Alexandria Rogers: On Bridging the Gap Between Middle Grade and Young Adult

Alexandria Rogers is the author of the critically acclaimed middle grade fantasy adventure series, The Witch, the Sword, and the Cursed Knights. Her newest book, Spellbound Solstice, releases October 22, 2024. She lives in Edinburgh with her husband, daughter, and dog, in eternal search of excuses to visit Paris. Follow her on Instagram.

In this interview, Alexandria discusses how becoming suddenly agentless reminded her of her agency in writing her new contemporary fantasy, Spellbound Solstice, her advice for other writers, and more.

Name: Alexandria Rogers
Literary agent: Lauren Spieller at Folio Literary Management
Book title: Spellbound Solstice
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Release date: October 22, 2024
Genre/category: Contemporary fantasy
Previous titles: The Witch, the Sword, and the Cursed Knights; The Beast, the Queen, and the Lost Knight
Elevator pitch: Ella Enchanted meets The Parent Trap in this spellbinding wintery tale where two young enchanters team up to break a centuries-old family curse and accidentally put their entire town at risk along the way.

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I loved reading romance books when I was young. I grew up on stories like Gail Carson Levine’s Ella Enchanted and Edith Pattou’s East, and so I wanted to write a book that helped bridge the tender gap between middle grade and young adult. A “crush curious” story for readers who wanted a sprinkling of romance but in the sweet, wholesome environment of early teenagerhood.

But the true core of this book is rooted in family. I’ve always been drawn to multi-generational stories, where family patterns can feel like curses, where secrets can fester until they draw blood. While this book takes place in the present featuring a 13-year-old and 14-year-old as main characters, the roots of the story harken back to the 1800s for one family, and medieval France for the other. These family roots run deep and are tangled with centuries of heartbreak, but also love. For the book is about the love that binds us through time, regardless of how “untraditional” our family lives might appear. No matter where we come from, no matter the stories passed down to us, we can always rewrite them.

The core essence of this story has been in my heart for many years. I participated in NaNoWriMo back in 2011, wherein I wrote a story set in a small New England town. It wove generations together through stories and love and curses, and although the plot of Spellbound Solstice is very different from that shelved draft, I believe it was the first seed of what Spellbound Solstice would become. Some inner inkling that there was a story there, asking to be written; it simply needed time to grow before it could bloom.

The more current concept for Spellbound Solstice came to me in the summer of 2021. I pictured a girl working at her mother’s seaside inn where the guests fell in love every winter solstice. The plot evolved from there, and in a matter of weeks, I wrote my detailed synopsis and polished my sample chapters, preparing to sell it that fall—and then my previous agent left the industry.

Due to the slight delay required to find a new agent, the book didn’t sell until March 2022, just after my debut was published. That period felt like the longest wait. Since then, time has flown.

In that same March acquisitions meeting, the sequel to my debut sold, which I needed to write first. All of 2022 was consumed by writing the sequel, preparing to have a baby, and moving into a new house, so I didn’t even think about Spellbound Solstice again until January 2023. Actually, drafting and revising Spellbound Solstice swept along at a leisurely pace, where I was pleasantly surprised to find my original outline still felt true to the story. My editor and I had worked under tight deadlines for the previous book, so the slower pace was a welcome respite, especially with a newborn attached to me. I finished final revisions in September 2023, and while a year-wait before publication might sound arduous, I’ve been so preoccupied drafting a new novel, I feel like the date has snuck up on me!

And after three years since I first thought of this cozy ghost story, I’m so excited it will finally belong to the world soon.

The biggest lesson for me in the publishing process of Spellbound Solstice is that I can be my own advocate. This feels so obvious to me now, but back when I first pitched the book to my editor, I was still finding my own feet as an author. I had only one book under my belt, which had yet to be published, so I was still a “debut,” and felt very much like a fledgling bird, hovering on the edge of the nest, wondering if I would splat on the pavement.

After years of rejections, I hadn’t yet fully accepted the reality that this is my career.

When my previous agent left the industry right before I’d hoped to take Spellbound Solstice to acquisitions, I had a choice: continue moving forward full steam ahead while agentless, or allow being unagented to affect my trajectory.

I chose myself, my career, over what felt safe or expected.

So, for a few months, my editor and I spoke about the story on our own. She provided feedback on my pages and synopsis to better prepare the book to sell while I sought a new agent on the side. It was important to me to have an agent for the actual contract negotiation process, but it was liberating, realizing I could move forward on my book editorially no matter what curve balls came my way.

What’s beautiful is that this wouldn’t even cross my mind as a question now, but at the time, it was extraordinarily emboldening.

We, of course, need agents. Besides the fact that they are an integral part of the publication and sales process, the right agent provides invaluable feedback and guidance. So, this is not at all to suggest we should go through the publishing process without agents, for I absolutely wouldn’t trade the great agent I have now for being unagented. But it is to say we are the architects of our careers.

Authors can mistakenly believe they have little power in this industry, as we spend months, sometimes years, seeking what feels like professional approval. It’s a false hierarchy (that the agents I know do not endorse—it is very much an illusion). Anchoring into my own empowerment as a creator has been a long process of dismantling that old, outdated line of thinking. And in retrospect, I believe it started during those few unagented months.

The greatest surprise was the ease with which this book came through.

I have learned that every book requires its own unique process, and while I do have a four-act, multi-step structure I refer to with each book, the books themselves oftentimes have other plans, so I have learned to hold outlines loosely in my mind. Spellbound Solstice was the first book I’ve ever written that remained almost entirely faithful to its outline.

It took me by complete surprise.

This book felt like the eldest sibling who always had their shoes tied before everyone else. It knew precisely what it needed and didn’t make me work to uncover its secrets.

This is not some miraculous new level of authorship I have reached, in which no book will ever challenge me again. The book I wrote directly afterwards required three complete rewrites from scratch.

I find different books teach us what we need to learn at each stage of our writing journey, and with Spellbound Solstice, it was that sometimes, writing can flow with complete and utter ease. I needn’t always be challenged and woken up by dialogue flowing through my mind in the middle of the night for it to be a beautiful story. As I’ve mentioned, I wrote it with a newborn baby attached to me, so honestly, I wouldn’t have had the capacity for a more challenging writing process this time around. The entire book felt like a true gift from the muses. First to me, now to you.

I believe there’s a lot here for different kinds of readers. For some, it could be the courage to share their gifts with the world by watching Alice work through her stage fright.

For others, it could be a sense of belonging, especially if they move homes a lot, or their family life looks different from those of their friends.

For me, it is a welcoming, cozy place to return to when the world feels shadowed. Writing the book felt like snuggling up with a cup of hot chocolate by the fireside as snowflakes drifted past a frosted window. The story is pure heart and warmth, humor and joy, with a surprising depth woven through the family stories that can turn into curses if we do not tend to their wild roots.

Trust yourself. Trust your story. In my experience, books are far wiser than our minds. They know their twists and themes and secrets. Self-doubt is one of the biggest hurdles we face as artists, but if you feel called to write stories, trust in that. Know and own your value as a creator, for the world will always need more stories. Yours is valuable. Just like your fingerprints, your writing voice is uniquely yours. Write your story with courage and the knowledge that the people who need to hear it most will always find you.