Can you give us a brief overview of your latest book? Is it part of a series?
Stolen City is a YA fantasy heist novel about twin thieves who live on an island city-state that’s been recently colonized by a foreign empire. They work to steal magic artifacts back from their city’s colonizers, but when someone hires them to steal an artifact that once belonged to their mother, they set off a chain of events that ends up with them stealing the city back in the process. At the moment, it’s a standalone, but I would love to write more books if I had the opportunity.
Do you have a favorite character?
When I was drafting Stolen City, Arian was my favorite character to write, which is why she ended up becoming the protagonist. I loved her fire, how she was always ready with a snarky comment, but also how she is really conflicted deep down and just trying to keep it together. Figuring out how she would eventually resolve her conflict was one of the highlights of writing Stolen City.
But when I was revising Stolen City, I really enjoyed working on Liam, Arian’s brother. Like me, Liam is autistic, and I loved getting into his head and working through why he would react to certain situations in certain ways. I also loved writing about magic from his point of view since he has much more experience with it than any other member of the cast.
Have you ever had a minor character evolve into a major one? Did that change the direction of the novel at all? Did the character become the hero/heroine of their own book?
Kaolin is a major character in Stolen City, but he didn’t start out that way. Originally, I meant for his role to be filled by his father, but as I was writing the first draft, I realized that it would be a lot more interesting to see the Empire from the perspective of a citizen roughly the same age as the cast. I switched his father out for Kaolin and haven’t looked back since.
How long before you got your offer of representation/your first contract? Was it for your first novel?
I decided I wanted to be an author when I was eight years old, wrote what I could call my first full-length novel at twelve, and was querying agents by sixteen. But although I didn’t stop or slow down at any point after that, I didn’t get my first book deal until I was twenty-eight, a full twenty years after I’d first started writing. That book deal was for Dauntless and Stolen City, and by the time I got it, I had more than ten completed novels under my belt that I ended up shelving and so many incomplete projects that I’ve honestly lost count. I’ve been rejected hundreds of times, and I didn’t get an agent or offer or representation until two years after that, for what will become my third published novel, Exiles of Ellery West.
Since I started so young, I quickly became used to rejection, but I won’t say that it didn’t affect me. By the time I got around to Dauntless, I could feel myself starting to give up, and I submitted Dauntless to Swoon Reads in part so I could give myself a productive break from querying. I’m so happy that Dauntless got chosen for publication, and I wouldn’t change anything about my journey.
What is your writing process? Do you listen to music or do you like silence?
I listen to music when I write, but it has to be instrumental, because listening to anything with lyrics distracts me. I usually like film or video game soundtracks for this purpose because those are already designed to go with a narrative scene or evoke an emotion in someone who is watching the film or playing the game. Video game soundtracks are especially good because they’re designed to not distract the player, and I find that it’s not hard to write to them. Sometimes, I’ll pick songs that match the scene I’m trying to write and sometimes I’ll put my playlist on shuffle just to see where things go.
Do you outline your story or just go where your muse takes you?
It totally depends on the book and my answer is different for each project. Stolen City, the book that’s about to be released, was originally written without an outline. When I was finished with it, I realized I would need to tighten up some things, so I made a quick outline for my revision. But Dauntless, my debut novel, was written with a very brief outline that I ended up changing as I went along, and my third novel out in 2024, Exiles of Ellery West, had a full outline as part of its submission process.
I like writing without an outline because it allows the story to surprise me as well as the reader. It makes writing really fun, like I’m telling a story to myself. But writing with an outline helps me too, especially if I have a deadline. I write faster with an outline, because I don’t have to think about what I’m doing next.
Do you find it difficult to juggle your time between marketing your current book and writing your next book? Do you try to write every day or carve out certain times during the week?
Since I’m traditionally published, I don’t have to do all the marketing for my book myself, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have to do anything. I’ve had to learn how to do quite a lot of marketing for my book, including making regular posts on social media and reaching out to other authors for virtual events. I think this is still an area where I am learning how to manage my time. I enjoy writing, and while I love talking about my books, doing the marketing work is a bit more difficult for me. Thankfully, while I occasionally struggle to carve out time for social media, I haven’t had too much trouble finding time to write my next book.
I write almost every weekday. I treat writing like part of my job and schedule time to write in my daily calendar. I write on weekdays, but just like my regular work, I try not to write on weekends and holidays. Having that rest time is important to me because it helps me manage my energy and be a more effective writer later on. I usually block about half an hour to an hour each day to write, and that’s been working well for me so far.
Besides writing, do you have any other passions?
I’m a complete nerd so I love reading fantasy and science fiction novels and playing video games, especially role-playing games. Thanks to the pandemic, I’ve also gotten back into cross-stitching. I’m horrible at art, but I’m great at following instructions, and I love seeing the picture come together over time. I also love travelling, and I’ve been trying to do more than that ever since I moved to Europe about three years ago.
Some fun facts about you, which do you prefer – dogs or cats? Chocolate or vanilla? Coffee or Tea? Talk or Text? Day or Night?
Dogs, chocolate, coffee, text and daytime definitely!
What’s next for you?
I’ve mentioned it a few times in this interview, but I have another book coming out in 2024. It’s called Exiles of Ellery West and is a YA contemporary fantasy / dark academia about a Filipino-American girl named Faith who is returning to magic school for her final year.
The previous year, Faith and her best friend accidentally awakened something in the forest outside their school, and her friend went missing. Faith is back, but on probation. If she messes up once, she’ll be expelled, and her magic sealed away forever. Except it turns out her friend isn’t actually gone but is being controlled by the entity they awakened. To save her and the rest of the students at the school, Faith will have to team up with the other probationary students. It’s a story about magic and loss and found family and being yourself, and I can’t wait for you all to read it!
Stolen City
Elisa A. Bonnin
Published by: Swoon Reads
Publication date: September 20th 2022
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult
Twin thieves attempt to pull off a daring heist in Stolen City, the sophomore fantasy novel from Dauntless author Elisa A. Bonnin.
The city of Leithon is under Imperial occupation and Arian Athensor has made it her playground.
In stealing magical artifacts for the Resistance, bounding over rooftops to evade Imperial soldiers, and establishing herself as the darling thief of the underground, Arian lives a life wrapped in danger and trained towards survival. She’ll steal anything for the right price, and if she runs fast enough, she can almost escape the fact that her mother is dead, her father is missing, and her brother, Liam, is tamping down a wealth of power in a city that has outlawed magic.
But then the mysterious Cavar comes to town with a job for the twins: to steal an artifact capable of ripping the souls from the living–the same artifact that used to hang around the neck of Arian’s mother. Suddenly, her past is no longer buried under adrenaline but intimately tied to the mission at hand, and Arian must face her guilt and pain head-on in order to pull off the heist.
As Arian and Cavar infiltrate the strongest fortress in Leithon and Liam joins the Resistance as their resident mage, the twins find themselves embroiled in court politics and family secrets, and the mission becomes more than just another artifact theft. The target is now the Imperial rule, and Arian will go to any length necessary to steal her city back.
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Author Bio:
Elisa A. Bonnin was born and raised in the Philippines, after which she moved to the United States to study chemistry and later oceanography. After completing her doctorate, she moved to Germany to work as a postdoctoral scientist. A lifelong learner, Elisa is always convinced that she should “maybe take a class in something” and as a result, has amassed an eclectic collection of hobbies. But writing will always be her true love. Publishing a book has been her dream since she was eight years old, and she is thrilled to finally be able to share her stories. Dauntless is her first novel.
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