Leigh Bardugo on What It Means To Be a Writer, and Her Recent Sag Harbor Books Meet and Greet

Growing up, best-selling author Leigh Bardugo always knew she wanted to be a writer, but didn’t know how to actually go about writing a book. Her early attempts at narrative began with “a lot of momentum,” and then “hit a wall,” she said in a recent interview. Eventually though, she found her groove, and published her debut novel in 2012.

She has since written 10 widely acclaimed novels, the most recent of which, “The Familiar,” was the subject of her book signing and meet and greet at Sag Harbor Books on Sunday, July 13.

This book signing was Bardugo’s first trip to the East End. While her book tours are usually based in metropolitan areas, the goal of this summer’s tour was to explore other places, where people may be on vacation, to reach new readers. Additional locales for the tour included Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts, and downtown Seattle.

“I have been told that there is a really unique vibe in Sag Harbor,” Bardugo said a week prior to the event. “Everybody I know who’s been there or who lives there says it has its own special kind of magic, so I’m excited to get a chance to experience it.”

On her journey to becoming a successful author, Bardugo discovered two things about herself: One, that outlining is imperative to her process, and two, that she had to let go of any preconceived notions society had about what it meant to be a writer.

“I think our culture does a really great job of divorcing the artistic experience from discomfort, but discomfort is an essential part of creating,” Bardugo said.

“A lot of us come to the creative life and to creative endeavors, expecting it to simply feel good all of the time,” she continued. “I had to really learn how to sit with discomfort in order to write my first novel.”

That novel was “Shadow and Bone,” the first book in what would become an internationally bestselling young adult fantasy series consisting of a trilogy and two duologies; “The Grishaverse.”

In 2019, Bardugo published “Ninth House,” her first foray into adult fantasy about a young woman at Yale who becomes immersed in the university’s secret societies. “Hell Bent,” the sequel, followed shortly after.

“The Familiar” is her latest installment of adult fiction, and it tells the story of Luzia Cotado, a woman harboring a “talent for little miracles” who is thrust into a world of power-hungry royals in 15th century Spain. Less fantastical than her previous works, the book is playfully described by Bardugo as “historical fiction with a dash of the miraculous.”

“When I built ‘The Familiar,’ I wanted to make a kind of Trojan Horse book,” she said. “This is historical fiction for people who are maybe unsure about fantasy, or have an idea that fantasy is not a genre they’re interested in.”

While the story remains fictional throughout, Bardugo said she feels particularly connected to the narrative of “The Familiar,” due to her own familial history.

“‘The Familiar’ really started for me back when I was around 11 or 12, and I walked into my Spanish class,” Bardugo said. “My Spanish teacher, Señor Beigl, asked me if I knew what my last name meant, and I had no idea. I didn’t even know it was Spanish.”

Bardugo comes from the Spanish “verdugo,” meaning “executioner.”

“This sort of sent me down a path of discovering my own Sephardic heritage and understanding the history of my ancestors in Spain,” Bardugo said. “In 1492, they faced the same decision that every Jew in Spain faced, which was to convert, to go into exile, or to face execution.”

Bardugo explained that the majority of her ancestors fled to Morocco, but not all. Those that stayed converted to Catholicism.

“Those branches of my family tree essentially vanished,” she said. “This book was a way for me to try to reimagine those stories and redraw those branches.”

The character of Luzia, Bardugo said, is an embodiment of Bardugo’s ambition. Once she got through the first draft of “The Familiar,” she was able to step back and realize that Luzia is a woman who just wants to be seen.

“She faces the reality, and it’s a reality that I hope resonates with a lot of modern women, that the more visible you become, the more of a target you become,” Bardugo said.

“She is obviously facing more dire stakes, because she’s up against the Inquisition, one of the most powerful and brutal forces in history,” Bardugo continued. “But her ambition is so deep, and her desire for a life greater than the one assigned to her is so profound that she keeps taking these risks. She longs for more.”

Luzia, however, is not the only embodiment of female power in the novel.

“I really tried to show different versions of what it meant to be a woman in this time, and what it meant to hunger for something more than what you’ve been told you can expect from life,” Bardugo said.

In creating characters, for “The Familiar” or otherwise, Bardugo emphasizes grounding them in humanity first and foremost.

“I’m always looking to create characters who would have different kinds of strengths, flaws and ways of navigating the world,” she said. Whether it be the naivete of Alina Starkov (“Shadow and Bone”), or the class anxiety of Alex Stern (“Ninth House”), Bardugo is “not interested in paragons.”

“As wild and unpredictable and magical as a world might be, I want those characters to always feel like somebody you could potentially know in your own life,” she said.

When asked about the difference between writing young adult and adult fiction, Bardugo said it was mostly about expectation. If a book is marketed as young adult, one would not expect explicit gore or mature sexual content. What the book brings in terms of style, however, can certainly vary.

“Part of our goal as readers is to find the thing that’s going to satisfy,” she said. “When I moved into the adult genre, I wanted room to explore themes that might be off putting to my young adult readers, but I also wanted to give my characters a different kind of goal in the world.”

For characters in an adult novel, the goal is more general than for those in a younger narrative.

“Luzia and Alex are trying to figure out how to live from day to day, and how to live in a world that I think we all recognize,” Bardugo said. “How do you take care of yourself? How do you put a roof over your head? How do you take care of the people you love? As opposed to needing to get to the revolution, or to the prom.”

Bardugo explained that while she won’t be limited by the recent genre switch, she does plan to continue writing in the adult sphere for now.

“My next book will be adult, and I have a horror project that will be very much in the adult space as well,” she said.

Finally, Bardugo’s advice for aspiring writers is threefold: read out of your comfort zone, find your process and remember that there is no singular approach that is going to work for everyone.

“There is no amount of preparation or craft that will spare you the discomfort of writing a first draft,” she explained. “If you understand that discomfort is essential to the process of art, you won’t interpret it as a sign that you’re on the wrong path when you come up against it.”

“There is no expiration date on talent,” she continued. “We don’t have a narrow window in which we can tell stories. If you have something interesting to say, I guarantee there will be somebody who wants to hear it.”

Leigh Bardugo’s “The Familiar,” and all of her other titles, are available wherever books are sold.