We chat with author Leanne Schwartz about her debut novel A Prayer for Vengeance, which follows an orphan out to find the truth within a warped religion turns his poetry into prayer—a prayer that awakens a cursed girl hungry for revenge.
Hi, Leanne! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hi! I’m the author of Italian-inspired young adult fantasies, starting with A Prayer for Vengeance, about a girl who wakes from a thousand years as a statue to a world now worshiping the immortal man who betrayed and trapped her, and the autistic poet she must hunt down to keep from turning back to stone forever. My stories with heroes who just happen to be fat and autistic draw on my own experiences as well as my Italian heritage—I’m Italian, a recovering theatre kid, and a Leo, so I love drama! I live in San Diego (great theatre scene, could use more gloomy weather) where I’ve taught English, history, and poetry.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I was always off in my own world, of make-believe and stories and plays. I’d carry a book everywhere, read all afternoon, act out scenes from my favorite books alone at recess, over and over. I think I liked how stories have both boundless emotions and that familiar structure to them, and how plays give you scripts, telling you what to say to other people and how to act. And then I babysat a lot (my mother ran a day care in our home), so I was forever making up fantastical stories for the little kids. Somewhere along the line I started writing them all out, my own plays and poetry and short stories.
Quick lightning round! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!
The first book I can remember might be The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which perhaps inspired some of my fascination with people turning to stone, now that I think about it?
It wasn’t even the book itself, but I think I realized I could maybe actually become a published author when my mother gave me a copy of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, “because a girl you went to high school with wrote it.” Of course, that girl was Catherynne M. Valente, ha, on her own level, but that moment did make something click in my brain, that since I’d started writing novel-shaped things by then, maybe getting published wasn’t quite as impossible a dream as starring on Broadway and I should give it a serious try.
And I cannot stop thinking about, for years now, Laini Taylor’s Strange the Dreamer. I love the expansiveness of her imagination and world building, the patience of her prose, and her absolute gut-punch plot twists.
Your debut novel, A Prayer for Vengeance, is out September 19th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Angsty. Lyrical. Intense. Romantic. Epic.
What can readers expect?
Get ready for Gia! Readers can expect an angry girl launching whole-heartedly into a revenge spree, but also questions of faith and guilt, found family, and masked Carnival dancing. Women’s wrongs. Monsters lurking outside the city and within. A cat accomplice to murder. Lost and overwritten histories. A fat heroine getting all the classic young adult fantasy moments—the pretty gown, the dark immortal and cinnamon roll love interests. A magic system based on phase change. “I didn’t know where else to go.” Knives to throats.
Where did the inspiration for A Prayer for Vengeance come from?
I don’t think I would have written this story if my mother hadn’t taken us all back to Italy; seeing the many ancient statues set in squares and over fountains, waiting for you around corners, watching you from alcoves—that was the starting image for me. I was thinking about statues as one very concrete method of shaping history, of carving your version of truth into the historical record. And what if one woke up, and wanted to tell her own story, and it contradicted the one taught by those in power?
So I drew on my Italian heritage through classical art and myth, and also my experience growing up with a lot of statues and icons of saints all around me, and prayers written on cards and marked on rosaries and sung in hymns.
But, as with my realization about Narnia, after writing this book I remembered more modern scenes of people becoming statues—or being hunted by them—or kissing them—that probably inspired me, too, like in (the cinematic masterpiece, we can all agree!) Return to Oz, when Dorothy discovers the forlorn Emerald City populated only by those turned to stone. And Doctor Who. Early exposure to Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” video likely got in there somewhere. And I took inspiration from other stories and poems I love: Romeo and Juliet, and John Donne’s Holy Sonnet 14.
I also wanted to play around with the classic young adult trope of the bookish heroine and dangerous, supernatural love interest, and try gender-flipping it.
Finally, this story draws on my own anger, toward those holding power who refuse to use it to take care of those most in need.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I definitely loved writing my first dual-point-of-view book; Gia’s voice is so angry, on edge all the time, never doing that thing girls are taught to smooth things over, make themselves softer. I once got a note from a mentor asking me to add more of her emotion to one scene, suggesting that she might cry over Milo taking some risk for her, but when I went to write it, instead she just started insulting him, hoping he’d get mad and not want to help her after all, trying to protect in her own prickly way. It was so liberating to let her anger run free, and never have Milo or the story tell her to put it down or give it up.
And Milo was the first character I wrote where I really explored being autistic on the page; he’s much more of a daydreamer and gets lost in his thoughts, but is just as guarded as Gia in his own way. I loved getting to delve into his perspective, probably the closest to my own I’ve ever written.
This is your debut novel! Can you tell us what the road to becoming a published author was like for you?
Long! I shared about the moment when I thought maybe I could get published someday—and then I wrote. So. Many. Books. I worked on one through Author Mentor Match; that was the first book I queried, and it got a lot of attention but no agent. What I mostly got from that experience was amazing, talented writer friends who helped me grow my craft. I worked on a few other projects I didn’t even query before beginning to draft Prayer at the start of the pandemic, then submitted it to Pitch Wars and got in. But again, while I made more great friends and improved the manuscript, nothing came of the showcase—not for exactly one year. I’d decided to revise the opening and sent Prayer out to just a few people one last time, before focusing on my newly completed project, which I started querying as well. The day of the next Pitch Wars showcase, when I was sitting at home feeling a bit sorry for myself, I got The Email. Suddenly in a very short amount of time I had both my wonderful agent and a book deal. It feels all the sweeter having worked and waited for this moment.
What’s next for you?
My second book, another standalone young adult fantasy, is out April 2nd, 2024! To a Darker Shore is the story of an autistic inventor who goes to hell to avenge her best friend sacrificed in her place, only to find him alive—but monstrously transformed. It’s got Hadestown and Unreal Unearth vibes, drawing on more classic myth as well as Dante. It features another fat heroine and a demi hero, both autistic, as childhood best friends to monsters to lovers, and mountains of pining and angst. It really digs into fatphobia and oppressive beauty standards and ableism, but is also deeply romantic, and I can’t wait for people to read it!
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
Of course for more autistic fantasy, Andrew Joseph White’s horror The Spirit Bares Its Teeth is a vital, vicious howl of a book. And in adult there’s Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faerie, which is a complete delight and far spookier than I expected, exploring the darker edges of folk tales. For Italian-flavored fantasy, M.K. Lobb’s Seven Faceless Saints and Emily Thiede’s This Vicious Grace are both fantastic, with sublime and monstrous threats and delicious romance. And for more morally gray heroines finding themselves with a slight detour through villainy, Girl, Serpent, Thorn and A Song of Salvation are stunning and stay with you long after you’ve read.
You can find Leanne on Instagram, BlueSky, and Twitter as well as her website.
