The Bravery of Impossible Wants with Veronica Roth

First Draft Episode #245: Veronica Roth

Veronica Roth, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Divergent series, the Carve the Mark duology, and the short story collection, The End and Other Beginnings, talks about her first adult fantasy novel, The Chosen Ones.

This episode was sponsored by HIGHLAND 2, a better way to write, and by We Didn’t Ask For This, the newest novel by Adi Alsaid, out from Inkyard Press April 7 (listen to his First Draft interview here).

Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode

• Hear Veronica’s previous First Draft interviews: Just prior to the Insurgent movie being released, and as Carve the Mark was being released

• Katherine Tegen, publisher of Katherine Tegen Books, published Veronica’s young adult fictoin

• Alice Munro, author of Dear Life, Runaway, and Too Much Happiness

• Me and cooking can be summed up in the Netflix series Nailed It

• Some chosen one stories that were particularly influential to Veronica were Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling; Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien; Animorphs by KA Applegate, Narnia by C.S. Lewis; The Giver by Louis Lowry; and Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

• The Knockout Queen by Rufi Thorpe

• All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders

• Adam Brody of The O.C.

• My most recent interview with Zan Romanoff, whose newest book, Look, is fantastic!

• MK Ultra, the government’s mind-control experimentation

• Project Blue Book, the top-secret government UFO coverup

• The audiobook of Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

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