V.E. Schwab (Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil) feat. Melissa Febos, Guest Gay Reader

Episode Transcript
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(00:04):
Gaze reading where the greatsdrop by trendy authors.
Tell us all the who, what andwhy.
Anyone can listen Comes we arespoiler free.
Reading from stars to book clubpicks we're the curious minds
can get their picks.
Say you're not gay.

(00:24):
Well that's okay there somethingeveryone.
Hello and welcome to Gay'sReading.
I'm your host, Jason Blitman,and on today's episode we've got
VE Schwab talking to me abouther new book, Bury Our Bones in

(00:44):
the Midnight Soil.
And my guest gay reader isMelissa Febos, who tells me
about what she's been readingand talks about her new memoir,
the Dry Season.
Both books are out now and bothof their bios can be found.
In the show notes, hugeannouncement over here on Gays
Reading.
I am so excited to be partneringwith Allstora to launch the Gays

(01:05):
Reading Book Club, which youcould join today for$1.
The link is in the show notes.
The first book, the July pick isDisappoint Me by Nicola Dine,
last week's guest, gay reader.
I will be choosing exclusivelyLGBTQIA plus authors and.
Books that I call accessiblyLiterary.
You do not wanna miss out.

(01:27):
Check out the link in the bio.
Join the club today.
For a Dollar I store donates abook to lgbtq plus youth for
every book club subscription,uh, that starts so you can
support these.
Incredible queer authors supportyoung people.
It is a win-win and the booksare gonna be so good, I promise.
Make sure to follow us over onInstagram at Gays Reading.

(01:50):
We have some fun giveawayscoming up, that will happen over
on the Instagram.
You could find us on YouTube andSubstack and Blue Sky as well,
the links to all of the thingscan be found both in the show
notes and the link tree.
Over on Instagram we have gay'sreading merchandise, if you
haven't seen gay readers,sweatshirts, and A is for ally

(02:11):
t-shirts and a lot of fun.
Stuff you could check that out.
And if you are looking for waysto be an ally, this pride, you
can like and subscribe to Gay'sreading wherever you get your
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This way you'll be the first toknow when an episode drops, but
also help let the powers that beknow that you enjoy the podcast
and if you're so inclined toleave a five star review, that

(02:33):
is certainly appreciated aswell.
I had a guest on recently whosaid they're a regular listener,
and that I ask all the time toleave a review, and they mention
that they haven't left a reviewyet.
So this is your sign Former.
guest slash listener and to allof you, it is so much
appreciated and really goes along way, shockingly.

(02:55):
anyway, without further ado,please enjoy my conversations
with VE Schwab and MelissaFebos.

Jason Blitman (03:02):
What I'm most obsessed with is that your
sweatshirt says, don't, and for.

V.E. Schwab (03:07):
it says.

I actually, I was hoping that's all it said, but I
was like, it could literally sayanything underneath.
It could say, don't bother me.
It could say, don't talk to me.
It could say don't move.
It could say Don't.

my friends gave this to me because I'm so bad at
saying no.
And I guess they just wanted tohelp me.
But the problem is I forget thatit's such an aggressive verbiage
and then I'm out

Don't.

my dog and people are like, and I'm like, why are
people glaring at me?
I don't know.
What about me gives off thisstandoffish thing and it's just,
I just have this emblazonedacross

Right.
Oh yeah, it's my aggressivesweatshirt.
I

going out in public attire these days where I'm
like,

Listen.
Listen, if you don't havesomething intelligent to say,
leave me alone.

a generalized, don't like, it's a general,
don't.
Anyway,

my God.

for being slightly and just like crashing out in
real time this month

That's okay.
Also it's the end of your day.
It's the beginning of mine.
'cause I'm on the west coast, sowe're like literally

are.
I'm like, I'm

on our different journeys.

Wherein

I know.

at the date in the corner to know what day of the
week it was.
Wherein Monday is reaching anend where I am

Was it okay?
Do I have things to look forwardto?

not really

Okay.

not really, but it could be worse, to be honest,
your future is a lot morefrightening for the day than my
future, which involves likemaking a dinner.

Yeah.
Yeah.
You're also in a differentcountry.

it just could go so sideways.

I know.

Yeah.
No.

What?
Why are you, what the hell?
You know what, I think theexterminator is here and

god.

I'm pretty sure she's we have an intruder her.

my, my dog, who is in the other room right now.
If anything happens in thisbuilding, rest assured I will
hear.
I will hear about it.
I will hear

I always know when a package gets delivered.

Yeah.
The demons that live in my housewho pay no rent and do nothing
to contribute to society in anyway.
Constant interruptions.
Constant.
So

literal ones and the metaphorical ones.
Oh my God.
I take medication for mine

I take medication and also my dog is on as much
medication as I am, which I willnever fail.
I got that dog as an emotionalsupport animal.
Never has there been a worselike this.
I am the emotional support humanto this dog who hates my guts.
I once tried to see what wouldhappen, to see if she would save
me duress, and I like wiped outon my living room floor

(05:39):
unintentionally.
But I stayed down to see whatshe would do.
She's 70 pounds, right?
She stood up, walked around mybody, walked to the doorway,
looked back over her shoulder tomake sure nothing had changed
and then left.

Perfect.
Perfect.

on that dog.
Really love her.

Listen, you're breathing.
Her work here is done.

Tim, let's be honest, that dog came from the
woods of Transylvania when shewas four months old and has
never forgiven anyone for it.

That literally sounds fake.

I know.
She's just on brand.
What can I say?

I'm obsessed.
I'm so happy to meet you.

Meet you too.
I feel like, I guess at somepoint we should talk about
books, but we could also justvibe with book

I talk about all the things I vibe.
Honestly.
I'm like, the last thing I sawin my inbox prior to hopping on
this video chat was thePublisher's Weekly email that
included your starred review.

I was so happy.

Congrats.

a time when it feels like the gays are winning
very often, so every single nicething that happens for this
book, I'm just

Yes.
Star for the.

just wanna

I want a star.
Gimme someone.
Gimme a star.
You're my star

for being, for surviving.

literally living, right?
We're here.
You get a star.
I feel like authors in general,it's like your book finna has a
beginning, middle, and an end.
You get a star

honestly, and I'm so bad at celebrating anything
too.
Like I said, I finished a bookon Friday and and it's if I
don't celebrate immediately, Ifeel like, oh I'm not really
entitled to that celebrationanymore.
The time has passed.
We must have a new thing.
And and I really just wannastart figuring out a gold star
system.
'cause I was absolutely that kidin school who like appreciated
stickers.

arrived on the stickers.

think I need stickers.

I know.
You know what?
That's not the worst idea.
I heard you talking about yourlike color coded square system,

My mood board, this is the most depressing thing
I've ever done.
I actually had to stop itimmediately because as soon as
it told me how badly my brainwas lying, like I was like, oh
my God.
I'm being gaslit by my ownpersonality, like I am being
gaslit because it turns out ifmy brain doesn't have anything
to hate me for, it will justmake something up.
In which for the listenerswatchers, is that I realized

(07:58):
that after a couple hours hadpassed, my brain would start
reconning how well or how poorlymy writing session had went.
And by the end of the day, itwould be convinced that I had a
terrible writing day.
And then I like started, justdid a, I did a week long test.
This is how you could tell I'm agold star kid because I have a
habit tracker.

And it's literally right there.
It is at the ready.

Look at this bullshit.
Look at this bullshit.
It was green the whole

It's beautiful though.

if you had asked me at the end of the day, I
would've put it there

I know.
I know.

the immediate aftermath

I.

I can trust nothing.
I trust nothing.
That was the moral of thatstory.

I know it's true.
Listen I would thrive on thesame thing and I am like a
professional procrastinator.
And I think I need like alittle, like something to give
me the star.

I need to figure out a reward system.
'cause I'll turn a reward into apre-war very quickly.
I'm like, oh, this bar ofchocolates for after I write
this chapter.
If I have half an hour, I'm justpre rewarding

Right.
and it'll like it'll energizeyou.

Sure.
It, yeah.
It totally doesn't work that way

No, it doesn't.

Yeah.

I am, I'm obsessed with your end of Monday
Madness going on.

Coming out in two months.
I don't know what to do withmyself.
It's the bad window too, where Idon't think readers realize
there's this like horrible, nota lull.
'cause I know that everything'sgoing but like it's a
powerlessness that

yeah.

Nothing I can do and I'm not good at just being
like, universe, take the wheelhere.
I'm like white knuckling controlin a world with a very little of
it.

And you also finished your book already, so
it's not like you're even,preoccupying yourself with that.

I was like, this is great.
I'm gonna finish writing thisnovel at the end of May.
Having have one week.
There's not gonna be any time topanic and bitch that I am, had
to finish it like seven weeksearly.

Girl.
You are an overachiever.

Now I have, I mean I have five other books I need
to write, okay.
But the point is, I was in thatone.
I was And now I have nothing toprotect me from my own
psychosis.

that's, I'm here for you.
We could talk for the next twomonths,

should be therapy because my therapist literally
got the flu last week and had togo our session and I was like,
Tom, I

but that is.
So funny you say that because mylast therapy session was two
weeks ago and my therapist waslike, I'm on vacation and I'm
doing this and I'm doing this,so I can't talk to you for a
month.
And I was like, I'm sorry.
What

or ma'am, or they, I don't know, but sir, it's, it
is unacceptable.
My therapist is going away inthe month of May, and I was like
but we're like still gonna meetthen.
Like, how is

You're like, you know I have a book coming out.

What do you, what am I

This is prime time.
This is what I pay for.

Exactly.
I don't think therapists shouldbe allowed to have lives.
I think it

Oh my God.

a 24 7 thing.

That's what this, again, I'm here for you.
This is a safe space

just gonna turn this into a therapy session.
It's fine.

and the things that, my list of things to talk
you about is long and a lot ofit is probably therapy related.

Like talked to my editor right before this and she
was trying to gimme a whole longmetaphor about'cause now my, my,
my brain turns it into, now Iwon't have any new ideas.
I only have Ideas and my brainwon't be capable of making
anything new ever.
And I had to sit through a wholemetaphor about like gardens and
rocks and how you have to getthe rid of the rocks so that the
garden, I don't know, I don'tbelieve it, but I've already

And of course, like a therapist would say to
you, you've had the ideas beforeyou're gonna have them again.
But when you're like, but no, Iwon't.
What if I don't?

That's the thing, you can't actually turn logic
against me in that momentbecause just because something
has happened repeatedly in thepast doesn't mean it's part of
my future.

No, because my luck, that's when it stops.

And also who's to say maybe there is a limit on
what we are allowed and whatwe're our Of.
And I'm just aging out of mineat this point.

I know.
We're the same age too.

Ugh.
I feel like I'm in my Crohn eraand I ex, I embrace it in so
many ways.
And then I just have this Ithink it's what happens when
you're like a precocious youthwherein I went from being like a
prodigy to an adult that wasjust good at my job.

I,

It's bad.

when I tell you that resonates, I always hated
telling someone how old I wasbecause I was always younger
than they thought, and now I'mlike, oh, I just turned 37.
And they're like, oh.
I'm like, I'm sorry.

that's the wrong answer.

I know.

me.

I was like, wait, what happened to, oh my God,
you're so young.

No, I interviewed an author on my Craft podcast
last

Uh,

Bless her.
And she said something, she waslike, you know when I was like
nine, like TikTok didn't evenexist and I was like, babes,
when you were nine is when mydebut novel came out.

oh my God.

Math.
I

Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
That's overwhelming.

we can begin.

I've had your book for so long, I don't even
have a, the proper cover.
It is like very advanced reader.
And can you see all the tabs?

that

I, they're just randomly placed.

Yeah.
No, it's just for aesthetics.

for effect.

Yeah.
But the vibes are good.
I like it.
They're well spaced.

you.
Thank you.
This is book 25 Congrats.

you.

And something so that I think maybe you won't
find interesting, but in thecontext of how I know you've
spoken about your books before,this was my first V Schwab.

This thrills me, this delights me.
And it's really interesting.
Yeah, so it's book 25.
I think in some ways it's like,I know in some ways the tired

Should we unpack that side for a minute?

right?
In some ways it's like areckoning of the previous 24,
but not of

Yeah.

because I'm so proud of every single thing I've
written.
But of my relationship topublishing over those

Hmm.

24, I started I signed with my first agent when
I was 19.
wrote what would become my debutnovel when I was 21.
I have done this 24 times sincenow.
This is my first lesbian book.
I am a lesbian, so it's prettyweird.
But the thing is can track myrelationship to gender and
sexuality across my books Outwhen I was 27 I was already

(14:19):
getting published when I was 22.

Mm-hmm.

So there's like, you can like literally watch my
relationship to the concept ofotherness and search for
vocabulary and search foridentity.
And even then, once I had foundthat language, you can watch my
persistent attempt to stillassimilate into mainstream
publishing and to make it likeless or make it more palatable,
oh, don't pay attention to thefact that I'm a fem presenting

(14:42):
author.
I'll write with my, likeinitials and, oh, don't worry
about the fact I have gaycharacters.
It'll be mostly subtext.
You won't even notice.

Yeah.

I spent years trying to do that because I was
told early on I would never becommercially successful because
my books were already superweird and super dark and quiet
and not uber commercial.
And so I wanted so badly toprove them wrong.
And at the time thought the onlyway to be commercially
successful was to find a way toassimilate into what was already
commercially successful.

Right.

then Addie LaRue, which was my 20th book came out
during the pandemic and just itdid not make my career.
That's one of the weird things,is I was already a New York
Times bestselling author manytimes over, but

No big deal.

grew with An exponential force.
Like it added a zero to the endof my audience

Yeah I,

and I thought.
If I don't transmute success ofthat novel into some form
liberation for myselfcreatively, like I can't keep
doing this.
I'm so tired.
And so that's like where Barryour Bones was born was just
like, I'm gonna take the massivesuccess of Addie LaRue and I'm

(15:54):
gonna force the publisher toeverything behind this next
book.
And Gonna do that, I didn'tactually didn't have to force
them.
Tour was, tour has been anincredible

totally.
Totally.
But even if that's what youneeded to tell yourself.

yeah.
But I was like, this is mypermission.

Yeah.

of authors take immense success and it makes
them frightened I must onlyproduce this thing now,

Replicate it.
Yeah.

like, I can't, it's not in my personality to
transmute that into safety.
So I was like, if I can'ttransmute Addie's success into
support.
And honest version of myself.
Then what am I doing?

Yeah.

What's the point here?
I'm so

And honestly, the best Good Reads Review of Barry
Our Bones is yours.
I,

Yeah.
It's

because but that's what I find.
It's for listeners who haven'tlooked, you basically say
something about, you neverthought you'd put more of
yourself in a book after Addie,and yet here you are.
This is like every fiber of yourbeing.
So it's so interesting circlingback to me saying, this is my
first book of yours.
I like, I feel like I'm gettingyou fully formed and.

(17:02):
And so I was like, oh, I'mmeeting you at your truest.

it's so interesting 'cause the one thing I haven't
thought about is barrier bonesas an entry point in so many
ways, it feels Darker shade ofmagic or vicious or Addie will
always be like the primary doorsthrough which people find me.
But to that point, I'm soexcited and hopeful that I'm
able to broaden my audience evenmore so that bones is an entry
point.
Because I don't think my career,the thing I will say it for

(17:28):
myself is I don't think mycareer is one where if you go
from bones into my backlist,you'll be disappointed.
Because I think the authenticitywas always there.
I was just trying to find waysto shape it differently.
Whereas this, and I'm not sure Iever want to do this again.
This was.
This exists as a one time only,

Right.

And they, and thems I just was like, we're gonna do
this.

Yeah.

scare the shit out of me.
And it did.
And it was so cathartic and soliberating.
But I'm really curious now forreaders who find this first to
then go back to Shades of Magicor to go to Addie, or to

Yeah,

and

so it's really funny.
So during C-V-I-D-I was on abook crawl and wearing masks,
this woman was talking to herfriend that she was with,
pointing at Avy LaRue, talkingabout how it's a book that
everyone in her life has saidshe needs to read, but she
hasn't read it yet.
I overheard her saying that andI said, that's so funny.

(18:28):
Me too.
But I, when you do somethinglike a podcast like this, if a
book is on the shelf already,it's like you don't have time to
read it.

Yeah.

The amount of backlist that is just like
screaming at me to read and thatconnection.
I became a part of this woman'sbook club.
I met so many new friends in thecommunity because of that.
So it's so fascinating that likebonding over other people
saying, you need to read thisbook was a huge component for
me.
No, it's amazing.
And I, wanted to read it beforeI read this, but I was like, you

(19:01):
know what, no.
I want this book to be my first.
So it was very calculated on mypart.
Yeah.

you go back and read Addie.
'cause

Oh, it is on my shelf.
It is ready to go.

I'm, same way, but weirdly, I'm even more ornery,
which is, I only read two kindsof things.
It feels like books that are notout yet

Right,

that have been out for 35 years.
Like, don't tell me what toread.
I'm gonna read what I want.
And it's apparently StephenKing's the stand.
Like

right.

know, I just am like a very orderly reader.
I end up, I usually, ifsomething's a new release and I
haven't read it, it takes mefive to six years.

Yes.
Okay.
We are the same.
I don't know how much you wantto talk about your elevator
pitch of the book.
I know things are like veryelusive.
Even the back of this galley,it's like not much.
So all I knew about it goinginto it was toxic lesbian
vampires.

a headline.

So that's all we wanna say.
I'm, that's, I'm more thanhappy.
But if you have a little, if youhave a little pitch, I'm happy
to hear it.

I do.
And that's the thing I, thereason that the copy on the back
of the book is a little obscure,is intentional because think
that this is a book thatbenefits sperm, you knowing less
going Just so that you can havean experience.
And it's so interesting, thispitch falls along two lines.
And it's whether or not you likevampires, because if you don't
like vampires, it's not really abook about vampires, guys, like

(20:18):
I say the word one time in

One time, I,

pages.

and it's towards the end of the book, I.

I know it

And to the point where I was like, I, it, that
meant something.
'cause I was like, oh my God,I've literally, this has not
been a word in this book.

intentional.
And that's because, look, I amfascinated by vampires.
I'm Forms of fantasy.
And we can get into that.
But I specifically am interestedin kind of the inherent
queerness of vampires and theways in which that's been used
to queer bait over time, butalso the ways in which we're
seeing it canonically in thingslike the new interview with the
Vampire TV show, Is just but I,so there's like a reason why it

(20:53):
needed to be vampires for me,specifically for these women,
because it comes down to a lotof predator prey and a lot of
being a victim in your body bythe inherent nature of your
body.
But its core, this is a storyabout hunger in all of the forms
that hunger takes.
And it's a story about vampires.
The way Addie LaRue is a storyabout the devil, which is to say

(21:14):
it's a conduit for anexploration of what you would do
with time.
And loneliness.
So if you're not a fan ofvampires or that you haven't
found the vampires that youwanna become a fan of yet, I
would say that this is a storyof three women over the course
of 500 years and the way theirlives deaths and lives
interlock.

Yeah.

about a girl who leads with her head, a girl who
leads with her heart, and a girlwho leads with her hunger.
It's also a revenge tale, but myfavorite pitch for it, if you
don't like vampires, is ateenage girl named Alice runs
away from her life to go tocollege in a foreign country,
wants to get out of her own headone night, and decides to be a
new version of herself that'snot anxious or afraid or

(21:56):
neurotic or any of these things.
Ends up having a fabulous onenight stand with a strange girl
that she meets at a party andwake up the next morning and the
girl is gone and she is dead.
What the hell happened to Alice?

I'm like chuckling'cause I'm just so
excited people to have the storyunfold.
There are so many things toaddress.
You brought up your name earlieron.
There is a moment in the bookand you have, you've talked
about your name.
On other podcasts and otherarticles.
It is a big topic ofconversation.

(22:31):
I, and yet there is a nugget inthis book where I was like, oh,
she is reclaiming Victoria

yeah.

and there is a character named Lottie in the
book, which why I'd never puttwo and two together, that
Lottie was short for Charlotte.
But there's Vicki.
Thank you.
But there's conversation about aname being like food.
It has a flavor, and Lottieversus Charlotte.

(23:03):
Charlotte has a flavor whereLottie is maybe Lottie.
My husband's name is Franklin,

Ooh,

and he does not go by anything other than
Franklin,

if you're Franklin, you go by Franklin.
That's

There's this very interesting, you talk about your
author persona versus your reallife person.
You talk about about, aboutgender.
There's a lot of reasons why VEis ve, but in this moment, I
feel like you're reclaimingVictoria.

It's always been, it's so weird, right?
Like on the one hand, like Itook 27 years to figure out
sexuality and gender is still athing I'm figuring out, right?

yeah, Yeah,

like I don't.
I'm constantly on the linebetween the masculine and the
feminine.
I originally chose VE because Iwas working against Fantasy
Publishing, and there's a reasonthat there's a long lineage of
and femme presenting peopleusing initials.
I got, I had, I would've fanscome up to me at events after

(24:01):
Shades of Magic and say, oh myGod, I'm so glad I didn't know
you were a woman.
I never would've picked this up.
Thank you for proving point.
And

Yeah.

over time, I actually really enjoyed having
VE on the books because there'sthis weird pair of social
dynamic wherein a fictionalversion of me lives in a
reader's mind as the author.
And it was really important formy own mental health to have a
slight separation

Yeah.

would talk about ve.
they wouldn't always say nicethings, right?
Because they conflate like thebook and the author or they
would say nice things, but I waslike, you don't know me.
This is And it was dissociating.
And so I realized that having aname that was a slight variation
gave me a tiny separationpsychically, but also like I
have never been anything butVictoria to the people in my

(24:49):
life.
Like my full name is VictoriaElizabeth, which is what that V
is.
And like

Yeah.

not a Vicki.
I am not a Tori.
I am not a Vic.
I sign off my emails V becauseit's seven letters shorter.
But it's a really it's sointeresting.
It's the one part of me I'venever found dysmorphic, like
even when the rest of my genderhas confused me.

Mm-hmm.

Always been Victoria and names have been a
common theme across all of mybooks.
And there's a reason that namesare a huge thing within the
L-G-B-T-Q community because likesometimes we fit with our name
and sometimes we don't and we

Yeah.

to.
Change and to decide, especiallyin adulthood, what we want to be
called.
And there's a reason that kindof every character in this book
has two names.

Yeah.

Whether it's a name and a nickname, or a name and a
second name, or Like names areintimate

Yeah.

projective, like they're how we engage externally
and internally, like with ourfamily and friends.
And then with society at large,

Yeah.
And you also.
You say you're Victoria 100%,period.
I, for the most part.
Am Jason.
I know.
Who calls me Jay.
I know who calls me Jace.
I know who calls me jb.
Like the, there are, there isyou have to earn that too.
Yeah,

very like.
Intricate permission structures.

yeah.

I think that, I think a lot about names, not
just as somebody who createsfictional characters, but as
somebody who then puts thosecharacters into the world and
kind of always wants theircharacters to feel like real
people navigating real time andspace.
I think

Yeah.

be something that I think about intensely sometimes.
I wish that I could like, almostwill such a problematic take.
I was gonna say like willinglycreate a multiple personalities
so that like I could willinglycompartmentalize myself and then
be able to put the neuroses thatgo with V Schwab away

Huh.

like the neuroses that go with Victoria away and
step into a version.
Like my friends will be like,why don't you take a vacation?
I was like.
I cannot take a vacation formyself, Jason what?
What am I gonna do here?

Yeah.

actually step out of this identity,

Yeah.

I'm not getting away from me.

No, Anne Patchett talks about being Anne Patchett
and being Anne Vandevender.
She's at home when she's AnneVandevender and she's Ann
Patchett when she's a publicpersona.
I think, there is a very commonelement there.
You talk about names and namesbeing important in the queer
community.
There is, you talk about thebook being about hunger.
For me, so much of the book wasabout time and.

(27:32):
And time in every sense of theword, but so much of it too
about time that we have and timeof us being who we are.
And the vampire component for mewas this metaphor of the
fraternity of queerness.

absolutely.
Great.
Take an amazing take.
And this thing, obviouslythere's multiple motifs.
There's multiple translations.
But at its core, and that's whyI say there's parts of this book
that are for me, and it's

Yeah.

other readers don't pick up on them, but this is the
one of those ones that I'mreally glad that you did.
Because for me, someone who cameout in their late twenties, and
it's not like I wasn't in thecloset for 13 years before that.
Like it took it like I was maybein the closet for two years,
right?

Hmm,

Of that, you know, when you come out in adulthood
instead of your childhood orteenage years, you have a grief
for the version of you that younever got to be.

hmm.

Of time thinking about like what my teenage years
could have been like, what myyoung adulthood could have been
like if I hadn't.
Been like so opaque to myself ifI hadn't, So many beautiful
firsts and I lost the ability tolive like a life I would've
really liked.
And I do everything I can tomake up for it now.
But like I get so sad when Ithink about 14 and 16 and

(28:52):
18-year-old.
Like it's the only thing thatmakes me emotional.
Nothing in this

Hmm.

Jason, except for this, but like think in a lot of
ways Alice and Charlotte andSabine represent the three like
almost eras of coming out.

Yeah.

is somebody who knows exactly who she is and is
completely unapologetic.
And Alice really represents meat like the beginning of my
coming out journey and all ofthat insecurity.
And she's not insecure aboutbeing gay, but she's just
insecure about being human

Yeah.
Yeah.

out and like living in authentic form.
And then Charlotte is the likeemotional InBetween where that
was my twenties, like trying tofigure it out.
For me, I think I was likeputting a lot of my grief and
processing about what I didn'tget to live.
And that's why the heart of thisbook it's about toxicity as,
that's the reason I jokinglycall it toxic lesbian vam

(29:46):
empires.
It's about the toxic romancethat can evolve you're so
intoxicated by somebody gettingto see who you are and your true
self for the Time.
That even if it's the wrongperson seeing you, the fact is
Maria finds herself with thewidow and it's the first person

(30:07):
who ever tells her there'sanother way to live.

Mm-hmm.

And then Charlotte finds herself with Sabine
telling her there's another wayto live.
And Alice sees in Charlotte andin Sabine another way to live.
And it's just that sense of youspend so long feeling like
you'll never get to be who youactually want to be.
And then someone comes into yourlife and says, I can show you

(30:30):
how.
And all of us have had that inthe queer community, have had
some mentor figure, even

Right?

out to not be good for us.
We are so emotionally entrenchedwith those initial figures who
That we could live an authenticself.

I literally had someone on a OL instant
messenger asked me like, do youlike boys?
And that was the first time Iever admitted to somebody else
that the answer was yes.

and it gives me chills because I.

That's what this book is about,

We don't always get it.
And the

right?

the re people, I put myself into all three women.
I am most Sabine, which feelsweird to say'cause she is the
like super villain at the heartof the story.
But the thing about Sabine isthat like she's the one who most
represents me because she's theone who genuinely didn't know

Yeah.
Yeah.

She just thought that she was doing it wrong.
She thought something like, sheobviously didn't care as much as
I cared because that's not partof Sabine's character, but like
she in a hetero presentingrelationship unwillingly.
But because society expects thisof her and she's miserable, Like
I spent my teens and twentiesbecause every time I wasn't

(31:44):
attracted to a guy who checkedall the boxes, who on paper
seemed like everything I shouldwant, I just assumed I was
broken.
Assumed and everyone would say,oh, you went to an all girls
school, like you just didn'thave the right exposure.
You must just, you just need totry harder.
You need to let your guard, oh,it's your anxiety, it's your
depression, something elsegetting in your way.
You are getting in your own way.

(32:06):
And it's like took somebody elsecoming into my life and being
like, what if you just don'tlike guys?
For me to Like, what do you meanI haven't been fucking up for 27
years?
So I think that this was themost cathartic thing I've ever
written, but it's also why it'sthe most frightening for me.

absolutely.
And thank you for sharing all ofthat.
I, it's my compulsion14-year-old Jason's compulsion
is to say it wasn't so great.

Yeah.

Like you talk about being jealous, you didn't
have that time.
And I'm thinking like, God, Iwish I didn't have that time.
So it's No, no, no.
Right.
There's no winning and it's,

I went to an all girls southern preparatory
school.

yeah.

and it's so funny 'cause you talked to me at 16.
I was madly in love with my bestfriend.
every single sign was there.

Right,

A homophobic environment that like, even if I
had been self-aware, I think itwould've been worse.
Instead, I just thought, oh,everyone's in love with their
best friend.

Hmm

just, That's just how it is.
I, my heart flutters when shehugs me, like when she touches
my hand, all these things,that's just called being a
teenager.
Right?

hmm.

Out and I would try and date boys and I would just,
I don't have siblings, but I canonly imagine that's like how it
felt kissing siblings where Ijust was like, oh, something's
genuinely just broken up inhere, just

Yeah.

So I think you're probably right in that there, at
that age, there probably is nowinning and

and frankly the, those who I know who did win at
that time, their life isn't socute now.

Great.
Those of us in our mid to latethirties are doing great.
But I also, it's reallyinteresting.
I felt an immense pressure themoment I

Mm hmm.

I, because I'm a public figure and

Yeah.
And you had been for years.

And I felt like if I can't be brave enough to be
honest, how would I ever expectlike one of my teenage readers
to feel Right?
Like where's my, like of coursethere's a danger to it, but I
don't live at home.
My parents are supportive.
It took some time, we worked onit, but they're supportive.
Have as much to lose.

Yeah.

and so if I can't live authentically and like
model that you can also besuccessful.
You can also be like happy maybeneurotic and stuff, but that's
just, that was gonna be me.
Whether I

That's inherent.

That was just, that was just part of the package.

Yeah.

But yeah, I I'm not sure it would've been easier

Yeah.

I just, I look at like the media and the lack of
it, and I think oh, if I hadmore examples than like Willow
and Tara, maybe it wouldn't havetaken me 27

Mm-hmm.

That's part of why I write what I write is like in
the hopes of some 18-year-oldsomewhere being like, oh shit.

Yeah.
I see me.
Yeah.
Ugh.
I just wanna hug littleVictoria.

Poor little Victoria had a real rough go.

Ugh.
So much of the book to me isabout freedom.

Yeah.

What does it mean?
For you to be free.
What does it mean for Victoria?
What does freedom mean?

Some of it is stuff I'll never have.
The fact is I was chatting withsomebody a couple days ago on a
different podcast about AliceAlice.
Murders men in this bookspecifically murders an
attempted rapist, and thenentraps a potential rapist.
And the fact is like, that'spretty harsh, right?
And not all men totally true,but there will not be a day that

(35:33):
I move out into the world andthem not frightened in some

Yeah.

fact of the body that I possess.
Like would be absolute freedom.
The fact In the book when Alicerealizes she's no longer the
thing to be afraid, but thething to be afraid of, I can't
think of anything better thanthat.
And so in a

Yeah.

weird way, like I want that, but in publishing,
'cause I spent more than adecade feeling like I was one
mistake or one.
Mediocre sales track away fromlosing everything.

Yeah.

part just because I started really young and I had
really toxic early relationshipswith my publishers and
publishing before I came totour.
And it was intimated to mecontinuously that if I failed,
it was my fault.
Of course, if I succeeded, itwas everyone else's

Right.

at 25, I almost quit because I, I got a series
canceled.
was told it was my fault.
I obviously didn't do enough tosell books.
God forbid the publisher hadanything to do with that.
And then after that, becausethat happened at such a, a
really important age and animportant time, it was like my
third book, right?

(36:45):
I carried that trauma forward tothe point where I am now like
one of the top selling fantasyauthors.
And at least twice a year, myeditor still has to be like, no
one is mad at you and you're notgonna lose.
It's gonna be okay because Ijust carry in me this fear that,
oh, the moment that you're tooqueer, the moment that you're

(37:06):
too f the moment that youaren't, your books aren't loud
enough or commercial enough orepic enough and the sales dip,
Those successes are the onlyreason that you're tolerated.
That's in part a lie and it's inpart experience.
And so I think freedom for me isa thing I have fought for very
hard to have in publishing,which is creative freedom.

Yeah.

I'll never have full bodily freedom in this
world.
It's a scary place to be queer.
It's a scary place to be femme.
It's a scary place to be.
A lot of things to be, I have ita lot better than many people.
I am aggressively white.
Look at me, I live in Scotland.
There's not an ounce of sunlightaround here.
But I think that the freedomthat I

Yeah.

That I hold most important to me at this point is
a creative freedom, and it's aThat I've gotten to have because
of readers, because theybelieved in me and they stuck
with me, and they followed mefrom book to book, and they grew
and they held space for me totry new things.
A lot of Feel like they're boundto one product, and the moment
you leave that product, say itwas a trilogy or a a massive

(38:10):
title, but because Addie Larouis my 20th, like millions of
readers were already there withme.

Yeah.

and they, because of that, the thing they have
intimated to me again and againthrough their voice online, but
also just through sales, is thatthey are giving me a creative
freedom to make and to trystrange things.
And the flip side of that dealfor me is that I will never not
swing for the fences.
Like you might love the book,you might hate the book, but I

(38:39):
will never phone in.
Anything that I do, I will trymy absolute hardest to tell.
Not a perfect story.
'cause a lesson I've learnedover time is that perfection
doesn't exist in a book.
Like the moment we

Yeah.
Or anywhere.

no, it doesn't exist.

Yeah.

in the arts.
But I will, I will create withpurpose That every single book
that goes onto shelves isachieving exactly what I wanted
it to.
And that to me is a creativefreedom.
It's a creative freedom.
I'm terrified of havingrescinded, it's a creative That
I presently have.

Amazing.
I love that.
Thank you for sharing all ofthat and in this world where
like things are so much aboutmoney and all we know for all we
know tomorrow, everyone iswaking up and saying, no one's
reading anymore.
We're not publishing booksanymore.
You know, It's like, oh God,okay well, what do we do now?

This is like one of the biggest books of the year.
And at the same time.
in the uk, my these tote bagsthat went out to all these indie
bookstores that you can get,say, toxic lesbian vampires.
And I

hmm.

That we couldn't do it in the States because it
would target harassment towardthe indie bookstores that
stalked them.
And

Wow.

And I know there are certain things that this
book won't get by simple virtueof the fact that sometimes
certain parts of the countrydecide, it's not gonna be a
certain book club picks Becauseit's unapologetic.
But it was also so important tome to write something
unapologetic that if it means itdoesn't get certain things, then
it just means that the championschampion a little harder.

Yeah.
Yeah.
I love that.
Completely changing gears to Maymaybe more fun.
I was gonna say funner things.
We could s

like twice on this and I'm not an emotional person,
so what the fuck?
But like

laugh, we cry.
This is gay's reading Victoria,come on.

a Monday.
Also, I'm gonna be very honestwith you, I've had so few
opportunities to be on gay andqueer media, Means so much to me
because I think for a long timeI tried to assimilate so hard
that a lot of people didn't evenrealize that I was part of the
queer community.
And like, I don't think Irealized like,

No, I.

I don't think I realized how badly I like really
wanted to have conversationslike with my own community.

Yeah, I um, I, no, this is it.

do you want my cats like cleaning his ass behind,
which I just feel like is themost

Oh my God.
This is, I told you that one ofthe first things I said was,
this is a safe space.
We both know that our therapistsare out of town.
Oh my God.
What are we doing to ourselves?

so sorry.

No, don't be sorry.
I think that is why, not onlywas this book so important to
me, but like in producing gaysreading.
I make it a point for 50% ormore of the authors to be queer
in some capacity.
I have a guest gay reader onevery episode and some of it

(41:49):
too, and they're not alwaysauthors, sometimes they're like,
Margaret Cho was one.
And there's, it's a person thatyou don't always equate with
reading, but it is a queerperson who is championing books.
And that is so important andpowerful to me too.
And I don't get to talk to a lotof queer people

Yeah.

and I don't always see a version of myself
on the page.
And the experience of theemotional experience of
remembering what it felt likefor an older queer person to
take me under their wing waswhat I took from this book.
And it was something I haven'tfelt in such a long time.

Mm-hmm.

You know, And so like, and I am not a vampire
book person.

But I love that for you though, that

yeah,

obviously like that this book to genre readers, but
also that it appeals to likereaders who aren't in that
genre.
The thing is At its heart,whenever I say the word fantasy,
I think people hear it with acapital F.
And I don't mean it that way.
For me, the fantasy is anythingwhich departs from reality in
some

yeah.

And some stories take massive leaps off the
stepping stone of reality andsome just inch their toes over
the edge.
And I think one of the reasonsit's so important, I like to
write stories that inch theirtoes over the edge.
And I think it's because itbrings magic into our world.

Hmm.

You that the only way you'll experience that magic
is through the book, instead itsays, Hey, look around.
Like maybe been here the wholetime.
And it's, In acting in parallelwith the concept of queerness
and the fact that queer peoplehave always been around and we
act like it's some kind ofnewness.
We don't, but like the mediawill act

yeah.

is brand new.
And I'm like,

Yeah,

fucking with me right now?
We've always been there and likequeerness as community and as
like nucleic and as finding eachother and like clinging.
To each other.
I also think it's one of thereasons that some of us, when
we're younger, end up in somebad fucking relationships
because we're so happy to besome version of real.

it is so funny.
You said happy and my first wordwas desperate,

Yes.
I

so No.
I was like, oh, it's interestingthat you went positive and my
brain went negative, and I'mtypically a glass half full
person.

it's all an extension of the crumbs, right?
We talk about

Yeah.

queer books or any queer media gets, and it's
crumbs.
I'll remember I had a vampireshow called First Kill and like
I, people were like, why do weneed this?
We have Carmilla.
And I'm like, Would you, no oneis out here watching Vampire
Diaries being like, why do weneed this?
We have no Spiro.
Are you,

Yep.

But for some reason, because you take
something and you have queercontent, they're like, oh, you
only need one of those.

Mm-hmm.

We're so used and in the book industry, we're so
used to being marginalia thatthis is center, this is focused,
but it's one of the reasons,it's I don't even want it to be
limited by the bounds of afantasy reader because it's just
fiction.

Yeah.

storytelling.
The number of

Yeah.

me that they love Addie LaRue and one breath, and
in the next day they don't readfantasy.
I'm like, bitch, what do youthink?
You read like it's a deal withthe devil over 300 years.

And also it's also funny'cause there are other
books where fantasy gets awaywith calling itself magical
realism.

yeah.
And that's totally different.

And or like for me, I am I'm that first I'm the
person who says I am quoteunquote, not a fantasy person.
One of my favorite movies is HowTo Train Your Dragon.
So like, right.
so

It's the people who are like, I don't want, I don't
like fantasy.
And in the next breath they'relike, yeah, but severance rocks.
I'm like, I just don't know howto break this to you.

Tell me about the reality of that.
Come on, we,

you love.
Almost like 90% of media isfantastical.

yeah.
So you just talked about seeingthe magic in every day.
What is something that happenedto you recently?
Or what is magic that you'veseen recently in the every day?

I see.
I live in Scotland.
I see a lot of

Ugh.
Okay.

there's I like a very archaic style of magic.
I spend a lot of time like kindof marveling at the natural
world, which Woo.
I I'm a Pagan card carryingPagan and one of the reasons
that I love living in Scotlandis even though it obviously now
has like Christian facades toit, it never has lost its
reverence for it.
Like pagan roots, we Festivalsthree to four times a year.

(46:07):
They're big.
And the thing is the same waythat you don't really have to
believe in ghosts.
And you can come to a city andyou can be like, this place is
haunted.
So many people don't

Yeah.

go to New Orleans and are like, this place is
haunted to the teeth.
There is something about thenatural world in Scotland.
It just feels so big.
And I'm not even sure Magic.
It's more like there are somepeople who look up at the night
sky and the sight of the numberof stars makes them feel small.

(46:37):
And that's the worst feeling inthe world for me.
I'm somebody who, the side ofstars makes me feel small in the
best possible way.
I like it when the natural worldfeels like it's an order of
magnitude outside of myfathoming.
I, it's such a nerdy thing, butI don't know if I like, listened
to a podcast about a lot of theUFO briefings

Oh,

like the scientists behind the UFO briefings are
like trying to help usunderstand that they're not
talking about like little greenaliens.
They're talking about ourboundaries of perceptual reality
is that like any living lifeform can only perceive one order
of magnitude in every direction.
So like for instance, we can'tunderstand atoms because they're
an order of magnitude outside ofour physical perception.

(47:20):
We can't see that

right.
So therefore they're, they don'texist.

And so a lot of the talk right now about like
unidentified and unexplainablephenomena is the concept that
it's science that exists morethan one degree of separation

Interesting.

degree, one order of magnitude outside of
perception.
Of magic as like that, whereit's It's just something that's
either too big.
For us to fathom or too smallfor us to notice.

huh.
It's so interesting that we'retalking about this right now
because we had a friend staywith us this weekend and it was
a full moon.
We did tarot cards.
We watched like a deep bluedocumentary Something that we
talked about was each of usexpressed how at different
points in our lives we'veexperienced an understanding

(48:12):
that was confusing to us.
And something that we thoughtabout was like, is it atoms of
ours that happen to be two stepsahead of us that we don't even
realize?
Right?
Like we, we literally will neverunderstand because we, because
we can't.

But a version of this happens in creativity that
I find so fascinating, which isthat sometimes you will write
something and then you'll getlike another 250 pages ahead and
realize that you seededsomething for yourself that you
did not decide.
But it's like another part ofyour mind made that decision
that you would need it later.
And it's this kind of almostkismet sensation that your brain

(48:54):
on some level knew what itwanted the entire time and was
showing you and yourconsciousness how to comprehend
it.

Yeah.

And it is a really weird psychic experience,
especially for someone who likesto say that they play God when
they write.
I, when I sit down to write, Iknow everything.
Like by the time I sit down topen and novel, I know every
single scene for every singlecharacter.
And it is like an execution of acosmos in my head that I wanna
get on paper.
It's extremely analytical.

What did your therapist say about that?

Yeah, I have a control problem, I have an
absolute need to be in controlof everything all the time.
It extends to hypervigilancefrom my childhood.
It's really a problem.
Not great at seeding any form ofcontrol.
Writing books, great.
Living in publishing, terrible.

Sure.

you get to play God and then you are just in the
abyss.
But

So you know everything about your
characters.

I know everything.
I know

Yeah.

they're gonna take everything they're gonna do.
There are some

Yeah.

but nothing like.
That's not germane to them.
That's like I feel like hasknocked me off balance.
So then when my brain doessomething like that where I
realize that a very clever thingthat I thought was almost a
throwaway characteristic that Ididn't even really know why I
gave that to a character, Toplay a huge role in that

(50:17):
character's personhood.
It is the closest I feel to analmost religious experience.

Interesting.
Do you, I feel I, this is not agotcha question, nor like a,
this is not book trivia, butsomething I happened to notice
and I feel like of course youknew, but maybe you didn't know
and that's okay.
The word wonderland comes up acouple times,

I have 10 and a half words I come back to in

Uhhuh,

over the, like in Addie it was, I know'cause
somebody made a meme of it andit was like Samuel Jackson being
like, St.
Pal says One more time Idefinitely said it like seven
times.
I I hadn't noticed it yet forWonderland though.

I think maybe it's two or three, but it does
feel intentional in terms ofdown a rabbit hole, Alice.
Exactly.
Exactly.

is named for.
And

Yeah.

I think that's probably intentional if it ever
shows up and it's not inrelation to her, I would be
surprised.
But yeah, I mean she's on thisreally weird, trippy

yeah.
Uhhuh.

at night trying to find vampires that she's are
these real?
What's happening to me?

I know.
And also like having justfinished White Lotus, there were
elements of, we don't need to godown that rabbit, talk about
rabbit holes to go down.

I'm

Um, Which part are you mad about?

I'm mad about Chelsea.
We didn't also, I'm sorry.
From the moment we saw either, Iwas like, you made a casting
choice.
But from the moment we saw theguy playing Walter Goggins, not
dad, I was like,

We knew it was.

a dad, obviously.
Like they have the exact sameface.
They have the

Also just the way he was talking about it and like
the kind of man that the dad waseven before we saw him, I was
like, oh that's gonna be hisdad.

Oh my, you're gonna shoot your dad.
You're gonna shoot your dad.
But yeah,

I know.
No, that's actually so funny.
And sorry to spoiler alerts tothe White Lotus fans, it's been
out at this point.
This episodes comes out in June,so if you haven't finished.
Yeah.
There you say something aboutthe rule of threes in bare our
Bones, and Chelsea is talkingabout the rule of threes in
White Lotus.
What is your three?

(52:27):
Three bears, three pigs, three.
You know what's yours?

three for me is everything though.
Everything

Oh.

bad things, good things.
Eving.
I am also, shockingly, minutesinto this.
I'm a very neurotic person andI'm also a very addictive
person.
And so I have to be careful inmy own life not to let things
happen in threes because ifsomething happens once, it's an
accident, two times, it's apattern, three times, it's an

(52:57):
addiction.
So I am like a very ritualforming person, and if I do
something, a repetitive action,whatever it is, good or bad,
legal or illegal I will startlike becoming encumbered by like
the need to do it.
It will become,

Interesting.

become like, a compulsion.

Huh?

th patterns is actually something I actively
avoid.

the wade.

I think about threes a lot with books.
It's obviously, trilogiesobviously beats within beats.
Like threes are everything inbarrier.
Our bones, it's three women,Different traumatic
relationships, it's three it'severything.
And so like in Addie, it wasthree centuries in, a lot of my
books, they tend to come intriplets, but I think that's

(53:42):
just kind of a hearkening backto folklore and fairytale.
I

Yeah.

my books, even when they're

I,

in time and place to have a timeless quality to
the reading.
I want it to feel like somethingthat could have been written a
hundred years ago or a hundredyears from now.
I wanted to feel slightlytimeless.
And I think that there, I alwayshave a nod back to archetypal
structures and And threes comeup so much in folklore and
fairytale and fable that I thinkour mind latches onto them.

Yeah.

in sentence structure, I look for a three
beat within the sentence.
I look for a certain number ofsyllables.
Everything has a rhythm to it.

Interesting.
I love so you're mad aboutChelsea'cause you are Chelsea.

I wish I was, I would date Chelsea.
I am not Chelsea.
I am unfortunately, probablymore Walter Goggins, but but no,
I am,

Did.

I love Chelsea.
She is the exact opposite of mypersonality

Yeah no, of course.
It was more of the like rule ofspiritual rule of threes element
that she was bringing to thetable.

In everything.
Like I'm

Yeah.

much rather you try and disprove something than
prove something.
I go into the world with justlike a level of openness to
like, I think it's very easy tonot believe in ghosts or
supernatural things until youhave a personal experience.
And then it's really hard notto.
And like

Yeah.

made it to my early twenties without ever having a
supernatural experience.
And then I had one living in areally haunted house in the
Liverpool suburbs and it wasawful.
But I like

Wow.

really not have an openness to it because I had an
ex a, a, an experience with myown senses where it's

Hmm

well Now I either distrust my senses perpetually
or acknowledge that something Icould not explain happened.
And living in a place likeScotland, you just learn to be
like I'm just gonna be open toit.
And then if someone hassomething that's disproving,
sure, but what a waste of energydisproving things.

Well, It's back to the stars thing.
I look up at the stars and I'mjust like, this is amazing.
I am so small in this universe.
There is, how could I even thinkthat I understand a fraction of
what is happening in this world?
Yeah,

you watch that deep blue documentary.
The thing about that is youlearn that we know two, we have
mapped like two to 3% of theocean,

right.

I'm also like, fuck the ocean.
Now.
I have I have a lot of respectfor it.
I have no

I know, but it's horrifying.

like I like, thank you.
You, you are full of small godsand I love that for you.
But also

Yes.

not my territory.
That is the equivalent to fairy.
Like we are

The thing that's the thing that scares me about
that is I'm like, we've exploredspace and space is so far away.
The ocean is here.

I know.
I know.
I started in astrophysics.
That's what I was supposed to bean astrophysicist.
You can see how far we've comefrom that.
But but yeah, I think I have a,I have a real reverence.
the scale of the universe andyou would think it would ground
me more when I'm feelingparticularly anxious and
neurotic, but yet I still seemto be a universe of one for my

(56:47):
own feelings.

We everyone is here for you.
Let's, we're expanding ouruniverse.
We're expanding our universe.

by the time this airs, I'll have I don't know,
done some deep meditation.
I'll love me at peace.

Oh my God.
I have a gajillion more things Icould talk to you about, but our
time has run out.
Everyone

read the book.

go read, bury Our Bones in the Midnight soil.
Learn what that means.
Enjoy the toxic lesbianvampires.
What are other things that Ishould say people should keep an
eye out for?
I'm cur everyone.
Think about what your charms andpendants are.
It's a question I have foreverybody.
Um,

With time.

what you do with time.

if you didn't have normal things to be afraid of,

Yes.
Yes.
Think about your wants versusyour needs, versus your desires
versus your necessities.
These are all of my, the thingsthat are swirling around.

Think about what you'd miss.
I

Oh.

miss if you didn't get to be human anymore.

Can I ask what you would miss?
Can we leave on that question?

Oh, I'd miss dark chocolate.

What a good answer.

It really upsetting to me probably that, how quickly
I answered that because like Idefinitely would also miss my
friends and family.
I feel like that's obvious, butI wouldn't necessarily have to
give them up wherein

Correct.
Correct.
In the context of this book, youwould not be able to eat dark
chocolate, right?
Totally fair.
Victoria vi Schwab, thank you somuch for being here.

you Jason.
This was a joy.
It healed something in me.

Such a joy,

Harper! (58:22):
Guest Gay Reader time!

Your room is giving optical illusion.

Melissa Febos (58:27):
I know I was, I like to joke that I have created
the solution to make myself seemtaller.
'cause I'm very short.
So it looks like I'm a

You look massive.

but I'm actually like five foot nothing.
No, I just have a gable roofhere and then I have wallpaper
on this and then I'm alsostanding, I have a booster'cause
I use a treadmill on my desk andso I, I actually have a four
inch.
Yeah, I am.

I'm jealous I say that, but I'm jealous.

It's really just like my back problems got the
best of me.
And I was like, I hate being inpain.
What do I do?
And my chiropractor was like,just walk slowly all the time.
And I was like, fuck you.
Fine, fine.
I'll do it.

I am worried I would fall over.

it's not going fast enough to fall over,
unfortunately.
It's

even if you're just like slowly mo, as you're
typing, it's really not an

there definitely are moments where I'm like, oh,
I gotta put my Fitbit in mysocks, so my steps count and I'm
like, forget that I need to bewalking and will lift one.
I'm like a very clumsy person,so I'm not gonna say it hasn't
happened, but for regular peopleI think it's pretty unlikely.

also relatively clumsy, so I'm hearing what
you're saying.
I'm taking it in fit.
Wait, Fitbit in your sock.

The steps don't count if the Fitbit doesn't know
that I took them.
So I put

From your wrist.
It doesn't,

and when you're

'cause it's because it's, that's how slow
you're moving.

No.
When you're typing, your handsaren't moving.
'cause the Fitbit counts whenyou swing your arms.
And so when I'm typing at mydesk, it doesn't count my steps.
So I put it in my sock.

Wait, this is a brilliant hack.

Melissa Febos (01:00:01):
I know.

Jason Blitman (01:00:01):
Thank God I have yet to order a desk treadmill
because I'd be, I wouldn't, noneof it would count this

I know it would just be wasted energy

Oh my

dumping it in the garbage.
Yeah.

All right, Melissa FBOs, you like really
messed up My guest gay readerthing.
Welcome to Gay's Reading.
I complained about you first,and then I said welcome.
That was like the wrong order.

was, yeah, it was also very gay, so I appreciate
it.

Here's a read.
It's nice to meet you.

That's right.
Thank you.

So part of why I did this guest gay reader
component is because there weretoo many books for me to read
and have and talk about with theauthor.
So I was like, oh, if I do thisother segment and we don't
really talk about the book, thenI don't have to read the book
because then I, if I talk tosomeone about the book, then I a
hundred percent always read thebook.

Yeah.

But girl, I started your book and I was
like, dammit.
Now I wanna finish it.
I still haven't finished it, tobe very clear.
But I can't wait to, I'm soexcited.

Oh, thank you.

But before we get into that, as my guest, gay
reader, Melissa, I have to know,what are you reading?

Okay.
I just finished the hottestbook.
It was so satisfying and it wasalso high art.
It's the Safe Keep by YayelVander Wooten.

knew you were gonna say that

How did you know?
Is it because I'm a lesbian?

No, because I've been recommending it to every
human.
I know because it is so hot.
It is high art and I'm obsessedwith it.

It just hits, it hits every mark.
I was like, thank you.
This is what I am looking for.
I want a beautiful gorgeouslywritten, incredibly compelling,
extremely hot, extremely gay,has a twist at the end, and I
can read it in 24 hours.
It just, it was like perfect.

Yes, Gothic queer, literary.
I am a gold star gay.
I literally don't even thinkI've ever watched a woman in
porn

Aw,

and this was hot.
It like freaking turned me on.

whole chapters that are just sex I had no idea
what I was getting into.
I was like, I had just beenreading some trash.
I was like traveling and readingkind of trashy mysteries and I
was like, let me read a realbook.
I heard that this book is gayand, but nobody, I hadn't really
talked to anybody about it, so Ihad no expectations, which was
dreamy.
I was like, you've gotta bekidding me.

(01:02:29):
When I got a third of the waythrough

I could talk about it all day.
I, it's so good.
I made my husband read it.
I've made so many friends read

I, my wife just finished it.
I was like, have you read ityet?
She was like, I'm going to.

I know, right?
It's so good.
Is there anything else thatyou're reading I thought you
looked at as though you werelooking at a list You don't have

'Cause I just was looking around thinking about
what to tell you.
Okay.
So I also, in reading JamieHood's trauma plot which is.
Excellent.
It's it takes its name from thisarticle that actually my work
was also named.
And that's about memoir and likewriting about trauma and, and
Jamie Hood is just so smart andthoughtful, and so it's about

(01:03:13):
being a survivor of rape, but itbrings in so many other sources
and Greek mythology and othertexts, and it's just like deeply
intelligent deeply empathic,like incredibly thoughtful.
I was like, I don't know, thisdoesn't feel, before I started
it, I was like, I don't know ifI really need to read.
A book like that right now,everything is so bad.

(01:03:34):
Like I don't need to feel worse.
And it didn't make me feelworse.
It was actually thoughtprovoking and inspiring.
So strong recommend.

love that it doesn't say a novel, it doesn't
say a memoir.
It says a life

That's right.
Yeah.
She's this is my life's work.
Thinking deeply experiencingthings, some of them horrible.
And, describing my beautifulthoughts about it for you in a
way that is both entertaining,thought provoking and I don't
know, like hope inducing maybe.

Yeah.
Is that even a thing now?
No.
No.
I feel like nothing

yeah, as I said it, I was like, what are you
talking about?
Hope is dead.
Nobody

I was like, hope inducing put it in my veins
right

Yeah.
I'm like, good luck.
I just wanna feel okay rightnow.
Can you do that for me?

I wanna feel a little bit, okay.
What is that like?
Love on the spectrum is doingthat for me.

Oh, someone was just telling me, they were
giving me the, have you watchedit yet?
And I was like, I haven't, butyeah, they were like, just trust
me.

It is, when Great British Bakeoff first came out
in the States and everyone waslike, oh, it's so endearing.
Everyone's so nice to eachother.
It just makes me happy.
That's what this is.
It's oh you're rooting for them.
They're so sweet.
You love them.
And frankly, it's giving theworld empathy for people who are
on the spectrum and you'relearning in a way you didn't
even know you needed.

That feels like just what the doctor ordered
because my general fair in TVtends to be like pretty murdery.
Not true crime, but like policeprocedural, like BBC, police,
procedural.
But I just can't hang.
I'm like too delicate.
I'm like, I need something thatmakes me feel good, but I don't
even know where to turn'causethat's never what I watch.
So this sounds right.
The great British bakeoff got methrough the pandemic.

(01:05:14):
I was just walking very slowlyon my treadmill, watching every
single season of the greatBritish Bake Off.

And you were like, why does my ankle hurt?
And you were like, oh, myFitbit.

like, nevermind.
Don't

just my Fitbit.

See what the challenge is.

Interesting cr Yeah.
Crime.
I can't do murders.
Murders and crime, especiallytrue crime.
'cause I'm like, this is gonnahappen to me.

That's not good for me either.
I'm just like, I don't.
One actual I have, I alreadyhave horrible nightmares.
Like every night.
I do not need that kind offodder for it.
Or like vividly thinking aboutmy worst nightmare of some
fucking creep, crawling in thewindow of my house.

I remember, I can't rem, I don't know if it
was a, I don't remember if itwas like a story kids told each
other in school to scare eachother, or if it was like
actually.
A Murdery story, but I, therewas like the story of someone
who was at asleep at night andput his hand beneath his bed to

(01:06:14):
check to make sure his dog wasthere and the dog licked his
hand only to discover later thatit was like the murderer under
the bed.
Again, this might be likechildhood

I love the licking though, that it's not
just a murderer, it's like alsoa pervert.

Yes.
Terrible.

Oh

So anyway, things like that, I'm like, I

Yeah.
No, don't put it

my bed.
I don't want to put, there's noroom under my bed for a person.

No.
I have a very activeimagination.
I can't really have that inthere.
It has to be like only like veryformulaic, fictional murder.

Yes.
I need to know that it cannothappen.

that's right.
And it also happened across thepond

Angela Lansbury is solving the crime.
And it happened at like a teashop,

That's right.
That's right.

The dry season.

There it is.

I, there are so many things about it that are
surprising to me for listeners,can you have what do you have,
like a one-liner about what thebook is?

Sure.
I was in nonstop relationshipsuntil I was in my mid thirties
and I had a horrible breakup anddecided to spend a year
celibate, and it ended up beingthe best year of my life.

Yeah.
I'm obsessed with the fact thatit wasn't, the idea wasn't to do
a pause.
It was to do a cleanse and areset.

that's right.
That's right.
Yeah.
It wasn't I think I would'vebeen very happy if a pause
would've sufficed if I couldjust not for some time and then
be fixed.
But I am, as we've alluded toalready in this conversation, my
God-given drives are a bit toostrong to be addressed by just
a.
Pause.
I had to undergo some prettyheavy lifting to do things

(01:07:57):
differently.
And even after 35 years offalling in love, I was still
like pretty bad about navigatingwhat happened after that.
And I wanted to be better.
And so I worked really hard thatyear, but it was also really
fun.

You wrote this significantly long after it
happened.

I

was, what's that about?

I didn't plan on writing about it.
It really was just like a thingI did to have a better life.
It's really funny.
People

was like, I want a new book from you.
And you're like, oh, I have anidea.
I could use

I was like interesting.
I think I thought I would writelike maybe an essay or something
about it.
And I started writing an essayabout it that in my third book,
girlhood.
And I just immediately realizedthat it didn't go there.
And I was like, I'll just comeback to this later.
And then I wrote another book,published that book, wrote
another book, and theneventually I came back to it and
was like, is there still a pulsehere?

(01:08:51):
And there really was.
It was super loud.
And then once I started writingabout it, I was like, you know
what?
It wasn't just that it was thehappiest year, it was actually
super deep.
Like I really changed the courseof my life in many ways.
Totally changed the way I relateto like love and sex and
romance.
Met my wife at the end of it,which was not the goal at all.
But yeah, I realized that I hada whole book

Wow.
What was it like revisiting thatyear

Yeah, I have to say it was actually quite fun.
My previous books are heavy andI'm actually like a total fool,
as you can see in life.
Like falling off the treadmill,making a joke while I'm falling.
And, but I'd never gotten tobring that part of myself into
my writing'cause I was alwaysdealing with like kind of dark
material and with.
This book, it was really fun togo back and be like, why was it

(01:09:38):
so good?
Like doing a kind of autopsy onmy own happiness, and then also
like laughing at myself like,look at this fool.
Figuring, like looking back atmy whole dating history, being
like, how did I get here?
And it's oh my God.
Very funny in hindsight.
Lots of dramatic irony.
But also you can't write aboutbeing like, I decided to take
three months celibate and nothave a sense of humor about

(01:09:58):
yourself.
'cause it started with threemonths and then it got extended.
And then it got extended.
But all my friends were laughingat me like the whole time oh
really?
Three months.
Amazing.
So

shut up.
I'm trying.

was like, listen, it's relative.
Okay.
And it was like, for me that waslike really different and really
hard.
And then it was totally amazing.
Or like deciding that I wasallowed to masturbate while I
was celibate.
That got some big laughs when Imade that decision.
But also I had like really likesolid reasons for that.
So it was

It's amazing to it.
Realize that you can have lovefor yourself in that way.
That's like

Totally.
It's really different.
Yeah, there's, it's that was, Iimmediately was like, is this
allowed?
And then I was like, oh, thishas nothing to do with like how
I got to this very ugly point inmy relationship history.
Like the problem is about howI'm relating to other people.
Actually, my erotic relationshipto myself is like very healthy
and I've never had a problemwith it.

(01:10:57):
Thank God it feels like a.
Like a gift.
But that's not the issue.
I actually wanna bring more ofthat vibe into my relationships
with other people where it'slike genuine and pretty organic
and really authentic.

Have you ever read a book called The Erotic
Mind?

No, but it sounds like a book I should

My husband is like the salesman for it.

Interesting.
That sounds like a fun vocation.

I've listened to that's his side hustle.
I've listened to the audio bookand it's fascinating, but it not
dissimilar from what you'retalking about, it just has you
tap into the sort of deep rootsof where your eroticism comes
from, Unrelated to others andmore about just yourself.

Oh, I love it.

You.
On someone's podcast, talkabout, basically, this is like a
terrible misquote of you.
Of you, but you talk abouttaking advice from other writers
who you don't know, who you'vejust read their And gotten
inspired by who are some ofthose people for you.

Oh my God.
So many people, I feel like as ayoung queer person growing up in
like a pretty small town in theeighties, there was no internet.
There was no social media.
There were not like older queerteens teaching me things.
So I was reading like, jeanetteWinterson and Dorothy Allison

(01:12:21):
and Audrey Lorde.
I was just like reading olderqueer women, a lot of second
wave feminists and lesbianstrying to figure out like what
was possible for me, and so interms of advice or like what I
learned from them about how tobe was like, I think, a big
message from a lot of, a lot ofthe good stuff that the second
wave feminists and queers had tooffer.

(01:12:42):
Were like, we don't, we're notin the fringe of the story.
Like we can be the center of ourown story, and particularly I
think black feminists and queerwriters have really written a
lot about how to put yourself atthe center of your own story,
how to not perpetuate your ownmarginalization by centering
queer stories or centeringqueer, centering straight
stories and centering straightaudiences, and collaborating

(01:13:03):
with the bullshit that we've allbeen socialized in,

that's so interesting'cause it jumps back
to the, you were saying thatpeople laughed when you talked
about masturbation in the book,but it's no, you're literally
centering your, centeringyourself in your own story.

I'm like, in the context of this story, this is a
really big deal, right?
And in the context of the largeratmosphere of compulsory
heterosexuality, figuring outhow to divest from those
structures and micros is like aradical act.
And I can laugh at myself, and Ialso totally stand behind it as
like meaningful work.

of course.
I love that so much.
You, I just wanna say out loudbecause I'm obsessed with both
of them, you and youracknowledgements.
Thank both Paula Sickey and KatAkbar.

Oh my friends.

they're both former gays, reading guests, and
I love them so much.
They're such fantastic humansand great writers.

Kava lives like three doors down

Oh, no way.

friends, colleagues.
We like first readers for eachother's books.
He's doing my launch with me andI saw Paul Reed in Iowa City
last night.

Oh, how funny.

Yeah, he's on tour

Small world,

book.

of course, right?
Of course he is.
Oh, I love that.
In our last few minutestogether.
I have a very important questionfor you.
If you were to die tomorrow, whois deleting the search history
on your computer, and it cannotbe your wife,

Okay.

I know this is a

Honestly.
Okay.

in our lives.

Okay.
I'm actually, and I would saythis anyway, I'm gonna go with
Kava because he's right down thestreet.
I would be like, run over anddelete it.
And he and I are both people.
If you've had any conversationwith him or Red his work, we're
both people of very extremeappetites and we're both like.
I know he's never gonna judge meand that he knows how to clear a

(01:14:56):
search history.
I would be like, get your assover to my house.
I'm dying.
Go delete my search history.
And he would just be like, onit.

Yes.
Good answer.
And even if he did read it, hewould probably turn it into
something amazing.

would be like, yeah, obviously.
Duh.
Me too.

Exactly.
That's a great answer.
How inspiring.
Melissa, I am so happy to meetyou.

Me too.
This has been so fun.

So fun, thank you for being my guest gay reader
today.
Everyone go check out the dryseason it is out now,

Yay.

and I can't wait to finish it, which is again,
throwing a big wrench in myguest gay reader system that I
have going on.

I am so sorry.
You welcome and thank you.
Thank you all so much for beinghere.
Victoria v Schwab, MelissaFebos.
Thank you both.
Have a wonderful rest of yourday.
I will see you all later thisweek for an extra episode of
GA's reading'cause we aredoubling up this pride and I
will see you then.
All right.
Thanks everyone.
Bye.

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