Q&A with Leanne Schwartz, author of "To A Darker Shore"

Hello from an early brunch Sunday 🍳

Woke up this morning and trekked into Manhattan at the crack of 9:30 a.m. for an early brunch. Still marveling at how it’s barely noon and I’m already fed, I’ve shopped a bit, and I’m back home where I belong. A marvel!

This week I got some news that I’d been waiting for, sort of. Back in December, I applied for Lambda Literary’s Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices in Young Adult fiction. I poured my heart into that application and then waited with increasing desperation for the decisions to come out. I was terrified I wouldn’t get in, occasionally hopeful I would, and overall deeply, deeply stressed.

On Monday night I went to bed muttering to myself, “by tomorrow you’ll know one way or the other.”

So imagine my surprise when I opened my email on Tuesady and found that I had neither been accepted nor rejected…

Ya girl got waitlisted, lol.

I’m still parsing through my feelings on the matter, to be honest. I put so much weight into this decision, thinking it would determine whether I’m a good writer, whether I have promise, whether I have that ever-elusive potential. And I still don’t know! So, I have to figure it out for myself, irrespective of Lambda’s thoughts. Damn. I guess it’s good for me, lol.

This week’s newsletter features a Q&A with Leanne Schwartz, author of YA fantasy and adult romance. Read on to learn all about her newest book, To A Darker Shore1!

Welcome to the interview 🗣️

Leanne Schwartz is the author of the young adult fantasies A Prayer for Vengeance and To a Darker Shore. She has spent about half her life at either the library or the local theater, where she has played Lady Macbeth, Lady Capulet, Clytemnestra, and Hera―perhaps one reason she writes such vengeful, murderous girls. When she’s not teaching English and poetry, she can be found baking pizzelle, directing scenes for the student Shakespeare festival, and singing along to showtunes. She lives in California with her family. 

I am so excited to dive into Leanne’s YA fantasies, and I hope you’ll enjoy this emailed Q&A we did!

Karis Rogerson: Who is your favorite character you’ve portrayed on stage, and why?

Leanne Schwartz: This is so hard to choose! I’ve played a lot of fun characters like Lady Macbeth, Cinderella’s stepmother, the evil fairy in Sleeping Beauty — whose costume was basically full drag and who had all the best jokes while everyone else was asleep in act two. But I played Rosalind in As You Like It in college, and that’s a role that’s pretty hard to beat.

What I love about Rosalind is she acts like she’s got it all together, always with a plan, corralling all the people around her, but she’s actually got a totally gooey center, and when her feelings come for her, she goes down hard. One interaction with Orlando who can barely even speak and she’s smitten; seeing him injured later and she’s literally on the floor. I love that complexity in a heroine, that she’s resourceful and commanding (and super genderqueer) but that doesn’t negate that other romantic, yearning side to her, and she’s loved for all of it.

KR: How did you get started writing, specifically YA?

LS: I’ve always been into it, writing stories and plays and poems in school, though then I focused more on poetry through college. When I started teaching high school and was reading a bunch of young adult books, I started writing them too; I took my first swing at writing a novel with National Novel Writing Month, and wrote a lot of terrible book-shaped things over the years before I figured out what I was doing and what I wanted to say.

It took a long time to want to share anything with more than my mom. But YA fantasy has always been such a special space, where characters normally sidelined (or objectified or made into tragic figures) in other media could come into their power and triumph, and I wanted to dive into the genre, giving that chance to fat and autistic characters too.

KR: Why do you write — what drives you?

LS: On a storytelling level, I honestly live for writing the big or small beats that I hope will make readers swoon or yell or reread kicking their heels or holding their breath because they love the angst and drama and joy. Like my favorite books or TV shows will pull off some spectacularly devastating perfect plot point, and I’ll be thinking How did they do that? I want to do that! I love crafting moments with those reactions in mind.

And those magical moments where the writing starts flowing like scissors sliding through gift wrap, like you’re channeling the characters more than writing them. When something springs onto the page and you’re just delighted with it. That’s what I pray for when I sit down to write. And then what’s also kept me going has been the desire to share the particular characters I write, to have fat and autistic people see themselves in adventure and romance filled stories, and for other readers to maybe understand a little more about what it’s like for them.

KR: Let’s chat about To A Darker Shore! What are you most proud of in this book?

LS: I’m glad I put everything I love into this book, saying what I wanted to say, writing it as boldly as I could, even when I was tempted to pull back. It can be intimidating writing from your deepest insecurities or even the things that you’re passionate about (aka extremely not normal about). But putting those raw nerves out there is so rewarding when it reaches the readers you most had in mind while writing.

I don’t know if proud is the right word, I’m just sort of gleeful, like are you kidding me, I got to write a book mashing up Dante’s Inferno, Roman myth, Hadestown, and Ever After with with religious trauma, fatphobia, ableism, and ace-spec rep2? I just wanted to make the kind of book I’ve always loved reading, with all those inspirations and explorations wound up in a plot worthy of one of Alesta’s intricate inventions.

KR: Is there any specific part of the book you’re really looking forward to having readers discover?

LS: I was really nervous about my debut coming out, but this time I’m just so eager for people to read every plot point and twist, especially perhaps two moments in particular between Alesta and Kyrian. But I won’t spoil details here! So also I’m excited for people to experience Alesta’s arc dealing with oppressive beauty standards and pretty privilege. It’s tied up, thanks to her society that’s all too much like ours, with her fatness as well (although I like writing all sorts of fat rep in different books, including very beautiful and confident fat characters).

In this story I got to really dig into how people’s judgment of others based on looks is so often tied to thinness, class, and access to beauty products, time, and effort, not to mention white supremecist ideals. And I was eager to address that whole idea of femmes in particular owing the world beauty or at least prettiness just for existing; the horror of not being pretty was all-consuming to me as a young person, and, god, I want young readers to be free of that. Even among the well-intentioned, so often we’re told we only need to love ourselves and have confidence, and I tried to show how you can’t positive-attitude your way out of systemic fatphobia3.

Alesta’s literally at risk of being fed to the devil for the way she looks, and it doesn’t matter that she thinks she’s worthy, only how those in power see her as lesser, see her body as a moral failing. But I also wanted to show that growing up in that sort of environment, it’s perfectly understandable how someone may struggle with their confidence and self-acceptance. There are a few moments showing that vulnerability under her protective shell she’s built up (and even her very autistic inability to understand how people can care about looks so much). I hope that readers find her journey through all this resonant.

KR: What was the hardest part of the publication process for this book?

LS: Honestly the hardest part for this book came before publication, just revising and querying before anything had happened with my debut that seemed to be dying in the trenches, wondering if anyone would want it. After that, I was lucky that it was a pretty smooth process; I felt like I knew what to expect a little better for my second rodeo, and my editor is just great to work with.

Developmental edits were pretty light, so the most major thing was probably adding more of Kyrian’s point of view chapters to the first part of the book. (I’d originally thought I might actually fool readers into thinking he was really dead and gone when he’s sacrificed, and held off on his POV until Alesta finds him in hell.) I love writing from Kyrian’s perspective, but it was a challenge adding that peek inside his head without diffusing all the romantic tension built up on Alesta’s side.

So I was worrying as I outlined that, and then even when I felt I’d managed it, I had to write all these Kyrian chapters in a row, of him flailing around on Soladisa as a miserable autistic wreck, and then being sacrificed and even worse believing his best friend he’s secretly in love with doesn’t even care, and basically I gave myself a stomach ache being in that headspace for a month. 

KR: Which part of the writing process for this book brought you the most joy?

LS: I seriously loved working on this book start to finish, but especially, drafting or revising, whenever Alesta and Kyrian were on the page together, I was happy. They were miserable with unrequited love or being literally in hell but I was having the best time. So the opening, the “fun and games” section when they team up in hell, and through the midpoint and beyond, I just loved writing them interacting, sharing so much and hiding so much and growing together.

It was really special to get to write two autistics for the first time, getting to show their similarities that deepen their relationship as well as how their autistic experiences differ. I set out writing this book wanting to showcase them together in the first few pages, because that was the book, to me — their dynamic. They tease each other and support each other and love the hell out of each other, but also the other person is sort of the most terrifying in the world to them, because they hold their entire heart; it was really fun to explore that whole complex connection between them.

KR: Do you have any advice for aspiring authors who are losing hope4?

LS: I have been right there, friends. I think a lot of the longing I had for getting to share my work with more than my few (wonderful) critique partners bled into To a Darker Shore, because I’d done two mentorship programs, had dozens of full requests, watched other AMM and Pitch Wars friends move on to amazing things, and while I was cheering them on, I couldn’t help despair that it just wasn’t happening for me, year after year, book after book.

What helped was writing friends who believed in my work (swap chapters and books!), and giving myself time both to take breathers, to soak up stories through reading and other media, to ponder what I really wanted to try next, to feed my craft, but also when it felt right to just keep writing the next thing, because each book will help you level up, and more stories means you’ll be ready to roll when your lucky moment comes.

And don’t be afraid to get weirder and bolder in those stories if you want, or lean into whatever makes you happy; you may get some feedback about being unmarketable, or not what agents or editors are most likely to fall in love with, but if you’re writing whatever truly excites you and is authentic to you, it’ll strike a chord in the right readers.

KR: Can you share 1-3 books you’ve read and loved recently?

LS: I’ve been telling everyone how much they need to read The Spirit Bares Its Teeth5, by Andrew Joseph White, which has a trans autistic protagonist whose voice you just want to live in even as he’s taken through these unending Victorian fantasy world horrors of ghosts and missing girls but also just like, yeah that’s what our world is like, that’s what so many men in power are like.

The Afterlife of Mal Caldera6 by Nadi Reed Perez is out soon and I adored all the characters, living and dead, and the exploration of the full range of darkness and light, isolation and communion, regret and forgiveness. It’s wildly imaginative and so grounded all at once.

And then it’s also not out yet (can you tell I’m being sent all the afterlife books for blurbs?), but At the End of the River Styx7, by Michelle Kulwicki, a contemporary story about two boys who caught in the underworld together — caught in a bargain with the Ferryman and their own grief — falling in love and just completely breaking your heart. The writing is incredible and those boys live in my heart.

KR: Is there anything else you’d like to add, or anything you wish I’d asked?

LS: I’ll take this chance to share that To a Darker Shore was also in part inspired by losses I experienced as a teen and touches upon suicidal ideation as Alesta and Kyrian face down extreme shame over how their actions and circumstances are framed by their society. I hope the book affirms both the truth of that pain and that with support it can pass. No matter how monstrous things may feel in the moment, there are so many people who love you and want you to stay.

Please get help if you need, and please share help if you at all suspect someone you know does. Please stay.

988 (US wide): https://988lifeline.org/

The Trevor Project (LGBTQ+):  https://www.thetrevorproject.org/

Alla prossima 👋

I’m obsessed with everything Leanne shared in this interview, and I cannot WAIT to pick up my own copy of To A Darker Shore once it’s out on Tuesday!

In world news, I’m sure you’ve seen by now the protests spreading on college campuses across the USA in support of Palestine and of divesting our institutions from Israel. I’m cheering these students — and their faculty — on with all my heart. I’m so disgusted by the Biden administration and the Democratic party as a whole. They have dunked our country wholesale into fascism, refusing to listen to the people they are meant to represent when we demand…anything, really. No student loan debt, no reproductive freedom, no Covid precautions, not even TikTok…and of course all our tax money goes to funding a genocide.

It’s unconscionable. I urge you to do what you can, what’s in your realm of influence and ability, to fight back.

Love y’all.

— Karis xoxo