>> Meg Metcalf: Welcome one 
and all to the
Library of Congress National
Book Festival:
Magic to Haunt You
Innovative Storytelling
featuring authors R.M.
Romero and Rose Szabo.
My name is Meg Metcalf, and I
am a librarian at the Library
of Congress, as well as the
Women's Gender and LGBTQ+
study specialist.
And today, we are making
history with the first
non-binary panel at the
National Book Festival.
So welcome, everyone. 
Thank you. [Applause]
So today we are in
conversation with R.M.
Romero, author of "The Ghosts
of Rose Hill," and Rose Szabo,
author of "We All Fall Down."
And we will be saving about
10, 15 minutes at the end for
Q and A, so please start
thinking of your questions now.
If you're feeling shy, you can
write down the question, and we
will ask it for you.
Or you can connect with the
authors at their book signings
just after, at noon downstairs.
And the book signing lines are
right next to each other in
lines 10 and 11.
So now with a huge thank you to
our sponsors who make this
festival possible.
Please join me in giving a warm
welcome to our authors.
[Applause]
So I thought for any new
readers in the room, we'd start
with getting acquainted.
So, Rose, would you like to
start and tell us a little bit
about who you are and a little
bit about your book?
>> Rose Szabo:
Sure. Thank you.
So I'm a non-binary writer from
Richmond, Virginia.
I primarily write
horror.
And my most recent book, "We 
All Fall Down," is at least
partially about my experiences
of being a queer white person
in a multiracial, queer
community that is chronically
plagued by police violence.
And so "We All Fall Down" is
about a group of young queer
people living in a city where
magic used to exist and can
only be revived through human
sacrifice and the decisions
that they make along the way
toward deciding what they're
going to do about that.
>> Meg Metcalf: Wonderful. 
So glad to have you. R.M.?
>> R.M Romero: I'm R.M. Romero 
and I am from Miami, Florida.
And my book "The Ghosts of Rose
Hill" is based on my
experiences helping to maintain
Jewish cemeteries in Eastern
and Central Europe.
It's the story of Ilana Lopez,
a Jewish Latino girl who goes
to visit her Czech aunt
in Prague. And there
she discovers an abandoned
Jewish cemetery, which
she decides to tend to, and
meets the ghost of a boy named
Benjamin, who's been dead for
over 100 years.
The two begin to bond, but
there is a sinister force
overshadowing the cemetery and
Benjamin, and it becomes up to
Ilana to save him.
>> Meg Metcalf: So these books are 
very different and yet they have so
much in common. And I think for
me, as someone who's been lucky
enough to read both books, is
the outstanding worldbuilding
that happens in both.
So I was wondering if you would
be willing to talk a little
bit-- how do you build such
fantastic worlds? You know,
how does that come out of your
mind and what does that process
look like for you as a writer?
>> Rose Szabo: 
Me?
>> Meg Metcalf: 
You, sure, yeah.
>> Rose Szabo: 
Okay. So I actually
have an exercise that I 
do fairly frequently when
I'm thinking about world
building, which is that I don't
start with geography as much as
I start by creating a map of
power within the world. I
start by making, like, a little
grid and filling the grid
with factions and thinking
about who are these factions,
how do they interact with each
other, what do they want from
each other? In this most recent
book,
some of the factions were the
police, the university, a
coalition of monsters, and a
group of witches.
And I think about like, what
kinds of things do they
cooperate on?
Who has power over who in any
particular situation? And where
are the places where they're
going to run into conflict?
>> Meg Metcalf:
Wow. Incredible.
What about you?
>> R.M Romero: So I am nowhere 
near as organized as Rosa, though I
very much admire that level of
organization. I
just sort of do things; I draw
a lot from the real world and
also from fairy tales and
folklore, especially when I'm
dealing with a region like
Prague, which has this very
rich tradition of stories.
I just started pulling elements
from all these different pieces
and mixing them together in a
way that felt organic, even if
the mythos didn't align
perfectly. You know,
there's elements of Cuban
folklore in this book, but
there's also elements of Czech
folklore, Jewish folklore,
anything that felt like it was
going to make an interesting
piece of the story. I just
threw it in there.
>> Meg Metcalf: 
I love that.
More than one way to write 
a story. [laughter]
Something else I really love
about both books is that both
sort of highlight the
importance of each generation
and the many visible and
invisible ties between each
generation. And there's a quote
from "The Ghosts of Rose Hill"
that really resonated with me"
"My entire family is still
trying to escape history," and
that hit me right in the feels.
So this is kind of a heavy
question, but I feel like it
kind of comes naturally from
what we were just talking
about. In both books, is 
history the real monster that's
haunting us all? It's kind of
heavy, but--
>> Rose Szabo: Yeah, I mean, I think 
I'm very interested in history in my own
work. I live in a city where
the university that I work for
has a long history of, like,
exploiting the local community,
of grave robbing, of body
snatching.
And I think one of the things
that I feel consistently
challenged to do is to think
about like, what is my role in
that history? What am I going
to do to make my city better
and safer for my students and
the people who come after us?
Yeah, I mean, I think it's very
important that we reckon with
history. My city, Richmond,
Virginia, in 2020 took down a
bunch of the monuments to
Confederate generals that had
really dominated the landscape
in this very real and
frightening way for a long
time.
I was very proud to see people
in my community actively take
steps to make those go away.
And, you know, I don't think
that writing is the same as
activism, but I hope that by
writing stories that confront
our country's terrible and
racist history, that we are
able to remove some of those
monuments from our
own minds as well.
>> Meg Metcalf: Absolutely. 
And speaking of monuments, cemeteries.
>> R.M Romero: Yes, I really feel that 
all of us is haunted to some extent,
whether that's what happened to
our families, our communities,
our country.
When I am in places like Poland
and previously Ukraine,
these spaces feel haunted in a
very tangible way, when
I'm in these cemeteries that
were created by communities
that by, for the large part, no
longer exist, or they are too
small to them-- to maintain
these places.
So when I was thinking about
this book, I started to think,
well, what if the spaces were
literally haunted by the ghosts
of history? And then how would
someone reconcile with that?
How would a young person
specifically reconcile with
that, and what relationship
would she have to her own past
and to the past of her people
in the city that she had found
herself in?
>> Meg Metcalf: Absolutely. And I 
think it's interesting, because neither
book is classified as like
historical fiction, yet history
is so much a part of each
story.
And I kind of wonder if fiction
can be a better outlet for kind
of reckoning with these social
issues that
we're dealing with.
So what do you think?
>> Rose Szabo: 
I mean, I think that the--
I think fiction is not a
substitute for action.
I feel really strongly that
storytellers in particular have
a responsibility at some point
to step off the page and into
action. I was really moved in a
conversation earlier to hear
R.M. Romero talk about the work
that they do rehabilitating
Jewish cemeteries.
I think that fiction at its
best motivates us to take right
actions. And I really hope to
create fictions that inspire
people to step off of the page
and into action.
>> Meg Metcalf: Absolutely. 
Any thoughts on that R.M.?
>> R.M Romero: So there's a tweet 
that's going viral right now about
fiction versus nonfiction.
And I wish I could remember who
actually tweeted it, but they
said that fiction is learning
through imagination.
And I feel that that's really
true.
It isn't a substitute for real
world action.
It isn't a substitute for
direct testimony from people
who were involved or were
victimized by certain
situations. But it can offer us
a different lens onto that, and
especially with young people
who connect so strongly to
fiction. We see young people
coming to events like this to
hear authors they love speak,
creating fan fiction, fan art,
creating entire communities
based on the fiction that they
love. And
sometimes that does motivate
them to go out into the
real world and make change, or
to even just internally change
the way that they have viewed
different issues.
>> Meg Metcalf:
Well said. Well said.
>> Rose Szabo:
I like that.
>> Meg Metcalf:
That was great.
So speaking of genres,
genres like gender can be very
fluid. So
I've seen magical realism, you
know, applied to both books.
And I'm curious, is that how
you feel? You're--
is that how you identify
with your book, as a magical
real-- magical realism, or
would you identify it in a
different genre and/or are
there other other styles of
writing that you're interested
in?
>> Rose Szabo: Yeah, I mean, I'm 
absolutely deeply influenced by the work
of Gabriel Garcia Marquez,
who's often considered to be
the father of magical realism.
I started reading his work in
Spanish when I was very young.
I think the first story I read
was "A Very Old Man With
Enormous Wings," and I was so
shocked by it because--and my
students, when I read it with
them, are often shocked by it
because the characters in that
story don't behave well.
They behave very normally or
maybe not normally, but they
behave in very, like, flawed 
and human ways.
Like in that story, they find
an old man with wings.
They assume he's an angel.
And so naturally they lock him
in a chicken coop and charge
admission to see him. And
I think that I was very
influenced from an early age by
the idea that stories can both
challenge us to be better than
we are and can also challenge
us to confront who we currently
are. And so I really love the
way that magical realism
suggests that just because
magic is present doesn't mean
that people aren't going to
behave in these really flawed
and human ways. So, yes--
>> Meg Metcalf:
Absolutely.
>> R.M Romero: I think pretty much 
everything I write is magical realism
because that's just sort of my
experience of reality in
general. I live in a very
strange city.
I live actually in Miami
Beach, which is an island that
there are more cats than people
on.
I see people walking around
with lemurs on their shoulders.
I see Santeria sacrifices under
palm trees, and when I'm in
Eastern Europe, I can see these
faces that really feel like
there is a presence there, even
if I can't see it for myself.
So that has always been my way
of looking at the world, and it
definitely comes through in my
writing, where even my family
history is filled with strange
disappearances, miraculous
escapes, things that
technically are mundane.
Technically, they did happen,
but it's very easy to put a
magical twist on it.
>> Meg Metcalf: Amazing. So speaking 
of difficult characters, I'm
wondering, do any characters
give you-- in writing these
books were there any characters
that were harder to write than
others? It's just a question
I've always wanted to ask an
author.
>> Rose Szabo: Yeah, 
I can certainly talk about that.
There's a character in "We All
Fall Down" called Jack, who is
exactly the kind of person who
I used to really admire when I
was young, somebody who is very
self-assured and seems very
cool and seems like they have
everything under control.
And one of the real challenges
for me of writing this book was
getting inside the mind of the
kind of person who I used to
admire but who as an adult I
can now really see as deeply
flawed and very willing to hurt
other people in service of
herself. This character in the
story ultimately makes very bad
decisions that impact everybody
around her and that hurt
basically everyone except her
first.
And writing from the point of
view of this character was at
times very painful.
But I wanted to write from this
perspective in order to
illustrate the processes that
people go through as they come
to the realization that they
need to change fundamental
things about who they are.
Yeah, so that was--it was very
difficult.
There were times where I had to
like sort of pull back and
remind myself that I was not
this person, that I was telling
a story about this person.
There were times where I like
woke up in the middle of the
night thinking about, like,
horrible things that this
character had done.
Yeah, it was--it was really
challenging.
>> Meg Metcalf: I will say Jack 
reminded me--I don't know if we have
any Battlestar Galactica fans in
the room, but Jack reminded me,
maybe it was just the hair, a
little bit of the Starbuck
character, just maybe because
of the hair and also the
problematic choices.
Have you seen it?
>> Rose Szabo: I've seen 
a little Battlestar Galactica.
>> Meg Metcalf: Okay, they might just 
have the same haircut, but that's what
I was imagining while I was
reading it.
>> Rose Szabo: I think that I based 
Jack much more closely off of friends of
mine who--so when I was first
living--
Can I talk a little 
bit?
>> Meg Metcalf:
Oh, yeah, yeah.
So when I was first living in
Richmond, it was very exciting
for me to come out as as queer
and to come out as non-binary.
And there were a lot of people
in the community who really
embraced me in particular.
And then I started dating a
black man, and a lot of people
in that community suddenly had
like no love or respect for
him. And so Jack, I feel like,
is very closely related to
people who I initially really
admired and respected and had--
and then eventually came to see
as fundamentally flawed and
deeply in need of, I don't
know, a fundamental shift in
their thinking because of the
way that they were treating
somebody who I loved.
>> Meg Metcalf: Absolutely. 
It sounds really hard.
So any difficult characters
from you?
>> R.M Romero: So the ghost of 
Rose Hill is mostly told from the
perspective of 
Ilana in first person,
but there are five interludes
that take place from the
perspective of the villain.
And it was very creepy to crawl
into his head because he is
such a human monster.
He is a textbook narcissist.
You know,
he only cares about himself and
his own well-being. And
he's doing an incredible amount
of harm to children as he
does this. So it was eerie to
try to get into his head and
have him justify what he was
doing and to know that this
type of character completely
believed everything he was
doing was perfectly fine
because it got him what he
wanted. And he was certainly
based off of people that I've
known who very much are that
self centered and also off of a
particular historical figure
who I really do view as a
monster. So it was--it was a
challenge to adopt his
perspective for a little while.
>> Meg Metcalf: Stories do 
need villains, right?
They need all types of
characters. So I'm curious if I
could ask a little bit more
about the writing process.
How long did it take to write
this particular book?
>> Rose Szabo:
Ten years.
>> Meg Metcalf: 
Oh, my goodness.
>> Rose Szabo: I was--I was living 
in Richmond and I started getting this
little inkling of an idea for
this book.
And a friend of mine was going
to illustrate it as a comic.
And then he sort of fell away.
And I kept tinkering with it
and circling back to it and
putting it down and picking it
up again.
I feel like I write in these
sort of, like, almost like
sedimentary layers, like the
way that like dirt piles up.
Like, I'll write something and
then a little bit more of it
will develop and then a little
bit more after that.
And there were a lot of times
where I like, put this book
down and walked away because it
was like really difficult to
work on because I didn't feel
like I knew enough yet to say
the things that--to describe
the things that I was seeing
and feeling. So yeah, it took a
long time.
It's probably been through like
between eight and ten drafts.
I'm hoping I can get a little
bit faster as I get older
because this is--I'm just not
going to be able to produce at
scale here. [Laughter]
>> R.M Romero: When I started 
"The Ghosts of Rose Hill,"
it was really a scenario.
It wasn't actually a story.
I knew I wanted to write about
the Jewish cemetery work that I
do, and I thought: well, what
if there's this girl who was
working in the cemetery and she
meets a real ghost?
And that was it.
I had nothing else.
And then one day I was
browsing the "Folklore
Thursday" tag on Twitter and
someone had made a post about a
"wodnik," which is a river
spirit that keeps the souls of
the drowned in his teapot.
And I thought, okay, I've been
to Prague.
It's a very enchanted city
where you feel like you could
turn a corner and come across a
monster or a fairy tale
creature. I have a ghost, I
have a protagonist.
And it all came together really
well. But
because it was in verse and it
was the first time that I had
tried writing an entire story 
in verse, it took me much
longer than it usually
does to draft
the first draft. It probably
took me about six months.
Usually I can crank out the
first draft of something in
about a month and a half, but
that first draft is not good.
It's really me telling myself
the story. Usually it takes
about six months to edit it
afterwards, but this one was
particularly slow and
painstaking, and especially in
verse, where a verse novel is
only about 30 to 35 000 words.
But you have to make every
single one of
those words count.
>> Meg Metcalf:
Absolutely.
So I'm also curious--we talked
a little bit already about, you
know, the inspiration for
building worlds, but I'm
wondering what inspires you and
keeps you going while you're
writing, especially when you're
writing really difficult
characters, you know, what does
the self care process look like
for a writer, if there is one?
>> Rose Szabo:
Oh gosh.