>> Monica Valentine: So, my
name is Monica Valentine, and I work at the
Library of Congress. And I am thrilled to be joined
on stage by Holly Black. Holly is -- [ Applause ] You have fans. Holly is a New York
Times bestselling, award-winning author. She's written several
extremely successful and well-loved series, including
the Modern Faerie Tales series, the Magisterium series
with Sandra Clare, the Curse Workers series,
the Spiderwick Chronicles with Tony DiTerlizzi,
which was adapted for film, and Doll Bones, which was a
214 -- 2014 Newbery Honor Book. Her current book,
The Wicked King, is part of the exciting
Folk of the Air series, which debuted this
year at the top of the New York Times
Bestseller List. So, please join me one more
time in welcoming Holly Black. [ Applause ] >> Holly Black: Thank
you, Monica. >> Monica Valentine: So,
Holly, you have written about haunted dolls,
vampires, and curse workers. But you seem to really
love fairies. Can you tell us why? >> Holly Black: I loved
fairies since I was a kid. My mom had this book. It was a big, illustrated book
by Brian Froud and Alan Lee and, if you're not familiar
with Brian Froud, he did the concept art for The
Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. And if you're not familiar
with Alan Lee, he did a lot of concept art for
Lord of the Rings. So imagine them in the '70s,
in a tiny town in the U.K., making this terrifying and beautiful book
about fairy folklore. And my mom had it, and I picked
it up, and it really scared me, and I also really loved it. And I think it fixed in my
head the idea of fairies, the way I see them now, as being
almost like forces of nature. I'm fascinated by the
idea that unlike lots of other supernatural beings,
unlike vampires and werewolves and so on, they are not human
and have never been human. They're different than us,
and they have different sort of mores, and that moment
of like coming up against that is really interesting
to me. And I also come back a lot
to the idea of fairy fruit, the idea of something
being so delicious, that all other food is
ashes in your mouth, the idea of ruinous beauty. So, those are some of the things
that I like about fairies. >> Monica Valentine: Thank you. Well, you are very prolific. This year, you have had
three books out, I believe. And I just want to
ask you how you do it, and how have you been able to
refine your writing process over the years, to
be so productive. >> Holly Black: So, I've never,
ever had a book moved up before, and I had two moved
up this year. >> Monica Valentine: Pressure. >> Holly Black: So, it was
an exciting year for me, still a little sweaty. I'm very caffeinated. But I'm very excited that,
yeah, both The Wicked King and The Queen of Nothing and the
middle grade Maleficent novel are coming out by
the end of the year. But next year, I
guess, I could sleep. >> Monica Valentine:
Rest a little bit, right? >> Holly Black: Yeah. >> Monica Valentine: When
people talk about your writing, they often point out how fully
realized your fantasy worlds are, can you talk a little bit about how you do your world
building, particularly in the land of Faerie? >> Holly Block: One of the
things that is interesting about world building,
when you're world building from folklore, is
that you're not a lot of times making up stuff. It's not the same as like
with The Curse Workers, where I had to figure out,
okay, what is the magic system, and how does that mean the world
has changed on account of it. You know, with Faerie
and, you know, especially because it's a hidden
world, you know, you're taking from folklore, and you're
trying to take out the parts that seem right to you and
most true to you, and then, you're extrapolating from them. You know, with the
Folk of the Air series, I was going into Faerie, and
I was going to be, you know, in the head of a
person who grew up there and who knows how it
works, which means -- which meant I had to
decide how it worked. And while there is a lot of
folklore to base things on, there is not a lot of
folklore set inside Faerie, and most of it has to do with
like a midwife who is taken from her bed by a
guy who's upset. His wife is having a baby. He really needs her
to come fast. They go to a weird place. She doesn't see stuff, you know,
she doesn't really see the area that well, you know,
things are dimly lit. She delivers a baby. She's given a pot of ointment. She has to put ointment on the
baby's eyes, then, accidentally, she rubs her own eyes. She's very tired. Then, she's taken home,
with gold in her pockets. Later, she runs into
the guy at the market, and he asks which eye
she sees him with. And he tells her, and
he puts out that eye. Great story, not a big
insight into, you know, the diplomatic situation
in Faerie. So, I had to make up
a lot more than usual. >> Monica Valentine: Do you
have favorite characters that you've written, and would
you share some of those with us and tell us why they're
your favorites? >> Holly Black: I mean,
from each series, I think, my favorite is always
the protagonist. That's why they're
the protagonist. They're the protagonist
because I love them the best. I love Jude, you know, I
love spending time with her. And then, I, in this series,
and Cardan is fun to write. Madoc is really fun to write, because I love bad
old guy advice. Like, I don't know why,
but I just love it. The grandfather in the Curse
Workers does the same thing. I just love giving bad advice, from like an old
guy perspective. >> Monica Valentine: Cool. Cool. So, you have had
a lot of great success with both your solo projects
and your collaborations. Would you give us some insight into how great fantasy
writers collaborate, how they make that process work? >> Holly Black: So,
I've collaborated with Tony DiTerlizzi,
the Spider Chronicles. I did some comics. That's where I was working
with different illustrators, and I worked with Cassandra
Clare on the Magisterium series, and each collaboration
is really different. And I think that that
is a big part of it. You know, figuring out how
you want to work together. And then, you know, in each
case, we made a decision that if we had a disagreement,
we would try to figure out a third thing
that wasn't one of the two options,
but a third option. Because the thing that people
worry about in collaboration, right, is not being
able to write the story that they want to write. But the thing that's great
about collaboration is that you're not going to write
the story you would have written on your own, that you're
going to get to write a story that neither one of
you could have found without the other person. So, finding that third way, that
gives you something from both of you, is both the thing
that's hard about collaboration, but also, the thing that is
super great about collaboration. And that's why I always tell
people to have your own project that you're working on. Have a project that you get
to make all the decisions, so that you can make -- so
that you can have a project where you're not making
all the decisions, and you can feel
comfortable with that. You can feel comfortable
that it's the shared one. >> Monica Valentine: Yeah, yeah. So, you are pretty versatile. You write with both
middle grade and YA. Is either one of those
your favorite to write? Maybe why? And how are you able to sort of
switch up and go back and forth and be so loved in both worlds? >> Holly Black: I mean, I think that YA is probably
closest to my natural voice. And I didn't know
that I would really like writing middle grade. I remember when I
finished my first book. My grandmother said to me, "You
should write a book like this, but with less cursing
and for younger people." And I said, "Grandma,
I would never do that." And of course, the next project
I wound up doing was Spiderwick, which goes to show that
the minute you say, "I would never do that,"
you will begin doing it. And so, yeah, I didn't
really know that I would like middle grade, but I do. And I like remembering that --
I think whenever you're writing, you know, a different age, you get to remember what
it was like to be that age. And I love thinking about an age
when what I was doing was making up stories and looking out
in my yard for evidence that there were fairies and when
the world seemed really full of possibility. >> Monica Valentine: Okay. So, that leads me to a question. I have heard that you have
a secret door in your house. >> Holly Black: I do. >> Monica Valentine: Can you
tell us what's behind the secret door? >> Holly Black: What is behind
the secret door is my library. It's a hidden library. However, this sounds
way fancier than it is. You, too, can have
a secret door. You can get them
from hiddendoors.com. I am not lying to you. That is how I got
my hidden door. I just ordered it
from the internet. I actually think that Home
Depot might have them now. >> Monica Valentine: So, The
Wicked King was a solo effort, which debuted, as we said, at the top of the New York
Times Bestseller List. Can we ask you to read us one of
your favorite passages from us? And then, share with us
why it is your favorite? Or one of your favorites? >> Holly Black: All right. So, I'm going to read,
actually, just a little bit, I'll read a little bit from
the beginning of Chapter One, and I'm picking this part,
in part, because I get to describe some stuff
that's fun, and also, because I think it will
give you a sense of -- a little bit of what's
going on in the book. All right. The new High King of Faerie
lounges on his throne, his crown resting at an
insouciant angle, his long, villainously scarlet cloak
pinned at his shoulders and sweeping the floor. An earring shines from the
peak of one pointed ear. Heavy rings glitter
along his knuckles. His most ostentatious
decoration, however, is his soft, sullen mouth. It makes him look every
bit the jerk that he is. I stand to one side of him, in the honored position
of seneschal. I am supposed to be High King
Cardan's most trusted advisor, and so I play that part,
rather than my real role -- the hand behind the throne,
with the power to compel him to obey should he
try to cross me. Scanning the crowd, I look for
a spy from the Court of Shadows. They intercepted a communication
from the Tower of Forgetting, where Cardan's brother is
jailed, and are bringing it to me instead of to
its intended recipient. And that's only the
latest crisis. It's been five months since I
forced Cardan onto the throne of Elfhame as my puppet king, five months since I
betrayed my family, since my sister carried
my little brother to the mortal realm
and away from the crown that he might have worn, since
I crossed swords with Madoc. Five months since
I've slept for more than a few hours at a stretch. >> Monica Valentine: Wow. >> Holly Black: Let
me stop there. It tells you kind of
where we're starting. >> Monica Valentine: Yeah. And so, what do you love
so much about that passage, as one of your favorites? >> Holly Black: Well, I think
it's fun to describe people. Obviously, it's fun
to describe Cardan. He always wears a
lot of fancy stuff. And it's fun to then get to
contrast that, because it's, you know, it's a little opulent
description with her position on it, which is ridiculous. God, why? Why is he so terrible? >> Monica Valentine: Okay. Well, I am sure that
your audience would love to hear what you have
planned for the next, with three books this year? What's coming up next year? >> Holly Black: I am
figuring that out right now. I am trying to figure
out what I want to do. I've been thinking about
writing an adult book. I have some more YA books
that I want to write. And so, I have to
write some proposals. But I haven't done anything. I am free. I'm out of contract. No one can catch me. Free. >> Monica Valentine: Would you like to give them
a little preview of the next book
that's coming out? >> Holly Black: Yes. So, yeah, The Queen of Nothing
starts out just a few months after this book lets off. It's where we started
out in the Moral World. And I mean, I think that
the third book, and really, the whole series is about the
central question of whether or not Jude is willing to
become like Madoc, you know, the father -- you know, to some
extent, you know, her father, to some extent, the
murderer of her parents. Right? How much she
wants to be like him, if it means having power. Like would she be willing to
rule over a destroyed Elfhame if it meant ruling over it? >> Monica Valentine: Great. Great. Okay, looking out at this
audience, I'm more than certain that we have some aspiring
fantasy writers out here. Do you have a couple of
pieces of advice that you'd like to share with young
people who are thinking about getting into it? >> Holly Black: So, when I was
a kid, I never met a writer. I wanted to be a writer,
but I didn't know -- I couldn't imagine what
that would be like, like it just didn't
seem possible to me. >> Monica Valentine: Like a job. >> Holly Black: Yeah, like,
I mean, right, as a job, it seemed, you know, like I -- I knew a lot of adults who
were interested in the arts, but they all had other careers. Like they, you know,
my mom was a painter, but not a professional painter. She worked in the,
you know, in the mall, at a fine jewelry counter. You know, my friend's dad
was an amazing historian, but his job, he was a butcher. And so, like people always
said, you know, if you believe in yourself, you can do it. And I thought, but
I don't believe. Like, what? I'm no fool. I don't believe. And so, you don't have to believe it will
happen, to happen. You just have to keep
walking through the process. You know, read a bunch of books. Write a bunch, edit a bunch. It helped me to meet other
people who wanted to be writers, because it takes a long time
to write your first book. You don't know what
you're necessarily doing. And so, having someone
to trade back and forth with who would tell me when
it was working, especially. Like we think of a critique
partner as being a person who tells you when
it's not working, but they're also the
person who's going to tell you when it is working. And you're going
to be telling them when their stuff isn't working, and as you become a better
reader of their work, you're going to become a
better reader of your work. So, that was really
important for me. >> Monica Valentine: Great. Great. Well, I am sure that the
audience also has some questions for you. So, I want just to let you
know that you guys can line up at the mics, if you
have questions for Holly. We're going to move into
Q and A pretty soon. But I also want to let you know that her books are
on sale today. So, down on the expo floor,
you can pick up Holly's books. Do we have some folks who
want to ask questions? [ Silence ] Okay. I guess we can start
on this side, and then, we'll go back and forth. [ Silence ] >> Audience Member
1: Tricky mic. I'm also a writer, and I'm
in the process of like trying to find an agent
for my first book, but I'm also having
trouble working out what I want to
do after this one. Like, I have some ideas, but I have a hard time finding
motivation to write and figuring out what I want to do. So, have you ever -- did
you experience that early in your career and how
did you handle that? >> Holly Black: Oh, yeah. I mean, it took me maybe five
years to write my first book. I didn't know how
to write a book. It was just a bunch of
elves sitting around, experiencing ennui, drinking
endless cups of coffee, and it took me forever
to finish that book. And when it sold,
I was so happy. I was happy for months. I was so happy, that someone
like rear-ended my car, and I was like, "Whatever! It's all good." And then, I -- somehow,
it messed up the chemicals in my brain, I went into the
only serious depression I've ever been in, that summer, where
I became sure I was about to die and spent a lot of time looking at pseudo scientific articles
online about the afterlife, to try to find out what
would happen to me. And it was all because -- and I finally figure
this out years later, that I had so internalized
the idea that my goal was to write a book and to sell
it, that once I wrote a book and sold it, my brain was
like, "Well, pack it in. You have no more goals." I mean, the idea that I had to write a second book was
a terrible shock to me. Like, "What do you mean? I just wrote one book, and it was the hardest
thing I ever did, and you want me to do it again?" So, I think it's --
you know, it's hard, and it's especially
hard when you're in the middle of that journey. Because you're out there. You're trying to
sell your first book, and you've probably gotten some
anxiety and some stuff getting in the way of writing
your second book. I will say this,
though, the great thing about writing your second
book is it is a respite from that anxiety
over the first book. I mean, it is really useful, if
you can find the space and time in your head to -- because it's
the thing you can do to put all of that anxiety over
here, and be like, "Okay, let me focus on this." And then, this no longer becomes
like the most important thing. So, I understand it's hard. It just is. I'm sorry. Good luck to you with
that, but like I, you know, you did the big thing. You wrote a book. Like it will never
be this hard again. Audience Member 1: Thank you. >> Monica Valentine: We'll
bounce over to the other side. >> Audience Member 2: Hi. I know this was awhile
ago, but what was it like, having one of your books
adapted for the screen, and would you ever want
that to happen with one of your current books
now, more recent books? >> Holly Black: I mean, when
you have a book that's adapted for film -- so, the Spider
Chronicles was a film. It came out in 2008, and
it was a great experience. It really was, you know. I think it was a
good adaptation. I think they captured some
of the heart of those books, and I think that made
it especially great. It was great to walk around
the sets and really feel like I was walking around, mostly in Tony DiTerlizzi's
head. And, you know, but the thing
that is especially great is that it means that a lot
more readers are going to pick up your books. So, you know, I would take
the chance of doing it again. The thing that's hard about
it is that you're not -- it's a process in which you
are never really sure what is happening. Like, when we were
waiting to hear the news about whether they were going
to make Spiderwick, I remember, at some point, I was driving
home, and I got this phone call from our agents, and
they were like, "It's on. It's happening." And I drove, because
I was driving home from New York for
something else. I drove to our local liquor
store, Liquors 44, and I pointed to a dusty bottle of
Cristal on the top shelf, and I was like, "Give it to me." And they were like,
"That's expensive." And I was like, "Give it to me." And I took the dusty
bottle over to Tony's house, and we popped it, and
we began to pour it, when we got a phone call. Back off. I was like, "How
do you get the cork back in this bottle?" >> Monica Valentine: Oh, no. >> Holly Black: But then,
a week later, it was on, and it really did get made. But, you know, it -- I will -- don't believe it until you're
walking around the set. >> Audience Member 2: Thank you. >> Monica Valentine:
Good question. >> Audience Member 3: Hi. Are you a pantser
or an outliner? And within that, how do you
approach story structure? How much do you have to know
before you begin writing? >> Holly Black: I want
to be an outliner. Like, it is my great --
I feel like this is -- because it's more of a
confessional than a Q and A. Like I want very much to
be -- I make outlines, and then, fail to follow them. And I've like have gone -- like,
as I have gone on, I have tried, and especially actually in
the last two or three years, I have made a real
push to try and figure out what mistakes I'm making
in the outlining stage. I was -- so, when I went on
tour for The Cruel Prince, I spent the entire time
reading books about outlining. I don't know -- like I've
became obsessed with this idea, that I could change
how I did it. And I remember reading
this one -- all books about outlining
have like two chapters in which they justify why
outlining is important. I'm not sure why. I bought the book. Like I'm ready, but they all do. And one of them was
like, "Listen. You can either outline
in the outline, or you can outline
in your first draft." And I never felt so like --
get accused by a book and also, maybe, they were
so right about me. Because that was my problem,
is my first draft is often like me trying to figure out
what happens in the book. So, in the middle. >> Audience Member 3: Thank you. >> Monica Valentine: Cool. This side. >> Audience Member 4: I
like to write as well. I'm a writer. And I wanted to know,
is that in between some of like the really
exciting bits of the story, what do you do whenever you
write, to make sure that like in between these really good
bits, you don't have just like boring parts in between, like maybe like fight
scenes or stuff. So, what do you do to keep it
-- the story going in between? >> Holly Black: This was
actually the thing I think I asked the most when I was
writing my first book, that when you look at, you know, story arcs, it looks
like, "Look. Bigger and bigger incidents." Right? And you're like, "Well,
what happens between them? And that's not quite a story. Like it doesn't feel..." The thing you have to
remember, especially in fantasy, is you have two overlapping
stories, and the relationship between those stories is part of
what makes things move forward. You want to have -- you
have the personal story. And then, you have
what I'm going to call your time
limiting story. And what we generally
think of as the plot. Like when I was first writing
a book, my understanding of plot was like, okay, say,
you have a dragon that's come and is attacking a village,
and you have a king, and he has to protect his
kingdom from this dragon. And I guess you have like the
dragon just attacks bigger and bigger, you know,
it has bigger and bigger battles, right? And -- but I knew that wasn't
a book, but I wasn't sure why. Well, now, imagine that the king
has a wife and also a brother, and that the king's wife is
in love with his brother. Now, you have, with the
tension between those stories, creates what is happening in
the moments between the battles. So, for instance -- and we
start with those stories. We start with the personal. So, you have your king. He's sitting in the throne room. He looks at his wife, his
wife's looking at his brother. A page runs in and says,
"There's a dragon." And then, as we move
toward the conflict, perhaps the king
is like, "Brother, I think you should go
fight that dragon." Or maybe he thinks, you know,
"My marriage was arranged. This isn't anyone's fault. I will go and fight the
dragon, and at least, they can be together
for this time." And I go out, and I fight the
dragon, and I think I'm going to die, you know, and then,
perhaps I defeat the dragon. And now, what am I going to do? Because if I go home, I'm going
to break up their happiness. So, perhaps, I slink
away into book two. Or perhaps some of the
dragon's blood has gotten on me, and I become dragonish, and I
slurk towards home for revenge. But tension between those
stories is what creates the middle spaces, and often, those
middle spaces have more tension than the battles, because
they're the personal tension. And personal tension
is always higher, actually, than plot tension. >> Audience Member 4: Thank you. >> Audience Member 5: Hi. So, my question is, I've heard
some writers say that a lot of the story you think up
when you're not actually like at the keyboard, writing. And I'm curious like
are there things that you do throughout your
day or certain times of day that help you kind of go into
the story and generate ideas, when you're not actually
putting words on a page? >> Holly Black: So,
I make a playlist. I have a playlist
that I listen to. That's really useful,
because you put your -- you know, music will bring
you back to the space that you're supposed to be in. The other thing that
I have started doing, is I started doing timed
writing, where like I'll write for 20 minutes straight, and
you do not get the greatest pros doing this. But it's really helpful,
because for me, that's the hardest thing, is just actually generating the
story when I'm not entirely -- like I don't like -- like that
first prose is just not great for me, and, you know,
I feel like it's -- you know, you have
this idea in your head, and the idea seems great, and
then, you're translating it into something that
is much less great. And I like editing. Editing is like cleaning
the toilet. You're not going to
make it any worse. So, for me, a huge part of
it is really just drafting, like making the draft happen. And then, for me, a lot of
times, the actual story is in the editing, is in
figuring out what I did wrong. I would like to be the person who could write a
story right before, but I'm always the
person who has to write it wrong before
I can write it right. >> Monica Valentine: I think we
still have time for a few more. >> Audience Member 6: So,
I just wanted to know, as someone who has grown
up with your writing -- >> Holly Black: Thank you. >> Audience Member 6: -- and to
adulthood, I want to know how, as the more and more
books you've written, and the older you get in
your own personal life, how has your writing changed
and how have your goals with what you write
have changed? >> Holly Black: I think that
you, as I have, you know, moved on from -- you
know, when you write, when you first start writing, you're writing the
stories that you love. And then, you've written
the stories you love, and you're like, "What
other stories do I love?" Much like coming back to
Faerie, and being like, "Wow, I used a lot of my
favorite folklore. What folklore is
left that I love?" And I think you wind
up finding out -- you wind up remembering
things that you -- maybe weren't the things
you thought of first, and you have different
experiences I think that translate into writing. And I think also, hopefully, you're able to do more
challenging things, more challenging structures,
like Darkest Part of the Forest, a lot of times, when people talk
to me about the romance in it, they're like, "I liked it,"
and I'm like, "Thank God." I'm so excited, but I'm
always like, "That's great, because it was like love math,
trying to figure out who talked to who and what time
and how it worked. And it was structurally
challenging, which is maybe really boring
to, you know, a person who wants to talk about the book. But like figuring out that
you want to do different kinds of structures and that you
want to challenge yourself in different kinds of ways,
I mean, you want to -- you know, I think is something
that comes with the experience to be able to do that. When I wrote my first
book, I was like, "I would like to write a book
that has a beginning, a middle, and an end, like that feels
-- I remember finishing it and reading the end
and thinking, "This feels like a
book-shaped object." It was such a relief to me. I was like, "Just please let
me out of this book honorably." And, you know, now, I
think I can manage that, so what can I do
within those confines? Like what are -- you know, and I would like to say it
gets easier, but in some ways, it gets harder, because of that. >> Audience Member 6: Thank you. >> Audience Member 7: Yeah. A couple of years ago, I was
drinking coffee at the McDonalds with the software
engineer that started to write teen books,
very successfully. And she was yelling at
me that she was concerned that she was drawing
up into a lawsuit by the mothers on
13 Reasons Why. But her book was fiction,
and she kept on saying, "There is no island where
girls are tortured and have to fight to the death." Do you have concerns
when you write, do you damp down your
dark, any dark writing or any immoral writing? Do you have some concerns? And on a librarian
question, do you understand or do you think the
mothers do have a concern, that a librarian should ask
their 12-year-old daughter, "Did your mother give you
permission to read this?" >> Holly Black: I mean, do I...? >> Audience Member 7:
Do you damp it down? >> Holly Black: No. I mean, in terms of
like -- I mean, no. Like, because I'm
not -- that's not -- I mean, I think the
darkness in the way -- I'm not even sure quite
what you mean by darkness, but I think what I am interested
in doing is asking questions that I'm interested in asking
and writing stories that are about -- I'm interested in
writing the kinds of books that I wanted when I was a kid. And, you know, I
love dark fantasy. I love things that have
a relationship to horror. I once heard -- I was once on a
panel where someone said, "Well, what's the difference between
dark fantasy and horror?" And, you know, fantasy
that has horror elements, but also has a sense
of awe to it. And so, even if the world -- even if there's monsters in
the world, there is a sense that there is something
great about -- like something about that, that
fills us with a sense of beauty or pleasure, whereas
horror is -- the supernatural
is an abhorrence. It is a corruption. And so, I always think
of myself as being -- the line for me is always
that this is always still -- fills me with a sense of
hope and awe, you know, no matter how much, you know,
they all want to eat you. >> Monica Valentine: No
matter how dark it gets. >> Holly Black: What? >> Monica Valentine: No
matter how dark it gets. >> Holly Black: No matter -- right, that there's
still that -- like I would not write nihilism. I guess that's the line, for me. I'm not interested in
writing a nihilistic story. >> Monica Valentine: Okay. I think we have time
for one more question. >> Audience Member 8: Okay. In your Folk of the
Air series, both Jude and Cardan really aren't
morally good characters. How did you make
them so likeable? [ Laughter ] >> Monica Valentine:
That's a great question. >> Holly Black: That
is a great question. I think, the thing -- I'm always
interested in people who are -- who grow up inside
different moral systems. I remember reading
this true crime novel. It was called Son of a Grifter. It was about the
son of Sante Kimes, who wound up being
arrested with her other son for the murder of a hotelier. She was trying to steal
the person's hotel. And when he was a kid, she had
raised him to be a criminal. And like at some point, he like
steals these surfboards and he, you know, gets caught. And her -- winds up
confessing and like getting -- and being put on probation. And, you know, she comes, and
she slaps him across the face, and she's like, "How could you
be so stupid as to get caught? And how could you
have confessed?" Like, "I thought I
raised you better." And to me, I think what
is interesting about Jude and Cardan, right, is that
they're raised within Faerie. And so, specifically, Jude,
she's raised by, you know, someone who has a very -- who
believes in murder, who is a, you know, who is a soldier
and who is a killer. And so, I think we see
them negotiating morality from a place that is
different than we might. But I think they're
both negotiating it, and I think that's what
we like about them. >> Monica Valentine: Well, that
is all we have time for today. Holly, it's been a real
treat having you here. Thank you for joining us. >> Holly Black: Thank
you so much for all your great questions. >> Monica Valentine: And
we are looking forward to The Queen of Nothing. >> Holly Black: Thank you.
