Welcome, writers and book lovers. The Bleeders is a podcast about book writing and publishing. Make sure you subscribe to the companion Substack: https://thebleeders.substack.com/welcome
Today's guest is Margaret Killjoy, a prolific author and podcaster whose latest book, The Sapling Cage, kicks off a fantasy trilogy featuring a trans protagonist. In this episode, Margaret joins us to talk about her evolving writing process, navigating indie and traditional publishing (and the pros and cons of each), and how her activism and anarchist politics shape not just her writing, but her approach to publishing, as well. Follow Margaret on Instagram @margaretkilljoy.
The Bleeders is hosted by Courtney Kocak. Follow her on Instagram @courtneykocak and Bluesky @courtneykocak.bsky.social. For more, check out her website courtneykocak.com.
Courtney is teaching some upcoming workshops you might be interested in:
Today's guest is Margaret Killjoy, a prolific author and podcaster whose latest book, The Sapling Cage, kicks off a fantasy trilogy featuring a trans protagonist. In this episode, Margaret joins us to talk about her evolving writing process, navigating indie and traditional publishing (and the pros and cons of each), and how her activism and anarchist politics shape not just her writing, but her approach to publishing, as well. Follow Margaret on Instagram @margaretkilljoy.
The Bleeders is hosted by Courtney Kocak. Follow her on Instagram @courtneykocak and Bluesky @courtneykocak.bsky.social. For more, check out her website courtneykocak.com.
Courtney is teaching some upcoming workshops you might be interested in:
- The Multi-Passionate Writer's Life: https://writingworkshops.com/products/the-multi-passionate-writers-life-zoom-seminar-with-courtney-kocak
- How to Build a “Platform” for Writers Who Shudder at the Thought: https://writingworkshops.com/products/how-to-build-a-platform-for-writers-who-shudder-at-the-thought-zoom-seminar
- Creating Your Podcast: https://www.roadmapwriters.com/products/creating-your-podcast-0
- Podcasting for Writers: How to Start, Sustain & Grow Your Podcast: https://writingworkshops.com/products/podcasting-for-writers-how-to-start-sustain-grow-your-podcast-4-week-zoom-workshop
- Start a Newsletter to Supercharge Your Platform, Network and Business: https://writingworkshops.com/products/start-a-newsletter-to-supercharge-your-platform-network-business-zoom-seminar
- Land Big Bylines by Writing for Columns: https://writingworkshops.com/products/land-big-bylines-by-writing-for-columns-zoom-seminar
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
It started with me writing Ursula Legwin a letter being like, hey,
I am a young anarchist writer. I love your work.
Can I interview you about what it means to be
an anarchist and a fiction writer both? Because I don't know.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Today's guest is Margaret Kiljoy, a prolific author, podcaster, activist, anarchist,
and all around a fascinating person.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
I was so thrilled to talk shop with her and
dig into her creative process.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Hyland's rules of writing are perfect, which is basically like,
you must write, you must finish what you write, you
must put what you write out and submission like you
must not rewrite except to editorial order, and you must
write the next thing.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Margaret has had a wide range of publishing experiences, from
co ops to indie presses, to more traditional outlets to
even some ghost writing, so it was really interesting to
get her take on the publishing landscape and the pros
and cons of each.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I think that indie versus mainstream publishing or whatever, it's
not a dichotomy. I ever need to commit myself to
one side or the other of.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
In this episode, Margaret shares how her writing process has
evolved over the years, the unlock of a great outline,
and how she keeps all of her myriad projects cooking
without burning anything or getting bored. This is one of
my favorite episodes with a truly delightful and insightful author.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
So let's get into it.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
There's nothing to writing.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
All you do is sit down at a typewriter.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
And bleed.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Welcome to the Leaders, a podcast and support group about
book writing and publishing. I writer and podcaster Courtney Kosak,
and each week I'll bring you new conversations with authors,
agents and publishers about how to write and sell books.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
I'm Margaret Kiljoy. I'm the author of The Sapling Cage
from Feminist Press.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
Okay, awesome. So I always kick off with this lightning round.
So when did you first identify as a writer?
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Okay, it's a medium story, and I'm so sorry because
I know you promised lightning round. I was living in
a squat in the South Bronx and the window was
broken and there's no electricity, and there's this old writer's
roll top desk that was randomly in this like fifth
story abandoned apartment that I was living in, and I
was like, I'm gonna be a writer. And I like
(02:37):
sat there and wrote a bunch of stories that are terrible.
I actually had written a bunch of stories younger than that,
but that was like when I like was like, this
is it. I'm going to be a writer.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
Wait, how old are you? Twenty twenty?
Speaker 1 (02:48):
That's good.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
That's a good, nice, young, impressionable age to start. I
was much later. I was in my like twenty eight
almost oh really, so yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Most people take that long before there are any good
and you don't have anything to say. And I'm not
trying to talk shit on younger writers, but it makes sense.
You're not losing anything by starting later.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
No, I made a lot of mistakes that I am
now are now fodder for my nonfiction. So it's all good.
What's your all time favorite book?
Speaker 1 (03:20):
I am probably enough of a basic person that I'm
going to probably say Lord of the Rings Ah in
terms of just like lasting impact on how I view
the world. I haven't reread it in a long time,
though this tracks.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
But tell me exactly what you love about it.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
I love earnest storytelling that grapples with big ideas, that
is written from a perspective that critiques power and believes
in people working together obviously, I have you know, I
think that Tolkien was one of the most influential unconscious
racists of the twentieth century. But I believe that was
(03:57):
unconscious racism, and you know, his actions largely show that.
And uh yeah, I just it's books about power and
people working together and the little person saving the world
by refusing to be corrupted.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
Okay, fascinating. So when you say unconscious racist, do you
mean like because of how he drew characterizations of groups
within his work.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Yeah, the you know, the the humans who side with
sore On are more or less like Middle Eastern coded
and you know, gotcha kind of has this like the
other that's coming from further away or you know, the baddies.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
Yeah, totally. What's your dream writing routine?
Speaker 1 (04:43):
My dream writing routine is that I every day after dinner,
right one to two thousand words sitting on my back porch.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
Yeah, okay. And what is your real writing routine.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
That but not every day?
Speaker 4 (05:01):
Hey, that's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Yeah. And then also, like I mean, it depends on
what I write. I also write podcast scripts for a living,
and that's like not one to two thousand words every day.
That is way more than that and I'm doing it
all the time.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
Yeah, okay, I definitely want to. We're going to return
to that. What's one piece of writing that makes you
jealous you didn't write it?
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Okay? When I first started reading the Broken Earth trilogy
by NK. Jemison, I had this, like, why do I
bother writing this? The prose was I The prose was
just so amazing that I was just like, everything else
is pedestrian. Everything I've produced is pedestrian.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
I love that. I haven't read that, so I guess
I need to at least catch a few pages. Okay,
So the reason for the visit The Sapling Cage give
us the premise. So this is the first installment of
it trilogy.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yeah, it's the first book of the Daughters of the
Empty Throne trilogy. It's called The Sapling Cage. September twenty fourth,
twenty twenty four from Feminist Press, which is probably in
the past by the time you're listening to this. I'm
not actually sure the schedule. And it is a crossover book,
so it's like ya, but it admits that it's going
to be a lot of adults reading it, and it
is about a sixteen year old who was born a
(06:17):
boy and wants to become a witch, and through the
process of disguising herself as a witch, realizes that she
is also a woman, and that is she is not
disguising herself. But it's actually about, of course, teens and
adults trying to save the world. In this case, it's
a you know, sort of the destruction of the environment
and things like that that they're fighting against in a
(06:38):
fantasy world.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
Amazing. Okay, so where did the idea come from? How
long had you been noodling on this?
Speaker 1 (06:46):
One of the books that I read when I was
in fifth grade that has more impact on me than
anything besides probably the aforementioned Lord of the Rings is
the Song of the Lioness Trillott series. I think there's
four books in the series by timor A. Pierce, and
it is about a young girl who wants to be
a knight and her brother is supposed to go be
a night. So she dresses up as her brother and
(07:06):
sneaks off to court and becomes a knight. And eventually
she's found out, but it's you know, not for a
long time, right, and so now she's a girl knight.
And that book meant a lot to me as a
confused gender not understander who liked swords, and so I
was like, ah, I too, am going to be a
girl with a sword. You know, that's like what it
(07:26):
seted up. I bet a lot of trans girls came
out of that book.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
And.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
I wanted to write an inversion, not of the entire
plot and not like a counterpoint, but just I wanted
to write about a boy dressing up as a girl
to become a witch, and through that, of course, like
I think that the way that we understand gender now
is a little bit different than you know when to
More appears wrote that book.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
So like, had that always been in the back of
your head? And yes, the gender conversation is changed a lot.
Is this an old idea for you or a new idea?
Speaker 1 (08:04):
I okay. So it's funny because I started writing this
book in probably twenty fifteen or twenty sixteen. I'm not
one hundred percent certain. I think I actually started writing it.
I came out as trans in twenty sixteen, so I
would guess I probably started writing it just around then
and then finished it within a year or so, and
then actually it just a it took a little while.
I had already had a couple books out, including some
(08:26):
mainstream published ones, but it took me a while to
get get a publisher for this one. And so this
idea has been like floating around in my head for
a long time.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
That is so reassuring to just hear someone say that
it took them nine years because for you know, a
certain idea. Yeah, because that's like where I'm at right now,
and I'm like, oh, thank you, I needed that. So
you took a year to write it. And this was
a while back. So what was your writing process and
(08:57):
has it changed a lot because you have you've and
a ton of books.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Yeah, it's funny. My writing process is honestly kind of different.
Every time. I feel like I am moving slowly more
towards a mature, adult, professional writer work schedule, where I,
you know, write an outline and then fill it in
with words and write a book that way, you know,
Whereas a lot of the stuff that I used to write,
especially when I was younger, I would be more of
(09:22):
like I guess I would call it like a pantser
writing by the seat of my pants person right, And
usually what I would used to do is I would
write until I ran into a brick wall, and then
I would back up a couple steps and turn the
car around and aim in a different way. And now
what I do is I do that where I write
an outline and I start writing, and then rather than
forcing my writing to fit to the outline, I then
(09:43):
change the outline as I go along with what I've
actually written, and sure that that is the way I
write most of my books now, and it has saved
me a lot of headaches. It's like, sometimes it's less
fun because you get a little less of the It
is why I don't write very detail outlines is that
I want finding things out. Why you write is like
(10:03):
the fun of especially writing fantasy, and so I save
some of the details to not be in the outline.
So I wrote this one. I had an outline, but
it also I finished a draft of it, and then
I actually did more changes to this book than my
average books. I usually kind of go and then I'm done,
and I'm like, great, I finished it, and I go
back and I smooth some things over. But there's whole
(10:26):
chapters in the beginning that weren't there when I first
finished the book. And I want to say the ending changed,
but I actually couldn't promise you that because I don't
remember because it was a long time ago.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
Do you think you say you know your writing process
has evolved. Is it the writing of a bunch of
books that has changed that, or is it the weekly
grind of doing the podcast that has changed you as
a writer.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
So it's funny because actually probably wouldn't been able to
handle the weekly grind of the podcast if I hadn't
already developed some of these skills, because yeah, like as
I would write more and more books, I would just
find myself more and more being like this doesn't work
for me. I need to Overall, For example, I tend
to view writer's block as there's something wrong with my
outline rather than like, like, no one believes in carpenter's block.
(11:12):
Right when you're like building a house, you're never like, ah,
I can't build the house anymore. I'm just I don't
I'm not feeling it. But what you can do when
you build it? Did literally build a cabin actually that
I media after finished this book. And you can mess
up and then need to back up in order to
move forward. And you can see that a little bit
more visually when you're building a house. When you're writing
(11:34):
a book, everything is very ephemeral, and you're trying to
hold this very complicated idea in your head. I actually
think it's more than the human brain can really have
all of a really complex plot with lots of characters
in their head at the same time, or at least
my head. So I learned that I needed this stuff.
And I also tend to write short instinctively. I have
(11:54):
most of my books are novella's. Okay, okay, I'll say.
The way that I really learned how much an outline
is that the first novel I ever wrote was a
ghost written heterosexual romance novel, and they gave me an outline,
and the outline worked, and I wrote the entire sixty
seventy thousand word book in about three weeks.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
Oh shit, this is like a work for higher thing.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Absolutely, I legally can't tell you what it was. And
very recently I think I've written something that has been
read more than this stupid book. It probably still has
the most Amazon reviews of anything. But then the same
publisher gave me another book to write, and the outline
didn't work, and so I had to I got two
(12:40):
thirds of the way through, but the characters didn't want
to do what they were told to do because there
was something wrong with the outline. And so I had
to work with the publisher to say, hey, I actually
need to be able to conform the outline in the
following ways. We had to do some back and forth
and have conversations around it, right because it's their property
and they're very careful with it. And then it was able.
(13:01):
Then the writing was smooth again. And so I do
find I can sprint and you know, I have time
myself because I wrote that stupid romance novel, those stupid
romance novels. I can write about eighteen hundred words an
hour if I'm like, if the outline's there, and I'm
smooth brain and it doesn't matter to me. When I
write my own fiction, I can write about one thousand
words an hour, which annoys me because then I'm like, well,
(13:23):
why can't I put out a book every two weeks,
you know? And the answer is that you actually, like
need time to think and reflect. And so what I
do is I write and then I kind of go
for a walk with my dog or stare at the
sunset or think about something completely different, you know, take
a bath, and then the like problems percolate up. Sorry,
(13:44):
the solutions to the problems start percolating up.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
So I'm finding this to be true. Is like I
have to sort of be working on something for a
period of time. I need to work in these like
blocks so that not all the little details are like
escaping me. I can like stay cohesive and whatever. Are
you like that? Do you have to touch it a
certain amount?
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Yeah, totally, because it needs to be the thing that
I think about while I'm walking my dog. Yes, you know,
it needs to be the thing. One of my favorite
ever bits of writing advice was this like how to
figure out the problems with your book, And it was like,
find someone, give them snacks. You explain your book while
they eat snacks, and you act like you're asking for
(14:30):
their opinion, but you never need to ask their opinion.
The process of explaining it to someone you care about
while they are entertained by snacks allows you to realize
all the holes in what you're writing. And that's Yeah,
it needs to be the thing that I'm thinking about
that Like when my friends call, instead of talking about
how my life is doing, I'm like, let me tell
you about this thing.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
You know, does it struggle for attention in your brain
with the podcast or have you come to a good rhythm.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
It does struggle a little bit with my brain with podcasts.
Fortunately the podcast is on a weekly cycle, and so
I can do a little bit of you know, when
I'm really on. I write my six to six to
eight thousand words script every week for podcast, and then
I write about one thousand words a day on the
(15:18):
other stuff to keep it as the other thing in
my head. Like I can kind of have two burners going,
but I can't four burner stuff, which is also true
with my cooking.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Okay, so the sapling cage wound up at Feminist Press.
Love it tell me about the publishing journey and was
how much of you traditionally published versus independently published.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Most of my books are independent, some of them are DIY.
It's kind of complicated because some of them are self published,
but in very like complicated ways. I have run two
different collectively owned publishers, ones Combustion Books and one's called
Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, and so those are like
collective projects of a bunch of people, and I will
be one of those people and we will also publish
(16:09):
my books among others, and so I've done that. I
came out of zines. I came out of writing short stories,
putting them in zines and distributing them more or less
for free. And then I moved up to a magazine
and then that was sort of having a larger audience.
Then I worked with an independent press, a fairly large
independent press called Akpress, who put out my first book,
(16:33):
and then I published a bunch of books through my
own collective press. Then I sold a novella series, a
two book series to tour or actually technically tour dot com,
which is like legally distinct, and those are sort of
my mainstream published books. And I actually didn't get an
agent until after I had done that. I got an
agent because a Hollywood director like messaged me on Twitter
(16:54):
because he liked my book, and he was like, hey,
is this a possibility, And in the end the whole
thing fell through. But when I was negotiating with him,
getting an agent was really easy, right because I was like, Hey,
I'm a mainstream published author with Hollywood interest. Does anyone
want to represent me to Hollywood?
Speaker 4 (17:11):
Yeah, that's the best time.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Yeah, I'm very glad. I got to come at it
from this position of like, I believe very strongly that
authors and publishers need to understand they're in a peer relationship,
you know. And I think authors very quickly are like, oh,
someone's doing me a favor by publishing me. Like, no,
no one's doing you a favor by publishing you. The
people publish you because they think that your books are
meaningful and or will sell. You know, those are the
(17:34):
only reasons that people are going to publish you. It's
not a favor and you so you've either written something
meaningful or something that they think will sell, or ideally both.
And that's sort of a tangent. But after I wrote
those two books, I was like, oh, my career, I'm
on this upward trajectory. Everything's up and up and up.
I'm going to be Hollywood did Star. I don't know
(17:55):
what I thought. And I remember, actually.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
I said, of course you did. We all do.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Yeah, no exactly. I mean I was having this like
moment where I was like, I just played a show
at this like punk bar that I used to play
all the time, and then I had to go drive
to the post office at like one in the morning,
after the show to drop off the stuff I was
selling on Etsy, like little one inch buttons I was
selling on Etsy that my like grand total profit was
like six dollars or something for like a week of it,
(18:23):
you know. And I'm like yeah. And then I'm also
like communicating by direct message with this like director, and
I'm like, my life is weird, Like I am broke,
I am living. I was living in a barn off
grid and not because it was a romantic but because
it was like a step up from my broken down van.
And so I was like, yeah, like I was doing
a little bit of the dreaming. And I wrote this
novel and I was like, oh, this is gonna be
(18:44):
my breakthrough book. And I couldn't sell it and my
agent couldn't sell it. And I had written a YA
book just as the YA market was collapsing. I also
was writing a very hot topic thing, but not in
a way that like necessarily guarantees positive attention in that
I was writing this like trans Ya, but I also
it's not written to be like this is a book
(19:06):
for trans kids, right, Like it's just a book. It's
a book for people who like fantasy, you know. And
it so happens that the gender of the protagonist is
that she's a trans girl.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
But if you're doing this, if you're starting the publishing journey,
and what did you finish twenty sixteen?
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Yeah, I probably finished in twenty seventeen, but I'm not sure.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
Yeah. Do you feel like maybe like there's been a
big shift. Yeah, I feel like maybe maybe people weren't
ready for or publishing wasn't ready for that book yet
or I don't know.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
That's kind of how I feel. I also feel like
it hadn't found the right place in the right time,
and like, yeah, I think that this book is better
for coming out when it did, with the editor it has,
with the publisher it has. I'm very excited to be
working with feminist press. I think that indie versus mainstream
publishing or whatever, it's not a dichotomy I ever need
(19:58):
to commit myself to one side or the thereof. Yeah,
And I think that there's like serious advantages to especially
working with like I like working with these like sort
of major indies like Akapress and Feminist Press that sell
like the numbers aren't actually as wildly different as you
would expect between a mainstream press and a small press,
if the small press knows what they're doing, and you have.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
A platform too, Like I feel like sometimes big traditional
publishers can totally shit the bed, and if you have
a platform, you at least you know you are like
in charge of your destiny a little bit more regardless
of where your book is published.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
I think that's true, and I think that's a really
good point, and I think it's like one of the
shames about modern publishing is that the days of like
the successful midlist author who can kind of stay out
of the limelight, those days seem to be mostly gone.
If you want to be a successful midlist author, which
they are barely any of, you kind of need to
maintain your connection with your fan base and your like
readership more directly through whatever means. But yeah, also by
(20:58):
having a platform also, you're able to, I mean you're
able to like more clearly say to the mainstream publisher
like we are peers, you know, like I don't want crumbs.
I want to come to you as an equal.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
So when it landed at Feminist Press, did you do
another rewrite or was it already in the shape that
you wanted it to be or everyone wanted.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
It to be.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
I guess I would say it wouldn't. It wasn't quite
a rewrite, but it was I did do. I worked
with the editor. I changed some things, but it wasn't
like it wasn't very dramatic because it had been through
that a couple of times and like not to it's
like not my first book, you know, Like every time
I write a book, I'm like a little bit better
at kind of getting it a little bit cleaner as I.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
Go, you know, uh huh, like you know when it's ready.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Yeah, more or less. But I also, like I love
working with editors, and even when I've like quote unquote
self published, I'm working with editors usually because I'm not
the only person at the publisher, and I don't think
that authors are in a very good place to make
the fire. I know, like read through of a book,
you know, because we're too close to it and like
(22:04):
like I could do it to another person's book. Although
it's not like my skill set. I'm more of a
writer than an editor, but like you know, push comes
to shove. I understand books, but yeah, no, I'm I
Margo a Feminist Press was my editor and just did
a really good job, like kind of going through and
you know, there's all kinds of things that I'm like
missing that are like I am not always the best
at remembering find details, and so I'll like bring up
(22:30):
a fine detail early in the book and then get
it like wrong later in the book, and someone will
be like, wait, how does that work? You know, right?
Speaker 4 (22:37):
What kind of sword was that? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Exactly exactly. I found out after publishing a different thing
that there's a difference between a tabird and a weird
medieval surcoat, a tabird in a surcoat or different things.
It's like when I'm if you ever write about like
modern gun stuff, if you call the magazine a clip
like gun, people get really upset. Oh you can. You
can annoy medieval people by getting because surcoats get called
(23:02):
taburns in a lot of fantasy. But it's like, technically wrong.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
I don't have any weapons in my in my writing.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
What are you doing?
Speaker 4 (23:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (23:13):
I just got I know, at least sort.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
Okay, So let's go back to the publishing conversation. So like,
you know, yes, there are different pluses and minuses, and
maybe it all fits together, especially if you're as prolific
as someone like you, where you're like kind of doing
a little bit of both. So what do you see
as the advantages and what are the challenges of each?
Speaker 1 (23:43):
When a mainstream press is like really doing their thing,
you do have a like a there's kind of a
higher ceiling available most of the time, right, even if
the floor or the like middle in between the floor
and the ceiling is like kind of at the same place,
and there's all so a certain amount of credibility that
you can carry. I mean, honestly, the most financially successful
(24:05):
authors overall tend to be hybrid authors, right. They tend
to have enough mainstream published books to anchor their reputation
as like real authors who've passed gatekeepers, and then they
self publish. Because when you self publish, you invert the money.
You know, when you publish a book, you are lucky
if you get fifteen percent. When you self publish a book,
(24:27):
you're going to keep eighty five percent or whatever. And
so obviously you need to sell a lot fewer books
in order to make a living as an author if
you self publish. But mainstream publishing offers it offers credibility,
It also offers a chance to see what's involved in
high production values, because I think production values do matter.
(24:48):
I think that you know, self production is great, but
I think that a lot of people when they self publish,
they like don't realize that they should do the steps
of publishing. Publishing a book does not mean I got
this bound into paperback and now it is in my garage.
Publishing is distribution, It is design, it is editing, It
(25:09):
is like blurbs, it is promotion. It is all kinds
of things. That is a wholly separate job that deserves
the money it gets. Like you know, I don't think
that the average editor at a mainstream press is not
making a ton of money and they're working incredibly hard
to make our books happen. So it's between small and mainstream,
(25:31):
like Indian mainstream press. Honestly, it's just like which place
is going to give the book the most love and
get it in front of the most people, And usually
you kind of get one or the other, right because
like a mainstream press is going to pick certain books
as their front list, and I mean indie press as
will too, but like it's not as dramatic of a difference,
And so if you're not yourself, if you're not front
(25:52):
list at a mainstream press, you might be better off front
list at an indie press, but really then it's like
kind of just about the editor. It's a about the
people who believe in the project and want to make
it happen.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
So substack, how does that fit into you have a substack?
Most writers should have a substack these days? I think,
how does that work into it? And that is like
a piece of indepublishing kind of like it is giving
a lot of writers an extra like boost in their income.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Yeah. No, I'm very fond of having a substack. It
has provided me a way to Okay. So I used
to live off a Patreon before I had podcasting job,
and before I had before that, I had a nonprofit job,
and before that, I lived off of my Patreon and
(26:46):
I used it very similarly to how I use my
substack currently. But I mailed out a zine every month
to my backers, and it was like ten dollars a
month and I will mail you a zine anywhere in
the world. So I made the zines fit into a
regular stand like they had to be like less than
one ounce, so I could still mail them to Australia
for a dollar or whatever. And that was a good platform,
and then I dropped it because then I had both
a nonprofit job and a paid podcast and I had
(27:08):
two full time jobs, and I one didn't want to
take people's money, and two I didn't want to do
any more work. I had two full time jobs, and
then I left the nonprofit job to focus on podcasting
and writing, and so I started doing the substack. And
what I do, and I like this model, is that
I do half of my posts are public and free,
and those are the more like important pieces, right, and
(27:32):
then the other half are a little bit more personal.
I'll put up memoir, I'll put up you know, stuff
about how I'm feeling or whatever, right, and those are
for people who want to pay me, you know, five
dollars a month or whatever. And so it both provides
a regular resource for readership like my old mailing list
used to, and it provides, like it does, provide some income,
(27:54):
and both are nice. It also is funny this week,
as I record this, I took the first like week
off of my substack in like months and months and months,
and I feel a little guilty about it, but like, overall,
don't it keeps me in good practice? I have to
write a personal essay every week, and it keeps me
(28:14):
paying attention to things, and it keeps me paying attention
to my craft. But it is also yet another you know,
So I write six to eight thousand words for podcast
script and that takes the most time because it's you know,
history podcast, it's all researched, and then one to three
thousand words for substack, and then like on top of that,
(28:35):
I try to maintain a thousand words a day on
some other project, but realistically I probably do about two
thousand words a week, maybe three thousand words a week
on other projects.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
Right now, that's great you're doing.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
It's not enough. I have to do more somehow.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
Okay. So from what I know, you're an anarchist and
an activist, and I see those things intersect with some
of the writing on your substack and some of the
writing that you've done in your books. But how do
you think about the intersections of those things with writing
and publishing.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
So there's a bunch of different ways, Like one is
trying to do activism. I'll focus on that, Like, what
about writing relates to activism? Especially you know, as an anarchist,
My activism is sort of like pro being more cooperative
and also pro being less authoritarian. Right, that's the general
direction I'm interested in, is what if we take care
(29:31):
of each other without people telling us what to do.
So my first book was a it's called myth Makers
and Lawbreakers Anarchist Writers on Fiction. It's actually out of
print because we're working on a new edition because one
of the authors I interviewed turned out to not be
the best person. But it started with me writing Ursula
Legwin a letter being like, Hey, I am a young
(29:54):
anarchist writer. I love your work. Can I interview you
about what it means to be an anarchist and a
fiction writer? Both? Because I don't know, right, because I
saw myself first and foremost as an activist, you know,
I was like, hmm, always out, you know, protesting the
war or whatever, environmental destruction and things like that. But
I was writing more and more fiction and it felt
(30:16):
totally separate, and I didn't want it to feel separate.
So I figured I would ask Legwin what this was about.
And I am honestly blessed in my life was changed
by the fact that she wrote back and said yes,
and so I interviewed her.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
That's incredible yeah, no, it was.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
It was amazing. It was like and then it was
really easy to get other people to want to be
in the book because everyone was Ursula Laguin right, And
so I'm like, hey, do you want to be in
this book with Ursula Lagwin and Alan Moore? And people
are like, yeah, no, I do.
Speaker 4 (30:44):
How did the interview go? What did you learn?
Speaker 1 (30:46):
So one of the things, so I actually, it's funny
because all of the different people I interviewed, I get
their ideas a little bit mixed up in my head,
but fair enough. One of the things that Legwinn said
that I really liked was like she really appreciates that
other like anarchists and leftists stuff mostly just leave her
alone to do writing and don't expect her to like
go out and do a lot of political organizing. But
she's still she talks about She's like, but I'll still
(31:08):
stuff envelopes for Planned parenthood, and I'll still go to
the anti war march, like, so she'll show up and
do the work, but not necessarily do the like intense
amount of labor that's involved in the specialization that's involved
in organizing. And so it's like a cool way to
kind of let yourself off the hook of some of it,
but not all of it, because instead of just being like, oh, well,
other people can go put themselves in danger and do
(31:30):
all the hard work, I'm going to do the writing,
Like that's kind of nonsense. But at the same time,
I don't specialize in organizing anymore. I specialize in writing,
and that is a better use of my talents. But then,
like you know, in twenty twenty with the George Floyd stuff,
is like, well, I'm still going to go out, you know,
(31:51):
it still matters to me, and actually was kind of nice.
One of the weird intersections for that is I had
a story published in a magazine, a Chinese magazine thing.
It's called say Fiction World. I can't remember. I have
a copy of it, but it's not in letters I
can understand. And also I know this is like my
like subtle brag by throwing that in and the publishers
(32:13):
of it knowing that at the beginning of twenty twenty
there was a period where Americans couldn't get masks right
because they were all sold out. But China had already
kind of hit their first wave and received a little
bit and so they had kicked their mask production in overtime,
and so this science fiction magazine sent me hundreds of
masks to distribute, And so I went to a protest
(32:35):
and I handed out like kN ninety five masks that
have been sent to me because of my work as
a science fiction author. And like, I was like, oh,
there are ways that they can connect, right, and then
the other ways that they can connect are a little
bit more. And I think this is from Langwin also,
is that fiction isn't a good way to change people's
minds or tell them what to think, which is kind
(32:56):
of cool about it. Instead, it's a way to get
people to question things and start. It's not good at
providing answers, it's good at providing questions. And I see
that as my political work. Is I rarely, I mean, like, yes,
I know roughly what I believe in, Like, oh, well,
you know a society built on mutual aid and solidarity
that federates at the following level and works at the
(33:17):
follow Like I could I could do that, right, I
could talk about that, But I'm much more interested in
offering people questions because the thing that I believe in
is that we create a society that we create not
that Margaret tells us what to do, you know, but
instead we say, we have the following problems, what should
we do about it? And I think therefore that fiction
(33:39):
writing can be such an important part of that sort
of like almost like democratic revolutionary process or something.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
Yeah, you're like expanding your expanding people's minds enough to
be good collaborators with you. You're like trying to create collaborators.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
You know.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
It's like it's all right, because it's hard to like
hit someone over ahead and be like be a free
thinking individual. You know. It's like not how it works,
you know.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
Yeah, give them the idea that they might be able to.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Yeah, and then they might disagree with me and then
I'll be grabchy. But whatever.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
So does it affect the like it sounds like you
have done co op publishing situations. Does it play out
like that.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Too, Yeah, that is definitely one of the ways that
it plays out, Even like the stuff where I talk
about how I really believe in a peer relationship between
the author and the publisher, whether or not you're part
of the publisher like I have been multiple times. I
do believe in collective ownership with the means of production.
I believe that workers can run their own businesses, and
(34:43):
I like supporting that, and I like supporting people who
are trying to build a more horizontal world.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
So this is the first part of a trilogy. Do
you have the whole thing written?
Speaker 1 (34:59):
No? Know, Much to my publisher's consternation, I have most
of the outline of the second book, and I'm about
to go on tour with this book, and so I'm
kind of like finishing up loose ends of some other
stuff that I'm supposed to have published, and then I'm
going to move more full time into the writing of
the next book. It's like nice in the The reason
(35:20):
everyone should ghost write a terrible heterosexual romance novel at
some point in their life is that I have in
the back pocket I can write this in three weeks
if I absolutely need to, and I should nice and
I won't, but I know that worst case scenario, I
can do it.
Speaker 4 (35:34):
I think being on two or two is going to
put you in the headspace of the book and then
you can like ride that wave. Even though what sucks
about promotion, I think, and I have not had to
do this yet, but I do. I podcast all the time,
is that it's a totally different energy than writing, so
it can kind of fuck up your writing vibe a
(35:57):
little bit for me at least. Does it do that
for you, Yeah, a bit.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
But like I think what you're saying about being in
the headspace of the book, it's like, like I said,
like I have like one real world burner where I'm
thinking about history, and then I have one fantasy world
burner at a time, So I'm trying to finish cooking
the little small things and get them out of the
way so that yeah, by the time I'm on tour,
I will be thinking and talking about this book in
(36:22):
this world. I have a really bad memory, So I
have pretty careful world notes, more than I've ever done
before because I knew I was writing a trilogy. So
I like pretty careful world notes. Every time I like
introduce a new town, I like make a little separate document.
I really like scriveners what I write in, and so
I make little text files basically that are like here's
(36:44):
how the following order of nights works, Here's how magic
works in this context. Here's how it works in this context.
So that's going to make it easier to write the
next one. But I'm still going to have to Just
the first thing I'm gonna do is sit down and
read this book for the like twenty fifth time or whatever.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
Are you doing an audiobook?
Speaker 1 (37:03):
An audiobook is being done. I am not the reader
of it, but it is just coming out. At the
same time.
Speaker 4 (37:10):
Well, I am very excited for the whole trilogy, really,
and what's next after? Are you just kind of going
to ride the trilogy and then reconsidered? Do you always
have a few book ideas in the back of your head.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (37:25):
I always have way too many book ideas in the
back of my head. One of the small projects that
I was talking about finishing was I wrote a third
book in that series that was mainstream published because that's
a novella series, which is easier for me to finish
the novels. So I just finished the third book in
the Danielle Kine series, but it's going to be with
my co op publisher, Strangers and the Tangled Wilderness, And
(37:45):
I've been working on a lot of like RPG content stuff.
We put out a tabletop role playing game this year
called Pin Number City, but part of the kickstarter for
that is I promised everyone a novella set in that world.
And so that's what I'm writing right now, is a
novella set in that world. And then when I finished that,
I have this other role playing game world that I
really want to write that I've been working with an
artist on and the art is amazing and I want
(38:07):
that to come out sometime soon. I basically have this
like I think when I was younger, I was like
a punk, so I was like, I'm going to die soon,
you know, because punks are not always the brightest or
it doesn't always make the best decisions. So it's a
realistic threat model. But I still have a little bit
but instead of it being like so like live fast
and ride a motorcycle, instead it's like, oh, I got
(38:27):
to finish this stuff, like what if I die, Like
I have to have written this.
Speaker 4 (38:32):
Well, it sounds like you're well on your way. You're
writing all the necessary words. I'm super inspired. What are
your bucket list writing goals? Is it the Hollywood thing?
Speaker 1 (38:43):
You know? I would really like that, but I kind
of try not to hold onto that as like a
need or anything. I see myself as like kind of
like your favorite writer's favorite writer, you know, Like I
see myself as like, I'm fine with being like, since
I'm able to make a living at it, I'm fine
with being a little bit more niche, niche whatever, because
(39:03):
I'm not interested in like changing. I mean, I know
that if Hollywood made publish one of my things, they
would like water down the political aspects and some of
the queer aspects and stuff. I'm actually fine with Hollywood
watering those things down. I don't want to water them
down ahead of time, so I don't want to write
towards that goal. I think my bucket lists honestly like
(39:27):
finishing this trilogy, especially if I can write like, like
even more like Doorstopper trilogy. You know, these are eighty
thousand and the you know, next one might be ninety
or something thousand word books. But like, I don't know,
maybe at some point it'd be cool to write my
like epic fantasy one hundred and thirty thousand more per
book nonsense Doorstoppers. I don't know, And I actually a
(39:51):
lot of my goals are actually more like, like, I
have some sort of more nonfiction stuff that I really
want to publish. I want to learn how to say
very complicated philosophical things, and the main way I do
it currently is in fiction, and I think that that's
like a strength that I have compared to other things.
(40:11):
But so it makes one of my one of my
bucket lists is to write a book that one hundred
people are going to read about like esoteric understandings of
how to you know, interact with the world.
Speaker 4 (40:24):
Amazing. What's one piece of writing advice you wish you
could give your former self?
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Oh, it's funny. I I have my piece of writing
advice I give everyone else, but I actually doesn't apply
to my younger self. What I would tell my younger
self is like, it's all right, You're doing good. This
is a useful and worthwhile thing to spend your time doing,
even if you don't get a lot of feedback around it,
Even if it's not something you're around a lot of
(40:50):
people who do. Keep it up. You're going somewhere.
Speaker 4 (40:53):
Yeah. What's one tip for writers trying to get a
book published?
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Write another book?
Speaker 4 (41:01):
Brutal that's the brutal truth.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
Hyland's rules of writing are perfect. Heinland is not perfect.
Hyland's rules of writing are perfect, which is basically like,
you must write, you must finish what you write, you
must put what you write out and submission, you must
not rewrite except to editorial order. And you must write
the next thing. And so while your book is out
on submission, be writing the next book. If that book
(41:26):
and that's what the Sapling Cage didn't find its audience.
And you know how I got the Sapling page published.
I published the next book, or rather another book. I
published a book of short stories. And while giving a
talk on that book, Margo from Feminist Press was in
the audience and came up and talked to me.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
Amazing.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
So and then there's another a piece of advice I
got from someone who I will not name drop this year,
who used to be a widely respected author, who when
I asked him about basically someone told me, like, look,
nothing sells the last book like the next book. Yeah,
And that's true, both in terms of already published book
(42:07):
that you want more eyes on and in terms of
a book that you've already written. Because eventually you get
big enough, someone's going to buy your trunk novel, which
might not even be good. It might be bad that
someone buys your trunk novel. But if you are a
like if you hit a certain level of fame, somewhat
will published half written grocery lists. You know.
Speaker 4 (42:29):
So, what's your all time favorite piece of your own writing?
Is it the saplink A?
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Oh no, probably, I don't know. It's different every time.
It might be a Country of Ghosts, which is a
somewhere between novella and novel that I wrote, and it's
actually come out from a different publisher. It's a come
out in multiple editions from different publishers.
Speaker 4 (42:49):
What's the premise of that one?
Speaker 1 (42:51):
It's my anarchist utopia book, is like, why it's my?
It's my Like I sat down and was like, here's
here's a society that you know, it's not much like
Legwin's anarchist utopia. It's a it's an imperfect society right,
very intentionally, but it was my, like, here's what I
think as tied into a story as best as I
(43:12):
can manage. And it will probably never be my like,
I think I was a pretty good writer at that point,
but like you know, it first came out ten years ago,
but I think it'll always have a like really important
place in my heart because I was going through a
really rough time when that came out and I was
doing my I swear I don't constantly think about dying.
But I really resonated with when Barbie was like, hey,
(43:34):
do you all think about dying?
Speaker 4 (43:36):
I know that was so dark.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
I know exactly. And when I was doing that in
that book had like it wasn't even out yet, but
it was like coming out and I was like sick.
I'd like the flu or something, and I was like,
that's it. This is the end to me. But at
least I finished that book, you know, And so like
whatever else I do, I will have many book children.
I love all my book children equally, but that's one
(43:58):
of them that I care about especial one.
Speaker 4 (44:00):
Yeah, Well, tell everybody about the pod and where else
they can find you The.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
Substack Margaret Kiljoy. You can find me by googling that
on any platform that I'm on, which is an artist
formerly known as Twitter and Instagram. I have a substack
that's Margaret Kiljoy that I post every Wednesday, except the
Wednesday that I'm recording this where I didn't write. And
I have a couple podcasts. If you want to hear
me read fiction, some of it my own and some
(44:27):
of it other people's. You can check out Cool Zone
Media Book Club, which comes out every Sunday, and it's
on two different podcast feeds. It's on It Could Happen Here,
which is a daily news podcast from cool Zone Media,
and then it's on my cool Zone Media show, which
is called Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff Where every
Monday and Wednesday, and you can actually hear us talk
me and me and Courtney talking about multiple issues. I
(44:49):
do a deep dive on different cool people in history,
especially people related towards the movement of trying to make
the world a better and less horrible place. HOWE not
necessarily super pozzy, because sometimes really bad things happen to
those people, but I think that it is always worth
looking at the people come to us.
Speaker 4 (45:08):
But you make it fun.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 4 (45:12):
Yes, great show. Everyone should get the Sapling cage and
thank you so much. It was so fun to chat
about all this nerd out about.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
That I never get to talk about. Okay, wait, if
you ever want to like talk to a like, if
you want to talk to a famous person, like you
want to talk to Lagwin, well you can't do that
without Wuiji board uh huh. But you talk to them
about the thing that they don't usually get to talk about.
And so when I wrote Lagwin and was like, can
I talk to about anarchism, when was like, oh, thank god.
I think if I'd ask them about poetry, I'd be
like even more in But I never get to talk
(45:40):
about writing. I always have to talk about history, which
is fine. I love history. So thanks for having me
on to talk about this well.
Speaker 3 (45:46):
Thank you, Thank you so much to Margaret, and thank
you for joining me.
Speaker 2 (45:50):
For this episode of The Leaders. Writing is so much
better with friends.
Speaker 4 (45:56):
I'm your host, Courtney.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
Kosak, and hey, let's connect on social media.
Speaker 4 (46:00):
I am at Courtney Kosak. Last name is Kocak.
Speaker 3 (46:04):
I'm on Instagram, Twitter, Blue Sky, Threads, TikTok, all the
social media's and make sure you're signed up for the
Bleeder's Companion substack for all kinds of newsletter exclusives. There
is a link for that in the episode description. I
send out a bunch of great stuff to my free list,
and I also have a paid subscription where I take.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
You behind the scenes of all my best buylines.
Speaker 3 (46:29):
I've written about my return to stand up comedy and
how I got ready to crush my showcase, my MFA
and whether or not I think it.
Speaker 4 (46:37):
Is worth it.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
I also have some mini workshops like one hour power
Hours behind the paywall that are awesome, so there is
also a link for that in the episode description and
join me again next time for another inspiring episode.
Speaker 4 (46:53):
In the meantime, Happy Bleeding
It started with me writing Ursula Legwin a letter being like, hey,
I am a young anarchist writer. I love your work.
Can I interview you about what it means to be
an anarchist and a fiction writer both? Because I don't know.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Today's guest is Margaret Kiljoy, a prolific author, podcaster, activist, anarchist,
and all around a fascinating person.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
I was so thrilled to talk shop with her and
dig into her creative process.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Hyland's rules of writing are perfect, which is basically like,
you must write, you must finish what you write, you
must put what you write out and submission like you
must not rewrite except to editorial order, and you must
write the next thing.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Margaret has had a wide range of publishing experiences, from
co ops to indie presses, to more traditional outlets to
even some ghost writing, so it was really interesting to
get her take on the publishing landscape and the pros
and cons of each.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I think that indie versus mainstream publishing or whatever, it's
not a dichotomy. I ever need to commit myself to
one side or the other of.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
In this episode, Margaret shares how her writing process has
evolved over the years, the unlock of a great outline,
and how she keeps all of her myriad projects cooking
without burning anything or getting bored. This is one of
my favorite episodes with a truly delightful and insightful author.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
So let's get into it.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
There's nothing to writing.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
All you do is sit down at a typewriter.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
And bleed.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Welcome to the Leaders, a podcast and support group about
book writing and publishing. I writer and podcaster Courtney Kosak,
and each week I'll bring you new conversations with authors,
agents and publishers about how to write and sell books.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
I'm Margaret Kiljoy. I'm the author of The Sapling Cage
from Feminist Press.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
Okay, awesome. So I always kick off with this lightning round.
So when did you first identify as a writer?
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Okay, it's a medium story, and I'm so sorry because
I know you promised lightning round. I was living in
a squat in the South Bronx and the window was
broken and there's no electricity, and there's this old writer's
roll top desk that was randomly in this like fifth
story abandoned apartment that I was living in, and I
was like, I'm gonna be a writer. And I like
(02:37):
sat there and wrote a bunch of stories that are terrible.
I actually had written a bunch of stories younger than that,
but that was like when I like was like, this
is it. I'm going to be a writer.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
Wait, how old are you? Twenty twenty?
Speaker 1 (02:48):
That's good.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
That's a good, nice, young, impressionable age to start. I
was much later. I was in my like twenty eight
almost oh really, so yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Most people take that long before there are any good
and you don't have anything to say. And I'm not
trying to talk shit on younger writers, but it makes sense.
You're not losing anything by starting later.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
No, I made a lot of mistakes that I am
now are now fodder for my nonfiction. So it's all good.
What's your all time favorite book?
Speaker 1 (03:20):
I am probably enough of a basic person that I'm
going to probably say Lord of the Rings Ah in
terms of just like lasting impact on how I view
the world. I haven't reread it in a long time,
though this tracks.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
But tell me exactly what you love about it.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
I love earnest storytelling that grapples with big ideas, that
is written from a perspective that critiques power and believes
in people working together obviously, I have you know, I
think that Tolkien was one of the most influential unconscious
racists of the twentieth century. But I believe that was
(03:57):
unconscious racism, and you know, his actions largely show that.
And uh yeah, I just it's books about power and
people working together and the little person saving the world
by refusing to be corrupted.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
Okay, fascinating. So when you say unconscious racist, do you
mean like because of how he drew characterizations of groups
within his work.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Yeah, the you know, the the humans who side with
sore On are more or less like Middle Eastern coded
and you know, gotcha kind of has this like the
other that's coming from further away or you know, the baddies.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
Yeah, totally. What's your dream writing routine?
Speaker 1 (04:43):
My dream writing routine is that I every day after dinner,
right one to two thousand words sitting on my back porch.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
Yeah, okay. And what is your real writing routine.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
That but not every day?
Speaker 4 (05:01):
Hey, that's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Yeah. And then also, like I mean, it depends on
what I write. I also write podcast scripts for a living,
and that's like not one to two thousand words every day.
That is way more than that and I'm doing it
all the time.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
Yeah, okay, I definitely want to. We're going to return
to that. What's one piece of writing that makes you
jealous you didn't write it?
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Okay? When I first started reading the Broken Earth trilogy
by NK. Jemison, I had this, like, why do I
bother writing this? The prose was I The prose was
just so amazing that I was just like, everything else
is pedestrian. Everything I've produced is pedestrian.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
I love that. I haven't read that, so I guess
I need to at least catch a few pages. Okay,
So the reason for the visit The Sapling Cage give
us the premise. So this is the first installment of
it trilogy.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yeah, it's the first book of the Daughters of the
Empty Throne trilogy. It's called The Sapling Cage. September twenty fourth,
twenty twenty four from Feminist Press, which is probably in
the past by the time you're listening to this. I'm
not actually sure the schedule. And it is a crossover book,
so it's like ya, but it admits that it's going
to be a lot of adults reading it, and it
is about a sixteen year old who was born a
(06:17):
boy and wants to become a witch, and through the
process of disguising herself as a witch, realizes that she
is also a woman, and that is she is not
disguising herself. But it's actually about, of course, teens and
adults trying to save the world. In this case, it's
a you know, sort of the destruction of the environment
and things like that that they're fighting against in a
(06:38):
fantasy world.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
Amazing. Okay, so where did the idea come from? How
long had you been noodling on this?
Speaker 1 (06:46):
One of the books that I read when I was
in fifth grade that has more impact on me than
anything besides probably the aforementioned Lord of the Rings is
the Song of the Lioness Trillott series. I think there's
four books in the series by timor A. Pierce, and
it is about a young girl who wants to be
a knight and her brother is supposed to go be
a night. So she dresses up as her brother and
(07:06):
sneaks off to court and becomes a knight. And eventually
she's found out, but it's you know, not for a
long time, right, and so now she's a girl knight.
And that book meant a lot to me as a
confused gender not understander who liked swords, and so I
was like, ah, I too, am going to be a
girl with a sword. You know, that's like what it
(07:26):
seted up. I bet a lot of trans girls came
out of that book.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
And.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
I wanted to write an inversion, not of the entire
plot and not like a counterpoint, but just I wanted
to write about a boy dressing up as a girl
to become a witch, and through that, of course, like
I think that the way that we understand gender now
is a little bit different than you know when to
More appears wrote that book.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
So like, had that always been in the back of
your head? And yes, the gender conversation is changed a lot.
Is this an old idea for you or a new idea?
Speaker 1 (08:04):
I okay. So it's funny because I started writing this
book in probably twenty fifteen or twenty sixteen. I'm not
one hundred percent certain. I think I actually started writing it.
I came out as trans in twenty sixteen, so I
would guess I probably started writing it just around then
and then finished it within a year or so, and
then actually it just a it took a little while.
I had already had a couple books out, including some
(08:26):
mainstream published ones, but it took me a while to
get get a publisher for this one. And so this
idea has been like floating around in my head for
a long time.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
That is so reassuring to just hear someone say that
it took them nine years because for you know, a
certain idea. Yeah, because that's like where I'm at right now,
and I'm like, oh, thank you, I needed that. So
you took a year to write it. And this was
a while back. So what was your writing process and
(08:57):
has it changed a lot because you have you've and
a ton of books.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Yeah, it's funny. My writing process is honestly kind of different.
Every time. I feel like I am moving slowly more
towards a mature, adult, professional writer work schedule, where I,
you know, write an outline and then fill it in
with words and write a book that way, you know,
Whereas a lot of the stuff that I used to write,
especially when I was younger, I would be more of
(09:22):
like I guess I would call it like a pantser
writing by the seat of my pants person right, And
usually what I would used to do is I would
write until I ran into a brick wall, and then
I would back up a couple steps and turn the
car around and aim in a different way. And now
what I do is I do that where I write
an outline and I start writing, and then rather than
forcing my writing to fit to the outline, I then
(09:43):
change the outline as I go along with what I've
actually written, and sure that that is the way I
write most of my books now, and it has saved
me a lot of headaches. It's like, sometimes it's less
fun because you get a little less of the It
is why I don't write very detail outlines is that
I want finding things out. Why you write is like
(10:03):
the fun of especially writing fantasy, and so I save
some of the details to not be in the outline.
So I wrote this one. I had an outline, but
it also I finished a draft of it, and then
I actually did more changes to this book than my
average books. I usually kind of go and then I'm done,
and I'm like, great, I finished it, and I go
back and I smooth some things over. But there's whole
(10:26):
chapters in the beginning that weren't there when I first
finished the book. And I want to say the ending changed,
but I actually couldn't promise you that because I don't
remember because it was a long time ago.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
Do you think you say you know your writing process
has evolved. Is it the writing of a bunch of
books that has changed that, or is it the weekly
grind of doing the podcast that has changed you as
a writer.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
So it's funny because actually probably wouldn't been able to
handle the weekly grind of the podcast if I hadn't
already developed some of these skills, because yeah, like as
I would write more and more books, I would just
find myself more and more being like this doesn't work
for me. I need to Overall, For example, I tend
to view writer's block as there's something wrong with my
outline rather than like, like, no one believes in carpenter's block.
(11:12):
Right when you're like building a house, you're never like, ah,
I can't build the house anymore. I'm just I don't
I'm not feeling it. But what you can do when
you build it? Did literally build a cabin actually that
I media after finished this book. And you can mess
up and then need to back up in order to
move forward. And you can see that a little bit
more visually when you're building a house. When you're writing
(11:34):
a book, everything is very ephemeral, and you're trying to
hold this very complicated idea in your head. I actually
think it's more than the human brain can really have
all of a really complex plot with lots of characters
in their head at the same time, or at least
my head. So I learned that I needed this stuff.
And I also tend to write short instinctively. I have
(11:54):
most of my books are novella's. Okay, okay, I'll say.
The way that I really learned how much an outline
is that the first novel I ever wrote was a
ghost written heterosexual romance novel, and they gave me an outline,
and the outline worked, and I wrote the entire sixty
seventy thousand word book in about three weeks.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
Oh shit, this is like a work for higher thing.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Absolutely, I legally can't tell you what it was. And
very recently I think I've written something that has been
read more than this stupid book. It probably still has
the most Amazon reviews of anything. But then the same
publisher gave me another book to write, and the outline
didn't work, and so I had to I got two
(12:40):
thirds of the way through, but the characters didn't want
to do what they were told to do because there
was something wrong with the outline. And so I had
to work with the publisher to say, hey, I actually
need to be able to conform the outline in the
following ways. We had to do some back and forth
and have conversations around it, right because it's their property
and they're very careful with it. And then it was able.
(13:01):
Then the writing was smooth again. And so I do
find I can sprint and you know, I have time
myself because I wrote that stupid romance novel, those stupid
romance novels. I can write about eighteen hundred words an
hour if I'm like, if the outline's there, and I'm
smooth brain and it doesn't matter to me. When I
write my own fiction, I can write about one thousand
words an hour, which annoys me because then I'm like, well,
(13:23):
why can't I put out a book every two weeks,
you know? And the answer is that you actually, like
need time to think and reflect. And so what I
do is I write and then I kind of go
for a walk with my dog or stare at the
sunset or think about something completely different, you know, take
a bath, and then the like problems percolate up. Sorry,
(13:44):
the solutions to the problems start percolating up.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
So I'm finding this to be true. Is like I
have to sort of be working on something for a
period of time. I need to work in these like
blocks so that not all the little details are like
escaping me. I can like stay cohesive and whatever. Are
you like that? Do you have to touch it a
certain amount?
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Yeah, totally, because it needs to be the thing that
I think about while I'm walking my dog. Yes, you know,
it needs to be the thing. One of my favorite
ever bits of writing advice was this like how to
figure out the problems with your book, And it was like,
find someone, give them snacks. You explain your book while
they eat snacks, and you act like you're asking for
(14:30):
their opinion, but you never need to ask their opinion.
The process of explaining it to someone you care about
while they are entertained by snacks allows you to realize
all the holes in what you're writing. And that's Yeah,
it needs to be the thing that I'm thinking about
that Like when my friends call, instead of talking about
how my life is doing, I'm like, let me tell
you about this thing.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
You know, does it struggle for attention in your brain
with the podcast or have you come to a good rhythm.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
It does struggle a little bit with my brain with podcasts.
Fortunately the podcast is on a weekly cycle, and so
I can do a little bit of you know, when
I'm really on. I write my six to six to
eight thousand words script every week for podcast, and then
I write about one thousand words a day on the
(15:18):
other stuff to keep it as the other thing in
my head. Like I can kind of have two burners going,
but I can't four burner stuff, which is also true
with my cooking.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Okay, so the sapling cage wound up at Feminist Press.
Love it tell me about the publishing journey and was
how much of you traditionally published versus independently published.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Most of my books are independent, some of them are DIY.
It's kind of complicated because some of them are self published,
but in very like complicated ways. I have run two
different collectively owned publishers, ones Combustion Books and one's called
Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, and so those are like
collective projects of a bunch of people, and I will
be one of those people and we will also publish
(16:09):
my books among others, and so I've done that. I
came out of zines. I came out of writing short stories,
putting them in zines and distributing them more or less
for free. And then I moved up to a magazine
and then that was sort of having a larger audience.
Then I worked with an independent press, a fairly large
independent press called Akpress, who put out my first book,
(16:33):
and then I published a bunch of books through my
own collective press. Then I sold a novella series, a
two book series to tour or actually technically tour dot com,
which is like legally distinct, and those are sort of
my mainstream published books. And I actually didn't get an
agent until after I had done that. I got an
agent because a Hollywood director like messaged me on Twitter
(16:54):
because he liked my book, and he was like, hey,
is this a possibility, And in the end the whole
thing fell through. But when I was negotiating with him,
getting an agent was really easy, right because I was like, Hey,
I'm a mainstream published author with Hollywood interest. Does anyone
want to represent me to Hollywood?
Speaker 4 (17:11):
Yeah, that's the best time.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Yeah, I'm very glad. I got to come at it
from this position of like, I believe very strongly that
authors and publishers need to understand they're in a peer relationship,
you know. And I think authors very quickly are like, oh,
someone's doing me a favor by publishing me. Like, no,
no one's doing you a favor by publishing you. The
people publish you because they think that your books are
meaningful and or will sell. You know, those are the
(17:34):
only reasons that people are going to publish you. It's
not a favor and you so you've either written something
meaningful or something that they think will sell, or ideally both.
And that's sort of a tangent. But after I wrote
those two books, I was like, oh, my career, I'm
on this upward trajectory. Everything's up and up and up.
I'm going to be Hollywood did Star. I don't know
(17:55):
what I thought. And I remember, actually.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
I said, of course you did. We all do.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Yeah, no exactly. I mean I was having this like
moment where I was like, I just played a show
at this like punk bar that I used to play
all the time, and then I had to go drive
to the post office at like one in the morning,
after the show to drop off the stuff I was
selling on Etsy, like little one inch buttons I was
selling on Etsy that my like grand total profit was
like six dollars or something for like a week of it,
(18:23):
you know. And I'm like yeah. And then I'm also
like communicating by direct message with this like director, and
I'm like, my life is weird, Like I am broke,
I am living. I was living in a barn off
grid and not because it was a romantic but because
it was like a step up from my broken down van.
And so I was like, yeah, like I was doing
a little bit of the dreaming. And I wrote this
novel and I was like, oh, this is gonna be
(18:44):
my breakthrough book. And I couldn't sell it and my
agent couldn't sell it. And I had written a YA
book just as the YA market was collapsing. I also
was writing a very hot topic thing, but not in
a way that like necessarily guarantees positive attention in that
I was writing this like trans Ya, but I also
it's not written to be like this is a book
(19:06):
for trans kids, right, Like it's just a book. It's
a book for people who like fantasy, you know. And
it so happens that the gender of the protagonist is
that she's a trans girl.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
But if you're doing this, if you're starting the publishing journey,
and what did you finish twenty sixteen?
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Yeah, I probably finished in twenty seventeen, but I'm not sure.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
Yeah. Do you feel like maybe like there's been a
big shift. Yeah, I feel like maybe maybe people weren't
ready for or publishing wasn't ready for that book yet
or I don't know.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
That's kind of how I feel. I also feel like
it hadn't found the right place in the right time,
and like, yeah, I think that this book is better
for coming out when it did, with the editor it has,
with the publisher it has. I'm very excited to be
working with feminist press. I think that indie versus mainstream
publishing or whatever, it's not a dichotomy I ever need
(19:58):
to commit myself to one side or the thereof. Yeah,
And I think that there's like serious advantages to especially
working with like I like working with these like sort
of major indies like Akapress and Feminist Press that sell
like the numbers aren't actually as wildly different as you
would expect between a mainstream press and a small press,
if the small press knows what they're doing, and you have.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
A platform too, Like I feel like sometimes big traditional
publishers can totally shit the bed, and if you have
a platform, you at least you know you are like
in charge of your destiny a little bit more regardless
of where your book is published.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
I think that's true, and I think that's a really
good point, and I think it's like one of the
shames about modern publishing is that the days of like
the successful midlist author who can kind of stay out
of the limelight, those days seem to be mostly gone.
If you want to be a successful midlist author, which
they are barely any of, you kind of need to
maintain your connection with your fan base and your like
readership more directly through whatever means. But yeah, also by
(20:58):
having a platform also, you're able to, I mean you're
able to like more clearly say to the mainstream publisher
like we are peers, you know, like I don't want crumbs.
I want to come to you as an equal.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
So when it landed at Feminist Press, did you do
another rewrite or was it already in the shape that
you wanted it to be or everyone wanted.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
It to be.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
I guess I would say it wouldn't. It wasn't quite
a rewrite, but it was I did do. I worked
with the editor. I changed some things, but it wasn't
like it wasn't very dramatic because it had been through
that a couple of times and like not to it's
like not my first book, you know, Like every time
I write a book, I'm like a little bit better
at kind of getting it a little bit cleaner as I.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
Go, you know, uh huh, like you know when it's ready.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Yeah, more or less. But I also, like I love
working with editors, and even when I've like quote unquote
self published, I'm working with editors usually because I'm not
the only person at the publisher, and I don't think
that authors are in a very good place to make
the fire. I know, like read through of a book,
you know, because we're too close to it and like
(22:04):
like I could do it to another person's book. Although
it's not like my skill set. I'm more of a
writer than an editor, but like you know, push comes
to shove. I understand books, but yeah, no, I'm I
Margo a Feminist Press was my editor and just did
a really good job, like kind of going through and
you know, there's all kinds of things that I'm like
missing that are like I am not always the best
at remembering find details, and so I'll like bring up
(22:30):
a fine detail early in the book and then get
it like wrong later in the book, and someone will
be like, wait, how does that work? You know, right?
Speaker 4 (22:37):
What kind of sword was that? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Exactly exactly. I found out after publishing a different thing
that there's a difference between a tabird and a weird
medieval surcoat, a tabird in a surcoat or different things.
It's like when I'm if you ever write about like
modern gun stuff, if you call the magazine a clip
like gun, people get really upset. Oh you can. You
can annoy medieval people by getting because surcoats get called
(23:02):
taburns in a lot of fantasy. But it's like, technically wrong.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
I don't have any weapons in my in my writing.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
What are you doing?
Speaker 4 (23:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (23:13):
I just got I know, at least sort.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
Okay, So let's go back to the publishing conversation. So like,
you know, yes, there are different pluses and minuses, and
maybe it all fits together, especially if you're as prolific
as someone like you, where you're like kind of doing
a little bit of both. So what do you see
as the advantages and what are the challenges of each?
Speaker 1 (23:43):
When a mainstream press is like really doing their thing,
you do have a like a there's kind of a
higher ceiling available most of the time, right, even if
the floor or the like middle in between the floor
and the ceiling is like kind of at the same place,
and there's all so a certain amount of credibility that
you can carry. I mean, honestly, the most financially successful
(24:05):
authors overall tend to be hybrid authors, right. They tend
to have enough mainstream published books to anchor their reputation
as like real authors who've passed gatekeepers, and then they
self publish. Because when you self publish, you invert the money.
You know, when you publish a book, you are lucky
if you get fifteen percent. When you self publish a book,
(24:27):
you're going to keep eighty five percent or whatever. And
so obviously you need to sell a lot fewer books
in order to make a living as an author if
you self publish. But mainstream publishing offers it offers credibility,
It also offers a chance to see what's involved in
high production values, because I think production values do matter.
(24:48):
I think that you know, self production is great, but
I think that a lot of people when they self publish,
they like don't realize that they should do the steps
of publishing. Publishing a book does not mean I got
this bound into paperback and now it is in my garage.
Publishing is distribution, It is design, it is editing, It
(25:09):
is like blurbs, it is promotion. It is all kinds
of things. That is a wholly separate job that deserves
the money it gets. Like you know, I don't think
that the average editor at a mainstream press is not
making a ton of money and they're working incredibly hard
to make our books happen. So it's between small and mainstream,
(25:31):
like Indian mainstream press. Honestly, it's just like which place
is going to give the book the most love and
get it in front of the most people, And usually
you kind of get one or the other, right because
like a mainstream press is going to pick certain books
as their front list, and I mean indie press as
will too, but like it's not as dramatic of a difference,
And so if you're not yourself, if you're not front
(25:52):
list at a mainstream press, you might be better off front
list at an indie press, but really then it's like
kind of just about the editor. It's a about the
people who believe in the project and want to make
it happen.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
So substack, how does that fit into you have a substack?
Most writers should have a substack these days? I think,
how does that work into it? And that is like
a piece of indepublishing kind of like it is giving
a lot of writers an extra like boost in their income.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Yeah. No, I'm very fond of having a substack. It
has provided me a way to Okay. So I used
to live off a Patreon before I had podcasting job,
and before I had before that, I had a nonprofit job,
and before that, I lived off of my Patreon and
(26:46):
I used it very similarly to how I use my
substack currently. But I mailed out a zine every month
to my backers, and it was like ten dollars a
month and I will mail you a zine anywhere in
the world. So I made the zines fit into a
regular stand like they had to be like less than
one ounce, so I could still mail them to Australia
for a dollar or whatever. And that was a good platform,
and then I dropped it because then I had both
a nonprofit job and a paid podcast and I had
(27:08):
two full time jobs, and I one didn't want to
take people's money, and two I didn't want to do
any more work. I had two full time jobs, and
then I left the nonprofit job to focus on podcasting
and writing, and so I started doing the substack. And
what I do, and I like this model, is that
I do half of my posts are public and free,
and those are the more like important pieces, right, and
(27:32):
then the other half are a little bit more personal.
I'll put up memoir, I'll put up you know, stuff
about how I'm feeling or whatever, right, and those are
for people who want to pay me, you know, five
dollars a month or whatever. And so it both provides
a regular resource for readership like my old mailing list
used to, and it provides, like it does, provide some income,
(27:54):
and both are nice. It also is funny this week,
as I record this, I took the first like week
off of my substack in like months and months and months,
and I feel a little guilty about it, but like, overall,
don't it keeps me in good practice? I have to
write a personal essay every week, and it keeps me
(28:14):
paying attention to things, and it keeps me paying attention
to my craft. But it is also yet another you know,
So I write six to eight thousand words for podcast
script and that takes the most time because it's you know,
history podcast, it's all researched, and then one to three
thousand words for substack, and then like on top of that,
(28:35):
I try to maintain a thousand words a day on
some other project, but realistically I probably do about two
thousand words a week, maybe three thousand words a week
on other projects.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
Right now, that's great you're doing.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
It's not enough. I have to do more somehow.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
Okay. So from what I know, you're an anarchist and
an activist, and I see those things intersect with some
of the writing on your substack and some of the
writing that you've done in your books. But how do
you think about the intersections of those things with writing
and publishing.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
So there's a bunch of different ways, Like one is
trying to do activism. I'll focus on that, Like, what
about writing relates to activism? Especially you know, as an anarchist,
My activism is sort of like pro being more cooperative
and also pro being less authoritarian. Right, that's the general
direction I'm interested in, is what if we take care
(29:31):
of each other without people telling us what to do.
So my first book was a it's called myth Makers
and Lawbreakers Anarchist Writers on Fiction. It's actually out of
print because we're working on a new edition because one
of the authors I interviewed turned out to not be
the best person. But it started with me writing Ursula
Legwin a letter being like, Hey, I am a young
(29:54):
anarchist writer. I love your work. Can I interview you
about what it means to be an anarchist and a
fiction writer? Both? Because I don't know, right, because I
saw myself first and foremost as an activist, you know,
I was like, hmm, always out, you know, protesting the
war or whatever, environmental destruction and things like that. But
I was writing more and more fiction and it felt
(30:16):
totally separate, and I didn't want it to feel separate.
So I figured I would ask Legwin what this was about.
And I am honestly blessed in my life was changed
by the fact that she wrote back and said yes,
and so I interviewed her.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
That's incredible yeah, no, it was.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
It was amazing. It was like and then it was
really easy to get other people to want to be
in the book because everyone was Ursula Laguin right, And
so I'm like, hey, do you want to be in
this book with Ursula Lagwin and Alan Moore? And people
are like, yeah, no, I do.
Speaker 4 (30:44):
How did the interview go? What did you learn?
Speaker 1 (30:46):
So one of the things, so I actually, it's funny
because all of the different people I interviewed, I get
their ideas a little bit mixed up in my head,
but fair enough. One of the things that Legwinn said
that I really liked was like she really appreciates that
other like anarchists and leftists stuff mostly just leave her
alone to do writing and don't expect her to like
go out and do a lot of political organizing. But
she's still she talks about She's like, but I'll still
(31:08):
stuff envelopes for Planned parenthood, and I'll still go to
the anti war march, like, so she'll show up and
do the work, but not necessarily do the like intense
amount of labor that's involved in the specialization that's involved
in organizing. And so it's like a cool way to
kind of let yourself off the hook of some of it,
but not all of it, because instead of just being like, oh, well,
other people can go put themselves in danger and do
(31:30):
all the hard work, I'm going to do the writing,
Like that's kind of nonsense. But at the same time,
I don't specialize in organizing anymore. I specialize in writing,
and that is a better use of my talents. But then,
like you know, in twenty twenty with the George Floyd stuff,
is like, well, I'm still going to go out, you know,
(31:51):
it still matters to me, and actually was kind of nice.
One of the weird intersections for that is I had
a story published in a magazine, a Chinese magazine thing.
It's called say Fiction World. I can't remember. I have
a copy of it, but it's not in letters I
can understand. And also I know this is like my
like subtle brag by throwing that in and the publishers
(32:13):
of it knowing that at the beginning of twenty twenty
there was a period where Americans couldn't get masks right
because they were all sold out. But China had already
kind of hit their first wave and received a little
bit and so they had kicked their mask production in overtime,
and so this science fiction magazine sent me hundreds of
masks to distribute, And so I went to a protest
(32:35):
and I handed out like kN ninety five masks that
have been sent to me because of my work as
a science fiction author. And like, I was like, oh,
there are ways that they can connect, right, and then
the other ways that they can connect are a little
bit more. And I think this is from Langwin also,
is that fiction isn't a good way to change people's
minds or tell them what to think, which is kind
(32:56):
of cool about it. Instead, it's a way to get
people to question things and start. It's not good at
providing answers, it's good at providing questions. And I see
that as my political work. Is I rarely, I mean, like, yes,
I know roughly what I believe in, Like, oh, well,
you know a society built on mutual aid and solidarity
that federates at the following level and works at the
(33:17):
follow Like I could I could do that, right, I
could talk about that, But I'm much more interested in
offering people questions because the thing that I believe in
is that we create a society that we create not
that Margaret tells us what to do, you know, but
instead we say, we have the following problems, what should
we do about it? And I think therefore that fiction
(33:39):
writing can be such an important part of that sort
of like almost like democratic revolutionary process or something.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
Yeah, you're like expanding your expanding people's minds enough to
be good collaborators with you. You're like trying to create collaborators.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
You know.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
It's like it's all right, because it's hard to like
hit someone over ahead and be like be a free
thinking individual. You know. It's like not how it works,
you know.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
Yeah, give them the idea that they might be able to.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Yeah, and then they might disagree with me and then
I'll be grabchy. But whatever.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
So does it affect the like it sounds like you
have done co op publishing situations. Does it play out
like that.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Too, Yeah, that is definitely one of the ways that
it plays out, Even like the stuff where I talk
about how I really believe in a peer relationship between
the author and the publisher, whether or not you're part
of the publisher like I have been multiple times. I
do believe in collective ownership with the means of production.
I believe that workers can run their own businesses, and
(34:43):
I like supporting that, and I like supporting people who
are trying to build a more horizontal world.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
So this is the first part of a trilogy. Do
you have the whole thing written?
Speaker 1 (34:59):
No? Know, Much to my publisher's consternation, I have most
of the outline of the second book, and I'm about
to go on tour with this book, and so I'm
kind of like finishing up loose ends of some other
stuff that I'm supposed to have published, and then I'm
going to move more full time into the writing of
the next book. It's like nice in the The reason
(35:20):
everyone should ghost write a terrible heterosexual romance novel at
some point in their life is that I have in
the back pocket I can write this in three weeks
if I absolutely need to, and I should nice and
I won't, but I know that worst case scenario, I
can do it.
Speaker 4 (35:34):
I think being on two or two is going to
put you in the headspace of the book and then
you can like ride that wave. Even though what sucks
about promotion, I think, and I have not had to
do this yet, but I do. I podcast all the time,
is that it's a totally different energy than writing, so
it can kind of fuck up your writing vibe a
(35:57):
little bit for me at least. Does it do that
for you, Yeah, a bit.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
But like I think what you're saying about being in
the headspace of the book, it's like, like I said,
like I have like one real world burner where I'm
thinking about history, and then I have one fantasy world
burner at a time, So I'm trying to finish cooking
the little small things and get them out of the
way so that yeah, by the time I'm on tour,
I will be thinking and talking about this book in
(36:22):
this world. I have a really bad memory, So I
have pretty careful world notes, more than I've ever done
before because I knew I was writing a trilogy. So
I like pretty careful world notes. Every time I like
introduce a new town, I like make a little separate document.
I really like scriveners what I write in, and so
I make little text files basically that are like here's
(36:44):
how the following order of nights works, Here's how magic
works in this context. Here's how it works in this context.
So that's going to make it easier to write the
next one. But I'm still going to have to Just
the first thing I'm gonna do is sit down and
read this book for the like twenty fifth time or whatever.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
Are you doing an audiobook?
Speaker 1 (37:03):
An audiobook is being done. I am not the reader
of it, but it is just coming out. At the
same time.
Speaker 4 (37:10):
Well, I am very excited for the whole trilogy, really,
and what's next after? Are you just kind of going
to ride the trilogy and then reconsidered? Do you always
have a few book ideas in the back of your head.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (37:25):
I always have way too many book ideas in the
back of my head. One of the small projects that
I was talking about finishing was I wrote a third
book in that series that was mainstream published because that's
a novella series, which is easier for me to finish
the novels. So I just finished the third book in
the Danielle Kine series, but it's going to be with
my co op publisher, Strangers and the Tangled Wilderness, And
(37:45):
I've been working on a lot of like RPG content stuff.
We put out a tabletop role playing game this year
called Pin Number City, but part of the kickstarter for
that is I promised everyone a novella set in that world.
And so that's what I'm writing right now, is a
novella set in that world. And then when I finished that,
I have this other role playing game world that I
really want to write that I've been working with an
artist on and the art is amazing and I want
(38:07):
that to come out sometime soon. I basically have this
like I think when I was younger, I was like
a punk, so I was like, I'm going to die soon,
you know, because punks are not always the brightest or
it doesn't always make the best decisions. So it's a
realistic threat model. But I still have a little bit
but instead of it being like so like live fast
and ride a motorcycle, instead it's like, oh, I got
(38:27):
to finish this stuff, like what if I die, Like
I have to have written this.
Speaker 4 (38:32):
Well, it sounds like you're well on your way. You're
writing all the necessary words. I'm super inspired. What are
your bucket list writing goals? Is it the Hollywood thing?
Speaker 1 (38:43):
You know? I would really like that, but I kind
of try not to hold onto that as like a
need or anything. I see myself as like kind of
like your favorite writer's favorite writer, you know, Like I
see myself as like, I'm fine with being like, since
I'm able to make a living at it, I'm fine
with being a little bit more niche, niche whatever, because
(39:03):
I'm not interested in like changing. I mean, I know
that if Hollywood made publish one of my things, they
would like water down the political aspects and some of
the queer aspects and stuff. I'm actually fine with Hollywood
watering those things down. I don't want to water them
down ahead of time, so I don't want to write
towards that goal. I think my bucket lists honestly like
(39:27):
finishing this trilogy, especially if I can write like, like
even more like Doorstopper trilogy. You know, these are eighty
thousand and the you know, next one might be ninety
or something thousand word books. But like, I don't know,
maybe at some point it'd be cool to write my
like epic fantasy one hundred and thirty thousand more per
book nonsense Doorstoppers. I don't know, And I actually a
(39:51):
lot of my goals are actually more like, like, I
have some sort of more nonfiction stuff that I really
want to publish. I want to learn how to say
very complicated philosophical things, and the main way I do
it currently is in fiction, and I think that that's
like a strength that I have compared to other things.
(40:11):
But so it makes one of my one of my
bucket lists is to write a book that one hundred
people are going to read about like esoteric understandings of
how to you know, interact with the world.
Speaker 4 (40:24):
Amazing. What's one piece of writing advice you wish you
could give your former self?
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Oh, it's funny. I I have my piece of writing
advice I give everyone else, but I actually doesn't apply
to my younger self. What I would tell my younger
self is like, it's all right, You're doing good. This
is a useful and worthwhile thing to spend your time doing,
even if you don't get a lot of feedback around it,
Even if it's not something you're around a lot of
(40:50):
people who do. Keep it up. You're going somewhere.
Speaker 4 (40:53):
Yeah. What's one tip for writers trying to get a
book published?
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Write another book?
Speaker 4 (41:01):
Brutal that's the brutal truth.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
Hyland's rules of writing are perfect. Heinland is not perfect.
Hyland's rules of writing are perfect, which is basically like,
you must write, you must finish what you write, you
must put what you write out and submission, you must
not rewrite except to editorial order. And you must write
the next thing. And so while your book is out
on submission, be writing the next book. If that book
(41:26):
and that's what the Sapling Cage didn't find its audience.
And you know how I got the Sapling page published.
I published the next book, or rather another book. I
published a book of short stories. And while giving a
talk on that book, Margo from Feminist Press was in
the audience and came up and talked to me.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
Amazing.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
So and then there's another a piece of advice I
got from someone who I will not name drop this year,
who used to be a widely respected author, who when
I asked him about basically someone told me, like, look,
nothing sells the last book like the next book. Yeah,
And that's true, both in terms of already published book
(42:07):
that you want more eyes on and in terms of
a book that you've already written. Because eventually you get
big enough, someone's going to buy your trunk novel, which
might not even be good. It might be bad that
someone buys your trunk novel. But if you are a
like if you hit a certain level of fame, somewhat
will published half written grocery lists. You know.
Speaker 4 (42:29):
So, what's your all time favorite piece of your own writing?
Is it the saplink A?
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Oh no, probably, I don't know. It's different every time.
It might be a Country of Ghosts, which is a
somewhere between novella and novel that I wrote, and it's
actually come out from a different publisher. It's a come
out in multiple editions from different publishers.
Speaker 4 (42:49):
What's the premise of that one?
Speaker 1 (42:51):
It's my anarchist utopia book, is like, why it's my?
It's my Like I sat down and was like, here's
here's a society that you know, it's not much like
Legwin's anarchist utopia. It's a it's an imperfect society right,
very intentionally, but it was my, like, here's what I
think as tied into a story as best as I
(43:12):
can manage. And it will probably never be my like,
I think I was a pretty good writer at that point,
but like you know, it first came out ten years ago,
but I think it'll always have a like really important
place in my heart because I was going through a
really rough time when that came out and I was
doing my I swear I don't constantly think about dying.
But I really resonated with when Barbie was like, hey,
(43:34):
do you all think about dying?
Speaker 4 (43:36):
I know that was so dark.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
I know exactly. And when I was doing that in
that book had like it wasn't even out yet, but
it was like coming out and I was like sick.
I'd like the flu or something, and I was like,
that's it. This is the end to me. But at
least I finished that book, you know, And so like
whatever else I do, I will have many book children.
I love all my book children equally, but that's one
(43:58):
of them that I care about especial one.
Speaker 4 (44:00):
Yeah, Well, tell everybody about the pod and where else
they can find you The.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
Substack Margaret Kiljoy. You can find me by googling that
on any platform that I'm on, which is an artist
formerly known as Twitter and Instagram. I have a substack
that's Margaret Kiljoy that I post every Wednesday, except the
Wednesday that I'm recording this where I didn't write. And
I have a couple podcasts. If you want to hear
me read fiction, some of it my own and some
(44:27):
of it other people's. You can check out Cool Zone
Media Book Club, which comes out every Sunday, and it's
on two different podcast feeds. It's on It Could Happen Here,
which is a daily news podcast from cool Zone Media,
and then it's on my cool Zone Media show, which
is called Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff Where every
Monday and Wednesday, and you can actually hear us talk
me and me and Courtney talking about multiple issues. I
(44:49):
do a deep dive on different cool people in history,
especially people related towards the movement of trying to make
the world a better and less horrible place. HOWE not
necessarily super pozzy, because sometimes really bad things happen to
those people, but I think that it is always worth
looking at the people come to us.
Speaker 4 (45:08):
But you make it fun.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 4 (45:12):
Yes, great show. Everyone should get the Sapling cage and
thank you so much. It was so fun to chat
about all this nerd out about.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
That I never get to talk about. Okay, wait, if
you ever want to like talk to a like, if
you want to talk to a famous person, like you
want to talk to Lagwin, well you can't do that
without Wuiji board uh huh. But you talk to them
about the thing that they don't usually get to talk about.
And so when I wrote Lagwin and was like, can
I talk to about anarchism, when was like, oh, thank god.
I think if I'd ask them about poetry, I'd be
like even more in But I never get to talk
(45:40):
about writing. I always have to talk about history, which
is fine. I love history. So thanks for having me
on to talk about this well.
Speaker 3 (45:46):
Thank you, Thank you so much to Margaret, and thank
you for joining me.
Speaker 2 (45:50):
For this episode of The Leaders. Writing is so much
better with friends.
Speaker 4 (45:56):
I'm your host, Courtney.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
Kosak, and hey, let's connect on social media.
Speaker 4 (46:00):
I am at Courtney Kosak. Last name is Kocak.
Speaker 3 (46:04):
I'm on Instagram, Twitter, Blue Sky, Threads, TikTok, all the
social media's and make sure you're signed up for the
Bleeder's Companion substack for all kinds of newsletter exclusives. There
is a link for that in the episode description. I
send out a bunch of great stuff to my free list,
and I also have a paid subscription where I take.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
You behind the scenes of all my best buylines.
Speaker 3 (46:29):
I've written about my return to stand up comedy and
how I got ready to crush my showcase, my MFA
and whether or not I think it.
Speaker 4 (46:37):
Is worth it.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
I also have some mini workshops like one hour power
Hours behind the paywall that are awesome, so there is
also a link for that in the episode description and
join me again next time for another inspiring episode.
Speaker 4 (46:53):
In the meantime, Happy Bleeding
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