Samantha Shannon
Samantha Shannon
Samantha Shannonis a British writer of dystopian and paranormal fiction...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth8 November 1991
classes good learned people university
I worry that people think you have to go to a university to be a good writer, which is categorically untrue. I don't think I learned how to write at Oxford. I did not go to any creative writing classes or anything.
dad family four half marriage mom retired stepfather three university works writer
I am the first one to go to university in my family. I am the first writer as well. My dad is a retired policeman, and my mom works for a glass-processing company. She is health-and-safety manager, and my stepfather is a plumber. I have four half siblings, one from my mom's marriage and three from my dad's marriage, so we are kind of scattered.
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.