Author Snapshot: Adrienne Young
Book jacket biographies don’t tell us nearly enough about the authors we love. That’s why Zibby Mag launched the Author Snapshot, giving readers an inside look at the lives and work of our favorite writers.
This week we’re spotlighting Adrienne Young, the New York Times and international bestselling author of the Sky and Sea series, the Fable series, and Spells for Forgetting. Adrienne’s novel Fable was a Reese’s Book Club YA pick. Saint, a prequel to Fable, releases on Tuesday!
Your adult novel Spells for Forgetting published in September and Saint, your newest YA novel, releases on Tuesday! How do you keep your various books and projects separate? What is your writing process like, and does it differ between your adult and YA books?
It’s been a really busy year, which I didn’t totally expect when I originally sold Spells and Saint, but somehow the schedules shook out close together. I worked on the projects at different times but they came out the other end of the publishing house side by side, which has felt kind of funny because I was in a very different headspace when I wrote each of them. In general, my YA and adult novels are quite different, but they definitely share some similarities in style. My adult novels have been a different kind of storytelling—more layered with multiple timelines and POVs, so they have taken more prep work. They feel like knots that need to be untangled, whereas my YA novels have felt more like something hidden waiting to be discovered. I’ve found that I love both of those processes for different reasons.
Your guide to novel writing, The Storyteller’s Workbook, releases in just a few weeks. What are some of your top tips for aspiring writers?
There are a few things I’m always trying to remind myself of, and they are the same pieces of advice I give to other writers. The first is how important it is to keep reading other people’s work. There is no substitute for that vein of studying writing craft. The second is that we often have our most impactful creative breakthroughs when we are bored. The world is such a stimulating place and we are so busy all the time, but moments of boredom are key in creativity. The third is that writing what you love is the best and most faithful path forward as a writer. Trends come and go and readers can be fickle. We have very little control over what happens to books once they are written, but we can at least do our best to put out work we are proud of.
Through all your projects and initiatives, it is overwhelmingly clear you love to support writers. Can you tell us more about your Writing With the Soul workshop?
Writing With the Soul was such a lovely, unexpected surprise! I started building on the workshop during the pandemic and launched the first “round” in January 2021. Since then, over 500 people have taken the workshop, and the next one will be held in the spring of 2023. Whereas a lot of writing workshops focus on the mechanics of craft and formulas for process, WWTS is a month-long deep dive into the individual writer’s connection to their own writing through four different subjects: Perspective, Voice, Conviction, and Process. It has been a blast to be a part of the workshop, and it’s evolved into an incredible community of writers.
Similarly, can you tell us about the Fable Grant and what inspired you to start this program?
The Fable Grant is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. When I was first trying to get published, I didn’t have the financial resources to get the tools I needed to write books or further my own education in writing. I also had two very young children and couldn’t afford to pay for childcare. The idea behind the Fable Grants is to provide an opportunity for a writer where they otherwise wouldn’t have one, whether that’s for a new laptop, higher learning, a workshop they want to take, or just a babysitter a few hours a week so they can write. We had two amazing partners who helped make the grants happen: Reese’s Bookclub’s The Readership and Bookmarks NC. We aren’t running the grants in January this year because of the hectic release schedule, but I’m hoping they’ll be back the following year.
What inspires your fiction writing? Do any of your stories evolve from real-life experiences?
I feel like I’m always writing about myself or my experiences in some way, even if it’s far removed from the actual characters and storyline. Writing has been my conduit for self-exploration for as long as I can remember, and it’s one of the ways I process things on a subconscious level. I can look at each of my books in retrospect and identify what I was mentally working out with that particular story, which makes them a time capsule of sorts.
What is your favorite part of the author journey from writing to publishing?
I have two favorites! The first is the story development phase, after I’ve had the idea and it’s beginning to take shape into a full story. This is a process that happens before I start drafting the book and it’s all imagination and possibilities. I build a music playlist and a pin board of inspiration, and I brainstorm to my heart’s content. This is one of the most magical elements to me, when the story is still something private and exciting and new. The second is when the book actually goes out into the world. More specifically, about a month or two after release and beyond. The launch of a book is exhausting and overwhelming, but once it’s out there and doing its thing and people are discovering it through friends or on the shelf at their bookstores, it feels like such a huge relief. That’s when I feel like I can just relax and let the book do what it’s going to do.