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Hello, and good morning. How
are you doing. Hi, good morning,

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I'm great. Thanks so much for
having me. Congratulations on this book,

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because this right here is going to
be the summer read. And the

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reason why I feel that in my
soul is because you take your young readers

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somewhere, you allow them to tap
into their own imaginations, and more importantly,

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you introduce the library back to a
lot of people who don't know what

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a library is. Yes, I
love libraries. For me, the library

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was a sanctuary growing up. It
was both the physical space of it and

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also the access to knowledge that it
gave me. And you know, when

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I was trying to imagine a repository
of human knowledge four thousand years in the

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future, no matter how different it
seemed, you know, I mean,

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it has artificial intelligences that are like
gods, and it digs under the earth

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and tunnels. But because I knew
it was a repository of knowledge, I

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knew that it had to be fundamentally
a library. You were speaking the street

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in this because when you talk about
AIS and you talk about technology the future,

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that's where everybody is there are and
they're not living in this moment where

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where Apple's about ready to introduce a
new product. They want to know what

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I aies are and how is it
going to affect the way they read books

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as well as their own personal lives. Absolutely, And it's ironic because I

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started this book seven years ago when
boys Chat CHPT was very far from anybody's

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you know, ideas of the world. But I was still thinking about artificial

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intelligences and not you know, the
ones that are just going to like write

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our essays for us, but ones
that can genuinely interact with humans and genuinely

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give us different perspectives. So I
actually have a kind of more optimistic view

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of artificial intelligences, even though I
know that there's lots of evil insto which

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they can be put, you know. So that was what I ended up

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using in this novel was an idea
that artificial intelligence could actually be part of

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an ecosystem that we end up living
alongside and might fundamentally change human civilization,

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but for the better. I love
the way that you encore operated tunnels underneath

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the library because that, to me
is mystery, that the mystique of all

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of that. Because when I walk
into a library today, I always think

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that those behind the desk, they're
spies. They want to know what we're

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up to, but they want to
teach us their language. And where do

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they go when they take their breaks
into the tunnels? And that's I think,

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that's what I reason why why I
love Freed is that she went into

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the tunnels. Oh yes, Oh
my gosh, I love that. Like

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the romance of it. Now,
I totally felt that when I was when

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I was younger, I went I
grew up in Washington, DC, and

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I loved to go to the Jefferson
Reading Room with the Library of Congress.

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And I don't know if you've ever
been there, if you or if your

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listeners have, but it is it's
this monstrous, you know, space with

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these statues and like cupola and and
frescoes. I mean, you just kind

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of feel overwhelmed by it. But
what really got to me was that I

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knew that underneath my feet there were
just floors and floors and floors of books

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and then I could write a name
on a slip of paper and they would

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bring it up to me. But
I couldn't go down there, and I

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just long to go down into the
tunnels. And it's so true, because

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I mean, they would, they
would disappear for about ten or fifteen minutes,

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and then they would come back and
I would I would sit there at

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that table, going where did they
go? What? What? What was

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so important that they had to go
away for that long? When when you

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go went and went to the school
library, everything was always there, but

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not at the public It was just
real and it was and you wanted to

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know. You wanted to get down
there. And sometimes they would come up

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with a slip of paper and it
said, we can't give this you.

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Oh yeah, all I wanted to
do was go down there. Oh that's

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so true. That's that's where I
started buying books online. It's like,

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if I can't get it at the
library, I've got to find it somewhere.

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But then you then you pay an
astronomical price because you know, not

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everybody's got it exactly when you when
you write a book like this, I

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know it took seven years of your
life, but I also know, as

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as an author, when and where
a book hits you? What? Wow?

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How did it hit you? And
where were you? All right?

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Gotta be honest, here I was
in the shower. You know. Um

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was a bit of a cliche,
but I was. I was in a

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tower, and I just I was
editing a different book. I was editing

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my last thing. I don't know. I had no time at all.

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This is where books always get you. And I had this vision of a

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young woman who had left her home. I knew her home was called the

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Library. I knew it was in
many ways a wonderful place, but also

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a place that had severely disillusioned her, and that she was crossing a desert

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alone. And I knew she was
going across the desert to meet a god,

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and that God might kill her.
And so those were just the elements.

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I didn't know anything really about the
library. I didn't know anything about

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the god. I didn't know why
that desert was there. But Freda came

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straight to me, and that scene
was central, and that scene is in

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the book. Okay, okay,
now I used to you, said Freda.

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I called her Freda, so my
apology. Now, now let's go

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to a different name, because I
want to know how badly I'm going to

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pronounce it near guy, am I
saying it right? They're gooy, you're

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close, You're close. Listen.
This is a thing of fantasy novels.

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I fold it against no one like
you love, you have to make up

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all sorts of names, you know, I don't. I'm not going to

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call anyone well actually did I You
know, if it depends on where it's

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said. But if it's four thousand
years from the future, I'll bet they're

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off. All names are different.
But to put yourself in four thousand years

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in the future, I know what
it's like to step into the writing room.

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What happens when you have to come
back to this year? Did you

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have to go through any transitions?
Did you have to step outside and go

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for a walk through a force?
Because because I know what it's like to

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be on the radio in six different
markets and I never really left this city.

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It plays with a head and heart. Yes, yes, absolutely,

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and I love it in a lot
of ways. I love traveling. I

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mean, when I first started writing
for me, it was very much like

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I was between worlds. I didn't
really, you know, understand where I

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was, and I wanted to get
away, you know, and I wanted

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to I wanted to imagine something different. And and now I'm very different circumstances.

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I actually moved to Mexico nine years
ago and I live in Wahaka now,

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and so I'll lot of us.
Also for me was that I go

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into the future and there's all of
these, you know, different ways of

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seeing the world, and I come
back to my president. I present was

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still I was speaking of different language, I'm eating different food, I am

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learning entirely different ways of experiencing and
interacting with the world, you know.

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So in a lot of ways,
I wasn't coming back to something that I

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felt was humdrum, you know.
I was coming back to something that was

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also an adventure and very different,
and that was really stimulating. It was

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also kind of exhausting sometimes, you
know, because I was I was at

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that point really learning Spanish. I'm
pretty fluent in it now, you know.

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So, so it was it was
a lot of different experiences. But

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I feel like that really helped me
get into the future because I understood that

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the future did not have to look
the way I grew up. I didn't

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have to look like something that was
familiar to me. It could look very

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different. I can just see a
YA reader as well as a secret writer

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in their bedroom, hearing what you
just shared, their and their hearts going

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I want to do this. I
love going places with other people's words,

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but I want to create my own
words. And to me, that's what

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I love about talking with why a
authors is the fact that you are the

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seed you're planting inside an open field. Oh and I'm so grateful to be

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able to do that. I mean
for me, for me, My goal

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always in writing is to be able
to open up spaces to give room to

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young readers and especially young writers who, like I was, who just wanted

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to be able to see themselves in
the future, in fantasy, in the

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world. And I really wanted to
create a narrative space that's big enough for

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young readers to be able to imagine
something genuinely different. I wanted to support

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young people's imaginations. I think that's
that's more important now than ever, you

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know, with all these attacks on
libraries, on learning, on knowledge,

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you know, and I just to
me, the idea that any young reader

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could listen to me or read this
novel and feel empowered and aspired to create

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something is the best thing it could
have possibly happened. A lot of readers

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don't understand that you and I,
as we put words on a page,

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we hear the voices of each one
of these characters. What was the inspiration

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between all of these characters coming together
as one because you you must have thought

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about somebody's voice, because it would
it would really put into your you know,

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your commas and your quotations and the
way it was played out. Yeah.

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You know, it's funny because I
do have the characterist voices in my

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head, but they they come out
in ways where I have to sometimes say

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it out loud. I sometimes I
hear it on the page and I and

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I realize that there's a snap,
and that snap makes me hear the character,

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you know. But sometimes I'll write
a draft and I guess, like

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a character isn't hitting, you know, and I'll have to go back and

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eventually, eventually suddenly it'll it'll come
together. And with Great I had her

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voice immediately, you know, I
had to Namor in the War God's voice

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immediately. But there are some characters
like Joshua, who I had to go

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back and once I once I had
it, it was like, oh,

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yeah, there he is. But
it was interesting because you know, I

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was like, I'm trying to like
tune the diet. I couldn't quite get

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their voices right for a long time, you know, speaking of going back

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with all those tunnels, underneath that
library. This, this is not over.

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This is not over. Oh absolutely
not. It's there's there's so much

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more to come. There's like the
four human systems, there's all of the

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gods that there's so much more to
explore. I mean, and my world

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building has just exploded. I mean
I have like reams more for sure.

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I'm shocked that Disney has not reached
out to you yet or even Universal because

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I mean, everything that you've got
here is a series. I mean,

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this, this right here is what
what everybody's watching on TV two when it

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comes to binge watching, Oh well, you know finger Cross because I'm concerned,

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all right, yeah, because you
have set your imagination on fire here

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and Pete when they pick up this
book this summer, the library Broken Worlds,

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they're there, you know, they're
they're gonna see inside their imaginations,

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but they're gonna want to see actual
moving pictures in front of them. Yes,

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yes, absolutely, And I think
you know the wonderful interplay between between

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what you see in your head and
what you end up seeing on the screen

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and all of that it's really fun
too. Wow, where can people find

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out more about you and give you
some love? I am on Twitter and

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Instagram as Eliah DJU and online at
Eliah don Johnson dot com and you can

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find out all sorts of things about
me and follow me on subtack and read

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my book. You've got to come
back to this show anytime in the future.

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I mean, the door is always
going to be open for you.

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I love your passion and I really
feel that listeners as well as readers really

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are going to pick up on that
and move it forward. Oh, thank

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you so much. This is a
delight. Well you be brilliant today.

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Okay, yes, thank you