Hey fam, Hello Sunshine. Today, on the bright side, we're talking alter egos, abandoning, limiting beliefs, and girlhood angst with Alexin Feral Fallmuth. She's the author of Twelfth Night, the summer young adult pick for Reese's Book Club. It's Thursday, July eleventh. I'm Danielle Robe.
And I'm Simone Boyce. This is the bright side from Hello Sunshine. Danielle, our guest today, exemplifies what is possible when you stop caring about what others think, You let go of those limiting beliefs, and you just pursue that passion.
Honey. Yes. Alexin Feral Falmouth is a New York Times bestselling author, and her latest book, Twelfth Night, is the summer young adult pick for Reese's Book Club, and her path towards success didn't start with the makings of a happy ending. So. She is the daughter of a Filipino immigrant, and Alexin has said that writing wasn't something her parents considered a quote unquote responsible career choice, So instead of pursuing writing at a young age, Alexin earned her master's
degree in urban planning. Then she tried to stint In law school and worked in a public defender's office. She even pursued a career in real estate, but despite doing the responsible thing, Alexin never quite found fulfillment.
Alexin said that she'd turned to writing during challenging times because it became this cathartic exercise that helped her process whatever she was going through. So she discovered fan fiction, and she became inspired and started writing her own fan fiction, even self publishing it on the Internet, and then ultimately she became the New York Times bestselling author of a book called Atlas six.
And here's where there's a bit of a twist in her story. Alexin didn't want to publish under her real name because she still had some mixed feelings and she didn't want her mom to know that she was writing, so she wrote under a pen name. Most of her fans knew her as her alter ego, Olive Blake.
And Olive Blake became this huge success in the fantasy novel space. But Alexine had the urge to try her hand at a ya novel, and so, for the very first time, she bet on her own name, and she did so confidently. That novel my mechanical romance became a huge success, and it led to another YA novel, Twelfth Night, the Summer YA pick for Reese's Book Club. It's loosely inspired by the famous play by William Shakespeare of the same name, and maybe even a little of that Amanda
Bynd's movie She's the Man Today. She owns her voice and has the best of both worlds. She continues to write for adults under the pen name Olivi Blake, and then she writes for the young adult genre under her actual name Alexin Ferrel Falmouth.
So I have a little bit of a confession. I love YA novels. I think they're so fun to read. People always talk about like a fun summer beach read. I love a YA summer beach read. So I really enjoyed reading this book. And Alexine has this sociological perspective, and so when she takes you through these characters' interactions,
it feels like there's actually more depth to it. You're sort of learning You're not just learning about them, but you're learning about yourself as you're reading this book and kind of taking yourself back to your teenage girl years. And she also flips some traditional gender norms on their head, which is really fun to read. I'm a real Alexine fan, so I'm really excited that she's here with us today. Let's bring her in. Alexine, Welcome to the bright Side.
Oh, thank you so much. I'm so excited to be.
Here, Alexine. I think you're our first author here in person. We're so happy to.
Have you, so happy to be here.
So yeah, I think this is the first Oh no, wait, sorry, it's the second time I've done a podcast recording in person. But you know, second the best. As they say on the playgrounds, Alexiine, you've been largely known as Olivi Blake for years.
Yes, and I am so intrigued into alter egos, Like I feel like this is something that I need in my life. But I know that there's a really personal story behind this for you. So where did the need to create an alter ego come from?
Everything I bought my writing career is pretty much an accident. The only thing I did on purpose was the writing. I dropped out of law school and didn't know what I wanted to do with my life and was just sort of going from job to job for a while. Had some you know, menty ills to handle, and was having a particularly insomniatic week when I discovered fan fiction, and so I was like, well, this is something I can do. I can fill the nights with writing fan fiction.
But I want to try my hand at writing erotica. I want to write sex. I don't want my mother to find it. So I just pulled up a name generator. The first name that came up was Olivi Blake, and I was like, all right, cool, that's my user name.
No way, it came from a name generator.
Oh yes, so yeah, and then and I wrote fan fiction for a while, decided like this is I feel best when I am being creative. But I think I'm the daughter of an immigrant, so a practical career was like always the only thing on the table, Like artistic pursuits were a thing you did for fun and not a real possibility. So like, this is something I could only have done later in life, after I had failed at other things. And yeah, and but once I decided, it was like, oh, this is when you know, I
feel the most mentally healthy. This is when my brain is at its best and I feel most like alive this way, doing this channeling my energy into this. I decided that I wanted to be traditionally published, but that's difficult. It's a long road, and I would write ideas that weren't particularly marketable. The best example I have for this is my first book was Masters of Death. So I self published it because I had my fan fiction audience, and I made it as the price as low as
I possibly could. It was basically just the price of print it. Anytime I had an idea that didn't feel right for the market, I would self publish it just to have the story be alive, I think, which comes from it. Those are like fandom instincts. It's just like I have a story, maybe someone will want it. And then finally I saw some success with my Mechanical Romance, which is my first YA rom com.
It was Girls in Stem.
It was something that was hot YA like specifically rom coms were very hot at the time. It was like once I had it, I was like, oh, this is something that like this I should direct to traditional publishing. I intended to keep myself published works up and then traditionally published under my real name because I was like, well, I guess like the alter ego Olive is already very well established, and so since I'm doing this for a
different age group, I guess I'll use my name. Although I was just joking earlier that I would have happily invented another pseudonym. I'm totally fine having like my private life be one thing and then I just like put on the olive hat.
It's like a persona.
But yeah, your Sasha Fearce moment.
Yes, yeah, yeah, I'm not sure which one is the Sasha fears Every time I do this, my therapist is like, please stop to associating, like she's not a different person from you. But but actually to that point, is it important that she is kind of is there a freedom in that? Yeah, I mean, like I said, it's like it's like the olive hat. It's something that I turn on, like when we're doing stuff like this. I don't want to think it's like disappearing into a brand or something.
But the all of the works and the themes that I deal with when I'm being all of the are different. There's a lot of political rage, there's a lot of interpersonal conflict, gray morality, and then the stuff I write as a leccine is more like what do I wish I had known when I was a teenage girl. What are the tools that I have in my toolbox now that I'm theoretically a mature adult that I would have wonted at this age.
Well, it's so interesting that you say that, because your book dedications are written to versions of your past self, and so what is the mission?
Yeah?
Definitely, so I was a teenager in the in the two thousands, and you know, not to say that any times are more or less misogynistic, but it was definitely a different flavor of misogyny at the time. Like the Ya protagonist was the not like other girls girl, and you know, you'd get one quote unquote strong female character and then a full cast of dynamic, diverse men. The goal, I think was to be like the most desirable woman or the most in the guy's capable, the guy's girl, right, the cool girl.
Yeah, she looked great in a bikini, but also drank so much beer. We didn't know how those two things were.
That character was very alive in that era, you know, and we were all trying to be her and it was such a waste of time. And I think, like that's something that I didn't understand as a teenage girl that of course there are going to be so many women you don't get along with. And that's actually something I like to write into my books, is like, sometimes it's just like you and this girl are not going
to get along. And that's fine, because the spectrum of what it is to be a woman and to grow into womanhood is very different for everyone, and it should appear different on the page. But anyway, so the just the idea of if I could tell my past self, power is not desirability. Power is not being appealing, especially to men. Power is not making yourself palatable. Power is you know, what you gain from the collective and the relationships you have with other people, and that you are
stronger with these other women. This real fallacy of scarcity that I think as women, we're taught that there are just limited resources for us. There are only so many women who can succeed, and there's only so many good men in the world, and we're all competing for them, you know, And that was just such a myth, and so I try to like de escalate that myth and fiction just to be like, you know what, you don't have to believe that you don't have to buy into
that myth. There are resources for everyone. You don't have to belong in a certain place or have to be a certain way.
I actually think stories of fiction like that are equally as powerful as nonfictional story.
Absolutely, I think, and especially at this age, because the teen years are about trying to fit in for safety, like for social safety. You understand how to fit in with other people, and so it's not like the best time to learn about individuality, but I think it is a good time to be exposed to other perspectives and to understand what it feels like to empathize with other people who have different views, and like that's something specifically for the teen years, that empathy is so important.
Alexien, you are exposing so many people to your own experience with mental health, and I think a lot of people can feel seen through the way that you've talked about your bipolar disorder diagnosis. You've also mentioned that that actually played a role in your evolution as an author. How did that diagnosis help you discover your best brain?
The process of dropping out of law schools is a really interesting one because it's related to my mental illness, but not in the way that it sounds It's not like I was so ill i had to leave. It's more like, once I took steps toward being healthy, I realize that a lot of the coping mechanisms I had for getting myself through a life that I didn't love, like I said, started to see them as just coping mechanisms.
And I think I started to really look at my life and realize that I could be happier, that I almost had a responsibility to be happier. At that point, I had fallen in love and I was with the man that I was going to marry and realized that, you know, his happiness was also it was important to me, and it was built into my happiness, and it was like I could make choices that could lead me down
a different path than this. Like suddenly I can see how many paths there are, and the path that I'm on is not a good one.
Going down this path is going to get uglier for me.
Did you have a diagnosis as a kid or is it something no?
Bipolar starts to show around like eighteen or something, And certainly in my late teens, I knew that something was wrong, and I think I was self medicating in different ways and just in a way that I knew wasn't healthy, but it wasn't important for me to be healthy. I make a lot of jokes about how Viy in Twelfth Night is an unlikable female character because I saw myself
as an unlikable female character. That I had the sense that other people didn't understand me, or that my sincerity, my desire to be authentic, was not coming across in a way that other people understood or sympathized with, And so I totally put on this whole like, fine, make me your villain.
You think I'm a bitch, I'll be a bit.
You took on the persona yeah, and just.
Was quite isolated I think, Which is not to say that I didn't have relationships. I just didn't take them as seriously as I could. I never really thought I deserved them. Sorry, I wasn't able to make my therapy appointment today, so I feel like I'm having it right now.
I hope you guys are cool with that.
No, I think this is so important.
It's interesting that you brought up this idea that your main character, Viola could be deemed as unlikable because in the acknowledgments, you say if you're the kind of person who feels angry all the time but doesn't feel like you're allowed to be. I see you. Why was it important for you to write that, to vocalize that.
This book is definitely about anger and about who's allowed to feel it. How many women, how many young girls become aware that their anger is not acceptable, that there is no way to remain dignified in anger, and they're not allowed to be undignified because the moment.
You do, you lose your credibility.
And so to have that, for Vie to be a woman who's told to smile, who needs to be tamed,
things that I had heard growing up. And then also to have Jack, who's based on my best friend who I also met in high school, who's he's half black, and so he has the cariacture of the angry black man that he also, like, can't become angry, he cannot engage his anger in a safe way, and for that to be so hard because he's seventeen years old and the book is based on it's a fictionalized version of where I grew up, which was a predominantly white community
at the time, it's not really anymore, and that that feeling of otherness that these two characters share, and little microaggressions, these little things that like I can't put them into words because they're not big enough on their own, and so this feeling of I'm angry all the time, but not about anything that I can say, because once you start to like pick apart your feelings and rationalize them, it's easy for people to argue with them. I think this is the problem with a lot of politics and
a lot of just the sociolitical context. It's like, if you really get into the details, someone will find a way to delegitimize what you're saying. Yes, and so for them to just be like, well, this is my life and this is how I've come to deal with it. One is like she makes herself a villain and he is a total people pleaser, And you know, they see each other and almost admire what the other person can do that they feel they can't.
Alexi and we need to take a quick break, but when we come back, we want to talk all about Shakespeare and the power of adaptation.
Don't go anywhere, okay, Alexin you call your latest book a remix of the William Shakespeare play twelfth Night. I don't know about you, but I grew up watching She's the Man, which stars Amanda Bynes and Channing Tatum, who was my first crush, and that movie was also based on the William Shakespeare play. How did Shakespeare influence you? And this book?
I love Shakespeare.
I read his works and I read Twelfth Night when I was in high school and just loved it. And I don't know why, it's just it's my favorite play. I think the silliness, the absurdity that is captured by Shakespeare is so brilliant to me. I really think of Shakespeare as someone who, even though we treat him as if he's very highbrow and the work is very you know, it's English literature, but it was written for the masses,
you know. It took advantage of tropes that were as popular then as they are now, and the emotions are just so big and loud, and it's so well suited to hi school.
It really is.
I feel the same way about Jane Austen too. I feel that Jane Austen and William Shakespeare really understood the absurdity of love and that just the silliness of being alive and the pitfalls of humanity and how it's so like beautiful and wonderful and stupid, Like there's a real presence of how stupid love can be in Shakespeare's works. That's like definitely not there. And Edith Wharton, like Edith Wharton is no, Well.
How did you want to make this version unique to you?
I love a little absurd, like I like the flavor of the absurd, and so that was definitely something I wanted to bring into it, Like a lot of the conversations that VI has with her twin brother Bash, like, that's very like this real comedy of errors vibe that that's to me, that's the Shakespearean aspect. That's like, here's this really silly thing happening, and there's a lot of jokes. And what I did not want to do was mimic beat for beat the play. So so I did not
reread Twelfth Night before I wrote this. I was relying on my memory of reading it in high school. And I did not rewatch She's the Man either, But I did rewatch ten things I Hate about you many times.
Well, that's the power of adaptation and authors like you feeling empowered to put your own unique voice into such a classic work like this, and I think there's no better way for us to understand exactly how you infused your voice into this than to have you read for us. Would you set up the scene?
Yes?
Yeah, I'm excited to read this particular scene because it's what I would have chosen to So I like that we're in agreement. So this is in chapter three, and basically VI is a huge gamer. She loves what is essentially dungeons and Dragons, and she plays this game Twelfth Night that is kind of, you know, my little play on World of Warcraft and like the Witcher. So she has just had an altercation with her group of friends
who are really not open to her ideas. It's a group of mostly boys and her one female friend, and they've had an argument.
She's in a really bad mood.
She's really upset that they don't her ideas, and so she's going to do what is her favorite hobby, her her soothing emotional support hobby, which is playing the MMORPG Twelfth Night. I select my character and queue up for combat mode. Boys seriously think the girls only want romance and ball gowns and puppies, which is proof they don't understand the first thing about actually being a girl. I play this game because in the real world I'm stressed or angry, and don't I have good reason to be.
When I first started playing mmoorpgs, I used to use a headset. I don't anymore. You know why, because when boys hear a girl's voice, they either come for you unnecessarily, thinking you'll be easy prey, or they think everything you say is flirting. Being nice to a geek while being visibly female is the kiss of death. Do you know how many times I've gotten vulgar messages or explicit pictures? And if I say no? Do you know how many
times I've been called a bitch? Not that all guys are awful, but the awful ones are in possible to escape and certainly impossible to tell at first glance, Which is why I play under the user named Cesario and my character you guessed it modeled after Cesario.
On War of Thorns.
Tough, capable, muscular, sharp, the best blade in any given arena, and the most tactical person in the field. Quads the size of pillars, a man with everything the boys want to be and have and do, and guess what everything I want too, because, believe it or not, not every girl wants to be a princess, or a healer, or some big chested daydream who only plays to lose. I may like girly things on occasion, but I'm not just here for people to look at. I don't want to
be considered beautiful without being seen as capable too. It's not that I don't feel at home in my body periods and awkward growth spurts aside. I don't have a problem with the form I take, but if I look like Cesario in real life, I'd have no reason not to be quest Master for the game I designed. Nobody would question my competency. No one would think they deserved a date with me just because they did one nice thing.
Jack Orsino wouldn't be able to waltz around school like he owns it just because everyone forgives him his every personality flaw whenever he smiles or catches a ball. And most of all, Antonio wouldn't be able to say things like it's not personal whenever the boys gang up on me. I wish it were personal. I wish they could hate me for normal reasons, like my personality instead of just looking at me and seeing long hair and boobs and deciding that's enough to validate all of their presumptions. So
of course I'm angry. I'm angry all the time, from the betrayals of my government to the hypocrisies of my peers. It seems like the awfulness never rests, and neither can I. No matter how many combat advantages I give Astria starscream, She'll never be taken seriously. No matter how smart I am or how hard I work, my acceptance is always conditional. And it's not just me. I don't know how any girl can exist in the world without being perpetually furious.
But once I.
Sign on as Cesario, my chat is instantly filled with dudes who want me to queue up for their battle campaigns. So in at least one place, I'm valuable. In at least one world, I'm safe.
Wow, you captured girlhood, angst so well, all the things I felt and didn't have words for in high school.
Yeah, and I don't think I really understood why I was so mad either. Like, it's nice to revisit this with the words, hopefully the right words.
Is it healing for you?
It is? Yeah?
When I wrote my first ya, I was like, I'm good. I think I solved all my think I solved all my inner child problems. But my mechanical romance, like by necessity, the main character is very go with the flow, like the whole thing. The whole plot kind of revolves around her falling into robotics, which is not what I was like at all. I was super hungry and very ambitious and very disliked and so it was nice to write
a character like VI. And one question I get a lot from promoting this book is like, like, how did you feel about crafting this unlikable girl? Did you ever feel like you had made her too unlikable? And it was like no, I just didn't worry about this, so it was very freein.
That's cool. Well, we're not the only ones with questions for you, Alexia. We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, we're finding out about Alexin's future as an author. We're back with author Alexin Feral Fall.
Move.
Okay, we have some listener questions lined up for you, Alexin.
Oh Boy.
First up, a question about your younger self, which we touched on earlier.
Actually, Hi, I'm a Manza, and I'm from Pennsylvania, and what I love most about your writing is, in a lot of ways, they make me feel us alone. I actually heavily related to Jack as a character. When I was a teenager, I also had an injury that made me have to quit my sport, and similarly to Jack,
I felt very lost and very confused. And I think this story and the way that it exists, I wish I would have had it when I was younger, because it might have saved me that emotional turmoil that I experienced. I think being able to read it would have really taught me that lesson of like it's okay to have other paths and other experiences. And this all kind of ties into my question of what's the biggest lessons you've learned as an adult that you wish you would have known when you were a teenager.
Well, thank you, Amanda, big question. Yeah, I have to sit with that for a second, So I did. I mentioned that Jack's character is based on my best friend David, who is like the perhaps second most important relationship in my life, second only to my husband, who is the other inspiration for Jack. Because my husband was a running back as well, and I don't think you can write a truly feminist narrative if you don't also provide a broad spectrum of masculinity and what masculine is can be.
The argument that VI and Antonia have is one that I think is a really valid and very common one that there are, like, you know, kind of these are two sides of the coin in terms of how do you exist as a woman knowing how other people are going to see you that, if you're kind of forced to see yourself through this lens of people who will never respect you, how do you address it? And you can do what VI does and make everyone an enemy, or you can do what Antonio does, and neither of
these are the correct approach. But what Antonia does is just like try to keep the peace right. And she kind of falls into that category of something that I felt was very common with my peers when I was a teenage girl, of just like, well, if the boys like you, then that'll make things.
Easier for you.
If they accept you, even if they accept you conditionally, even if they accept you based on your looks or the fact that you always agree with them, it's worth doing. And so I think she that conflict between them is important for multiple reasons. One because Antonia sees that she's a little bit wrong in a way that makes I think VI make a little more sense to her. And then also VI gets the experience of, like, you don't
have to just cut people off all the time. I didn't want to soften VIY, but you don't always have to act like people want you to fail, or that you're performing for someone who doesn't believe you should succeed. That there are some people in your life you can have a disagreement with, but they still love you, they'll still forgive you, and it's still a relationship worth having. So there's a lot of layers to that particular argument.
Yeah, I wish I had read this book when I was a teenager. It would have been so helpful to me. I just love that you're reminding women that we can be beautiful and capable at the same time, and that our rage is justified and that doesn't mean that we are not good humans. I mean, rage is something that can be a solution in a lot of ways, and can it can also reveal our deepest desires. So I just love all of these messages you packed into this book.
So meaty and it's so meaningful. And I think our next listener also really connected with one of VI's struggles in the book. So let's listen.
Hi, Alexiing, This is Julie from Florida. I love your work and especially the characters you've written. In twelfth nine, I felt like I could really relate to Jack as he struggled to accept himself as a gamer. Ever since I was a little kid, I've been that nerdy girl who's way too into books and fandoms, and now more recently, i'm that homeschool lady because I gave up my job to educate my daughters. And I love both of these things about myself, but I feel like when other people
find out about them, they just see a stereotype. I really appreciated how Viola was so confident in just being herself, but even she had to play under a fake name in order to not be hindered in the game. I'm wondering if you've ever felt limited by other people's perceptions of you or boxed in by your interests, tour abilities, and if so, how did you overcome that and feel free to just be yourself.
Wow?
Thank you, Julie. These are not softball questions.
We read through softball here, but we have very smart women listen.
Yeah, definitely.
One of the things I like about myself is that I'm not really a judgmental person, and I appreciate that people who love me feel that way about me too, And so I think that, certainly I know what it's like to feel that you are being judged or that you do have been placed in a box by other people.
I think, ironically, this is happening to me most now because some people view me as like a book talk author, so I understand the feeling, and part of what I wanted to write into this book is this sense that you don't have to decide who you are. Certainly, I did keep fan fiction a secret for a long time, mostly because I didn't know how to talk about it. And I also I didn't talk about mental illness, for example.
And I think the more I talk about it, the more it becomes acceptable to talk about and not just me obviously, but you know, I think the more open we are about our experiences and the choices we make and not equivocating and not making excuses for why we love what we love, it just becomes more acceptable.
For other people to love those things.
And I mentioned earlier about the idea that real power is something you have as a collective.
It's something that we share.
Then, you know, the more that we are open about the passions that we have in following the things that we love, the better things are for everyone. It means that one more person can feel like they're not alone.
Power is something we share. I really like that. Okay, this last one, it's about Alexine's future as an author.
Hi, Lexine, This is Jordan from Pennsylvania. Your books really reflect on many different issues in our society. Growing up, I found a lot of fulfillment in community, in reading and writing fan fiction, and I actually read some of your fan fictions that you published as All of the Bleak. I know that you recently have become traditionally published and you have another book published under the name All of
the coming out in the fall. Have you found fulfillment using your real name for publishing or do you think that all of you Blake is always going to exist?
Great question?
Yeah, So the separation is that all of you Blake always writes for adults and Alexine, for Fulmuth, always writes for teenagers. Because for me coming into publishing being a woman, being a woman period, but also being a woman of color, people look at me and they're like, oh, you write for children, right. So the reason I make this separation is is so that you know, when you pick up an ol of You book, I wrote it with an
adult audience in mind. If you pick up on a Lexine book, I wrote it with a teenage audience in mind. And not everybody gets that, but it helps me to know that, Like I don't have to say, oh, well, sometimes I think it's just confusing to people. And for me it's more like it's not like teens couldn't read all of these stuff, or that adults couldn't read Elexceine stuff. It's more like who did I hold in my head as the audience? And yeah, just different themes. So all
of you will always exist. And so to me, it's having the public persona and being my private self. It does feel like two separate things. If anything, I'm not I'm not sure if I would do more as myself, which is a weird thing to say.
I am always myself.
In case my therapist is listening, I promise you I'm not associating but yeah, like I am always being I'm always being authentic about when I talk about my life or whatever.
It's just kind of who am I talking to? With which hat on?
I really I don't mean to keep bringing it back, but it really sounds like Sasha Fears like.
It's just like when you're on the stage, every different here you go, yes, yeah, just the performance.
Seems like you've got the best of both worlds. At least.
I thank you, I do, It's true.
Thank you so much for being here today, Alexin. You made the bright Side extra sunny and extra interesting. You're giving me a lot to think about.
Oh, thank you, Thank you so much, Alexiin.
Thank you so much for having me. It was so nice to be here.
Alexin Ferrell Fallmouth is the author of Twelfth Night, the Summer Ya pick for Reese's book Club.
That's it for today's show. Thank you to Amanda, Julie and Jordan. You all had some really thoughtful questions. And stay tuned because later this month we're talking with j Courtney Sullivan, the author of the July pick for Reese's book Club. It's called The Cliffs. And if you have a question and you want to be featured on the show. Send it to us at hello at the brightside dot com.
Tomorrow we're popping off with TV hosts and actor Julisa Bermudez will be keikying all about this week's biggest pop culture stories. You don't want to miss it. See you tomorrow, fam, and keep looking on the bright side.