Author Holly Black visited Chapel Hill Public Library January 10 in support of her new book, The Wicked King.
The Wicked King, sequel to The Cruel Prince, follows the story of Jude, a girl who was kidnapped away to a fairie land as a child and now lives with her parents’ murderers.
Black talked with fellow author Renee Ahdieh in the hour-long event, detailing everything from worldbuilding to how she begins her stories.
Both Black and Ahdieh are known for writing fantasy novels and discussed the craziest thing they had ever done to get immersed in the world of their characters.
Black told a story about how, to learn what it was like to be trapped in the back of a car, she had a friend lock her in their trunk.
“I had done some research on what it’s like to be locked in somebody’s car,” she said, “but it turns out that’s a pretty difficult subject to [look up online].”
So fellow writer Kelly Link drove to the grocery store with Black in the back of her Prius.
“There is a window to the back of a Prius,” Black said, “so people could clearly see that [Link] had somebody trapped in her car, but nobody helped me.”
Meanwhile, Ahdieh’s worldbuilding centers more around her love of food. For example, she prepared Persian rice when writing her Persian-inspired fantasy, The Wrath and the Dawn.
“I like to prepare everything I describe in the books that I write,” Ahdieh said. “It has resulted in fires.”
However, both authors have attempted dramatic physical stunts, as Ahdieh once tried to learn how to fire a bow and arrow while on horseback.
The Wicked King was released on January 8. Ahdieh’s next book, The Beautiful, about vampires in nineteenth-century New Orleans, will be released next spring.
