Full Transcript for Sarah Talks Bookish Stuff with Laura Weymouth

he handed it back to me and he looked me dead in the eyes and he said, Laura, if you are not published someday, I missed my mark. And that was my like galaxy Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Whoa. Laura: brain moment of wait, I could do that? Like it had never occurred to me until then, even though this was something that I did all the time. So I was like, yeah, that is something I could do. And then, you know, I just sort of moved on with life. And I went and did other things. And, you know, I went to college for a couple years for medieval and renaissance studies, ended up dropping out to look after my grandparents before they passed away. Then I got married. Then I had some kids. And with my first baby, my first little daughter, I was looking down at her and I was a stay-at-home mom at that point. I mean, I still technically am. That's technically my day job. and I was bored out of my tree. Like Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Ha ha ha ha. Laura: I mean, babies are they're like so time consuming, but none of it is intellectual. So I was like, I was crawling out of my skin with mental boredom, even though I was doing stuff all the time. And I was also looking down at this like beautiful little baby girl and thinking to myself, I really want to show my daughter that as a woman. You can prioritize your family and also follow your own creative and professional endeavors. So I was like, I gotta get my stuff together and demonstrate that to this incredible little girl. So I started writing a book about a wet nurse who travels to a political court and gets embroiled in all this political intrigue. And this is years before I ever became published. And I always say, you know, The Castle and the Cloister took me almost 14 years to write from start to finish. Because it is the first Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Well Laura: book that I ever started writing when I was thinking about maybe I'll publish something someday. And I realized within like one scene that I was totally out of my depth. I was like, yeah, I do Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Ha ha ha. Laura: not I was like, I don't have the skill to write this story the way that I want to tell it at this point. So I put it on the back burner and I wrote another book and sent it to a big writing competition called Pitch Wars. It was, it never got in. but I got great feedback from the mentors who were all incredible and just like so generous with their time and energy. and then that book I worked on for a couple of years. Then I started another book because if it was very clear to me that that book wasn't going anywhere, I'd queried it. I started another book. that one was called The Light Between Worlds and became my YA debut. So I broke into publishing with like book number three, I think, that I tried with. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Okay. Laura: And so that one That one sold like super fast. I've gotten an agent within like less than a month of starting to query and Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Well. Laura: it sold at auction

in like 24 hours of going out on submission, which not that doesn't happen. But it did happen in this case. Yeah, I was like Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: That's crazy. Laura: beside myself with stress, like laying on a heating pad because I had a chronic game flare from all the stress. Because I was Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I'd be throwing up. no. Laura: like, Never talked to anyone in publishing at that point. Like, I didn't know any other authors. I was like, I'm talking to New York City editors, and Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Wow. Laura: this is the greatest, most stressful thing that's ever happened. And now I'm like, an editor, whatever. But yeah, now I'm like, okay. But Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, you're like, Who are you? I don't know. Laura: anyway, so that was my debut, and then I kept writing YA, and the whole time in the background, I was picking away. At this book about the wet nurse and telling people and sounding like a crazy person, I had this book I'm working on, and it's amazing. I know I never finish it, but I promise you it's really good. And then finally I got to the point where I had switched agents, and this was the book that I queried with to find a new agent. And she was like, I love this. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. Laura: She's like very much like would try to sell my grocery list if I sent it to her. And she was like, Yeah, we're gonna break you into adult fantasy. And I was like, Good, because I really want to do that. I've written six six six YA standalones in succession and I can't do it anymore. So and now here we are. Yeah. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: my gosh. That's so cool. That's awesome. I think that's such an interesting journey. 'Cause like one Laura: Yeah. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: of the questions like one of the questions I had for you was the the pivot to YA, like how why how what about that w was the hardest for you? Laura: So the pivot from YA or to start working in YA? Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: honestly I guess kind of both, 'cause I think like you hear a lot about a lot of authors, like they originally pitch as like a a adult fantasy or d adult sci-fi and then they end up like shifting to YA fantasy and then they shift back to adult fantasy. So for you, Laura: Yes. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: what did your journey look like on that? Laura: So I love YA and I do read it a fair bit. I love teens. I love writing for them. and my book that I did break into publishing with The Light Between Worlds, it's very much a YA novel. Like it's it's loosely inspired by the Chronicles of Narnia, where it's about these kids who've been on a portal fantasy adventure. And they come back and one of them is just traumatized because that was her home. She lived there. She spent years there. It's where she belongs. And she doesn't fit in here anymore. And it's about her siblings trying to prop her up and what's going to happen to her and the emotional toll that it's taking on them as well. So it's a real upper. it's everyone, everyone's yeah, Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: yeah. A just a real Laura: people are like, No, we can be playing X's. So Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Ha ha. Laura: yeah, but anyway, so that one. It just it lent itself really well towards YA. There were a couple of publishers Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Okay. Laura: that were like, Okay, well, we would like to publish it as adult. And I was like, I just I feel like it's YA because it's about two teenage girls dealing with trauma and Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. Laura: it's just it it fit very naturally into that space. And then once you start writing one thing, your team tends to be like, Let's do more of that 'cause we want to establish your brand. And then after six books, I was like, Okay, it's established. Like I gotta go do something else. I didn't get into fantasy to start Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: We've got the brand. Laura: Yeah, I don't wanna write the same book over and and they're not the same books, but I was like, I don't wanna write standalone YA historical fantasies for the rest of my life. Because I'm gonna run out of magic systems. Like Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yes, like it's great but Yeah. And then people are gonna be like, Didn't she already use this magic system in another book? And they're like, You would do the same thing Laura: Right. And so this book like was always there in the background and I was working on it and it's extremely obviously solidly an adult book. And I love adult epic fantasy. Love to read it. That's like where my heart lies. And so when I talked to my now agent, Laura Crockett, she was like, Okay, let's go. Let's do Let's put the castle and the cloister out on submission. And now here we are. And I've got two other adult fantasies coming out within the next like year and a little bit, year and a couple months. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: That's awesome. You pivoted and you're like, go for it. Yes. Laura: Yes, hardcore. I pivoted hardcore. We've got like a novella on submission too. I'm like, okay, let's go. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: You're like, just get it all out of my system now and then be like, all that's an out fact YS and works. Laura: Yeah. We'll see. I like it here. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Like it's it's definitely an the space is growing so much for like adult epicness and too. I think I think like this is now like the perfect time to pivot back, right? To to pivot back really, you know. so of everything you've written, 'cause you've written a bunch, and I I know that this is like I feel like every author has like their near and dear story they've been writing since they were fifteen in the back of their head and like this is yours, but like of everything that you've published so far, what would you say is your favorite story that you've played? Laura: So I mean, this I didn't spend fourteen years on this because it's not my favorite. So you you really have to be like super passionately in love with a book to spend that long on writing it.

Like when I was a teenager, I used Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: yeah. Laura: to hear how The Lord of the Rings took Tolkien 12 years, and I was like, ha, I could never that's so long. And then of course I spent longer writing a shorter book. So but I would say out of my YA, if I'm just picking my YA, my fourth YA novel is called The Consuming Fire, and it's like the least read. Quietest, most under the radar of all my YA books, and it is my favorite by far. It's about this girl Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Okay. Laura: in like an alternate history England where the Romans dug up this god on the top of the tallest mountain in the UK, which is called Ben Nevis, and he demands that a teenage girl be sacrificed to him every year or so, every 18 years. But they're like a living sacrifice, so he just like consumes a piece of them and then goes back to sleep. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Okay. Laura: And so there's all these villages throughout the UK that are being used to basically raise these girls as pure and spotless sacrifices. And so this one girl, Anya's twin sister, goes to be a sacrifice, and she's supposed to survive it. You're supposed to live and just be like maimed by this god, but her sister dies. So she's like, I hate this system. I hate that this happened. And I'm gonna offer to be the replacement sacrifice, but really I'm gonna go and I'm gonna kill this god. So it's like a road Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Awesome. Laura: trip revenge quest to kill a god. And that's my favorite. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I do love the I do love those kinds of quests. Those like that's the story I grab. I'm like, yeah, let's go kill some gods. Like I love that. I love a living god situation too. I think Laura: Yeah. Yeah, I write a lot of angry, angry women, angry girls. So Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: that's important. It's important for women to know it's okay for us to get angry. Learn that at a young age. It's okay to be angry. Laura: Yes. Mm-hmm. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: So like th one of the things I really like about about yours about Castle the Cloister. I Fia. I think f I love Fia Fia Beta so much. I thought she was so great. you've talked about this a little bit about like that whole the experience of being postpartum and then like as a main female character and that is it really is like something you never see. And when you're thinking about this story and this character, what prompted that decision for that character? Because honestly I think that's pretty bold. I can't think of any other character off top of my head that has like a postpartum art. So like what prompted you to choose that for her? Laura: That is exactly why I chose it, because I love fantasy. Like it's where I live. This is my favorite. I mean, I read fairly broadly, like I read nonfiction, I read poetry, I read litvic, but fantasy is my heart and it has been ever since I was a little kid. Like I'm such a nerd. And I just I had Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Here we go. Laura: never seen that. I'd never seen that in a fantasy book. And when it happened to me, it hit me like a freight train. I was like this incredible, like transcendent, horrifying, like life altering. like era defining thing just happened to me and I've never seen it in a fantasy novel. And I was like, and it's not like women aren't writing fantasy novels because they are. I was like, why is this thing not in it? Because it's so interesting and so awful sometimes. Like I wanna write about it. So I did. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I love that. Actually that was that another reason I was gonna ask you. So like when writing with her postpartum experience because postpartum as experience is just such like I don't have kids but I'm very like t I I don't know, I pay attention to the female experience and like Laura: Yeah. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: for some reason and like so when you're when you're coming at this from someone who is a mom, what is the hardest what was the hardest part about like writing Fia's postpartum experience, like as a character? What was the hardest part for you to write for her as a mom? Laura: Necessarily hard. I think writing writing Ariana probably was a little bit more difficult because she's going through like she's slowly hemorrhaging throughout part of the book Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. Laura: and like just becoming weaker and weaker, but to still show that within that she's such a strong person. And and the fact that a lot of her strength isn't as apparent as Fia's, because Fia, like you read her and you're like, it's a strong woman. Like you, there's no there's Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: yeah. Laura: no avoiding the fact that this is like a woman of indomitable willpower. And Ariana's Personality and her character are so much softer in the way that she presents herself to the world, but she's still like underneath all of that is like no holds barred dedicated to her goals and to her ideals. and so writing her in such a way that you can see that strength, even as her body is kind of failing her throughout a part of the book. that was probably the most difficult balance to strike. Most of the postpartum stuff I didn't find too difficult, just because it's like within my wheelhouse. It's my personal experience. So I was like, Yeah, I can put that on page. And the thing that I liked the most about representing about the postpartum experience was the incredibly weird and unexpected thing that happens to you where you look at your like little baby or your sweet toddler and your love for them just manifests as like rage with no outlet, where you're like, I will kill something for you right now, but there's nothing there for me to kill. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: And you're like, there's nothing, there's no reason for it, I'm just letting you know. Laura: Yeah, it's like if you've ever had cute aggression, it's like that times infinity. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I do that with like my I did it with like my dog and some of my friends. I'm

like, I just love you so much. I just love you so and they're like, my god And I'm like, Laura: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, it's like multiply that infinitely where it's like this weird anger clothed in, you're so cute, I need to do anything and everything for you. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, it's like the you have to bite somebody that you love for no reason. Like and you're like, I don't know, it just makes sense. It's like dogs with displacement anxiety, like Laura: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: So like I I I thought I love Fia and I love how you referred to her as like you know she's a strong woman because the whole time I was like more worried for the priest than I was for Fia. but I love that Laura: yeah, see it's gonna be huh. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I He she's gonna be fine. She's just she'll she'll kick him in the face or something. It's gonna be fine. But like I I really like I I loved her as a character and I thought she resonated with me super deeply and I loved her romantic juxta juxtaposition with the priest. And I love that you refer to him as the priest. Like y you know his name, you figure out his name, like you hear his name, but like you refer to him only as the priest. How hard was it to like not slip into the classic writer thing of like just using his name? Laura: Ashley through like six drafts of the book had no idea what his name was. Like, I just had a blank when he tells everyone what his name is. I was like, I don't know what it is. He hasn't told me yet. So, like, the reason he's the priest throughout the whole book is because I didn't know what his name was. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: think that's fantastic because like honestly I think the the thing that what you hear all the time it's like the only bad draft is the r draft you don't write and it's like don't I there's I've seen people with drafts that just says put fight scene here and then they just keep writing and I'm like yeah and that's kind of the same thing. It's like the priest, that's his role and we'll figure it out later Laura: Well, and he probably the first I discarded probably like two hundred thousand words on this book, like over the course of Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Wow. Laura: my fourteen years of writing it. And the first probably three or four drafts, he didn't even exist as a character. There was like some doctor who I just wasn't feeling. And then I wrote a scene where Fia goes down to the sanctuary of this other religion and he walked in, this blind priest, and I was like, my goodness I was like, Well, Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: There he is. Laura: there's a game changer. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, I honestly like that's just such a fun common joy that I've found for a lot of like writers and published authors is like the way I've described it in the past and I've talked about it is like you create like I call it the spine where like you have all the vertebrae stacked, you all the things have to happen, but then like you flesh it

out, you create the bones and the ligaments and the meat and the skin as you're writing it and like whenever someone's like, my gosh, this is so surprising, I'm always like, Yeah, I know, right? 'Cause like I didn't know we knew that that's what was gonna happen Laura: Yes. And that that's I think that's a really interesting thing about the writer brain is and I watched the podcast episode that you recorded earlier where you're talking about everyone being a storyteller. And I have a whole school Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. Laura: presentation that I do where that's like the thesis of the presentation. It's called the Humanity, the Irreplace Irreplaceable Nature of Human Voices and Literature. So it's like anti AI, pro everyone is a storyteller. but that's the really interesting thing about the human brain is that we are so geared into stories. And to what pays off in a story and what we love in stories that we can do things like subconsciously, where you know, I've had that same experience. There's a twist in the sequel to The Castle and the Cloister, The Starlight and the Flame, where I had no idea I was gonna do that. Like it happened, and I was like as shocked as everyone else is going Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Ha. Laura: to be when they read it. Like you get this big reveal about a character, and I was like, Well, I did not see that coming. Like I'm flabbergasted and it makes perfect sense. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I l honestly like that's kind of why that's I and I I I love like my friend Maya just has this. She says like everyone should write. Doesn't mean every published, but everyone should write. Because like you get to have those moments of you're telling yourself a story and like that's kind of the fun part of writing is also telling you're telling yourself the story at the same time. I think everyone thinks it's like this big like the Charlie Day with like the crazy person board. They think that's what it all looks like. And it's like no, my whiteboard has nothing on it right now and like randomly I'll be like, that's a cool idea, and I'll just write slugs. comma giant hole. And no one will know what that means except me. And then Laura: Yours. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: even then I won't know what it means until I read it out. Laura: That's beautiful, that's beautiful to me. I love it. Yes. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I love it. I think it's so fun. And like, so there's one thing that I I I love it. Well, I one thing. I'm gonna say I'm gonna use the phrase one thing on because that's I don't know. I just it's so many. I do it all my videos all the time. the goddess system that you worked on, I thought was so cool. I love matriarchy. I'm always reading for matriarchy. and I love how like the the violence of the patriarchy, it's like flame god, it's all just like the burning alive is like my biggest fear. That's one of my one of my biggest rational fears. I have several, but that's like one of them. Because I think it's Laura: Yeah.

Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: actually kind of a rational fear. but with the with the the daughters of Uria, like they're total pacifists. And that to me is such like an interesting headspace because as someone who in my regular life I'm I'm very like anti war in my military industrial complex, I don't know if I necessarily call myself like a pacifist, but I call myself like I'm very calculated on when I believe violence should be used. But they're like total pacifists. They're getting like They're just getting their face punched in and they're like, that is what it is. How hard was that to write as like these tough anti-war postulates? Like how hard was that to come up with a consultation? Laura: So I actually was raised in this like weird little ethno-religious group called Mennonites. And we all know like the old order Mennonites who are like, you know, Amish adjacent. my little sect within that was called Mennonite Brethren. So we have like all the modern day stuff, like all of that, and it's primarily Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Whoa. Laura: like there's like vestiges of culture still from Switzerland and Ukraine and Netherlands and Germany. and I'm the first generation of my family to speak English as their first language. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Whoa. Laura: Like my dad and my mom, my mom spoke German when she was little, little, and my dad spoke this like it's like a dialect called Plot Deach. It's not like standardized to write it down. It's like one of these weird small niche dying languages. but the Mennonite brethren are very staunchly pacifist, and they have like a really strong focus on social justice and nonviolence. and I always was so fascinated by and also conflicted about that. Like the one statue that Mennonites have ever made of a guy, I think, is of this guy called Dirk Willems, who during the Protestant Reformation escaped from the Catholics because the Mennonites just all got like executed by everybody, the Protestants and the Catholics. So this guy escaped Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. Laura: and he was running across a frozen lake and one of the guards who was chasing him fell into the lake. And he ran back to save the guy. The guy then rearrested him, and he got martyred after going back to save this guy. So that's the one dude that the Mennonites have a statue of. so yeah, that's that's the Mennonite faith. And you're you're frozen, so I don't know if we're still good. Let me give it a second. We're buffering. Hang on. And hang on. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: my gosh. That's crazy. I think that's so fascinating. I had no idea that that's like what your background is. man. Okay, hold on, we're gonna live a second to catch up. It's gonna be fun. If we need to drop and come back, we go come on. Laura: Just a sec. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: The first podcast that I did to some girlfriends of mine. One of them drops in and comes out like times, by the way. There we go. Okay. I think you're going back. It's casting up to the time. There we go. Yes. One of my Laura: I there we go. Okay. All right. Where do we cut off? Okay, perfect. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: girlfriends on like w we're he fell through and I like, my gosh, that's crazy. Laura: Yes. Yeah. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: One of my first podcasts that I ever did with my girlfriends, one of them she dropped in and dropped out like I think seven or eight times. You'll just see like we're all on Laura: Might have. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: screen talking and then Julie's g Julie's gone. And then she goes out. And she we just like wrote so yeah, it's totally fun. It happens all the time. Laura: Yes. Yeah. So he's well, he saved the guy and then went back and they executed him anyway. So this guy was like martyred despite having gone back to save this guy. And that's the one person that Mennonites have a statue of. so that's like Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Wow. Laura: that's like the mindset. And I was like, I wanna write a fantasy religion. hang on, it says reconnecting. Are we good? We're good. Okay. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: That's crazy. my gosh. Laura: Yeah, so I wanted to write a fantasy religion that kind of takes that to the nth degree. 'cause it was interesting to me. and I've always are we still working? Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Okay. There with us. Technical issues. Which is fine. There we go. Okay. I think that's awesome. So like that's something that you really like grew up with then. So the writing this password is you're like, yeah, I know that. I know that like the back of hand. Laura: Yeah, and I was always I was always like, Well, this doesn't work, always. Like, you know, sometimes bloodshed as much as we don't want to ad admit it or own to it, is necessary, like in a targeted form. So otherwise a lot of other people are Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. And that's like Laura: gonna pay for that. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. And that was like that when I was reading Castle Incloister, that was one of the pieces that like I am a very like protective person. I always rule like a name tank in a game because that's like what I do. And so like I'm not a violent person. I'm very anti-military industrial complex. But like if it comes to like I have to protect these people or if something bad will happen to them, like if if them are me, like I'm always gonna pick me. And like I'm always gonna protect the people that I I care about. And so like reading that I'm like, just pick up a bitchmark. Just fight back. Laura: I'm the same. I'm very much like Thea, where I'm like, look, we can make an exception. Like we'll we'll figure stuff out. like I always joke to my family that I'm the worst pacifist ever because I don't have a flight instinct. I only have a fight instinct. Like if if it seems to me an and like this is I I've never gotten in a fight, thank goodness. Because I I don't know what it is, but I look scary in that moment and people just leave. So thankfully. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. I think

it's because it's so unexpected. Like I have a very similar thing where I'm like I call it a poorly calibrated sense of risk. And like it's because they don't expect it from you that they're like, and I'm like, yeah, and I will bite, by the way. Laura: Yeah, yeah. My kids are always like, Mom, you're the scariest person we know. And I'm like, But I'm not scared of you. I'm only scared of other people. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Only when it matters. When I need to leverage it, I'm terrifying. But it's not often. Laura: Yes. I'm like, okay, but no you know, on a daily basis I'm not Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. But honestly, like I kinda think that that juxtaposition of the sisters of like the postulates of Liria was like with Ariana and what she's doing and what she becomes, that's part of what made her character so fast. She was one character that I like, get in here, I'm gonna keep you safe. And that's why I love Fia so much because she's like, Get in here, I'm gonna keep you safe. but I thought Laura: Yeah. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: she's just she has this incredible, like, unique perspective on faith and sacrifice. And like sometimes acting against your faith is actually the thing to do for your faith. And like she's just such this agonizing, complex person. Like What what did you draw on as inspiration for her character? Because that's such a complex thing that you don't see very often in r in in fantasy. Laura: Just I think to a degree we all compromise our ideals. And I wanted to write someone who is going to the nth degree in pursuit of not compromising her ideals. Like she has this one core ideal, and it's sort of the only thing that she has left. Everything else she's compromised on in some way. And she's like, Well, this is the thing. This is the hill that I'm gonna die on. And if necessary, everyone else can die on it too. Like it's it's just I can't, I can't go against this core belief. And then of course, you know, the Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I love it. Laura: story is about what happens in relation to that. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yes. And of Laura: Yeah. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: course, so with I was trying to figure out the best I actually wrote like a paragraph out of this question because I like, There's no way that I'm going to I don't want to spoil this one thing for the books. I'm gonna write it out and make sure that I like don't spoil it. so the way the way you went around this the sacrifice in the end when we're like in we're like going and it's like the sacrifice in the end. that actually really hit me right in the heart because like I interpreted that as a metaphor for like depression. And I have I have a beloved dear friend who lost his battle with treatment resistant TBI induced depression. And like there's this it's such a strange space to be because like you kind of feel the sense of borrowed time and like then this whole concept of sacrifice comes up, but like I saw him very clearly in that scene and like so

it really stuck to me because some peop sometimes people don't fully understand what that crisis looks like. And like It called out to me like the the complexity of postpartum depression because I feel like that that experience like motherhood and like that fresh motherhood is such like a a big piece of the story. was that a dis was that decision to v to have that scene in there considered controversial or something you ever considered omitting, or was that always part of the plan? Laura: like made my peace with writing things that are potentially controversial about mental health when I wrote my very first book, The Light Between Worlds, and it was picked up for publication Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I can. Laura: because so much of it is about depression and PTSD and like do you stay or don't you? And like I was very straightforward with people at that point. I was like, I'm writing from my own experience. Like I've dealt with depressive episodes and suicidal ideation on and off my whole life. And this is me like talking about that and saying, you know, if that's something that you've dealt with, I see you and like I I get it. So it's it is a theme that sort of crops up recurrently throughout my work, sort of over and over again. And I'm never totally sure which books are going to end up with that in them. but yeah, and sometimes I don't even notice at the time. I'm like, yeah, I'm writing about something different. And then later retroactively I'm like, no, this was about that again. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. It and like I I just thought that was really like having that experience with someone that like it's hard to explain because you watch them go through all the truth and they do all the things and you still know like they're on borrowed home and like it was such a unique experience to me as a person. That's why I tell my friend I love you all the time and like it's so it's such a hard place to be to like really understand what that looks like. So seeing this character, I never get to see that and I really like I felt like a piece of my friend's experience was so well represented in that. He's like, you never get to see that. So I appreciated that so much. And I was like, yes, sometimes people's journey, like this is just there is no out for them, and this is j this is their way out. And just all they can do is make it count. But like all my friend did is he left all these beautiful people behind in his wake who were so touched by his life. And like that's sometimes all you get. And I think that's the really tough part of depression that nobody talks about. And like I really appreciated you writing about it. So I wanted to bring it up in a way that's not spoilers. Laura: Yeah. Yes. And I feel I feel passionately about writing it that way too, because I grew up like this the religious environment that I grew up in, it was like to end your own life was viewed as like a moral failing and as something Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: yeah. Laura:

that like you were outside of the faith, you were beyond like the realm of the savable, like you had done kind of an unforgivable sin. And so I've always been interested in writing about that sensitively and in a way that is like, no, that that's that's not what happened here. Like you are still a valuable person and you had an impact and this is very sad, but it is not that. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yes. I thought you nailed it. So crop from someone that like Laura: Yeah. Thank you. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: watched that occur. So I thought you I thought you nailed it. You're supposed to be mad about it. You're supposed to have you're supposed to have all these things. And I was like, if you've never been in it, you don't get it. And like Laura: Yeah. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: it was very I just I really appreciate it. So I wanted to know you nailed it. Laura: I can tell Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: And then I do wanna talk about one of my favorite complex characters that I I I actually at LA WorldCon I ran into somebody that I talked to on the prime that has people's friend, and we sat and we're We have to talk about Ordin and I was like, We have to talk about Ordin. So we're like sitting on these couches talking about Ordinal character. I he is one of the most fascinating MMCs that I and I I I don't know if I you call him the main male character. I feel like he's the main male character, but like that I've read in a story because he he like genuinely does love Ariana in this like weird messed up way, like the way you love a like a show horse. and like Laura: Yeah. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: He just he's such a fascinat he's so reflective of like so many modern mindsets and things like that but it's so interesting. Was he was that your original intention with him or did he not even exist when you first conceptualized the story? Laura: He was always in the story, but sort of just as like an element of the plot. And then he grew, you know, into a more significant a portion of the story. And then when I was doing editorial rounds, he didn't even have a point of view yet. And as I was doing editorial rounds, I was like, you know what? I'm giving Orton a POV. I was like, I want get in this guy's head. Like, I think that's really going to sort of bring everything together and be the glue that binds all this together if we really see and that's gonna be have like so much emotional resonance. if we actually get inside of his head and see where he's coming from. And so I wrote that and it was like a shock to my editors. They didn't even know that I was playing Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Ha. Laura: that. And one of them I don't think ever like really loved him and was totally Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Ha Laura: sold on it. And the other was like, yes. So Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: yeah. He's very divisive and I I thought it was just so interesting because like you don't get in the heads of these male kids 'cause like everyone thinks they're the hero. Everyone

thinks they're the good guy. He thinks Laura: Yeah. Yes. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: he's a good guy because he's less violent than the people before him. And like that's good, but it doesn't make him not violent. Laura: Like he does love Ariana, but his framework for expressing that and demonstrating it to her is just so fundamentally flawed. Like I wanted to write a couple where the two people, you know, they're not I mean, emotionally they're not enemies. They do genuinely care for each other, but their worldviews and their ideals are so fundamentally opposite that there's really no way for them for them to convey that in a healthy way and a way that doesn't damage the other party. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, and 'cause that was the other side of it, is like she also loves him too. Like she kind of loves him in her own way too. Like their relationship is like Laura: Yeah. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: it's messed up, but sweet and like they're the most difficult couple for me to like they do and it's hard for me to take a side on them because like Laura: Like they care. Do but they don't understand each other. Like they care about each other, but they do not get the other person on any level. Like there's no level of understanding. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yes. It's it's like it's that question that we run into in modern relationships too, which is like, are your value systems aligned? And like this is mismatched value systems where like you can love each other so much but like still miss and like still not show up for each other and it can still be a bad fit like love is not enough. Laura: Yes, yeah. I just I just did a post about that the other day where I was like, I'm less interested in enemies to lovers and more interested in characters where the Venn diagram of their worldviews and their beliefs are so fundamentally different that they have to figure out can we live inside this tiny sliver where they overlap? Like, is that possible for us? Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yes. my gosh. And I did have a moment, like, don't hate me, I did have a moment where I like, very toxically, what if she and the bad guy hooked up? And I was like, Sarah, don't bring that energy into this story. Bring that into Laura: You know what though? Dark romance dark romance has led a lot of women to have that response in a lot of my books where Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: It Laura: I'm like where I'm like, look, you guys, this is the villain. He's really bad. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Ha ha ha. Laura: He's irredeemable. Trust me on this. Cause I like I mean, I like to write characters like that because I mean, the way that fantasy and dark romance Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. Laura: steal right now, it's like, you can redeem anybody. He just has to really love you. And I'm like, No. That's not true. Like, there are people out there who are so fundamentally like evil and shitty that you can love them all you want, and that is not going to change them. And girl, you're

just gonna eat yourself alive if you try it. So Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yep, and like c you can't fix him. You can't fix him. Stop trying to fix him. Laura: No, you can't. Like that's like he's not broken. He came flawed from the manufacturer. Yeah, I know, I know. So there's Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, this is the default setting. This is the default. Laura: there's actually a lot of that in the second book of digging into that just because of who A Ariana is and what she's like and who she ends up having to deal with in that book. There's a lot of unpacking that and being like, Yeah, you have to realize when it's not gonna happen. Because I wanted I like Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I'm Laura: explore over the whole course of the duology like a spectrum of male redeemability. Because Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. Laura: yeah, of like, okay, here's these three guys, like who fundamentally can you pull out of this incredibly toxic masculine environment that they've grown up in? And I mean the priest Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. Laura: is easy because he just sort of did it himself. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, he kinda he's he's like the dude that clawed himself out. Like that's I I liked seeing like the priest and Fia because he doesn't want to let her go, but he knows like she's not his to hold on to. And he's like, She Laura: Yes. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: has to go do what she's gotta do. And then like Ordin's like, No, you are mine, you belong to me. And like that complete juxtaposition between the two relationships is like I love seeing like the healthy version versus the unhealthy version, 'cause like they've got their own stuff, but like for the most part, their value systems are aligned. And I'm like, this is why that important have value system conversations, my god. Laura: Yep, yep, absolutely. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: So as you as you start to transition, like what's what lessons have you learned from book one and like from whether it's planning it, plotting it, advertising it, or like pitching it to publishers, what have you what lessons have you learned from book one that you think have better prepared you for book two? Laura: this is like probably an unexpected answer, but one of my favorite things that I've learned is how incredibly awesome the adult fantasy reading community is. Cause like, I mean, I'm Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yay. Laura: quiet and under the radar as far as authors go. Like, I don't get a huge promotional budget or anything, but I love this book. So one of the things that I wanted to do was like promote it as best as I can. So I just kind of like followed a bunch of people and was like, you know what, if they love books that I love and that inspired this one. I'm just gonna message them and be like, Do want a copy of this book? Like, I'll send you one. And 100% of the responses were so kind and so generous and so enthusiastic. And like people who I now like, I'm in a group chat with some of them, and

I'm now in this huge like buddy read-along for the Realm of the Elderlings series. Like now I've I got like plugged into the fan community through this book publishing, which is amazing. Like, you guys are the best. And I mean, it's just you know, we're all nerds, we all have fantasy. So and but I but coming up from YA, like the really the only time I interacted with my readers was school visits and like I'm not gonna become friends with a teenager. That's just weird. I'm not about that life. So Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: No. Yeah, it's very it's very weird. I'd be like, I see that you want to be my friend and I love that for you and I have to go talk to other adults. Yes, where's your parents? I would love to talk to them. Respectfully. Laura: Yeah, that's sweet. Go home now and have better boundaries. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. And and tell them you can't do this. Yeah. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: So you talk about it being like a duology. I love duology by the way. I'm like I'm like sticking to the trilogy gods, duologies, let's get more of those. is this where you wanna stick to it? 'Cause I know some people do like interconnected duologies, or like do you wanna do more in this universe and like have this be your main story, or have you toyed with the idea of like doing more? Laura: Love to do more in this universe and I would love to like whether it's super apparent or not, continue to write within like the larger legendarium and just like sprinkle in things that readers who read very closely might pick up on and be like, yeah, so this is set in the same world. I don't I don't know to what extent I will be able to do that because I do work with a lot of different publishers. So, but you know, it's all my IP, so We'll see how it goes. I do yeah, Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, it's all something you want. Laura: I have a novella on submission right now that takes place in one of the neighboring countries in this book, Song Royale, like four hundred years before the stuff that happens in this book. and it was I wanted to write like a work of in the Middle Ages it was called Hagiography. It's the biography of a saint. So I wanted to write a fantasy Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: How cool. Laura: version of that because I always want to do the fantasy version of everything. So yeah, so Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, that's fun. Laura: I have a novella that is that that's on submission. and we'll see how it goes. And I have a book coming out in twenty twenty eight called Willow Crowned. and I don't know, there might be a little bit of crossover there. I'm not sure yet. We'll have to wait and see. Yeah. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Okay. Awesome. I was gonna ask you a little bit about your f about the other projects that you've got out on submission. So that's perfect. That's Ooh. Laura: Yeah. Yeah. That one that one is I tried to write a romantic. I tried so hard to write a romantic. and it became this book called Willow Crowned. And like that was my only goal because I started drafting it in the notes app on my phone when my youngest, who's two and a half now, was like a newborn and I was supposedly on maternity leave, but I can't take time off because writing is my therapy. So at three in the morning, Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. Laura: I was drafting this story in the notes app on my phone and I was like, it's just gonna be a romanticy because I don't wanna have to deal with like all the politics and the religious intrigue. And but I am who I am. So it turned into like this manifesto about the importance of democracy Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: yeah. Laura: and yeah, and the yeah. And it's like my most political book yet, because of course it is. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Ha ha ha. Laura: So that was my attempt at writing a romantic. It failed abjectly. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Fantastic. But I think that's great. I think that's so much fun. I like I love the there's people that I've talked to have done like writing exercises and they're like, I'm gonna write like this this high fantasy, it's not gonna be weird, it's gonna be like standard fantasy and then they're like, no, I added like an entire cave made of eyeballs and I'm like, no We are who we are. Laura: Yes. It just gets away from the components. Yeah. And that's okay. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, it gets away from you and like you can't help it sometimes. And I love people who can like stick to that. They they choose it and they stick to it. I think that's so noble. I'm very similar. I'm like, I'm not gonna do something dark and weird and then it's always dark and weird. I'm like, dang it. It sneaks up on me. Laura: Yeah, yes, yeah, and mine's yeah, mine's always traumatic and about politics or religion and women's issues Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah And that's Laura: times. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: we I I think we need a lot more of that in fantasy. I think that's very important. And actually like I think 'cause I don't I think there's like this this weird thing that happens where like a lot of men tend to shy away from like women authored fantasy 'cause they don't know how to engage with women's issues. But like I felt like Castle and Cloister had so much in it that was important for this conversation for men because I come back to Ordin, but like I there's a lot of modern threads as we enter. I talked about this as like the era of like re men redefining their role in the world and relationships as society progresses. And like we're watching men have to go through that. And I feel like Orton is so reflective of like that experience of learning your new s your new place in a changing society. And like I think that's such an important character for a lot of other men to read. Laura: Yeah, and I I wrote that in very intentionally because I do see that happening myself. And I was like, I don't I don't know. I mean, a lot of women are like, it's not my job to educate you. And I'm like, I sign up. I can do it. Like I'm a writer, I'm

writing about Yeah, like I'm I'm writing Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, I'll do it. Like I kinda do a little. Yeah, and like Laura: about this stuff anyway. So, but yeah, again, like I said, I wanted to write about that spectrum of male redeemability and like what does it look like to be able to get over and get past a background in which you behaved in ways that eventually you may not agree with anymore. And like you may grow past the person that you were. Like, is that possible? Can it be done? And just to demonstrate like how you might end up changing your mind, how you grow as a person and what the differences are between mindsets of people who are able to remove themselves from that and who end up staying in it. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I love that. I think that's awesome. And I think like there's this really I've talked about this quite a bit of like women our place in society has always been inherent. Like our value has always been based on like our skills and our conversational skills and our artistic skills. And what that does is those are like hobbies and hobbies help you build out like the sense of personality and we've been able to connect and like we've gotten the chance. Like we've had to be funny, we've had to be engaging, we've had to be like all these millions of things, but then it just had to be better. And like this is like this interesting shift in like i it's interest and I I don't want to say like usefulness but I want to say like it's it's the shift in like purposefulness. And like we don't need men to get a credit card anymore. And now they're in the position that women have been, which is like we want to see that personality. We want to see but there's no blueprint for men to like use to see what that looks like. No generation before them has had to deal with this. So these younger generations of men are just going blind, which is why you get these weird manosphere views where like I'm sitting in there. But I feel like Women authored male fantasy characters are so good at capturing like this is how we see you and like the kind of personality we want you to gravitate towards. And like I felt like watching that spectrum play out in all three of these male characters were just so like it was very interesting, that degree of of redeemability is it shows up really well. Especially 'cause like the priestess blind, he just knows she's really cool. He just really likes her. He likes he thinks she's just awesome. Like that's what we love. Just like me 'cause I'm cool. Laura: Yes, I love that. Yes. And then there's the one scene the one scene where Fia ends up going to his room when they're at the cloister, and she's there overnight with the with Justice, the baby, the little prince who she's the wet nurse for. And he just like by default, like they don't have a conversation about it. He doesn't think about it, like he's the one changing the baby's linens, the baby diapers. He just doesn't. Like 'cause that's Sarah Does Bookish

Stuff: Yes. I love that. Laura: who he is as a person. And that is really what women crave these days and what they desire. Is for men to be proactive and to be full partners in the work that we do as families and as community. Because you know, investing in children is community building, whether they're your kids or somebody Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yes. Laura: else's, like that's the next generation. Like we're all responsible for them. We should be. And we have this like weird societal moment now where people are so like just they have this antipathy for small children, which is bizarre to Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. Laura: me. Like, not even just as a mom, but as someone who wants to live in a functional society, like they're little kids. help it. Like this is just how they are. Like like I'm I'm sorry if they make you Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: They don't know what they're doing. It's their first time. Laura: uncomfortable in public. That's a you problem, not a them problem. But yeah. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. I I go off on this s as as someone that doesn't have children, like I had to check myself because I was falling into that trap and now I've had to check myself and I'm like, it's their first time too. It's fine. And like as I've learned to realize like children are my future neighbors. They're not just like this annoying thing, like that's my future nurse when I'm in a retirement home. That's my future servo when I'm at a restaurant. Like these are my future people I'm gonna be sitting next to on a plane. And like they don't know what they're doing either. I at one point didn't know what I was doing and the way I learned was by doing it. And I think it's like it's important for kids to also be corrected gently and lovingly by society because we learn how to like exist as community and connect each other. The kids learn that. They like it's part of community building. Community is important. Laura: Yes, yeah. It's and I I love that you have that perspective because I think about that all the time too. I'm like, look, if you don't ever want to be around kids, like you're not gonna survive old age. Like if we took them out of society Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yes. We need them for that. Laura: completely, it crumbles. Like I like if you've ever read or watched Children of Men, like that's not a road you wanna go down. Like it's yeah, like Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yes, we've talked about this in theory. Laura: that's that's just that's dystopia, not utopia, a world without children. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yes. Laura: Yeah, it's just the mind boggles. But anyway, and so that was like another Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I know. Laura: thing that I wanted to explore in the Castle and the Cloyster was I wanted to write this like matriarchal society that really fundamentally valued children and their presence and for that to be like there as an underpinning on kind of every page of the book. And it continues to be a through line in

the in the sequel because I was like, Yeah, man, we just this is a weird thing in our society. And one thing I've re another thing that has surprised me about publishing the book is that I have had women who don't have kids and some who are child free by choice, like, tell me, we really enjoyed your depiction of motherhood in this. Like it was great. We liked Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. Laura: it. It didn't feel alienating at all. Like they're whole people. They're people doing their thing. And motherhood is not the end of their personhood. And I was like, yeah, that's that's how all moms should feel. Like it's it's weird that our society makes you feel like it should consume who you are. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yes. And I talk about that all the time. one of my friends recently had a baby and I was like, Great, can you leave the baby with your your husband? 'Cause like love that. Now that he's like four months old, why don't we go out and hang out? And like I I don't ban the talk about the babies because that's what she does and that's what she is. But like I try to remind her, like Did you read this book? Like they're gonna give you some audio books so you can like listen while you're do with your baby and like we just I try I try to like bring my girlfriends in and like because there's this isolating thing that happens where like they have to be focused on their baby. It will literally die. So like they have to focus on their baby. And like I try to remind them we're still here and like I try to go to her as often as I can and like make her life easier. But that's I'm c community, like the price of community is inconvenience. I'll be inconvenienced because she's my community. Laura: Yes. Right. Well, and that's Yes. And she will I mean, your friends will incredibly appreciate that down the road once they kind of come out of the fog, because you do get tunnel vision at the very beginning. Like it's just so all consuming. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: yeah. Yeah. Laura: I mean, my oldest was a horrible sleeper and just ate round the clock. Like I think I slept, you know, an hour at a time, maybe three or four hours over the course of the night when she was a baby. It was like I felt like I was dying of sleep deprivation. But then eventually you get Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. Laura: out of the fog and you're like, okay, I need to I need to reclaim who I am at this point and I need to have Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yes. Laura: something outside of this. And it's important even for women who gravitate very strongly towards motherhood to make sure that they do that. And I know that there are some who have temperaments where they're like, no, I do want to make this whole this my whole identity, but you can't because that is a disservice to your children. Like for you Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yes. Laura: to take them and to pin that on that. Like they need for you to be a whole person outside of them as much as you need to be a whole person outside of them. in order for you to have a healthy relationship. Yeah. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: It's important for everybody. Yeah. And like I think that's it's it it's something like it's overlooked, but I felt like When I was reading Castle McCloser and watching Kia make that decision, but like she she leaves her her she leaves her daughter with the sisters knowing that like this is a society that values my child and will take care of her. And she makes that incredibly difficult decision to go, but also like there's gonna be such importance to her like child later on, knowing that like her mom did that. And I'm just like, That's so cool. I love that. You never get to see like women being brave enough and strong up to do that in in fantasy. And I just thought that was such like a cool thing to include because it I literally can't think of anyone else that Ha ha. Laura: Yeah, yeah. I just I think and in the second book too, like there's a lot of Fia thinking about her legacy and like who will my my child, my children see me as down the road? Because she ends up like stepping I don't think this is gonna be a spoiler or a shocker, but she ends up stepping into like more of a motherhood role for other kids at the cloister. But she's like, who who are they gonna see me as down the road? What are they gonna remember of me? Like, am I going to be able to leave a positive legacy? Because that's one thing I think about a lot too. My Two, I've got three three daughters. So that's why there's the beloved three in the religion of this book. Because they have three girls. Like Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: all that's so cute. Laura: the dedication is to my children, the beloved three, because I have three daughters. So and they are like the sun, the moon, and the stars. My oldest was born on summer solstice. Like they are Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Ha ha ha ha. Laura: they are the goddesses in this book. So anyway, but yeah, that's it's just I I think a lot about legacy with my oldest two because they're 14 and 12. And you come to the point where you realize, like, I'm not the ultimate decider of whether or not I was a good parent. Like, that's not for Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. Laura: me to say I can do my best, but my kids are the ones who will ultimately be the decider of whether or not I was a good parent because they may perceive things completely differently than I did. And so it's really like that's up to them. And I think that's something that Fia, I mean, it's not ever explicitly on page, but you can see that as something that she grapples with. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I love that. I'm the middle of three girls, so Laura: Mm-hmm. Love it. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: yeah, I'm I'm the I'm the rebu the rambunctious, opinionated strung like I'll bite people one. There's always one. Laura: Yes, yes. No, there's there's a song there's a song by the Oulos called Second Child, Restless Child. And so I play it for my middle one all the time. I'm like,

Hey, it's you Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, it's accurate. The middle child stereotypes are are very correct. Laura: Yeah. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: So the the castle poster gets compared a lot and even I did this because I like, my gosh, I see this. And I think it's just these strong themes of like womanhood and motherhood and and like the these strong like feminist themes in these stories. But like it gets compared to Priory of the Orange Tree a lot. Like, I don't disagree Laura: Yes. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: with that. Is was that book one of your inspirations or is that just completely incidental and did that comparison surprise you? Laura: It was in that I was it's very inspiring to me in the sense that like, a woman wrote this doorstopper of an epic fantasy and it was successful and she used like a feminine name. It wasn't like, you know, gender neutral like Robin Hobb, like she did what I would like to do. I to probably a lesser degree. But like it's it's big, it's thick, it's complicated. The world building Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: yeah. Laura: is next level. I was like, yeah, I wanna. I want to do that. So that was a huge inspiration. And just like the politics and the like larger world. So that was definitely a huge source of inspir inspiration. I don't think like character or plot wise necessarily they're as similar, but just they both cover that that space and exist in that territory for sure. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Okay. 'cause I lo and like I I definitely see similarities, but like so when you're like when you're when you were writing this, what what did you actually draw inspiration from? Or were you just kinda like, This is my own thing? Or 'cause I feel like everything is inspired by something else. Laura: so I r my absolute favorite fantasy series of all time is this like much lesser known Australian fantasy trilogy called The Lumitar Chronicles, which are like criminally underread, in my opinion. So it's this this this trilogy that really sort of like toes the borderline between YA and adult. It's like very much in crossover space. but it's a fantasy series that's essentially about the refugee experience. And so my great grandparents on my mom's side of the family, all of them went to Canada as refugees in the nineteen twenties from what is now Ukraine. And at that point in time was Russia, because the Mennonites were all being like persecuted before the Russian Civil War and like around that time. So they left and they went to Canada because they were like getting sent to camps and starving to death and all that. And so I grew up with family stories about that, which you know, they're not great stories to have to grow up with. But it was the Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. Laura: story thou those were the stories that my grandparents told me. It was like, Yeah, and then we all had soup made out of one turnip and people starved to death. And so Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: And that's that's the history that gets you here, yeah. Laura: And that's another thing that like I'd never seen it in fantasy. And I read this trilogy, The Lumiter Chronicles, and it was there in fantasy. And it was just such a like an affirming experience for me to see that and just so emotional and fascinating. And I loved that so much. And so that very much inspired kind of the journey that happens with the people of Korrin. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. Laura: and they were always like, you know, they're the Mennonites, they're my people. So, and I was like, I'm gonna give them a country because I'm like the sixth. consecutive generation of my family to immigrate from one country to another. The Mennonites moved Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Wow. Laura: like nonstop because like I it's a joke that everyone hates a pacifist. so like every country, every country they went to, they were Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: That's kind of true. Laura: like, you won't serve in the army, get out of here. Or you know, you have your own weird little communities. Okay, well, we're gonna burn them down. So anyway, I'm like, and that's just like as far back as I can trace us that I'm the sixth generation. Like I just lost track when I went back any further. So I Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: What happened? Laura: was like, I'm gonna write fantasy Mennonites, but I'm gonna give them an actual country to live in because we just moved around so much that I was like, you deserve one. So, but if you Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, give a home. Laura: read the Lumitary Chronicles, there's like a lot of very strong inspiration for the Castle and Cloyster in there. And there's a character, Evangeline, who Ariana is, I would say fairly similar to. I would say literary, literary inspiration wise, that's probably the the strongest one. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Okay, awesome. That is so cool. So one Laura: Yeah. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: of the questions that I like to ask people as I before I'm like, this was amazing. Let's get out of here and give you back some of your long weekends. As we wrap up I just th I like to get like three books that do you think everyone should read. like what if you have to pick three and I know me and like me and Bob talked about this earlier and he and I are like, What do mean? What's wrong it, what are you talking about? But like it and it's so hard to cut the three but if you had to pick three that you think people should everyone should pick up at some point in their life, what would you say that those are? And they can be series and I'll cut them as one book. Laura: So I gotta make sure we're not cutting out. Hang on. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: There we go. Laura: Okay, I think we're good. We're still there. Nope. Hang on. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Catching. There we go. Nice one. That was like gonna be. Yo yo. Laura: And nope. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: And I think we better, better. Well I can hear you, that's good. Laura: I'm gonna wait I'm gonna wait till it stops making robot noises. Sarah

Does Bookish Stuff: on me this is a close passion. We'll be right back. Give her one second. This is how it goes. Technology just be doing this. I think my favorite thing is we went through how much of like COVID and working from home and we still struggle with like getting technology. Even my meetings for like my work technology. And I'm like, work technology? Come on, what are doing? There we go. yeah, we're back. I was talking to myself about how like no matter Laura: Yeah. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: the fact that we did years of work from home, we still can't manage to get it completely correct. I'm I'm like on secure I'm in my actual like work office on campus. So I'm not like working Laura: Yes. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: remotely. I'm in on campus right there. And I'm still like dropping out and I'm like, what's going on? Laura: I know we have like weirdly good internet. I live in a tiny town. It's like one of those towns where there's no stoplight and like one block is Main Street. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Whoa. Laura: But it has bizarrely good internet. And we used to Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. Laura: live in one of the suburbs of like the big city nearby. Way worse internet and sell service. So I don't even know. Yeah, but I'm not gonna Yeah, yeah. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Wow. That's my that's my mom's town. Her town like an a mile a cumulative mile long and she is just like the most kick ass internet. I'm like, what what is going on? Laura: Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I'm not not gonna look that gift horse in the mouth. But okay, three books. Yes, Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: No, just accept it. Yes, three books. Laura: three books. so the first one is I think everybody and especially every writer should read poetry. and there's an anthology of Mary Oliver's called Devotions, which is stunningly beautiful. She's a very accessible poet to read. she's not like super cerebral or hard to get into. She writes a lot of like nature-based poetry. so I think Devotions by Mary Oliver, that's something that I think every person should read. And it's like it's so easy to like you open it up, you read a poem, it takes, you know, two minutes, and then you can set it aside. It's not like a commitment. So I read a ton, yeah. Yes. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, it's not a a nineteen book fancy. Laura: Like I read a ton of her poetry when my kids, my two older kids were toddlers and they would just be running around outside chaotically, because I was like, I can pick it up, I can put it down. So that for sure. I guess, okay. Well, I should pick a fantasy novel because I write fantasy, but I'm such a Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Ha ha ha. Laura: hard time figuring out which one. Okay, well, I'm just gonna say, since I already talked about it, Finnican of the Rock, which is the first book of the Lumitar Chronicles. So, and you can read it Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Okay. Laura: as a standalone. It was written to be a standalone, Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Ooh. Laura: but the next two books have like the best redemption arc for a character that I've ever read. So you should read the whole thing, but you can read Finnican of the Rock by itself. and it Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Okay. Laura: It's like the fantasy book that rewired my brain and that no one has heard of. And it's some people don't like it. But then Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Love that. Laura: yeah, but then like twenty-five percent of people become incredibly weird, passionate evangelists for it. Like Rebecca Ross also adores the Lumitaire Chronicles. Like we met as debuts and she like like that was what we connected with each other over. We were like, you read the Lumitaric Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: that's awesome. Laura: Chronicles? You love them too. So yeah, we still talk about that anytime we see each other. But Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I love a weird out of the way series, so Laura: Yeah. And then I think the last one, I have to pick a nonfiction for the last one, because I also think that people should read more nonfiction. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yes. Laura: And I don't know. There's one that I put on my fall TBR, but I'm not gonna pick that one. I'm gonna pick there's a book called Becoming Wild by Carl Safina. He's a biologist, and it's about how animals pass down culture throughout their generations and the importance of like cultural inheritance in animal society. And it charts like chimpanzees, sperm whales, and macaws. And shows how they do possess culture and it's really important to them. And it's like something that they need to survive. And I think it's just like a real mind opener to what exists in the world at large around us. I read a lot of like nature-based nonfiction. And that one's again very accessible. He writes in like a super engaging way. It's not like dry nonfiction. Like you pick it up and you're like, I want to keep reading. Like this is a page turner to me. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah. Laura: So I would I would recommend that one. That's my three extremely Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Okay. Laura: varied recommendations. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: That's awesome. I talked I talked earlier today about how diversity in genre is also very important. Not just diversity and like lived experience or epicity or culture. I think like diversity of our genre. So I I try to read like I try to read at least like four nonfiction books a year and like put information in my brain and I have one the House of Lilies is all about like the fourteenth century French dynasty and like its collapse. So I'm like Laura: yeah. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I'm looking forward to that one. I just read the one about witchcraft in like fourteen trials. I'm like, no one wants to hear me talk about witchcraft. Laura: Yeah. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: The real history of witchcraft was boring. I think Laura: No, that's fascinating. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: it's fascinating. I and I read a whole book about like the Crusades and stuff like that not that long ago and it was it's so super interesting and like the way we watch the crusades is just crazy. But like everyone's like, Well, Laura: Nah my goodness, I mean no. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: I'm broke and I have nothing else to do, so I might as well go. That's kinda like the logic behind most people going. It wasn't this big, like, epic thing people think. It was fascinating. It was super, super good book. Laura: No, and it was like literally a lot of it was the Pope's being like, You have to stop fighting each other, this is unseemly, go fight those other guys instead. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yes. They needed a common enemy and I'm like, you know, it's a genius like Sun Tzu tactic, but Laura: Yeah, but for the sake of humanity, terrible. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yeah, just like terrible for everyone else though. But I see what we were going for, I guess. Laura: Yeah. Yes. Was it a good idea? No. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: That's she probably not. Laura: Yeah. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: my gosh. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate giving me an hour of your Saturday and like trying something new and cool and like trying to do like live and recorded. I thought this was super awesome. This was super fun. This has been fantastic. You are delightful. If anyone has not read Castle in the Cloister, I loved it. if people are looking for you, where can they find you, Laura? Laura: So social media wise, at present I'm only on Instagram at Laura E Waymouth. And I do have a website, Laura eWaymouth.com. Those are my two online homes. And if you see me anywhere else, it's either like a defunct profile that I never post on or it is a scammer. And I probably don't have any of those at this point because I'm not well known enough for people to want to try to scam you using my name. And if they do yeah, if they do, Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Yes, that's what I aspire to that. Laura: they're not very good scammers. Yeah. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: And you can also find Castle in the Cloister where books are sold and I think everyone should read it because it was amazing and if Chris shouldn't tell you, you're wrong you need to read it anyway. Laura: Yes, yes, everybody should read it for sure. Sarah Does Bookish Stuff: Totally agree. Well thank you so much. I super appreciate it. I super appreciate everyone listening in and watched this. And I look forward to getting these episode clips and out and it'll be available on YouTube if you miss anything. thank you so much and have a good a great rest of your day. Laura: You know Thank you, Sarah.