We chat with author Jamie Pacton about The Absinthe Underground, which is a lavish and decadent sapphic friends-to-lovers romantasy, think Moulin Rouge meets Holly Black, PLUS we also have an audio excerpt to share with you at the end of the interview!
Hi, Jamie! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Absolute! I’m an award-winning YA and MG author (with some adult books in my publishing pipeline too), and I write funny, swoony, heartfelt contemporary and fantasy novels. For my day job, I teach writing at the college level, and for many years I wrote about neurodiversity and parenting for local and national magazines. When I’m not writing, I love hiking, reading, baking, playing cozy video games, watching bad reality TV, and traveling. I also really love art museums and the ocean.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I’ve loved stories for as long as I can remember—my grandmother was a librarian and quite a storyteller, and I grew up in East Tennessee, a few minutes away from the National Storytelling Center. I’m also the oldest of ten kids, and much of my childhood was spent entertaining my siblings with stories (including making them participate in the plays I would write, bless their hearts for going along with it). As far as writing stories down: I distinctly remember sitting down to write my first story around age ten, and, after that, I was hooked.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: The Boxcar Children (the entire 164 book series, lol). I was obsessed with these books, and my siblings and I played Boxcar Children all the time, including making many outdoor pine needle beds, foraging for useful trash in the fields behind our house, fishing in local streams, and other such things.
- The one that made you want to become an author: I don’t remember the exact book that made me want to be an author—I’ve wanted that for decades— but I do remember interviewing Kate Di Camillo in 2013, when my author dream seemed far away because of a relentless teaching schedule and two little ones at home, and something in that conversation with her, and in reading all her books and hearing her talk about them re-ignited my passion to be an author. DiCamillo is so charming and gracious, and she seemed so utterly delighted to be talking about books that it made me feel like, “Yes, this is exactly what I want to do.”
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: This list is too long (or maybe I just spend too much time thinking about books?). I’m eternally thinking about Circe, The Once and Future Witches, A River Enchanted, Lies We Sing to the Sea, The Night Circus, Crying in H Mart, and Nikita Gill’s poetry collection Great Goddesses, to name a few books living rent free in my head right now.
Your latest novel, The Absinthe Underground, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Super gay heist in Fae!
What can readers expect?
This book takes place in the same world as my 2022 fantasy debut, The Vermilion Emporium, though about thirty years later. It’s set in a lush Belle Epoque city with echoes of 1890s Paris, and it follows Esme and Sybil, two roommates who are hopelessly in love with each other. Esme is a cat-loving, tea-drinking homebody who will do anything to keep Sybil safe. Sybil is a half-Fae runaway aristocrat with many secrets of her own. Sybil is also a poster thief, and after stealing a poster, the girls get invited to The Absinthe Underground, a glittering nightclub owned by Maeve, an actual green fairy. Maeve hires them to do a heist in Fae, and a series of adventures, a trip into Fae, and much more ensues.
Where did the inspiration for The Absinthe Underground come from?
I first had a glimpse of this book back in 2012, when I went to a “Posters of Paris: Toulouse-Lautrec and His Contemporaries” exhibit at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Among all the posters there, I found a small placard that noted that poster thieves would scrape these fabulous posters off the walls, sell them to dealers and collectors, and that thievery is one reason we still remember them now. When I read that tidbit, I had this vision of two girls stealing a poster, but for many years, I didn’t know who they were or what their story was. Then, in 2022, while looking at the green-faced woman in Toulouse-Lautrec’s painting “At the Moulin-Rouge”, I had the thought: What this woman is a green fairy, caught for a moment by the artist as her true self?
From that flash of inspiration, my nebulous “poster thief book” cracked open and I found my story after so many years
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I love my two main characters, Esme and Sybil! They are best friends and roommates (their story is the “they were roommates” trope writ large), and there’s a deep tenderness and much good care between them. I loved writing 300 pages of absolute sapphic pining and almost-kisses between them.
I also really enjoyed writing Maeve, the green fairy, for all her dangerous edges and deep otherness.
Beyond that, I loved writing the chapters where Esme and Sybil first go to the Absinthe Underground, because I’ve long imagined how exciting it would’ve been to visit a dazzling, absinthe-tinged nightclub when people like Collette, Oscar Wilde, Toulouse-Lautrec, and many other writers, artists, and thinkers were there.
With this release being your fourth published novel, what are some of the key lessons you’ve learned as a writer?
Stay off Goodreads: I’d like to say I’m more chill about the entire publishing process after four books, but that’s not true. However, these days, I don’t read reviews or look at Goodreads. Those are readers’ spaces, and I don’t need a million different opinions hollering at me about everything I could’ve done differently in the book. That just tanks my mental health entirely.
Keep your eyes on the next project: The writing is really all you can control as an author, but it’s easy to lose sight of that in this age of social media. I’ve learned to protect my joy in the writing process and to stay focused as much as possible on the stories and let go of the need for control in other areas like sales, etc.
Read Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert: Seriously. I wish I’d done this years ago. This is a brilliant book that’s a bit craft advice, a bit humaning advice, and overall just chock full of smart insights about living a creative life. I really loved it.
What’s next for you?
My next YA book, Furious, a sapphic YA contemporary, which was co-written with my friend Becca Podos, publishes in June 2024. This book is our love letter to the Fast & Furious franchise, Southern summers, falling too fast for someone who’s a bad idea but great for you, and F1 and Motocross racing girlies.
Becca and I also have a co-written queer adult cozy romance series coming out, which hasn’t been announced yet. These will publish in 2025 and 2026, and I’m so excited to talk more about these books soon!
And, beyond all that, I have a couple other YA and adult solo fantasy projects in the works that have my complete attention these days.
Lastly, are there any 2024 book releases that you’re looking forward to?
There are so many amazing books publishing in 2024 and my TBR is already unruly!
I’ll list a few adult and YA fantasies that I cannot wait to sink into:
On the adult fantasy side: A Dark and Drowning Tide by Allison Saft; Lady Macbeth by Ava Reid; and A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna,
On the YA fantasy side: So Let them Burn, by Kamilah Cole; A Tempest of Tea, by Hafsah Faizel; Lore of the Wilds by Analeigh Sbrana; Sound the Gong, by Joan He; and, Heartless Hunter by Kristen Ciccarelli.
You can find Jamie on Instagram and TikTok, and at her website.
