A Walk Along the High Line (And Then Back Again) With V. E. Schwab

"We’re hacking our brains. That’s something I’m constantly doing—I am constantly hacking my brain."

“They’re beautiful—and so big.”

I look up. At first I think the elderly woman is talking to me—or maybe to a friend. But as I watch her, standing alone, I realize that she’s talking to herself. Sometimes yourself makes very good company.

To be fair, she isn’t wrong. We’re standing in front of a long row of extremely large wooden elephants that cut a swath through the Meatpacking District. The outdoor art installation, called The Great Elephant Migration, boasts being “the largest public art installations in New York City since Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s The Gates in 2005.” I saw The Gates, all those years ago.

I take a moment to be thankful for art that makes us feel small, before leaving the woman standing there—still looking at the wooden beasts—and cut across the street where I see the person I’m here to meet, V. E. Schwab. We say hello, and then take a moment to examine the spectacular sculptures together while commenting on the tremendous weather. After grabbing a couple of iced coffees, we turn toward the Chelsea Market Ramp and climb the concrete steps up to the High Line and become one with the legion of walkers already in motion.

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Isaac: We're walking in New York City, but you're not from New York City—nor do you live here.

V. E. Schwab: I'm not from New York City.

I: What are you in town for?

VES: I'm in town for Comic Con—but I’m also doing some pre-publication work for my next book, Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil. Plus I’m here to have this amazing chat with you and to walk on the High Line on a beautiful day.

I: It is absolutely gorgeous.

VES: Stunning.

I: But you bounce around quite a bit, is that fair to say? You tour a lot.

VES: Less so post-Covid—I toured 17 countries in 2019, I think—but now I usually tour once a year domestically, and then maybe six times internationally. I've cut it back.

I: That’s still quite a bit. Where is home base for you?

VES: Scotland. But right now I’m staying in Denver here in the U.S., because I'm signing the entire first printing of my next book.

I: Jesus. How many books is that?

VES: 300,000 copies.

I: What is that experience like? How long does that take?

VES: Roughly seven hours a day for two and a half months. So it is—

I: Wait, seriously?

VES: Seriously. Seven hours a day for two and a half months—because I can only sign about six to 7,000 copies a day. We know every day how many boxes of tip-in sheets I have to sign before I'm allowed to go to bed that night.

I: Do you ever go long?

VES: Well, I do a morning chunk, and then an afternoon chunk, and then an evening chunk. But I allow myself a drink while I do the evening chunk, so evening tends to run a little longer than the morning and afternoon.

I: So your full-time job right now is… signing books?

VES: Pretty much, but it's a gift I wanted to give to my readers.

I: Do you remember the first book you had that was signed that meant something to you?

VES: Well, that’s a bit of a sad story now.

I: How so?

VES: I wasn't actually a big reader when I was young. I was an athlete. I played soccer. My goal in life was to play in the World Cup.

So when I was 11, my mom was really trying to get me into reading. She had a friend at a bookstore in Southern California who contacted her and said, “Hey, there's a lady here. She's signing her debut novel. It looks like it's for kids around Victoria's age. Want me to grab a copy?”

What comes in the mail the next week? A signed copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

I: Whoa.

VES: So it's sad because, obviously, my relationship to that work and its author as a queer person—as a queer fan—is really damaged. Ruined. But that book is the book that made me a reader.

I: That book led you into a life of books.

VES: I was 11 and Harry Potter was 11 and the book was so, so important to me. Plus, the signature made it feel—for the first time—like the author who wrote that book was a real person.

I: Not just a name on the cover, but a signature. The person who wrote this book actually held it—put pen to paper and wrote down their name.

VES: Yes. The power of a signature. I remember that feeling as a young kid.

I: So now you want to pass that feeling on to other readers. That’s really special. But still, seven hours a day for two and a half months? How do you stay sane? Do you listen to music or watch television or—

VES: I'm catching up on audio books—because I can't listen to fiction while I'm drafting fiction and this was a pretty heavy drafting year for me.

I: Like writing an early draft?

VES: Right. So, I listen to nonfiction while I'm drafting—that’s when I listened to your book, Dirtbag, Massachusetts, actually—but obviously during this two and a half month window, even though I still have about two hours a day set aside for writing—

I: I’m sorry, what?

VES: I still have writing deadlines, Isaac.

But I'm spending a lot of time listening to fiction audio books. Plus, yes, I’m also watching television shows.

I: So you consume a lot of media.

VES: I’m a huge consumer. I need to fill my creative well at all times.

I: What’s a favorite tv show that you watched recently?

VES: I did a rewatch of Hannibal and that was really great for me—except that apparently my housemates were like, “Your personality is fusing with the show.”

I: How do you mean?

VES: We all went and got massages, because my arms were hurting and my hands were hurting—

I: From all the signing?

VES: From all the signing. Afterward I said, “I feel as if I was just tenderized—a bit like meat being marinated.” To which one of my housemates responded, “You have got to stop watching Hannibal.”

I: “Victoria, it's gone too far. You're talking about yourself like you’re food.”

VES: Exactly. Still, I finished the rewatch. Now I'm desperately trying—I try to read 120 books a year.

I: God damn.

VES: I consider it part of my job. I consider it part of my continuing education. But I’m really behind right now—so these two and a half months are my opportunity to catch up.

I: Signing and listening, signing and listening. A lil’ drink in the evening. A lil’ Hannibal. Then signing, signing, signing—listening, listening, listening.

VES: It's a little meditative. Rhythmic.

I: Do you get sick of it?

VES: Do I get tired of signing—in this context? Do I get tired of signing my name 7,000 times a day? Of course. Both physically—

I: The aforementioned massage trip.

VES: And mentally. But I will never, ever get tired of actually signing my books for readers. In that context, it feels like a victory lap. It feels like it's like a conquering maneuver.

I: How do you mean?

VES: If I’m signing the book, it means I survived the writing of the book.

I: So you're showing the book who's boss? Saying, “This is mine.”

VES: A little bit, sure. But it’s more, “You didn’t kill me. I'm still here.” Because every time I’m working on a book, I hit this point where it feels like the book might kill me. So signing the book—

I: Means you’re still standing. You made it through.

VES: People will say, “I’m so sorry for asking you to sign.” But never, ever apologize for asking me to sign a finished book. It reminds me—over and over again—that I conquered writing the thing.

Photo credit: Jenna Maurice

I: You’re an international author. You’re work is available around the globe.

VES: I’m very fortunate.

I: Do you know how many languages your work has been translated into, off the top of your head?

VES: 39? 40? Either 39 or 40.

I: We can round up.

VES: It's quite an honor—especially because I didn’t start out in my career being translated. I mean, to be honest, I didn’t start out in my career even being shelved in bookstores.

I: Speak on that.

VES: I started really, really small—and in retrospect I'm incredibly grateful that I did.

I think there's this fetishization of the Million Dollar Debut Author,™️ and I get it. Money helps us live. I will never say anything negative about an author receiving that kind of money. But I also think it can be an incredible amount of pressure to put on a new novelist—especially one who doesn’t have an audience yet.

My first book deal was for maybe $10,000—which was nice, but wasn’t enough to live on.

But the flip side of that coin is, it was easy for me to get in the black.

I: To start making royalties.

VES: When I’m talking about readership—or audience—I think about it like a body of water.

If you have a million dollar book deal as a debut author, you are making this gigantic splash. But it's a gigantic splash in a puddle—the water is incredibly shallow and begins to evaporate immediately.

But when you start small, you have a teacup—you have this tiny amount of water—but it's deeper than it is wide. So with every book, my water got a little larger, my audience got a little larger, and it grew in such a way that it did not evaporate.

I: So now you have a—

VES: Now I have a lake.

I: I’d say an ocean, but ok.

VES: My readership has this stability that allows me to take chances—that allows me to take risks—because my readers have given me the gift of an audience that is now as deep as it is wide. Which in turn allows me to be the writer I want to be.

I: Which is why you’re spending two and a half months signing books. But what is, you know, “The writer you want to be?”

VES: A writer who is ambitious and—more importantly—strange. So I will never regret how small my career was when I started out.

I: Here you are now, all these years later, with readers around the globe. Translated into 40—or maybe 39—languages. Is there an area internationally that you love to visit?

VES: Honestly, I love touring internationally—another way in which I’m so, so lucky. I love meeting international readers. But the greatest gift for me is that writing is a job that I can do anywhere.

The reason I live in Scotland is because, in the late 2010s, I started touring so much that I was on the road more than I was home. So for me, going home meant going on vacation, in a way. So I asked myself, “Where is a place that I feel like I’m on vacation, that could also feel like home?”

Because writing is a job that allows you to work wherever you want to work—it's a job that you can do in a coffee shop, or in a library, or in an airport, or anywhere you have access to a pen and paper and an internet connection. Writing afforded me the freedom to live in the country that brings me the most joy, and that country is Scotland.

So, to answer your question, I love touring Spain. I love the book festival in Buenos Aires, I love visiting France—because that’s where my family lives. I'm looking forward to going to even more countries in which I'm published, but the greatest gift writing gives me is the ability to create wherever I feel inspired.

I: How did you end up in Scotland? Is it because it’s your happy place? Is it because it’s sort of centrally located if you have to tour the Americas and Europe?

VES: Where to begin? I was living in an ex-prison warden's garden shed outside of Liverpool in my early twenties—

I: A good opening to a story.

VES: I essentially had a book to write and no money. I thought, “I can either look at my normal view out my window in Nashville”—where I was living at the time—“or I can go somewhere else for a few months to finish this novel.”

I let someone—how to put this—trick me into going to Liverpool.

I: Trick?

VES: Because they didn't tell me they were dating someone there.

I: Ah. Got it.

VES: So I ended up in Liverpool, where I moved into a garden shed—like an à la Home Depot garden shed that was haunted and had no heat—but rent was $200 pounds. It was the middle of winter in Liverpool and I was absolutely miserable. So—even though I couldn’t afford it—I decided to give myself one night of happiness.

I: What’d you do?

VES: I took a train up to Edinburgh, Scotland, and I spent all my money to do one night at The Scotsman Hotel in what's called a “student suite,” which is essentially a closet. But I didn't care. Because when I got off the train in Edinburgh, it was as if all of the silt inside my heart settled to the ground. I immediately felt happier.

But of course I questioned it—as I do most things. I figured, “This is all rose-colored glasses, because my life in Liverpool is so rough right now.”

I: You didn’t trust how much you loved it.

VES: So I decided to go back to Edinburgh several more times to see if it was a trick of the light—to see if it was merely my circumstances, and the fact that I was on vacation that made me feel good. But every time I went to Edinburgh, that silt inside my heart settled. Every single time I felt at home.

I: Is that uncommon, for you? To feel at home in a place?

VES: You and I talked about tattoos when you were on my podcast—

I: We both have a few.

VES: I have wings tattooed behind both of my ankles, because I have this sense of wanderlust that has plagued me my entire life. A restlessness. Even when I’m staying in one place—walking, for example. I love to walk every single day. If I could, I would walk until I'm too tired to stand every single day.

I want to always be in motion.

I: You were an athletic kid.

VES: Being in Edinburgh is the only place I feel like I can stand still and be happy. Then my parents retired to France. So it's actually puts me closer to them, too.

I: Bonus.

VES: Plus it puts me five hours ahead of publishing here in the US, which means I get the whole morning—no matter how busy publishing is—the whole morning is mine to write before everybody else wakes up.

I: That's brilliant. Before you start getting peppered with emails or texts from people.

VES: I do most of my writing in the morning—so for me, it's just this preservation of everything that I love. Plus it's a tea and cake country, and I love tea and cake.

I: Who doesn't love tea and cake?

VES: Not me. I love it.

Photo credit: Jenna Maurice

I: You mentioned that you walk every day. How much?

VES: It varies, but I try to get around 20,000 steps a day.

I: I aim for the same amount, which is around 10 miles a day.

VES: Correct.

I: Though sometimes I wonder if that much walking is a sign of… poor mental health?

VES: Well, it might stem from poor mental health, but for me walking is mental health. It keeps me sane.

I: So where do you find the time in your day to walk?

VES: I mean, the problem is I don't—do you know how long it takes to walk 20,000 steps?

I: Hours and hours.

VES: So, some days I cheat.

I: How do you cheat?

VES: I run, so that I can get my steps in.

I: Ok, I’d say that’s not cheating so much as… making it harder?

VES: Harder, sure, but more efficient.

I essentially have an overabundance of anxious energy. That's one of the reasons I write, too. My head is a tangle of yarn. When I'm writing, it's the only time I'm pulling those threads in my brain straight. I enjoy making order out of chaos. But writing is also an inherently sedentary job—and I am not a sedentary person.

So the first thing I do when I wake up is walk two miles or so, before I even sit down to have breakfast. I need my body to turn on, so that my brain can get a bit quiet. I need a little contrast—my legs need to move before I can put my butt in the chair to type and think.

I: What does your writing process look like?

VES: I’m an intense planner. I essentially plan an entire scene, beat by beat—

I: So you start with an outline?

VES: Yes. An outline, from which I expand. So for instance, my next novel is 350 scenes or so.

I: You outline scene by scene?

VES: I absolutely love structural play. In order to understand a story's structure, I need to have all of the ingredients—all of the form—and then I can start braiding the narratives together. I can start arranging it.

I: Almost like planning a symphony.

VES: I’ve had people ask me, “Doesn't that take the joy out of writing?” But no. For me it puts the joy into the execution. It also feels like a cheat.

I: A cheat like running instead of walking?

VES: It’s a cheat for perfectionism.

I: Are you a perfectionist?

VES: 100%—and as a perfectionist I often get stuck on the exact wording of a moment. Which puts me in the position of not being able to move forward until I have the exact words.

So outlining is a cheat against perfectionism. Because you're telling yourself you're not actually trying to find the words that will be in the book. You're just trying to find the shape of the scene. It's a really good way to keep perfectionism at bay. Because, as I'm outlining, of course beautiful sentences start getting in. Finished sentences start getting in. Pieces of dialogue start getting in. Which is when I invariably transition from outlining a scene to actually writing it.

I: For me this is writing with pen and paper. When I’m at my computer, I keep trying again and again to get a sentence just so. But when I’m writing by hand, there are no red squiggles pointing out my spelling mistakes or green squiggles telling me that I’ve switched tenses yet again. I just keep marching forward.

VES: We’re hacking our brains. That’s something I’m constantly doing—I am constantly hacking my brain.

I: Walking—or running. The way you write. It’s all ways to work around yourself.

VES: Tattoos, even. It's all just trying to keep myself alive. It's sanity. The walking is integral. The exercise is integral. Whatever shape it takes for me—walking or running or something else—because my brain doesn't work without it. I need the endorphins. I need the act of motion in order to be calm enough to sit still with the words.

Photo credit: Jenna Maurice

I: How many tattoos do you have? Or maybe a better question is, how does getting tattooed hack your brain?

VES: I don’t actually know off the top of my head how many tattoos I have, but we can try to count. The very first tattoo I ever got was an Eye of Horus on my left hip—because I thought, “Oh my body will never change.”

Then I got a Latin phrase around the Eye of Horus that has a typo in it, which is what I get for thinking, “Google won't steer me wrong.” I was 19 —unmedicated and a little manic—and I said to myself, “I have to get this tattoo right now. Today. It has to happen.” So now that tattoo, with its typo, is a lesson in patience.

Then I got wings behind my ankles.

I: I’m guessing those hurt?

VES: Like a bitch. Then I have a key on my forearm, which is a real 18th century French key. I got that one so all the doors in life will open for me.

Then I have “rise up” on my other wrist in my own handwriting.

I: Hamilton reference?

VES: Hamilton reference.

So that's six. Then I have an entire sleeve made out of flowers. I don’t know if that counts as one, or—

I: We can stop counting.

VES: The flower sleeve is a bit ironic, because I'm not a very femme person. But I like the contrast of having something very femme.

It took many, many, many sessions.

I: It's beautiful.

VES: The reason I love it is because it's all fictional flowers. I gave my artist in Scotland permission to invent the flowers on the spot. So none of the flowers are real. Now, obviously they have references—poppies and roses and other blooms—but my artist dreamed them all up.

Some of the flowers are fully in bloom, others are only halfway open, and some of them are still in the very early stages of spring. Which is representative of the creative process to me. Some things are out there, others I’m working on, and others are still gestating.

I imagine that it's going to keep growing—down my left side. Just the other day I started getting the itch.

I: That little voice that says, “Time to get another tattoo.”

VES: The restlessness comes in. I don't know if it's masochism—or some kind of control, or something to do with agency. I know at least part of it is that I have chronic pain from sport injuries. That pain is with me every day. So, in a way—when I get tattooed—I get to choose my pain.

But I also have this need for commemoration. Along with a need to feel really grounded in my body—because so often I feel stuck in my own head.

Not to mention dysmorphia and body image issues. I never liked my arms. I always felt kind of blobby in them—no matter what my weight was. Then getting the floral tattoo sleeve helped me find something to love about my body.

But I need more tattoos. Do you want to hear a funny story?

I: Always.

VES: The first tattoo I got that my father saw is the aforementioned key on my forearm. When he saw it he sighed and said, “Well, you’ll never get a real job now.”

I: “That’s the point, dad!”

VES: No but really, I was already a bestselling author for five years at that point. So now, every time I get a tattoo, I show the new tattoo to him and say, “Am I going to get a real job now, daddy?”

He just laughs.

I: “They’ll never let me give the J.R.R. Tolkien Lecture in Fantasy Literature at Oxford University now, dad!”

VES: Oh wow—

I: I do my research.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. You mentioned that first book deal—and your little teacup—but I’m interested in younger you. Jock you. Walk us through how you got to that first book deal.

VES: Well, I was born in California to a Beverly Hills 90210 father and a penniless English mother.

I: Another great opening for a story.

VES: In the ‘30s, ‘40s, and ‘50s there was this place in Hollywood called Schwab’s Pharmacy. It was this really famous soda fountain shop—Lana Turner was discovered there, and a lot of producers and directors would take calls there and have meetings. That was my grandfather’s place.

I: Incredible.

VES: It really was—until it wasn’t. The place went bankrupt when my dad was 17.

It was sudden. My dad gets a red Corvette for his 16th birthday—he had a soda fountain by his pool—and then by his next birthday it was all gone.

I: So your father was raised with money, but then his family lost it all?

VES: Raised with money then goes to nothing. Whereas my mother was raised with nothing and then went to… nothing.

So they were very much about fiscal security and responsibility when I was growing up.

I: Did you have siblings?

VES: I'm an only child. It was very much a nuclear family. Just the three of us.

I was raised between two very different climates. Back and forth between San Jose, California and Nashville, Tennessee.

I: Because of div—

VES: No. Because my father was a software engineer and he would change jobs to go work at a startup.

So I was born in California, then we moved to Nashville for five years, and then we moved back to California for five years.

I: How old were you when you were in Tennessee?

VES: I was in Tennessee from three to eight, then back to California until I was 13, and then back to Tennessee from 14 to 18.

I: Got it. Were you a jock on both coasts?

VES: I went from playing soccer competitively in California—convinced I was going to be a World Cup athlete—to Nashville, Tennessee in the dead of summer at 98% humidity. Not to mention, I have asthma.

I couldn't cut it. So my soccer career went up in smoke at 15 years old. So I became a competitive fencer instead.

I: In Tennessee?

VES: Yes.

I: As one does.

VES: I went to an all girls Southern preparatory school instead of the large California public school I was attending before. So I was constantly all out of sorts.

I: Were you a happy kid?

VES: No. I was not a happy kid. I was lonely, always moving around, never had a good, solid group of friends. Then, as soon as I would find my stride—this would happen in college, too—it would be senior year and then it was over.

Photo credit: Jenna Maurice

I: Where’d you go to college?

VES: I went to Washington University in St. Louis. I wanted to be an astrophysicist.

I: From World Cup soccer player to astrophysicist?

VES: Well, then I changed my major six times.

I: Six times?

VES: Again, I was very fortunate. My parents offered me two options. Option one was my parents would save some money and leave it to me when they died. Option two was they would pay for four years of college education, so I could graduate without debt.

I chose college.

I: Smart.

VES: So about three and a half years in and after six major changes, they reminded me, “We said four years, Victoria.”

I: Oh no!

VES: “You better figure it out. You better graduate on time. We said four years of education. Not five.”

I: What were the other majors?

VES: Astrophysics.

I: Naturally.

VES: But then I realized I was more into the narrative of space than, you know, the math. Don’t get me wrong, I was really good at the math and science, but what I really wanted to know was the history of the universe.

I: Of course.

VES: Then I got really into Japanese Culture and Mythologies—I had this course catalog that was 300 pages long, and I wanted to go and learn everything about everything.

I: Japan’s a good place to start.

VES: This is why I love being an author, actually. You get to be a temporary expert at something that interests you, then you get to move on.

I: So Astrophysics to Japanese Culture and—

VES: Astrophysics to Japanese Culture and Mythology, which led me to Art History, which in turn led me to Set Design, and then English.

I: That’s five.

VES: Finally I decided I would do something practical. So I went into Marketing and Graphic Design with a specific focus on Book Typography.

I: Practical?

VES: You sound like my parents. When I graduated—on time, mind you—they said, “For the love of God, you graduated with Book Typography.”

I: “Set Design isn’t looking so bad now, hey mom and dad?”

VES: Technically I graduated with a Communication Design Degree.

I: Did you go to graduate school?

VES: Four years later I would get my master’s in Depictions of Monstrosity in Medieval Art at the University of Edinburgh.

I: Practical.

VES: But here's what you have to understand. Sophomore year—I'm still only two majors in at this point—

I: Japanese culture and mythology, baby!

VES: Might have been Set Design by this point. But Sophomore year I decided, “I'm going to write my first novel.”

Up until that point I’d only written poetry and written short fiction, micro fiction, and nonfiction. But I'd never tried a novel-length work, because it seemed impossible.

I: Real quick. When did you start writing poetry?

VES: 13 years old.

I: That’s the time for it.

VES: I was the poet laureate of my high school. I was really, really serious about it.

But I was also practical, so when I got to college I said, “You know what? I'm never going to make any money as a poet.”

I: Very smart.

VES: Well, then I started thinking, “What if I try to take the things that make my voice special in poetry and figure out how to shape that into prose?”

I: I mean, I’d say, “Less smart.” But look at how it all turned out.

Were you a big reader at this point?

VES: I was still not a huge reader. I read for college—but I was still the kid that grew up on a soccer field, not in the library.

I: On the fencing—uh, what would you call…

VES: The fencing strip.

I: You were a jock.

VES: I was a jock.

Also, I was gay and didn’t know it.

I: How was that playing out?

VES: I really kept thinking, “Wow, I must be dating boys wrong. Because I hate kissing boys, and I don’t like being with boys, and dicks are gross—but I’m straight. So I must just be doing it wrong.”

I: “Yet, I love competitive sports where I’m surrounded by other women.”

VES: Exactly.

I: Hindsight 20/20.

VES: Hindsight 20/20.

The thing you have to understand is, I have an extremely adversarial nature when it comes to fear.

I: How do you mean?

VES: Some people freeze up when they’re afraid. But for me? Fear is something that makes me mad. Fear angers me, because it makes me feel vulnerable.

I: Examples?

VES: I had a fear of change, so I chopped off all my hair. I had a fear of being away from my family, so I backpacked through Europe. I had a fear of needles—

I: So you got your first tattoo.

VES: I got my first tattoo.

Sophomore year I think about writing a novel, but then I get scared. I had a fear of failure. But as soon as I realized I was afraid of failing to write a novel, I sat down and wrote a novel.

I: How old were you?

VES: 19 years old.

I: How long did it take you?

VES: I drafted my very first novel in two months.

I: So at 19, you drafted your first novel in two months driven by a fear that you would not be able to finish it.

Do either of your parents write, or were they interested in writing?

VES: No. My parents do not understand where I came from.

My dad is a math science person. Extreme binary. Software, not hardware—if you give him a piece of hardware, he doesn't understand what to do with it. His expertise is coding and nothing else.

My mother, on the other hand, worked 17 jobs. She was a chef and a caterer, but also an animal docent at the zoo and an administrator at an arts college. She was very creative, but never with words.

I made sense to them as an astrophysicist. I did not make sense to them as a novelist.

Power to them for being supportive, but I perplexed them.

I: Where do you think your drive came from?

VES: The aforementioned all girls Southern preparatory school was extremely sink or swim. It created young women who were extremely self-driven, because if you failed, they weren't going to hold your hand. You had to be disciplined enough to go home and do the five hours of homework assigned to you.

I: A very tough place to be gay but not understand that you’re gay, I’d imagine.

VES: Yes. Of course I fell in love with a girl and then—you know, unrequited love—it builds character. I fell in love with my best friend.

I: But still thought you were straight?

VES: Definitely still thought I was straight. A very confusing time. Also, an extremely homophobic environment. The school worked hard to put any thoughts about your sexuality out of your head.

Photo credit: Jenna Maurice

I: So you’re in college, you’re 19 years old, you’re self-disciplined, and you decide to write your first novel?

VES: I think that's something you have to have as an author.

I: Self discipline?

VES: Yes—because so often all publishers do is give you a deadline. Say that deadline is eight months from now, it’s up to you how you’re going to spend those eight months.

I: I’d argue some of us are better at it than others—but that you are exceedingly good at it.

VES: Militant. But yeah, I attempt to write this novel—a short one, obviously—and I discover that I am able to take my voice from poetry and put it into my fiction. Which makes my writing strange enough that it got a little attention.

I: How so?

VES: I stood out in the slush pile—I actually got my first agent when I was 19.

I: You haven’t even found your final major yet!

VES: But I had an agent. It was weird.

I: How did you even know where to send your work?

VES: I had no idea what I was doing, but I did research. This was back in the olden days—the internet existed, but it wasn’t very helpful for this sort of thing quite yet.

I got my hands on this giant book of publishers and agents—

I: When is this? Early 2000s?

VES: 2006. So through the book I discover Nathan Bransford, who I then do look up online. Bransford would host contests on his blog, and you could submit—some of them were for an opening chapter, others were for dialogue. My dialogue was super quirky, because I was super quirky. So I submit with 12 hours left in this month-long contest and I get one of the top three spots.

I: Was there an award?

VES: The reward was that Nathan would consider representing you. So he would ask for your query letter and your pitch—so I rushed to put all that together.

But I also sent the work out to a few other agents as well—now that I knew there was interest.

I: Are you kidding me?

VES: What?

I: I—let’s just say I didn’t have this sort of drive at the age of 19.

VES: Well, at the time I was simply concerned with being agented—not agented by the right person.

I: Hey, you're 19 years old. Cut yourself some slack.

VES: Well, I got my agent.

I: Not Nathan Bransford?

VES: Not Nathan Bransford.

I: What’s next?

VES: I want to get a book deal. So the book goes on submission. It’s on submission for eight months, and it gets to acquisitions—which is the final step in the publishing journey—four times.

I: Holy smokes!

VES: But you know what else happens? It fails four times. Because it doesn’t actually have a plot, Isaac. Because I had never written a novel before.

I: You were 19! You didn't have the plot of your own life yet!

VES: I could make words pretty, which is why it got as far as it did. But—thankfully for me, in the long run—eventually someone would realize, “The writing is beautiful, but this book doesn’t have a plot. It’s just vibes.”

I: How would you describe what the book was about?

VES: It was Alice in Wonderland, but on more drugs. So that manuscript got me in the door, but it doesn't sell—which was devastating to me that year.

I: I know I sound like a broken record at this point, but you’re still only 19!

VES: 19 is when I learn a very important lesson in my life: If things are going well, you're going to need to write another book—and if things are not going well, you're going to need to write another book.

I: Jesus. How’s your fear complex doing at this point?

VES: Oh, it’s kicking in. Now I’m afraid that I’m a fluke. I tried to write a book. It didn't sell. I'm either going to be a fluke or I'm going to do it again.

Now by this point, I'm a senior—

I: Thank Christ.

VES: So I decide I have to take this seriously. I'm a second semester senior with a major and two minors and I'm trying to catch up.

I'm completely overworked and overwhelmed. I'm a Studio Art Major at this point—because I'm in Communication Design—and I start checking myself out of my studio space every night from nine to 11 pm. I walk across the street from campus to a coffee shop and put in two hours of work on the next book. Some nights I’d write 500 words, and some nights I’d write 2,500 words, but I was treating writing the next book like a job.

I: What was the next book?

VES: That book was called The Near Witch and it was very, very weird—it was only 160 pages or so, I still wasn’t getting a whole lot of guidance—but that book went on submission the week that I graduated.

I: So not only do you graduate after exploring six majors in four years—and graduate on time—but you also sent your second book out on submission?

VES: Correct. My parents basically said, “You can have the summer. You're going to have to figure your shit out on September 1st.” But September 1st comes around and my book hasn't sold.

Whoopsie.

I: So, what happens next?

VES: It sells on September 2nd.

I: God damn it!

VES: I had started looking into grad schools at that point, but the book sold.

But remember, it did not sell for a lot of money.

I: Right.

VES: It is not a life-changing amount of money. My whole life does not change.

But I do.

I: How old were you?

VES: I had just turned 22.

I: So your life begins.

VES: My life begins—and then, shockingly, everything goes off the rails.

I: How so?

VES: Well, for starters, I’m told to rewrite the book from scratch. I receive a 23 page—single-spaced—editorial letter.

I: Yikes!

VES: So every time there was a tiny bit of validation for my writing, there was also this massive caveat. It felt like publishing was saying, over and over again, “You’re good, but not that good, ok?”

My feeling at the time was, “Why did you even pick me? If you’re going to edit me this much—why did you even buy my book? Did you even like it?”

But they obviously saw something, and I’m really grateful for that. So I set out to do the rewrites they wanted, and also I began writing the next book.

I: Where are you living at this point?

VES: Great question. Ok, so I sold The Near Witch in 2009, but it didn’t come out until 2011. I was living in the Liverpool garden shed for a little while—around this time is when I get the idea for The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, but that will take another ten years to publish.

I begin working on book two, The Archived—

I: Before The Near Witch hits shelves? That fear engine never turns off, huh?

VES: Then I moved back to Nashville, because I had no money. I learned that lesson that every author learns—

I: That your payment is broken up and paid out over months—or years—not in one lump sum?

VES: That’s the one! But around the time my second book comes out in 2013, I decide to move to New York City.

It was the worst.

I: Really?

VES: Like I said, none of this was a life-changing amount of money, but in my 20s?

I: You’re thinking, “This money’s gonna last forever!”

VES: Correct. I basically did that miserable thing so many creative people think they need to do, which is be close to their industry in order to succeed.

I was so, so, so broke.

I: Writing often doesn’t make a lot of money, yet the heart of our industry is in the most expensive city on the planet.

VES: I had nothing. I lived in a closet. I couldn't afford to do anything fun. I couldn't afford groceries. When I finally tapped out, it was because I was so determined not to go into debt—I had four dollars in the bank when I left New York City.

Something I realized in hindsight is, I came here to be around other authors—but there was no one single place that all the authors were hanging out. There was no singular bar that all of publishing showed up at every night.

I: But when you’re young, you think it’s going to be like it is in the movies—or Sex and the City.

VES: I would argue, the closer you are to publishing, the less it values you.

I: Oh wow.

VES: You don’t want to be available on the time, it turns out. They get excited when you visit—they aren’t as excited if you’re always around.

I: “I thought I was getting points for saying ‘yes’ to doing all those events—”

VES: But your value was actually going down. So I moved back to Nashville.

Again.

I: Let me get this straight. California, Nashville, California, Nashville, college in St. Louis, Nashville, Liverpool garden shed, Nashville, New York, Nashville. A master’s program in Edinburgh somewhere in there. Is that right?

VES: Close enough. But this time I land in Nashville and I'm there for about a decade—with a one year break to get the aforementioned master’s.

I: So that’s the Where You’re Living Map,™️ as it were. But how about the publishing map? Because you were saying everything was going off the rails—

VES: Ok, so I write and publish my second book, The Archived, and it performs. Then I write the second book in the Archived Series, and it performs a little bit less—

I: To be expected, the second book in a series usually performs less.

VES: Well, my publisher at the time didn’t see it that way. They cancelled the series only two books in and tell me it’s my fault.

I: Whoa.

VES: It couldn’t be their fault, so it must be my fault.

So I make a public declaration online that the series is no longer moving forward, and I then have to make a public apology to the publisher for making that first statement insinuating that they are no longer invested in my work, even though—

I: They just cancelled your series, so they aren’t invested in your work.

VES: I’m 25 years old and being told that I failed by my own publisher so, yeah, things aren’t going well. I am three books into my career and I am so scared of not being able to write for a living anymore.

I: Again, that fear of failure.

VES: So I start doing work for hire to bridge the gap.

I: Like freelancing or—

VES: Work for hire is essentially when a publisher brings you a concept and they say, “We have a space on our list that really needs to be filled.” It's often for children's books.

So I start doing work for hire to bridge the gap—and there's a lot of shame among writers for doing work for hire—but I was so lucky that Scholastic offered me the opportunity to audition for one of those roles. I will never ever tolerate writers being shitty about work for hire, because it's the only thing that kept me alive in the industry.

I: Amen.

So I publish the Everyday Angel series for Scholastic—but because I'm so bitter about what happened with my first publisher, I decide I'm gonna leave publishing.

I: Time to get back into astrophysics, or try out for the World Cup soccer team.

VES: What happens next is, I write one more book out of spite. A sort of “Screw you!” sendoff to publishing.

I: And that book is?

VES: Vicious, published by Tor Books.

I: Hot damn!

VES: Remember, that first publisher had told me that I wasn’t marketable, that I wasn’t loud enough, that I wasn’t bold enough. That my books were unsellable. So I said, “Fuck you,” and I wrote my super villain book.

I: Was this after the Everyday Angel series?

VES: This was during. I reached out to my—I had a new agent at this point, Holly Root, who is still my agent and I adore her. So I wrote Holly, “I have a book,” and she says, “When did you write this book?” To which I respond, “It was a secret. Don't worry about it. I’ve been writing it for the past two and a half years.”

So Holly has her worries—

I: What are her concerns?

VES: That the market is never going to accept a super villain book that has no basis in Marvel or DC.

But I push, because this is my swan song, right?

I: So are you planning on doing work for hire from here on out or—

VES: No. I was dead. I was 25 and I was burnt out and I had—what to me, felt like failures. After this I was planning on peacing out from publishing altogether.

So I send Vicious to Holly and she’s unsure if we can even sell it, but I’m telling her we have to, because I have nothing else.

I: At the same time you’re getting the work for hire gig from Scholastic?

VES: Exactly. This is all in the same month, or maybe even the same week. Scholastic gives me 10K per book for three books—the Everyday Angel series—just enough to get by on, and then Vicious sells to Tor for 10K.

Tor tells us flat out, “We don’t really think this is going to sell, but we like what you’re doing and we want to see what happens next, so we’ll buy this.” Also, for Vicious I decide to publish under V. E. Schwab instead of Victoria.

I: So what happens?

VES: Vicious is never a bestseller—but it sells well.

I: How well?

VES: Vicious has sold the same number of copies every six months for 10 years.

I: Oh wow. What a blessing. That’s amazing.

VES: Vicious has now sold somewhere around half a million copies.

I: Jesus. So this isn’t so much the fear engine this time as it is—

VES: Spite. This time I am fueled by spite. True of the Everyday Angel series, too— which turns around and sells a million copies in Scholastic book clubs and fairs.

All of a sudden the lights are back on in my house. All of a sudden I can stay in this industry a little bit longer. Vicious is doing well enough that Tor says, “We’ll buy some more books from you. What else do you want to write?”

I: So what’s your answer?

VES: A Darker Shade of Magic.

I: I’m running out of ways to say, “God damn.” How old are you at this point?

VES: 27 years old.

I: You waste no time.

VES: Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is book 25, if you’re keeping track. A Darker Shade of Magic is book number eight—my three first books, then Vicious, and the three Everyday Angel books, then Darker Shade.

I: Got it.

VES: A Darker Shade of Magic is also not a bestseller. My ninth book, A Gathering of Shadows—Darker Shade’s sequel—is my first bestseller.

I: Ninth book—out of 25—first bestseller.

VES: Right, and when I say “bestseller,” I mean it was on the The New York Times Best Seller list for one week, and then it was gone. One week.

I: Same with Dirtbag. One week and then it was outta there!

VES: Still counts.

I: Still counts. Not to skip ahead, but how long was The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue on The New York Times Best Seller list?

VES: Addie LaRue, which is my 20th book, I think was on there for 47 weeks.

I: Not too shabby.

VES: Around that time I wrote about—what I called “the slow pursuit of overnight success.”

It happens so often, right? “Wow! So and so came out of nowhere! An overnight success! What a sensation.” Which is of course great coverage to get—but it usually ignores the ten or so years of toil that went into making that “overnight success” happen.

It has not been a smooth road.

Photo credit: Jenna Maurice

I: You’ve written 25 books. I’m sure your writing process has changed over the years, but can you tell us a little bit about your current process?

VES: My creative neuroses around structural planning have really codified in the last four or five books, and now my process is pretty solid. Will it work for me five books from now? Who knows, but it’s working for me right now.

First off, I am not a fast writer—

I: Really? Because 25 books—

VES: I am a consistent writer.

I spend a year making a book. For the first three to four months, I’m outlining. I’m not writing a single word thinking, “This will be in the book.” I’m building the scaffolding of the house that I will then decorate with my words throughout the rest of the year.

I: Do you have a daily word count?

VES: Not one that I keep in mind, but when I’m writing it's anywhere between 500 to two or three thousand words a day.

I: Do you have any mentors—or did you, earlier in your career? Are you part of a writing group?

VES: I didn't really have, say, a critique circle or anything like that. I've always been a little bit of a loner. The best education I've ever given myself was about 10 years ago—when I decided to read at least one hundred books a year.

I: You mentioned that earlier.

VES: It’s the best education you can ask for. It’s a study.

In my mind, we all have an internal story demon that lives behind our ribs, and we have to feed it. We feed it television, we feed it films, we feed it books, we feed it comics—and the more we feed that internal demon, the more it understands intuitively what makes things work.

For example, I’ll often watch a movie twice. The first time I watch it is just for fun, but the second time I'll look at the scenes that I love—or the scenes that I don't—and I'll start looking at how many beats they have. I'll start examining what it is about a particular scene that is really working for me, or isn’t really working for me. I start analyzing. I assess everything that I consume, basically. Especially if I like it.

Then, when I go to sit down with my own work, I have a better internal sense of what is and isn’t working. Which scenes need more beats, and which scenes need fewer beats. I might have a breakthrough on how to fix a narrative flow issue I’ve been having.

Some people love a three act structure, or a nine beat grid. If that works for you, great. But it doesn’t help me, because it's prescriptive. I really believe storytelling—in any and all its forms—should be organic. I like when a story is surprising, not prescriptive.

I: More free-form. Less paint by numbers. Would you say the harder a story—be it movie or show or novel—is for you to take apart, the more you enjoy it?

VES: Bingo. Also, when I say I read a hundred books a year, I don't mean a hundred fantasy novels. I mean I read memoir, poetry, nonfiction, fantasy, sci-fi, children's books. For example, I loved your memoir, that’s why I asked you to be on my podcast.

I: Now would be a good time for me to thank you for reading Dirtbag.

VES: I believe in creative cross-pollination. I believe that's how we learn.

I: Do you find that helps with your world building?

VES: Of course. When it comes to world building, I think there are two kinds of world builders—let me take a moment to apologize that, after all that, now I’m making prescriptive statements—

I: We’ll forgive you.

VES: But I think there are two kinds of world builders. There are the Tolkiens, who decorate the whole house.

The Tolkiens say, “Here's a house. I'm going to give you the keys to the house. You can go into every single room. You can explore every square foot of this house. You can pick up objects and look at the art hanging on the walls and examine the wallpaper. If you don't see it in this house, it doesn't exist in the house.”

I: “Also the tables will have little, intricate designs. I've invented 20 languages for this house.”

VES: Right. “I've done it all. There's nothing left to your imagination. You're just here to inhabit the space I've built for you. Walk around. Enjoy it.”

Then there are the world builders who—

I: This is more your style, I take it?

VES: Yes. I like to take the house, decorate one room in the house with exquisite detail—then never even let you in the house.

I: What?

VES: You can stand outside the window of that room I’ve decorated and peer in—and from what you see in that one room, you need to infer what the rest of the house looks like for yourself. The reason I do that is, it creates space for the reader's own imagination to expand.

Another analogy would be to think of a painting where the center of the painting is completely realized and the edges are going to sketch.

I: The reader can fill in the rest of the painting on their own?

VES: I'm encouraging the reader to believe that the rest of the house is modeled the way this section is—I just don't bother filling in all those other rooms. If the characters never go in those other rooms, I'm not designing the other rooms. I try to make sure that world building is always tethered to plot and to character.

I world build through the clothes that my characters are wearing, through the things that they're engaging within their world—through the minutia. You should be able to infer the larger landscape on your own.

I: Your world building is very much character-focused?

VES: I think that characters need to feel as if they’ve grown out of the very soil they’re standing on. We are all—every single one of us—such a product of everything that’s happened to us. We’re a product of where we’ve lived, what we’ve seen, and how we’ve existed. So when characters don’t feel grown in the soil of their world, I start to disconnect from them. Because I feel they could be anywhere.

For example, if I'm playing a video game and I could pick the character up and move it to a completely different video game or landscape—and that character remains the same? That doesn't work for me.

I: It feels shoehorned in.

VES: Exactly, while at the same time feeling a little clichéd.

Photo credit: Jenna Maurice

I: Do you write differently—or approach your writing differently—when you’re writing for children versus adults?

VES: In a way, but really it's just writing for a different age of myself.

I don't know what anyone else was like at 10 years old, or at 17 years old. But I know what I was like at 10 years old and 17 years old. So when I’m writing books for kids, I write for 10 year old me—the weird little shit that I was—and when I write YA novels I write for 17 year old me.

I: So you are the audience you're writing for?

VES: I don’t know what everybody else’s childhoods were like, so I can’t write for them. I only know what my childhood was like, which is weird.

There's a paradox in writing that I still struggle to wrap my head around, which is that the more specific you write, the more universal the writing feels. Whereas the more general you write, the less applicable it feels.

So I have to focus my lens very sharply. I learned that from Vicious. I learned that from writing a book for no one but myself—and that book being the broadest appeal of anything I’d ever written up until that point. Everyone saying to me, “I saw myself in this book,” this book that I wrote solely for me. Vicious is full of mirrors, but the mirrors were directed at me—or so I thought. Turns out the mirror is directed at the reader, too.

So I found that the more specifically I write, the more readers actually see themselves in my writing.

As for adult novels, I'm writing for a version of myself—whoever I am right now.

Our books are time capsules of who we are when we're writing them, not of who we are as people for the entirety of our lives.

I: How often do you publish?

VES: I publish one adult book every year to two, but then sometimes I have comics, or scripts for television or film—a lot of which doesn't actually make its way to the shelf for consumers, but it is stuff that I'm working on continuously.

I call it productive procrastination. I'm being productive by cheating on one project with this other project. I simply can't be doing nothing.

I: Why do you think that is? There’s the fear. There’s the spite. But like you just said, we’re always changing—as is our work. What’s the current fear?

VES: I think what I'm afraid of now is that it was so hard to get to where I am—and it feels like you’re on an incline. Like if you’re not moving forward, you're slipping back.

I: Sliding back down the mountain.

Do you think that’s part of why you choose to live in Scotland now? Because living in Scotland allows you to focus on the work?

VES: I’m my most productive when I'm in Scotland, but I'm also my most sane. I was talking with another writer recently, talking about how boring my life is. How ritualistic—how repetitive it can feel. But he said something that really stuck with me, which was, “I think the world has to get really small and boring so that the creative life can be really loud.”

I: Well said.

VES: That’s what it’s like I'm in Scotland—it's perfect.

I wake up every morning, I take my dog for a two mile walk along the ocean, then I come back and have my peanut butter and banana on toast, then we go to the coffee shop on my corner—where my dog gets a sausage and I get a pot of tea—and then I sit there for two hours and write. After that, I go on with my day. It’s this minutia that brings me a huge amount of joy.

I: It’s how you wrote your most recent book, Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil.

You just said a moment ago, “Our books are time capsules of who we are when we're writing them.” What do you think this book says about where you are now?

VES: Well, it’s nickname is the Toxic Lesbian Vampire book—so it’s a book about vampires. But really, it’s a book about hunger. It's specifically a book about taking up space in the world.

Addie LaRue was a book about immortality and hope, this is a book about immortality and anger. It's about specifically being a woman—or someone in a femme presenting body—and being told not to take up space. Especially being a queer woman and being told not to love a specific way or not to want a specific thing.

It's about three women who become increasingly unapologetic in their desire to have and to feel and to be free. I'm both really, really proud of it and really, really terrified of it.

I: Addie LaRue's angrier, older sister, I love that.

VES: I’d go even further and say Addie LaRue's angrier, older, feral sister.

A vampire book is a dream come true, because vampires have been such a cultural touchpoint over the course of my life—and over my childhood specifically. Obviously, I'm a huge fan of Anne Rice, but I often feel like I haven't seen the vampire story that represents me, yet. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is so much about coming into your body and coming into your identity and coming into your own desire and and realizing that, sometimes, it's ok to be angry.

I: We’ve touched on it throughout the interview, but when did you realize—or come to terms with—the fact that you’re queer.

VES: 27. I jokingly say—it's not a joke, though—but I grew up with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. So, the only lesbian or queer models that I saw were Tara and Willow, but I didn't feel like either of them, thus I thought I was straight. It's one of the reasons I made First Kill.

I: That’s the Netflix show based on your short story, right?

VES: Yes, which was in the 2020 anthology Vampires Never Get Old: Tales With Fresh Bite. But that lack of seeing myself reflected in the pop culture I grew up with, it's definitely one of the reasons that my books have gotten more overtly queer over the years. It's never about the plot—it’s because I came out so late, I need queer existence stories, not queer coming out stories.

Now, I'm really glad the queer coming out stories exist, obviously. But what I need is queer people who get to take up space in the narrative in ways that have nothing to do with their queerness, which is, at times, subtextual. But other times—like with Bury Our Bones—it's very textual. It's very much about being queer at different times in history and how the lack of societal comprehension also fuels our own lack of comprehension about ourselves.

I was in my 20s when I came out. It's still such a journey. You know what I mean? I’ve spent 30 plus years figuring out sexuality—not to mention gender. It’s all very much a continuum for me. It's all very much about exploration.

It took me a really long time to come out, because I didn't have models. I didn't have people. We were taught such binaries, which is why it's really important to see different versions of people—and I think the three women in Bury Our Bones are all very, very, very different lesbians.

Also, this is a book about queer women, but it's not only for queer women. It's a book about relationships and toxicity and falling in and out of love.

I: Like you said, taking up space.

VES: I think we're all always trying to figure out how much space we get to take up in the world, how much space our passions are allowed to take up, how much space we're allowed to want.

But yeah, it took me a really, really long time—and I think so much of it was I didn't see anyone that made me feel like me.

Had I had Villanelle in Killing Eve as a 13-year-old, we would not even be having this conversation.

I: You would have figured it out.

VES: Yes. Also, I did.

This book is very much about toxic women. For so long, queer characters didn't get to be toxic or they didn't get to be villainous. They didn't get to be messy—because then it was seen as a reductive equating between queerness and toxicity or queerness and villainy.

So this is also a declaration of getting to be at a point culturally where we get to play all the roles. We get to be bad—and it's not because we're queer.

I: Making sense of yourself through your fiction. Untangling yourself. Figuring new parts of yourself out. Like you said, capturing a time capsule of yourself in this current moment.

VES: Exactly. But it's scary as shit because I—unlike you—am not a memoirist. I like to hide behind the confines of my fantasy. I like to hide behind the illusion of speculative fiction.

So, to have something that is so overtly about my own identity, is terrifying.

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V. E. Schwab and I hug by a hotdog stand at the foot of the stairs we initially climbed a couple of hours earlier. We have walked the High Line from one end to the other, and then back again. I don’t know it yet, but I will do an event with Schwab at the Strand to help launch Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil (the event is June 18th). What I do know is that—no matter where or when—I can’t wait to talk to her again.

Another thing I don’t know is that this conversation—especially the discussion about outlining as a way of hacking one’s brain to get a project moving—will help me get a draft of my next book down on paper in the following months.

Sometimes an afternoon walk—filled with discussion and curiosity—can reinvigorate you in ways you didn’t even understand you needed.

But all that would come later. For now Schwab and I grasp each other, and then go in for another hug. I wave as I watch her walk off into the gorgeous late afternoon sunlight that is filling New York City.

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