S6 EP19: Lydia Kang Interview

Rebellion's Build-Home Hook. And welcome to another episode of Radio Rebellion Star Wars podcast. I'm your host, Alberto Calderon, and it's back this week. He's our co-host, Oti, Oti Wanquen, all with thanks for joining us from your trip to Mexico.

But it doesn't matter. We have a very special guest down here. Thanks for joining us. Author of Cataclysm, Lydia Kang.

Lydia, we talked a little bit before we started. We're so excited to have you here. Thank you again for being here in the Rebellion with us late. Oh my gosh, thank you so much for having me today.

Good to be here. Yeah, I mean, we're excited, very excited. Thank you for your service. You're our first Star Wars creative out there that we had on the show officially.

So thank you. So huge honor for us. Oh, you're welcome. And don't be scared.

I won't bite your head off. We're going to have fun. It's going to be great. Yeah, no level out there today.

Oti, how you doing? You were in Mexico last week. We haven't talked about Vision Season 2, but how you doing, Oti? Oh my God.

Vision. Oh my God. I'm going fine. I was in Mexico.

It was a ton of fun. It was a very, very good wedding and excited to be here talking about Cataclysm. Cataclysm, man. That's a very important book and a great book in the High Republic Phase 2.

And who will better? To have a review of the, a review of Cataclysm with the author right here. But Lydia, thanks for being here before we start. Again, happy Mother's Day tomorrow to all the mothers out there that might be listening to us, either today, tomorrow or whenever.

Thanks for joining us. And it's YouTube. So you gotta say, make sure that you like this video. Comment down below if you're watching this later on the replay.

Make sure you subscribe to our channel. And real quick, you know, we go live every Saturday, we're next week. We're going to have a special episode on Wednesday at 6 p.m. A senior editor of Random House will be with us.

Tom Holler will also be joining us next week. That's going to be a great show also. I'm not sure if we're having a show then on Saturday next week or if that's our only one. I don't know.

Wait, why are you being a jerk? Come on. Okay, we'll have a show also Saturday. Alright, before we start, who's out there in the chat?

We have Buck. He's excited to be here because he finished Cataclysm 15 minutes ago. It was 15 minutes ago. We'll start.

We'll have Mal as always. Hi, Primo. Thank you. Alright, so let's get on it.

If you guys are ready, I'm not ready. Let's talk Star Wars. And like we said, it's all about, I guess, Lydia Kang, author of the High Republic Cataclysm that came out the heels of Convergence, basically, and also Battle of Jeda. But Lydia, since it's your first time here, and every time we have new guests, we want to know what their Star Wars story is, how they became a fan of Star Wars, what's kind of your story or your history with this franchise?

How did you became a fan of it to then kind of lead you to write a book about it? And hopefully, I'll be back in a few minutes. Sure. So, wow, I grew up with Star Wars.

It was, I watched the first movie when I was really young. I think I was like six years old. And as the movie came out, they were just like a huge phenomena in my childhood life. And once the original trilogy was out, they would get replayed over and over again on television.

And so, anytime they were on, it was what we were watching. And so, I watched it pretty much countless times. We didn't have tapes of it or recordings of it or anything, but like, anytime was on television, we were watching it. So, every time I lost track of how many times I watched the original trilogy.

And then they just sort of, you know, they're just part of, I feel like it's a very rare person who lives, you know, at least in the United States where Star Wars isn't somehow like part of the culture in their lives. Like, it's just, it's stuff you say you made a force to be with you and, you know, enjoying May the 4th, like the actual day. And people wear T-shirts and getting excited about new movies and stuff. So, it's just always been the background in my life just since I was a really, really young child.

It's interesting how nowadays people who are younger than I am, like much younger, they have to choose to enter into like Star Wars universe. You know, like, how are they going to do it? Like, for my kids, they were watching the Clone Wars, right? So, that was their entrance into the Star Wars universe.

It wasn't just like, it wasn't necessarily the original trilogy. So, but for me it was always there, just always. Yeah, I understand exactly what you're saying. Also, Star Wars has always been in my life.

I cannot remember how it started, but I can really point to it. And it's always been there, but same thing for my kids. If they watched me or see them watching Star Wars movie or TV show, then they'll kind of join in. Like for my daughter, it was Rebels.

When I was rewatching Rebels, she kind of started watching everything. Then I couldn't watch a single episode if she wasn't there. But I know, all day for you, your Star Wars experience was a little bit different. It started with the prequels.

I can't know. Yeah, for me it's weird because I'm a prequel kid, but I was a kid when the 95 really. So, I remember seeing the original trilogy first. Yeah.

So, Lydia, one of the things we were talking about before we started was when you're writing a book and just making sure you connect with all the fans. But sometimes something that we hear in social media, there's a lot of times, not just for book writers, but for directors, movies, scripts, all that. How they should try not to alienate fans or write what the fans want. But also being an artist, being able to tell your own stories, the way that you want to.

How do you balance that wanting to keep the fans or writing what you think the fans might want to? But at the same time, making sure that it's your story and your voice out there. That's a really good question. I think for me, being that this was the first time I was going to be writing a full-length novel in the Star Wars universe.

I haven't read as extensively in the extended universe. I haven't watched every single animation streaming, everything that's out there. I've seen a lot of it, but I haven't seen all of it. In some ways, what I was trying to stick to was the stuff that I really enjoyed as a fan.

If you look back to the original trilogy, the prequel trilogy, pretty much everything. There are a couple of really strong themes that are always there. Those are the things that speak to me. It's the reason why I probably Star Wars is so popular.

It's the constant battle between goodness and evil. It's occasionally a little bit of romantic tension. It's humor. There's always a little bit of humor in there.

It doesn't overwhelm the story, but there's enough of that balance in there. I think in a lot of cases, Marvel really did that as well in some of their movies. That balance of tension, of really life-threatening issues, but that occasional spark of funny things and interesting droids. It's what I wanted to have.

As I was writing it, I was writing as a fan. What I find to seem really funny, what I find to seem really gut-wrenching. I followed that instinct a lot. I also just knew that the fans were going to expect a lot.

Everyone out there has sets a very high bar for the stories that they expect from Star Wars. I knew that I was going to have to try really hard to write a book that was worthy of them. I kept that in mind the whole time. I don't think anybody does this, but I could imagine somebody might think, oh, I have a book deal.

No matter what I write, it's going to get likes. I don't know anybody who actually does this, but I can imagine somebody might dial it in. I remember thinking, no, I have a lot at stake here. It's my reputation and the fans.

This book has to tie up a lot of different things in Phase 2 and launch so that we can get ready for things happening in Phase 3. That took it pretty seriously, and it was really stressful. It was very stressful because I wanted to do such a good job. Whenever I write a novel, it's my idea.

I've written historical novels and young adults and stuff like that. The story is all mine. If it doesn't do well, or the fans aren't happy, I feel like it's on me. If I do a story that's not well-liked or is not well-received, or I feel like I let the fans down, it goes above and beyond just me.

It goes to the fandom and this incredible group of people that I work with that I don't want to let down either. All the luminous authors and Mike's a Glain and Tom Hiller and all these other people at Del Rey, I just wanted to do the best job that I could. That was just constantly in the forefront of my mind, which made it really stressful. That's why I was just so hard.

I wouldn't be able to do that. I love hearing that, the understanding is important. Behind it, not funny. I hate when I see people complain about movies or TV shows.

That's not right. They don't care about this. They say, no, you don't have much love. You can see the anxiety and things behind it.

Nobody's wrong with it. I don't know. I wouldn't know if I could deal with that type of pressure. It is a lot of pressure.

At the same time, you're very supported. Everybody that I work with, they're just wonderful people. They understand the other luminous authors, they understand what I'm going through. They were like, you're going to be okay.

Everything's going to be fine. I could always bounce things off as a writer. I could always bounce things off of Katnitskot. I didn't feel like I was doing it in a vacuum.

I did not feel alone. I made all the difference. I thought before you asked your question. I was going to highlight a comment from your friend.

I'm 20 figure. I'm good to see you. Hi, Lili. Katnitsk listen to my favorite Facebook.

I love Gella so much. I think we all love Gella. We were nerding out an hour ago. I love her so much.

I know. Gella's like who we want to be. She's in the thick of it. She's still figuring things out.

She's got to deal with Axel. Why know that there's a lot there who would love to be dealing with Axel. I have many Axel thoughts. Lili, something that's very interesting to me.

It's always kind of like a reflection of a real world. Sometimes a person but sometimes a historical. I think that one of the interesting things to face is the thing of the forever war. People no longer know why the war started.

Maybe something happened back in the day. I don't know. I don't know. How do you as an author walk that line of telling real-world stories about a star wars lens?

You know what? It helps to pay attention to the news and to see what's happening in the world. To read about the intricacies of politics internationally. That stuff is the real-world drama.

A lot of what happens in our world is reflected in star wars. I think that's why we love star wars so much because we can deal with some of the stressors that's happening on this planet. But in the safe, like fictional environment where the good guys get to really do what they need to do. It's not all fiction.

There's truth and fiction. I do pull some of the stressors about that. The planetary war between Ironman and Aronow, I really wanted to emphasize the feeling of they've been at war for so long that that's more comfortable to them. It's very hard to forgive and to move on when you've had atrocities and all this trauma that happened.

Fighting, fighting, fighting is sometimes the easiest thing to do. That was something that I pulled from real-world. I could imagine the leaders falling back into that. I know that quote.

I think it just worked for world. Sometimes war is easier than it's easier than it's all. Yeah. Yeah.

Exactly. There were things like that and also how difficult it can be to forgive people. Forgiveness is something that makes a lot of sense on people. But in real life because it's so wrapped up in emotion, it's very, very difficult to do.

It's just between a couple. It's difficult enough, but between planets, forget it. There's a moment in battle of Jedi where some of the, I don't know if it's Ironman or Aronow, but they were like, hey, we've been at war for generations and all of a sudden you want me to forget about it. My family died fighting this movie.

Yeah. I remember that scene. I battled dead on it and being like, oh my god. Yeah, I totally.

I'd be like that. That could be. But putting all those, all that really fraught, difficult, complicated emotion into this, into what was going on was, I thought, I think made it come alive a little bit more. Okay.

Yeah. You mentioned themes earlier before. I'm very big into the themes of Star Wars. Is there like a specific theme that inspires you the most from the franchise as a whole?

Oh, gosh. I do think that the, the, the good versus evil concept, which is very, very universal, is really fascinating to me because it's very black and white in a lot of the, in the movies. But we're seeing in, you know, certain stories like we're seeing an and or, you know, that moral ambiguity that I think is really fascinating. And I like the play on, that you might have the best intentions, but you know, the, the means by which you do them, you know, justifying the ends, I think is a really difficult thing to watch happen.

And so I'd really enjoyed how that's been done in and I know that's controversial because some people really don't like that. A lot of people are like, no, no, good should be good, evil should be evil. There shouldn't be a moral gray zone, but gray zones are where everybody lives. And so that's why I like, no matter how good a person you are, there's always such a gray somewhere, someplace.

And I like, I like to be able to talk about that. That sounds like something I would say, like this gray in everyone, really, but this more ambiguity section, that's a song I wrote right there. Yes, it is. Yeah, I know.

That's part of everyday life. So before we get into like directly into the into the cataclysm, I want to ask you a question because I started my my studies in premed. I didn't last one semester, but my girlfriend soon to be wife is actually an internal medicine resident right now. Oh my gosh, why?

There were some hints I caught in the book, there's a very specific line that I love every time I go from says it and I read it in the book. Wait, what was the line? Was it? Do you want to one teach one?

Yeah, see one to one teach one. Yeah, so I, I'm sorry behind that. Sorry behind that. So I don't know if everybody understands what that means, but so see one do one teach one is this means of educating oneself in the medical world.

Though it's not really done anymore. It's like really rounds upon because nowadays like training should be better. You're really like observed by people who know what they're doing and you get lots of practice before you have a certain level of expertise and then you can teach it. But like back in the old days, there wasn't a lot of supervision and we, it was no joke.

Like when I was in my training, it was like, oh, you're going to do a spinal tap, a lumbar puncture. I'm going to teach you how to do it after this. You're going to be able to do it by yourself and after that you can teach the next intern. Next year when you're the resident and like that actually happens.

It did happen. And so I put that line in knowing that it came from this very medical world and I had to put a little note in my manuscripts to Tom and to like, you know, anybody who was editorially like reading my thing. I was like, just so you know, this comes from the world of medicine. We don't really do this anymore, but like this is the thing and they were just like, oh my God.

That is amazing. It's like a very Star Wars line because so much about, you know, touching the next generation. So when I read I was like, oh, you're sneaky. What I wanted to know, there's a few moments in the book that I was like, okay, this is definitely a doctor, but how does your medical career influence your writing in any other way.

So it influences my writing a lot. When I first started writing, I tried to keep my writing world very separate from my doctrine world because I just didn't want them to bleed into each other. And honestly, I was like a little embarrassed because I'm supposed to be this upstanding doctor who's like trustworthy and very, very professional. And then on the side, I'm like writing these stories about teenagers with superpowers, right?

It didn't feel okay. And so I was very quiet about it kind of hit it for a while. And then I realized when I started when I was a younger writer, an earlier writer, that I had a lot that I wanted to get back to the writing community because they were teaching me stuff all the time. I was like, this is when blogs were a big deal.

We were like blog hopping all the time and I would learn like this little bit of like how to write prose or how to do world building from all these other bloggers and we were all just trying to figure stuff out. And I thought, well, what can I give back because I'm clearly not an expert writer. And I thought, oh, well, I'm a doctor. I can give out medical advice, but in fictional scenarios.

And so I started giving back like medical advice. People would ask me questions about, hey, I have a scene and how should I handle this issue, the medical issue? Or is it realistic for this to happen? What kind of like injury can land somebody in the ER but allows them to still be running away from like a vampire two-eater?

So I would answer these questions and then the two worlds started to blend together. And then by the time I was writing things like my historical fiction, like all my historical fiction has like science and it has like chemistry, it has poisonings, it has doctors, it has sometimes physics and stuff like that. And so they really started to bleed into each other and then I was writing medical nonfiction. So I wrote this book called Quackery, A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything, which was about all these horrible things we used to do like bloodletting and bleaches and stuff like that.

And so then they really were just combined. And at that point in time, there was no pulling away. They were just sort of all smushed together. And now people just sort of know me as like the doctor who writes or the writer doctors and I'm sort of like, I'm okay with it.

But it took me a while to be okay with it. It was a weird thing to have these sort of two identities and now I'm comfortable just being like a single person again. I gotta ask my brother that I see one, do one, teach one. He's a nephrologist, importantly.

So I'm gonna have to call him, hey, what's all these C1, D1, this one I just learned. I think your reporter would still like that because I go from that school here and that's where she landed. Interesting. Well, you'll have to report back on that because I want to know.

Yeah, we will. When I saw that I took a picture of it and sent it. Is this what you usually send it? He's like, yep.

Oh my god. She was like, that was written by a doctor. Yeah, absolutely. Totally.

So, okay, let's get a little bit into character. Kind of. We'll have it back here on our backgrounds, like great book with Axel. Great.

They're all jumping in a few minutes. Okay, go ahead and start us off. Yeah, so you already talked about working with the with the luminous authors and a little bit about that. But how was it like jumping into an ongoing initiative that already had to speak big fans like talking about it?

How was it? You know, it's not just like a daunting experience, I think, but being your first Star Wars book, how was that? How did you like reconcile that in your mind before start writing? It was very intimidating because it wasn't just like, hey, write the Star Wars book.

In this gigantic initiative that has already got this entire phase that has done really, really well. And these authors have all these books under their belt as far as writing in the Star Wars universe. And so, yeah, it was really intimidated. I was scared.

I really, really felt like I had so much to learn, but it was helpful not being the only person. So now it was, George Mann has written in the Star Wars universe and Zoraida Cordova, she has also written in the Star Wars universe. And so, but we were new to the High Republic. And so I wasn't alone from that perspective.

But as far as writing in the Star Wars stuff, or the first time, aside from my short story, everybody was just really nice. They were just sort of like asked any questions you have, no matter how weird you think it is, we're not going to laugh at you. We're going to help you out. And so it was just, they were so welcoming to me.

There was no question I could ask that was like too ridiculous. And I think they were just also really happy to have more, you know, more people on board to sort of work in the phase. And so I remember asking like Claudia Gray, like, I was like, what if I don't know, like, I don't know every shift that's ever existed in the Star Wars galaxy? Like, what if I, and they're just like, that's like easy.

Like those things we can help you out with. Like you ask the Star Wars world and someone will come up with you and help you figure out, you know, and my learning curve was very, very steep. You know, I would have to learn about like, when do I capitalize, you know, this word or, you know, like learning that like the Jedi Temple in Coruscans capitalized, but Jedi Temple, anywhere else outside of Coruscans is not capitalized. Like things like that I would learn.

And now I'm just sort of like, it's in like consciousness. So, but it was, you know, there were several times where I had to be, I had to be reminded of some of these little habits that I have, which were wrong. Like, so like, for example, you like, a synonym for dirt is earth. So you can't say somebody grabbed a handful of earth because earth doesn't exist in the Star Wars galaxy.

So any, any times I use the word earth, they would be like, and it's like, what do you say? Stop saying earth. And I'd be like, okay, I'm so sorry. But things like that, you know, I just, I had to learn, I had to get used to.

And it was just a sort of part of your education. And you can start to write in the franchise. But I thought it was really fun. I was like, oh, look at all this really cool stuff that I'm learning.

It was awesome. So I did it, I didn't mind it. It was a little embarrassing at times, but I also was like, look, you don't know, you gotta learn this is part of the game. So, yeah.

When you try to see, when you write down a draw his name, is it hilarious? You need to break it down for now? Oh my God. I screwed that up.

I don't even know if I still truly understand the rules of it because I screwed up all the time. I screwed it up a lot in right hand man from a certain point of view because they would tell me the rules and then I would fix him and then they'd be like, maybe not wrong. I'd be like, who's a rules? I don't understand.

I'm like, oh my God. So now I just sort of like go with that. Thank goodness for copy editors because we make everything. And even the people who've been doing this for a million years like Tom and Mike and all the authors or whatever, like we all make mistakes and that's why we have a group that's why it takes the village to make one of these books and you're not doing it by yourself.

Yeah. And you can even from the outside, like for us as fans, we see you guys just in social media how open you are about the whole process and just talking to the fans and we can be able to make it. And just talking to the fans and everything behind it. So it doesn't surprise me the same just working together.

What's the difficult writing about that brings connect previous phase two stories and starts setting up what's going to happen in phase three was still making it a standalone book that someone can pick up and feels like a Lydia can book, but still connected to those previous stories about set the stage for what's to come in next coming up. Yeah, I mean it was it was difficult, but I also kind of knew what I had to do. I knew what sort of things needed to happen in cataclysm. I made decisions about the plot and characters that I thought would make a good story.

And ultimately, I was mostly concentrating on making this book stand alone as a book worthy to be in this in this universe. So I really wasn't like when I was writing it, I wasn't thinking of like I need to make sure this like, you know, we'll people can jump from this into phase three. Like I actually wasn't thinking too hard about that. I was mostly thinking of like, I need to make people read like I want people to read this book and close that book at the end of being like, Oh my God, like just take a big deep breath of like what just happened.

That was my goal. And so when I was writing it, so when I was writing it, you know, I don't know that I'm necessarily putting my voice into it with a consciousness like I'm just writing and I'm writing what I think is like, you know, a good scene and good dialogue and what's entertaining to me. And luckily I think that works for what's entertaining to most people. So yeah, like there were moments where I would put things in and I'm like, Oh, they're going to cut this out.

And I was like, you know, Kenny of the Kenny Knight Clan, that guy who's in the Pathfinder and he's such a ridiculous character. But I was just like, I'm playing this ridiculous character because ridiculous people exist in all sorts of places. And I just, and I remember when my husband read it, he just, I could hear all of a sudden he burst out laughing and I'm like, what's so funny? He was like, Kenny.

I was like, yes, you're supposed to laugh. It is funny. He's ridiculous. And so, so yeah, I would just put in things like that.

I was just like, I personally was just like, this just make me laugh. I'm going to, I want to do this or this is going to make me cry. And so I would put that in. So I just, I just paid attention to what I thought would make for a good story.

Like every page every step of the way. Yeah. You were saying that you wanted people to like close up and be like, what just happened? And for me, like one of those moments was like the book ends with people saying for Hetzel and I'm thinking about like, Oh my God.

I'm so sorry about that. Yeah. I knew that people were going to close the book and be like, Oh, God. Yeah, it's because I knew all the wrong, right?

I mean, that's good to all the wrong. No. No. It is.

It has been all drawn. It's funny. But I think it's a very interesting thing to go back in time and to go back into history and remember when like, you know, there was innocence when there was like, you know, people had no idea what would come in. That's just you could say that through every year of history for like the last like that, like they just didn't know it was about to happen.

And there's something really special about being able to write that scene when there's like all the hope in the world. And that's what the stories are all about, right? It's just finding hope. But it's the connectivity of, you know, of the high republic that takes that hope and then just makes it.

You know, just makes it a little like, Oh, gosh, that's all. So yeah, that's all. It'll just be a little. So, so, Lydia, can you talk about a little bit about your process of writing this kind of book that has, you know, new characters that you created characters that are legendary, like Master Yoda, who's in it quite a lot.

Yaddle is in quite a lot. And also characters that came from, you know, from Sarai, that's what go from George Man's book. Yeah. Yeah.

I actually thought I was going to get trouble because I put so many characters in the book and I was like, they're all necessary. I want Yoda. I want to have Yoda in the book. I want him to be like sort of an important part of the ending.

I needed to have Creighton and Ada there going off from what happened in Battle Jetta. I mean, I think I could have not put them in there, but like, how could I not? Like, they were just still just bruised and battered and upset about what happened and it just made sense to like throw them into the story. Gella and Axel for obvious reasons.

And I didn't want the story of Zirian Fan 2 to be over, you know, and it shouldn't have been over because I wanted the planets to still, you know, the planets were going to still be into in the turmoil. And that was a lot of characters. And so, but I was like, all right, I got to figure out how to make this happen. But I remember when I was writing being like, in order for me to do this, it's going to take a lot of patience.

And I remember turning it in and it was just like, I don't know, it was like 120,000 words and being like, they're going to kill me. It's like, what is going to be so long? But how am I going to tell the story without really doing it well and getting all these kinds of points? And so, yeah, it was a lot of fun.

I loved having some of these marquee characters like Yoda and Yoda and Yoda and Yoda and they're that made me very happy. But at the same time, I also liked being able to put new characters in there and making them really like, you know, like I wanted him to be in there and I really wanted Zepotarco, you know, the youngling network. So, yeah, like I really wanted her to have her spot there too. So, yeah, so somehow I managed to work it out.

I've never written a book ahead so many characters on it before. It was very well balanced because I love when books jump around characters, but that's something that needs to be very well crafted because you get less like, oh yeah, this guy. Oh yeah, I have something to show you regarding that. This is like, sorry, like an artifact of having written this book, which is that I had so many characters in here.

I couldn't keep them straight or I had to make sure that I was going to write them in a way that they were actually, you could actually like keep them and so this was like one of three storyboards that I had. So, this is a storyboard for the final third of the novel and they're all color coded. So, they're all color coded by character on the post notes. And then this is like, yeah.

Yeah, so here are the color coded names. This is the funny thing is this is the back of one of my kids science. As a parent, I completely understand. Really funny.

Like here's the back of it. Conclusion. We're being wet to being dry. And then on the back of that, I have the last third of cataclysm written out so that everything actually and every time I would write something, I would cross it out.

But that's how I had to keep track of it because it was like, yeah, it's really funny. There are a couple things in here, like bringing like Kenny and pity at the back and then I have this little thing that says nameless, nameless. But the name was like me to show up again. And then, oh yeah, and this is funny.

This is the last moment. Sorry, there are spoilers in this. No, people know this is a spoiler. Right.

And I actually wrote so for the like the final scenes I wrote, Helmsdeep. Oh, wow. The Lord of the Rings. Because that was some of my, that was like some of the feeling of like how I wanted this book to end.

It was going to be that Helmsdeep moment where you feel like all is lost and like everything is going to pot everything is like horrible and you know Yoda shows up and Iron and Air no show up and that sort of thing. But like yeah, that was how I've never had to do that before in a book is do a storyboard and it kept me from losing my mind because otherwise it was too many things. Yeah. Thank you so much for that behind the scenes.

And I cannot go perfect in my next question. You might have answered somewhere already is this book to me was a book of relationships of payer. You have Galen Axel, of course, Axel and his mother and Keon that Republican the path and then Roy and Kean Axel and the mother and all those different little pairs and relationships going through. And I guess it helped me as a reader that you said there's so many characters were having those two people just going their own stories and they're enjoying it's going to help knowing where the action is what's happening at the moment was that part of it to make sure you didn't do strike a bit as a writer plus making sure that the fans and the readers can follow the whole story and don't get lost in all the characters that you're bringing into this book.

Yeah, it just happened very naturally that there were going to be these sort of diads these are couple things of characters and it was the constant like it was the characters together sometimes working through things and sometimes it was the characters at odds with each other. And there were many of them like I think like for Axel there were three right so there's Axel and Kele there's Axel and Keon and then there's Axel and Beno or Beno which I always I pronounce his name. Oh yeah. Even though I created his name I don't know how to pronounce his name.

And it's you are supposed to pronounce a T like B note except that I took French for like eight years until I always want to say Beno I'm not pronounced the T like yeah not a French name but there's no French and sorry anyway. So yeah so Axel had multiple relationships with everybody that tried to go and then there was another one which was also like the Jedi and the Republic right so the Jedi working with the Republic is a relatively new situation at this phase of the High Republic and early on they're like the Republic sort of like the Jedi don't report to anybody like they're like who rains them in if something goes wrong and so there's a trust issue and you see that tension and I wanted to play out that tension between Master Yoda and Keon Graylar a couple of times they talk they're not really friends until they become friends before they become more like working together well as representatives of the Jedi Council and the Republic so that was another fun one to do because you don't really get to see that as much in the rest of the franchise because it's just like the Jedi and Republic work together and so it was fun to be able to explore how things were different you know but you're right those couplings were made easier for me to constantly remind the readers like okay this is where we are but it's nice set up for both centering you where you are in the story and also adding tension between the two you know so just worked out. It's my master plan. I want to highlight this going from Park Reo Green saying I love that little road that ending the like it was a George Lucas and this I could practically see the way George Lucas would have directed at moment with the Irish closing on the crowd like the Phantom Menace ending so yeah so that was telling me that in previous interviews you mentioned it was very important to have Axel in the cover can you talk a little bit about the importance of inclusions of all fans and not just having him just like in the cover and also like writing him in the book.

Yeah no it was really cool I the first time I actually saw a preliminary mock up of the cover I got teary eyed because I was like there is an Asian man on the cover of a star's book that I have written and it felt it was really an overwhelming feeling and I think just for somebody who has grown up with Star Wars and there hasn't been when I was younger much younger now it's a lot better because you do see a lot of representation of so many different people in in Star Wars these days but way back when you didn't or they were just like off to the side and you know they blew up or something like that but here you know I actually got to put somebody like you know face forward and was also not like the classic sort of you know model minority Asian man right you know he's a total he's a mess you know he's a mess he's very charming he doesn't do what his mom says he didn't do well in school you know he's just like he's such a mess and he's a beautiful mess and I and I it was really fun to put him on that cover it meant a lot to me personally as an Asian American writer to have him there and to also have Keong Greylark be this very prominent character in the book I also really really enjoyed that. So on a personal note this was like a very big deal for me it was wonderful. Did you know he was going to be on the cover or was it a surprise? I can't remember I think originally I didn't know when I was set out to write this book it was like oh by the way like Axel will be on the cover like I don't think I do that right away.

I think it came out as I was writing it and then we realized that's how the mock-ups were going to be but it was really clear to me that he was going to be a main part of the cataclysm and so I wasn't surprised that he was not. Once I saw Gell on the cover I was like this is going to happen. So I kind of that makes up. Which is a great those two covers together like you have on your back and I just want to show them great together.

They're so beautiful together I did an interview and I put cataclysm here and I had the other two books up here and somebody yelled at me they were like no. Daniel and Axel go through it. Axel beat together like a bunch of people like all beautiful and so I changed it and then somebody and then they saw it they're like you changed your books. They're like now they belong together and I get that they do.

It looks so pretty together. I just want to mention that Axel reminds me of my little brother and I adore my little brother but I always tell my mom that he has the super power where he'll choose the worst possible option ever. Every single time and every time Axel had like two choices I'm like here he goes and that's my brother to me. That is so funny.

Yeah and just when you're like ready to sort of be like oh you know why did you do that and then you turn the charm on and you're like I forgive you. Even Gell is like oh that charm. I know it's hard to not like him. Although there are a lot of people who don't like him.

There are people who are like he's a scoundrel and he's a paper what he's done but he's enough of a scoundrel that people just love to enjoy all the naughtiness that is Axel great luck. I think we as fans are like Gella right we know he's wrong for us but there's something about him. We got to follow him. There's something there that went together we got to see what it takes us.

I mean it's hard to say no. Like having like a gigantic chocolate cake can be like I said it but it's like it's like a chocolate cake. How can I say no? Yeah it's going to go to waste.

So we talked a little bit about Axel. Let's talk about his mom. Great Chancellor Kion Gray like which on your dedication page on character listen to your mom is the original Kion Gray like what's there your mom did you use as an inspiration for the way you wrote this character. Not entirely so when we were trying to think about who what the name of the Chancellor was going to be.

I said how about Kyung Graylark and Kyung is part of my mother's name. I just told it out and they were just like that's a great name and I didn't think I even explained it. I was like how about Kyung and they were like that's fine. And then later on I was like you know that's my mom and they're like that's even cool.

So is Kyung Graylark like my mom not exactly but some of the things that I think I told about her is that my mom came to the United States in the mid 1960s with no friends no family could not speak any English and got married and immediately had a baby. I don't know how she survived that. It was I don't know how I would have survived that but she was a survivor you know she made it work. She worked really really hard to take care of her family and to exist in a culture that didn't necessarily want her here.

And so I think that I pulled some of that strength from her. Kyung is like somebody who like she just gets stuff done and she will she does things without apology knowing that it is like the thing to do. And there's something like sort of relentlessly strong about her that I just knew was going to just leap off of the page. So yes a little bit of it was taken off my mom but like yeah my mom they're not exactly they're not the same person.

One fictional and I got to really have fun with her in a lot of ways but she was so much fun to write and probably one of my favorite characters to write in the book. Yeah I wonder what the actual gave give me some on for Mother's Day tomorrow. Oh my god what part of the book. If it's early in the book it would be something really really ridiculous like an over the top and very expensive like piece of jewelry that was probably ill be got from her family.

And she would probably be like oh and then she would probably return it to the civilization from which it had been stolen. That's how that would go. That's how Mother's Day would go. And then she would be really what I would prefer is if you came home and we had a nice dinner together and she's like he would be like oh can't do that in the middle of something very important and it would be something super dangerous.

So that's probably how Mother's Day would go. It might be a little right. Yeah I love the tweet that you put out a couple hours ago about that three stages of Kyung really like in the character character. Yeah it's perfect.

It's perfect. It's so funny. I did like I really could see her in my brain when I was writing her because she has that wiry sort of like ability to fight and fight dirty if she has to. But at the same time like you see her in these other roles like in like crazy rich Asians where she's got all her clothes on and she is a mask of like perfect civility and power and she's like an ice goddess you know.

And I just love that Kyung can totally do these different characters like just like Michelle did and so many for me. So yeah that was her. There's like stage one. There's a stage two without the makeup and then there's a stage three where she's kicking ass.

Yeah I know. It'll guard the name in between. Yes exactly. Let's talk about Yaddle a little bit more.

So you talk about writing those kinds of characters. Were you like a big Yaddle fan that you were like she has to be in the book or was that just like this will be random. I was a little bit of a Yaddle fan and then I was like fascinated by her and there's not a whole lot that's known about her and so she was a mystical kind of character. So I was a fan from that standpoint like you know Mandalorian had been out for some time and so everybody knew about Grogu and it was sort of exciting because it was like oh my gosh there's another baby Yoda out there and it was like there's more than like you guys forgotten that Yaddle showed up like in the pre-cultology and so so from that perspective I was sort of like I really wanted to have her have more time on the page because she hadn't gotten very much exposure.

So that was really fun to do and I was initially going to put her in just like a little bit and I ended up putting a lot of her into the book and I was really glad that I could do that. I'll say all the mentioned before we started right that he read the book twice and we said that tells you how much he loved this book. For me I'm going to say I was never a Yaddle fan when she showed up in the new shorts that they did a few more. So yeah I was in the shadows there I love Yaddle in character so you made me a Yaddle fan so that's that's me telling you how much I love this book is that everything that Yaddle was there and I love quotes when I do my reviews I had to pull back not to put all the Yaddle clothes because she was so great.

Oh sorry. Oh he keeps hitting my leg because he wants to sit on my lap so he's going to sit on my lap. There you go. There's a Sawyer.

Hi Sawyer. Hi Sawyer. The other one is Piper and I named a planet in a species after her but she's not around. That was fun.

But yes I had so much fun writing Yaddle. I didn't have to think that hard about what kind of person she was going to be kind of Jedi she was going to be and what kind of frustration she would have it. It's just like as soon as I knew that I was going to put her in there and I was going to write a young link to go with her. It was almost like it had written itself like I knew exactly how that was going to play out so it worked out great.

I was very happy about that. Yeah. And I'm super great with her. But then I can't.

He does show so when you stay there. They're not going to stay there. I love that relationship. You expect Yoda?

Oh this younglings and he had a little bit annoyed with him. There's points where she's like this is why you need mentoring. Yeah. Exactly.

This is why you need a special, well can you be an extra special like classes in the adventure? It's your problem. Yeah. And yeah that was a lot of fun.

Writing Sippa and imagining what kind of person she was and knowing that she came from like a place like Arcania where people tend to be a little haughty and pull up and sell everything and they wanted to pull some of that. So are you down? You ready to go down? I just wanted to show up.

You just wanted to take this. Yeah. Take this back that way. So you mentioned earlier about making sure to bring Siri and fan two against.

We just had the incongvergence trying to continue that story. How was it? Why did you want to bring them? I'm not just, yeah they're married.

Everything's fine. But going through all these stages you're newlyweds having to deal with all the back and forth and the conflicts that come just with being married especially someone that you just met a couple months ago. Plus being at this at the opposite sides of this ongoing war that keeps going. Why did you decide to bring that challenge I guess to you as a writer to make sure that they're there and they're big part of this book also.

I knew that we, I knew that like I remember know we're going to become a big mess again in this book. So I, so when I, when I knew that was going to happen it made sense that Siri and fan two were going to be in the thick of it. And it's a natural progression I think to imagine what life is like as a married couple or as a committed couple. Because a lot of times the beginning parts are very romantic.

You know, they don't see eye but then they fall in love and then there's a wedding. And a lot of times I think in at least in, you know, American culture like the wedding so much energy goes into like this, the wedding. Like the dress and where's it going to be and what's everything going to look like and the pictures and everything. And it's like everything that comes after that wedding day is so much work.

And I think it's a lie for people to imagine that it's a happily ever after. It's not every single relationship takes an enormous amount of work. And it's a very lucky couple that never fights and everybody agrees on everything and there's like zero conflict. I just feel like that doesn't exist, right?

So I was going to be very true to that and say and imagine well if you were the prince and princess of two planets that came back at war. What problems would you have? And some were going to be just on a relationship level like communication and the whole concept of like we have to be on the same page all the time. But also about like how do those allegiances change when your planets are more again.

So it was going to be difficult for them and I knew it would be a little hard. So that was going to be built into the conflict that they were going to have. So it was pretty natural to imagine that because it's like pretty real life honestly. Once you're wedding, it's coming up.

Oh, so you're going to have a wedding. Yes. So a little bit of advice. Remember that there's probably after wedding which is probably more important than actual wedding.

We've been together for nine years. You figured out a lot already. Yeah. You guys are way ahead of where Zirian fans are.

Oh, definitely. Okay. At least there's not a war going on between your two planets. Exactly.

So Lidia, as we started closing up a little bit especially with her from characterism, what was the hardest thing to write? Was there one that was difficult to crack or just too emotional, just became harder to write? That's a good question. What was the hardest thing to write in this book?

I think the beginning of the book was hard. The setup was hard because I know so much was built upon that setup. And if I didn't do it right, I was going to lose readers in the beginning. So that was probably the hardest part because I thought once I get the action going and I set things up that all roads are going to leave to Donna, I was like, it's going to go a steady clip.

So I kind of knew it was going to be hard work, but once I got a certain place in the book, the pacing was going to take care of bringing the readers where they needed to go. So the beginning of the book was probably the hardest part of me. And it was longer originally and I had to cut a lot of it out of it because it was just slowing the pace. So that was probably the hardest thing.

Yeah, the second hardest thing was deciding who was going to die in the book. I don't want to get into it. Oh, man. It's every time.

Every time we know we know someone's going to die, we still heard. I mean, the thing is that like the book is called Cataclysm. So you kind of knew before you opened the book up that it was going to be really, really tough. And you also know that like the battle of Delano is called the Knight of Sorrows.

Like you knew people knew right now. So I was like, you know what? It would be completely unrealistic if every person going into this battle survives. It's like that's not going to happen.

And so I knew that I knew that they were going to have to be casualties and I had to make really, really hard decisions of who those people were going to be. And I, for real pride every time I wrote or had to rewrite or had to edit the other teams because they were hard for me to write. Like you get attached to the characters and stuff that they have. Yeah.

That's something at least for myself. I never thought about it because as readers we do get attached to those characters and when Sten and Dios went down. I cried also. But it's unary.

I know it's so much. I know. I know. And I feel so bad.

Like I'm just dead jokes. I'll just say that. I didn't feel that. So I went and died because the minute I started falling in love with them I was like, you know, they're going to cry.

Oh my gosh. That's so funny. He knew. He just, I know.

He's so dead. He's a red man. I know. I know.

I'm sorry. You know, with a T or without a T while you have poison glove. He's a terrible person. He was so much fun to write.

Oh my God. That part at the end when he meets again with Fonto and he's like, bro, are you really trying to pull the phone? And there's like this little glitchy moment where like, you know, Axel's like, and then he's like, you know, I know, you don't know. Yeah.

I was waiting for Axel to be like, bro, what cool. Let's go. Not this time. Not this time.

But yeah. Oh, yeah. He's terrible. You don't get to hurt the droid.

No. I felt really bad about that. That's stuck. That's stuck.

So Lydia, as I said, I'm big on the themes. Is there like one theme, lesson or message that you would just like everyone to take away from this book? Oh, gosh. It would probably be that there are many different ways that you can parent someone.

And I don't mean necessarily biologically somebody, right? So there's a relationship between Kyung and Axel. There is a relationship between the mother of the open hand and Axel. There is a relationship between Master Yaddle and Siva.

And honestly, Master Yaddle with several of the other Jedi, right? Mother's Day is coming up. It's a hard day for a lot of people. But I think there's a lot of people who have mother figures in their lives and they deserve recognition.

And I think that happens here in Cataclysm. And it's a little bit of a study on how to do it right and do it wrong in a lot of ways. And it wasn't even a theme that I purposely intended to broadcast in the book until after it was over when somebody was just like all the moms in Cataclysm. And I was like, oh, yeah.

That didn't lie. So I guess since Mother's Day is coming up, it's something to think about for all the people who have moms who don't have moms who have surrogate moms. And for all the moms out there who are just trying to do their best, like something to consider. Great message.

Tomorrow's out there. All right. That brings that into our Cataclysm questions. We just had a couple random ones that as we're running out of time.

I'll say most of these came from Paul D. So just some fun random questions out there. So Lydia, we're all here fans of the silly and Star Wars. What's the silliest thing in Star Wars that you just love?

No, the silly thing that I love. I tend to like the funny little animals that show up in Star Wars. The porgs were really funny. Like when she was eating pork kebob, it was so ridiculous.

But it was like, it was pretty funny. But yeah, those animals. Oh my God. You can blame for everything.

It's fun. One borgs here. You can blame all of them. Okay.

Is there a specific time period in Star Wars outside the High Republic that you would like to write in? No, I've been thinking about that. I think it would be really fun to write more during the prequel trilogy era. And I know that there's a lot that's already in there, like, sucked between the different movies.

But there's also been so much that's been written, I think, in the original trilogy that I don't know, like, that much more left to write. But I think there's still pockets in the prequel trilogy era that would be really exciting to explore. So I would say. If you could hang out with one Star Wars character or creature, who would it be and why?

Maybe a porg before Chewy cooks it. So it could be a character, not just like a little creature. Anything. Anything.

Anything. Anything. Anything. Well, I would normally say Yadda was like, I feel like I hung out with Yadda.

Oh, I'm like a Yadda. Oh, you know who I would like to hang out with is like Maz Kanata. Because she is, she seems so much. And I would love to, like, take her out to dinner, buy her a very, very strong drink, and let her tell me some, like, insider stories about all this stuff that she's seen.

Because there's probably some. There's a moment in Poe Dameron for you, where she just like shows up and she asked him like, Hey, Dameron, have you ever done drugs? And I'm like, what? Or how does it?

Yeah, it was so weird. She like pops up, drops up quite a bit and leaves up like what? You know that like Maz has seen and done so many things and he has so many secrets. So I would just want to, I would want to pick her brain about all these different things.

She was way too much. Yeah, I don't know. She might not need that many drinks to get to the winner. I think her tolerance is probably a key.

Yeah, it's pretty high. She would probably be like, Sure. And then I would be the one who gets drunk and tells her all my secrets. And then the next day I would be like, what just happened here?

I'm like, why are we in Scariff? I know. Exactly. So Lydia, you of course have the medical angle.