I was thrilled to chat with Sam J. Miller today. His latest book, The Blade Between, is a terrifying and heartbreaking story about gentrification and how the ghosts of our past haunt our present, sometimes threatening to destroy our future. It will leave you breathless and full of bittersweet hope. Today, I had the chance to chat with Sam about writing, dark stories, and how his worlds all connect.
Hi, Sam! Tell us a little about yourself. When did you start writing?
This is great, thank you so much! I started writing when I was in second grade, when I was deeply unpopular and bad at sports. I made friends by telling people I had seen horror movies that I hadn’t seen. They hadn’t seen them either, but I read the back of the boxes so I would make up these wild and outlandish stories based on what I read. So, essentially, I started writing by telling lies to get people to like me.
When I was 12 years old, I started submitting to magazines. My mother was a writer and showed me how. I finished my first novel at 17, though that never went anywhere.
Since I moved into writing as a career, I’ve tried to be a full-time writer a few different times but am just not that kind of writer. I left my last job a little over a year ago, and thought I’d take advantage and embrace having all of that extra time. It didn’t work out that way. At all. It just wasn’t good for my process. So now I have a freelance copywriting project. It gives me a good balance of having time constraints on my writing, and it’s fun, which also helps my writing.
What does your writing process or writing day look like? Is it the same for both your YA novels and your adult novels?
Once I figure out the story idea, I plan out the key pieces. From there, I always intend to write an outline, but usually I start writing exploratory chapters, where I try to and get to know the essence of the characters instead. Those usually become the heart of the novel and I expand from there.
I’m fortunate to be a fairly fast writer. I can typically draft in six months, but that varies and of course, publishing schedules are outside of the writer’s control.
I’d say that I draft YA novels faster, but they take longer to edit. There’s a lot of pacing considerations that take time to polish in YA, since they tend to be faster moving and more plot detailed. My adult novels take longer to draft, but the editing goes faster, so it’s all a balance.
If you had to summarize The Blade Between in five words, what would they be?
Super gay gentrification ghost story.
Your books so far have all had connections woven into their storylines. Are there Easter eggs fans of your other books can expect to find in this book too?
Yes. All my books take place in an interconnected universe. So, things that happen in one book might be referenced in others. Tom Minniq is a villain from my novelette Angel, Monster, Man. The wild hog rampage Dom tells Ronan about was the climactic scene in my debut, The Art of Starving. I like to liberally rob my own graves. It makes writing fun for me and, I hope, it makes it fun for readers as well.
This book, and your other books, are filled difficult themes and really highlight the darker side of human nature. Does it ever get difficult to face these terrible aspects of humanity and how do you protect your mental health while writing, particularly in the more personal aspects of this novel?
I think I’m pretty good at constructing fictional frameworks and masks, where I can write about more personal things that don’t feel personal. It definitely has happened that I’ve dived into dark aspects of human nature to explore their essence and find what’s true, only to discover that it’s too horrific or too dark. So, in those cases, I’ve had to set the project aside. I usually go exploring these dark topics with the intention of finding the light in the darkness.
I’m a community activist and organizer, so I try to discover how to bring forward answers to these difficult subjects, because I believe there are answers, or a sense of justice, or potential solutions.
One of the more powerful aspects of writing fiction is being able to create things that don’t exist in the real world. Justice is a big one for me, because for the most part, it doesn’t exist in the real world. It’s an idea that we have but in its own way, it’s largely a fiction. In issues of mass oppression like slavery, the prison-industrial complex, the Holocaust – in some rare cases the guilty may be punished, but that doesn’t bring back the dead or erase the pain of the living. That’s why I try so hard to bring it to life in my books. I can bring justice to characters in a way that feels true.
In the case of The Blade Between, the darker side of gentrification is complicated and messy. There is no one easy answer. It isn’t killing this one group of people over here, or this group over there. It’s a problem that requires work and open dialogues, but I believe that with work those conversations can happen. The characters get justice, but it isn’t an easy or straightforward answer. And I hope that came through in the book.
What do you hope readers will take away from this book?
I hope readers walk away with a sense of reading a fun, engaging, scary, complicated love story. That they questioned the idea of what home is and how it changes. And that they considered the intersection of privilege and power. Perhaps most importantly, that they get the sense of being empowered knowing that they can always do something about the injustice they face in the world.
If you had to create you perfect writing squad with any five authors, living or dead, who would they be and why?
I’m going to go with dead here, because there’s always a possibility of meeting and talking to authors who are still alive. Even if lots won’t return my phone calls lol.
Virginia Woolf, James Baldwin, Octavia Butler, Ray Bradbury, and Jean Genet. They’re all writers who have influenced me and speak to a certain type of engagement with the world. And they have a commitment to writing about the horrors and truth of the world in direct and compelling ways.
Virginia Woolf because she captures interiority like no one else. James Baldwin because he could communicate the way history and oppression live on in us. Octavia Butler because she told tough, brilliant, engaging provocative stories. Ray Bradbury because he writes with an enthusiasm and euphoria I am drawn to. Jean Genet because his writing is dirty, sexy, and radically antiestablishment.
What are you reading? Listening to? Watching?
Right now, I’m listening to a few things. A lot of low-fi hip-hop and instrumental beats. Music without words is helping me stay in my apartment and drown out the noise of my neighbors and the city so I can focus. I’m also obsessed with Santigold’s Master of My Make-Believe. It’s one of my all-time favorites.
I just finished watching The Haunting Of Bly Manor and loved it, as well as finishing Big Little Lies, which I loved as well. And just started The Undoing.
One author I hadn’t heard of before the pandemic is Poppy Z. Bright. I just finished Drawing Blood and think it’s a magnificent horror novel.
What book would you recommend to writers? To readers?
For writers, I’d recommend Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury, The Writing Life by Annie Dillard, and On Writing by Stephen King.
For readers, I’d recommend The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson, and since I’ve also been into graphic novels lately, I’d recommend Tillie Walden’s Are You Listening.
What’s next?
I’m in the very early stages of a new project. It’s likely going to be a story at the midpoint between now and Blackfish City. It’ll likely be science fiction, since I like how sci-fi can make us feel less doomed about the inevitable demise of our planet, for example. We can think about the potential solutions, some of which may not be possible now, and I think that gives us hope for the future instead of dread. But I’m also in the process of slowing down a bit. I’ve written four novels in four years, and that’s a pretty brutal publishing pace. So, I’m taking my time.
