comment, “V, it kind of seems like you ARE taking this book seriously.”

Now, why would you attack me like that, unnamed friend?

Once Poster Girl was released, I thought, why am I limiting this book in advance? Why am I treating it like people so often treat romance— like a guilty pleasure? Why can’t my next book be as fun as humanly possible? So I decided, fuck it. I’m gonna make it as fun as humanly possible. 1

I’ve written other books this way. Divergent, most notably; but also Carve the Mark, which I wrote with no one watching simply because I wanted to, and most recently When Among Crows, which I wrote when I was supposed to be working on another Greek tragedy retelling. Those are my books of the gut—the books I wrote because I felt a hunger for them.

“Book of the Gut” works for me because it communicates the desperation I feel when I write them—but also the ruthlessness with which I shape them, gutting them and ripping them to shreds as I work on them so that the very best version of them can emerge from the carnage. Carve the Mark is the book I cut 100 pages from without batting an eye; Divergent is the book where I chose the agent who gave me nine single-spaced pages of notes over the one who didn’t think it needed that much editing; and Seek the Traitor’s Son is the book I found through repetitive and rigorous experimentation.

With Seek the Traitor’s Son, I set out to invent a completely new universe that I could live in for a long time—a container for a wide variety of stories, which I’d never done before. I replayed the Mass Effect games again and thought, this, this is what I want. I want everything I like. I want the wonder and mystery of space, and I want something that feels like magic; I want Earth and I want places that feel nothing at all like Earth.

I took my characters from 429,214 words of experiments and I put them in a new world. A world that I created out of pure creative greed. I want, I want, I want—like a ravenous creature with an empty stomach, I stuffed my story with everything delicious. Fancy outfits and mysterious rituals and swords and armor and special powers and magical fevers that kill you for days before resurrecting you as something else; a space station packed with languages from an Earth that no longer exists, a planet of ruins, a glowing plant that connects people across space.

And at the center of it all: Theren—quiet and resilient and strong, but definitely not an alpha male. And Elegy—sharp and funny and afraid of herself, afraid of how big and powerful and important she can be.

I have loved every single second of working on this book. All together, I have written over a million words of this story— and that’s not even counting the sequel (which, by the way, is already finished, I just have to do another round of edits). Every time I get to sit down with Seek the Traitor’s Son again, I experience that all-consuming feeling—the feeling of a story buzzing inside me, alive in my entire body.

But this is the lesson, for me: not all books feel the same. By the time they reach readers, though, the differences may not be obvious at all. For a writer, the key is not to panic when one project feels distinct from the others—just because you felt all-consuming obsession with one and had to really push yourself through another, that doesn’t make one more valuable than the other. It just might make one easier to write.

Seek the Traitor’s Son is a romantic dystopian fantasy epic—all of those words are accurate, but they’re also just my best attempt to describe this book of my gut, this thing I created out of pure creative joy and experimentation and Id and hunger. I can’t wait to share it with you.

-V

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1

My version of fun, anyway, which means: deliciously angsty.

Hello!

It’s been awhile, guys! I have to be honest with you, the reason for the delay is…the world. There’s so much going on every day that I’m having trouble parsing it all. Or any of it.

“How do I know what I think until I see what I say?” is one of my favorite writing quotes (E.M. Forster). Writing is how I make sense of myself, so if I find my mind empty (or, say, blank with panic) I sometimes look at what emerges from my writing. So instead of trying to say something new, I’m just going to give you this quote from Poster Girl, which came out in 2022.

"I did this because I don’t think anyone should have this data. Because I believe in creating stable systems. […] Just because you're not committing a crime now, by going where you go, by seeing who you see, doesn't mean that another government, another set of people with another set of priorities, won't come along and call you a criminal one day. The players change, the rules change, that's an inevitability. The most we can do is build a board that restricts what's possible. We can create limits to power. Understand?"

Hm.

Well, here’s what’s within my control: any space of mine will be as kind and welcoming as I can make it. If you are looking for suggestions on how to handle *gestures* all of this, may I recommend 5calls.org as a resource, as well as mutual aid orgs in your area. In Chicago you should check out Brave Space Alliance - which is not necessarily mutual aid? I don’t know the exact definitions. But it does good work. Also: Market Box!

With all that said, let me tell you about something fun. I think we could all use it.

Today I’m going to talk to you about a reality of publishing— at least, traditional publishing, which is the world that I occupy— that I’ve never been in the position to discuss before, which is: working on multiple projects at once, and how that goes. Like, in your brain.

It’s like a relay race, only 50% of the people passing the baton are…you.

First, some terms: I use letter codes for my works-in-progress. I’m currently at different points in five projects: TCAR (To Clutch A Razor, out September 16th), A&A1 and 2, and HDB 1 and 2. I can’t tell you about four of them, yet; luckily you don’t need to know to understand this newsletter. But here’s what my schedule has been for the past year-ish.

November 2023 - April 2024: Rough Drafting A&A-2

May 2024: Promoting When Among Crows

June - July 2024: Rough Drafting TCAR

August - November 2024: Rough Drafting HDB

two-week break in there for revising TCAR

December 2024: Revising A&A-1 (from my own notes)

one-week break in there for revising TCAR

January 2025-February 2025: Revising HDB (from early reader’s notes)

few-day break for TCAR copyedits

March 2025: Revising A&A-1 Again (from edit notes)

few-day break for TCAR proofreading notes

April 2025: Revising HDB (from edit notes)

That’s a lot of back and forth, right? So let’s talk about how it works.

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First:

WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO YOURSELF?

Short answer: because it offers certain career advantages. In the industry we like to say that nothing sells backlist like frontlist— to translate, nothing sells your old books like a new book. Basically, you use the attention you get for something new to remind people you exist and have other books. For me, it’s a little different, because my backlistiest backlist is Divergent, and it still sells. But! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had people tell me they had no idea I wrote anything other than Divergent. This is always slightly deflating and slightly encouraging at the same time. Deflating because, you know, no one wants to ONLY be known for the work they did when they were twenty-two years old. But encouraging because if they’re saying it, that means that thanks to some new book of mine that caught their attention, they now know not only about that new book, but every book I’ve written in between Divergent and now. Victory!

Usually (but not always), these projects occupy slightly different (or very different) places in the market. One might be for a different age category (middle grade, young adult, or adult), or in a different genre (romance, fantasy, mystery, etc.), or in a different format (graphic novel, regular novel). If they’re too wildly different, they don’t always help each other. But even books that occupy the same general area can take up a slightly different space in the market.

For example: Poster Girl was a more “grounded” science fiction read, so it ended up in a lot of places that are for “general fiction” readers instead of sci-fi readers; it was also a mystery, so I was welcomed into a couple mystery-oriented spaces, too. But When Among Crows is urban fantasy that doesn’t feel unfriendly to the YA crowd, so I went to a few YA events and to an assortment of Comic-Cons. See what I mean? There’s some overlap there, but the overlap is not perfect, so in theory, I catch slightly different people each time.

A BRIEF CAVEAT

People get all weird when creative types admit they do things like…strategize. It doesn’t fit that well into the whole “I do this for the pure love of it” sensitive artist vibe that people prefer from creative people. But I…hate that. So my caveat is that just because you do something on purpose and as effectively as possible doesn’t mean you don’t love it or have passion for it. It means that because you love the thing, you want to give it the best possible chance of reaching the people you want it to reach. Creativity and strategy and practicality can all join hands and be friends. And actually, the more you can let them do that, the better off you’ll be as a whole human being in the publishing industry.

OKAY BUT LITERALLY HOW, THOUGH

A lot of people find it hard to switch rapidly between different projects. I used to be one of them. But here’s what works for me (your mileage, as ever, may vary). First, on a grand scale: make a calendar.

If you’re at a traditional publisher, you can ask your editor when they’re anticipating particular stages such as: working backward from the release date, roughly when will you get first pass pages? How about copyedits? How about line edits? How about…your editorial letter? Like authors, not all editors have highly organized minds— but there is a rough timeline that each book has to follow. As long as you’re willing to be flexible, they’ll probably be willing to give you some sense of the timing.

Making a calendar helps prepare your brain for what’s coming. It also makes it easier to see when you have wiggle room in case something goes wrong. (Note: something will go wrong.)

I’m a big fan of walks. Here’s the first flower I found on one this spring.BUT LIKE, TELL ME ABOUT GETTING YOUR BRAIN ON BOARD

The actual process of getting myself to switch gears between projects might be what you’re wondering about, so I’ll get to it. Here’s my basic process once I’ve turned in a draft and need to switch to a different story:

Stop telling myself it’s hard. I don’t believe I can fully think my way out of hard things, but it takes the difficulty down to 70% when I tell myself I can figure this out, because I have to. It works for me, I don’t know.

Take some time. I believe you should always rest once you’ve turned in a draft. Rest, see some friends, watch something you like, read a book that has nothing to do with your book, go on walks, take good care of yourself. How much time you take depends on how much you CAN take. But take some.

Go on a walk and listen to your book’s playlist. I make playlists for every single book I write, so for me, this is easy. If you don’t have a playlist, try making one. Just fill it with songs that remind you of your book or make it easier to picture things from your book. On the walk, let the images play out in your mind (if you’re someone who can picture things). Think about why you’re writing this story, what your favorite parts are, what you’re looking forward to working on most.

Do some rereading. Don’t go back and edit— I mean it, even if you’re someone who edits as they go! Just this once, try reading it just to read it, not to pick at it. It’s a different mindset. Whether it’s your outline or a scene or a whole section, just remind yourself what the voice sounds like.

Don’t expect it to feel good right away. When you get started right after the switch, you’re probably going to feel weird and detached from the story and it may take you an hour to write a paragraph that’s worth a damn. So just stop expecting to be in the flow right away. Press on. Sometimes writing feels like scrubbing a toilet, as I’ve said before (and will say again). Even if you have to delete the scene the next day, you got over the first hump, and that’s great.

ANOTHER IMPORTANT RULE

No cheating, basically. I don’t let myself think about the other project, even if my mind tries to return to it. I don’t listen to the songs on that project’s playlist, I don’t talk about it— it’s as if the other project does not exist.

The interesting thing about that— pretending the other project doesn’t exist, with as much mental discipline as I can muster— is that when I have to tag back in on the other project, I find that the forced mental distance has given me some good perspective on that story’s problems and challenges. Not thinking about it is like relaxing a muscle that you’ve been flexing. If you rest that muscle, it’ll be a lot better at flexing again when you need it.

So! Next time it seems like your favorite author is talking about three different projects…they probably are? In my particular sphere of exposure, there are more authors doing this ^^^ than working on one book at a time. (But it depends on what kinds of books they write. “Beefy tome” writers tend to have a longer-term writing strategy.)

And I can’t wait until I can ACTUALLY TELL YOU ABOUT THESE PROJECTS FOR THE LOVE OF—

V

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Hello!

Right off the bat, if you didn’t know there’s a sequel to When Among Crows coming out on September 16th, I have great news for you: there’s a sequel to When Among Crows coming out on September 16th. It’s called TO CLUTCH A RAZOR, and the cover looks like this:

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I have been obsessed with it since it first landed in my inbox months ago. The art is by Eleonor Piteira, who also did the art for When Among Crows, and the cover design is by Katie Klimowicz and Shreya Gupta.

If you’re wondering “hey, why are there two Dymitrs on that cover?”, trust me, you will understand once you read it.

The title comes from the Polish expression, tonący brzytwy się chwyta, which roughly translates to “a drowning man will clutch at a razor”—basically, a drowning man is so desperate that he will grab anything to save himself. It’s often translated in English as “a drowning man clutches at straws,” which I feel loses the entire element of desperation that the original expression communicates. You have to be pretty damn desperate to grab a razor blade to save yourself from drowning. Straws, not so much.

It’s the perfect expression for this story, and here’s the synopsis:

A funeral. A heist. A mission born of desperation.

When someone in Dymitr’s family dies, he’s called back home for the Empty Night, a funeral rite intended to keep evil at bay.

The secret Dymitr is keeping from them makes returning home downright dangerous, but if he wants to get his hands on a book of curses that might appease Baba Jaga’s blood lust, he has no choice. And when that same funeral brings ferocious creature-of-legend Niko to town for his own bloody purposes, Dymitr’s charade becomes impossible to maintain.

Family gatherings can be brutal. Dymitr’s might just be fatal.

If you remember what happens to Dymitr at the end of When Among Crows, you’ll know that returning home to his family is…definitely the choice of a desperate man. What if they find out what he’s really like? And how will they seem to him, now that he’s made such an important decision about himself?

Writing this was so much fun. And the great thing about a sequel is that I could work on deepening and complicating the character relationships now that they’ve already “met” and chosen each other. Plus: new creatures you may not have heard of (and some you likely have!).

Preorder it here or at your favorite retailer.

<3,

V

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Hello, everyone, and welcome to the 2024 edition of Book Recs for Very Specific Moods, a thing I did last year and really enjoyed and decided to do again. The theme this year is “reading to cope,” because of course it is.

Hope you enjoy your holidays and the end of 2024. May these books buoy you through difficult times.

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I’m Tired of Making Decisions

So just, like…recommend something good. Please.

The City of Brass - S.A. Chakraborty

Nahri has never believed in magic. Certainly, she has power; on the streets of 18th century Cairo, she’s a con woman of unsurpassed talent. But she knows better than anyone that the trade she uses to get by—palm readings, zars, healings—are all tricks, sleights of hand, learned skills; a means to the delightful end of swindling Ottoman nobles.

But when Nahri accidentally summons an equally sly, darkly mysterious djinn warrior to her side during one of her cons, she’s forced to accept that the magical world she thought only existed in childhood stories is real. For the warrior tells her a new tale: across hot, windswept sands teeming with creatures of fire, and rivers where the mythical marid sleep; past ruins of once-magnificent human metropolises, and mountains where the circling hawks are not what they seem, lies Daevabad, the legendary city of brass, a city to which Nahri is irrevocably bound.

In that city, behind gilded brass walls laced with enchantments, behind the six gates of the six djinn tribes, old resentments are simmering. And when Nahri decides to enter this world, she learns that true power is fierce and brutal. That magic cannot shield her from the dangerous web of court politics. That even the cleverest of schemes can have deadly consequences.

This book has been out for awhile and I’ve seen it recommended by approximately one billion people, and I was like SURELY THEY OVERSTATE HOW GOOD THIS IS. Well, shows what I know. Stop resisting! Just read it!

The City in Glass – Nghi Vo

The demon Vitrine—immortal, powerful, and capricious—loves the dazzling city of Azril. She has mothered, married, and maddened the city and its people for generations, and built it into a place of joy and desire, revelry and riot.

And then the angels come, and the city falls.

Vitrine is left with nothing but memories and a book containing the names of those she has lost—and an angel, now bound by her mad, grief-stricken curse to haunt the city he burned.

She mourns her dead and rages against the angel she longs to destroy. Made to be each other’s devastation, angel and demon are destined for eternal battle. Instead, they find themselves locked in a devouring fascination that will change them both forever.

Together, they unearth the past of the lost city and begin to shape its future. But when war threatens Azril and everything they have built, Vitrine and her angel must decide whether they will let the city fall again.

Nghi Vo’s particular magic is that she makes things feel old and brand new at the same time. Like a story that’s always existed and has been retold for centuries, but also something you’ve never heard before. She’s so good I’m honestly a little mad about it. (Not really. But maybe?!)

Numb and Desperate to Feel Something

A book that will sneak up on you with feelings.

Asunder – Kerstin Hall

We choose our own gods here.

Karys Eska is a deathspeaker, locked into an irrevocable compact with Sabaster, a terrifying eldritch entity—three-faced, hundred-winged, unforgiving—who has granted her the ability to communicate with the newly departed. She pays the rent by using her abilities to investigate suspicious deaths around the troubled city she calls home. When a job goes sideways and connects her to a dying stranger with dangerous secrets, her entire world is upended.

Ferain is willing to pay a ludicrous sum of money for her help. To save him, Karys inadvertently binds him to her shadow, an act that may doom them both. If they want to survive, they will need to learn to trust one another. Together, they journey to the heart of a faded empire, all the while haunted by arcane horrors and the unquiet ghosts of their pasts.

And all too soon, Karys knows her debts will come due.

I have unleashed my thoughts about this book on Goodreads, as I am wont to do, but I’ll do it again here: what got me to pick it up was the feeling that this book might end up being about someone falling in love with the person they’ve unwittingly bound to share a body with themselves, and I found that possibility to be desperately tragic and romantic, and let me tell you— it IS about that, and it’s also about a hundred other interesting, creative, fun, achy, dark, cruel, touching, horrifying, wonderful things.

Screw the Village, I’m With the Monster

This is kind of self-explanatory, no?

Someone You Can Build a Nest In – John Wiswell

Shesheshen has made a mistake fatal to all monsters: she's fallen in love.

Shesheshen is a shapeshifter, who happily resides as an amorphous lump at the bottom of a ruined manor. When her rest is interrupted by hunters intent on murdering her, she constructs a body from the remains of past meals: a metal chain for a backbone, borrowed bones for limbs, and a bear trap as an extra mouth.

However, the hunters chase Shesheshen out of her home and off a cliff. Badly hurt, she’s found and nursed back to health by Homily, a warm-hearted human, who has mistaken Shesheshen as a fellow human. Homily is kind and nurturing and would make an excellent co-parent: an ideal place to lay Shesheshen’s eggs so their young could devour Homily from the inside out. But as they grow close, she realizes humans don’t think about love that way.

Shesheshen hates keeping her identity secret from Homily, but just as she’s about to confess, Homily reveals why she’s in the area: she’s hunting a shapeshifting monster that supposedly cursed her family. Has Shesheshen seen it anywhere?

Eating her girlfriend isn’t an option. Shesheshen didn’t curse anyone, but to give herself and Homily a chance at happiness, she has to figure out why Homily’s twisted family thinks she did. As the hunt for the monster becomes increasingly deadly, Shesheshen must unearth the truth quickly, or soon both of their lives will be at risk.

And the bigger challenge remains: surviving her toxic in-laws long enough to learn to build a life with, rather than in, the love of her life.

Again, I must direct you to my gushing, but basically I found this to be a very fun read that puts you in the alien-yet-familiar headspace of a monster. (About spaghetti, the monster observes: “Slightly strange. It's like an evasive bread.”) And like, who among us has not felt monstrous and murderous from time to time. Hashtag relatable.

On Kupala Night, Dymitr arrives in Chicago’s monstrous, magical underworld with a perilous mission: pick the mythical fern flower and offer it to a cursed creature in exchange for help finding the legendary witch Baba Jaga.

Ala is a fear-eating zmora afflicted with a bloodline curse that’s slowly killing her. She's just desperate enough to say yes, even if she doesn’t know Dymitr’s motives.Over the course of one night, Ala and Dymitr risk life and limb in search of Baba Jaga, and begin to build a tentative friendship… but when Ala finds out what Dymitr is hiding, it could destroy them both.

Listen, it’s my newsletter, I get to recommend my own book. When I pitch this really quick I say it’s The Wizard of Oz meets The Witcher, in the sense that the monsters are mostly from Polish folklore with the accompanying darkness and brutality that lore implies, and it’s about people who find each other along their journey to see the wizard AKA Baba Jaga— and form a meaningful bond quickly. Do you want to feel the good kind of ache that comes from clicking the “hurt/comfort” box on ao3? Well, here you go. (If that question makes no sense to you, you probably leave your house more often than I do.)

I Listened to “Simple Times” by Kacey Musgraves and Really Took It To Heart

I need to step away/If I don't, I'm gonna go insane/'Cause being grown up kind of sucks/And I'm really just missing the simple times, uh huh

Twelfth Knight - Alexene Farol Follmuth

Viola Reyes is annoyed.

Her painstakingly crafted tabletop game campaign was shot down, her best friend is suggesting she try being more “likable,” and school running back Jack Orsino is the most lackadaisical Student Body President she’s ever seen, which makes her job as VP that much harder. Vi’s favorite escape from the world is the MMORPG Twelfth Knight, but online spaces aren’t exactly kind to girls like her―girls who are extremely competent and have the swagger to prove it. So Vi creates a masculine alter ego, choosing to play as a knight named Cesario to create a safe haven for herself.

But when a football injury leads Jack Orsino to the world of Twelfth Knight, Vi is alarmed to discover their online alter egos―Cesario and Duke Orsino―are surprisingly well-matched.

As the long nights of game-play turn into discussions about life and love, Vi and Jack soon realise they’ve become more than just weapon-wielding characters in an online game. But Vi has been concealing her true identity from Jack, and Jack might just be falling for her offline…

This book transported me, not just back to high school (though: yes, I did identify with Vi’s overly intense buzzkill tendencies, as I was definitely like that as a teenager and sometimes I still am), but also to a kind of golden age of well-written, character-focused, mostly-lighthearted contemporary YA. If you’re feeling really overwhelmed at the end of this year, I invite you to escape…into this.

Read if you like anything by Maurene Goo, and if you haven’t read any Maurene Goo, you should also do that.

Curled Up On the Couch Watching Police Procedurals For Comfort

Let’s face it: all police procedurals are fantasy because they always catch the bad guy. This one’s also got magic in it.

The Tainted Cup – Robert Jackson Bennett

In Daretana’s most opulent mansion, a high Imperial officer lies dead—killed, to all appearances, when a tree spontaneously erupted from his body. Even in this canton at the borders of the Empire, where contagions abound and the blood of the Leviathans works strange magical changes, it’s a death at once terrifying and impossible.

Called in to investigate this mystery is Ana Dolabra, an investigator whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricities.

At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol. Din is an engraver, magically altered to possess a perfect memory. His job is to observe and report, and act as his superior’s eyes and ears--quite literally, in this case, as among Ana’s quirks are her insistence on wearing a blindfold at all times, and her refusal to step outside the walls of her home.

Din is most perplexed by Ana’s ravenous appetite for information and her mind’s frenzied leaps—not to mention her cheerful disregard for propriety and the apparent joy she takes in scandalizing her young counterpart. Yet as the case unfolds and Ana makes one startling deduction after the next, he finds it hard to deny that she is, indeed, the Empire’s greatest detective.

As the two close in on a mastermind and uncover a scheme that threatens the safety of the Empire itself, Din realizes he’s barely begun to assemble the puzzle that is Ana Dolabra—and wonders how long he’ll be able to keep his own secrets safe from her piercing intellect.

Featuring an unforgettable Holmes-and-Watson style pairing, a gloriously labyrinthine plot, and a haunting and wholly original fantasy world, The Tainted Cup brilliantly reinvents the classic mystery tale.

I know I’m having a hard time in life when I find myself binge-watching police procedurals (may I recommend: Elementary). The familiar beats of crime-solving are really satisfying to read—you know what will happen ultimately (investigator will find the answer, duh) but the mental puzzle is a delight. The Tainted Cup offers you that puzzle, but it puts the puzzle inside a truly excellent world that will light up all the fantasy-loving parts of your brain.

Born to GO! Forced to Stay

When you feel the call of adventure but you have to, like, go to work, and stuff.

The Stardust Grail - Yume Kitasei

Maya Hoshimoto was once the best art thief in the galaxy. For ten years, she returned stolen artifacts to alien civilizations—until a disastrous job forced her into hiding. Now she just wants to enjoy a quiet life as a graduate student of anthropology, but she’s haunted by persistent and disturbing visions of the future.

Then an old friend comes to her with a job she can’t refuse: find a powerful object that could save an alien species from extinction. Except no one has seen it in living memory, and they aren’t the only ones hunting for it.

Maya sets out on a breakneck quest through a universe teeming with strange life and ancient ruins. But the farther she goes, the more her visions cast a dark shadow over her team of friends new and old. Someone will betray her along the way. Worse yet, in choosing to save one species, she may condemn humanity and Earth itself.

I sort of pitch this book casually as “Indiana Jones in SPACE” and I think, per my conversation with Yume at ALA earlier this year, I’m not alone— this is a wild ride of a book that still manages to be emotionally resonant and meaningful. Here’s what I said about it.

Mad At Everything and Ready to Rumble

*cracks knuckles*

Those Beyond the Wall – Micaiah Johnson

Faced with a coming apocalypse, a woman must reckon with her past to solve a series of sudden and inexplicable deaths in a searing sci-fi thriller from the Compton Crook Award–winning author of The Space Between Worlds.

Scales is the best at what she does. She is an enforcer who keeps the peace in Ashtown; a rough, climate-ravaged desert town. But that fragile peace is fractured when a woman is mangled and killed within Ash's borders, right in front of Scales's eyes. Even more incomprehensible is that there was seemingly no murderer.

When more mutilated bodies start to turn up, both in Ashtown and in the wealthier, walled-off Wiley City, Scales is tasked with finding the cause—and putting an end to it. She teams up with a frustratingly by-the-books partner and a brusque-but-brilliant scientist in order to uncover the truth, delving into both worlds to track down the invisible killer. But what they find points to something bigger and more corrupt than they could've ever foreseen—and it could spell doom for the entire world.

This is the second book in a duology, the first of which is The Space Between Worlds. Micaiah Johnson infuses her futuristic world with Mad Max vibes and rage against the machine (the machine in this case being an unfair system with a huge class and privilege disparity, helloooo). So if you currently feel an anger that craves expression, well, you’re welcome for telling you to read this.

Kindness Persists and So Do I

For when you want to remember that there’s goodness in the world.

Paladin’s Grace - T. Kingfisher

Stephen's god died on the longest day of the year…

Three years later, Stephen is a broken paladin, living only for the chance to be useful before he dies. But all that changes when he encounters a fugitive named Grace in an alley and witnesses an assassination attempt gone wrong. Now the pair must navigate a web of treachery, beset on all sides by spies and poisoners, while a cryptic killer stalks one step behind…

From the Hugo and Nebula Award winning author of Swordheart and The Twisted Ones comes a saga of murder, magic, and love on the far side of despair.

Feel like reading a story about two deeply kind yet wounded people who find love while also solving a murder? I feel like I don’t really need to pitch this book harder than that.

Also: psst, next fall you’re gonna get a sequel to When Among Crows.

Happy reading! And happy end-of-2024! I GUESS!

-V

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I’m not sure, because I didn’t take any pictures of my own, but I think the last time I was across the pond was for the Insurgent movie premiere in London. Apologies to whoever took this photo; it’s the only one I found saved on my computer and I don’t know where it came from.

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Aw.

Also, I loved that skirt.

Anyway, I am very happy to be going back! I hope you can come out and join me! I’ll be in conversation at each stop, I believe, but we’re still firming up those details. Here are the links to more details for each stop:

October 25-27 - MCM Comic Con

Tickets to the convention here.

I’ll be doing two panels and three signings at the convention. You can see the details of my schedule .

October 28th - Liverpool

7pm. Tickets and info here.

October 29th - London

7pm. Tickets and info here.

November 8th - Edinburgh

7:30pm. Tickets and info here.

I solemnly promise not to attempt any accents while I am visiting your region. Unless it’s while quoting my Polish grandfather. (I’m also bad at that one but you’re less likely to notice.)

Cheers! (JUST ONE, SORRY.)

-V

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At some point in the last seven or so years, all my writing advice became life advice. Oh, I still have some practical tips about brainstorming or writing action scenes or how I go about revising. But when people say “what’s one piece of advice you have for a young writer/writer who wants to be traditionally published/debut author/etc.?” I’ve started to automatically express something deeper, something about values or priorities or personal growth.

People’s eyes then tend to glaze over; they weren’t asking me to teach them about being human, and you know what? That’s fair. But at a certain point, I realized no amount of practical advice was going to ease people through the actual challenges of writing. People mostly learn about the particulars of writing books by…writing books. And they don’t really need me for that; they need themselves. They need to show up for themselves every single goddamn day. And I can’t give them a handy trick for that.

My actual advice? Learn patience.

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Patience is not sexy. It’s not a cool trick. It doesn’t feel good. It’s not going to get people to share this newsletter far and wide, praising its helpfulness. It is, however, the thing you need. I need. We all need. So I’m going to try to talk about patience in a new way—in the way that I understand it. And maybe that will help.

COURSE-CORRECTION

I used to drive a Honda Civic. It was a fantastic car. In the decade that I drove it, the only maintenance it required was a brake pad replacement. But it had its quirks—for example, it was so lightweight that at speeds greater than forty miles per hour, any amount of wind pushed it off course, so I had to learn to steer against the wind. It’s not a big deal. Just a little tug at the wheel every few seconds.

I think about it whenever I sit down to meditate, which I try to do somewhat regularly, not because I enjoy it (I do not), but because I have an anxiety disorder and I’m told it helps (I resent this). The expectation that I can force my brain to stay present feels absurd, yet I’ve come to learn that blankness is not actually the goal of meditation. Instead, it’s the steering of thoughts. You find yourself thinking about that thing you said earlier— nope, go back to the breath. You’re worried about what’s going to happen later— back to the breath. Just a little tug at the wheel every few seconds.

BE PRESENT, NOT PERFECT

My sister once got my stepdad a Cubs t-shirt (or maybe he got it for her? I can’t remember) that said this once. Be present, not perfect. I don’t think we can credit Joe Maddon with the quote, exactly, but it was his philosophy in coaching and it really stuck in my head. I’m thinking of it this morning as I try to practice patience.

I’m waiting to hear back from several people about several important things, work-related and not, right now. Some of them are on vacation; some are on leave; some are just taking a reasonable amount of time to get back to me. On some level, my body registers this as frustrating. I feel agitated. I’ve been mad at the dog for days (don’t worry, I’m still being nice to her).

You might not call this patience just to look at it. I’m obviously on edge. But I don’t think of “patience” as a state of utter calm. I think of it as the struggle to be present. At this very moment, my task is to write this newsletter. Every few seconds my mind wanders in its agitation. Every few seconds I tug the wheel, return to the present, write another few sentences. Over and over again.

Patience is tedious. Patience is repetitive. Patience is being present.

the first time I was ever referred to as a “published author”

LET THE PAST DIE…

My actual philosophy is, and I really mean this: fuck dreams. I don’t tell people this very often. It’s personal, for one thing, not something I think everyone needs to adopt. And for another thing, I know what they’ll say. It’s important to have dreams! Sure, fine, I guess. Is it, though?

If you’re a dreamer, good for you. I recognize that I have walked a very particular path and it’s only because of the privileges that path has afforded me that I can even say “fuck dreams” with a straight face. So as I said, it’s not like…a recommendation. But I’ll tell you about it anyway.

The strangest thing about my career trajectory has been how, when Divergent came out and became successful, I achieved a long list of writer dreams all at once. Bestseller lists and sales records and multiple movie adaptations and big important interviews and absurdly fancy parties. I was on national television and on a red carpet in a designer dress and on a movie set having a chat with Tony Goldwyn about his kids. Like, really, and I cannot emphasize this enough: whoa.

On its face: very cool. Beneath the surface: I was terrified and naive and in many ways innocent to the way the industry worked and so uncomfortable surrounded by super attractive, well-known people that I could barely eat. Like, ever. (It’s an anxiety thing. It’s not great.) I remember standing at one of the aforementioned fancy parties and thinking, this is it. This is the dream. Only I didn’t mean it in that starry-eyed “wow I appreciate the wonder of all this” way. I meant it like: oh. This is what people dream about, and I have it, and I feel out of place and wrong and scared and hungry and this dream doesn’t feel good.

In those moments, in the nicest clothes I’d ever worn, surrounded by a big ol’ pile of hotties, having achieved all those dreams, I realized only this: I truly, desperately, and deeply wanted to go home. Home, to my sweet little dog and my happy marriage and…my writing.

To me, dreams are often like this. This glossy, idealized version of a thing that, when you achieve it, lets you down because the reality of it simply can’t measure up. But you know what’s pretty great in my reality? Husband. Dog. Friends. Family. Writing. I like my work. I like my life. I like myself. That’s the dream, realized.

Bestseller lists, movie adaptations, sales records, don’t get me wrong, they’re great. But it’s important to keep them in their proper place. They didn’t make me happy, they didn’t make me hotter or more special or more loved. They were great because they helped me build the everyday life I am fervently grateful for. Full stop.

I guess I do have dreams now, but my dreams are ordinary.

living the dream

…KILL IT IF YOU HAVE TO.

I’m aware that none of this is relatable. But I swear I have a point. Those fancy, glitzy party dreams are a lot like your dreams of what your book can be when it’s finished. You can spend a lot of time, in your mind, with the imagined success of your book. Its beautiful cover and its face-out bookstore promotion and its stellar reviews and all the wonderful things readers will say about it. You can also spend a lot of time with the idea of what your story will be when it’s done. How it will explore this theme or that theme, how it will have this or that kind of polished, beautiful prose, how it will introduce a whole new subgenre of whatever.

OR…hear me out: you can meet your book where it is. Look at what it is. What’s working? What isn’t? What is it actually saying, vs. what you dreamed it would say?

Patience is this: the commitment to wrestling with your book to make it the best version of itself, not the glossy, idealized dream of what you wanted it to be at the start.

Patience is this: the commitment to wrestling with yourself as you realize the ways in which your subconscious has leaked out onto the page in ways you didn’t anticipate. As you accept what kind of writer you are and what kind of writer you aren’t. As you decide what the difference is between pushing yourself to grow and trying to force yourself into a mold that doesn’t suit you. Set big goals for yourself, but know yourself.

Patience is wrestling. Patience is being aware of the end goal without fixating on it. Patience is looking at what is instead of what isn’t real. Patience is being present—not perfect.

PRESENCE

On days when I’m not patient, I’m refreshing. The inbox, the social media, my messages. Over and over again, the lab rat pushing the lever.

On days when I’m patient, I still check things. The inbox, the social media, the messages. I’m only human. But then I tug the steering wheel, open up my draft, and write. And in those moments, I’m not thinking about my word count or my chapter goal for the day or letting the pressure of what I hope this book can become crush me. I’m with the characters in the story, earnestly trying to figure out the best way to tell it.

What will my career be, now, tomorrow, in five years? What will this book become? Or the next one? Or the next one? Do I have dreams for those things? Sort of. I can’t help it, I guess. But I let those dreams stay blurry and far away from me.

Mostly, I’m here. And I’m patient.

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BABY’S FIRST HEADSHOT (by Nelson Fitch)

Recently I realized I’m not a beginner anymore. Shocking, I know. I’ve published seven novels, two short story collections, and two novellas; I’ve had three books adapted to film; and thanks to the incredibly weird and occasionally wonderful time that was having the Divergent books become so successful so quickly, I’ve attended a crapload (that’s the technical term, right?) of professional conferences and conventions. I can pack for a two-week tour in a carry-on, I’ve been on the Today show twice (three times?), and every so often I have a conversation about some media personality with friends and I get to say something annoying like, “Oh, I’ve met them!”

So with that in mind, I offered some quick tips about media training on Threads that I want to expand on here. Let’s start at the beginning, though…

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WTF even is “media training”?

Have you ever done an on-camera interview? For a long time my mom didn’t really believe me that they were difficult to get used to. Then I brought her to the Divergent set, and the on-set publicist asked her if she would answer a couple questions with me. She said yes. Lapel microphone went on. Camera went up. Mom’s mind went completely blank. You just don’t know how it feels until you do it, man.

So, how hard can it be? I mean, not as hard as open-heart surgery or making a functional spreadsheet, but— harder than it looks, for sure.

Media training is intended to prepare you as much as possible for that experience. When I did it the first time, it was in advance of an interview with Ryan Seacrest wherein we revealed the cover of Allegiant. I was in my early twenties, and everyone just wanted to make sure that I would do a decent job, and that meant preparation, and that meant media training.

The media trainer started by giving me a primer on what to expect from different types of media, such as: print journalists give the toughest interviews, because they need to engage readers for a longer period of time; television, on the other hand, because they get such a limited time and books are usually featured on daytime or more “upbeat” programming, is usually easier and more straightforward, but tricky because you have to think about how you’re presenting yourself physically. (My favorite interviews, by the way? Audio only. You don’t have to think about what your face is doing, but you’re still in control of how you present yourself— not true of print media.)

Then the media trainer conducted some pretend interviews with me. Some of them were basic questions and some of them were a little harder, like “we all know Ryan Seacrest is not going to grill you about [insert controversial topic], but just in case—let’s see how you handle it.”

She recorded me answering her questions, and then we watched the footage, which— if you asked me which activity I’d prefer, cleaning up my dog’s food bowl when it was infested with thousands of tiny ants, or watching myself on video, I’d choose the ants every time. But it was helpful. She pointed out things like, “you lick your lips a lot” (pro tip: if you put vaseline on your teeth before the interview, you are less likely to get dry lips! who knew), or “you make an actual grimacing face for a second when people ask you something you don’t want to answer,” or “absolutely do not repeat the negative thing someone says about you even if you’re denying it” (the Nixon mistake— “I am not a crook!”). All those things were good to know and I do recommend watching yourself on camera at least once so you can be aware of your posture and presentation, even if you’re just practicing for a job interview.

Anyway, that’s media training. Pretty simple.

My fun notes about Ryan Seacrest? He was extremely professional and good at his job. Good on the fly and understood the assignment. I did have to wear flat shoes so I wouldn’t tower over him in the shot. (I’m six feet tall; he is not.)

Don’t Waste Opportunities, Bro

The thing about being an author is, the dynamic is not the same as the one between a journalist and a celebrity, or a journalist and a politician. The stakes are just different for us. When you’re an author, you and the journalist have the same mission: make a conversation about books interesting. So media training, for me, was not about filing down my edges— I don’t have edges! I am someone who volunteered enthusiastically to spend an entire year of my life alone in front of a word processor!— it was actually about teaching me to be clear, concise, and to take advantage of the opportunities I was being offered.

And that’s the important thing here: every interview, every time your voice is featured in public, is an opportunity. I encounter far too many authors who don’t see it that way, and they kind of blow off a panel discussion because they don’t like the topic, or avoid talking about their books like “that’s boring, no one wants to hear that”…without remembering that every audience is new and just wants to know what your books are like, and that it’s your job to promote your work. That doesn’t mean you can’t be a person or have a personality, but no one is ABOVE promotion, and why are you wasting your time on that panel or in that interview if you’re not there to accomplish an actual goal, which is, bare minimum, “tell them what your book is about.”

The truth is, very few people will read your book just because they like your personality. They read your book because the book sounds interesting to them. And they’ll never know if it sounds interesting or not if you refuse to pitch it to them. So writers, authors, whoever— put on your professional pants and show up.

I was recently in conversation with Brandon Sanderson at C2E2, and it rattled me to my core (see? Now I’ve hooked you)— I was in a moment of my career where I’d gotten a little complacent, I was so used to panels and so comfortable with public speaking that I forgot one crucial thing: you have to offer people something of value. And Brandon Sanderson seems to understand that. He was immediately giving a master class on worldbuilding from the first moment of that panel. Every single question was an opportunity to share something meaningful about himself, his books, or his process. I literally sat up straighter. I thought, I have to step up my game if I want this to be a good conversation instead of just “Brando Sando and that lame-o who was sitting next to him, what was her name again?” It was a great conversation, thank you to Brandon for reminding me that when you’re talking to people about your work, it’s an opportunity and a privilege, and you should make the most of every second.

Since then I’ve changed the way I do things— I’ve been going back to the process I learned in media training.

And That Process is What, Exactly?

BUCKETS

The media trainer basically asked me this: what is it that you want to get across? And this is related to the whole “opportunity” thing. You need to have goals. Authors who have not had to chase down interviews for themselves, who have had them arranged by publicists or whoever, sometimes agree to them begrudgingly, like fine I’ll do it if I have to. And when that’s the case, they treat the interview (or the panel, or the conversation) like something they need to survive and endure instead of really contribute to.

What is it that you want to get across? is a question that asks you to define your contribution. With any book I write, what I want to get across is that my work is interesting and that I’m more than just the author of Divergent. (SEVEN NOVELS, PEOPLE. READ THEM, PLEASE.) So when I’m ready to start promoting a book, I try to define what’s interesting about that book.

Usually this is obvious. Poster Girl, my book about a woman who was the face of a surveillance state’s propaganda and was imprisoned after that state collapsed, had a few “buckets,” if you will. One of them was “post-dystopia”—writing about the aftermath of a fallen regime, especially given that my most famous work is about what comes before that. One of them was “social media break”—I took six months off social media when I was writing Poster Girl, for many reasons, but one of them was that I wanted to experience the same sudden loss of connection that my main character experiences in the story. One of them was “mystery”—the book was my first mystery, centered around the search for a missing girl, and I wanted to talk about how tremendously hard it is to write mysteries. You get the idea.

What you have to do is figure out what makes your book distinct. None of us are out here writing stories that are wholly unique, but there’s a reason why you gravitated toward your story in particular, why you chose to write it in exactly the way you did. Were you inspired by something, someone, or some other creative work? Did you love a certain kind of story growing up and always wanted to write one? Why? What did you have to say that wasn’t already being said?

If I was promoting Divergent now for the first time, I would talk about my first dystopia (The Giver); I would talk about first love, exaggerated by dark circumstance; I would talk about my fondness for personality tests and sorting paradigms in fiction; I would talk about Chicago as a dystopian playground. See what I mean? Divergent isn’t going to shock you with its uniqueness, that was never its job. It’s a love letter to what was (The Giver), that speaks to the experience of being a teenager (wanting to belong but feeling like you can’t; the fantasy of the popular guy who actually sees you and finds you interesting; the sudden awareness that the world you looked at with rose-colored glasses is actually broken), set in a city that is well-known but not always focused on. That’s what I want to get across: I’m not reinventing the wheel here but this book will interest you, engage you, and speak to you if you, like me, love these things in fiction.

So before you start talking about your book anywhere— online, on panels, in interviews, whatever— sit down and figure out what your “buckets” are. What are the things you want to talk about when you talk about this book? Know what they are. Write them down.

PITCHES

It’s worth your time to develop a quick pitch and a less-quick pitch for your book. A quick pitch is one line. I mean it— ONE LINE. This is why you hear “this meets that” so often (When Among Crows is “The Witcher meets Wizard of Oz”)— it’s fast and it works. Sorry if you’re annoyed by it, but we’re all going to keep doing it, god bless and godspeed.

A less-quick pitch is SLIGHTLY MORE THAN ONE LINE. A paragraph, guys, and not a big chunky paragraph. Truly, if I get nothing else across to you in this blog, it should be this: say something interesting, and also SAY LESS. Authors do tend to ramble, and I am including myself in that. When Among Crows is, this book is about a mysterious man on a mission to find Baba Jaga in a Chicago populated by creatures from Polish folklore. Or it’s: this book is about a mysterious man who comes to a mysterious woman with a deal— he’ll help her break the curse that’s killing her if she helps him find legendary witch Baba Jaga. The only problem is, he comes from a holy order of monster hunters…and she’s a monster.

Write these two pitches out. Practice them a kabillion times—out loud. Pat yourself on the back.

NEVER STOP PREPARING FOR SHIT

Often an interviewer or moderator will send questions in advance of a panel or conversation. If you’re lucky enough to be in that position, take some time to free-write your answers. You don’t have to (and shouldn’t) read them verbatim later, but you got into this business because you’re a writer, and we often do our best thinking while writing, not talking. Free-write, and then while you’re in the shower or doing your nighttime stretches or whatever, practice some responses out loud. Get used to organizing your thoughts for the purpose of speaking, rather than for the purpose of writing— those are two different skills.

AGAIN, SAY LESS

Get used to editing your thoughts. No one wants to hear you ramble for over sixty seconds about literally anything. Seriously. Know what the point is (that’s what all that other stuff ^ was for), get to that point, and then stop talking. You don’t need a denouement.

PUT IT ALL IN A GOOGLE DOC

Or wherever. Just somewhere you can access it. Then, before you do your interview or panel or video or whatever, read over your notes to keep them fresh in your mind.

Also in your google doc? Put some book recs. We all know the feeling when someone asks you for book recs and your mind goes totally blank. So just come up with a few and put them in your notes.

LET IT GET AWKWARD

Remember what I said earlier about how you just need to stop talking at the end of a thought? The reason people don’t do that is that it feels weird. You stop abruptly and there’s this horrible silence as the interviewer realizes, oh, she’s done, I gotta ask a follow-up. Here’s the thing, though: you do get used to that silence, and rambling means you’re more likely to be misquoted, misunderstood, or that that section of the interview will be totally omitted. So learn how to deal with the minor discomfort of silence. You won’t regret it.

Also, usually at an interview they’ll ask at the end “anything I missed?” or “anything you want to add?” and at that point you’ll be like oh thank god, I’m almost out of here. And you’ll want to say “no, we’re all good!” and bolt and maybe stick your head in your freezer, if you’re at home. But what you should do instead is think back to your buckets, your pitch, your goals— and just bring up a topic you missed. Yes: out of nowhere! When you are pretty sure your interviewer just wants to be done! Bring it up! Make it weird! If you say something good, it’ll be worth it, I promise, and if they’re a decent interviewer they’ll recognize that. And if they don’t decide to include it in the final piece, whatever, at least you tried. The stakes are low. Let it get awkward.

I recently saw a clip of Kamala Harris giving public speaking advice to some youths, and she basically said, if you were on the Titanic and you knew it was sinking, would you let fear of how you look or how you sound stop you from warning people about it? No! You’d be more worried about the urgency of your message. Now, we’re talking about books here, not life-saving messages, but the basic premise I’m suggesting is the same: if you define your goals at the outset, that should create clarity and urgency for you in every interview. Here are the things I want to get across. And you can let that urgency carry you through the awkward moments, because you’re focused on your goal, which is to tell people about your work in a way that will make them want to connect with it.

The main takeaway here is: talking about your work is a skill you can and should develop, whether you’re a writer or not. Maybe you’re not naturally gifted at it, maybe you’re not funny or particularly entertaining, but clarity is a goal that we can all achieve, whether we’re good at it or not. And honestly, friends, clarity is all you need— but it starts with you. You, having clarity about why you wrote your book. You, having clarity about what your book is and why it’s interesting. You, defining clear goals and showing up for yourself.

So, you know. Get out there and maul.

:)

-V

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original cover art by Victo Ngai

Whenever I moderate a conversation with another author, the question I find myself returning to, no matter who it is, is: why did you tell the story this way and not another way? I ask that because there are always the choices you didn’t make, even if you were so committed to one story that you didn’t even see them. And the choices writers do make, in the face of so many options, reveal a great deal about their priorities, their interests, and the worlds they’re building.

I think about this often, and that’s why I decided to do this experiment. Below is a scene from a Divergent that never was—that never could have been, because I had to write it one way. Readers often ask me, why did you have Tris choose Dauntless? And for awhile that felt like a nonsense question— she chooses Dauntless because that’s the only way the story could exist.

But now that the story does exist— now that I’ve written it the way I needed to— I can see the choices I didn’t make, and I’m interested in exploring them, to see how they change the story and the characters and the world. So here’s 3,500 words of the Tris who chose Abnegation, instead.

As much as the factionless insist that our former allegiances have no place among them, they can’t seem to let them go. Case in point: they still ask me to be the one to look out for the new kid. I’m the Stiff, after all. The only one here.

Other than Evelyn, that is.

I guess I can’t blame them for struggling to unlearn everything they were taught. After all, when they ask me to do it, I still say yes. Yes, I’ll help the one-eyed failed Dauntless transfer. Yes, I’ll bring him soup—hot, but still in the can—and sit with him while he eats it. Yes, I’ll help the medic change his bandages.

I doubt most Abnegation pepper the medic with questions the way I do, though. Why do doctors do stitches with a hooked needle, what will happen to the socket now that the eye is gone, what will it look like if it gets infected. Edward told me, the first day, that it was better to know than not to know, so he doesn’t object to me asking questions about his missing eye. He seems bothered, though, when the medic isn’t able to answer all of them. She only studied medicine for a few years before she became factionless.

“You might consider studying with our best doctor,” the medic says to me, when she’s done putting a clean bandage on Edward’s eye. “He works out of Sparrow House.”

All the factionless safehouses have bird names. Sparrow, Eagle, Crow, Robin, Falcon—those are the main ones. We’re in Robin House now, which is a red-brick warehouse not far from Abnegation headquarters, on a street lined with overgrown trees. When robins have to defend their nests, I was told when I got here, they make a ruckus so other robins will flock to them. When you don’t have the talons of a predator, you have to find strength in numbers.

It may as well be the factionless motto.

“I didn’t know I could do something like that,” I say to the medic. “Learn a trade here, I mean.”

“Did you think we all just shuffle around the city driving trains and begging for food?” The medic pulls off her latex gloves with a snap. “We’ve got our own ways of doing things. We just have to be…scrappy about it.”

One thing I’ve learned since defecting from Abnegation a few months ago is that the factionless are good at putting on a show. On the surface, they’re unruly, unstable, unpredictable. But the deeper I go into the new society they’ve made right under the old society’s nose, the more I see…organization. Education. Dedication.

“I’ll put in a good word for you,” the medic says. “Anyone who looks at a fresh enucleation without wincing is a good candidate.”

I grin, and hold out the paper bag we’re using for medical waste. She drops some gauze scraps into it, but keeps the gloves to sanitize later. It’s not like we’ve got gloves to spare.

I’m just coming back from washing my hands—there’s just a faucet sticking out of the wall in the corner, the sink that once supported it long gone by now—when I see her.

Tall, curly-haired, sharp-eyed. Brown Amity boots laced tight, all the way up her calves. Evelyn Eaton.

#

After I chose Abnegation in the Choosing Ceremony, I knew right away I’d made a mistake. I felt it in my stomach. Aching. Heavy. And with each element of the Abnegation initiation ritual that followed—my mother sitting me down to wash my feet, my neighbor serving me dinner, an older classmate whispering a prayer in my ear—I got even heavier. I thought it would let up eventually, as I committed myself to the choice I’d made. I went through the motions of my month of service, my hands and feet obeying where my heart wouldn’t. And it seemed like I was fooling everyone else, but I couldn’t fool myself.

As it turned out, I couldn’t fool my mother, either. I wasn’t supposed to talk to her until I completed initiation, not after that first night, but she found me trudging home from volunteering at the hospital one day and beckoned for me to follow her into some half-collapsed building. She told me she could tell I regretted my choice, but there was one path left open to me if I had the courage to choose it. One path that would let me help her save the city from certain destruction.

Defect, she said.

And when I asked why, when I asked what—what destruction, what danger is the city in, what what what—she said she couldn’t answer.

Defect, she said, and I didn’t do it because she told me to, because I had learned my lesson about doing things just to please my parents after the Choosing Ceremony. I defected because the idea of remaining in Abnegation, doing all the choreography of selflessness without any of the conviction, made me want to scream.

My mother helped me get out. I’m given to understand it wasn’t her first time. She stood with me on the train platform in the dead of night, a bag of clothes and supplies slung across my back, and taught me how to run alongside the second-to-last car while it slowed. She did it first, and then grabbed my hand to lift me inside, and I asked myself how she knew these things, I asked myself where she came from, for the first time.

Evelyn Eaton was standing inside the car, half-hidden in shadow. She didn’t speak to me directly.

“Your daughter?” Evelyn said.

“She chose Abnegation,” my mother replied. “But it wasn’t right for her.”

“What a shock.” Evelyn’s voice was sour and dark. Like pumpernickel bread or the black coffee a Candor offered me a sip of on the bus once, just to laugh at me when I hated it. Too strong for you, Stiff?

“You’ll take her in,” my mother said, and it wasn’t a question, it was a command. “You’ll take care of her. And I’ll consider your debt to me repaid.”

Evelyn finally looked at me, and I wondered what she saw. Little blonde girl with her neat Abnegation bun, her loose Abnegation grays. Small and quiet and nothing special.

“What’s the faction you should have chosen?” Evelyn asked me. “Or do you even know?”

The answer came easily. “Dauntless.”

“Like mother, like daughter, I guess.” Evelyn laughed. And to my mother, she said, “You’d better get off at the next station.”

I didn’t get the chance to ask my mother if she grew up in Dauntless, though I already knew the answer. I didn’t get to ask her what it was like there, and why she left it at her Choosing Ceremony. She just gave me a funny little smile—wry and crooked, not like her usual smile—and jumped off on the next platform. I watched her disappear into the dark.

“Guess we’ll find out what you’re made of, Beatrice,” Evelyn said.

“Don’t call me that,” I said, and I’m not sure what gave me the audacity. Maybe it was the bitterness in Evelyn’s voice—it gave me permission to be bitter, too.

“Pick another name, then,” she said, and I did.

#

“There you are,” Evelyn says to me, beckoning. “Come with me, we need to talk.”

She walks me up the stairs to a courtyard surrounded by columns and hemmed in by red brick. All I can see above us is the bright blue sky. It’s hot out, too hot for spring, though we’re inching toward summer by the minute. I’m still not comfortable showing too much skin, but I went from a long-sleeved gray shirt to a short-sleeved one—Candor white—just a few days ago.

“I need your help with something,” she says.

My first thought surprises me. Oh, sure. Ask the Abnegation girl, she’ll help. But I’m not quite bold enough to say something like that out loud, especially not to Evelyn Eaton. That sharpness in her eyes reminds me of a fox that wandered through the Abnegation sector when I was a kid. Not rabid, my father said, but wild and hungry.

Evelyn is hungry, too.

“My help?” I say, instead. “With what?”

“A recruit.” Evelyn folds her arms, which is my first sign that there’s more to this than she’s saying.

I’ve gotten to know Evelyn the past few months. The first day I woke up in Robin House, she gave me a knife, then sent me to an ex-Dauntless named Gretchen to learn how to use it. Gretchen made me practice drawing it so many times it started to feel easy, and only then did she talk to me about fighting with it.

That was how my time with Evelyn always went, after that. She would show up at Robin House, look me over, and then send me to someone else to learn something new. A lithe, quick man everyone called “T,” who taught me how to get on and off the train. Gretchen, for the knife. The Mender, “for clothes that don’t make you look like such a goddamn Stiff,” as she put it. A man named Blank who made me ride the train all night looking for oddities—including the ever-bright lights of the Erudite sector. Bit by bit, I learned about the city from beneath, instead of from above, and I observed Evelyn Eaton, former Abnegation and now undisputed leader of the factionless.

She doesn’t cross her arms unless she thinks you’re getting too close to something. So whoever this recruit is, it’s more personal than she’s letting on.

“I don’t know if I’m a good poster child for the factionless,” I say.

“Better that you aren’t a poster child, with this one.” She looks away. “He’s former Abnegation. Chose Dauntless but I don’t think his heart’s really in it anymore.”

“It seems like you’d be able to relate to someone who came from Abnegation,” I say. “And you know what to say to someone who might want to leave their faction. Better than I do, anyway.”

“You should have left this irritating self-deprecating streak behind when you defected.” Her teeth come together with a click. She looks away.

I don’t know what to say to that, though my face probably says it for me. My cheeks are burning but I know better than to lash out at the leader of the factionless in anger.

“This particular recruit…has made his distaste for me well known,” Evelyn says, without looking at me.

“Oh,” I say. And then: “Oh.”

Which is how I figure out the “recruit” in question is her son.

#

I don’t know how they’re communicating with someone in Dauntless, how they tell him where and when to meet. But when I go with Evelyn to Falcon House, in the city center, I see all sorts of sly, quick-handed, light-footed people. That’s where they live: right in the middle of the city, so it’s easy to get anywhere they need to go.

Falcon House is underground, a system of tile-walled tunnels that used to offer shelter from the harsh winter. The trains used to go underground here, too, though the factionless can’t use those pathways much anymore, thanks to cave-ins and blockages. I hear a rumor when I’m in line for dinner that some people are working to clear out the tunnels so it will be easier for the factionless to sneak around undetected, but I’m well-trained to ignore rumors. My father always said gossip was self-indulgent, and I still hear his voice in my head at every turn.

I didn’t say goodbye to my father when I left. I didn’t think I could stomach it. He was so proud of me when I joined Abnegation, his eyes glittering and his smile so broad it looked like a grimace of pain. And the way he sounded when he introduced me to the Council Leader. This is my daughter.

I wince, thinking of him now.

It’s dark, the moon is high, and I’m waiting for the right train. I can see it coming now, gliding along in the distance. Its light isn’t on—that would draw too much attention, but I can see the moonlight reflected on its metal side as it moves. It churns and pounds closer, and I start jogging. I can feel it behind me, its heat and its energy, and I break into a sprint so I won’t run out of ground.

Then I throw myself to the left, grabbing the handle and stepping up into the train car in one fluid motion. I’m not good as a knife fighter—Gretchen keeps telling me to stop being so hesitant—but I’m fast and nimble. Sometimes it’s good to be small.

The recruit is already on the train. I knew he would be, but somehow I was unprepared for…this.

For him.

He’s standing in a sliver of moonlight, and that’s how I see his eyes. Blue, but not bright like morning; dark blue, like dreaming, sleeping, waiting. I stare at him, suddenly tongue-tied, and the train starts to turn, shuddering on its rails as it switches to the elevated track. I lose my balance, and his hand stretches out to steady me. I stare at his fingers wrapped around my bare, pale forearm. His knuckles are callused.

This isn’t how I’m supposed to be, so easily distracted. Like some kid with a crush instead of someone who’s made hard choices, someone who’s doing something important.

I get my feet under me and clear my throat.

“Thanks,” I say, to Tobias Eaton.

He’s only two years older than me, so I saw him around when we were younger. I must have, anyway; I don’t remember it now. And I think I would remember meeting someone like this, who looks at me with a focus so absolute I wonder if he ever gets distracted by anything at all. Someone with the kind of face that makes me feel aware of every inch of my body in a new way.

Evelyn told me very little to prepare me for this meeting, but she said the Council Leader—no, she said Marcus, and she spat his name like it was a dirty word, which lit up all the parts of me that love puzzles—liked to keep his family away from everyone else, all in the name of privacy. I’m beginning to realize that when an Abnegation says “privacy,” what they mean is “secrecy.” So I wonder what secrets Marcus Eaton was keeping.

Tobias is wearing all black, but I don’t see any piercings, any tattoos, any signs of the ostentatious Dauntlessness that I’m expecting. There’s black ink creeping over the collar of his jacket, but just a hint of it. I think of curling a finger over the neck of the t-shirt to tug it down; I think I probably have a better chance of my hand spontaneously catching on fire.

“I thought Evelyn was the one who requested this meeting,” he says, his voice low and clear.

“She was,” I say. “She…wanted me to come instead.”

“Oh really.” If he didn’t look so much like her, I would know he was her son by that tone—that sour, bitter way of talking they both have. “And who the hell are you?”

“Tris,” I say, at first, because that’s the name I’ve been clinging to since I got here. Just hoping that one day, it will feel like it belongs to me more than my Abnegation name.

But then I remember why I’m here.

“Beatrice Prior, actually,” I amend, and Tobias Eaton is already shaking his head.

“No. Absolutely not.” He paces away from me. “I know why she sent you, and I’m not interested.”

“Why did she send me? I really don’t know.”

“Because she—” He cuts himself off. “No. I’m not doing that, either.”

“Doing what?”

“This…thing where just because we came from the same place, you pretend to know what I’m going through!”

We’re between stations right now, but I bet if we weren’t he would throw himself off this train and I would have to chase him down the street. Or maybe I wouldn’t bother. I don’t really care if Evelyn Eaton’s son joins the factionless. Do I?

“Well, let me guess what you’re going through,” I say. “And you tell me if I’m right. And if I’m not, you’ll get off at the next stop.”

“That gives you about twenty seconds.”

My throat feels tight. I decide I have nothing to lose.

“You chose the wrong faction, or you think you did,” I say. “You don’t quite fit no matter where you are. And the more you learn about the world, about this city, about all the things you were told, the more confused you feel about where to go, what to do. You think maybe no one feels right, anywhere, and they’re all just pretending. Or maybe you have to think that, because the alternative—that you’re the one who’s broken—is too much to bear.”

The train slows as it approaches the next station.

Tobias Eaton stands in the middle of the empty train car, his hands loose at his sides. He’s not holding on to anything, despite the sway of the train; his boots are planted and his body shifts this way and that, by fractions, to keep him steady. I’m pretty sure Gretchen would love Tobias Eaton; she wouldn’t yell at him for not knowing where his feet are. He’s probably fantastic with a knife.

I really shouldn’t find that so appealing.

The station comes and goes. Tobias doesn’t jump off.

“Why did you join them?” he asks me, voice softer now.

I’m ready for this question, but all the answers I had prepared to persuade him—because that’s why Evelyn sent me here, isn’t it?—feel small and meaningless now. I open my mouth to offer one of them, it doesn’t matter which one, and what comes out instead…is brand new.

“I couldn’t stay where I was,” I say. “And someone told me…that something is coming. Something bad. Something I might be able to do something about, if I’m better positioned to. And…I figured that if I’m going to feel this way, if I’m going to feel wrong all the time, it may as well mean something. It may as well do something.”

Tobias nods. He walks over so he’s standing across from me, the gap of a doorway between us. I’m not afraid of standing so close to the edge anymore, no matter how the train tilts as it turns, but he stands a pace away. Wary.

“And you just…left everyone you care about behind?” he says. “Because that’s what she wants me to do.”

I look out at the city. We’re high up, now, close to the entrance to Dauntless headquarters, though I’ve still never seen it. The marsh is behind us, and before us, the dark uneven shapes of buildings, the straight lines of cracked and broken streets, the arc of the fence that hems us all in.

And beyond it…who knows?

“I think caring about them doesn’t mean I owe them a version of myself that isn’t real,” I say.

It’s not something I’ve ever articulated to myself before, but saying it feels right. The only person I really left behind was my father, but knowing that he’s out there, shamed by my absence, disappointed in me, maybe even pretending he doesn’t have a daughter anymore—it aches somewhere deep that I couldn’t reach to soothe, even if I knew how. But when I think about what I owe him, in exchange for giving me life, I come up empty. I didn’t ask to be born. I never promised to stay the same as I used to be. No one can promise that anyway.

“Do you know why she sent you?” Tobias says, his voice lower now that he’s closer. He’s been staring at me, I realize, since I spoke last. Like he didn’t know what to make of me, or like—like he’s bothered by what he sees, the way a person is bothered by a question they once knew the answer to but can’t now recall.

I shake my head.

“Because.” He laughs a little. “Because she knows you’re just my type.”

The train is slowing again. Tobias grabs the handle next to the door while I’m still too stunned to respond.

“Tell her I’ll think about it,” he says to me, without looking back. Then he throws himself out of the train car, lands on light feet on the platform, and disappears from sight as the train turns.

Thanks for reading! If you had fun with this, let me know— I might consider putting more of this kind of exploratory writing in the newsletter if people enjoy reading it.

-V

Okay, technically When Among Crows came out last week here in the States (and slightly later in the UK), but given the contents of this newsletter, I thought it might be better to wait until the book had some time to settle in before sending it out.

When I turned in the rough draft of When Among Crows, it started one scene earlier than it does in the final draft. I realized I could just start with Dymitr trying to pick the mythical fern flower, instead of starting with a wiła* and otherworldly blessings, as I do below. So if you haven’t read the book yet, don’t worry, this scene won’t spoil you— call it a prologue, if you like.

*you may be more familiar with this creature as a “vila” or “veela"; wiła is the Polish spelling

Thanks for reading Veronica Roth! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Before I get to that, though, I want to call your attention to some other goodies that have popped up in the last week:

There’s a When Among Crows playlist up on Largehearted Boy, with my commentary.

I recorded two episodes with the SFF Addicts podcast, one that’s more of a regular interview and one that’s a little class on outlining for disorganized people (“sloppy outlining,” I call it).

When Among Crows got a starred review from Booklist, a great review from the Associated Press, and it’s an Indie Next List pick for June! Hooray!

Also, a huge thank you to everyone who came out to the events last week with me, Andrea Hairston, Nghi Vo, and Rebecca Thorne. They were all such special experiences and conversations— with amazing moderators in TJ Klune, Jacqueline Carey, Christopher Buehlman, T. Kingfisher, and P. Djeli Clark— and we had a wonderful time meeting all of you.

Okay! Prologue time! Enjoy!

In Edgebrook Woods, about a half-hour's drive from the Loop, a group of wiły links arms and trips, laughing, around a fire.

Their voices, raised in song, are unearthly, echoing again and again even here in the open air of the forest preserve, and if there were mortals anywhere near, the sound would give them the sudden urge to get as far away as possible — but there are no mortals anywhere near, at least not any that weren't invited.

Not at 10:30PM on Kupala Night.

As a general rule, wiły don't care one way or another about humanity, but sometimes humans provide useful entertainment, particularly when enchanted. So the sight of a tall man walking in the shadows behind the linked elbows, just out of reach of the firelight, doesn't draw any particular attention.

They're near a pond, which means there are rusałki, too, sallow-faced and greenish cousins of the wiły; and they're hemmed in by trees — oak and pine and maple — which means a leszy, stag horns casting odd shadows on the forest floor and even, lingering in the trees with her wings folded back, a shy alkonost.

The wiły closest to the man separate, the more youthful of the two smiling at him and gesturing him toward the fire.

"Prove your worth," she says to him. "Leap over the flames."

Her voice is teasing, and it also isn't. Whim brings mortals to the wiła fire on Kupala Night, and whim can just as easily send them away. The man seems to understand this. He bends his head to her, a smile curling his mouth, and as the song swells to a spine-shivering crescendo, he does as he's told: he breaks into a run and launches himself over the bonfire. He is young and strong, but the flames still lick the soles of his boots on his descent.

photo by: Valentyn Ogirenkocourtesy of: Reuters/The Atlantic

Still, he lands on light feet on the other side. When he turns back to look at the wiła who bade him jump, she's smiling.

"Well done," she says, as her sisters sing that haunting melody. "Now you may dance with me."

She presents it like a privilege, though it's a curse. She's a wiła, which means her dancing is a trap to the short-lived and the ordinary.

She appears to be younger than the others, with her full cheeks kissed by the sun, her fine strawberry blonde hair brushing her elbows, her crown of leaves and flowers hanging heavy over her brow—but when she raises her hands to him, the rest of the group pairs off to dance even though their singing continues, as if she's their leader. The leszy joins in the revelry, finding a wiła to box step stiffly with, though he's so tall that he has to reach down to clasp her hands. The alkonost, high on her perch, taps a drum with her taloned toes.

The mortal man takes the wiła's hands, and lets her lead him in a dance. His hands are sure, his fingers laced with hers, and his feet find the steps in time, driven not by his own knowledge or grace but by the force of her magic. He will be bound to these steps until she chooses to release him.

"You aren't afraid?" she says, passing a cold hand over his brow.

He offers her the same small smile he gave when she told him to leap over the fire. "Should I be?"

"Greater men than you have died dancing on this very night."

"I don't believe you wish me dead.”

She laughs, a deep, echoing laugh that reveals more of her age than her freckled face.

"Tell me, you who presumes to know my wishes," she says. "What is it I want from you?"

He shrugs a little, and the firelight plays over his face. His eyes— a gentle gray, the color of silver brunia — catch the flames.

"I think you'd like me to seek the fern flower," he says. "Rumored to be carried from our homeland to these woods, long ago."

"Not so long ago, to those who aren't bound by time." She tilts her head, and turns them, swiftly, to dizzy him. "But it's an easy guess. Most mortals who come to this fire wish to find the fern flower, and my kind are forbidden to look for it."

He inclines his head in acknowledgment. "But am I correct?"

"A mortal can have more than one use," she says, and a cruel smile twists her mouth — a little too wide and a little too sharp, making her resemble her rusałki cousins more than usual. "I will enjoy watching you dance yourself exhausted, first."

He's bewitched. It's the only way to account for the slow, lazy smile that returns her own; the way he reacts to the strangeness in her face without alarm.

"Since I am to be useful to you, my lady," he says. "Maybe you would consider giving me a gift."

She continues to steer him around the fire. Over his shoulder, she sees the silhouette of the alkonost's wings against the moon. She sees the leszy's antlers catching a wiła's tight curl as he bends to watch their feet.

"A gift of what?" she says.

"A simple token," he replies. "A sprig of wild wormwood from your crown."

photo by: tengyartcourtesy of: Unsplash

Her eyes sharpen, but it's a simple enough request, one that won't take anything dear from her. And she'd rather have him caught up in revelry than soured by rejection. So she pinches the plain weed flower where it tangles with fern leaves and daisies in her heavy crown. She tugs it free, and tucks it behind his ear, so it hangs over his cheekbone, pale and delicate.

His answering grin is a flash of teeth in the dark.

And then his feet still, and he releases her, of his own accord.

She catches him by the wrist before he can move away, gripping him with inhuman strength.

"What are you?" she demands, in a deep voice like the rumble of the earth. "Why did you come here?"

"I came for the blessing of the flames," he says. "And the free gift of protective wormwood. That's all."

He brings his wrist — and her hand — to his lips, to lay a kiss on her knuckles.

"Thank you for your generosity," he says.

"It is unwise to anger a wiła," she replies, sharply.

"Oh, I know," he says. "But it's hardly the least wise thing I will do tonight."

He clamps his free hand around her arm, and with inhuman strength to match hers, forces her to release him.

Then he disappears into the shadows of the forest preserve, and he's gone.

Get your copy of When Among Crows and follow Dymitr’s journey from Kupala Night and beyond.

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