Samantha Shannon

Author Samantha Shannon talks to us about her latest novel A Day of Fallen Night and what can we expect from the special 10th anniversary edition of The Bone Season.

Samantha Shannon is a bestselling British author of fantasy fiction. Her debut, The Bone Season, was published in 2013 and will soon be appearing in a Tenth Anniversary special edition published by Bloomsbury which is revised with new material.

As well as The Bone Season series, Samantha has written The Roots of Chaos series which started with The Priory of the Orange Tree. Her latest novel, A Day of Fallen Night, was published in February 2023 and is the latest in the series. You can find all Samantha's books on our catalogue.

Who were your heroes as you were growing up and who would you most like to meet now?

I didn’t have many heroes, as far as I remember, though I don’t have many clear memories of my childhood any more. From an artistic perspective, there are many authors whose work has inspired and moved me, some of whom I’ve had the great pleasure of meeting over the course of the last ten years, including Garth Nix, Laini Taylor, Malorie Blackman and Margaret Atwood.

You have written most of your adult life. Do you have any old manuscripts stashed under the bed that might be used in future?

I have the manuscript of a novel I started when I was fifteen, which was called Aurora, but I have no interest in publishing it. If someone offered me ten million pounds for that manuscript, I still wouldn’t let it see the light of day. I stripped the few promising ideas out of it and redeveloped them for my published debut, The Bone Season, and what remains is simply too flawed to salvage. I’m glad I wrote it – it taught me to commit to a long project, and I believe all writing gives you valuable experience – but I wouldn’t see the point in showing it to anyone, especially since my style has changed drastically since I was a teenager.

You got your book deal aged 20. How did you cope with all the publicity and expectations surrounding it?

I fear I have too many feelings on this subject to condense into a concise answer, but in short, that period of my life was a double-edged sword. I’m grateful that it gave me a meteoric start to my career – few debuts are afforded that degree of publicity, and I know it was a great privilege – but the pressure was very difficult from a mental and emotional perspective, and it could have set me up for failure, especially as the majority of the press interest was based on me being young, which clearly wasn’t going to last for ever. I’m very grateful that I was able to build a community of readers outside of that initial hype.

In your books you build worlds with incredible attention to detail. Is this world in your head or do you have a system to keep track of everything?

It’s mostly in my head. I only really use a notebook and pen to deal with plot issues, as I like to be able to visualise the flow of events. I’m fortunate that I have a good memory when it comes to my own worlds, though I find it helps to refresh it by rereading every now and then.

Can you tell us a little about your latest book, A Day of Fallen Night?

It’s the second book in my Roots of Chaos cycle and a prequel to The Priory of the Orange Tree. Set five centuries before Priory, it follows four protagonists – Dumai, Glorian, Tunuva and Wulf – as they fight to survive a war between humans and fire-breathing wyrms. It deals with themes of grief, motherhood, legacy and inheritance, and can be read as its own story, separate from Priory.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of The Bone Season. How do you view that now looking back and what can we expect from the special anniversary edition?

I was 19 when I started The Bone Season. While I was editing it, I was in my second year at university and faced with intense press interest in my story, which I didn’t know how to handle, especially as I had social anxiety. My mental health took a significant hit. All this meant I wasn’t able to give the editing process the attention it needed. I also feel, looking back, that I just didn’t have the writing experience to execute this enormous, ambitious vision I had in my head.

At 31, I’m still working on the same series, and I’ve only fallen deeper in love with it over time – I live and sleep and breathe this world – but over the course of a decade, my relationship with that first instalment became very complicated. I was haunted by the idea of how much better it could have been, and how well it could have represented the series if only I’d had more skill and mental clarity when I wrote it. That’s why I asked Bloomsbury if I could revise it, and I’m so grateful they agreed. The 10th Anniversary Edition is a much stronger version of that first story, and I recommend new readers choose this version as a starting point.

What's next for you?

I’m currently working on the revision of The Mime Order and drafting the fifth book in the Bone Season series, which will be published in 2025. After that I’ll be drafting my standalone novel about the Ancient Greek goddess of the rainbow, Iris. Then I’ll be on to the sixth Bone Season book.

One book, piece of music or work of art that everyone should experience?

The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin. A groundbreaking work of speculative fiction.

What is the strangest or funniest thing one of your readers has shared with you?

I can’t think of anything strange they’ve shared with me, off the top of my head, but I did have a guy ask me to sign his boxers once.

Can you tell us one thing about yourself that your readers may not know?

I qualified as a pool lifeguard when I was sixteen.

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