"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars" - O.W.

Current Study

Current Sub-Studies

Areas of Interest:
> literature, trauma, and ethics
> science fiction and alternate history
> 20th and 21st century literature
> capitalism and the anthropocene
> history and literature of science
> comics and graphic novels
> science communication

25 February 2017

A Conversation with V.E. Schwab (August 2016)

A Conjuring of Light, released 21.02.17
Disclosure: I got this copy free courtesy of Titan Books,
as I did with my copy of This Savage Song for the interview
A Conjuring of Light, the final book in V.E. Schwab's fantasy trilogy Darker Shade of Magic series has been released and I'm looking forward to diving into it. Victoria has also announced that following a bidding war the series has now been optioned by Sony, with Gerard Butler's production company G-BASE set to produce, the intention being to turn this colourful and exciting trio of books into a limited run series, with Victoria herself writing the pilot!

With all this going on, it seemed that it was the perfect time to finally get around to doing something with the audio recording I made when I interviewed Victoria for an event in Waterstones Liverpool in August 2016. I was asked to sit on the audio for a couple of months because we accidentally leaked some teeny details about the book cover for A Conjuring of Light which weren't supposed to be out in the world at that time, but then I got really busy finishing my thesis and all that entailed and so this audio just sat in on my hard drive for a while.
Interview in action
At some point I'll come back and transcribe the interview, and re-post it here, but in the meantime have a listen to the original audio. We mainly discuss the first book in another V.E. Schwab series This Savage Song as that was the book being toured at the time, but we also cover Darker Shade of Magic stuff, some Vicious stuff, and some other nice anecdotes. Overall it was a fun interview and Victoria was the perfect subject. Thanks again to her, Lydia at Titan Books, and Waterstones for making it happen.
Some of the audience in Waterstones Liverpool
NB - For now I've left the questions from the audience in the audio. Because we only had two mics it's almost impossible to hear the actual question so there are quiet pauses towards the end of the recording, but I paraphrase the questions where I can. Later I might come back and try to do something to improve the quality here if I can.