September 3, 2025 • 31 mins
”Why are some people treated differently? Why are some people chosen ones for no particular reason? And why do some people get to have that extra shine?” — Victoria Aveyard
Unfairness is a pervasive theme in a lot of fantasy fiction. With battles between good and evil dominating title after title, these tales appear to have a tight grasp on fairness and justice. But for Victoria Aveyard, the world of fantasy frequently falls short on these promises. Even in some of her favorite works, the light may ultimately overcome the darkness, but not every character is given a fair chance to shine.
Victoria Aveyard is the number one New York Times bestselling author of The Red Queen series and the Realm Breaker series. In her work, she creates epic fantasy landscapes where women loom large and conventions around chosen characters are challenged.
In this episode, Victoria opens up about why her sense of fairness took shape early, shares which undersized movie character is her icon, and reflects on why there’s no escaping politics in literature. Settle in for a fast-paced episode filled with humor and a variety of Victoria’s hot takes.
***
For her reading challenge, Chosen/Unchosen, Victoria encourages readers to question the trope of “the chosen one.” She asks us to challenge why some are handed the quest, the crown, or the magic…and what happens to everyone else.
Peruse selected titles and Victoria’s complete reading challenge for free at thereadingculturepod.com/victoria-aveyard
***
This week's Beanstack Featured Librarian is Camille Perez, a former media specialist at the elementary and high school levels in Osceola County, Florida, and now a Beanstack team member. Today, Camille shares her hot takes on the modern school library and why shush culture should be a thing of the past.
Show Chapters
Chapter 1: Rotten With the Need for Justice
Chapter 2: Hell Yeah, There’s My Personality
Chapter 3: The Invisible Women
Chapter 4: Six of Crows
Chapter 5: Everything is Political
Chapter 6: Whipped Cream Shire
Chapter 7: Reading Challenge
Chapter 8: Beanstack Featured Librarian
Links
- The Reading Culture
- The Reading Culture Newsletter Signup
- Follow The Reading Culture on Instagram (for giveaways and bonus content)
- Victoria Aveyard
- Victoria Aveyard Instagram
- Red Queen
- Realm Breaker
- Number the Stars
- A New Hope opening scene
- Samuel Delaney
- Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
- Beanstack resources to build your community’s reading culture
- Jordan Lloyd Bookey
Host and Production Credits
Host: Jordan Lloyd Bookey
Producers: Mel Webb, Josia Lamberto-Egan, and Lower Street Media
Script Editors: Josia Lamberto-Egan, Mel Webb, Jordan Lloyd Bookey
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Victoria Aveyard (00:02):
Why are some people treated differently? Why
are some people chosen ones forno particular reason? And why do
some people get to have thatextra shine and you can only,
you know, claw based on your ownmerit and your own choices.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (00:17):
Unfairness can be slippery to define, but
it's easy to feel. That gut deepsense that something in the
balance just isn't right. Sowhat happens when you realize
that a whole genre ofliterature, your favorite genre,
the one you love is deeply,habitually unfair? You might
(00:38):
just have to rebuild it one newworld at a time.
Victoria Aveyard (00:42):
When we're writing our stories, we're
interacting with the storiesthat formed us that weren't
necessarily, you know, oh mygod, wonderful, perfect, nothing
to be done here, but alsoleaving us hungry for something
else. And we're trying to feedthat hunger with what we make
next.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (01:02):
Victoria Aveyard is the number one New
York Times best selling authorof the Red Queen and Realm
Breaker series, creating epicfantasy landscapes where women
loom large, justice is neversimple, and power is always up
for grabs. In this conversation,Victoria explains why her sense
of fair and unfair took shapeearly and why world building
(01:25):
gives her a much needed feelingof control and why the unchosen
characters are often the onesworth following and she tells us
which undersized movie characterremains her absolute icon when
it comes to fighting thepowerful. My name is Jordan
Lloyd Bookie and this is thereading culture, a show where we
(01:46):
speak with diverse authors aboutways to build a stronger culture
of reading in our community. Wedive deep into their personal
experiences and inspirations.Our show is made possible by
Beanstack, the leading solutionfor motivating people to read
more.
Learn more at beanstack.com andmake sure to check us out on
Instagram at the reading culturepod. Today, I want to
(02:08):
congratulate our summer readinggiveaway winner Nicholas Moore,
a librarian at Cobb CountySchools. Congratulations mister
Moore and the buddy that hetagged mister Marlowe Williams
your special edition podcastmugs and books by authors who
have been featured on the showare in route remember to
subscribe to our newsletter forfuture giveaways and you can do
(02:31):
that by going to thereadingculturepod.com forward
slash newsletter alright on tothe show listeners. Are you
looking for a fun, easy way totrack your reading and earn cool
rewards? Well, meet Beanstack,the ultimate reading app used by
(02:51):
a community of over 15,000schools, libraries, and
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Are you an avid reader? Checkwith your local library to see
if they offer Beanstack forfree. A parent? Ask your child's
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you are an educator searchingfor a fresh alternative to
(03:13):
accelerated reader, Beanstack isthe perfect tool to cultivate a
thriving reading culture.
Ready to turn the page? Visitbeanstack.com to learn more. I
did listen to, like, a ton ofpodcasts with you and just read
some articles and stuff first.And I think you're superstitious
(03:35):
because you're always sayingtouch wood. Mhmm.
I also come from, like, anextremely superstitious family,
so I'm just curious, unrelatedto the theme of the episode,
what are some of your, you know,super stick if you wanna give us
a couple.
Victoria Aveyard (03:49):
I get really, really nervous about jinxing
things, especially good things.And I'm sure there's some deep
psychological situation here,but I am constantly like, okay.
Don't really settle intoaccepting really really good
things, you know. Don't take itfor granted. My parents, my dad
especially, if anyone says like,oh, buh buh buh, maybe you'll
(04:09):
just get in a car accident.
He's like, don't say that. Don'tsay that. Don't put that in the
universe and touch wood, touchwood, touch wood, touch wood.
And so that's probably where itcomes from is my parents are
very like, well, my mom will doit to piss him off and then
he'll be like, don't do that. Ithink for him, it comes from
it's very Italian Catholic, likevery superstitious Catholic, not
like Bible Catholic, but likealmost on the way to pagan
(04:30):
belief Catholic.
Like, we're still thinking aboutsaints, and if you you touch the
rosary in the right way, you'llbe okay kind of thing. I think
that's where it carries from.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (04:38):
Gotcha.
Victoria Aveyard (04:39):
Yeah.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (04:39):
I have more like superstition superstition.
Victoria Aveyard (04:42):
Oh, I definitely do the salt over the
shoulder. Like, if I yeah. Thatsort of thing.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (04:46):
Yeah. The black cats. You have black cats?
Victoria Aveyard (04:48):
I actually grew up with a black cat, so
that would never really botherme, but I have evil eyes. Like,
I have, like, a saint in my car.That's those are definitely
around. Did you
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (04:59):
grow up in, like, culturally religious or,
like, religious religious?
Victoria Aveyard (05:03):
More culturally. So my dad's side my
dad's mother was born in Italyand came to The US in the
thirties. And she and her motherwere very very religious
superstitious, like, would beslipping rosaries into all of
your things as sort of likeprotective little talismans. And
then my mom on the other hand isvery no nonsense, almost hyper
logical. So that was aninteresting dichotomy there.
(05:26):
She's very Scottish, verypragmatic.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (05:28):
We're gonna talk a lot about justice and
fairness and things of thatnature. I wanted to ask you how
you think about them generally,and like how you separate out
justice versus fairness.
Victoria Aveyard (05:41):
I feel like my idea of justice is probably a
little bit harsh, because it'sit's a little bit more revenge
based. So I'm always thinking ofjustice in terms of, you know,
something wrong has been done,and now how do you right that
wrong? And there's always, youknow, oh, you gotta let it go,
and you can't let it corrupt youand rot you. And I'm just like,
no. I am rotten with the needfor justice, and the need for
(06:03):
people to have come up, and Andthat's sort of really, really
difficult to deal with when youlive in a world where that's not
necessarily the case.
You know, we were raised on allthese stories where the bad guys
do get their comeuppance andtheir recourse, and now we're
living through and haveconstantly been living through
moments where that is not areality. Yeah. The moral arc of
the universe bends towardsjustice. Let's see it fucking
(06:24):
bend. Sorry.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (06:25):
No. It's fine.
Victoria Aveyard (06:27):
And fairness is just for me always rooted in
everyone should be treatedequally, and the standard should
be the same for everyone. And Ifeel like I almost have like a
childish view of that becauseI'm so locked in just like, no,
why isn't this the same for thisperson? Mhmm. And I think the
basis of it is I don't know howto act if the standards are
different, if the rules for thisperson are different for this
(06:50):
person, and then I'm like, well,what are the rules for me?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (06:52):
And do you recall, like, a specific moment
in your childhood where you hadthat revelation of, like,
someone's justice is not beingserved or thinking things were
unfair?
Victoria Aveyard (07:00):
I'm an eldest daughter to a younger brother.
Boys and girls are naturallytreated differently in families,
and I remember being so so hyperaware. My brother is only two
years younger than me, of justhow differently we were treated
and what the expectations were.And I totally understand, you
know, two different children attwo different stages in their
life, but being the elderdaughter and seeing someone
(07:22):
else, you know Mhmm. Be told,oh, that thing you just did was
great.
And I'm like, well, the thing Ijust did was 10 times greater.
Why am I not getting and I feellike that pressure point was
created very, very early on as achild where I just thought, you
know, I am not getting the sametreatment, and I don't
understand why. And then thatcolored so many more things as I
(07:43):
got older of I don't know how toact because I don't know what
the standards are because thestandards appear to be
different, and that doesn't makesense to me on, like, a a
molecular level. In hindsight,you look at it and you think, of
course, things were differentbecause you were just two
different kids who learned indifferent ways and had different
struggles and advantages. Soyou're parented differently.
(08:03):
But living in it as a kid, youdon't have that perspective. And
what were, like, the cultural
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (08:09):
influences on you at that time in your
life? Like, you seeing thingsaround you that you think were
reinforcing that or they werehelping you to question what you
were experiencing?
Victoria Aveyard (08:20):
My dad, when I was growing up, he was a history
teacher, an American historyteacher. And so that was sort of
always something in the back ofmy mind is us being told events
in history, and getting what itwas in the classroom in school,
and then getting our dad beinglike, and this is actually the
other side of that event, andhow things were changed, and
getting those on the macrolevel. It's not just you
(08:42):
experiencing, you know, thestandards are different, but
this is a global reality thathas been for a long time. And I
remember just having all thesevery childish frustrations with
not being able to sort ofunderstand or parse why things
are different for differentpeople. And then the flip was,
my mom, up until she retired,was an English teacher.
And she would always teach areally really big holocaust unit
(09:05):
at her school, and so they wouldhave a lot of different books
that they would read. But mysort of version of that was I
remember reading Number of theStars, and that was one of those
first books where you didn'treally understand. What do you
mean this thing happened tothese people for no particular
reason that we can understandother than these people said
they were different? I rememberthat being very much like a
(09:27):
moment of, wait a second. Whatdo you mean that happened?
What do you mean that continuedto happen? What do you mean that
happened quite recently? What doyou mean that is something that
for a lot of people is stillvery prevalent in their lives? I
think that was one that reallyjumped out to me when you look
back. Not like just frustration,but almost like a computer
glitching where you can't evencomprehend it.
And you can really trackdaughter of a history teacher,
(09:48):
daughter of an English teacher,and now she writes fantasy
novels. It makes a lot of sense.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (09:54):
Victoria's parents lessons planted the seed
for a writer who wouldrepeatedly tackle issues of
inequality and unfairness. Butmom and dad were far from
Victoria's only influence. Shewas intrigued by maps and
captivated by movies, includingone classic film heroine who in
a single scene became Victoria'sforever role model for
(10:15):
confronting uneven powerdynamics.
Victoria Aveyard (10:18):
So I've always been into atlases and geography.
I was the weirdo who would go tothe library and I'd go to the
atlases. But something about thefantasy maps about this suddenly
idea that you could create mapsof your own of unreal places.
That was the first time I reallyconnected that. I think I was
maybe six or seven.
And I started drawing fantasymaps of my own and the natural
next step after you draw the mapof like, here's the castle,
(10:40):
here's the mountain, here's theriver. What's happening in this
world? And that's when I startedwriting sort of stories of my
own about what was going on inthese fantasy worlds. So my
first sort of approach tostorytelling, at least telling
my own stories, was as a way tobuild these worlds that I could
control. And then naturally,okay, what's happening in them?
(11:00):
And I always gravitated towardsstories even before I could read
that were of these big immersiveworlds. I was a big, you know,
Star Wars kid that captured myimagination so early.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (11:10):
Can you speak a little bit more about
Star Wars and, like, what wasdrawing you in at that time?
Victoria Aveyard (11:15):
I actually I literally wrote a college essay
about, like, the symbolism andvisual element of Princess Leia
and how foundational it was tome, and probably my personality
is like a bossy little brunettegirl. But one of the first
images you see in A New Hope isPrincess Leia, five foot two,
staring up at the scariestlooking person you've ever seen,
(11:39):
Darth Vader, black helmet, blackcape, black armor, and you're
I'm, you know, four or fiveyears old watching this tiny
little girl square off on thisguy and give him a what for and
yell at him and argue with himand I'm like, hell yeah, girl.
There's my personality. It's itjust locked at five years old.
It's Princess Leia yelling atDarth Vader.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (12:01):
Movies became Victoria's storytelling
compass. She learned that agreat story wasn't only in the
words on the page. In fact, itwas what you could understand
without words that matteredmost.
Victoria Aveyard (12:13):
My background is in film. I went to film
school. I studied screenwriting.And anytime anyone says, know,
what's a perfect movie or what'sa perfect story to you? I'm
like, it's Raiders of the LostArk.
It's perfect. Steven Spielberguses light and sound and
cinematography, composition,music, all of these things to
tell the story without words.You can watch that movie with
(12:34):
all of the dialogue taken out,and you can understand it. And I
did as a kid, and so I'm alwaystrying to find those stories
that are so visceral, that areso almost molecular on how you
understand them. And that's whatI'm always going for, you know.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (12:49):
I didn't know that you studied film till
after I've read your work and Ithink it does read like somebody
who's you feel that you're,like, surrounded by what's
happening, you know.
Victoria Aveyard (12:58):
Oh, well, thank you. I think anytime
someone asks an aspiring writeror someone who wants to write
novels ask me, you know, do youhave a recommendation for a kind
of writing class I should take?I do always say like, well, have
you taken any screenwritingclasses? Because it helps you
with momentum and I think that'swhy I gravitate towards young
adult Mhmm. Specifically becausethis is what I think when I hear
(13:18):
so many adult readers saying, Iwant this You story but for
adults.
And it's like, you're notactually looking for the young
adult genre. You're looking forthe young adult pace.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Interesting. (13:27):
undefined
Victoria Aveyard (13:28):
Because young adult novels are paced so
beautifully.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (13:32):
Victoria's screenwriting experience
cemented one standard by whichshe still weighs a book. It must
have propulsive storytelling. Asa reader, she does not suffer
meandering prose lightly.
Victoria Aveyard (13:44):
I'm a very lazy reader. I need you to keep
pulling me and I almost I willclock out if, you know, I get to
a point where I'm like, thismeans nothing and suddenly
we're, you know, in a coffeeshop for 200 pages just
bantering. What do you meanthis? There's nothing happening
here. I need something to behappening.
Call me old fashioned, but Ineed a plot.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (14:01):
But as she transitioned from screenwriting
to novel writing, Victoria alsobegan looking to rectify another
more serious shortcoming in thefantasy books she had grown up
on.
Victoria Aveyard (14:12):
The through line of a lot of what I wrote
was I was adding femalecharacters to stories that did
not have women or that only had,you know, the one token female
character. And in hindsight, itwas like, that's what I wanted
is I wanted my stories to havemore women in them. And a lot of
(14:33):
people ask me, you know, oh, isyour Lord of the Rings fan
fiction still up? And I'm like,I wrote Realm Breaker because I
love Lord of the Rings so muchand wanted so much more from
those books and Yeah. Wanted tobe a part of them and felt like
at every turn you were told youcannot be a part of this story.
And yet. And yet. So I wroteRealm Breaker and in the first
chapter of that book, there is apseudo fellowship of the ring
(14:56):
who goes out to save the world,and they all get murdered. And
I'm like, okay, how how do we dothis now?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (15:01):
I was thinking about that when I
Victoria Aveyard (15:02):
was Yeah. And it was it was the springboard.
It was the jumping off point.And I think that's what a lot of
us do is when we're writing ourstories, we're interacting with
the stories that formed us thatweren't necessarily, you know,
oh my god. Wonderful.
Perfect. Nothing to be donehere. But they were feeding
something in us, but alsoleaving us hungry for something
else. And we're trying to feedthat hunger with what we make
(15:26):
next. One of the things I alwayshad a problem with was you get
all these fantasy fanboys whoare very angry when suddenly
there's a person of color at acrowd scene in a fantasy film or
(15:51):
something, and you're like,well, you don't seem to care
that there are tomatoes orpotatoes, which are New World
crops, and you don't give a shitthat they haven't had contact
with the New World yet.
So that was in my head where Iwas thinking about the medieval
world, specifically theMediterranean medieval world,
and what a cross section it wasof many different cultures and
(16:11):
ethnicities. So when I wasbuilding the world of Realm
Breaker, I was like, I want itto feel real and lived in, and
real and lived in to me meansmany different peoples. It means
trade. It means languages. Itmeans borders.
It means political movements. Itmeans all of these things
together. That's what I'm alwayssort of shooting for with my
world, and I wanna feel like Ihave written a Lord of the Rings
that I could be in.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (16:30):
Okay. I'm gonna read you this quote, but
it's actually it's about sciencefiction, and it's from Samuel
Delaney. But I think you canapply it to fantasy. So it says,
science fiction isn't justthinking about the world out
there. It's also thinking abouthow that world might be a
particularly important exercisefor those who are oppressed.
Because if they're going tochange the world we live in
(16:52):
Mhmm. Then they and all of ushave to be able to think about a
world that works differently,end quote. And so I'm wondering,
like, how much is your creatingyour world and your kind of I
guess we're talking on the edgesof this, but, like, how much are
you thinking about balancingcommentary on our own society
with just crafting somethingcompletely from scratch.
Victoria Aveyard (17:15):
Right. I feel like my sort of gravitation
towards world building comesfrom this inherent need I have
for control while feeling out ofcontrol or feeling like I don't
have much control over what'sgoing on in my world, so I'm
gonna build this world that Ihave full control over. And with
Red Queen specifically, Iremember one of the things that
really inspired that bookbecause one of the foundations
(17:36):
of the world is that it is ahugely binary divide between
peoples, and it's based onsomething no one can control.
And I remember being reallyinspired by the idea in the
education system that in someschool systems, depending on
where they are or what kind ofresources they have, students
can be tracked. And they're puton certain tracks from when they
(17:58):
are very very young, and it'sreally really hard to jump out
of those educational tracks.
And that was always something Ithought about that was very very
frustrating, especially as a kidwho went to public school, but
ended up at a really incredibleprivate university where I
encountered wealth and privilegelike I had never encountered in
my entire life before. That ideathat kids based on nothing more
(18:21):
than where they were born orbasically what tax bracket they
were in could be tracked intothese educational pathways that
would limit them for the rest oftheir lives and limit their
opportunities. And it would bevery very difficult for anyone
to break out of those unless youwere exceptional at something,
be it writing or an athleticsport or some talent. There were
(18:44):
very very few ways you couldclaw yourself out of those
pathways once you were in them.And I thought about that in
terms of the world of Red Queenof being put into these pathways
from birth that you couldn'treally remove yourself from.
Inej almost felt sorry for her.Danyasha really believed she was
(19:06):
the Lancelot heir, and maybe shewas. But wasn't that what every
girl dreamed, that she'd wake upand find herself a princess or
blessed with magical powers anda grand destiny? Maybe there
were people who lived thoselives. Maybe this girl was one
of them.
But what about the rest of us?What about the nobodies and the
nothings, the invisible girls?We learned to hold our heads as
(19:28):
if we wear crowns. We learned towring magic from the ordinary.
That was how you survived whenyou weren't chosen, when there
was no royal blood in yourveins.
When the world owed you nothing,you demanded something of it
anyway.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (19:42):
That's a reading from Leigh Bardugo's
2015 fantasy novel Six of Crows.We're hearing the thoughts of a
poor thief named Inej who hasjust dueled and slain a highborn
assassin princess who everyonehad assumed to be fated for
greatness. Victoria chose thismoment because it gave voice to
(20:02):
one of her major frustrationswith fantasy namely the genre's
clingy infatuation with oneinherently unfair character
type.
Victoria Aveyard (20:14):
It was a perfect send up of the chosen
one trope and a wonderfulcritique of the fantasy stories
that we all gravitate towards,the ones that kind of show us
people who are special, not justfor their deeds, but for their
birth. And I absolutely lovedreading this moment and seeing
this criticism laid out in blackand white, because most of us do
wish, like, we were the lostprincess, and none of us are.
(20:36):
And how do we move forward withthat when even our escapes shove
that impossibility in our face?Lee nailed it. I was in the
process of writing the Red Queenseries.
I think I was about I was atleast two books in, maybe in the
middle of writing the third whenI read Crooked Kingdom.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (20:52):
Mhmm.
Victoria Aveyard (20:52):
And I was already hearing sort of fan
theories about why the heroinein my own books was special.
Like, was she a secret princessand or born of some special
bloodline? And that had wasnever my aim with those books. I
always wanted Mare Barrow of RedQueen to be that slum girl who
was from the slums, and sort ofmake her the sum of her own
choices as opposed to it almostfeels like a Deus Ex Machina to
(21:14):
have them sweep in at the endand be like, she was special all
along because her mom wasactually the lost princess. I
almost feel like that undercutsa lot of accomplishment.
Yeah. And then when I wroteRealm Breaker, I approached it
from the opposite side. In thatseries, my main character
Corayne is the so called chosenone from the special bloodline,
and she wants no part of it.It's like a burden. It's not an
(21:37):
honor, and it represents adisconnect that she can never
regain.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (21:41):
What is that line that she said about
ringing it from the ringing itout of the?
Victoria Aveyard (21:46):
Yes. It's we learn to ring magic from the
ordinary. Oh. I know. I'mreading The Familiar right now,
Leigh's latest adult book, andit has a similar, you know,
ordinary women who becomeextraordinary through their own
sheer will.
And I love It's so good.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (22:03):
Yeah. Did you when you were younger, you
still like speaking of just thetrope of the chosen one, did you
sort of have that, like, I'mgonna wake up in the matrix one
day and someone's gonna tell mewhat's going on here?
Victoria Aveyard (22:14):
Not so much, but I really really read so
many. I read all those royaldiaries books. Mhmm. And I was
really into like the Tudors andCatherine called Birdie and the
Midwife's Apprentice and verymuch into that like shade of
history. I read so much aboutQueen Elizabeth, Elizabeth the
first, and I feel like she wasalmost in hindsight the chosen
(22:38):
one, but in the moment, she's,you know, the forgotten daughter
too.
And maybe that was like medealing with like, I feel like
the forgotten daughter in avery, very present family. So
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (22:49):
already from a pretty young age, you
were thinking about your placeand about these different
expectations based on family andgender. And as another eldest
daughter, I get that. And now, Iguess, as an author, you're
you're channeling your princessLeia and shoving back against
those long embedded tropes.
Victoria Aveyard (23:07):
And I think a lot of it and maybe this all
dovetails together, the chosenone versus the standards and
justice, and why are some peopletreated differently? Why are
some people chosen ones for noparticular reason? And why do
some people get to have thatextra shine and you can only,
you know, claw based on your ownmerit and your own choices.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (23:28):
You know, it's interesting because you do
create these worlds in whichthere's like this whole other
power dynamic.
Victoria Aveyard (23:33):
Yeah. And then balancing against, you know, the
greater world and the world weall live in. I don't think
there's a balance. I thinkthere's just one day you're numb
and one day you're screaming atthe walls. Mhmm.
And how do you channel that intoyour art? Because the art is the
weapon that most of us have. Iremember writing the Red Queen
books, and the first one cameout in 2015, the second in 2016
(23:57):
before the first Trump election.Third one came out in 2017 right
after, and it was an interestingand that third book had been
written before election, and itwas suddenly interesting getting
all of this pushback about how Imade my books too political all
of a sudden. And I had thatmoment of, you know, I'm basing
this off off of historicalfascism and historical
(24:19):
dictators.
Dictators. And if you'reconnecting the two, what does
that say?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (24:25):
Confronted with a polarized American
audience, Victoria's approach isto offer her readers a potential
way to see the world and itsinjustices more clearly.
Victoria Aveyard (24:35):
There are so many things happening that I
can't do anything about, and Iam constantly trying to remind
myself like the work is thething you can do. Even if the
only thing you're doing is maybegiving someone an escape into a
different world to allow them torecharge or feel safe, or open
their eyes to something new. Ithink that's what we're always
(24:58):
shooting for is that momentwhere you pull back the curtain
a little bit. We talk a lotabout reading being a political
act, and I know there's a quitea bit of pushback from readers
saying, you know, I don't thinkabout politics when I read. I
don't think politically when Iread.
They don't think, you know, afantasy novel is necessarily
political, And that's not true.Everything we do is political.
Reading is political. Being ableto read the things you are able
(25:20):
to read, the things you are ableto access, all of that is
political. It's figuring out howto sugarcoat the pill Mhmm.
And making even the people whoare hesitant or resistant to new
forms of thinking realize theireyes have been opened without
them even knowing it. Maybedoing it without someone
realizing you're doing it is theway to go.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (25:40):
Would you want to like live in one of your
worlds?
Victoria Aveyard (25:43):
I do get that question a lot of like, oh, what
would you be in Lord of theRings? And I'm like, I would be
luckily, if I'm lucky, a hobbit.
Camille Perez (25:53):
Yeah.
Victoria Aveyard (25:53):
If I'm lucky, I'm a hobbit in the Shire who's
just like, oh, what's going onover there? I'm gonna hear the
news six months later. To befair, the Shire is very
technologically advanced. Theyhave glass. They have a postal
system.
And then you go through the restof the country, and you're like,
oh, the king of Rohan lives in abarn. I'd rather be in the
Shire. They have whipped cream.Yeah. But I am always I think
(26:20):
that's who I'm writing for isthe people who are like, I would
have been a villager who heardabout the battle six months
later.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (26:30):
Victoria's Reading Challenge is a set of
stories that dig into what itmeans to be chosen and what it
means not to be. They're booksthat question why certain people
are handed the quest, the crown,the magic, and what happens to
everyone else.
Victoria Aveyard (26:46):
In relation to that passage from Crooked
Kingdom, I was thinking aboutchosen and unchosen, like books
that subvert or reject the tropeof the chosen one. I because I
love that trope, and I lovefinding new ways into them. Yes.
So my first one is obviouslygoing to be Legendborn by Tracy
Deonn. It hits so beautifullyand so hard on the different
(27:08):
standards for young black womenthrough the lens of a modern
King Arthur story.
I struggle to think of a novelthat balances those fantastical
elements with the real andmaking making them both feel as
frustrating and dangerous aseach other. This is, you know, a
literal reincarnation of KingArthur is in the mix alongside a
(27:29):
main character who doesn'tbelong, but might be exactly
what is needed to save theworld. So we have, like, the
literal chosen one and theunchosen one together. A Song of
Ice and Fire by George RRMartin. Pretend the show didn't
happen.
We have so many different chosenones in the air named by
prophecy or religion or birthbirth or power. Some are dying.
(27:49):
Some are rising to power. It isa mess of chosen ones and not so
chosen ones, and you get to seeall of that fall out together.
Then there's the Gilded Ones byNamina Forma.
She is a this book is about agroup of chosen ones who are
used for nefarious purposes andhave to sort of fight back, so
it's almost fighting backagainst your identity. Veronica
(28:11):
Roth literally wrote a bookcalled Chosen Ones, which is
about what happens to chosenones after the world is saved.
An Ember in the Ashes series andthe new expansion Heir by Saba
Tahir. Princes, orphans, nobles,common folk, they all crash
together in this expansive worldthat shows it's not what you're
born as, what you make yourselfinto, and what road you choose.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (28:34):
You can find Victoria's reading
challenge and the full list oftitles she has curated as well
as all past reading challengesat the readingculturepod.com.
This week's Beanstack featuredlibrarian is Camille Perez, a
former media specialist at theelementary and high school
(28:54):
levels in Osceola County,Florida, and now my colleague at
Beanstack. Camille is a stellarteammate, and if you're a
Beanstack client, you havelikely encountered her on the
help desk. And today, Camilleshares a couple of hot takes
about the school library.
Camille Perez (29:12):
I think a lot of libraries are kinda pushing
towards the genre ficationbecause it makes sense, you
know, it's how a bookstore islaid out, just easier to find
what you like. That's definitelyone. But also just the culture,
you know, the quiet, likelibraries are supposed to be
quiet, they're not. Like it'sokay if your library is not pin
(29:35):
drop quiet because I feel likethe sign of a healthy library
and the sign of the librarydoing its job, is being the
heart of the school, is sound.It's hearing life in there, and
it's hearing kids talking,having conversations about
books, about school, about whatthey're doing the next day.
(29:55):
It's just all sorts of converseif you're having conversations
in the library, then I feel likeyou're growing, you know, the
culture of reading.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (30:07):
This has been the reading culture and
you've been listening to myconversation with Victoria
Aveyard. Again, I'm your hostJordan Lloyd Bookie and
currently I'm reading run awaywith me by Brian Selznick and
throne of glass by Sarah J Maas.If you enjoyed today's episode,
please take one minute to giveus five stars on Apple or
(30:28):
wherever you listen to podcasts.Your reviews help get the show
recommended to others andeveryone really matters. So
thank you for those who aredoing it.
We appreciate you. This episodewas produced by Mel Webb Josiah
Lamberto Egan Zoe Anderson andLower Street Media and script
edited by Josiah Lamberto Eganto learn more about how you can
(30:48):
help grow your community'sculture, please check out all of
our resources at beanstack.com.And remember to sign up for our
newsletter at thereadingculturepod.com forward
slash newsletter for specialoffers and bonus content. Thanks
for listening and keep reading.
Why are some people treated differently? Why
are some people chosen ones forno particular reason? And why do
some people get to have thatextra shine and you can only,
you know, claw based on your ownmerit and your own choices.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (00:17):
Unfairness can be slippery to define, but
it's easy to feel. That gut deepsense that something in the
balance just isn't right. Sowhat happens when you realize
that a whole genre ofliterature, your favorite genre,
the one you love is deeply,habitually unfair? You might
(00:38):
just have to rebuild it one newworld at a time.
Victoria Aveyard (00:42):
When we're writing our stories, we're
interacting with the storiesthat formed us that weren't
necessarily, you know, oh mygod, wonderful, perfect, nothing
to be done here, but alsoleaving us hungry for something
else. And we're trying to feedthat hunger with what we make
next.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (01:02):
Victoria Aveyard is the number one New
York Times best selling authorof the Red Queen and Realm
Breaker series, creating epicfantasy landscapes where women
loom large, justice is neversimple, and power is always up
for grabs. In this conversation,Victoria explains why her sense
of fair and unfair took shapeearly and why world building
(01:25):
gives her a much needed feelingof control and why the unchosen
characters are often the onesworth following and she tells us
which undersized movie characterremains her absolute icon when
it comes to fighting thepowerful. My name is Jordan
Lloyd Bookie and this is thereading culture, a show where we
(01:46):
speak with diverse authors aboutways to build a stronger culture
of reading in our community. Wedive deep into their personal
experiences and inspirations.Our show is made possible by
Beanstack, the leading solutionfor motivating people to read
more.
Learn more at beanstack.com andmake sure to check us out on
Instagram at the reading culturepod. Today, I want to
(02:08):
congratulate our summer readinggiveaway winner Nicholas Moore,
a librarian at Cobb CountySchools. Congratulations mister
Moore and the buddy that hetagged mister Marlowe Williams
your special edition podcastmugs and books by authors who
have been featured on the showare in route remember to
subscribe to our newsletter forfuture giveaways and you can do
(02:31):
that by going to thereadingculturepod.com forward
slash newsletter alright on tothe show listeners. Are you
looking for a fun, easy way totrack your reading and earn cool
rewards? Well, meet Beanstack,the ultimate reading app used by
(02:51):
a community of over 15,000schools, libraries, and
organizations nationwide.
Are you an avid reader? Checkwith your local library to see
if they offer Beanstack forfree. A parent? Ask your child's
teacher if the school libraryalready uses Beanstack. And if
you are an educator searchingfor a fresh alternative to
(03:13):
accelerated reader, Beanstack isthe perfect tool to cultivate a
thriving reading culture.
Ready to turn the page? Visitbeanstack.com to learn more. I
did listen to, like, a ton ofpodcasts with you and just read
some articles and stuff first.And I think you're superstitious
(03:35):
because you're always sayingtouch wood. Mhmm.
I also come from, like, anextremely superstitious family,
so I'm just curious, unrelatedto the theme of the episode,
what are some of your, you know,super stick if you wanna give us
a couple.
Victoria Aveyard (03:49):
I get really, really nervous about jinxing
things, especially good things.And I'm sure there's some deep
psychological situation here,but I am constantly like, okay.
Don't really settle intoaccepting really really good
things, you know. Don't take itfor granted. My parents, my dad
especially, if anyone says like,oh, buh buh buh, maybe you'll
(04:09):
just get in a car accident.
He's like, don't say that. Don'tsay that. Don't put that in the
universe and touch wood, touchwood, touch wood, touch wood.
And so that's probably where itcomes from is my parents are
very like, well, my mom will doit to piss him off and then
he'll be like, don't do that. Ithink for him, it comes from
it's very Italian Catholic, likevery superstitious Catholic, not
like Bible Catholic, but likealmost on the way to pagan
(04:30):
belief Catholic.
Like, we're still thinking aboutsaints, and if you you touch the
rosary in the right way, you'llbe okay kind of thing. I think
that's where it carries from.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (04:38):
Gotcha.
Victoria Aveyard (04:39):
Yeah.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (04:39):
I have more like superstition superstition.
Victoria Aveyard (04:42):
Oh, I definitely do the salt over the
shoulder. Like, if I yeah. Thatsort of thing.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (04:46):
Yeah. The black cats. You have black cats?
Victoria Aveyard (04:48):
I actually grew up with a black cat, so
that would never really botherme, but I have evil eyes. Like,
I have, like, a saint in my car.That's those are definitely
around. Did you
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (04:59):
grow up in, like, culturally religious or,
like, religious religious?
Victoria Aveyard (05:03):
More culturally. So my dad's side my
dad's mother was born in Italyand came to The US in the
thirties. And she and her motherwere very very religious
superstitious, like, would beslipping rosaries into all of
your things as sort of likeprotective little talismans. And
then my mom on the other hand isvery no nonsense, almost hyper
logical. So that was aninteresting dichotomy there.
(05:26):
She's very Scottish, verypragmatic.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (05:28):
We're gonna talk a lot about justice and
fairness and things of thatnature. I wanted to ask you how
you think about them generally,and like how you separate out
justice versus fairness.
Victoria Aveyard (05:41):
I feel like my idea of justice is probably a
little bit harsh, because it'sit's a little bit more revenge
based. So I'm always thinking ofjustice in terms of, you know,
something wrong has been done,and now how do you right that
wrong? And there's always, youknow, oh, you gotta let it go,
and you can't let it corrupt youand rot you. And I'm just like,
no. I am rotten with the needfor justice, and the need for
(06:03):
people to have come up, and Andthat's sort of really, really
difficult to deal with when youlive in a world where that's not
necessarily the case.
You know, we were raised on allthese stories where the bad guys
do get their comeuppance andtheir recourse, and now we're
living through and haveconstantly been living through
moments where that is not areality. Yeah. The moral arc of
the universe bends towardsjustice. Let's see it fucking
(06:24):
bend. Sorry.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (06:25):
No. It's fine.
Victoria Aveyard (06:27):
And fairness is just for me always rooted in
everyone should be treatedequally, and the standard should
be the same for everyone. And Ifeel like I almost have like a
childish view of that becauseI'm so locked in just like, no,
why isn't this the same for thisperson? Mhmm. And I think the
basis of it is I don't know howto act if the standards are
different, if the rules for thisperson are different for this
(06:50):
person, and then I'm like, well,what are the rules for me?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (06:52):
And do you recall, like, a specific moment
in your childhood where you hadthat revelation of, like,
someone's justice is not beingserved or thinking things were
unfair?
Victoria Aveyard (07:00):
I'm an eldest daughter to a younger brother.
Boys and girls are naturallytreated differently in families,
and I remember being so so hyperaware. My brother is only two
years younger than me, of justhow differently we were treated
and what the expectations were.And I totally understand, you
know, two different children attwo different stages in their
life, but being the elderdaughter and seeing someone
(07:22):
else, you know Mhmm. Be told,oh, that thing you just did was
great.
And I'm like, well, the thing Ijust did was 10 times greater.
Why am I not getting and I feellike that pressure point was
created very, very early on as achild where I just thought, you
know, I am not getting the sametreatment, and I don't
understand why. And then thatcolored so many more things as I
(07:43):
got older of I don't know how toact because I don't know what
the standards are because thestandards appear to be
different, and that doesn't makesense to me on, like, a a
molecular level. In hindsight,you look at it and you think, of
course, things were differentbecause you were just two
different kids who learned indifferent ways and had different
struggles and advantages. Soyou're parented differently.
(08:03):
But living in it as a kid, youdon't have that perspective. And
what were, like, the cultural
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (08:09):
influences on you at that time in your
life? Like, you seeing thingsaround you that you think were
reinforcing that or they werehelping you to question what you
were experiencing?
Victoria Aveyard (08:20):
My dad, when I was growing up, he was a history
teacher, an American historyteacher. And so that was sort of
always something in the back ofmy mind is us being told events
in history, and getting what itwas in the classroom in school,
and then getting our dad beinglike, and this is actually the
other side of that event, andhow things were changed, and
getting those on the macrolevel. It's not just you
(08:42):
experiencing, you know, thestandards are different, but
this is a global reality thathas been for a long time. And I
remember just having all thesevery childish frustrations with
not being able to sort ofunderstand or parse why things
are different for differentpeople. And then the flip was,
my mom, up until she retired,was an English teacher.
And she would always teach areally really big holocaust unit
(09:05):
at her school, and so they wouldhave a lot of different books
that they would read. But mysort of version of that was I
remember reading Number of theStars, and that was one of those
first books where you didn'treally understand. What do you
mean this thing happened tothese people for no particular
reason that we can understandother than these people said
they were different? I rememberthat being very much like a
(09:27):
moment of, wait a second. Whatdo you mean that happened?
What do you mean that continuedto happen? What do you mean that
happened quite recently? What doyou mean that is something that
for a lot of people is stillvery prevalent in their lives? I
think that was one that reallyjumped out to me when you look
back. Not like just frustration,but almost like a computer
glitching where you can't evencomprehend it.
And you can really trackdaughter of a history teacher,
(09:48):
daughter of an English teacher,and now she writes fantasy
novels. It makes a lot of sense.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (09:54):
Victoria's parents lessons planted the seed
for a writer who wouldrepeatedly tackle issues of
inequality and unfairness. Butmom and dad were far from
Victoria's only influence. Shewas intrigued by maps and
captivated by movies, includingone classic film heroine who in
a single scene became Victoria'sforever role model for
(10:15):
confronting uneven powerdynamics.
Victoria Aveyard (10:18):
So I've always been into atlases and geography.
I was the weirdo who would go tothe library and I'd go to the
atlases. But something about thefantasy maps about this suddenly
idea that you could create mapsof your own of unreal places.
That was the first time I reallyconnected that. I think I was
maybe six or seven.
And I started drawing fantasymaps of my own and the natural
next step after you draw the mapof like, here's the castle,
(10:40):
here's the mountain, here's theriver. What's happening in this
world? And that's when I startedwriting sort of stories of my
own about what was going on inthese fantasy worlds. So my
first sort of approach tostorytelling, at least telling
my own stories, was as a way tobuild these worlds that I could
control. And then naturally,okay, what's happening in them?
(11:00):
And I always gravitated towardsstories even before I could read
that were of these big immersiveworlds. I was a big, you know,
Star Wars kid that captured myimagination so early.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (11:10):
Can you speak a little bit more about
Star Wars and, like, what wasdrawing you in at that time?
Victoria Aveyard (11:15):
I actually I literally wrote a college essay
about, like, the symbolism andvisual element of Princess Leia
and how foundational it was tome, and probably my personality
is like a bossy little brunettegirl. But one of the first
images you see in A New Hope isPrincess Leia, five foot two,
staring up at the scariestlooking person you've ever seen,
(11:39):
Darth Vader, black helmet, blackcape, black armor, and you're
I'm, you know, four or fiveyears old watching this tiny
little girl square off on thisguy and give him a what for and
yell at him and argue with himand I'm like, hell yeah, girl.
There's my personality. It's itjust locked at five years old.
It's Princess Leia yelling atDarth Vader.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (12:01):
Movies became Victoria's storytelling
compass. She learned that agreat story wasn't only in the
words on the page. In fact, itwas what you could understand
without words that matteredmost.
Victoria Aveyard (12:13):
My background is in film. I went to film
school. I studied screenwriting.And anytime anyone says, know,
what's a perfect movie or what'sa perfect story to you? I'm
like, it's Raiders of the LostArk.
It's perfect. Steven Spielberguses light and sound and
cinematography, composition,music, all of these things to
tell the story without words.You can watch that movie with
(12:34):
all of the dialogue taken out,and you can understand it. And I
did as a kid, and so I'm alwaystrying to find those stories
that are so visceral, that areso almost molecular on how you
understand them. And that's whatI'm always going for, you know.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (12:49):
I didn't know that you studied film till
after I've read your work and Ithink it does read like somebody
who's you feel that you're,like, surrounded by what's
happening, you know.
Victoria Aveyard (12:58):
Oh, well, thank you. I think anytime
someone asks an aspiring writeror someone who wants to write
novels ask me, you know, do youhave a recommendation for a kind
of writing class I should take?I do always say like, well, have
you taken any screenwritingclasses? Because it helps you
with momentum and I think that'swhy I gravitate towards young
adult Mhmm. Specifically becausethis is what I think when I hear
(13:18):
so many adult readers saying, Iwant this You story but for
adults.
And it's like, you're notactually looking for the young
adult genre. You're looking forthe young adult pace.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey: Interesting. (13:27):
undefined
Victoria Aveyard (13:28):
Because young adult novels are paced so
beautifully.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (13:32):
Victoria's screenwriting experience
cemented one standard by whichshe still weighs a book. It must
have propulsive storytelling. Asa reader, she does not suffer
meandering prose lightly.
Victoria Aveyard (13:44):
I'm a very lazy reader. I need you to keep
pulling me and I almost I willclock out if, you know, I get to
a point where I'm like, thismeans nothing and suddenly
we're, you know, in a coffeeshop for 200 pages just
bantering. What do you meanthis? There's nothing happening
here. I need something to behappening.
Call me old fashioned, but Ineed a plot.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (14:01):
But as she transitioned from screenwriting
to novel writing, Victoria alsobegan looking to rectify another
more serious shortcoming in thefantasy books she had grown up
on.
Victoria Aveyard (14:12):
The through line of a lot of what I wrote
was I was adding femalecharacters to stories that did
not have women or that only had,you know, the one token female
character. And in hindsight, itwas like, that's what I wanted
is I wanted my stories to havemore women in them. And a lot of
(14:33):
people ask me, you know, oh, isyour Lord of the Rings fan
fiction still up? And I'm like,I wrote Realm Breaker because I
love Lord of the Rings so muchand wanted so much more from
those books and Yeah. Wanted tobe a part of them and felt like
at every turn you were told youcannot be a part of this story.
And yet. And yet. So I wroteRealm Breaker and in the first
chapter of that book, there is apseudo fellowship of the ring
(14:56):
who goes out to save the world,and they all get murdered. And
I'm like, okay, how how do we dothis now?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (15:01):
I was thinking about that when I
Victoria Aveyard (15:02):
was Yeah. And it was it was the springboard.
It was the jumping off point.And I think that's what a lot of
us do is when we're writing ourstories, we're interacting with
the stories that formed us thatweren't necessarily, you know,
oh my god. Wonderful.
Perfect. Nothing to be donehere. But they were feeding
something in us, but alsoleaving us hungry for something
else. And we're trying to feedthat hunger with what we make
(15:26):
next. One of the things I alwayshad a problem with was you get
all these fantasy fanboys whoare very angry when suddenly
there's a person of color at acrowd scene in a fantasy film or
(15:51):
something, and you're like,well, you don't seem to care
that there are tomatoes orpotatoes, which are New World
crops, and you don't give a shitthat they haven't had contact
with the New World yet.
So that was in my head where Iwas thinking about the medieval
world, specifically theMediterranean medieval world,
and what a cross section it wasof many different cultures and
(16:11):
ethnicities. So when I wasbuilding the world of Realm
Breaker, I was like, I want itto feel real and lived in, and
real and lived in to me meansmany different peoples. It means
trade. It means languages. Itmeans borders.
It means political movements. Itmeans all of these things
together. That's what I'm alwayssort of shooting for with my
world, and I wanna feel like Ihave written a Lord of the Rings
that I could be in.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (16:30):
Okay. I'm gonna read you this quote, but
it's actually it's about sciencefiction, and it's from Samuel
Delaney. But I think you canapply it to fantasy. So it says,
science fiction isn't justthinking about the world out
there. It's also thinking abouthow that world might be a
particularly important exercisefor those who are oppressed.
Because if they're going tochange the world we live in
(16:52):
Mhmm. Then they and all of ushave to be able to think about a
world that works differently,end quote. And so I'm wondering,
like, how much is your creatingyour world and your kind of I
guess we're talking on the edgesof this, but, like, how much are
you thinking about balancingcommentary on our own society
with just crafting somethingcompletely from scratch.
Victoria Aveyard (17:15):
Right. I feel like my sort of gravitation
towards world building comesfrom this inherent need I have
for control while feeling out ofcontrol or feeling like I don't
have much control over what'sgoing on in my world, so I'm
gonna build this world that Ihave full control over. And with
Red Queen specifically, Iremember one of the things that
really inspired that bookbecause one of the foundations
(17:36):
of the world is that it is ahugely binary divide between
peoples, and it's based onsomething no one can control.
And I remember being reallyinspired by the idea in the
education system that in someschool systems, depending on
where they are or what kind ofresources they have, students
can be tracked. And they're puton certain tracks from when they
(17:58):
are very very young, and it'sreally really hard to jump out
of those educational tracks.
And that was always something Ithought about that was very very
frustrating, especially as a kidwho went to public school, but
ended up at a really incredibleprivate university where I
encountered wealth and privilegelike I had never encountered in
my entire life before. That ideathat kids based on nothing more
(18:21):
than where they were born orbasically what tax bracket they
were in could be tracked intothese educational pathways that
would limit them for the rest oftheir lives and limit their
opportunities. And it would bevery very difficult for anyone
to break out of those unless youwere exceptional at something,
be it writing or an athleticsport or some talent. There were
(18:44):
very very few ways you couldclaw yourself out of those
pathways once you were in them.And I thought about that in
terms of the world of Red Queenof being put into these pathways
from birth that you couldn'treally remove yourself from.
Inej almost felt sorry for her.Danyasha really believed she was
(19:06):
the Lancelot heir, and maybe shewas. But wasn't that what every
girl dreamed, that she'd wake upand find herself a princess or
blessed with magical powers anda grand destiny? Maybe there
were people who lived thoselives. Maybe this girl was one
of them.
But what about the rest of us?What about the nobodies and the
nothings, the invisible girls?We learned to hold our heads as
(19:28):
if we wear crowns. We learned towring magic from the ordinary.
That was how you survived whenyou weren't chosen, when there
was no royal blood in yourveins.
When the world owed you nothing,you demanded something of it
anyway.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (19:42):
That's a reading from Leigh Bardugo's
2015 fantasy novel Six of Crows.We're hearing the thoughts of a
poor thief named Inej who hasjust dueled and slain a highborn
assassin princess who everyonehad assumed to be fated for
greatness. Victoria chose thismoment because it gave voice to
(20:02):
one of her major frustrationswith fantasy namely the genre's
clingy infatuation with oneinherently unfair character
type.
Victoria Aveyard (20:14):
It was a perfect send up of the chosen
one trope and a wonderfulcritique of the fantasy stories
that we all gravitate towards,the ones that kind of show us
people who are special, not justfor their deeds, but for their
birth. And I absolutely lovedreading this moment and seeing
this criticism laid out in blackand white, because most of us do
wish, like, we were the lostprincess, and none of us are.
(20:36):
And how do we move forward withthat when even our escapes shove
that impossibility in our face?Lee nailed it. I was in the
process of writing the Red Queenseries.
I think I was about I was atleast two books in, maybe in the
middle of writing the third whenI read Crooked Kingdom.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (20:52):
Mhmm.
Victoria Aveyard (20:52):
And I was already hearing sort of fan
theories about why the heroinein my own books was special.
Like, was she a secret princessand or born of some special
bloodline? And that had wasnever my aim with those books. I
always wanted Mare Barrow of RedQueen to be that slum girl who
was from the slums, and sort ofmake her the sum of her own
choices as opposed to it almostfeels like a Deus Ex Machina to
(21:14):
have them sweep in at the endand be like, she was special all
along because her mom wasactually the lost princess. I
almost feel like that undercutsa lot of accomplishment.
Yeah. And then when I wroteRealm Breaker, I approached it
from the opposite side. In thatseries, my main character
Corayne is the so called chosenone from the special bloodline,
and she wants no part of it.It's like a burden. It's not an
(21:37):
honor, and it represents adisconnect that she can never
regain.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (21:41):
What is that line that she said about
ringing it from the ringing itout of the?
Victoria Aveyard (21:46):
Yes. It's we learn to ring magic from the
ordinary. Oh. I know. I'mreading The Familiar right now,
Leigh's latest adult book, andit has a similar, you know,
ordinary women who becomeextraordinary through their own
sheer will.
And I love It's so good.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (22:03):
Yeah. Did you when you were younger, you
still like speaking of just thetrope of the chosen one, did you
sort of have that, like, I'mgonna wake up in the matrix one
day and someone's gonna tell mewhat's going on here?
Victoria Aveyard (22:14):
Not so much, but I really really read so
many. I read all those royaldiaries books. Mhmm. And I was
really into like the Tudors andCatherine called Birdie and the
Midwife's Apprentice and verymuch into that like shade of
history. I read so much aboutQueen Elizabeth, Elizabeth the
first, and I feel like she wasalmost in hindsight the chosen
(22:38):
one, but in the moment, she's,you know, the forgotten daughter
too.
And maybe that was like medealing with like, I feel like
the forgotten daughter in avery, very present family. So
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (22:49):
already from a pretty young age, you
were thinking about your placeand about these different
expectations based on family andgender. And as another eldest
daughter, I get that. And now, Iguess, as an author, you're
you're channeling your princessLeia and shoving back against
those long embedded tropes.
Victoria Aveyard (23:07):
And I think a lot of it and maybe this all
dovetails together, the chosenone versus the standards and
justice, and why are some peopletreated differently? Why are
some people chosen ones for noparticular reason? And why do
some people get to have thatextra shine and you can only,
you know, claw based on your ownmerit and your own choices.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (23:28):
You know, it's interesting because you do
create these worlds in whichthere's like this whole other
power dynamic.
Victoria Aveyard (23:33):
Yeah. And then balancing against, you know, the
greater world and the world weall live in. I don't think
there's a balance. I thinkthere's just one day you're numb
and one day you're screaming atthe walls. Mhmm.
And how do you channel that intoyour art? Because the art is the
weapon that most of us have. Iremember writing the Red Queen
books, and the first one cameout in 2015, the second in 2016
(23:57):
before the first Trump election.Third one came out in 2017 right
after, and it was an interestingand that third book had been
written before election, and itwas suddenly interesting getting
all of this pushback about how Imade my books too political all
of a sudden. And I had thatmoment of, you know, I'm basing
this off off of historicalfascism and historical
(24:19):
dictators.
Dictators. And if you'reconnecting the two, what does
that say?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (24:25):
Confronted with a polarized American
audience, Victoria's approach isto offer her readers a potential
way to see the world and itsinjustices more clearly.
Victoria Aveyard (24:35):
There are so many things happening that I
can't do anything about, and Iam constantly trying to remind
myself like the work is thething you can do. Even if the
only thing you're doing is maybegiving someone an escape into a
different world to allow them torecharge or feel safe, or open
their eyes to something new. Ithink that's what we're always
(24:58):
shooting for is that momentwhere you pull back the curtain
a little bit. We talk a lotabout reading being a political
act, and I know there's a quitea bit of pushback from readers
saying, you know, I don't thinkabout politics when I read. I
don't think politically when Iread.
They don't think, you know, afantasy novel is necessarily
political, And that's not true.Everything we do is political.
Reading is political. Being ableto read the things you are able
(25:20):
to read, the things you are ableto access, all of that is
political. It's figuring out howto sugarcoat the pill Mhmm.
And making even the people whoare hesitant or resistant to new
forms of thinking realize theireyes have been opened without
them even knowing it. Maybedoing it without someone
realizing you're doing it is theway to go.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (25:40):
Would you want to like live in one of your
worlds?
Victoria Aveyard (25:43):
I do get that question a lot of like, oh, what
would you be in Lord of theRings? And I'm like, I would be
luckily, if I'm lucky, a hobbit.
Camille Perez (25:53):
Yeah.
Victoria Aveyard (25:53):
If I'm lucky, I'm a hobbit in the Shire who's
just like, oh, what's going onover there? I'm gonna hear the
news six months later. To befair, the Shire is very
technologically advanced. Theyhave glass. They have a postal
system.
And then you go through the restof the country, and you're like,
oh, the king of Rohan lives in abarn. I'd rather be in the
Shire. They have whipped cream.Yeah. But I am always I think
(26:20):
that's who I'm writing for isthe people who are like, I would
have been a villager who heardabout the battle six months
later.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (26:30):
Victoria's Reading Challenge is a set of
stories that dig into what itmeans to be chosen and what it
means not to be. They're booksthat question why certain people
are handed the quest, the crown,the magic, and what happens to
everyone else.
Victoria Aveyard (26:46):
In relation to that passage from Crooked
Kingdom, I was thinking aboutchosen and unchosen, like books
that subvert or reject the tropeof the chosen one. I because I
love that trope, and I lovefinding new ways into them. Yes.
So my first one is obviouslygoing to be Legendborn by Tracy
Deonn. It hits so beautifullyand so hard on the different
(27:08):
standards for young black womenthrough the lens of a modern
King Arthur story.
I struggle to think of a novelthat balances those fantastical
elements with the real andmaking making them both feel as
frustrating and dangerous aseach other. This is, you know, a
literal reincarnation of KingArthur is in the mix alongside a
(27:29):
main character who doesn'tbelong, but might be exactly
what is needed to save theworld. So we have, like, the
literal chosen one and theunchosen one together. A Song of
Ice and Fire by George RRMartin. Pretend the show didn't
happen.
We have so many different chosenones in the air named by
prophecy or religion or birthbirth or power. Some are dying.
(27:49):
Some are rising to power. It isa mess of chosen ones and not so
chosen ones, and you get to seeall of that fall out together.
Then there's the Gilded Ones byNamina Forma.
She is a this book is about agroup of chosen ones who are
used for nefarious purposes andhave to sort of fight back, so
it's almost fighting backagainst your identity. Veronica
(28:11):
Roth literally wrote a bookcalled Chosen Ones, which is
about what happens to chosenones after the world is saved.
An Ember in the Ashes series andthe new expansion Heir by Saba
Tahir. Princes, orphans, nobles,common folk, they all crash
together in this expansive worldthat shows it's not what you're
born as, what you make yourselfinto, and what road you choose.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (28:34):
You can find Victoria's reading
challenge and the full list oftitles she has curated as well
as all past reading challengesat the readingculturepod.com.
This week's Beanstack featuredlibrarian is Camille Perez, a
former media specialist at theelementary and high school
(28:54):
levels in Osceola County,Florida, and now my colleague at
Beanstack. Camille is a stellarteammate, and if you're a
Beanstack client, you havelikely encountered her on the
help desk. And today, Camilleshares a couple of hot takes
about the school library.
Camille Perez (29:12):
I think a lot of libraries are kinda pushing
towards the genre ficationbecause it makes sense, you
know, it's how a bookstore islaid out, just easier to find
what you like. That's definitelyone. But also just the culture,
you know, the quiet, likelibraries are supposed to be
quiet, they're not. Like it'sokay if your library is not pin
(29:35):
drop quiet because I feel likethe sign of a healthy library
and the sign of the librarydoing its job, is being the
heart of the school, is sound.It's hearing life in there, and
it's hearing kids talking,having conversations about
books, about school, about whatthey're doing the next day.
(29:55):
It's just all sorts of converseif you're having conversations
in the library, then I feel likeyou're growing, you know, the
culture of reading.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey (30:07):
This has been the reading culture and
you've been listening to myconversation with Victoria
Aveyard. Again, I'm your hostJordan Lloyd Bookie and
currently I'm reading run awaywith me by Brian Selznick and
throne of glass by Sarah J Maas.If you enjoyed today's episode,
please take one minute to giveus five stars on Apple or
(30:28):
wherever you listen to podcasts.Your reviews help get the show
recommended to others andeveryone really matters. So
thank you for those who aredoing it.
We appreciate you. This episodewas produced by Mel Webb Josiah
Lamberto Egan Zoe Anderson andLower Street Media and script
edited by Josiah Lamberto Eganto learn more about how you can
(30:48):
help grow your community'sculture, please check out all of
our resources at beanstack.com.And remember to sign up for our
newsletter at thereadingculturepod.com forward
slash newsletter for specialoffers and bonus content. Thanks
for listening and keep reading.
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