History Will Remember Them As Bunkmates: An Interview with Anastasia Arellano

What an amazing interview we had complete with technical issues and games that tortured our guest, Anastasia Arellano. BETWEEN THE SHADOWS doesn't come out until 2027 but you can pre-order it here.

Camp Wildflower is a summer camp for delinquent teens run by renowned psychologist Alistair Monk. And something is very amiss here.

Skylar Murphy and Olympia “Ollie” Hamilton are paired as reluctant bunkmates. Skylar, avoiding juvie after accidentally setting her ex-girlfriend’s garage on fire, and Ollie, sent by her conservative politician mother following a homophobic incident, must set aside their differences in order to navigate a camp filled with eerie occurrences and strange transformations among their fellow campers.

After witnessing bizarre and sinister activities, Skylar and Ollie’s bond deepens into something more. But that new romance is threatened when they uncover a dark secret that impends their very existence and that of the whole camp. Now, their summer romance is put to the ultimate test.

No one is coming to save them. They must do it themselves

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Transcript

Booked All Night 0:02

Welcome to Booked All Night, the podcast where hot takes me craft notes and no one gets enough sleep. I'm Jess.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

I'm Katie. I'm Julia. I'm Maggie. Get ready for unhinged hot takes. A whole lot of books, midnight giggles, and zero date.

Booked All Night 0:17

Grab your blankets, booklets. It's time to get booked all night. Welcome to Booked All Night, the podcast where hot takes meet craft notes and nobody gets enough sleep. I'm Jess.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

I'm Kaylee.

Booked All Night 0:29

And today we are joined by Anastasia Arellano, author of Between the Shadows, as well as some sort of short fiction, which the Between the Shadows will be available next April. I believe you said April 6th, 2027. I know. We do have a pre-order link in the description. Very cool. So welcome to the pod again.

SPEAKER_02 0:51

Thank you for having me again. I'm having a lot of fun.

unknown 0:54

Yay!

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Uh so yeah.

Booked All Night 0:58

Yeah, and uh once again tell us all about Between the Shadows.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

Okay, maybe I can make it better because I was kind of tripping over my words last time. So um Between the Shadows, I started writing it back in 2023. Um it started off kind of as like a fun sort of summer campy um story, but then it quickly devolved into horror because I decided to turn it into a speculative horror that's like goosebumps meets black mirror. So um yeah, it's set at a summer camp for troubled youth, and it follows um a little ragtag group of teens that are navigating these like weird changes in the camp. And there's also a sapphic romance because I always have to add in a sapphic romance to everything I write, and yeah, it comes out next April.

Booked All Night 1:52

So that's exciting. That's like both a long way away and also not very short, yeah, not very long away. You're gonna be like next April, like, wait, did I time travel? What is happening? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

Yeah. It it already feels like that because um I got the news that my small indie press was gonna accept it and publish it last uh March, and here we are already, and I'm like, how has it been a year? Like I'm not even done with the edits yet.

Booked All Night 2:22

What are you gonna do on like publication day? It's gonna like shut your internet off and be inside.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna hide under the the covers and just be like, oh my god, is this real? I always I always thought that like I'd be that author that's like, oh my god, it's publication day, yay! And now I'm like, no, I'm definitely gonna be like hide.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

I well make sure you come out from under those covers and give yourself a little treat, like an iced coffee or a glass of champagne or something.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

Yeah, you deserve it. You'll see the hand come out from under the cover and feel around for the iced coffee and then go back under.

Booked All Night 3:03

I oh I have a I have a funny story about hand coming out from under the cover. So one morning my husband was trying to like surprise me with cinnamon buns, and he put the plate next to me. He put like on my night side table, and he didn't realize I was awake, just like curled up, and I just like reached out and grabbed it, and he's like, ah! Monster from under the sheets. I'm like so this very first game is a quick round of superlatives, just a little yearbook, you know, most likely to, least likely to. So the first one is most likely to survive a horror movie.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

Uh Skylar. Skyler. Yeah, the main character. She definitely would. Um because she's kind of doing it now in the books.

Booked All Night 3:49

Spoilers, she survives. Oh my god. No. Yeah, I should probably be careful of spoilers. Well, the book's got a year, maybe it'll edit and you'll be like, and just because I spoiled it on a book don't this is their fault now. She's dead now. This is their fault. Yeah. Most suspicious place at Camp Wildflower.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

The woods.

unknown 4:11

The woods.

Booked All Night 4:13

The woods are always suspicious.

SPEAKER_03 4:15

Oh yeah.

Booked All Night 4:17

The first person to realize something is deeply wrong.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

The author.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

Oh me. Um, so that would probably be uh Ollie. Ollie, Oli. Yeah, my other female main character.

Booked All Night 4:37

The camper, most likely, to start a rebellion.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

Skylar, 100%. She's an angry little cinnamon roll.

Booked All Night 4:49

And this last one is your personal writing kryptonite.

SPEAKER_02 4:54

Um what do you mean by personal writing kryptonite?

Booked All Night 4:59

Oh, like your so I know for me, uh, my writing kryptonite is like the word side. By the time I'm done the uh the draft, it's there like five gajillion times. It's like half my word count, you know.

SPEAKER_02 5:15

Yeah, um, that would definitely be smiled. Um my characters smile a lot, and I'm like, I sometimes I'm rereading it back, going, why are they smiling? They're running for their lives with a smile on their face.

Booked All Night 5:31

She's dead, she smiled. What?

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Pretty much, yeah.

Booked All Night 5:36

Yeah. Such is the writing process.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

At some point, especially with dialogue, I get so like bored of trying to think of other things than saying stead that I just go back to stead and I'm like, I'll just rewrite that later.

SPEAKER_02 5:51

Yeah. Um, sometimes I'll also put in like blank, just I'll capitalize the word blank and just leave it in there if I can't think of a word. It's kind of like my little placement marker.

Booked All Night 6:03

One one that I'm glad I have since overcome was I used to leave like placeholder notes if I was if I would get stuck and be like, well, something connects A to B here, and then I move on to B. And I turned my MFA project in with those notes in it, because I never went back to write those scenes. And they were like, Jessica. Jessica, Jessica, Jessica, what have you done? And I'm like, obviously not written my whole thing because I I hit my word count and that was all I cared about. That's fine.

SPEAKER_02 6:42

That's too funny. I've that's definitely that's definitely pretty bad. Like, I think the worst I've ever gotten was just um when I've like done when I've done submissions for um like queries and that I've sent um because I usually have like a template thing that I use for most of my query letters. And so there's been times where I've you know, I'll have like hi, a insert agent's name and I've like left that in. Or I'm like, oh okay, this is gonna be a rejection.

Booked All Night 7:14

I just know or I've misspelled their name. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:19

I've misspelled names.

Booked All Night 7:21

It's bad. I the only thing I can say in our defense is like, I understand that the agents get thousands of emails a day. I understand that. Um, but we're researching thousands of them, and I can think of at least six Hillaries that I've queried that all spell it differently. And like, it's like, can't I just write dear agent? I feel like that would just save us all a lot of time. I understand it's impersonal, but like, holy hell, it would just save.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

Or even to whom they can make a term.

Booked All Night 7:57

Yeah, to whom I want to represent me, like something just ambiguous. Yeah, to my to my future agent. I love you so much. I I will pimp out pictures of my dog if you represent me and get me published.

SPEAKER_02 8:12

Like, I mean, that would work. That would work on the interview. Right.

Booked All Night 8:15

You can pet him at every event. It's fine. Like so bad.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Alright, let's talk about the book between the shadows.

Booked All Night 8:26

That's silly. This is an author interview. Why wouldn't we talk about the book?

SPEAKER_02 8:31

I was like, oh, I might get off not having to talk about my book.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

Oh no, we're not gonna let you have the book that easy.

SPEAKER_02 8:37

That's that's fair enough. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

So Camp Wildflower is such a perfect horror setting. It's isolated, full of authority figures that you're supposed to trust. And packed with teenagers who already feel like outsiders, because I mean, come on, teenagers at camp. What made Summer Camp the right place for this story?

SPEAKER_02 9:02

Um well, it started off kind of like, because I I've been getting into like nostalgia a lot lately, um as a as a 90s baby um, you know, scene growing up and being in this real horrible world. Yeah, I'm kind of like, um, oh, my childhood actually wasn't as bad as I thought it was when I was in my childhood. So I'm looking back at it now going, I really, I really was growing up in a great time. So I've you know been feeling really nostalgic. And one of the things that um I missed about summer was as a kid was, you know, summer camp. And I never got a chance. Like I do like the the day summer camps where you go to like do activities and stuff, but nothing like staying overnight and you know, camping in the woods. I did that for like a school thing, like I think in eighth grade. Um, but I never got to like properly do like a summer camp. So I was like, that would have been really cool to do as a kid. So let me think about it as you know, you know, in a in a YA perspective. And it started off gonna be all, you know, cute and um nostalgic, and then um I got laid off from my job, so I had a lot of time to write and a lot of like depression and anxiety and stuff that followed that layoff. So um it quickly turned into a horror, and it made for a perfect setting because it was isolated and outdoors.

Booked All Night 10:33

I did a similar thing with a piece that I had written where it started as like a mystery, and students are like getting expelled, and then it moved up, and I'm like, well, now they're getting murdered. And I did like a find, a find replace on expulsion and murder, and it has been a running joke with like my writing friends like how much murder is too much murder, and the answer is seven. No, there's an answer because it it it took place over like three months, and if like seven of your students got murdered in three months, you'd be like, hmm, something strange is happening, hopefully, right? Yeah, yeah. But beyond that, yeah. I I do love the transition into young adult from even if it was like a younger young adult, and then you're just kind of like, you know, you know what? My life is is kind of crashing and like it's influencing work, and I think it's very cathartic to then write something spooky and kind of overcome those things on text.

SPEAKER_02 11:35

Yeah, it definitely was um cathartic because I was, yeah, like I don't think um I'd ever been that depressed or just anxious in my life because it was at a time when we were like saving up for a house and that kind of you know, put that on the back burner, and I wasn't sure like what was happening with that. And um it was yeah, it was really cathartic to be able to like work that out on a manuscript and you know have have some semblance of control because I was like, I'm getting rejected from like agents and jobs alike. Um at least this is the one thing that I control how many kids die in a book. I know I had to add that last part of how many kids die in a book.

Booked All Night 12:22

I can I can make as many people die as I want. Quote Anastasia and Rio.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

And we all know that murder on paper is fine and acceptable, but murder in real life is not.

Booked All Night 12:35

So, public service announcement from Booked All Night. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

Oh god, I'm gonna get you guys camps. No, I remember I was never into like horror as a kid, I wasn't allowed to be. And so when I um met my now husband and was getting more into horror movies, uh I was also going to university and we had to write a grotesque story. And I dabbled in horror when I was younger, like Ed Grand Poish kind of stuff. But I just remember grotesque like my grotesque story being so like cathartic because I was just being so evil writing this you know story that I could not do in real life.

Booked All Night 13:19

You know, almost everyone I know that writes horror, thriller, suspense, they are like the most bubblegum pop, like bubbly, nicest people, and they're all like, and then they killed her with a pencil. It just yeah, like the dichotomy between page and author is just hilarious to me.

SPEAKER_02 13:43

Yeah, I've I've been making that discovery about myself as well, where I'm like, wow, my imagination can go to some really dark places, but I consider myself overall a nice, happy person. You've seen it, yes, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

All right, so next question before we get, you know, uh banned. Umly start off as reluctant bunk mates. Uh and then I think their connection grows into something deeper as danger escalates around them. Um, what was the most important emotional thread you wanted readers to feel as their relationship evolved? Trauma bonding.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

That is a that is a good question. Well, yeah, some of that is just my bonding. Um, I guess like the things I wanted them to that I would want readers to take away from this book um as a whole is just sort of acceptance, like acceptance of yourself, acceptance of other people as they are. Um, because like a lot of the the teams and stuff, the characters in the book, like they're sent to a place for troubled youth, but there's nothing really that wrong with them. Um so it's just kind of you know, also it sort of looks at the you know parent-child relationships that we might have in life as well, of just you know, kind of having to accept others in our family as as they are and just you know, love them and stuff. So um, that's been something that's been kind of you know thematic in in my life of I've definitely like if you were to ask my parents, you know, what's your child gonna be like in 30 years, they probably would not be picturing this. Um, I'm completely different to what they were expecting, but like I do have to give them credit that they have been, you know, very loving and supportive all the way of my, you know, coming out being a writer, just being this quirky cat lady, plant lady individual. So um there's there's some of that mixed in as well, because yes, but overall I think the the main um theme of the book is is acceptance.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

I like that I completely understand that coming out as an author is very hard for parents to accept. Yeah. That's just a joke. That's just a joke.

SPEAKER_02 16:26

Well, it is it is true. Like my parents kind of have a little double whammy where they're like, oh god, like not only is she gay, she's gonna be a writer too.

Booked All Night 16:36

She's gonna She's going into the arts, oh my god. Oh no.

SPEAKER_03 16:41

Yeah.

Booked All Night 16:43

I I always find that I have two things. One, history will remember them as bunkmates. I feel it was important to say, right? Uh but so both of my parents are very like science thinkers. My mother was a chemical engineer, my father designed kitchens, you know, so ones like geometry, one's all science. And both of their kids went into the arts. My sister was a musician for a while, and like I went into writing, and I'm like, I don't know how this happened, but uh yeah. Uh Audrey did turn that around. I do feel the need to shout out because she did a lot of work. She then eventually went into the neurosciences, but like our our first our first poll was to the arts, and both of our parents are like, where did you get it from?

SPEAKER_00 17:32

And I feel comfortable sharing this because I know neither of them are gonna listen. One because they can't, and and two because they can't, but uh um my parents uh are well were I guess I I don't know how to phrase this, but um were conservative Catholic Christian Republicans. Uh so I grew up in that. But they also did community theater. We did community theater as a family.

Booked All Night 18:01

I still don't understand how that works, to be honest with you.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

I don't either. And and it's funny because some of the actors uh that I met during this last production that we do remember my father, and they're just like, Yeah, he never talked about politics with us. But you know, when we befriended him online, and I was just like, Oh, I'm so sorry. And they're like, they're like, Are are you I'm like, no, no, I'm completely opposite. Completely opposite. Um, but I remember when I came out, my dad was okay with it, and my mom was just not, and my dad was like, Paula, we have gay friends in the theater. And you're like, Garden, it's my daughter. And then I told my dad I wanted to go to school for acting, and he's just like, Yeah, I think you should go into something more like business. And I'm like, No, you you raised me like this. So that was fun. Uh completely weird experience.

SPEAKER_02 19:02

No, but it it sounds it sounds similar in that, yeah, like my parents are very much like growing up, you know, do whatever you want, try whatever you want, you know, enjoy yourself, but then come college age when I was like, I'm gonna be a writer. They're like, but you need to make money, so you need to do something, something that makes money. And I'm like, no, I refuse.

Booked All Night 19:26

I think the most upset when I switched majors. I went through a lot of majors, as everybody on the podcast makes fun of me for. Uh when I went into English secondary education, that was the most angry my mother was. She's like, Oh, you can't be a teacher. What are you gonna do for money? I was like, Teach? Like it's it's the most money-making field of the things that I'd chosen prior. What are you talking about? Like, she's like, You're gonna die and you're gonna live in a cardboard box. I'm like, so you agree teachers should make more money? I don't understand, what are we arguing about? I don't get it.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Yeah. And number three to get us away from the awkward conversation.

Booked All Night 20:17

No, keep it awkward.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

Keep it still awkward. Um I know, I know Maggie has make it gay. We should just be like, make it awkward.

Booked All Night 20:26

Um make it awkward. Oh, I'm doing it. I'm writing it down. I'm I'm gonna do it.

SPEAKER_02 20:30

Yeah, that would make some great merch. Make it awkward.

Booked All Night 20:34

Make it gay is my favorite sticker in the store, by the way, just for everyone to know. You can just put it on everything, order a whole bunch of them and just stick them on stuff.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

I love that. So the blurb that you have on your book, or I guess like that's going on to your book, it hints at the eerie transformations and sinister secrets lurking behind camps, in quotes, therapy. Uh, when you were building the mystery of Camp Wildflower, did you start with the seeker first or with characters who would eventually uncover it and find it as you went along?

SPEAKER_02 21:09

Um, well, it kind of started out with um just the first chapter, really. Like, I just started writing because sometimes like um I don't know if this happens to you guys, but like I'll get to a point in like one of my works in progress where I just need like a little a little step back. So I'll just kind of like take a few days, not look at it, and then just start writing, free writing, like whatever comes to mind. Um, and that's kind of how Between the Shadows happened, where I started just free writing, some idea came to mind, and then I had like a first chapter, and I was like, oh, this this is cool. Let's let's see where this goes. And then it sort of I tried sort of plotting it along, like I'm a little bit of a reformed pantster in that way. That I'll try my best to make an outline, but then yeah, sometimes the story just pops up and takes me on a wild ride where I'm like, oh, so this is where we're headed. Cool.

Booked All Night 22:13

I like the flashlight method because I also like pancing. I feel like a lot a lot more kind of comes out that maybe you weren't expecting when you just sit down and just onto your keyboard. But the flashlight method is like minimal outlining. So you're like, okay, I know I want A, B, and C to happen, and you write those out, and then after whatever has come out of that section, you're like, oh, it could possibly go D E F or G-H-I, and like you kind of have those and you can mull that over as opposed to writing out more and just having that kind of chaotic no no direction zone of the manuscript that you then go back and delete. Yeah. I hope I I like that one.

SPEAKER_02 23:01

I'll have to try that one. I don't think I've heard of that one.

Booked All Night 23:04

That one's fun. I know a lot of a lot of my writer friends also like the snowflake method. I mean, you start with like one sentence and you go around it and like, no, that's too much. That's too much planning and forethought. Sounds a little too complicated. That's mm-mm. That's no. It's ridiculous. That's so much planning. But I also have I have friends that basically write an entire novel as an outline. Like the novel is just in an outline format. You know, and then they they take it out, and I'm like, that is ridiculous. You are not in college anymore, you don't have to do MLA format. Please take it out. Stop doing this. This is a nightmare.

SPEAKER_02 23:53

Yeah, I don't think I've ever been that detailed in an outline. Like, yeah. Yeah. Because um, yeah, I've I've known some writers that if you ask them to like write like an outline, it would be like 20 pages long.

unknown 24:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:08

But that to me is a whole chapter, maybe even a chapter and a half.

Booked All Night 24:12

So I write Kidlet, that's like five chapters. Like that's insane. I also I have found like reverse outlining, so like doing my pantsing portion and then outlining what I've written, just so that I have like a quick reference of what's already come so I don't have to keep going back and reading what I've had. That's also really helpful.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

I think mine's yeah, I've done that over but I was gonna say I think mine's more like the flashlight method without being the flashlight method, where I have like a general idea of what I want to happen, but not exactly knowing how to get there. And then when I sit down and write, like things just pop into my head. I'm like, ooh, that's really good, and then that'll connect this and this and this, and then I give myself some time and then ideas will pop into my head, and then I go back to writing.

Booked All Night 25:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:08

So I I don't explore different versions. Um I while while you explore them, I just don't write them down.

Booked All Night 25:17

Uh it depends, right? Because there's there's definitely this spot in the middle. I call it 20k limbo. Like you get to that 20,000 word mark and you have to start making decisions.

SPEAKER_03 25:30

Yep.

Booked All Night 25:30

And I hate it. I hate it so much because I'm like, no, I've got like a thousand ideas. How do you narrow it down?

SPEAKER_02 25:36

That's usually when my best outlining happens is at that 20k limbo of like, okay, I made it this far. I've written a couple chapters. What do I do?

Booked All Night 25:46

Yeah. What what is actually happening? Like, I don't know about like your short fiction, but like my ideas when they come to me, it's just a hook. So it's like, oh, a sandman who can't sleep, or a girl that gets like a uh a vlogger who gets kidnapped live, or like expulsions mysteriously happening at school. Like it, and it's just that. And I'm like, cool. Anything else, brain? And my brain is just like, no, that's for you. You go figure that out.

SPEAKER_02 26:18

Thanks. Um my short, my short fiction also kind of comes in hooks where I'm like, okay, it's gonna be this, like um a mermaid museum. And then it's like, okay, but what's gonna happen in this mermaid museum? Oh, there's gonna be a sapphic romance. Okay, thank you, brain. Um let's think of something new.

Booked All Night 26:39

Like there will be words followed by other words. Like thanks. I'm gonna put my head through a wall while I write this, it's fine.

unknown 26:51

Yeah.

Booked All Night 26:52

That loveliness brings us up to the first official game of the podcast, which is space em or embrace them.

SPEAKER_02 26:59

Space 'em or embrace them. Okay.

unknown 27:01

Cool.

Booked All Night 27:02

Okay, in this game, you are traveling through the cosmos with a cargo full of tropes and cliches, but all of a sudden you get pulled into a black hole. In order to escape, you must jettison the cargo until you reach a magic number that I have rolled that you can't. You can only see two items at a time. You can choose to shoot them all out of the airlock if you want, but you cannot keep them all.

SPEAKER_02 27:27

Okay.

Booked All Night 27:28

Do you have any questions? So I just space them or either keep them close because they're yours and they can't go anywhere, or they go out the airlock so that you lose the weight.

SPEAKER_02 27:41

Okay, I hope I get this right.

unknown 27:43

Okay.

Booked All Night 27:43

So your first two are the creepy institution where something unethical is definitely happening, or summer camp horror.

SPEAKER_02 27:52

Um, can I keep both of them?

Booked All Night 27:58

For now?

unknown 27:59

Okay. Okay.

Booked All Night 28:00

The next one is Friends to Lovers Romance, or the authority figure who insists everything is perfectly normal.

SPEAKER_02 28:08

Authority figure who insists everything's perfectly normal.

Booked All Night 28:10

Is that going out, or we're keeping that?

SPEAKER_02 28:12

We're keeping that.

Booked All Night 28:13

We're keeping that. Out goes friends to romance. Found family among misfit teens, or we should definitely not split up situations.

SPEAKER_02 28:22

Um, found family. We're keeping.

Booked All Night 28:24

We're keeping, okay. Characters discovering hidden files or secret records, or the moment when someone realizes the adults can't be trusted.

SPEAKER_02 28:35

Oh. The moment that they realize the adults can't be trusted. We're keeping that.

Booked All Night 28:42

We're keeping that, okay. Uh the final confrontation where everything is revealed, or bittersweet endings.

SPEAKER_02 28:51

Final confrontation. I love a confrontation. Part because I don't really do confrontations in my real life. So I love writing them.

Booked All Night 29:03

The very shower thought scene. So you're not down yet, you're not out, so we gotta go back through what is left, which begins with the creepy institution where something unethical is definitely happening, or summer camp horror.

SPEAKER_02 29:18

Summer camp horror.

Booked All Night 29:19

Okay, we're gonna keep it or jettison.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

We're gonna keep it.

Booked All Night 29:23

We're gonna keep it. Uh the authority figure who insists everything is perfectly normal, or a found family among misfit teens.

SPEAKER_02 29:33

Um misfit teens we're keeping because fuzzy feelings are.

Booked All Night 29:42

And the moment when someone realizes the adults can't be trusted, or the final confrontation where everything is revealed.

SPEAKER_02 29:50

Confrontation, keeping.

Booked All Night 29:52

Keeping confrontation. So congratulations, you have made it out of the black hole, and the only cargo you have left is summer camp horror, found family among misfit teens, and the final confrontation where everything is revealed. One time we played this. So I I roll a D4 before we like when I when I set the game up. One time I rolled a one. It was the most agonizing game to go through. This person's like, no my god. It was it was so bad. It was it was just agonizing.

SPEAKER_02 30:29

Like, you gotta choose.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

Yeah, we have delved a little bit into uh your writing and your book a little bit before, but now we're going even further into your writing craft and reading.

SPEAKER_02 30:50

Okay. Aww. I thought you were gonna say my psyche.

SPEAKER_00 30:55

I don't think we have a lot of time for that.

unknown 30:58

Yeah.

Booked All Night 30:59

Surprise, every interview of booked all night comes with a psychological evaluation brought on by people who should not be evaluating anything in that nature.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

So we've discussed that you've written uh a significant amount of short fiction before you decided to publish this novel. So, how did writing those short stories shape the way you approached like pacing and tension in a longer narrative? Um, like your book Between the Shadows.

SPEAKER_02 31:33

Oh, okay. So it actually I feel like novel writing for me is a little bit easier because I like to add on plots or like twists and stuff, so it's it's easier for me to kind of organize my thoughts and be like, okay, this is all that's gonna happen in this amount of time, or you know, 70-ish thousand words. Um versus I find that short fiction it's much more challenging because you have to really get it concise and there's no room for spare words or you know, the plot being too thick because then you have a lot to wrap up at the end and you don't want it to feel rushed and stuff. So I'm I'm one of those that you know, I enjoy writing short stories, but I write them as more of like a challenge where it's like, let me see if I can craft something in a small amount of of space versus novels. I'm like, let's just have fun and see what happens. We can always chop things later.

Booked All Night 32:42

I I can't write short fiction to save my life. I I write the way that I sleep, which is spread out like a starfish. Like, I just need all of the space imaginable. Every time I had like short fiction assignments in school, I was like, and I guess it ends there.

SPEAKER_02 33:02

I what like it's due in 20 minutes, we finish it now.

Booked All Night 33:07

I is damn now at this conversation, I suppose. I don't know. It it was agonizing to me, especially like flash fiction.

SPEAKER_00 33:18

I love short stories and short fiction.

Booked All Night 33:21

I like writing them because it's funny because I like reading short fiction.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

Right. But my ADHD can't handle me sitting down and writing something for very long. And then I'll like I'll sit down and write short stories and like short little bursts, and then like at some point I'm like, I'm really bored of this, I'm gonna wrap this up.

Booked All Night 33:45

It's so awful.

SPEAKER_02 33:46

That's how my brain works. My brain just says, okay, we're gonna we've hit the 20, 30,000 word mark. We're gonna worry about this later. Let's start something new, and that's how I have like 15 novels that are in varying stages of completion.

Booked All Night 34:05

I was gonna say, it sounds like you have a folder like I have where there's just 20, at least 20 drafts of 20-ish, thousand words, and they're never going to get finished because decisions have to be made, and I just won't.

SPEAKER_00 34:20

So if I ever get to like the 20,000 word mark, I think I would celebrate because that's probably one of the longest things I've written.

Booked All Night 34:30

Celebrate with a little treat of starting a new draft.

SPEAKER_00 34:33

Yeah, that's great.

Booked All Night 34:35

Celebrate.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

And a nice coffee.

Booked All Night 34:38

And a nice coffee. I'm sensing a theme today, Katie. Do you want an ice coffee?

SPEAKER_00 34:43

I really want a nice coffee. Yeah, you're making me really want a nice coffee.

Booked All Night 34:48

Yeah, I want to go out and get some coffee.

SPEAKER_00 34:50

I had planned to get an ice coffee for breakfast and then I didn't. And I'm just like, and now I'm like, I really want that iced coffee. So uh, so as someone with a master's in creative writing, what is one lesson that has stuck with you from the classroom?

SPEAKER_02 35:09

Oh, um I'd have to say um that's a good one. There was there's some there was a couple ones that you know really stuck with me. One was just kind of finding your voice and then just like working with your voice. Like, don't try to to fit yourself into something that it's not like you know, you're writing the story in this way for a reason, so just find out how to make it work. And the other one was from um my advisor, like he was because he he wrote like a lot of like um historical fiction that had that made a lot of you know commentary on current um Irish society and stuff like that. And he said that a part of the reason for that is if you want to make commentary on something or you know, make people listen to something, you kind of have to separate it from the present so that they don't feel like you're being they're being lectured to. You want them to kind of think. So um to kind of like you know, frame it with Oscar Wilde's quote of um, if you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh or else they'll kill you. It was kind of something like that where it's like, well, if I can't make someone laugh, which you know, jury's still out on that, um, I'm gonna follow my advisor's advice and just kind of you know separate it. Like, you know, historical fiction isn't necessarily my bag, but the genres are so like sci-fi, fantasy, horror, like those are all genres where if you, you know, really read into them, you can get a lot of great messages about, you know, our current climate, um, just you know, societal issues and and stuff like that. So it's a great way to make people think without them thinking that you're making them think.

Booked All Night 37:14

Genre fiction, yeah, genre fiction especially has such a great opportunity for every metaphor you could possibly think of. You know, it just lends itself to that, like your advisor had said, like you don't want to just kind of come out and be like, you're doing it wrong. Like you can just show it because everybody can put themselves into some mysterious role in that genre fiction. But when you put it into something more contemporary or realistic, like historical fiction, people are like, Well, I don't align with this character because I have never been rich in the 1800s. And it's like, okay, well, you don't have to align that way. And you certainly have never been a dwarvish princess either, but I see that you align with that just fine.

SPEAKER_02 37:59

Yeah, yeah.

Booked All Night 38:00

So it I I love it in that sense, and it also I know I bring this theory up all the time, but it is one of my favorite critical theories, and it's read a response, where like we we come to a text with our experiences. So if you're trying to like make political commentary and people have never been in that political environment, that particular commentary is like it's gonna be a little loss, yeah. Yeah. I I know in like the critical theory world, everyone's like, oh, read a response. Like, but that's so important as a writer to understand that like you have a specific audience that you're writing for, and even if you are trying to reach someone who's not in your audience, if they don't know what you're talking about, they're that story's gonna have a drastically different feel to them.

SPEAKER_02 38:51

Right. Like it's one of those I feel like, you know, with the whole reader-response stuff, I feel the genres are a little bit easier for that breakdown because yeah, you might not necessarily be able to understand, you know, what it's like to grow up as a queer woman or a queer Hispanic woman. But if I can show you these struggles through the lens of, you know, a elven princess or something, then it might resonate a little bit easier or it might be a little bit easier to understand the concept of what I'm trying to create.

SPEAKER_00 39:33

So you describe yourself as someone who runs the landscape for inspiration. Um what does your creative process usually look like when an idea first starts? Are you someone who outlines heavily or do you prefer to go and discover the story as you go? I know we touched on this a little bit earlier, uh, but if you could just kind of explain it a little bit more in depth.

SPEAKER_02 40:02

Well, um it's it's a little bit of there's two ways where like, you know, an idea takes form in my mind. So um sometimes it will just be, you know, I'll get an idea while I'm doing something mundane, and then I'll be like, okay, let me just start writing and see where it happens. And that's sometimes where like it'll flow, and it'll be like, you know, oh, I've written, you know, five new chapters of this random book, and now I'm going to think about it and outline it because I want to, you know, kind of keep this momentum going. Or it'll be a case of, you know, I'll have an idea, I don't really know where that idea is going, so I'll like go for a walk or like you know, sit by the sea or something and just sort of start to pull it out piece by piece where I'll start, you know, thinking about who the characters are, where the setting is gonna be, what's the problem gonna be. So yeah. Um, I do try to like now I'm trying my best to like outline things a little bit more just just because it gives me a fighting chance of finishing it. If I can at least say, like, okay, this is all that's gonna happen. Um yeah.

Booked All Night 41:22

That brings us to the second game of the podcast. So the second game is never have I ever written uh spoiled my own book. It's the whole title. Standard Never Have I Ever rules, um, except I am incredibly petty and I'm not above things like never have I ever written a book called Between the Shadows.

SPEAKER_02 41:46

Uh do I need alcohol for this?

Booked All Night 41:49

No.

SPEAKER_02 41:50

Okay.

Booked All Night 41:51

No, no, I will be keeping track. If you have done um five or more, you have to spoil something from beyond what you consider the first act of Between the Shadows.

SPEAKER_03 42:04

Okay.

Booked All Night 42:06

So never have I ever gotten an iced coffee.

SPEAKER_02 42:12

Yeah.

unknown 42:13

Yeah.

Booked All Night 42:15

Never have I ever written a scene specifically to emotionally destroy my readers. Never have I ever googled something extremely suspicious for research.

unknown 42:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:29

Pretty sure. Um, shout out to my FBI agent as well. Yeah, right. Probably. My Mr.

Booked All Night 42:35

FBI agent just doing a little research. I I do have a fun story about that one. So uh I used to work, I'm currently disabled, so I stay at home. But when I was at my office job, I was working on a murder mystery for one of my master's projects, and I'd had a whole folder of decaying bodies and what they looked like at each stage so I could describe them properly. And my boss came over while I was working on that and he was like, um, what? And the only answer that came to mind and came out of my mouth immediately was like, no, no, no, it's okay. It's for a project. Like, I'm like, I'm not helping myself. Um great.

SPEAKER_02 43:18

He's like, um, hello 911.

Booked All Night 43:20

Yeah, he's like, excuse me, FBI.

SPEAKER_02 43:23

Um all the missing people on the news.

Booked All Night 43:26

Yeah. The first top was too bad. Uh, never have I ever deleted thousands of words in a single editing session. Yeah. Never have I ever fallen in love with a side character who took over the story.

SPEAKER_03 43:42

Yes.

Booked All Night 43:44

Never have I ever written a scene that scared me while I was writing it.

SPEAKER_02 43:49

Actually, no. Yeah. Like, yeah, I don't I don't think I've like properly scared myself. Like, I've made myself cry while writing scenes. Um Um of emotional weight, but like I've never like the the creepy scenes and stuff have never scared myself because I know that it's coming. It's different if I'm like reading somebody else's what book where I'm like, oh my god, what is happening? But I'm like, I know the axeman is gonna be right around the corner.

Booked All Night 44:21

That's fair. You're like, I put him there. So he's not scary. I see him. Never have I ever realized halfway through a draft that the villain was actually right.

unknown 44:32

No.

Booked All Night 44:33

Never have I ever stayed up far too late because the scene just wouldn't let me stop.

SPEAKER_02 44:39

Oh yeah. Too many times.

Booked All Night 44:42

Never have I ever had a twist planned from the very beginning.

SPEAKER_02 44:47

That was the spot.

Booked All Night 44:50

Never have I ever immediately started thinking about the next story before finishing the current one.

SPEAKER_02 44:56

Of like everything that is ever gonna be a duology of mine.

Booked All Night 45:02

So I think it's safe to say uh you've done more than five. Um yeah. So you have to spoil something from beyond act one.

SPEAKER_02 45:11

Okay. One of the characters is actually related to the villain.

Booked All Night 45:19

Dun dun dun. I like that.

SPEAKER_02 45:23

Yeah.

Booked All Night 45:24

That's always a fun twist. That we just spoiled.

SPEAKER_02 45:29

But there's still other spoilers that have not been spoiled. Like they're not actually bunkmates. Oh god no. Trust me, it's not that.

SPEAKER_00 45:44

Alright, so now we have chaotic sleepover questions.

unknown 45:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 45:52

You're trapped overnight in the mess hall at Camp Wildflower. What snack are you stealing to survive the night?

SPEAKER_02 46:01

Um, Slim Jim's.

SPEAKER_00 46:04

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 46:05

Yeah. Because they're locked in like a little special cupboard and they don't taste like crap.

SPEAKER_00 46:16

Uh if you heard something strange in the woods after midnight, do you investigate, run, or pretend you've never heard anything?

SPEAKER_02 46:25

Um, definitely. If you heard it, no, you didn't. I'm the same way. Yeah, like it's nope, not going outside.

Booked All Night 46:37

Yeah, my backyard is the woods. When I hear things, I'm like, hey, look at that. Locking the door. It's good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:45

Closing the window.

Booked All Night 46:46

Yeah, we'll just end the blinds. How did this chair get in front of the door? I don't know. It belongs there now. It's important.

SPEAKER_00 46:56

Um, this is like one of my favorite questions. If Camp Wildflower had a standard terrible summer camp talent show, what would everyone's talents be?

SPEAKER_02 47:09

Oh, okay. Um, I honestly don't know what Skylar's would be. She's very much like, I don't want to be a part of that at all. Um Melanie would be dance. She would definitely be dancing, probably to Bad Bunny. Um, the little twerking queen from the Bronx. Um and Ollie. She does figure skating, so she'd probably do something along those lines, maybe like a dance routine as well. Um Jason would be doing something like physical, like showing off his physicality, because he's kind of a jock, so um and Jeremy would be, he's like a theater kid, so he would definitely be doing some sort of either musical number or like a big tragic Shakespearean soliloquy.

Booked All Night 48:23

You know what I have been seeing a lot of on Instagram, which is Chef's Kiss, there is one influencer who has been redoing movies as if they were Shakespeare, and she recently did Mean Girls. It's like if you are from the continent of Africa, what is with your sunny constinants? And I'm like, I'm like, oh it's oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 48:51

Oh, I need to watch that.

Booked All Night 48:52

It's so funny. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 48:58

Uh you and your characters find a mysterious locked box in the woods. You open it immediately, debate it for 20 minutes, or bury it again and walk away.

SPEAKER_02 49:11

Um, my characters would definitely debate over it. I would want to open it immediately because I did not put that in the story. I need to know what it is. But my characters would be like, um, should we?

SPEAKER_00 49:32

I'm I'm nosy. I would have to open it. Yeah. And then once I knew I would bury it and walk away.

Booked All Night 49:37

Um, I'd definitely be like, why is it locked? I want to open it. Smash it on trees. It's terrible.

SPEAKER_00 49:45

So Confession Time, yay. Uh what book, what book absolutely terrified you when you were younger?

SPEAKER_02 49:56

Um, I don't know if a book necessarily terrified me. Um well, I guess like Jane Eyre kind of creeped me out with the description of the Red Room because it went on and on forever. Um but I think like the thing that terrified me the most um as a kid was watching Beauty and the Beast, the scene with the wolves, like the forest scenes. Um, yeah, those always terrified me. And that was like my favorite movie. Like my dad will recount of when I was, you know, three years old coming into the room being like, I want to watch Beauty and the Beast today. Like very insistent that it had to be today, even with the little hand motions. So um, yeah, I was very much like all about that Beauty and the Beast life, which I think kind of altered my brain chemistry in a way, um, which is why I sort of also like, you know, kind of horror-ish stuff mixed with some romance. Um, so that was the thing that I remember just like really, really terrified me. Um, when it came to books, I was much more like just reading anything and everything. I did read Jane Eyre a little bit earlier than I should have, but yeah, that was more just kind of I was just trying to like process what was happening.

Booked All Night 51:20

Jane Eyre is creepy though, like people don't give it enough enough credit for its creepiness, and they're all like, oh what, like it's like a ghost door. I'm like, no, that crazy bitch is in the attic. Like it's terrifying.

SPEAKER_02 51:33

Yeah.

Booked All Night 51:35

Like, could you imagine if your your partner's ex lived in the house in the attic with how much and was trying to constantly light you on fire?

SPEAKER_00 51:46

Like it would just be a fire, if between the shadows had a campfire ghost story version told in the shortest version possible. What would the last line be?

SPEAKER_02 52:10

And then he died.

Booked All Night 52:13

And then he died. And then he died. Yes. Title of the interview.

SPEAKER_00 52:23

So I want to. That's fair. That's fair. We don't require another spoiler just yet. When readers finish your book, do you want them uh to do it with the lights on or off?

SPEAKER_02 52:41

Um, I want them to do it with the lights on. Um, I kind of want to leave them with a little bit of a feeling. Um I I more than anything, I just want them to be like, I really want to like go hug my mom after they finish it. Yeah. Oh boy.

Booked All Night 53:04

And finally, uh we asked this of all of our guests, is there anyone that you would like to thank today who helped you get the book out? Anyone from workshop partners to editors, publishers, and so on? And if you did all the work, then thank yourself because that is a lot of work to do alone.

SPEAKER_02 53:19

So by five. Um well I do I do want to thank my publisher, um Rowan Prose Publishing, um, for you know taking a chance on it and agreeing to agreeing to publish it. And also um my friend Alan, they were really helpful, like doing beta reading at the beginning. Um, they were also my writing buddy for a big length of the summer that I wrote it, where we would meet up in um one of my favorite cafes in Dublin and just you know, chat, write, have some wine after we wrote to be like, we did, you know, X amount of words today. Let's go. So um, yeah.

Booked All Night 54:03

Nice. And before we officially go, uh, where can we find you online?

SPEAKER_02 54:08

Oh, you can find me on TikTok, Instagram, and um threads, uh, and also Twitter. Um, I can't remember my Twitter username. It's been a while since I've gotten to Twitter. Um, but I think it's in my in my bio and um for everything else, Instagram, threads, and TikTok, it's writeranastasia26.

Booked All Night 54:34

WriterAnastasia26.

SPEAKER_02 54:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:37

Thanks for staying up with us. Follow us on Instagram and threads at Bookdall Knight Pod. Drop a comment to let us know what you thought of today's show, and join our Discord server for giveaways, excerpts, and more. It's still in the works, but we're aiming for a hundred members. Catch our live author interviews on YouTube and leave a question for our guests on our Discord server. Check out our shop and website at bookdollnight.co. That's bookdallnight.co. And if you're loving the chaos, don't forget to rate us five stars. Until next time, booklets, and remember to stay booked all night.