Sarah asked Leigh Bardugo:

Leigh, was there ever a plan to create a fictional college for Ninth House, or was it always going to be at Yale? I'm a huge fan of your work, and have a countdown going on my desktop for Hell Bent's release.

Leigh Bardugo So glad you're excited for HB! When I wrote the proposal for Ninth House, I made it clear that I wasn't interested in writing the book if I had to fictionalize the university or the societies. I wanted to play with the tension between the real and imagined, for people to really wonder how much of the story was tr(ue. For the same reason, almost every structure (the exceptions are Black Elm in NH and Sweetwell in HB) in the novels is real too. That meant we had to do a lot of rounds with legal but I think it was worth it. I did have to include a disclaimer in the UK edition: "The societies of Yale University and their prestigious alumni are very real, but the characters and events described in these pages are all the product of the author's imagination, and as far as I know, no one has ever used magic to fix an election."

flag