This spring, Aubrey Ernst, Elizabeth Bundenthal and Natalie Arnold from Tippecanoe High School had the exciting opportunity to interview Lily Brooks-Dalton, author of The Light Pirate, a novel that imagines a future shaped by climate change and hope. The Light Pirate was the runner-up for the 2023 Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and the students were eager to learn more about the inspiration behind the acclaimed novel and the author who created it.
Lily Brooks-Dalton: I think that all of my novels are concerned with civilization, the relationship between people and land, with our place in history, both how we're occupying it now, how we'll be remembered, how think about the people who have come before us. Just like our lineage in the sense of civilization, I think is something that ties all the together.
Natalie Arnold: Everyone has different reactions. So I was wondering if there was a particular reaction that you have come across and have been surprised to the reaction.
Brooks-Dalton: I hear from a lot of people who are like, I don't usually read this kind of book or like I don't like post-apocalyptic fiction. I kind of picked this up by accident and was surprised that I really liked it. I guess because I like to read all kinds of books and I feel like that's important to me to dabble in all the different genres, even genres that I don't write in. For me, it's really just like — make it good.
Aubrey Ernst: When you get an idea for a story, how do you explore that idea to see if you want to turn it into a story or a full-length novel or if you just want to put it aside in a little box and save it for later?
Brooks-Dalton: If I get an idea, I have like a place in my phone and my notes app where I just write them all down and some of them just sit there forever, being some small fragment. I think if it starts to grow, that's how I know it's gaining some traction in my imagination. Yeah, it's just a matter of sensing into how big the idea can be, how many moving parts it has. So, you know, I look back at that notes app and some of the things I've written down to me seem really nonsensical now. It's like, why did I feel compelled to write that down? And some of them I'm like, oh, there's a whole universe inside that little note that I made.
Elizabeth Bundenthal: Based on all the research you've conducted and all the things you've learned about the environment, is there something that you would wanna tell the audience that is reassuring and true?
Brooks-Dalton: Your questions are hard. Here's something! I think it's really easy to feel like the world is ending. And I think that's where a lot of my fiction comes from, is this feeling like we are on the precipice as a culture, as a civilization. And I guess the thing that is both reassuring and true would be that we have been here before. We have felt this a lot over the course of history. This feeling of like, we don't know what comes after this. Like, what could possibly come next? That's it. That's what it is to be in a quickly evolving society. I don't know how reassuring that is, but I think that is true. And so far, the world has continued. And so I think there's always a moment after this one, even when it feels like, oh my God, this might be the last one.
Elizabeth Bundenthal: Thank you for your time.
Special thanks to Amy Noel, Eric Knapp, and Lisa Santucci for helping bring this project to life. WYSO Youth Radio is made possible with support from the Ohio Arts Council and is produced right here at WYSO and The Eichelberger Center for Community Voices.
