>> Megan Labrise: Hello, National Book Festival and welcome.

Who here in this audience has read "Death of the Author" and/ or "Bury your Bones in the Midnight Soil"?

[Applause] All right, all right.

I'm glad to hear it.

You are in for a treat today because this is not my first "National Book Festival," and I have never seen a pair of authors vibe so hard [Laughter] as these authors did in the green room and up here on stage before our mics were hot.

So I'm actually throwing my icebreaker out the window.

And I'm going to ask, what would you like to talk about?

>> V.E.

Schwab: What would you like to talk about?

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Well, what you'd like to talk about.

[Laughing] >> V.E.

Schwab: Yeah, I mean.

Here's a question.

How many of you in the room are creatives?

Raise your hand.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, great.

We don't want to spoil our books because a lot of you haven't read our books.

I personally am most excited to talk about how our books happen, how stories and ideas become book-shaped things.

So I love talking about craft.

What about you?

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Yeah, let's do it.

>> V.E.

Schwab: Let's do it.

Also, we discovered this morning that we are exact opposites in our craft.

I am an architect.

I plan every single scene before I ever write the book.

And you?

>> Nnedi Okorafor: I am a pantser.

[Laughter] And a pantser is someone who basically flies by the seat of your pants.

I'm the exact opposite, as you said.

Like I do not plot.

I do not build it.

I just sit down and start-- I don't know what I'm going to write.

>> V.E.

Schwab: The mind boggles.

Like, your process is giving me so much anxiety.

[Laughter] And it's not even my process.

But I just am like, "But, but how do you know it's going to be okay?"

>> Nnedi Okorafor: I mean, but see, what's funny is your process makes me feel comfortable.

I'm like, I feel a little bit of envy about it because it's like, -- you know where you're going.

>> V.E.

Schwab: I have to figure it out first, though.

Like, I think the thing is, like, I know where I'm going after about a year and a half of, like, taking-- It's like dumping a puzzle on the table and not knowing what the picture is going to be.

And like, assembling all of the pieces and figuring it out and then being like, "Okay, now we're going to actually build a puzzle."

>> Nnedi Okorafor: See, mine is like a strange animal [Laughter] who struts into the room that is disappearing and reappearing and behaving erratically and unpredictably, and that I have to kind of get to know.

That's that's how it is for me.

>> V.E.

Schwab: That sounds so stressful.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Yeah.

Yeah.

But I like animals.

>> V.E.

Schwab: I like animals, too, but it feels very anxiety- inducing.

So anyway, yeah, we could spend a whole time talking about craft.

We will find ways to weave our craft talk in, I'm sure, and I will just stare at Nnedi in awe when she talks about being able to just like dream it into being and trust that it will be there, as I like white knuckle my entire creative process to try and like subdue my existential dread about it not working and convince myself that there's enough story there to pursue.

>> Megan Labrise: Wow.

[Laughter] I mean, as an interviewer, I'm a pantser, as you can see, so we're, we're Victoria, I've seen you claim the term connect-the-dotser.

Or do you still identify as a connect the dotser?

>> V.E.

Schwab: I used to be a connect-the-dotser.

And that meant that, like before I sat down to write a book, I needed to know, say, 10 points along the route, the beginning, the end, and say five to eight points along the way, waystations.

But as I've written more books and become more neurotic, [Laugh I have wanted more and more dots.

And I think it's a sense of like, a fear.

A lot of what I do is about like getting out of my own way.

And I know that I'm really good at getting in my own way and talking myself out of the work.

And so I need to have the confidence that there's the route there.

And so I used to need like 10 dots.

And now at this point, for character-driven novels like "The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue" and "Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil," they're about 300 scenes, and I know every scene in the order because I figure out the entire book in the narrative order, the order in which you will all read it, and I assemble it as a map in the narrative order, and then I break it out into chronological order by character, and I write the characters' timelines as they live it, and then I slot it back together.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: What?

>> V.E.

Schwab: I know.

[Laughter] I know, I know.

It sounds like there's no love and-- >> Nnedi Okorafor: No.

>> V.E.

Schwab: But like it's there.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: I mean, it sounds very exciting and clear and, and in that way you can sin you know where you're going, you can grow things in.

>> V.E.

Schwab: Exactly.

It allows me to take every single chapter and live in it like a short story and like, bloom the words the way that I want them to be and figure out kind of treat everything.

And then, I mean, I'm cheating because I get the instant gratification.

Because a novel is not an exercise in immediate gratification.

It's just a really long way.

It's a big mountain.

And so having the small bites of getting to treat each chapter in bones like a short story and treat it holistically helps.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: That's cool.

That's cool.

>> V.E.

Schwab: Do you just sit down with a blank sheet of paper?

>> Nnedi Okorafor: A blank?

Yeah, yeah.

I don't know what I'm doing.

[Laughter] >> V.E Schwab: What happens next >> Nnedi Okorafor: I mean, something comes.

It's like, I think a lot of the writing for me happens when I'm just living, when I'm just around, and I'm just, I'm pulling things in.

I'm reacting, all those things, and it's like growing in my head.

And then at some point, this thing, whatever is bumping around in there, it reaches full capacity.

And I feel this urge to sit down and see what comes.

And I never know what's coming.

I don't know if it's young adult, I don't know if it's adult.

I don't know if it's a short story or a novel.

I don't know what it is, but I've grown comfortable with that.

-- And so I just sit down and I start and I don't and I don't-- Also I don't write linearly.

>> V.E.

Schwab: I was going to ask.

Are you writing in order?

>> Nnedi Okorafor: No.

>> V.E.

Schwab: It's like a drop that's just spreading outwards.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: It's like, it's kind of like that in an unpredictable way.

Sometimes I'll write sentences backwards.

Words backwards.

It's just the way my brain works is weird and, and I just let it.

And I have the confidence that it will take a shape.

And it always takes a shape.

>> V.E.

Schwab: Okay, here I have found a point of overlap because when I am working on an individual scene, I write the whole scene out of order.

I bloom from certain sentences, so I have a moment.

I know what I want to happen in the moment, but when it comes down to actually writing the moment I don't write it linearly, I-- maybe comes from a background in poetry, but I just find a sentence that goes somewhere in there that excites me, and then I might find a beginning sentence, and I might find a line of dialogue, and I start assembling them.

So I think there is, like, room for amorphous growth.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Yeah, yeah.

And then it kind of blooms from that, like in -- unpredictable ways.

>> V.E.

Schwab: This is incredible.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Yeah.

I mean it's-- >> V.E.

Schwab: It's deeply, deeply, deeply troubling to me personally.

But I love that it works for you.

Because it's not like-- the point is that both of us end up with novels that we're deeply proud of.

And it doesn't it doesn't go like, okay, start here.

Here's the start line and here's the finish line.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Yeah.

I mean, with, "Death of the Author," it seems like a very structured it's a book within a book.

And, and, you know, it's about these characters here and all of the chapters flow in a certain way.

But I'll tell you, I did not plan that.

>> V.E.

Schwab: But it just happened?

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Yes.

Like, even the book within the book thing was not what I-- I'm not going to, you know, I'm a pantser.

I'm not going to write something that's highly structured.

I'm not going to do that.

And I just found-- >> V.E.

Schwab: But you did it.

[Laughter] >> Nnedi Okorafor: I did it.

>> Megan Labrise: Okay.

Okay, you're freaking Vict >> V.E.

Schwab: But you did it.

[Laughter] >> V.E.

Schwab: Here's what I have to know then.

I have to know.

I swear I'm going to let you ask a question.

I have to know.

[Laughter] So you pants this draft?

But what happens bet-- after the draft?

Or is it just-- It's just there?

>> Nnedi Okorafor: That's where the structure-- Like, once I spit it out, that's when I go back and hone it and craft it.

>> V.E.

Schwab: You didn't just pants this.

The book as it exists right now.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: I did-- like mainly yes.

[Laughter] >> Megan Labrise: V.E.

Schwab has left the chat.

[Laughter] Okay.

Wait.

Oh, silence.

I'm going to ask a question.

Here we go.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Okay.

Okay.

>> Megan Labrise: I do have a question for both of you.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Okay.

>> Megan Labrise: Was there any particular emotion that was the engine behind the creative process for this particular book?

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Yes.

>> Megan Labrise: All right.

You start.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: It's not happy though.

>> Megan Labrise: Yeah.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: It's not happy.

So I started writing this because of the passing of my sister.

Like, I started writing it literally two days after it happened.

And it was because, like most of what I write, and this is part of the whole pantser thing, -- from the beginning, I've always written from pain, like -- grief, happiness, all emotions are reasons why I write something.

But like from the beginning, it's always been from pain, like deep pain.

And this need to do something with the pain and with this one, when my sister passed, she's only a year older than me.

It was sudden.

It was unexpected.

It destroyed me.

And the only way that I could just move with it was to sit down and start writing this thing.

And, and, my sisters and I, there are three of us.

We always talked about writing about my family, and I always felt like it was it's just difficult, you know?

And I kind of moved towards fantasy and science fiction.

There's a comfort in being, -- in writing the truth through that lens.

There's a comfort in that.

When my sister passed, I felt like it was time for me to face this thing nakedly.

And so I just sat down.

And the first chapter was, -- the first chapter was the first chapter of this book, which does not make Zelu look good at all to say that.

But like, -- that was the driving force.

It was death.

It was death.

And it's not a coincidence that the title is what it is.

That title is heavy, it's heavy, and it has multiple meanings.

But like, this was, this was fro pain.

It was from really deep, earth-shattering pain.

>> V.E.

Schwab: Yeah.

I don't usually write from positive emotions either.

I think that writing is an act of catharsis, and usually the things that we need catharsis from are are dark feelings.

-- Mine was rage.

Mine was a reckoning, both with my relationship to publishing and my relationship to my own identity.

Over the last 15 years, I came into fantasy as a young woman.

It's not a super welcoming place.

And I immediately started making my gender small.

I went by my initials.

I kind of downplayed my femininity.

And then I came out in my late 20s.

At that point, I had been writing for five, six years, and I immediately made my sexuality small.

I spent so much time trying to conform and trying to belong and trying to be recognized at certain tables, to be welcome at certain tables, to be considered part of the group, --.

And of course, it didn't work.

And at the end, all I all I did was shrink myself in an attempt to assimilate what I needed to break free from.

And so that desire to write something where I was authentic, where I was actually a main character instead of a tertiary character or even a secondary character, was also met with this, this landscape in publishing that said, "Oh, like, if you're going to have queer characters, they can't be villains.

If you have a queer character and you make them a villain, what are you saying about queerness and villainy?"

And I was like, "Well, but if I can only be a hero, then you're saying I don't deserve the same nuance and complexity as my straight counterpart.

So we have to negotiate that."

And so I basically was like, okay, I can't have a queer villain.

They're all gay now.

First of all, so you can't accuse me of tokenizing.

[Laughter] And, yeah, I really wanted to write a specifically a lesbian story and a lesbian villain.

And because I-- for so many years, that's the characters that I were drawn to.

And they were also invariably male-coded, because those were the characters that got to have the complexity and the darkness and the kind of anti-hero elements.

And I -- really wanted something that I saw myself in.

And so I say that like, this is my 25th book.

It is a contentious one.

But what I will say is that, like in every one of the other 24, in some way has been written for an audience as well as for me.

This one was for me.

I want people to like it.

I really want people to like it.

But at the end of the day, like, this was my mirror story.

[Applause] >> Megan Labrise: Thank you both for sharing those generous answers with us.

And thank you both for these beautiful books from all that to come books filled with such love and beauty and complexity is really a big deal.

So thank you.

Thank you for the work you do.

-- This panel, I believe the title of it is "Stake It or Leave It," but, Nnedi, I do not believe anyone in your book is impaled.

[Laughter] Right?

>> Nnedi Okorafor: No.

>> Megan Labrise: Okay.

>> V.E.

Schwab: Not stake literally, just existentially.

>> Megan Labrise: So let's play with it a little bit, then.

Stake it or leave it.

Okay.

What are the stakes?

What are the stakes?

What are the stakes for Zelu and her family in this book at the beginning of this book?

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Yeah.

-- Zelu and her family.

So Zelu is a Nigerian-American, -- failed writer and failed professor.

And -- she comes from this very high-achieving, very Nigerian-American family, -- which is based on my family.

I'll just say, I will say that it's very based on my family.

In our family, you get a PhD.

Like it is-- You are raised from the beginning that you will get the highest degree in whatever area you go into, and that is normal.

That is not a flex, it is just what you do.

-- And if you don't, you're just viewed less than, you know, and so she comes from that kind of family and she's just failing and her family is and also, you know, she's paraplegic as well.

And there's a whole layer, a layer of that.

And, I mean, I guess the stakes for, for Zelu and her family is that- so Zelu writes this book called "Rusted Robots" that catapults her into fame.

And her family had this place for her in--, you know, they have a place for her.

It's not a terrible, terrible space, but she's very protected.

Very protected, almost to the point of smothering her.

And so when this happens, it kind of disrupts the whole order of things.

And I guess the stakes between Zelu and her family is just, how do you navigate that?

Because, you know, she's very much about her individuality and this is what she wants to do.

But she also loves her family.

But her family also is very smothering with love as well.

So like, how do you navigate that?

How do you, how do you -- keep going?

Because at no point is Zelu going to just leave her family.

She's not going to turn her back on them.

So how do you, how do you move through that and just kind of remain, remain a family?

I guess that's what the-- That's what the stakes between both of them are.

>> Megan Labrise: Thank you.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Yeah.

>> V.E.

Schwab: Well, so in some ways "Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil" is a vampire novel.

I say "some ways" because, yes, they are technically vampires.

The word "vampire" is used one time in the entire book, so it's not really about that.

I mean, the thing about fantasy that I love so much is it's a really wonderful, -- like, crystal that we can use to focus certain themes.

So it's very much a book about reality.

It's very much a book about what it means to have a future and to have that future taken away from you.

-- The book features Alice, an 18-year-old girl who -- goes to college.

She's leaving something behind, and we don't quite know what, just that she's trying to get out of her sister's shadow, and she wants to be new.

She's 18.

Her life is ahead of her.

She wants to be new.

She wants to write it fresh.

And she goes to a party, and she meets a gorgeous, strange girl.

And she has a one-night stand with that girl.

And she wakes up the next morning, and the girl is gone and she is dead.

And all of a sudden, this future that she had, that was just going to be hers to make for herself has just been taken from her, and it's about her trying to figure out who, what, and why.

And the why is really important.

And it's about the fact that, li don't always get to choose.

Most of the time, we don't get to choose so much about our lives, and it's about what it means to wrest agency and autonomy back in those situations.

So it's three women.

It's about queerness.

It's about queerness in the context of different points of history.

It's also about like, what it means to be in a femme body and to have -- no agency based on how the world sees you, to be seen as prey by a predatory society, and to move through the world that way, and what it takes to take it back, to become a predator.

I think, though, most of what it is this thing that like as, as women or as femme-presenting people or as non-binary people, anyone who doesn't conform to that center lane that society has designated as the default, -- you, you aren't in control in so many ways.

You're told where your place is and you're told, like, to not even like, not even advocate for your needs, let alone ever advocating for your desires.

And so this is about, like, figuring out not only how to live when life takes a different shape than you anticipated, but how to take what you need and what you want without apology.

>> Megan Labrise: One thing authors have control over is their language.

You mentioned you only use the word "vampire" once.

You want to know some words you used more than once?

"Reckless" and "restless."

You already knew.

"Rules."

>> V.E.

Schwab: Yeah.

>> Megan Labrise: Two.

>> V.E.

Schwab: Yeah.

>> Megan Labrise: Were there any words that took on an incantatory quality for you in the writing of this book?

I got you too, Nnedi.

So, yeah.

>> V.E.

Schwab: I mean, the poem at the beginning of the book is the incantation for the book.

It's "Bury my bones in the midnight soil.

Plant them shallow and water them deep.

And in my place will grow a feral rose, soft red petals hiding sharp white teeth."

And that is the incantation over which everything is grown.

I wanted to take this idea of a garden, of a natural metaphor, because I'm dealing with queer women and like a non-human element, I didn't want to other them further by making it unnatural, by making it something monstrous.

They are like an apex predator, but something grown in the soil of the society in which they've lived.

-- So the whole garden metaphor really takes on a deep import, because it's also how they refer to themselves.

And how we call ourselves is very important compared to how society calls us.

It gives them a sense of -- term that is for them.

And it's also a concept that is used in a love language.

It's used romantically, it's used as a threat.

It's wielded as a sword or a shield in the novel.

So, a lot of the imagery in the book centers around these roses.

>> Megan Labrise: Nnedi, I'm going to tell you what I was picking up, and then you tell me what you were putting down.

Okay?

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Okay.

>> Megan Labrise: All right.

In the initial narrative, jollof rice and plantain, often fried.

In the story within the story, Periwinkle grass.

[Laughs] >> Nnedi Okorafor: Yeah.

Yeah.

Periwinkle.

Periwinkle is my favorite color, so.

[Laughs] That pops up in, like, every one of my novels.

That word "periwinkle" and something is periwinkle in almost all of my novels.

So there's that.

And so periwinkle grass is like- So most of my stories are connected in some ways, you know, and the worlds are connected.

And one of the future creations that I think I had them-- I had periwinkle grass in my short story "Mother of Invention and then in "Noir" as well.

And those are all set in near-future Nigeria, you know, and-- one of the things that I created in that world-- because I'm very much an irrational optimist.

So when I look into the future and write about the future, I tend to-- unless we're talking about who fears death, that's a different one.

I tend to have a more positive, -- positive outlook.

I'd like to focus on a more positive outlook.

And so I'm thinking, "Okay, in the future, there's this periwinkle grass that is used that is very tough.

It has periwinkle flowers, of course, you know, it's tough.

And it produces these grains that are better than rice.

It spreads easily.

So periwinkle grass, you see that in "Death of the Author."

You see it in a lot of my stories.

-- The jollof rice and plantain.

I love jollof rice.

[Laughter] >> Nnedi Okorafor: It's just.

I mean, come on.

And food in general.

I write about food a lot.

-- I think-- And there's even a chapter in "Death of the Author" that deals with food and the Nigerian-American experience of food, of the failures that we have as when we try to make these dishes that we grow up loving.

When we visit Nigeria, we're like, "Oh, this is delicious."

And you come, you come back home and you want to replicate that as a Nigerian-American.

And you're like, you get it wrong.

Like just terribly, terribly wrong.

So I have a whole chapter where, I just had to deal with that because we all have that story.

And one thing I will say about food when it comes to-- when I say Nigerian-American, I am the child of -- Nigerian immigrants.

So my parents came to this country in 1969, and they came here for school and ended up having to stay because of the Biafran war.

So, I was born and raised here in the United States.

From a young age, my parents were taking my siblings and me back to Nigeria.

So there's this back-and- forth thing and those, those trips were very pivotal to my identity and my experience of this country and my worldview.

So, so there's that.

And so because I was born and raised in this country and I have this, this connection to Nigeria, the food is the place where that connection is strongest.

--And if, and if you talk to my siblings and me, they always say "We love the food."

The food is our connection.

And so like when I'm writing, that comes out naturally.

That whole focus on food, what it means-- and when I write about it, I usually-- sometimes I'm hungry when I'm writing.

So that comes through.

But also like the energy with which I write about it, it's because one, I love the food.

Two, I like cooking as well.

Like even though I fail at a lot of these dishes.

-- But I like cooking as well.

But like the energy and that focus and the detail of it, that's a cultural element as well, you know, and a lot of the perspective that I have on that food is very Nigerian-American, because there are things that I, that I focus on, that someone who's Nigerian-Nigerian, that's what I like to say, -- won't focus on, you know, so like there's, there's story-- when I'm writing about food, there's story in that writing.

>> V.E.

Schwab: Well, food is such an anchor, isn't it?

Because also you can never, like you do your best to replicate a food from a place, but unless you're in that place, it's not going to taste the same.

I always think about the fact that you can't-- Like my family lives in France.

You can't actually replicate French baguettes outside of France.

It's the water, right?

You can do your best.

You can make a great baguette.

It's not going to taste right.

And so when you're taken away from a place that you have an attachment to-- I remember in the book, Zelu goes back and she has that experience with food where it's like there's nothing that is going to taste the way the food tastes in its place.

Except like when it's outside of its place.

It's still lovely outside of its place, but like, it creates a narrative tether.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Exactly.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And the culture, like, expresses the cultural just the cultural diversity is right in the food.

You know, it's, like I said, it's a form of storytelling.

>> V.E.

Schwab: Yeah.

>> Megan Labrise: Okay.

I got a question for both of you.

Anyone may start.

The word "genre."

[Laughing] That's the question.

The word "genre."

Do you associate that word more with freedom or constraint?

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Do you want to go first?

>> V.E.

Schwab: I, I have a lot of feelings because I feel like it's-- I want it to be an additive.

And so often it's used as a reductive.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Yes.

>> V.E.

Schwab: Like I write books which can sit in multiple sections of a bookstore.

So I always feel a vague resentment when they're put in only one spot.

And some of that is not actually about the genre because, like, I love being a fantasy author.

I am fascinated by who gets to be a fantasy author and who gets to be an author, because there's a real big difference.

There's a whole contingent of authors who write fantasy, who are shelved in general fiction.

And the fact of the matter is, I experienced this personally with "The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue."

"The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue," fantasy novel.

Deal with the devil over 300 years.

I don't think you could call that realistic fiction.

[Laughter] But I watched it get put in general fiction, the first of my books to do so.

I watched it reach an entire audience who would say to my face, "I love this book.

I don't like fantasy."

And I'm like, "I hate to break it to you, but the book in your hand is, in fact--" so I feel like the hill that I will die on, the Ted talk I will be giving for my entire career is that we treat fantasy only with a capital F, and we don't think about the lowercase f that, when we say fantasy with a capital F, we think very specific totemic things, but the vast, vast majority of the ways in which we consume media and engage with culture, the things that we love are fantastical.

And I really don't like that when we, when we put a genre label on something, it seems to be putting up walls to keep things out and in.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: All that.

[Laughter] I mean, it's -- I have a fraught relationship with the idea of genre.

A lot of it has to do with, it comes back to the pantser thing.

When I'm writing something, I don't care.

I'm not thinking about, "Oh, what category is this thing that I'm writing in?"

I'm just, I'm obsessed with the I'm obsessed with what's going on.

I don't care about the label.

And I feel like, I feel like a l people do get caught up in labels and they let the labels-- The labels are meant to make things easier, make things easier to find and all of that.

But I think people get caught up in the labels and like, to the point where they are, the being guided by the label.

Like, okay, "I like I like reading fantasy."

So you only look at fantasy, you know?

And so therefore you're missing other things.

And then also I think that it's, it's-- I just think labels can be reductive.

I think they can just, just make things small and like, if you're looking through the lens of a label, you'll see something you'll see what the label wants and then everything that's outside of the you ignore.

You know?

I had a, I had my-- I wrote a memoir called "Broken Places in Outer Spaces," and I've seen it shelved in science fiction.

Like what?

Okay.

I don't know how to like-- And it's because I'm seen as a science fiction and fantasy writer.

So therefore my memoir would be put in science fiction unless they're thinking my life is science fiction, [Laughter] which aspects of it are.

So there is some sense to it, but like, that's what I mean.

And if we're talking about "Death of the Author," what is that?

I don't know what you would consider that.

And when I wrote it, I remember when I finished like finally where I put it down and was like, "I'm done."

I remember the first thought I had was, "Oh, no," because I don't think about, I don't think about when I'm writing, because I feel like it would just reduce what I'm doing.

I don't think about any of that.

So when I finished it, that was the first time I started thinking about what it was that I wrote.

And I'm like, this has no-- this could be in, like, five different places.

It's a, it's a literary novel.

It's definitely a science fiction novel.

It's memoir.

It's autofiction.

It is all over the place.

Where are they going to put this?

Because there's this need that people have to have a box.

It has to fit in a box.

And if it doesn't or if it doesn't, they shove it into the box.

And all the weird things that are, that are sticking out get cut off.

And I did not want that to happen with this.

If you just call this science fiction, well, what about the autobiographical elements?

What about Zelu's story?

That gets put aside so that we can talk about it as science fiction.

It's talked about as literary, then the science fiction aspect- So yeah, I feel very I feel like, genre, this idea of genre is very confining.

And I-- as somebody who does not know what I'm going to write.

Who knows what I'm going to write next?

You know, I can-- >> V.E.

Schwab: You don't.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: I don't.

[Laughter] >> Nnedi Okorafor: I don't.

Yes, >> V.E.

Schwab: But you should have that permission.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Yes, yes.

And the freedom.

>> V.E.

Schwab: In the industry-- Like this is the thing.

The genre pressure comes from without and from within, because I run into this all the time with writers as readers and readers.

>> Megan Labrise: One summer I was invited to a neuroscience conference by an author I interviewed, it's a very cool job I have, and at the neuroscience conference, the main presenter said, you all specialize too fast.

These are the most brilliant minds, the most brilliant physicians in the world.

And all of you are plugged into your little thing.

We need more crosspollination.

You need to be able to zoom out.

And it's, it can be the same.

It can be the same in the arts.

And speaking of the arts and speaking of things that feed your creative process, what other art forms do you enjoy?

What other art forms feed your creativity?

>> Nnedi Okorafor: I mean, definitely music.

Definitely music.

Like, I mean, I like almost all my works have a soundtrack.

I mean, when I first started writing, like some of my very first short stories were because of Wu-Tang.

[Laughter] You know, they talk about narrative.

Narrative force.

Wu-Tang, oh my gosh.

And so like music, there are-- And I'll listen to music and hear a narrative.

I always think about Metallica's "To Live is to Die."

There's a whole novel in that mu And there are no lyrics.

Well, there's a little part where he speaks, but like, there are no lyrics.

So music for me, like, has that narrative feel.

So it feeds my, it feeds my writing, but it also feeds just, it just feeds me, you know, -- and I also say drawing too.

I like doodling.

I like-- whatever you want to call it.

I don't know what it is I do.

I just draw things.

And there's something-- And when I first started writing and I started writing in a hospital bed, as a paralyzed athlete, that's "Broken Places in Outer Spaces," that's what that's about.

-- And I started writing, like, the first time I discovered storytelling, and I just, like, the way that I discovered it was I was in a dark place and I was going crazy.

Like I could just feel my mind breaking.

And I just kind of-- I had a cop of Isaac Asimov's "I, Robot," and I was in too much pain to read it, and I just started telling myself a story on the edges.

That was how I started writing.

That was how I discovered storytelling.

But there was something.

It was the, the story.

And I wrote about a woman who could fly.

That was the first thing that I wrote.

A woman who could fly.

You know when you can fly, you don't have to walk.

It wasn't something conscious for me.

It was just, it makes sense.

So there was the narrative aspect, but there was also this idea of- I just remember my eye following the pen, putting it on the page and my eye following it as it wrote a line like a solid line, and the line coming from the pen, and how that just-- it drew me in this way that was almost hypnotic.

And ever since I did that-- and I'd always drawn like as a kid, but like, there's that artistic aspect of it.

And I feel that, that, that -- magic, that's the only word I can think of is "magic."

I feel that when I read graphic novels, my eye follows the line, you know, and so, yeah, I guess, art and music.

Yeah.

>> V.E.

Schwab: Yeah, yeah, I -- it's music.

It always is.

I think there's something about, music as a narrative form that is organic enough that it doesn't feel like it conflicts with the story in my head.

It feels augmenting, it feels supportive.

I have written whole novels based on a song, how a song makes me feel because it's interesting.

It's never the story that the song is about, if there is a story.

It's I hear a song.

I think "I want to write something that makes me feel the way the song is making me feel."

It's a tone.

It's an atmosphere.

And then the way my stories work is essentially, they're a film that plays in my head, and then I'm putting it on paper so that the exact same film plays in yours down to that tone, that song, that atmosphere.

But there's something about like, I will pick a song and I'll set it on repeat and it will lose its meaning, but it will become a, a heartbeat for me that defines a book.

And you can feel the heartbeat through the book, and they're very different every single time.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Do you know what song it's going to be?

Or is it like-- >> V.E.

Schwab: No, no.

But here's the thing.

I wrote an entire novel based on a song and a dance because it was a number from "So You Think You Can Dance."

Early seasons, early seasons.

It was the addiction number, and I wrote a book called "The Archive," which was-- but just that, that the push and pull of the dancers and the music and all of that.

And it took no words.

And I could then put the words to what I was feeling while I listened and while I watched.

And so, yeah, I never get story ideas from other books.

There's like a common misconception that like, writers like, we get inspired by other books, we can get motivated by other books, but like, I tend to be inspired by a very specific track, or even like a vibe of the, like chorus of a track.

And I'll be like, "That's the energy right there.

That's what we're capturing."

>> Megan Labrise: I'm going to let you know, and everybody else know that in about five minutes, we're going to open this up for questions.

And what I'm going to say to you two, is think about what else you'd like to ask each other.

>> V.E.

Schwab: Oh, no.

>> Megan Labrise: And what I'm going to say to you is, please remember that a question ends with a question mark.

[Laug Okay.

But think about what you want to ask.

Generously, these authors are giving their time to answer your questions, so don't be shy and come up to the microphones.

We'll start in about five minutes.

>> V.E.

Schwab: Wait, I have a question.

I have a question for you.

So, what is your favorite part then?

Like what is the part that you hunger for or you crave in the creative process?

>> Nnedi Okorafor: I think all of the-- I love all of the parts I guess the-- what I call the genesis process.

You know, where it's just pouring out, where I'm like, I don't know what I'm going to write.

And then I'm writing it and I'm getting surprised, like, man, I didn't want the character to do that.

She's pissing me off.

Like, Zelu pissed me off many times.

>> V.E.

Schwab: But at no point did you exert authorial authority-- Yeah.

Authorial rule over.

You didn't say "No, Zelu, you're going to do this instead."

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Yeah.

That's like, well, that's part of that is the experience.

You know, I've been writing for, you know, since 1993.

Okay.

So it's been a long time and -- I can step out of the way like, especially at this point I have the trust and yeah, I mean, I don't have to agree with my-- I've written many characters who I didn't like what they were doing, and I didn't want them to do that, I did-- I wanted them to do something else.

So you kind of just step back and just let them, let them do the thing.

You know, I mean.

Do you let your-- you let your characters?

>> V.E.

Schwab: No.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Really?

>> V.E.

Schwab: Of course not.

of course not.

[Laughter] No, no, no, let me, let me-- I am God.

Okay.

[Laughter] By the time, by the time my characters-- This is where it's going to start.

So here's the other thing you have to understand.

I was supposed to be an astrophysicist.

Okay?

And I think because I'm a very math/science-brained person, this is how I approach it is like I design the story and I design the characters, and then I stress test them like rats in a maze.

[Coughs] So So I know that I'm ready to write a character when I can drop them into the context of a scene and predict how they will move through it.

And then once I've tested them in enough contexts, then I can run them through the maze of the book.

And so they-- I'm getting to know them early on for like, I take basically a year to prewrite, which is when I'm building the maze and testing the characters.

But by the time the characters are on paper, if they misbehave, it's a bug, not a feature, because it means I have misunderstood something fundamental about the personality that I have given them.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Oh my God.

[Laughter] >> V.E.

Schwab: This is the thing though.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: My mind is blown right now.

>> V.E.

Schwab: But I do have a question.

I do have a question because you said you can disagree with the characters and what they do.

And I think, absolutely, we can not approve of what the characters do, but we have to relate to why they do it.

We have to be able to understand the why.

Have you ever had a situation where you struggled to connect with the motivations of behind a character's action?

>> Nnedi Okorafor: I mean, where I didn't understand or just didn't agree at all?

>> V.E.

Schwab: Didn't understand.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: I'm thinking of my character Aro in "Who Fears Death."

He was very-- he just irritated me.

He deeply irritated me.

And he was like, but-- >> V.E.

Schwab: But was he supposed to?

>> Nnedi Okorafor: I mean, what is does "supposed to" mean?

>> V.E.

Schwab: I mean, is he-- [Laughter] Was he meant, was he meant to irritate the reader as well, or did he only irritate you as the creator?

>> Nnedi Okorafor: I mean, I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know.

And one thing to add is that you wanted to be an astrophysicist.

I wanted to be an entomologist.

>> V.E.

Schwab: What are we doing here?

>> Nnedi Okorafor: I wanted to watch.

I know, right?

[Laughter] Sometimes I wonder that.

You know, I wanted to watch the bugs.

>> V.E.

Schwab: Sure.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: I wanted to observe them and let them do what they were going to do.

>> V.E.

Schwab: And I wanted to construct universes.

[Laughter] Also why I'm not an astrophysicist by the way, because you can't apparently control the universe.

[Laughter] >> Megan Labrise: I wanted to be a paleontologist.

>> V.E.

Schwab: We're all in the >> Megan Labrise: And here we are together.

Okay, I've got one more question for you.

And then we are going to open it up to your questions.

And this is just a simple one.

How do you know you've stuck the landing?

>> Nnedi Okorafor: There's a feeling.

-- There's a feeling, there's a like with "Death of the Author," That was like-- And once again, I didn't know until at the end-- I didn't know that ending until I wrote it.

I did not know it.

But, like, there's a feeling.

There's a feeling that you-- And I can't describe what the feeling is, but it's very solid.

It doesn't happen all the time for me.

But when it does, you're like, "Yeah, I did that.

Yeah."

>> V.E.

Schwab: -- Twenty-five b I have rewritten two from scratch.

My endings have never changed.

To me, the ending is the reason that I set out to write the book.

It's like the taste at the end of the meal.

And the reason that I cook the entire meal, then, is so that you will have the experience.

And I don't, didn't realize unti recently my endings are apparently very controversial.

Like, among my own readers, they get very angry about the endings, but they're I have kind of ten toes down on it beca they were the point, there's no point at which I thought, "Oh, you're right.

Maybe I could have ended it this way.” Like, no, no, no.

The whole reason we're on this ijourney s to get to the ending that I have decided on.

So, for me, the landing is the reason that I embark.

>> Megan Labrise: Do you want to know how I know, as your reader, that you've stuck the ending?

>> V.E.

Schwab: Yes.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Yes.

>> Megan Labrise: I cry cathartic tears.

>> V.E.

Schwab: Oh, good.

Good.

>> Megan Labrise: They have no sorrow behind them.

They're not sadness.

But there's like an expression of water.

[Laughter] And that's how I know I've been done good.

And I cried with both of these books.

>> V.E.

Schwab: Excellent.

That' >> Megan Labise: So, thank you.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Yeah.

That is-- >> V.E.

Schwab: Your sacrifice is appreciated.

>> V.E.

Schwab: Thank you.

>> Megan Labrise: Oh.

All right.

We're going to open it up for questions.

Who will be brave?

Come on down.

>> V.E.

Schwab: I do feel like you should have some music playing.

Some "Jeopardy" soundtrack.

>> Megan Labrise: Hello.

>> Hi.

Victoria, this is apologetically, not about your current book.

>> V.E.

Schwab: That's okay.

>> As meticulous as you are in creating your worlds and your characters and all of these things, how much, Arnesian, do you know?

>> V.E.

Schwab: How much of what?

>> Arnesian.

>> V.E.

Schwab: Oh, yeah, I build the languages as I need them.

So, I basically build a grammatical structure for all of my fictional languages so that I can build vocabulary as I need it, but I don't originate vocabulary until I need it.

So each of my fictional languages in my fantasy novels is based on a specific kind of semantic cadence and grammatical structure, and then I don't build vocab until I need it.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: When do you do that?

>> V.E.

Schwab: -- In the draft as I'm going, I'm like, earmarking it.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Do you have, like, notebooks?

>> V.E.

Schwab: -- I have a glossary, but it was supplied for me after the first book, so I should have really done it before the first book.

So there were a few words that mean multiple things.

And I'm like, well, that happens in every language.

Yeah, yeah.

>> Megan Labrise: Thank you for your question.

>> Hi.

>> Hi.

>> Hi.

I have a question.

It's about like, the crosspollination thing you guys were talking about earlier.

Are there any books or genres that you like to read that you think your readers would be surprised?

>> V.E.

Schwab: I read a ton of memoir.

I think as a writer, memoir is one of the best things you can read, because it's a person's concept of their own narrative, and they've chosen their own highs and lows for you.

So it's highly subjective, but it's great character study.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Yes.

And the best memoirs are the ones where they go in.

Not the ones where they're just-- >> V.E.

Schwab: Not a puff piece.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Yeah, I was about to name one.

[Laughter] I just stopped, I'm like, "No, Nnedi."

Don't do that.

>> V.E.

Schwab: Yeah.

Memoir.

I highly, highly recommend it.

>> Megan Labrise: We're being diplomatic in the nation's capital.

Here we are.

Thank you.

Next.

>> So when it comes to writing books that are coming from, like, a vulnerable place, like grief or anger, how do you kind of feel that confidence or that readiness to actually share it with the world when it's so vulnerable, when you could get sort of any sort of response towards it?

>> Nnedi Okorafor: -- First thing you should do-- >> V.E.

Schwab: Yeah, let's repeat that.

Sorry, sorry.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: What's the question?

>> V.E.

Schwab: How do we-- when we're coming from such a vulnerable place, how do we find the courage to basically put that out into the world and face it?

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Yeah.

The first thing you should do is write it.

>> V.E.

Schwab: Yeah.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Just close-- wouldn't say close your eyes, but, like, just turn off all the voices.

Don't think about all of that.

Just put it on the page.

Because things can always be polished and all of that afterwards.

But put it on the page.

Now, when you've put it on the page and you've, like, bled all over the, you know, you've-- opened your veins, bled not in that way, but like, you know what I mean.

-- When you're thinking about getting it published, I mean, make it as good as you can, make it as beautiful as you can, make it as-- I'm all about the honesty.

Do all the things that you need to do and then just jump, you know, there I am with that again.

It's not that kind of jump.

>> V.E.

Schwab: Dire advice here.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Yeah.

You know.

You know what I mean.

But then just jump, I mean, like there's risk involved with these things, but like, I think the focus should be more on what you're writing.

You know, the story that you're writing and putting that- someone always wants to read it.

You know, don't tell yourself that nobody wants to, that few people want to read it.

Someone always wants to read it.

And hold on to that and be brave.

>> V.E.

Schwab: Agreed.

>> Megan Labrise: Okay, I'm going to ask that.

No, thank you very much for your question, that no one else line up, because we are deep on these lines and we're going to try to be mindful, and we're going to try to get to as many questions as possible.

Next, please.

>> Hello.

>> Hi.

>> Okay.

They are on.

You just need to get really close.

>> Okay.

>> All right.

>> My question is for you, Nnedi.

So when, over the course of "Death of the Author," Zelu uses a bunch of fantastical adaptive technologies but always very clearly remains a disabled character.

How do you resist the kind of technoableist tendencies of science fiction to write that out of your characters?

>> Nnedi Okorafor: I mean, Zelu was very much based, like that aspect of it was based on me.

And I just, I think I come at it from that point of view, like I'm not overthinking it.

-- I have proprioception issues.

Like, after I was, I had to relearn how to walk and all of that.

And so I have proprioception-- My balance is very bad.

And I fantasize a lot about technology, and I not-- I don't think about the political ramifications of that at all.

I'm just like, I'm thinking, okay, if I could have exos, like those exos, that's my wishful thinking right there.

Like, that was just fantasy for me.

Like, what would that be like?

And I've seen them.

They're like the-- There was a man, I think he was paraplegic who walked in the Olympics or walked or whatever you want to call it, in the Olympics this year, holding the torch with exos, you know.

And I was like, "Oh, yeah."

And this was, as I was writing "Death of the Author."

I was very-- So I think I just come at it from a very personal-- I come through a personal point of view, and then I don't let all the noise kind of shape where I need to go.

You know, it's very sincere.

It's very -- very specific and very honest as well.

And so that's what I let guide me.

>> Megan Labrise: Thank you for your question.

>> Hi.

This is more general for the both of you.

Just going back to the discussion of genre.

Do you feel that the many subcategories that are arising in fantasy and being discussed in fantasy, and also in turn, getting a lot of discourse in the book world, -- whether love or hate it, broaden or constrain the borders of writing and fantasy.

And does it help with crosspollination?

>> V.E.

Schwab: -- I hate it.

I just like full take.

I just, I just don't like anything, which, again, makes the box smaller, and it feels like it's like ever trying to make the box smaller.

And also for readers, yes, it's helping direct you to the most perfect thing that fits cleanly within the box that you want.

But then if you're only within that box, how are you going to discover new things?

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Discover.

Yes >> V.E.

Schwab: Like that's, that's my madness about it.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Yeah, that part, like the discovery.

I think about my-- When I was earning my PhD, there were classes that I had to take that I never would have wanted to take.

I hated those classes.

I hated them, and some of them were when I took those classes, I learned things that I still use to this day.

So sometimes, like getting out of your comfort zone is really-- it just leads you in to places that you never would have, would have discovered.

You grow.

And so anything like, that kind of limits that, I'm really not for it.

I just think it's really important to just look everywhere and seek everywhere and try new things and try things that you may not necessarily think you would, you would like.

>> Megan Labrise: Thank you for your question.

Okay, we got the hi sign.

Five minutes, lightning round.

Okay.

Let's keep it quick.

>> Hi.

I have a question for the both of you.

-- who are your favorite authors?

>> Nnedi Okorafor: It changes, l >> V.E.

Schwab: It changes.

It changes pretty continuously.

I think it's about time for Donna Tartt to write another book.

I feel like it's been nine years, ten years.

And I'm like, okay, all right, babes.

[Laughter] But it's honestly, I find new ones every year.

That's the goal, isn't it?

>> Nnedi Okorafor: And then also like favorite authors or favorite books-- I have like one book by certain authors and none of their other books.

So those are-- But that one book is like the core of everything.

So I don't know, like.

>> V.E.

Schwab: Yeah, I mean.

I think we, I-- we're constantly searching.

I don't think we sit in a room where we are like, and here's the five authors that I love.

I'm like, no, find me new ones.

>> Hi.

>> Hi.

>> I love your side characters, especially "Bury our Bones" Mateo was my favorite.

>> V.E.

Schwab: Thank you.

>> And so how and why do you come up with them?

>> V.E.

Schwab: My role is that a side character should be the main character of their own story.

They're just not in their own story right now.

So every one of my characters, no matter how long they're on page, they have a full-- they're a full person.

That's just my rule for them.

So I just treat them the exact same way I treat my main characters, and I figure out their person.

I play God with them.

>> Thank you.

>> A question for the both of you.

How do you deal with writer's block when it gets?

>> V.E.

Schwab: I wanted to ask you this.

Do you get stuck?

>> Nnedi Okorafor: I don't believe writer's block exists.

>> V.E.

Schwab: Interesting.

Interesting.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: I know that's a controversial thing to say, but I don't believe it exists, and therefore I have never experienced it.

[Laughter] >> V.E.

Schwab: I will say, I diagnose it, so I figure out i where it's coming from.

Am I stuck because I don't know?

Am I stuck because I'm afraid?

Am I stuck because I feel overwhelmed or uninspired and like there are different solutions to each.

So like, do some self-searching and figure out what's making you feel stuck.

Because the prescriptive answer to it-- I don't believe in prescriptive answers, but the, the solution will be different based on whether you're truly lost, stuck, bored, or just intimidated.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Also, one more thing it might have to also do with my pantser thing.

>> V.E.

Schwab: I was going to say.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: You know, if I'm writing something and I don't know what happens next-- >> V.E.

Schwab: You just make it up.

[Laughter] >> Nnedi Okorafor: I'm all over the place.

And.

Yeah, so I just-- I'm very relaxed with it.

And sometimes you just need to go outside too.

>> V.E.

Schwab: That's the go, touch grass approach.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Yes, yes.

>> Megan Labrise: Thank you.

>> Hi.

This kind of gets back to the whole genre question.

For new writers, they're trying to break into the industry.

There's a lot of pressure about marketability.

So how do you balance letting the book breathe and be what it is while marketing it to agents and navigating the publishing industry and how to sell the book?

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Let the book breathe.

>> V.E.

Schwab: No, no truly.

Write the absolute best version of the story you want to tell.

Worry less about where it sits on a shelf until you get there.

People spend so much time preactively, proactively worrying about where it will live in the industry.

We don't know what the industry will look like by the time that book hits shelves.

Just literally put the best thing that you can on paper.

>> Thank you.

>> Yeah.

>> This question is for the both of you.

Which song specifically were you guys like playing in the background when you were writing?

>> Nnedi Okorafor: What was I playing?

>> V.E.

Schwab: Here.

I'll go first.

For this one.

It was "King" by Florence and the Machine and Kiki Rockwell's "Madeline."

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Oh, I know what I was doing.

Okay.

Yeah, I was playing Kendrick Lamar's -- "Count Me Out."

It was "Count Me Out."

That was on the-- What is it?

"Mr.

Morale & the Hotsteppers."

I always get that title wrong.

That one, it was "Count Me Out."

And I was playing that song over and over and over for, for "Death of the Author."

>> Megan Labrise: We have time for two more questions.

>> This is for both of you guys.

I think as a fellow creative, I think it gets really hard when you're crafting a story that you're supposed to say something about society or say something about the world we exist in.

And I think to both of your books, you have beautiful kind of stories that you tell.

But my question is, where does that kind of come in?

Does that, do you start with that, or is that something that you just find at the end like, oh, this says this?

>> Nnedi Okorafor: For me, it's very natural.

It's just my-- I'm a very political person and I'm aware of what's going on around me, and I engage with it and I think a lot about it.

So when I'm writing whatever it is, when I don't know what I'm writing, I just sit down and start writing, it will inevitably be in there.

>> V.E.

Schwab: Yeah, I'd say I feel certain things about why I'm writing the book as I sit down, but those become codified over the course of the actual writing of it.

I think it's also just important to remember no matter what you're writing like, we are not monoliths.

I am not trying to write a lesbian with a capital L experience.

I'm writing my experience and I can never police anyone else's experience.

I wouldn't try to, but mine is super specific and that's the only thing that I can write to.

We're only one person each moving through the world.

>> Megan Labrise: I promised one more question.

You each have one sentence to answer it.

[Laughter >> Nnedi Okorafor: Oh, good.

>> V.E.

Schwab: Oh, God.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Yes, do that for novelists.

[Lau >> This is specifically for Nnedi.

>> V.E Schwab: Yes!

You get two >> Nnedi Okorafor: God.

Okay.

>> It's kind of like about the politics that were just brought up.

So to what extent have you, as a Black woman author, especially at the very beginning of your career, met resistance in, like, publication in the distinctly Black and women subjects and characters in your work?

And like, how did you overcome that?

>> Megan Labrise: You got more than one.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: Okay.

Thank you.

Because that's not small.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: I didn't.

I didn't meet resistance.

But I was also very strategic, like, like-- Okay.

Oh, God.

How do I do this?

Okay.

>> Megan Labrise: I'm getting the eyes.

I'm getting the eyes.

>> Nnedi Okorafor: I know, so-- Okay.

I was very strategic.-- My first, my first agent was African American.

The person who bought my first book, "Zahrah the Windseeker" was Andrea Pinkney, who understood what I was doing, and I knew to -- send it to her.

I asked my agent who happened to go to high school with her, to send it specifically to her.

So I, like I understood, I under on a level the landscape, but at the same time I didn't because I didn't know any of this stuff.

I just knew I had written this science fiction book that was Nigerian-based science fiction, fantasy, whatever the frick it was, and there was nothing out like it.

And I knew it wasn't going to have the usual path.

So I figured the path out for myself.

And along-- so therefore, along the way, no, I didn't get any resistance.

I didn't have anyone saying, "Oh, this is this is-- these are black characters and we don't do that."

I didn't have that.

But it was because of the way that I chose to navigate things.

That's a very-- that's not a good answer.

We can talk, but.

>> Megan Labrise: It's a good answer.

Thank-- Thank you for your question.

Thank you for your answers.

Please show your appreciation for these authors.

[Applause]