A couple weeks ago, our POPTIZED photographer/writer, Mehreen, and I met up with a friend for some coffee and idle chit chat, and by friend I mean New York Times bestselling author Olivie Blake, and by idle chit chat I mean news on Book 2, The Atlas Six TV show, what’s next for the self-published turned bestselling author, and more!!
The Atlas Six took the internet by storm, and that was before its author, Olivie Blake (pseudonym for Alexene Farol Follmuth), had even gotten a deal for the book. With its dark academia atmosphere, captivating character dynamics, and one-of-a-kind prose, the novel has attracted readers from all over the world, and will certainly continue to keep growing as the series (a trilogy!) continues.
We had the pleasure of sitting down with Alexene and chatting about everything that’s been going on with her recently, including multiple publications this year and features from Good Morning America to Daily Mail. Keep reading to find out what she revealed about how life has been lately, and what’s still to come
The last time I talked to you was before you were a New York Times Bestselling Author, had gone on tour internationally, and were featured on Good Morning America. What has the increased popularity of the books been like for you; anything unexpected?
Everything is unexpected. I think part of the isolation that’s still sort of ongoing from the pandemic is that, for a long time I never saw any of this live. I can only describe what happened with The Atlas Six as a feeling. I sort of felt like something was happening. But that feeling could easily be drowned out by, like, the baby isn’t sleeping.
It’s a very weird time. Actually, when I hit the New York Times Bestseller list, I got a call from my editor, which I declined because my baby was sleeping. I [texted her and] was like, what do you want? She’s like, no, you need to answer this call.
I did answer the phone. My publisher was also on the line. And even though I knew that that’s the phone call I was answering, I still was quiet for a few seconds. It’s so many emotions at once. It feels so beyond belief. And I just feel so lucky. And I also feel like a con-artist all the time.
I wrote the book, but everything after that just feels like the ride that I’m on as opposed to something that I’m actively doing. So there are definitely moments when it feels like the bottom is going to fall out and it’s going to get taken away from me somehow. I think what helps is writing book two because I feel good about book two.
We have to ask about the Amazon show. What has that whole process been like for you, and how involved are you in it?
I’m executive producing, but my role is very high level creative. I’m not writing. [Different studios] gave me different comps, basically, and different visions for the show. And I think when it came to the producers I ultimately chose, they came in really strong.
It’s a British production company so they’re looking at it from a very British TV way, where it’s long episodes and not that many.
And then also that they were asking me the right questions. Like one of their earliest questions was there’s sex in the book? How is the sex going to look like? How are we going to translate it? Do you want it to be very explicit or what kind of story are we telling people? And so I was really glad that we got that conversation really early on because I was saying that for me the sex scenes are about power and the academic scenes are very sensual. So we will see how that actually turns out; we’re looking for a showrunner right now.
We were also wondering how much of a hand you had in casting?
I know that my producers are on the same page as I am, that they are going to cast people from the area of origin [of the book characters].
I am really hoping for a writer of color, I think that will make all difference. But yes, definitely my goal is to cast from the actual origins. Which is really exciting, because there are a lot of people who have been brought to my attention who have Parisa’s origin, and would be a really good fit.
Did you have a driving force behind writing this book?
This series comes out of, that question of like, how can you be ethical when it’s impossible? And I think book one is a very sort of narrow exploration of that on purpose. I really wanted book one to feel very claustrophobic, like you only exist in this house, the characters only exist in the house. We’re not worried about the outside world right now. We’re worried about the moral ambiguity that is given to you and where do you fall and how do you decide?
But the series as a whole is much more about. You know, what do we do about stolen knowledge, about power that is not held rightfully? What do we do when people are willing to break the world to align it with their own values? And I don’t know that I have a bigger answer for that.
But this book, all three books, are me breaking that down and making it more. I’m not trying to solve the world. I’m trying to look at how does this change six people and what does it mean for six people and especially six people who are extremely strong? And if anything, their strengths are kind of their weaknesses that they there’s there’s an irony to them. They’re carrying around a lot.
[On Libby]
With Libby, she’s an entry point because she’s meant to feel familiar, but we want to watch her do something different. Right? But I think people are generally wrong about what they think that different thing is going to be.
Libby is on a complex journey; she is coming in from a very moral perspective, but in the sense that she does feel that the world needs to align to her values and sort of watching the decisions she makes, I think is really interesting in a way that people have not seen yet.
[On who she wrote the book for]
I wrote this book for the academics.
For, you know, for people who wanted to sit and talk about what does this mean philosophically? What does this mean? What should the world look like? What does it look like now? What would be the responsible thing to do? Am I wrong? I think the thing about everything, all these characters, they’re their own unreliable narrators. So the way I wrote this book, there technically is no objective truth. It’s just what each character sees as the truth. And I am not expressing anything like it’s up to the reader to decide, like what is in that invisible space and what is the real truth? What is every person actually like? Because they’re not going to tell you. Yeah. And that for me, like, I’m the kind of reader who wants to puzzle that while I’m reading. So I’m always writing for the audience who is along for the ride, who’s willing to have their mind changed and wants to think about it.
Warning! Skip to our rapid fire section if you would like to avoid slight spoilers.
What made you incorporate magic into the world as a sort of science rather than something that just existed?
Theoretical physics works really well as a magic point. The people who are writing about it are very poetic and they often refer back to the classics.
Carlo Rovelli always starts by talking about the ancient philosophers. When I was coming up with this idea of having a library with everything, it seemed like, well maybe it didn’t start with magic as like, this arcane thing, it started with naturalism as this idea of like, what is the human animus, and how that might progress if that information was something you could continue contributing to. So, how would we grow from a starting point of just wondering about the universe? It just became sort of natural… I think we don’t have to understand everything about a magic system. I don’t really like it when we have too many rules. But I still want the audience to have an understanding of what’s hard or difficult. I think when you’re writing magic, you just have to have something you can point to, where it’s like, this is a familiar feeling. [For example], they have to rest after they do something.
In the scene where the house is breached — how did you determine how each character would react? How was the drafting of that scene, and was it difficult to flush out their responses based on their abilities?
Another inspiration would be Kingsman: Secret Service. I liked the idea that they were just being tested and eliminated, but instead of being physically tested they were being intellectually tested. So that was an influence.
From a craft perspective, something had to make the characters work together.
[There was] focus on the human element; how are they each reacting to this? And how is it changing their relationships, because everything that happens between Tristan and Libby depends on that moment where they both need each other.
How did you come up with Gideon?
I got [the name] while I was watching Once Upon a Time. It had that feel to it, that I was like, hmm, this feels right.
That just turned out to be a lucky bit. So, I essentially created a dream realm that’s basically the fourth dimension. It happens to be a confluence of space and time, and it works within different psychological theories of having a collective human subconscious. And then, but I don’t know how I came up… he just was that way. I wanted him to be sort of the… Nico is very eccentric, so naturally he needs the sort of straight-man friend, like the Jim Halpert friend.
But also, what I like about Gideon, is that he has had a very hard life (which we’ve only gotten hints at so far). So his optimism is very hard won. It’s not that nothing bad has ever happened to him, it’s that he’s seen a lot of bad things and decided that they are not important, and so that brings a very valuable perspective to this book, which is full of people who’ve been through bad things and see the world in a bad way, so it was kind of important to have a character who didn’t see it that way, and someone who literally exists in dreams all the time.
There’s a line in the second book about he’s just like “I love being awake, I miss being awake” like it sucks but it’s real. And so that’s what’s missing with just the six who are like, fighting to the death.
They bring the stakes, but then he grounds it.
Do you think Libby is the only one with the potential for a corruption arc?
Mm-mm (No).
I only point Libby out specifically because people are like, ‘She’s a good guy.’
No one is good.
I said that right away in the book, no one here is good. Some are just aligning to a morality that they’ve decided to make known. And Libby is very familiar, she’s meant to be someone that any of us could be. That’s why it’s so interesting to kind of fuck with her. I’m not trying to say that only this one person could go this way, I’m trying to say that anyone could go this way.
I love the tension when you’re reading a book and you see yourself and it’s kind of bad.
Fiction drives empathy.
And also, it’s boring to have a good guy. It’s boring to always root for the good guy. Because no one is that good. In Young Adult, yes, someone has to be good so that we can model ourselves off of someone. But this is Adult, no one has to be good.
And now for some signature POPTIZED rapid fire (book edition):
Favorite fictional ship?
Quentin and Eliot from the magicians. Mary and Matthew from Downton Abbey.
Three books currently on your TBR?
Remembrance by Rita Wood, A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee, and From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout.
Top three favorite book genres?
Literary romance. Sci-fi, fantasy. Psychological thrillers.
Go-to coffee drink?
Black coffee, but depends on the time of the day.
Favorite number?
22.
Where are you most productive?
Anywhere you sit me.
What do you describe as success?
Not necessarily being happy all day every day, but every day I feel good, like I feel like I am in the right place; that would be success to me.
Chocolate or Vanilla?
Vanilla.
What is your ‘if you don’t like this book i can’t be friends with you’ book?
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger.
When did you write your first book?
I wrote my first book when I was in middle school for a library competition.
When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
Some time in my late 20s.
What’s the first book that made you cry?
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith.
Finally, what is the best part of all this?
The best part is still the creative work. The storytelling that I am lucky enough to do as a job. That I don’t have to split my time and can literally get paid to untangle a plot point in the shower. That is the best.
Make sure to go pick up a copy of Olive Blake’s The Atlas Six, in stores wherever you buy books (along with her most recently published, My Mechanical Romance, written under Alexene Farol Follmuth), and keep an eye out for book 2 of The Atlas Six trilogy, The Atlas Paradox , coming out this fall and Alone with You in the Ether, this winter.
