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Let’s get to the interview, shall we!
The Book, One For All
One for All by Lillie Lainoff on March 8, 2022
Genres: historical, romance, young adult
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An OwnVoices, 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.
Tania de Batz is most herself with a sword in her hand. Everyone in town thinks her near-constant dizziness makes her weak, nothing but “a sick girl”; even her mother is desperate to marry her off for security. 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 a new kind of Musketeer: 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 swordfight.
With her newfound sisters at her side, Tania feels for the first time like she has a purpose, like she belongs. But then she meets Étienne, her first target in uncovering a potential assassination plot. He’s kind, charming, and breathlessly attractive—and he might have information about what really happened to her father. Torn between duty and dizzying emotion, Tania will have to lean on her friends, listen to her own body, and decide where her loyalties lie…or risk losing everything she’s ever wanted.
This debut novel is a fierce, whirlwind adventure about the depth of found family, the strength that goes beyond the body, and the determination it takes to fight for what you love.
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The Interview With Lillie Lainoff
Hi Lillie! Thank you so much for being here, I’m so thrilled to chat with you today! To start us off, could you quickly introduce yourself?
Thank you so much for having me! I’m Lillie, author and fencer/fencing coach from Washington, D.C. I recently received my MA in Creative Writing Prose Fiction from the University of East Anglia and am the creator of Disabled Kidlit Writers on FB. My debut novel, a gender-bent reimagining of The Three Musketeers with a chronically ill main character, ONE FOR ALL, is out from FSG/Fierce Reads on March 8th!
Can you tell us a little more about your publishing journey? Did you always know you wanted to write and publish a book, someday? Did you ever have a “this is it, this could be THE book” kind of moment, when you were drafting One For All?
I’ve wanted to be an author since age five. That’s probably before I knew what an author was, but I knew I wanted to be the person who wrote the words on the pages of the books I read. I carried a notebook with me everywhere. I remember thinking how strange it was, that my elementary school classmates’ dreams for their adulthood changed so often—I didn’t know then how incredibly lucky I was (and am) to have known what I’ve wanted to do with my life from such a young age.
I was out on submission with another book when I was drafting ONE FOR ALL. I very much wanted that book to be THE book. And there were moments when I thought it might be. An editor who took the book to acquisitions, etc. But those moments never panned out. And as ONE FOR ALL looked more and more like a book, and less and less like a few scattered pages in different word documents, I desperately wanted it to be THE book. But I never dared to think it definitely would be, since I knew what it was like to have a book not sell on submission. I spent a little over three years on submission to editors with that other book and with ONE FOR ALL.
One For All is a retelling of The Three Musketeers, a French historical adventure novel written by Alexandre Dumas back in 1844. What made you want to write a retelling based on this specific story/time period?
Writing a story where fencing was heavily featured was the biggest draw. For some reason, I’d never written a novel with more than one or two sword-fighting scenes before ONE FOR ALL, despite having fenced competitively since age 10.
One of my favorite movies that we watched during fencing summer camp every year was The Man in the Iron Mask. The Musketeers stuck with me all throughout my fencing career, so it felt natural, choosing to write something inspired by them.
In honor of Dumas, I specifically chose a historical setting, but one that is a bit off, has just a bit of fantasy in it. His 17th century Paris, like my 17th century Paris, is one that has foundations in truth but we have twisted slightly.
With this incredible-looking book, you’re offering us something we too rarely see, and desperately need more of in stories: disability representation. Especially in historical fiction and retellings. What do you think of the current landscape of kid-lit and young adult literature regarding disability representation and do you have any hopes for it for the future? What are some stories you have read, or would dream to see with more disability representation?
I have such high hopes for disability representation in kidlit and young adult literature.
I do think the industry is changing (albeit slowly). I try to do everything in my power to make this industry more accessible for disabled authors and disabled authors writing disability representation (it’s why I created Disabled Kidlit Writers, put out the annual accessible Pitch Wars mentor wishlist for mentors who specifically ask for disability rep, cause such a ruckus during pitch events on twitter when DIS pitches aren’t getting industry interaction…), but that doesn’t mean that I don’t personally suffer from the impact of ableism within the publishing industry.
ONE FOR ALL is the first book published by a major publisher with a main character with POTS syndrome; the weight of that is staggering. It’s an honor, yes, but also a huge responsibility. ONE FOR ALL cannot, and should not, have to represent the entire breadth of experiences of people with POTS. I want ONE FOR ALL to be able to sit on a bookshelf with multiple other books with main characters with POTS.
I want disabled authors to not have to worry about whether writing characters like themselves will make their books unsellable to editors.
I want no disabled author to be told that writing about disabled characters is niche ever again. And, most importantly, I want disabled and chronically ill readers to be able to see themselves in the books they read, to know that they have nothing to be ashamed of, that they are fully capable and deserving of being the heroes of their own stories.
Can you tell us a bit more about the characters, themes and settings you like and would like to write about, now and in the future?
An ongoing joke on social media which somehow turned into ONE FOR ALL’s semi-official hashtag is #sisterhoodofthestabstab. I do love to write about ‘stabby’ girls! Sometimes that means stabby in the literal sense, but I also love to write about ‘stabby’ characters who are stabby in the metaphorical sense. I don’t like using the term ‘unlikeable’ because I think that likeability really shouldn’t matter much—if you are able to sympathize with a character, that is enough.
We are all flawed individuals and I like representing that on the page.
I write a lot about mother/daughter relationships, too, because I think they’re fascinating.
I hope to write about my version of 17th century France again for many reasons, one of which is that I have done SO much research that it is an awful thought to only utilize it in one novel!
Are there any books you fell for, lately? Any recommendations for us?
Funnily enough, I just tweeted about this very question!
All jokes aside, I have so many book recommendations that I could fill an entire interview with just titles, but I’ll limit these recs to books I’ve read over the past few months! As far as YA is concerned, I loved The Moth Girl by Heather Kamins and Fire Becomes Her by Rosiee Thor. I’m currently reading The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School by Sonora Reyes and I’m loving it so far.
On the adult side: The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean, Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan, The Book of X by Sarah Rose Etter, Burntcoat by Sarah Hall, Little Thieves by Margaret Owen, The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans.
A very special shoutout to Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves by Meg Long and The Bone Spindle by Leslie Vedder, two of the very first 22Debuts books I read that, at the time of me answering these questions, have just hit shelves across the world.
And another very special shoutout to two books I recently blurbed, Deep in Providence by Riss M. Neilson and Breathe and Count Back from Ten by Natalia Sylvester. (I have other books I’m blurbing at the moment, but that’s a secret!)
If you could meet any fictional character, who would it be and why?
You know, I think I might opt out of meeting one! Akin to the saying, ‘don’t meet your heroes,’ I think I’d be afraid of finding out some of my favorite fictional characters were actually not great human beings. Part of me wants to be chaotic and say Tania, the main character of ONE FOR ALL, but she would deservedly put me through absolute hell for everything I make her go through!
Can you share one line of One For All with us?
“We are not the ones who are written into history. We are the ones who ensure history exists to be written.”
About Lillie Lainoff
Lillie Lainoff is a writer, a fencer, and now, a writer who writes about fencing. She doesn’t understand why her parents gave a clumsy eight-year-old a saber, but she’s thankful for it every day. She grew up in Washington D.C. and graduated from Yale University in 2018, where she was managing editor of the Yale Daily News Magazine and a writing partner at the Yale Writing Center, as well as a Div I athlete and NCAA Championship competitor. She is the founder of Disabled Kidlit Writers. Her writing has received awards from the Los Angeles Review, Glimmer Train, and the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, and has been featured in The Washington Post Outlook and Washington City Paper, amongst other places. She received her MA in Creative Writing Prose Fiction from the University of East Anglia. One for All, her debut novel, will be published by FSG in 2022.
- Website: lillielainoff.com
- Twitter: @lillielainoff
- Instagram: @lillielainoff
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Do you want to read One For All? Do you have any recommendations of books with disability representation? I’d love to hear from you in comments!
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I loved this book – Tania was a fantastic protagonist and her character arc amazing. The supporting characters are also wonderful. Enjoyed the interview!
Ahh I’m so glad you loved it, I can’t wait to read it! Thank you so much for reading! 🙂
I loved reading this interview. I always think it is so interesting to hear from the authors, whether their processes or what inspires them. Hearing Lille talk about disability representation was particularly touching and I really hope we see more and more disabled characters and writers in published books. Wonderful post 🥰
Ahh thank you so, so much, Sophie! <3
What a fun interview, I can’t wait to read this one, loved reading her chat about disability rep in publishing! <3
Oh thank you so, so much, so happy you enjoyed it! I can’t wait to read that one either <3