Original subtitles

Hello welcome to the fourth annual Bronx Book Festival presented by The Bronx is Reading.

My name is Leah Clark and my pronouns are she and hers. I'm one of the co-chairs for the Bronx Book

Festival kid lit committee. I'm thrilled to introduce this panel. You're tuning into

Between Two Worlds: Young Adult Fantasy. This panel is moderated by Lilliam Rivera.

Lilliam Rivera is an award-winning writer and author of the young adult novels Never Look Back,

Dealing in Dreams, The Education of Margo Sanchez. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Elle,

Lenny Letter, Tin House, Nightmare Magazine, and Magazine for Fantasy & Science Fiction, to

name just a few. Lilliam grew up in the Bronx and currently lives in Los Angeles. You can find her

at www.lilliamrivera.com and at @lilliamrivera on social media. And now I'll turn it over to Lilliam

to introduce our other panelists. Hi Lilliam. Hi uh good morning, good afternoon. Really happy to

be here. And um okay so we're going to start off introducing our amazing amazing panelists

um. First off let's uh have Roseanne A Brown come in. And Roseanne A. Brown is an immigrant from the

West African nation of Ghana and a graduate of the University of Maryland, where she completed the

Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House program. Her work has been featured by Voice of America, among other

outlets. Her debut novel, A Song of Wraiths and Ruin, was an instant New York Times bestseller.

The final book in the duology, A Psalm of Storms and Silence, will be published in November

2021. We can't wait. She currently lives outside Washington, DC. You can visit her online at

www.rosannebrown.com.

And, hi Roseanne. And our next uh panelist is. Hi. (laughter). Namina. I know I just asked her this.

Namina Forna. Namina Forna has an MFA in film and TV production from USC School of

Cinematic Arts and a BA from Spelman College. She works as a screenwriter in LA. Hello LA.

And loves telling stories stories with fierce female leads. We all love that.

The Gilded Ones is her first novel, her debut, and you can visit her on Twitter

at @NaminaForna and on Instagram at namina period forna (@namina.forna). I always

want to roll the Rs. But she's here, hello, hello. Hello, are you, come on on. Hi guys.

And our our final finalist. Final finalist? No, our panelist is Jordan Ifueko. She grew up under

a blanket fort, eating fried plantains and reading comic books uh. Eventually she switched to comics

for, she switched the comics for tea-stained notebook. She now lives in LA, another LA person,

with her husband David and their collection of Black Panther Funko Pops. Her latest is Raybearer,

uh the sequel to her New York Times best-selling debut Redemptor which just just came out. And

she's hot off of uh the Nebulas which were which were last night. So um Jordan come on on,

come on in come on in to (laughter). Hi there. Yeah I just want to add I think that's an old bio

um. So Redemptor comes out this August, August 17th. Raybearer was also an instant New York

Times bestseller. It's also a finalist for both this year's Nebula and this year's Hugo Lodestar.

So good thank you forget it yes get get all that and thank you so much for uh clarifying it because

we we want you to get all the props thank you and so this is the panel for uh between two worlds

young adult fantasy um before we begin what I would love to do and um is to just have you each

just sort of give us your the pitch of you of this of the novel that you're that you're

promoting that you're you know that you want to talk about today and just you know are the quick

pitch for someone who maybe haven't picked it up yet who haven't devoured them yet or

about to devour them when they come out. So uh Roseanne, do you want to start us off?

Every time. (laughter) Sure okay. So hi, I'm Roseanne A. Brown. Everyone calls me Rosie.

And I'm author of A Song of Wraith and Ruin, very green book.

So A Song of Wraith and Ruin takes place in a world inspired by West African folklore

and it follows two protagonists, a princess named Karina and a refugee named Malik.

It's when Malik's younger sister is kidnapped by a vengeful spirit, he strikes a deal that

in order to win his sister's freedom he has to kill Karina, the crown princess of the land.

So he enters a competition for her hand in marriage in order to get close to her to kill her.

However, however, he doesn't know that Karina's mother, the queen, has just been assassinated and

she discovered a forbidden spell that will bring her mother back to life, but to do so she needs

to sacrifice the heart of the king. So she set up this entire competition just to find some dude,

kill him, and then use his body to bring her mom back to life. So he's trying to kill her, she's

trying to kill him, neither of them are aware of this and so the book is about the way they

sort of plot around each other. It's duplicated so you see both sides of it and about how when they

actually meet and they realize they have a more in common than they want to and everything just goes

off the rails. So yeah, Wraith came out last summer and the sequel will be out this November.

And the sequel, it's one of those books like, I can't talk about without spoiling the whole

first book, but basically things were wild Book One and they get even wilder Book Two.

And I've gotten many screaming crying texts about it so I hope just continues that trend.

That's what you want, you always want the second one to be even worse, you know, like

high stakes. Just just just everything just throw everything at the wall until you break the wall.

That's the goal. Jordan, do you want to continue? Yes mostly just to scream, but Rosie why do I not

have a copy of Psalms in my grubby mitts. I was one of the screaming texts about the first book.

I can send it to you, I can make it happen. Okay okay please do. Anyway um I wrote Raybearer and

the sequel Redemptor, like Rosie, is one that I can't go into a lot without loads of spoilers,

but Raybearer is the story of a magically hewn Pangaea mega-continent ruled by an emperor who is

rumored to be divine because for every person he anoints to his sacred council with which he rules,

he becomes immune to one kind of death until his council is complete and he is immune to every

death except old age. The catch is that anyone he anoints to his counsel can still murder him,

so he's not immune to them. And in order to maintain security and make sure that they never

turn against him, the emperor and his descendants anoint their councils when they are all still

children so they grow up together. They grow physically ill if they spend any time apart. They

have they have a mental bond called um that that's called the ray, that's why he's a raybearer. And

our protagonist is a young girl named Tarisai who is sent to the capital of this massive empire to

be selected within a competition to be part of the next emperor's council. The catch is that

she's actually sent there as a plant to murder the future emperor and she doesn't know why. She just

obeys her mother completely. Her mother has raised her in isolation, forbid people from touching her,

so she's love starved, she's friendship starved. And she arrives at the capitol and the prince,

she immediately has a heart bond with and she's not sure why. Although the story does not go in

the direction that you think it will, I know what you're thinking if you haven't read it. It doesn't

um it's a story about identity, it's a story about magic and friendships and choosing your own name.

And Redemptor again can't say a lot without spoiling, but it is also about friendship. It's

also about what happens when your found family doesn't grow at the same rate that you do. Once

you have discovered your purpose, once you've discovered um what your calling is, and you have

social justice concerns and you're determined to make the world better, but all of your

friends are kind of content with the way things always have been. And that's really isolating,

even when they love you and you love them um. Also she has to like literally descend into hell

and defeat manifestations of death, side note. So that's The Raybearer duology. You know, just

a regular teenager stuff that we all do. Mommy issues, you know um. Do you want to continue?

Sorry no Naima. Oh um hi guys uh my name is Naima. I am the author of, oh goodness,

The Gilded Ones, which is both uh an Indie and a New York Times bestseller um. So

we'll just leave that there uh. So basically The Gilded Ones um is a young adult fantasy that's set

in an extremely patriarchal um sort of African-inspired world

um and it is uh. And in this world there's a group of girls who are considered demons because

they're faster and stronger than regular people and they bleed gold,

but then actual demons come into this world and the humans are like, wait a minute. We sort of

kind of need these girls to kill off these demons because they're all strong and fast and whatever

um. So they offer the girls a choice: fight or die. My main character Deka decides to fight and

in doing so goes on an adventure that changes her entire life um. Basically what I would say

about this book it's it's if the Amazons um are sorry like if the Amazons have Wonder Woman or the

Dora Malaje of Black Panther, we're stuck in the world of The Handmaid's Tale and we're like ,burn

everything to the ground. So that's The Gilded Ones. I mean amazing, just all over, all around.

So I, you know, I wanted to, I had wanted to talk after listening to all the all the uh the pitches,

I really actually want to talk about the idea of writing

action because everything that you were talking about it was just like, and I had to kill someone

and, you know, how to burn things down and it's, you know, and it's warriors and it's, you know. So

tell me just just the idea of what was it like to just create, you know, these kind of action-packed

scenes in your in your young adult. I mean, did you do you know what kind of research are you are

you, you know, into? Combat fighting or like did you do Youtube searches like I have done? And um

you know, just tell me a little bit of what that would have what what was that research process

look looking like? Um let me Namina, do you want to start this off because you were talking about

that um. So basically when I first started uh getting the idea for The Gilded Ones uh, one of

the touchstones was 300. Back when I got the idea there weren't really any movies or books where it

was like a group of girls fighting against like an oppressor. And I wanted sort of that that

that feeling of camaraderie, of kickass, of just, you know, like that buildup of like when you're

walking onto a battlefield, armor gleaming, swords, like I wanted all of that. So like

um for to write The Gilded Ones, and by the way I'm a screenwriter so like

for me a lot of times when I'm writing books, I'm using movies and TV shows as a reference.

So when I was writing The Gilded Ones, I was looking at 300 and Spartacus. Spartacus Blood

and Sand as a reference. And I'm like, oh this is how you create an action scene. This is what

it looks like? This is, you know, this is what you can do like for research. I watch a lot of

I watched a lot of fight movies and um I also did a ton of research on uh pre-colonial

African weapons because I wanted to make sure that since this was a book that is set in a fictional

like um you know ancient African world um that the weapons made sense. But like of course like

all of that has like like you can learn that, but like in terms of the actual writing of it,

um I just tried to follow through with the emotions of what the characters were feeling like

in the moment as they go into battle. Because I think battle scenes can very easy easily

become too complicated. So yeah. This is true. Jordan, you want to talk about how you created?

Sure so the interesting thing about The Raybearer series is that there is very little violence,

like there are very violent scenes, but they are sudden and traumatic and quick

and that's on purpose um. The Raybearer is purposely about a bunch of you know like black,

brown, there are some white children, teenagers within this empire who are catapulted to the upper

echelons of society very quickly. They're revered as gods and goddesses and demi-kings and queens

and they are navigating having all of this responsibility put on them and trying to enjoy it.

They're told to enjoy it. They're told you are the luckiest people in the world. But then the reality

of what that means when people's actual lives on the line is something they are not prepared

for. So, you know, they'll be you know laughing with hair braiding parties and court intrigue

and you know. And Tarisai, in the meantime even though she has been sent there to kill someone,

it is very involuntary. She doesn't want to do it. She uses a magical power of her own to make

herself forget that she was even supposed to do it. So it's almost like this kind of like The

Quiet Place / Alfred Hitchcock kind of tension. Those are very different stories than Raybearer,

Raybearer is not like that, except you know that there's this death coming, you know,

that there's this attack coming and so all of the like glamour and friendship and cuddles and warmth

all seems just like more and more like like it just like builds the tension until this moment

where you're just like, she's going to remember and she isn't going to be able to help herself

and it'll be quick and it'll be violent and it'll rock her entire world. So for me I guess that's my

like cop out answer for at least the first book um. There are there is like again some other

sudden violent sequences like, they're not expecting an attack from the underworld and,

but it's almost because they're not prepared um. It's not so much like, and then we had to roll out

the battle plan and like cohort one goes forward and cohort two, and I had to use my mad sword

skills. Instead it's just like, oh god oh god oh god, peasants are dying. I don't know what to do.

It's because we missed a sacrifice. So um those are the kind of scenes I prefer to write.

I did do research for some technical things because there are some characters that are

fighters. My husband um fights jiu jitsu and so I definitely, he'd be telling me about some of his

training sessions and I'd definitely be like definitely be like, say that again but slower

so I can use that um. Yeah the second book does have a battle

um, like a battle of basically the continent with the demons of the underworld. But interestingly

Tarisai is not present. She sees it through the memories of someone else

while she is in hell taking care of other stuff, like literal hell. So um yeah I am probably the

least qualified person here to talk about like the logistics of like real hand-on-hand combat writing

um, but that is the tone I tend to take with violent scenes in my books.

That's awesome. And uh Roseanne, you wanna talk about your your little research in the combat? So

I'll be complete, like I'm primarily a romance author so I'm all like, feelings, everyone hold

her, and it's like my idea like a big tense scene is like, oh god the secret's coming out. So like

action, it's also not my forte, I'll be completely real, but however I think when I start to turn the

corner on like how to actually like, work action into my work because when I really start thinking

like Namina mentioned, like a good action scene has emotional relevance to the characters and

it's not about the literal like kind of stab stab fight, but the actual sort of like the emotional

undercurrent of what the fight itself means. The stakes of it to the people involved and all that.

And one author whose work I sort of read a lot to understand that, Fonda Lee Jade City,

first off just one of the best books of all time, which is like the way she makes every single fight

scene like just written beautifully, choreographed beautifully, because she herself is an actual

martial artist. But like the way she made the fights emotionally relevant to each character and

like you were really feeling like every single blow, every single thing, because you knew how

much it meant. I think that was when I like read her work and I understood I'm like oh, something

clicked like, ah this is how you make a fight scene not suck. Wow um, and so so within the world

of Wraith itself it's like Wraith is a it's one thing I've discovered mostly from reader reactions

is Wraith is more violent than I thought it was cause I was like, oh it's not that bad. Then

people be like what are you talking about? Like oh yeah, but like it's definitely not like kind of

like combat because. very intentionally Malik and Karina, neither of them are very combat trained.

They both do have certain skill sets they do have certain powers and things get pretty bloody, but

like neither of them are fighters which is what makes the whole sort of like "I have to kill you"

thing an extra level of difficulty because like many of them actually know how to kill another

person um. And so I think for me the action and the violence then became a kind of thing like,

okay what does it actually mean to ask violence of someone from from someone who's not accustomed to

it for someone who doesn't naturally do that. Who hasn't trained for that? And especially because

the world itself is actually a pretty hyper violent world and so both of them have suffered

immensely from the effects of it, but like they themselves have not committed it. So like when the

trauma of that, the lingering kind of residue of when that happens, so the action it just kind of

became a way to sort of get into their own heads and make them think how are they processing that

they've world they've been forced to grow up in and like how are they moving through that. And so

I guess yeah, every everyone go read Jade City by Fonda Lee, that's the answer.

Well I I love that you mentioned that uh Fonda Lee's book because I, that's one of my questions

is really you know, some some writers will not read uh within their genre. They don't want to

take their stuff, you know, or copy or take their stuff. But I you know, I'm a firm believer that

you have to read broadly and read whatever will help you, you know, uh inform your writing. That

will help you. So uh besides um Fonda Lee's book, were there any other research books

that you were like grabbing towards when you were when you were create creating this world?

Me specifically, oh okay um like a hundred percent like I'm a big bel- you know that phrase like um

what's it called, but like steal like an artist. I'm a big believer in that, like everything that

sort of resonated with me, I'm understanding why is this resonating with me you know, like what

is this I am being drawn to. So like when I was coming to Wraiths, the different things like I

love romance, I love like fairy tales, I like that atmosphere. I'm like I want a fairy tale romantic

atmosphere. Pluck that, um An Ember in the Ashes is one of my favorite YA series of all time,

the tension, the scope, the breadth of it. I'm like okay big strong world, let me yoink that

um. Like just so not necessarily like the book itself because I definitely believe like even

when you have a lot of similar base tropes, the execution makes every story different. So like the

idea that like what is pulling to you as a like as a reader or as a like consumer of this media

is what is calling to you as an artist and creator yourself. So yeah there's definitely general folk

tales, um An Ember in the Ashes was a big one for me um. The False Prince Jennifer Nielsen because

that book, just the way she keeps you on a razor's edge the entire book. I think it just blew my mind

completely. I was like, oh my god how do you even do that? So False Prince was a big one. And

my mind is kind of like potato mush at the moment because I know there's more,

but like, I got the inspiration, I started Wraith maybe five years ago and I'm just like,

I can barely think back to what I had for breakfast. But those are like the first ones

that come to mind is like I saw those I was like, wow what I'm being drawn to is things

I want to replicate in my own work even if it's not necessarily the exact way this author does it.

Well I, thank you, I'd love to hear uh Namina, because I know you mentioned that you're a

screenwriter. Were there movies or or TV that you were, I know you mentioned, also talked about 300

or were there books that you were like taking out that you were like, okay this is going to help me

with The Gilded Ones when I'm working on it? So honestly I'm one of those writers who does not

read in my genre when I'm writing in my genre um and I say this with the caveat like I'm a massive

reader and I read everything and growing up I used to read at least eight books per week every single

week, mostly fantasy like you know. A lot of young adult, a lot of middle grade, but really anything

that I could get my hands on. And I think that's sort of what is necessary in order for you to

um be a writer, it's like you need to be widely read. Like I still wake up every morning and

I read like multiple articles and all these things just to sort of get my mind clicking, but

because I sort of already have that in my background um I sort of I already have a

process where I have my research time. So like before I write a book typically it takes like a

year where um I'm just like reading anything that might be of interest. So like for The Gilded Ones

I was doing like research on what does this world look like because I wanted to rest my book on a

firm basis of what um pre-colonial Africa actually looked like. So um I was reading um books like um,

what is it called, pre-colonial Africa like uh my goodness, Cheikh Anta Diop, he writes like um,

he's this guy who writes or rather wrote um about pre-colonial Africa um and so like I basically

like read all his books about what that looked like um. But also I was watching a lot of like

I wrote like I had the idea for The Gilded Ones a long time ago so I was watching a lot of stuff

like 300 and um Spartacus and like that to me just really helped me figure out like how to

weave the story how to put in violence because The Gilded Ones is a very violent book. There are a

lot of fight scenes, a lot of action sequences, and also um the thing is like the girls uh the

magical girls in my book um it's very hard to kill them. They resurrect. So there's a lot of just um

very aggressive violence going on basically yeah yeah. I kind of love it. (laughter) And Jordan,

what about you? Was there any you know, movie or a book that you were like, oh yeah

Yes absolutely. I'm just going to caveat and say that Rosie and Namina are two of my favorite

authors, so there's going to be a portion of my responses that are just responding to their stuff.

Gilded Ones is so good guys, that's so good. You guys should read it um. What uh one of my

favorite quotes um, it's by W H Auden, he, it's some..., I'm gonna bungle it, but it's something

to the effect of "many authors worry about originality which is worthless and confuse it with

authenticity which is something everyone should aspire for." So for me, like Namina, I grew up

with stacks and stacks and stacks of books. I was actually homeschooled until high school, so books

were my lifeline. Loads and loads of fantasy. Favorite authors of mine, a big one is Gail Carson

Levine who writes a lot of middle grade fantasies about different kinds of girls. She's wonderful.

And on the flip side another of my favorite authors, I read Jane Eyre for the first time

when I was 11, and you know a lot of like really old dead white authors. Always problems that,

you know, you unpack later. But one thing I still to this day love about all of the Brontë sisters

is that they tend to write stories about girls who are isolated and lonely, but hold on to their

agency and their identities with white knuckles. Like nothing is going to take it away from them.

And I related to that so much being a lonely homeschooled Black girl with a very strong sense

of justice and identity. And so all of my heroines tend to play with that a lot, especially Tarisai

in Raybearer. So those were big influences when writing Raybearer. I had to depend on

so many sources of research, it is so hard to find...because it's set in a Yoruba-coded head of

empire. It actually spans 13 culturally distinct realms, everything from the Yoruba to the Joseon

period of Korea, to Mayan, you know, the height of Mayan culture. All of these different realms

are coded to specific people-groups in a real world, but it's a fantasy version of them

and so some places were really easy to find sources on like you know there's a part that's

based on kind of the what eventually became France, you know, medieval France used to be

loads and loads of different regions, um and so that was easy right, but with west Africa,

the Yoruba they had these enormous spanning empires, intricate trade systems,

castles, palaces, you name it, but because a lot of the history that survived, the written

records that survived, were by colonizers, you had to sift through so much crap, so much racist crap.

And I still, because of the limited sources that were available like I did find west African

scholars who wrote on it. But even their ability to research is somewhat limited to

what records are there because west Africa west, African civilizations, they did have very rich

record-keeping traditions, but a lot of it was oral. Raybearer talks about griots. Griots were

these geniuses. They had to be like historians, musicians, storytellers, poets, and they would

just condense hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years of history into these intricate

epic stories that they would memorize and pass on to the next griot, who would then like add

their own stories to it for whatever region and royal family they were cataloging um.

Wonderful griots exist to this day, but again it's hard for a the daughter of

Nigerian immigrants in Los Angeles to get access to that that level of detail right um. And while,

you know, visiting my relatives in Nigeria would have been an option, like just especially this

last year when I wanted to do more research, COVID happened. So there's that. Anyway all that to say

um I did do lots of research for the different cultures and I do when I'm like really in the

heart of something, I do tend to avoid reading things that might be even a little bit similar,

but again I try not to beat myself up over having other influences, even contemporary influences,

because I know that my voice is my voice and my stories are my stories, you know. Like one of the

laziest pieces of criticism for other pieces of work that I hate hearing, like when someone sees

a movie and they're just like, oh I didn't like it because it was like this other movie. And then

when you asked them what it had in common it's just like plot elements that are like in so many

stories and I'm just like guys, like that those movies are completely different. Just because they

both happen to have this element in particular in common doesn't mean they aren't really good

stories, you know, like if you really unpacked all stories that would probably come down to like 12

main plot tropes that are just done millions and millions of times over and that's fine um. So

that's my complicated response to influences and writing. I I love it um so I there's something

I do I guess a lot of you had touched upon is like and I'm curious, did you guys create like

an extensive world bible or did you did you just throw it out there and see what's up, you know?

Because to me whenever I'm even writing any, and I've never even written like heavy fantasies as

you guys have done, is that I'm always like, I don't even know if I'm repeating the names

like, I'm like, do I let me just write all the names because I feel like I am repeating

myself. So I mean did you guys did you create a world bible before, you know, you started off?

And I was like no. Namina, what did you do? No not at all. I did not um,

basically I wrote outlines um. So I wrote out like I wrote an outline for book one

and then I wrote like a pitch for book two and book three because The Gilded Ones is a trilogy

um and so how I guide myself through stuff through my story is I write an outline and I write pretty

detailed outlines. However there's always room for um surprise because like all your well-laid plans,

it doesn't matter. Like characters will always surprise you. Like you'll be writing

and they will make some sort of decision and you're like, oh well so you chose chaos. This

is great. You have to go back to outline, which means that you go back and you then re-outline how

um this has sort of, this whatever this character chose, has rippled through the story um. But yeah,

outlines, outlines are living documents for me. I just anytime I I add something I'm like, oh this

is going to ripple through this this this. Go back to my outline and update it and keep it pushing.

Yeah what about you Roseanne? So I have like a beautiful like 37 page world bible for Wraith.

It has like, it has a table of contents, it has bookmarks, it has headings, sub headings,

it has a bit, but wait it has it's beautiful. I have not looked at it once since I made it.

You actually wrote a world bible? And I don't use it because I'm notorious.

You actually wrote a world bible? Yeah and I'm notorious for changing my mind at the

drop of a hat. It's actually a problem where like my editor has said like I'm one of her

authors she's I'm on the only author she knows who like will toss everything including stuff

that is working and we've definitely had calls where she's like yo you got rid of this last

draft. I need you to bring this back. Because I'll just be like I don't like this anymore,

gyeet, and I'll just throw the whole thing on like Chris, I'm rewriting the whole book sorry.

All this to say because of this when there's strict world-building rules,

I can't trust myself to follow them because I'm very much uh like what the scene needs,

what the characters. Like the story is the king, you know, like I will change the world to fit the

story as needed. However I will also contradict myself so that means it's about when I revise,

I go back and I'll literally change the detail to match what I'm trying to do. So this will take

this is not an efficient system by the way. Y'all out there, I would not recommend this

because it's not very smart way to live your life, but this is the way I do it because I'm like,

if like with the magic system and Wraith semantic system is a system based on, that there's seven

different gods. Each god is tied to a day of the week and so each god is associated with the kind

of magic. So the day of the week you're born decides your magic. Very simple right? Except

I'm like okay well if you're gonna do this like this now society that's like separates off the

seven kinds of people. They're all gonna have seven different associations, they're gonna have

seven different things. I'm like poop now I have to actually structure my society based on this.

So I had to go back and seed that all in, like that wasn't intentional. Like you have to go back.

It's like a braid, you know, like you have to keep reading and being in and it's just like

that was a decision I just made because it felt cool at that moment. So I'm a big believer that

like it's good to know your own rules, but like be willing to break them whenever you want as long as

the end product like it has to be consistent. The end product needs to make sense,

but I I don't want to like pigeon hole myself too much because I'm like,

oh but my bible said do this. I'm like, my bible is essentially a door stop right now. I don't know

what's in there. I don't know, Malik and Karina might not be in there, who knows?

They need to be in there and they need to kiss a lot.

You know what they might be. It's 37 pages, that's a lot of time I don't know that's a

whole separate book, that's like a whole like someone would want to read that as a companion.

Jordan, do you I mean do you have a 37 page uh world? Okay so Raybearer I started in its earliest

earliest iterations of the world when I was 13 years old um, so that process is unlike

any other process I will have for any other books including the sequel to it. I wrote

Raybearer in about 13 years I guess more like 12 years and I wrote Redemptor,

I had to write the first draft within 9 months, that's just how deadlines work

um. So Raybearer was just something that I chipped away at because it's the book on which

in which I learned how to write a book right? It grew up with me. Every time I learned something

new about myself, about writing about my beliefs, I would write Raybearer again um, I would just go

back to beginning start over um. And so it looks so different than, you know with very few things

in common except that one element of the like best friends mentally bonded for life that loyalty

um. With Redemptor I tried to be as you know I tried to be the best

Hermione girl possible because I thought "I have nine months, I'm going to be the most organized in

the world. I'm going to have a beautiful outline which I will submit to my publisher. I will write

this many words a day. Today it'll be fabulous." Everything fell apart. I wrote the outline. I did,

it looks so different. I had all of these different plots that are did not make it into

the book um. Characters look different, some characters are gone (laughter) like just it's

you know all of your carefully laid plans will you know combust into flames but that's okay.

Because in the end as soon as you have words on the page, for me that's the hard part is starting

with a blank document. If I have 200,000 words and I only can end up using about 70,000 of them

and then I need to write 20,000 more, that's still easier for me than starting with a blank

page. Because editing while it's hard, while it's brutal, I can just be in the weeds of words I've

already written all day. Rearranging, adding, subtracting um. That's when I really get in the

zone. So that's my process. I hope that answers the question. Yeah it does, I love that. It's all

very, there is no in like uh the perfect way to go into the story. There's also just it's just

remembering who your characters are, which I think basically everyone said,

it's like it all comes to the character and what they're going to do and they're going to surprise

you um. We're unbelievably almost out of time which is, I just started, I just feel like we

just started um, but I do want to ask you, and I know that as authors we almost never

have any control when it comes to the covers, but I really would love, like everyone's cover

in this on this panel, all of your covers are so beautiful and so like. I've been like in

awe of the covers that have been coming out in the YA, but definitely in the fantasy sphere,

has been like so out of control, so beautiful. Did you guys have any kind of input or was there

something that you specifically did not want to have? Like not like that you were like you

got the sketch or you got the illustration, you're like "no." Or maybe you were like, can we put this

in you know? Was there something that maybe came up, but it really. Let's start with uh The Gilded

Ones which I ma uh gorgeous. Um I love this cover so much because uh growing up, I never got to see

a cover like this featuring a Black girl. And to like see that like this is the image for my book,

it's like amazing I still can't believe it. Um my cover artist is Johnny Tarajosu.

I I think he did such a phenomenal job and like the funny thing is um, I actually

didn't want a cover like this, you know. Like I had this idea

that The Gilded Ones um is so ominous so it should be like a black book you know gold words dripping,

gold blood like just very very ominous. And my editor was like, coo- coo- cool, pump your

breaks here girl. I have an idea um, there's this artist. Let's look at him. And I was like,

sure whatever right? And so then she shows me this picture and I am like holy crap. I'm over

the moon. There's the only note that I had on this was like there was something like a zipper

on it and I was like oh can we remove that? Like that's like the and like and it wasn't even that

I was just literally trying to find something, but there wasn't really anything. Like this is just

the most beautiful cover I've ever seen, like I love it so much. Yeah it's gorgeous. Roseanne,

what about you? Was there anything that you were like, okay? So when we started the cover process,

I'm a quadruple Virgo, this is important because they're like,

hey do you have any notes? I was like actually and I had gave them a ten page document of notes

and stuff. Like color suggestions, all this and like two pages of it were like things I'm like,

can we steer away from this? And I specifically wrote "I'm not a fan of YA books with like girls

in a dress on the cover. I think it's overdone." And I'm like could we just avoid that? I just like

not my thing. And they're like, okay. And then they come back a couple weeks later, they're like

so about that. Um we're going girl with a dress. I was like, okay y'all this is your job. Okay let's

do it and then they got Tawny Chatmon um she is a mixed media photographer based in, she's actually

based here in the um DMV area, and she like does photography. Then she like paints and like does

all these things on it. And she's done work for Beyoncé and stuff like she's she knows her

stuff. And they when I saw the thing I was like, also it was green. Like when they're

like what color did you associate with the book, I'm like red, like don't like kind of

like you said no no like, red darkness is like intense. All that stuff. They're like,

would you like a leprechaun green book? And I was like um not really, but they're like too bad.

I'm making, it's not awfu. Like they're actually really, really friendly about it, but like just

like it's just so funny thinking like you have a certain image of your work and your thing in your

head and like a part of publishing is sort of trusting your team that ,like they know the

market, they know that they like, they know. And like the way they interpret it isn't always the

way you would have, but then when I saw the final um cover and just really getting to see I'm like,

you know what the dress works like the dress, really highlights like this, is a romance,

its a fantasy romance. It kind of uh gives that sense of like intrigue, gets that sense of like

majesty I'm like okay y'all were right I'm sorry I made you read the 10 page document, but so all

that to say like yeah this is actually the exact kind of cover I didn't ask for and I love it.

I love that, like everything that's been overdone, has never been overdone with

Black girls. Because I was so happy to see the cover of your book because I don't see

Black girls and dresses on the covers of books and I needed that as a teen and as a little girl.

That's true like I definitely agree. Especially the sequel, too, because we got to add Malik to

the sequel and then we I might don't quote me on this but might be one of the first live fantasy

with like a Black boy model on the cover and so we haven't been able to find another one so it's

been very that's been it's been really cool seeing the reaction to that. But I think I just because I

thought it was like froo froo, like why I couldn't dress up froo froo. I was like I want froo froo.

I hear you, I'm a very free-free person so I'm biased. (laughter)

And Jordan what about you? I had a wonderful experience um with the cover um. Abrams

like color and and illustration tends to be their wheelhouse. They're kind of a middle grade and

kids book giant, so YA books you know it was they're a little bit rare at Abrams. And so

um I from the get-go, all I said is look, her skin needs to be as dark, darker than mine.

Because as a little girl when Black girls were present they, I learned very quickly they needed

to be two to three shades lighter than me, if not more. They needed to have loose curly hair,

not like kinky 4C, you know, um, and I needed that representation. They were very responsive to that

note um. The artist is Charles Chaisson. I want to call him Charlie because that's what I call him in

chat. And he did a lot of research. You can't see maybe over camera, but each of each of the colors

in this background, they're textured fabrics from the cultures on which the realms in The Raybearer

empire are based. So you have some west African, you have some south African, you have some like

um Han Chinese, you have some Korean. It's it's it's beautiful. And with Redemptor,

you know, like he did such an amazing job with this cover because you can see the growth

in Tarisai, as a more mature person. And instead of all of the realms

um you can't see very well, but they're like tiny like sprites, like different kinds of elemental

sprites are in the world of Raybearer, because it's about Tarisai kind of compressing into that

isolation and preparing for her journey down to the underworld and struggling with everything

she knows um. But it's there's still so much beauty in it because there's that's that's the

spirit of Tarisai. Is that even in her you know grimaced, most discouraged, you know, there's that

agency, just fighting to get out and that hope and that future. So um I'm very happy with them um.

I actually didn't picture a person on the cover either I just that was an era of YA book releases

where there were some really beautiful kind of like typography covers that just had like big

interesting words with like patterns and stuff and so I liked those covers and I suggested one um,

but then they showed me an artist, kind of Namina's story, who he hadn't done this cover

yet. But he'd done other sketches of Black women um just like that were really ethereal and cool

and I thought I would have needed this. I would have needed this as a girl. So I was all for this

um yeah I think I had a better experience than a lot of authors that I know um. Some authors,

they're kind of just presented with the cover and they're like if you want any like little

tweaks we can maybe accommodate those and it's like, you know, it's it's way off or whatever.

But um yeah I that's that's my cover story. I also specified things about their features like, hey

Yoruba people and just kind of a lot of Black people in general don't have big prominent

straight nose bridges. We tend to be kind of sloped and fluffy, you know, in the nose area.

They're just things that, you know, are well intentioned, but that they don't know

um reflecting European beauty standards. Like they might have they might see a dark-skinned celebrity

and not know that one of the reasons why she's considered beautiful by the mainstream media is

because even though she's got dark skin she's got very western features. You know things like that

that they don't always pick up on. So I mean those kind of conversations are just you know they're

they're huge to have. Even if it's just like an illustration that you're receiving from someone,

you know, and we're lucky you know sometimes I think about it I'm like oh you know

I'm lucky I even have a conversation because I will voice all the opinions

if you ask me. So um again this was just way too short. I just feel like I barely got to any of my

questions that I want to ask, but it was really wonderful to just even hear you guys speak a

little bit about how you created uh these amazing fantasy worlds that a lot of young people are,

I know, just going to fall in love and want more and more and more.

So um if you guys would love to just let us know what, you know, what we could be looking forward

to, how to look out for you, where where we can find you, if you're in the twitters or or not?

And uh Roseanne you want to start this off? And just let remind us you know go pick up

this book you know whatever book that you want us to get got it. Okay so what obviously

Wraith just came out in paperback uh the paperback has a little like and I can't find the exact page

so it has a sneak peek of the sequel A Psalm of Storms and Silence which will be out on

November 2nd. After that I have next spring, I have a graphic novel coming out with Marvel

um details on that will be announced very soon. But I'll look forward to that. And then next fall

I have my middle grade debut with Rick Riordan Presents Serwa Boateng's Guide to Vampire Hunting

will be out next fall. So next year is about to be very very busy um. For me the best place to find

me is on the Twitters, as you said Lilliam, um I'm at @rosiesrambles, that's r-o-s-i-e-s rambles.

Rosie rambles is someone else. Please stop sending her stuff um. Usually honestly I talk about anime.

I'm a big fan of so like if you want book stuff I tend to talk more book stuff on Instagram,

same handle @rosiesrambles, but like Twitter is where the fun is. So yeah come hey say hi.

Namina, do you wanna uh tell us where you're gonna be at and what. Um so uh

go get The Gilded Ones um and book two uh is coming out next year um. Also you can find me

all across the internets but mainly on the Twitters @NaminaForna, you can also find me

on Instagram @namina.forna, but I am really only responsive on Twitter.

So yeah and also you can check out what I'm doing at um naminaforna.com. Yeah

and Jordan? Hi there, so you can find me primarily on Instagram. I do have a Twitter and I've been

more active on it just recently for the Nebula awards. On Twitter I'm @jifueko so like jiffwecko

on Instagram it's at@ordanifueko, just my full name um and I prefer

Instagram. Twitter um and I have a toxic relationship of mutual addiction. So

um yeah you can go there you can head to my website for like resources to stuff

it's jordanifueko.com um and there's also a message portal. And I, you know, there's a

high volume on those unfortunately, but I do get to ones that are that seem to be really urgent

um. So yeah that's where you can find me and Raybearer is available everywhere books are sold.

The audio book has been a finalist for awards, it's also very good. You can get that libro.fm,

Audible, anywhere um and you could also pre-order Redemptor anywhere. Well thank you so much for

even just letting me moderate today. This was really great, it was really great to chat with

all of you. I'm Lilliam Rivera. You can find me on the twitters @Lilliamr. And this has been Bronx

Book Festival. Bronx is my home so even though I'm in LA, but my heart is always in the Bronx,

so check out all the other events and thanks for joining us today

at the Bronx Book Festival. I love you guys, alright. Bye.