Pirates! Epic threats! Two plucky orphans to save the day! ND Stevenson’s forthcoming novel, Scarlet Morning (Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins, September 23), is “engaging, exciting, and enthralling in equal measure,” Kirkus writes in a starred review. The illustrious author, cartoonist, and animation producer (Nimona, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power) answered questions about his hotly anticipated prose debut via email.
Would you please introduce our readers to Viola and Wilmur?
Viola and Wilmur are two orphans who, at the beginning of our story, don’t know anyone else except each other. Wilmur is very long and constantly surprised by it, while Viola is a tiny menace with a big imagination. They love each other, but the only way they know how to show that love is by scrapping like kittens.
What do you love about a dynamic duo?
Oh, dynamic duos are my very favorite thing. I’m especially fixated on those intense, codependent relationships that are common for kids, where you latch on hard to someone who seems to fill in all your blanks…but also triggers all your insecurities. You’re two sides of the same coin, mirror opposites inescapably tied together, and it’s when those relationships break that you find out who you really are. They’re in everything I’ve ever written, and I think I’ll be writing about them forever.
Where and when did you write Scarlet Morning?
The very earliest draft was written on a huge, internetless Aqua Bubble computer surrounded by collages cut out of Playbills and fashion magazines, which is the ideal way to write a book, and I’ve been chasing that high ever since. Lately, though, I’ve been writing on a moody clawfoot desk while listening to sea shanties and Florence + the Machine, and that might be the next best thing.
What was most challenging about writing your prose debut? And most rewarding?
When you’re scripting for comics or animation, you have to be very terse with your descriptions, because your main goal is to lay a foundation for the artist to build on. But with prose, the medium you’re working with isn’t visual—it’s someone else’s imagination,and that was very new and scary for me. It’s like carving butter, but the butter is melting faster than you can carve it, and also the butter is invisible. Other times it’s like playing ping-pong with yourself. But I love it. Prose can do things that no other medium can, and I’m obsessed. I want to know everything. So I keep trying.
Will you be touring this fall?
A tour is definitely on the books, although the stops are still being decided. I hope it includes a visit to my hometown library in Columbia, South Carolina, where the seed of Scarlet Morning was first planted.
What fall releases are you excited about?
I’m halfway through The Golden Boy’s Guide to Bipolar by Sonora Reyes and can’t wait to start Petra Lord’s Queen of Faces!On the comics side, I’m super excited for Ngozi Ukazu’s FlipandTrung Le Nguyen’s Angelica and the Bear Prince.
Is there anything you can tell us about Book 2?
Book 2 is called Evening Gray,and it involves a missing crown, secret passageways, garden parties, impossible clockwork contraptions, ghosts (real and metaphorical), so many sea monsters, a man named Britches, and even, at last, a rhinoceros. I’m very excited for it, and you should be, too!
Editor at large Megan Labrise hosts the Fully Booked podcast.
