1--What is the title of your latest release?
THE DARK WE KNOW
2--What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
THE DARK WE KNOW is a queer YA horror about an art student who reluctantly returns to the haunted small town she ran away from, where she reunites with her estranged childhood friend to stop a supernatural evil that killed their friends two years earlier.
3--How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
The setting, an old mining town buried in the mountains called Slater, sort of developed over time. I knew from the start it was going to be a secluded small town surrounded by forest, but in the first draft it was a generic mining town. Then at the encouragement of my agent and editor, it got progressively stranger and more isolated. I think as a writer I’ve also become more and more drawn to weird fantasy/horror, so if I wrote it again I’d probably push it even further.
It’s vaguely American, but I didn’t want it to be anywhere you could exactly pinpoint. I wanted it to be a little folkloric and surreal, while also being grounded in real characters.
4--Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
I would! I have protagonists that I find fascinating as characters We have a bunch in common, although she might be cooler than I am. I’d like her to give me free tattoos, since she starts apprenticing as one.
5--What are three words that describe your protagonist?
Strong, artistic, and lonely.
6--What’s something you learned while writing this book?
A lot of facts about slate sculpturing. As its name suggests, Slater is an old slate mining town and and they make slate sculptures as part of the output. You can’t chisel slate like in regular sculpturing because of the way it splits; they split it into chips and stack hundreds of small pieces to make a whole sculpture, which I found fascinating and also kind of thematically resonant, without any spoilers.
7--Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
Definitely edit as I draft. I can’t move on knowing I’m not happy with something, so I need it to be clean as I go, and I tend to bounce around non-linearly writing whatever feels strongest to me at the moment.
8--What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
My cravings change all the time, but probably chocolate.
9--Describe your writing space/office!
I don’t have a dedicated space at the moment, so I work pretty much anywhere. But I always have both my laptop and a notebook, because I hand-write a lot of sections before typing them out. It always helps unstick me, and the words tend to flow better that way.
10--Who is an author you admire?
RF Kuang – I want to know how she writes like that while also constantly getting degrees. I love the academic slant to her fantasy books and aspire to the way she genre jumps. I read The Poppy War when it first came out, just before I started actively looking into getting published, and it was a big landmark in, like, oh, you can write Chinese fantasy like that, while also being a young female author.
11--Is there a book that changed your life?
I honestly don’t think there was one particular book. But for THE DARK WE KNOW specifically, Andrew Joseph White’s Hell Followed With Us was pivotal in unlocking the religious layer. THE DARK WE KNOW changed a lot after I read that one.
12--Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published)/Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
I already knew that Zando was offering on the book, but I didn’t find out that Gillian Flynn wanted to publish it under her imprint until a couple weeks into the process, and that was the most memorable call! I was at the Frankfurt Book Fair at the time for work, and my agent suddenly wanted a call, so I had to dart out between meetings and find some random corner of the convention hall to squat in, where she told me Gillian had read and loved the book. I didn’t even know Gillian was reading the book much less considering it, so I did have that kind of mini panic realising an author I hugely admired had Perceived Me and read a book that probably needed a bunch of edits. But that was really cool, and since I was at the fair I got to drop by and meet Zando’s rep at their stand too. All in all an exhausting but eventful week.
13--What’s your favorite genre to read?
I’m a specfic girl first and foremost. I’ve been really drawn towards literary speculative fiction recently, but I love a good epic fantasy too.
14--What’s your favorite movie?
Recently, probably Everything Everywhere All At Once. But Star Wars is probably my childhood fundamental.
15--What is your favorite season?
I live in the tropics, so it’s just hot and/or rainy all the time – but big general fan of fall, I think.
16--How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
Actually, as of writing this, my 25th birthday is coming up in 2 weeks. I’ll be celebrating a friend’s wedding around the same time, so that’ll be my big social event this time; on the actual day I’ll probably take it more chill with friends and family, let myself have some treats, cut a cake and call it a day.
17--What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
Underrated? Trese on Netflix, an animated show about a supernatural detective in Manila, Philippines. It’s dark and bloody and full of local monsters, and has a badass female lead, and I love anything that features Southeast Asian folklore.
18--What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
I’m not a huge foodie! But I guess I have to say Chinese, since I always find myself needing it eventually. I have a big noodle dependency.
19--What do you do when you have free time?
God, do I have free time these days? I’ve been trying to pick up hobbies that aren’t reading and writing, because those feel too close to the author thing. I’ve been journal-collaging and painting, recently. In my head there’s a lot of places I’d like to explore in Singapore in said free time, but it’s so hard to get around to it.
20--What can readers expect from you next?
I have a sapphic adult historical fantasy that’s in the works, set in 1970s postcolonial Singapore. As of writing this I can’t talk about it, but I’m very excited about it! Very different from THE DARK WE KNOW and much closer to home.
Growing up in Slater, Isadora Chang never felt at ease in the repressive small town, even before she realized she was bisexual—but after the deaths of two childhood friends, Slater went from feeling claustrophobic to suffocating. So, Isa took off before the town could swallow her, too. Even though it meant leaving everything she knew behind, including her last surviving friend, Mason.
When Isa’s abusive father dies, however, she agrees to come back from art school just long enough to collect the inheritance. But then Mason turns up at the cemetery with a revelation and a plea: their friends were murdered by an evil that haunts the town, and he needs Isa to help stop it—before it takes anyone else.
When Isa begins to hear strange songs on the wind, and eerie artwork fills her sketchbook that she can’t recall drawing, she’s forced to stop running and confront her past. Because something is waiting in the shadows of Slater’s valleys, something that feeds on the pain and heartbreak of its children. Whatever it is, it knows Isa’s back . . . and it won’t let her escape again.
Wen-yi Lee’s young adult debut is an intimate and gripping exploration of trauma, healing, and the lasting power of friendship, as a runaway teen must finally face the sinister forces that defined her childhood, and in doing so, demand her right to survive.
Young Adult | LGBTQ [Zando, On Sale: August 13, 2024, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9781638930587 / eISBN: 9781638930501]
Wen-yi Lee is a Clarion West alum from Singapore who likes writing about girls with bite, feral nature, and ghosts. Her speculative fiction has appeared in venues such as Lightspeed, Strange Horizons and Uncanny, as well as in various anthologies. The Dark We Know is her debut novel.
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