Episode Transcript
[00:00:07] Speaker A: Hello, and welcome back to Reader Tangents, my new Readers podcast. My name is Emma Skies, and today I'm back with another author interview, this time with one of my favorite authors. Point blank period, Ava read. For the uninitiated, Ava is the best selling author of the Wolf and the Woodsman, Juniper and Thorn, a study in Drowning. And now, the just released and newly best selling Lady Macbeth, a reimagining of, you guessed it, Shakespeare's character of Lady Macbeth from Macbeth. I would say take a drink every time one of us says Macbeth, but I don't want to be responsible for anyone's alcohol poisoning. We're going to talk quite a bit about Lady Macbeth, but do not worry, there are absolutely no spoilers in this discussion. And we're going to chat about Ava's other works, their process, upcoming projects. We talk about fan fiction. It's a good talk. So I'll just let us get to that and heads up for the glitch. You're going to hear about 30 seconds in, because my Internet dropped literally as soon as we started talking. But everything's fine after that. So without further ado, let's meet Ava. I totally know what I'm doing. This is going great. Off to a solid start. So thank you for coming on. Thank you for agreeing to be here. Hello.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: Hi. Thank you for having me on, and it's so great to talk to you. We just met for the first time, or not for the first time. Oh, my God. But we were just hanging out, like, two months ago, and that was great.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: I was so excited. I think I told you this time. I was like, I was so excited that you were going to be there, because I was like, you're going to be the only person I know there before I knew anybody else was there. I was like, I'm not going to be alone. Ava will be there, too.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: No, it was so nice to hear that, too. It was like, you and Zoran were the only people that I was like that I was gonna know there, too.
[00:01:34] Speaker A: Jesus Christ.
[00:01:36] Speaker B: That was literally as soon as we start talking to myself, before I realized that you were gone.
[00:01:45] Speaker A: You know what it is, is my dog kicked my ethernet cord.
[00:01:48] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: She does. Pretty constantly. So I put a rug over it, and then she kicked the rug over and still kicked the ethernet. Cordental. Well, geez, where were we?
Yes. That was it. That was a really good trip. We actually got to hang out for an extended period of time for a hot minute, which was nice. And, oh, God, now I'm so thrown off. I'm so thrown off if I leave this in the audio for the listeners, my Internet just went out immediately. So if we both seem like we have no idea what we're doing, even though we just started, that's why.
So in general, yes. Thank you for coming on. There's something so embarrassing about asking somebody to be on a podcast. I don't know what it is, but the idea of, like, messaging somebody and, like, I talked to you a lot and I was still like, oh, my God, should I say, this is so. It's, like, weirdly humiliating to be like, do you want to be on my podcast?
[00:02:35] Speaker B: From, like, my perspective, it's definitely not cringe at all. So I wouldn't worry about that.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: Well, one of the main reasons we're here is because Lady Macbeth is out. Has been out for a week now. And as of yesterday, congratulations on hitting the list.
[00:02:48] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you.
[00:02:50] Speaker A: It was, what, New York Times bestseller, USA Today and the indie list.
[00:02:54] Speaker B: Yes. All of which were very unexpected, especially the New York Times. So that was just a really nice surprise.
[00:03:00] Speaker A: Cause this is for the adult hardcover, right?
[00:03:02] Speaker B: Yeah. The adult lists are, like, notoriously hard to hit. And six other books also hit this week that came out this week. I didn't realize it was actually such a crowded date. So that was really just wild, honestly.
[00:03:15] Speaker A: Well, it is well deserved. I was very excited to see it up there. So I read Lady Macbeth, I want to say, a month or so ago now, and as a caveat for listeners, before we get into this, as we will talk about a little bit about Macbeth. I don't know anything about Macbeth. I'm just going to lay that. I'm very sorry.
If you are hoping to listen to this and get a really good idea of a really nitty gritty into the source material, I can't do that for you. I'm so sorry.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: No, that's fine. It's been really cool to see people who don't have familiarity with the play really enjoy it, which, I don't know, I think it's cool. I think it very much can be read without having any familiarity with the play. And I think that something I really wanted to do was to write something that could stand on its own, even if you're not, you know, a fan of the play.
[00:04:02] Speaker A: Yeah. It's one of those reading experiences where, like, logically and reasonably. I'm sure there are things that I'm missing. I'm sure there are, like, references and homages that, like, I'm not picking up on because I don't know the source, but I don't feel that at any point, which I think is the most important part of that. So we'll start with everyone's favorite question, every author's favorite question, to distill this work of your soul in many thousands of words down to, like, an elevator pitch. What's your elevator pitch for Lady Macbeth? For those who aren't aware of what we're talking about.
[00:04:29] Speaker B: So this is actually the easiest book I've ever had to elevator pitch because it's pretty much what it says on the tin. It's a reimagining of Shakespeare's Macbeth, but from the perspective of Lady Macbeth, a feminist, gothic work that I would probably call more historical fan fiction than historical fiction. But it stays true to a lot of, I think, the core themes and ideas that are presented in Shakespeare's play.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: So before we get too into the weeds and things, I'm curious, what would you say on both sides? Both. What would you say to somebody who has a good familiarity with Macbeth going into this and somebody who has no familiarity with it?
[00:05:08] Speaker B: Okay. Very different things for each person.
For people who do have familiarity with the play, I would say, do not expect this to be a one to one adaptation.
It's more of kind of meta take on the story, where it has awareness of the fact that this is a work of fiction. It engages with kind of the narratives about the play and the history of the play as much as it engages with the actual words on the page. So I would say, expect it to surprise you.
There are certainly things in there that I think will not work for people necessarily who aren't, you know, big fans, because I do take a lot of liberties. But at the same time, I think that if you're open to being surprised, I think you will enjoy it. And for people who are not familiar with the play, you absolutely do not have to know anything about the play to, I think, enjoy the book. And I think a lot of reviews are, from what I've seen, are from people who don't know anything about the play and have still really enjoyed it. It'll work differently for different audiences, but hopefully people can kind of understand what I was doing and be there for it.
[00:06:21] Speaker A: What drew you to Macbeth, in particular, out of all of Shakespeare's works?
[00:06:25] Speaker B: You know, I think, like, growing up as a gothic girly, like, a love for Macbeth is kind of just, like, programmed into our DNA. It's always been my favorite Shakespeare playdead, bloody and brutal and supernatural and eerie. And I think in particular, and this is maybe not something everyone will agree with, but it has a kind of bleakness or sparseness that really drew me to the story. It's a very short play. It's only about half the length of Hamlet. It's as short as tragedy. There's actually a pretty small cast list considering, and a lot of the action kind of happens off stage. So there's something about that emptiness that makes it really fertile ground for retelling. And that's also reflected in Lady Macbeth, who totally lacks any kind of character backstory. She doesn't even have a first name. We don't get kind of a full grasp of what her motivations are. And this absence, this just makes it really fertile ground for reimagining. We can play in Shakespeare's sandbox, so.
[00:07:29] Speaker A: To speak, with the Lady Macbeth that you wrote in particular. From what little I know, there's some stark differences from the character that we originally see in Shakespeare's Macbeth. What kind of drew you to the Lady Macbeth that you ended up writing about and ended up being your narrative?
[00:07:43] Speaker B: Yeah. So I decided pretty early on that I was going to take these liberties with it because I wanted it to feel like a story that could stand on its own and an original piece, and I wanted it to feel like an Ava Reed book. So it starts with the contrivance of a gothic novel, right? It's this young woman married off to this mysterious lord and going to his sinister, remote castle, and, you know, that's full of arcane secrets. So that's very much the opening of a gothic novel. And I, again, thinking about Shakespeare not only as the original text, but also as having this enormous canon of adaptations, I felt like I was writing, you know, I was entering an existing canon. I was, you know, placing my story alongside so many other adaptations and re imaginings of this work that is meant to be adapted because it is a play. So, you know, every stage performance is an adaptation. Every stage performance is a retelling of the story that, you know, the director, the actors are taking their own liberties with. So I wanted to reflect that in and to really have. And it's hard to kind of talk about this without getting into the spoilers of the story, but I wanted it to be like, you know, this is one version of Lady Macbeth, and Lady Macbeth is kind of more of a title than a character. It's a role that my character is playing.
[00:09:13] Speaker A: Oh, I love that. Is there anything, you know, you have the things that you stick with in canon, and you have the things that you take liberties with when you're going through Macbeth, what were the beats that you were really excited to both hit and really put your own spin on and the ones that you were excited to really, really change or add in or take out things.
[00:09:33] Speaker B: Yeah. So one of, you know, kind of the really core things that we consider to be crucial and iconic about Lady Moabat's character are, one, kind of her ambition and manipulation, and two, I think this sort of proto feminist narrative that exists about her, you know, this famous monologue where she says, unsex me here, because she can't reconcile her gender, her womanhood, with these violent tendencies that she has. And all of those things have been a really big part of what makes this character so iconic. So I wanted to stick to those in some way, and I was excited to kind of present a character whose to kind of clarify and, you know, put my own spin on why she would have these ambitions, why she would, you know, give into these violent tendencies and how her gender, you know, kind of informed all of that. So those were things that I really wanted to keep in there and beats that I wanted to hit. And at the same time, I wanted to have a character whose identity was very much influx and obscure, you know, to others. Her face is quite literally hidden beneath a veil. You know, you don't know that. Other characters don't know all the things that are kind of going on in her mind. And sometimes she feels obscure even to herself. She doesn't know who she is, and she is struggling to reconcile her actions with her identity and, you know, her womanhood as well. So I think that it was the stuff that really is there in the original play and then kind of my own twist on it.
[00:11:12] Speaker A: So before I get into any, I meant to ask this previously. How do you say her name? I've been saying Rasheel, and I feel like that's wrong.
[00:11:19] Speaker B: So every. Everyone asks me this. It's so funny. So I'm gonna go on kind of a little tangent.
[00:11:25] Speaker A: Go for it.
[00:11:26] Speaker B: This is like, linguistics is like. This is like catnip for me.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: Oh, I loved the note in the beginning of the book that you had on language. So, yeah, go for it.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, so this is my little linguistics spiel, but basically, it's Roskille because language was very much phonetic back then, but also because of the time period, the kind of rules of language were not established, and so things were very much in flux. And this is what I write in my author's note is like, there wasn't necessarily the kind of rigidity to the world that we think we have today or that we sometimes impress upon this period of history. So this is the reason why Risquele is, you know, referred to by many different names. She was referred Roskillie, which is the breton form of her name, and, you know, Roselle, which would be the saxon form. And, you know, in a meta sense, I wanted to kind of have it that she. Because Lady Macbeth in the original play doesn't have a first name. So I was like, well, she's going to have five in my book.
But also, yeah, I think it reflects that her identity is in flux. And, you know, one of the main themes of the play, or one of the ones that I take from it, is the very capricious and almost arbitrary nature of power and how things can change so quickly at the drop of a hat. And borders are not rigid, and national identities are constantly changing and being redefined, and kings are dying and whole lines are being replaced. So I think that that was my effort to kind of reflect that in the very language of the book.
[00:13:00] Speaker A: It worked out because I also ended up making my own pronunciation especially. That's hard when you're reading an arc, too, because usually I'm like, okay, I will look up somebody's video of them talking about this book, so I know what to say. There's nobody talking about it when you.
[00:13:13] Speaker B: Read it months early, and nobody also knows how to pronounce it, which is totally fine. It's a very obscure name. It's a breton name, but it's super obscure. And my kind of modern French, mine also wants to say Racille, because that would be the modern french pronunciation. So I go back and forth, even in my own head.
[00:13:30] Speaker A: How did you come to that name? Was it like, were you specifically looking for names that could have many different variations, or were you just kind of, like, stumbling upon things and seeing what work?
[00:13:40] Speaker B: So, yeah, going back to the kind of history fan fiction thing. So Alan Varbeck, who's her father else in the book he's referred to as Ryebeard, which was one of the epithets he had, is a real historical figure. He was the Duke of Brittany in the 11th century, and one of his canonical wives, or paramours was named Roskille. So I thought it would be, you know, this was clearly a name that he was familiar with. He might, you know, give it to his daughter and someone's. I don't know if this was, like, who told me this or where it was written, but said, historical fiction authors love bastards because you can never prove whether or not they existed.
And so Raskole is a bastard.
But I also wanted to name that. That did have a lot of variations, and it was also related to. So it's obviously related to the saxon name Roselle Rosalie, which obviously comes from Rose, which is a flower, you know.
[00:14:33] Speaker A: Well, I imagine that in writing any kind of reimagining, I mean, you're probably pouring, pouring, pouring over Macbeth again and again for all the things you want to do. But what other than. I mean, I'm also interested in kind of how that went. But other than reading through Macbeth, what was the sort of historical context research that you were doing for this?
[00:14:50] Speaker B: There are basically three other kind of main sources that I was looking at, and the first was Shakespeare's primary source for the play, which was, it's this work called Holinshed's Chronicle of Scotland.
And this was. It's a very interesting work. It was considered the primary historical reference at the time, but it is not actually historically accurate, and it doesn't really purport to be necessarily. It was a very politically conceived work that had the intention of creating a mytho history and national mythology for the countries and the peoples of the British Isles. And you can tell that it's not historically accurate because while Macbeth was a historical king of Scotland, the story of the witches and their prophecy comes from holinshed. That's presented in, you know, this quasi historical work. My other source were, because I was thinking about, you know, this is set in the Middle Ages, and, you know, I was thinking about, Raskille is a young noble woman of the Middle Ages. So I was thinking about what kind of literature would she be reading if she were a real person? So I started looking at medieval literature, and there's one preeminent kind of female medieval author who's this woman named Marie de France. And she wrote these leis. Leis are essentially a breton form of poetic, chivalric romance. So a lot of those kind of tropes and themes and motifs are in Lady Macbeth. And then I also used some kind of general northwestern european folklore as well. The myth of the Melusine, who's this serpent woman faerie, who said her kind of mating with a human man beget the line of the house of Anjou, Les Lavandires, the washerwoman, that's a breton folk tale. And then two other french fairy tales, the green serpent and donkey skin.
[00:16:36] Speaker A: Was this stuff that you already had a background in, or were you digging specifically for Lady Macbeth?
[00:16:41] Speaker B: When I read. I'd never read Holinshed's chronicle before, but I was aware of its existence and its relationship to Shakespeare's plays because it's also where he got the story idea for King Lear. But I'd never actually read it. It was actually really. I could not find a physical copy of this anywhere. I was just reading, like, the project Gutenberg version online.
I was also, again, aware of Marie de France because I'd actually read a book recently, Matrix by Loren Groff, which is kind of also historical fanfiction about Marie and kind of imagining a backstory for her because she's a very mysterious figure. We don't really know that much about her, but I hadn't actually read her lays until I was looking into this. And then the fairy tales I was aware of the story of the melusine actually is referenced in possession by as Byatt, which is one of my favorite books.
And then these kind of fairy tales, like, I'm just a fairytale, girly. So I knew some of them and they all kind of.
This sounds very unhinged, but they all congeal together and I think in a coherent way.
[00:17:47] Speaker A: I mean, it definitely works in the end product.
All of that flies, like, way over my head, but the way that you're able to synthesize it into the story and I can kind of pull, like, okay, I can see where this is coming from in here. It all works out in the end. So to the layperson, I can tell you it turns out great.
What would you give as a sort of recommendation of, like, where somebody should go from here? If somebody picks up Lady Macbeth and really loves it, whether it's for the gothic vibes or the Shakespeare reimagining or, like, the kind of character that Reschile is. What other stuff would you tell them to go look at?
[00:18:22] Speaker B: So I would recommend Matrix by Loren Groff, which I call medieval nuns simulator, because that's basically what it is. But it's great.
This is the life of a medieval nun in England. But I really love that book. My other kind of big. I actually wrote a whole inspiration document that was part of a pre order incentive where I listed out all of these books and works of literature and art and music that kind of inspired it. But I would also go to Wolf hall by Hilary Mantle, which is a kind of a very iconic work of historical fiction. I don't need to be selling Hilary Mandel's books for you, but those are a big influence on kind of how I told the story and how I engaged with the real history, that was kind of a blueprint for me. And it's also kind of a villain backstory.
But Cersei by Madeline Miller is another one that I think the original comp was. Wolf hall meets Cersei. Anytime anyone asks an author about what books they've read or what books they like instantly, like our brain empties of all.
[00:19:29] Speaker A: Never read a book in my entire life. Don't know what a book is.
[00:19:32] Speaker B: Yes, exactly.
[00:19:34] Speaker A: So with Lady Macbeth, you've got four books under your belt at this point between the wolf and the woodsman, Juniper and Thorne. One of my favorite books of all time, which I've yelled at you enough about a study in shrouding, another favorite of mine, and now Lady Macbeth.
So there are at this point, I mean, you have enough workout to, I think, have some, like, signature themes that pop up among your stories, at least ones that I've kind of noticed. And they come up kind of again and again. And I wonder if you could speak to some of these in regards to both, like Lady Macbeth, but also like your other works, what ones they may have appeared in or just at large. One that we've talked about a lot is the idea of softer characters, the sort of quieter female characters, that quiet strength as opposed to your typical fantasy female character.
[00:20:21] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a really big one for me. I love, you know, female characters who are. Who don't necessarily fill that, you know, stereotypical role of, like, badass, witty woman with sword and like, not that that's not, you know, great for a lot of people in their own right, but I'm just always drawn to, like, the weirder, you know, kind of all my narrators are, you know, kind of weird, a little unhinged. But that's just what feels, you know, engaging and real to me.
I think those kind of issues of gender and womanhood and femininity that's, I think, present in all my books, very much so. I think the idea of monstrosity and how that's tied to womanhood and otherness, that's in all my books. And kind of these gothic themes and motifs and symbols, those are present in pretty much all of my work as well. And all of that. Yeah. Is very much in Lady Macbeth. And I think that I went really hard on the feminine rage in this book.
[00:21:26] Speaker A: Another one that goes alongside that. Typically, there's a layer of your characters are women who are doing their best to survive, simply to survive in a world that seems hell bent at every turn to put them down and push them out.
[00:21:41] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I think that, again, in fantasy, in particular, the female characters, we have this kind of archetype of the strong female character who, badass with a weapon or she's really snarky. And I think that, again, that's great for escapism. But I have never been one to write or read escapist fiction, because that's just not why I engage with art. It's not to kind of escape.
You know, I read because I want to be. I want to feel, you know, this. I want to have that catharsis. So, you know, I'm writing characters that are surviving, you know, again, in these very hostile situations. But, you know, realistically, that was what most women throughout history were doing. You know, this world is not and has never been built for women and for all marginalized people. I think that we feel that very much. And one of the big things for me that I feel really strongly about presenting is that victimhood is not kind of this static point. It's not, you know, you are a real and a full, complex person. You're not just, you know, being a victim doesn't make you this kind of one dimensional, you know, person. You're real and you're full and you're dynamic. And the things that you do to survive are things that, you know, that make you who you are. And there's no shame in that, necessarily. So that's something that I really wanted to portray in Lady Macbeth, and I think goes through all of my works as well.
[00:23:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I keep thinking I was like, okay, well, that comes across really well in juniper, but it also comes in study and drowning, and it comes across really well in all these things. This idea that, like, survival in and of itself is power, like, just being able to make it day to day and make it through these things.
In the midst of all of that, I mean, that gets pretty bleak, as it does in many gothic stories. But in the midst of all that, there's also this underlying theme of, like, the world is trying to break you, but you're still open to love and hope. I think Juniper is the one that I first read from you. That that comes out very, very well is this bleak world that is constantly just feels like everything is bad and wrong and, you know, there's no hope here, but she, as a character, is still open to hope and love and dreaming and life. Is that something that you're always thinking about? Is that something that you go into these projects looking for, or does it kind of naturally occur consistently across these stories?
[00:24:17] Speaker B: I think both. I think that that's just such a core part of who I want to be as an artist. So that just kind of comes through naturally. But I also am always looking for different ways to kind of express that and engage with that. And in Lady Macbeth, it is, you know, I had the advantage or kind of the interesting position of being able to approach this in a meta sense because Lady Macbeth is a very well known character and people have certain conceptions of her. And so I wanted to play with that and play with people's expectations. And I know that some people will kind of go into this book expecting or wanting her to be more, you know, ruthless and bloodthirsty. But, you know, to me, that's not the most interesting version of this character. The most interesting version of this character is one who genuinely grapples with the things she's doing and who is a survivor and is trying to, you know, she engages in violence in order to survive, and she has, you know, very complicated feelings about that and that, you know, affects her identity and the way that she sees herself and her, you know, kind of womanhood is inextricable from these very difficult questions. And that's, to me, that's just the most interesting version of the character. And, you know, again, not everyone is going to like that. Not everyone is going to feel that interpretation. But to me, that was the most interesting way to write this iconic and, you know, complex character with a lot of baggage and a lot of history.
[00:25:53] Speaker A: I've told you many times, I will go to bat for any of your female characters I love. I get so attached to these women that I'm just like, I'm just gonna hug you, and you are perfect, and nobody can say anything bad about you ever.
[00:26:06] Speaker B: Thank you. They all desperately need that. So I really appreciate it.
[00:26:09] Speaker A: I'm just like, you just need a hug. You just need somebody to be nice to you. And then another one that we've talked about this a little bit in regards to the wolf and the Woodsman, but another one is like, the realities of nationalism and fantasy, because that seems to be an almost unconscious through line, through a lot of fantasy, is themes of nationalism, whether that's in, you know, intentional or not, which I think comes across in your work, both in characters that push back against it, like Eva K, and characters who are sort of shaped by it and. And have their, you know, are sort of molded by it over their lives. And so what's the importance of that in your work?
[00:26:45] Speaker B: Yeah, that, like you said, that is really present in all of my work. It's just these are just questions I find really interesting. Especially, like you said, in the fantasy genre, we tend to take things like a coherent national identity or like a nation state, the existence of a nation state. We kind of just take that for granted.
If a character in fantasy is like, I'm going to die for my country, we're like, of course you will. We don't have any complicated feelings about that. Just makes intuitive sense to us. So I'm always interested in kind of unpacking that. And I think with this book, something that's really quite interesting to me is Macbeth is referred to as the scottish play. But, like, how scottish, really is this? It was written by Shakespeare, who was not scottish. It was influenced by this very political work, Holinshed's chronicle, which was very much, I think, shaped by, you know, the author Raphael Holinshed, and his publishers, who had their own, you know, kind of ideas of Scotland. So, in a way, you know, the Scotland of Macbeth is not really reflective. It is kind of a mythical place. It's not real Scotland, so to speak. It might as well be middle earth or Westeros. You know, it's this idea of the country. And so I wanted to kind of reflect that in Rascalia's character. That's why she's kind of a foreigner to this place, and she has her preconceived notions about this. I mean, it's what you would expect from a girl from medieval France. I think it's pretty. We don't need to cite the source that animus between France and Britain has always existed. And I think that this is something I'm just always very interested in. And I think that it adds an interesting layer, and it makes risque a complicated, morally grey character, but it also makes her feel real and a product of her time that she would have these kind of views.
[00:28:41] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think it's intellectually interesting when you're reading something, to have characters that aren't perfect, which I think you're particularly good at writing. You know, you have these characters that you, as the reader, you know, sympathize with and you are supposed to like and you grow to like, but you can still recognize, like, the flaws that are there, the things that are there. I think that was one of the things that I had said about Effie at the time, was like, this is a character that you love, but who has very distinct, very real flaws that aren't just like, the sort of, like, oh, quirky. She twirls her hair. And that's a little bit annoying, but it's so cute. But, like. No, like, genuine, actual flaws you have to contend with in the text.
[00:29:19] Speaker B: Yeah. And it would not be, you know, as much as I say this is historical fanfiction. It is rooted in real historical details, and it would not feel real and it would not feel engaging if, you know, you had these characters who had contemporary and modern viewpoints on, you know, on these things. Like, that would feel. I'm not someone who wants to necessarily, like, denigrate the people of the past. You know, I think that we can reflect that and we can recognize, you know, as modern people with brains who can separate, you know, fiction from reality. I think that we can recognize just because a character has these viewpoints doesn't mean, you know, the text itself is promoting these viewpoints. It means that it's merely trying to reflect them and trying to build, you know, complex, imperfect characters who are products of their time.
[00:30:08] Speaker A: Right. And especially as an adult novel, like, the text doesn't need to hold your hand through that thought process. Like, you can kind of come to these conclusions on your own.
[00:30:17] Speaker B: Very.
[00:30:17] Speaker A: So, so I'm sure there are, like, multiple, like, many more themes in your work, but those are always the sort of the big four that I see in kind of all of the things that I read from you that I really like. I'm trying not to be super gushy and be like, oh, my God, you're just so great. You're amazing, so cool. I'm trying to be very chill, very normal, very professional, but it's slipping out a little bit.
So with Lady Macbeth, you've done a lot of different things within genre fiction at this point. You've done adult in ya fantasy, this more sort of literary fantasy, historical fiction, a dash of monster romance. One could argue a little bit of that. We don't have to get into that, but. And you've got a dystopian coming up that we'll talk about in a minute. What is it like jumping around between styles like that? Like, is it difficult to get into the swing of a new project when you have to find a new voice for a new genre? Or does it kind of just come naturally with the narrative?
[00:31:12] Speaker B: Honestly, I find it really fun. I think that I would be so bored if I tried to just write the same type of book over and over again. I mean, that's a big thing for me because my writing process is very much just, like, throw yourself headlong into a book and just eat, sleep, breathe, whatever you're working on, and I can't do that if I feel like I'm just, you know, retreading old ground. I need to feel like I'm doing something different. I need to feel like I'm challenging myself in some way. So I think that that feels very natural. And I am a big reader. I read across all genres, across all literary traditions. So I think I'm inspired by a lot of different things, and that makes it really fun. I love the exploratory aspect of reading and of writing. So you will never catch me just writing the same type of book, you know, over and over again. That's so antithetical to, like, why I write and why I read.
[00:32:13] Speaker A: Well, on that note, are there any genres that in particular, you know, are still kind of percolating the back of your brain? Like, I really want to do one of these at some point?
[00:32:21] Speaker B: Yes, I'm actually have been very much on the back burner because I have so much stuff right in front of me to work on. But I am working on a kind of trying to articulate, like, a contemporary kind of black comedy satirical thriller about a female serial killer who falls in love. And this is. Yeah, I'm pitching it as, like, Ottessa Moshbag meets my sister, the serial killer.
Yeah. So that is something that might not ever see the light of day, but I have been kind of thinking about and tinkering with for years, so who knows what will happen with that. But, yeah, I think that there's. There's very few genres that I would say flat out, like, I'll never write.
[00:33:09] Speaker A: Is there any that you view as being like, or have you done things that are like passion projects? You're like, I just really want to write this. I don't really want to worry about selling it. I don't want to worry about pitching it. I just want to write this just for fun.
[00:33:22] Speaker B: Yes. That is my 2026 book, actually. I am still. I just finished drafting it. I sent it to my agent. I'm still not sure what she will think about it. And this is the one book where my husband typically doesn't read what I write just because he doesn't read a lot of fiction. But this is one where I had him read the ending of this book, and I was like, am I allowed to do this?
Is this okay? And he was like, I don't know. So we'll see what happens with that. But this was the book that truly I had. It was such a joy to write. I don't think I felt this kind of just uninhibited, like, I'm just writing this for myself. Kind of joy since I was writing Hunger games fan fiction when I was 15.
[00:34:09] Speaker A: We're gonna circle back to that. Yeah, we'll circle back to that in a minute. Yeah. So I guess that does lead well into the next. Like, what is next for you? You seem like the busiest person on the planet. Don't you have like five releases in the next few years?
[00:34:24] Speaker B: I do. I have the stunning drone and collectors edition in November. I have Lady Fable in March. I have lady with paperback in May. I have secret unannounced thing coming in June, and then I have theory of dreaming in August. So, yeah, I've just given up on the idea that I will sleep or rest for the next twelve months.
[00:34:46] Speaker A: I thought it was five in the next three years. That's like five in the next five minutes.
[00:34:50] Speaker B: Yeah. No, it's bad.
[00:34:53] Speaker A: How. How far are you contracted out for right now?
[00:34:56] Speaker B: I am contracted through 2027.
[00:34:59] Speaker A: Okay, so through 2027 we will be getting Ava Reid books more to come. And up next, it's a great time we can talk about Fable. Fable for the end of the world.
[00:35:10] Speaker B: Yes, yes.
[00:35:11] Speaker A: Which we just got a cover for just about an hour before we started this recording. So that's brand new in the world right now.
[00:35:18] Speaker B: It's been a chaotic one morning.
[00:35:20] Speaker A: So tell me a little bit about fable.
[00:35:22] Speaker B: So fable is my love letter, my nostalgic love letter to the dystopian ya, that I grew up with, that I read when I was a teenager. I was utterly obsessed with the Hunger Games. I was. Had a pretty big name kind of fandom blog on Tumblr about the Hunger Games.
So this is like a very much like a passion project book from my heart. And it is a sapphic enemies to lovers, dystopian romance about a girl who is selected for a death gauntlet and the assassin who's hunting her. So it's dual point of view, which is my first dual point of view book. So that's exciting. That is fable. I don't quite have the elevator pitch for it ready yet, but I am super excited about it.
Would also pitch it as like if Katniss fell in love with one of the career tributes.
[00:36:19] Speaker A: I do remember that being one of your ships.
[00:36:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I was. My fandom blog for the Hunger Games was like dedicated to the careers and defending their war crimes, which is extremely on brand for me.
[00:36:36] Speaker A: This explains a lot about TJdem.
[00:36:38] Speaker B: I feel like that should explain a.
[00:36:40] Speaker A: Lot about man, it's great, because my next point was, like, my note actually says, are we allowed to talk about your Hunger Games fan blog? Is that public knowledge? I can scrap this if I can't, but, like.
[00:36:52] Speaker B: I will not mention the name, but I will say that, yes, it existed. It was very formative. My first, like, foray into, like, sharing my work with the public was, you know, writing this fan fiction. So it is very, like, important and very formative and, like, I don't know, obviously, like, there's an element of cringe, but also, like, I'm. I think we're both, like, Gen Z, millennial, like, that kind of millennial. So we, like, grew up on the Internet. So I think that pretty much all of my fellow authors who are in this kind of age category interacted with fan fiction and fan culture in some way, whether it was, like, role playing, you know, on Naruto fan boards, or, you know, writing fanfiction. So, I don't know. I don't think we should be ashamed of our. Our fan fiction fandom past.
[00:37:44] Speaker A: It's been such a strange few years because, like, fanfiction is obviously having a big resurgence at the moment, and people, like, talk about it. And when we were kids, you didn't talk about it.
[00:37:57] Speaker B: Oh, no.
[00:37:58] Speaker A: You know the kind of secret you take to your grave. If you were lucky, you had, like, one person in your real life that you would talk, and I code, too, about it.
[00:38:05] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's so true. And I think that. That it just kind of reflects the way that, like, the Internet has changed and, you know, social media culture, because now, back in the day, the anonymity of it was a big selling point. The fact that you could have your pseudonym on your role play boards, and you could just go in and pretend to be Sasuke and, like, no one needed to know anything about you. But now the culture is very, like, confessional and very personal. You know, people on TikTok making videos about their trauma set to audio from BoJack Horseman or something.
That's so much the way that we have to use social media and interact with each other over social media now. I think that it's interesting. There's obviously good and bad to all of that, but as someone who grew up online seeing this change, it's been very interesting.
[00:38:59] Speaker A: I'm sure it's not the very first time this has happened, but it's the first time I've seen it. Julie Soto's newest book, not another love song in her, like, author bio, her ao three username is in her, like, contact stuff where she's like, you can find me on Instagram and Facebook. And here's my ao three username. I was like, oh, my God, that is.
[00:39:18] Speaker B: That is very brave. I salute. I salute.
[00:39:21] Speaker A: Bold, which was crazy, because I read that one as an arc, and I. There's, like, an author's note in it that, like, says her ao three username. And I was like, oh, my God, I've read your fanfiction.
[00:39:30] Speaker B: Really?
[00:39:32] Speaker A: Why did I not know this is you? Why are we just all sharing this information? It's a whole new world that I feel deeply unprepared for.
[00:39:39] Speaker B: Yeah. No, back in the day, that was like, writing fanfic was a secret you would take to your grave.
[00:39:44] Speaker A: I mentioned in a TikTok video I was talking about fanfiction, and there's, like, some things with the proliferation of fanfiction that I think are, like, not so great. And I was kind of talking about some of them, and I was like, look, guys, this is really hard for me because I'm going to talk publicly about fanfiction. And, like, some people got really mad that I said that, because they were like, why are you acting like it's embarrassing? Why are you shamed of fanfiction? I was like, it's a very different world.
[00:40:05] Speaker B: All right, listen, you guys did not grow up in. Yeah. In the day and age where it was, like, so unbelievably cringe to, you know, be super online. Like, now everyone has social media, like, of any kind. But, you know, back in the day, not to, like, age myself because I'm not even 30, but, like, it was. The world was a different place.
[00:40:27] Speaker A: You secretly printed them out and hole punched them and put them in binders, and you put those binders under your bed and you told nobody about them.
[00:40:34] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely.
[00:40:36] Speaker A: What a time to be alive. Oh, my God. This just became a fanfiction podcast. That is the positive part of my podcast being called reader tangents, is that I do that constantly, and I can just be like, it's on brand. It's called reader tangents. Talk about whatever you want.
[00:40:49] Speaker B: I mean, I'm here for it to.
[00:40:51] Speaker A: Circle back, to try to get somewhat on topic. How surreal is it to go from writing your Hunger Games fanfiction back in the day to now being like, this is my published work that I am going to sell to the world.
[00:41:02] Speaker B: Insane. I think this book, more than any other, feels, like, just surreal to. Especially because, you know, dystopian was such a Persona, known grata for so long, because we had this huge dystopian boom, and then we got a really, really burnt out on it. So for a long time in public, and especially when I started publishing, you do not say the word dystopian. If you try and pitch your book as dystopian.
Best of luck.
No, you couldn't even say it.
So this was the second book in my two book deal with Harper teens. The first was a study in drowning, which was originally conceived as a standalone. And then I had the deal for the second standalone. So this book did not have to go on submission because I'm certain that it would not have succeeded on submission because people would have, you know, taken one look at, you know, the dystopian concierge and been like, no, no, no, no. Dystopian. We can't sell that. Nobody wants to buy that.
[00:42:00] Speaker A: They're just filtering that through their emails.
[00:42:02] Speaker B: Nothing that, like, seriously, it was. It really was like, people were like, absolutely not dystopian dead. You know, the last divergent movie flopped so badly, it actually, like, devalued the stock of Lionsgate. Like, we are nothing. We're not doing this. But, yeah, so I. When I was pitching this to. I'm on, like, my fourth editor at Harper Teen now, so I was pitching this to one of my editors. I don't even remember who at this point. I was like, you know, I know it's dystopian, but, like, maybe we could give it a chance. And she said. She said yes. So she was the very first person to kind of say yes to this book. And my agent was super supportive because my agent actually really loves post apocalyptic stuff.
So, yeah, I had two people in my corner who were like, we're gonna do this. And this is, again, this was before. Well, before study and drowning even came out, and before, you know, it had that kind of success. So, yeah, to have this book even be published and for it to be, you know, a kind of priority title for my publisher is, like, insane. Like this. Of all books, I'm like, how?
Like, I've written a lot of weird books, but this one, I feel like, is the most, like, how did we get here?
[00:43:16] Speaker A: All right, listeners, if you're hearing this, that means you're on the publicly available version of this podcast. The extended cut is another 20 minutes long and available exclusive to my Bindery subscribers. It includes listeners submitted questions where we talk about Ava's signature writing style and unhinged drafting process. Effie ser as a main character in a study in drowning. And the difficult road of how the upcoming sequel, Ethereum Dreaming, came to be a little more on historical context for Lady Macbeth. And we even touch on one of history's greatest middle grade series, a series of unfortunate events. This cut is exclusively available to producer subscribers on my bindery, which you can find linked in the episode notes here or at skiesreads dot bindarybooks.com. and with that, let's see what Eva's got coming up as we head out.
So now the super fun part for you. You have about 8 million things to plug.
What's coming out? What can people buy? What can they pre order?
[00:44:06] Speaker B: Okay, let me see. So I'll just talk about the stuff that's up for, like, pre order now. So Lady Macbeth just came out last week, so you can go buy that. And the first printing has some really cool, you know, special features. So if you want to make sure you get that, I'd recommend, you know, ordering it soon because I've heard that we're close to selling out that printing. So. Yeah, get on that. Yeah. And then the next, next up is the collector's edition of a study in drowning, which is out in November. And it is absolutely gorgeous. Actually, I can show it to you because I have my, my author copy here. So let me get it. Yeah, so it has this beautiful foil detailing on the COVID It has these incredible stencil edges. It has these, like, antique style endpapers, and it has this foiled case that.
[00:45:02] Speaker A: Ooh, gorgeous.
[00:45:02] Speaker B: This is a truly beautiful, like, work of art. And that's coming out on November 5. And it also has the first chapter of a theory of dreaming in the back. So yes, if you want to get an early peek at that, I would recommend picking that up. Preordering. And this is a limited edition, so once it sells out, it's not going to be reprinted. So get your pre orders in then. Lastly, this was just revealed like 2 hours ago, so it's very fresh. But fable for the end of the world is out in March, and that will also have a special limited edition, one printing edition with some really, really gorgeous special features. So yeah, I think that's everything I can reasonably promote, because theory and dreaming.
[00:45:53] Speaker A: Is 2025 or 2026?
[00:45:55] Speaker B: 2025. It's August 4, I think.
[00:45:59] Speaker A: So we didn't mention the 2026 project all that much in detail. But is, is that your. Is that your grimdark? Your grimdark fantasy?
[00:46:08] Speaker B: Oh, my God, my grimdark. Gothic epic fantasy. Yeah.
[00:46:12] Speaker A: Oh, my God.
[00:46:13] Speaker B: Epic fantasies back, baby.
[00:46:15] Speaker A: I'm so excited for that for a number of reasons, one of which is that for a while, I thought I didn't like grim, dark fantasy, and I think what I don't like is grim, dark fantasy written by Mendez, think.
[00:46:23] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:46:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's where I landed. So I was like, this is perfect.
[00:46:26] Speaker B: Yes, this is. Yeah, this is very much my. Like, I'm writing grimdark fantasy as a non cis het man, so I'm super excited about it. This is, like, my favorite book I've ever written, so.
[00:46:39] Speaker A: And it's very long.
[00:46:41] Speaker B: It's very long. And I am normally, like, a very short. Right. Like, all my books are, like, fairly short. They're all around 100,000 words, so, yeah, this one is, like, 170,000 words, so that's. That's big for me.
[00:46:52] Speaker A: Love it. Okay, before I get too far off into the weeds there, we can keep chatting, but I think that is where we will call this. So thank you so much for coming on today.
[00:47:01] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much for having me. It's always so fun to chat, and I hope we get to see each other in person again at some point.
[00:47:08] Speaker A: I'll be in New York in October for hopefully, like, a week, maybe two. We'll see how it goes.
[00:47:14] Speaker B: Okay, awesome.
[00:47:15] Speaker A: Yeah, we'll figure something out. So you can find Ava on social media. You're on.
I mean, like, you plug it. I can't remember all the places you are.
[00:47:23] Speaker B: I am mostly just on Instagram at Avastread. I technically do have a TikTok, just mostly just so I can see the videos that my friends send me. It's also at Avezread, but I am terrible TikTok. Don't know how to use it, so.
[00:47:38] Speaker A: I know now they don't let you open the TikTok if you don't have the app anymore and, like, have an account. Stupid.
[00:47:43] Speaker B: I need to see my silly little videos. So, yeah, that's mostly what the account is for.
[00:47:47] Speaker A: We're trying to bully the one girl in our group chat that doesn't have TikTok into getting it so we can continue to send her videos, but it's a long process, so I guess that is that. I will cut us off before I start saying anything else that is not relevant. And thank you so much for being here, and thank everybody for listening, and I'll catch you next time. I also don't know how to end podcasts. Bye.
