Samantha Shannon
Samantha Shannon
Samantha Shannonis a British writer of dystopian and paranormal fiction...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth8 November 1991
ideas normal world
I'm often daydreaming, and it's because I've always liked the idea of there being something more than the normal world.
lying normal natural
There was no normal. There never had been. "Normal" and "natural" were the biggest lies we'd ever created.
experience maybe
I've never had a supernatural experience. I've been tempted to maybe have a tarot-card reading, but I don't know if I'd necessarily want to know.
alongside bone drama essays girl indoor mostly music sports students work
I was mostly an indoor girl at university. Where other students did drama or music or sport alongside their degrees, I wrote. I used to work on essays and classwork during the day and 'The Bone Season' in the evenings.
appeal associated girls loads women
I wanted to write a sci-fi story that would appeal to young women. Loads of girls like sci-fi, but it's more culturally associated with guys.
convert mentally versions
I often look at places and kind of mentally convert them to fantasy versions of themselves.
I'm not going to give it the big 'I am' now that I'm a New York Times bestseller.
I was born in 1991, and 'Harry Potter' came out in '97, so, you know, I was really obsessed. I used to read them in one night.
I was always more interested in my books and my writing than going out. It's OK to say I'm a nerd. That's me.
bone
I am never not thinking about stories. 'The Bone Season' is 90% of my brain - 10% is interacting with the rest of the world.
success
For me, just being published feels like success.
aspire bone built humor intricate love luminous readers writers wrote
Rowling is a luminous storyteller. I love her sense of humor and the intricate wizarding world she built around Hogwarts. I think all writers aspire to be like her, to capture readers like she does. But I didn't think about 'Harry Potter' when I wrote 'The Bone Season.'
admire books created favourite next
J. K. Rowling is one of my favourite authors, and I really admire how she created this big wizarding world. But I think our books are very, very different, and I don't think there can be a next J. K. Rowling. She is one of a kind.
edgar english gave high influenced introduced john left middle novel teachers
My English teachers gave me a copy of Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale' when I left high school, which has always been very special to me - it was the novel that introduced me to dystopian fiction. I'm also influenced by Edgar Allan Poe, Dickens, John Wyndham and Middle English dream-visions.