LL: Sure! I'm Lillie, author of One For All. I'm a writer and fencer from Washington, D.C. I was a Div 1 fencer at Yale where I was one of the first physically disabled athletes to individually qualify for any NCAA Championship event. My work has won the LA Review Literary Award for Short Fiction, The Washington Post, amongst other places. And I recently received my MA in Creative Writing Prose Fiction from the University of East Anglia.
INC: What got you interested in fencing?
LL: I was at a summer camp that brought in people of varying professions to speak to campers. One day, a woman fencer came in. (This is ironic because there are probably five professional fencers in the world; it's not exactly a money sport!) I was in awe of her and the idea of fencing. My favorite movies growing up were Mulan and The Princess Bride. So I begged my mom to let me try a class. The rest is history!
LL: I started with foil/fenced foil for a year. But there were no other girls in my class, which wasn't going to work if I wanted to start competing, so I changed fencing clubs. They only had a saber class available, so I switched to saber and never looked back.
I've always wanted to be a writer! Ever since age 5, I knew I wanted to be the person who created the stories in the books I read. I didn't realize how lucky I was to have discovered what I wanted to do at such a young age until I was much older.
LL: The vast majority of public responses have been positive! I don't know what people privately think about the group or my writing. I learned early on not to read the comments on my articles and op-eds about disability rep, so the only responses I know about are the ones my editors at various newspapers passed along to me. Those responses are all incredibly supportive and thoughtful. There will always be people who don't think disability is a part of diversity, that disabled people don't need more representation in literature, that disabled people are incapable of telling their own stories. But I didn't found DKW for them, and my activism surrounding disability representation isn't for them, either. Ideally, there will come a point where my work does benefit them: by changing social perception and forcing them to reflect on their beliefs.
INC: How would you say the current climate, in terms of both COVID and the present state of politics in general, has impacted advocacy for people with disabilities?
LL: Oh gosh, I could talk about this a lot/write a very long answer to this, but there are many more disabled activists who have much more pertinent things to say than I do on this matter. So I would highly suggest to anyone reading to go and follow Alice Wong, Imani Barbarin, everything published via the Disability Visibility Project, and Mia Mingus, amongst others.
I will note though that I think the activism that disabled people have been practicing for centuries has become more socially "acceptable." There was a time not too long ago when many people said (to be fair, some of them still say this) that activism isn't something done on the internet. People who decry disabled activists for "hashtag activism." But now, the forms of activism we've used have become commonplace during the pandemic. Most things still aren't fully accessible, but it is incredibly ironic that it took a global pandemic for folks to be willing to make virtual classes, panels, etc.
LL: Ah, yes! I think I might, if any opportunities present themselves (like the Washington City Paper contest). It is a topic I am passionate about, and am constantly stunned that more people don't know about!
LL: Right! So I was on submission to editors with a different book, and a few months in, my agents and I had a phone call to talk about new book ideas that I could work on while we waited to hear back. I can't remember who brought up the idea of retellings, but as soon as I heard that word, The Three Musketeers popped into my head. It was a real cinematic writer moment, the kind that non-writers think us writers have all the time. I opened up a notebook, titled the first page One For All, and started writing. Looking back, I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised—fencing was and is a huge part of my life, so it makes sense that a famous story about fencers would be the first story I thought of when prompted with the concept of retellings. The idea was the easiest part of the process, actually!
INC: Can you give readers an idea of what to expect from it, maybe a quick elevator speech about the plot?
LL: The official tagline is: One for All is a gender-bent retelling of The Three Musketeers, in which a girl with a chronic illness trains as a Musketeer and uncovers secrets, sisterhood, and self-love. A longer, more in-depth preview:
Tania de Batz is most herself with a sword in her hand. Everyone thinks her near-constant dizziness makes her weak, nothing but “a sick girl.” But Tania wants to be strong, independent, a fencer like her father—a former Musketeer and her greatest champion. Then Papa is brutally, mysteriously murdered. His dying wish? For Tania to attend finishing school. But L’Académie des Mariées, Tania realizes, is no finishing school. It’s a secret training ground for new Musketeers: women who are socialites on the surface, but strap daggers under their skirts, seduce men into giving up dangerous secrets, and protect France from downfall. And they don’t shy away from a sword fight.
With her newfound sisters at her side, Tania feels that she has a purpose, that she belongs. But then she meets Étienne, her target in uncovering a potential assassination plot. He’s kind, charming—and might have information about what really happened to her father. Torn between duty and dizzying emotion, Tania will have to decide where her loyalties lie…or risk losing everything she’s ever wanted.
LL: So much research! JSTOR was a lifesaver; so was the blog Party Like 1660. I also spent a lot of time watching reenactments of court dances on youtube so I could properly describe dance step sequences. Thankfully I studied French for over thirteen years, so I felt at least somewhat confident in my translation ability!
INC: Did you come across anything surprising or unexpected during your research?
I knew about some of the strange fashion of the 1650s, and the poisonous makeup (ack, lead on the face!), but I learned so many small tips and tricks that Parisian noblewomen used for cosmetic reasons, or to save money. My favorite fact was that imitation pearls were crafted by mixing ammonia with bleak (a fish) scales, which was then used to coat the inside of glass beads.
INC: Speaking of unexpected, is the final version of the story the one you originally set out to tell, or did any of it - or the characters - change while writing it?
At its heart, One For All hasn't changed. It's a story about a chronically ill girl who learns to love herself in a world that tells her she shouldn't. It's a story about sisterhood, and courage, and of course, swords! All of the characters remained the same, in that none of their defining traits changed. I did, however, need to change Théa's name—she was originally called Althea, which is closer to her counterpart, Athos. But my editor correctly pointed out that having two of the three Musketeers who weren't the main character have names that start with the letter A might get a bit confusing, since well over half the scenes in the book have at least four or more characters in them, in dialogue with one another. Plus, Théa is a French name, and one that has roots in France well before the 17th century.
LL: A lot of the characters' dialogue came pretty naturally! I knew I wanted them to speak in a mix of 17th century parlance and modern language, to fit with my slightly fantastical version of 17th century France. The characters pick up on different things based upon their own personalities/what they value. They bring different strengths (and weaknesses) to their order of Musketeers. This is also true of what they bring to their friendships.
LL: I map them out in my head. All my fencing coaches have been proponents of visualization, so I'm very good at "seeing" bouts in my head. I already have the lexicon needed to describe the motions from all my years of fencing. I do my best to keep the sentences short and sharp. Readers tend to skim longer sentences in fight scenes because they want to know what happens next! Plus, I think duel scenes are naturally suited to shorter sentences to match the trading of attacks, parries, etc.
LL: Readers can find my work on my website, (under In Print). There's also more information there about One For All. Further information, trade reviews, and purchase links can be found on my website and on the Macmillan page for One For All. Signed/personalized preorders of ONE FOR ALL are available via East City Bookshop, and the audiobook (narrated by Mara Wilson) is available wherever audiobooks are sold. For updates about One For All and my other work (both past and future), readers can follow me on Twitter and/or Instagram.