Latest / Book Flood Podcast / Encore Summer 2026: Darcie Little Badger (E66)
Transcript
- Thomas Nixon: Welcome to the Book Flood podcast. I am your host, Tom Nixon. My guest this week is Darcie Little Badger. Darcie is a Lipan Apache writer with a PhD in oceanography. Her critically acclaimed debut novel, Elatsoe, was featured in Time Magazine as one of the best 100 fantasy books of all time. Elatsoe also won the Locus Award for best first novel and was a Nebula, Ignite, and Loadstar finalist. Her second fantasy novel, A Snake Falls to Earth, received a Nebula Award and Ignite Award and a Newberry Honor and is on the National Book Awards long list. Welcome, Darcie. Darcie: Hello, thank you so much for having me. Thomas Nixon: ⁓ absolutely. Why don't we start with, let's just talk about your career trajectory. How did you get to here from all those many things you have done? Darcie: Yeah, this is a story I like to tell when I visit schools and I'm talking to aspiring writers, just because it took me such a kind of long and snake-like journey to get to the point where I'm publishing books. I did always want to be a writer. I remember when I was two years old and I didn't know yet how to write the alphabet, but I was pretending to write books on pieces of construction paper by just scribbling on them with crayons. And I had this, this idea just growing up in elementary school, in high school, all the way up to college that I was going to essentially go to college, major in English, write a book as a thesis, get it published. And there you go. That's how you do it. That's the path. But unfortunately, when I got to college, I was accepted to Princeton university, which I got to say was great. They gave me a scholarship. based on my family's financial needs. So I was able to go without debt. But what I did not realize at the time was their creative writing program requires a separate application in order to study with them and do your thesis and get that certificate. And I submitted a writing sample when I was a freshman and I waited a bit and I got rejected and I was like, okay, I'll do it again. I got rejected again. And it was at that point when I realized a couple of things. One, I wasn't going to be able to study writing in college the way I envisioned. But I also, at that time, took a beginner's oceanography course. And I'd always lived in landlocked areas, Coralville, Iowa, Texarkana, Texas, Castleton, Vermont. So I wasn't too familiar with the ocean. And just learning about how the ocean affects things like atmospheric circulation, just how everything from plankton to whales are all connected in this cool biological web. It made me realize that I wanted to become an earth scientist and just get a better appreciation of the world that we lived in. So I just completely switched gears. I started studying the ocean. I went on to get a PhD in oceanography from Texas A ⁓ doing plankton research. But the entire time I was writing science fiction and fantasy, mostly short stories. And I would submit them to magazines and just do that in my own time. I received my first pro acceptance to Strange Horizons. And from there, it just got a little bit easier. That was in 2014. I published a few more short stories. An agent reached out to me and he says, do you have a book for me? And I was like, Okay, sure. And so I finished writing a book and sent it to him. And the rest is kind of history. My first book, Alatsui, was published in 2020. So it was definitely not the journey I'd envisioned, but one that I'm very glad that I took. Since all this knowledge I have now about the world we live in really does contribute to the stories I tell, even if they do take place in fantasy worlds. Thomas Nixon: How does being a Lipan Apache inform the books that you write? Darcie: Yeah, so I'm thinking I've published three books, A Latsui, A Snake Falls to Earth and Shenedlende. And in all of them, the main characters are Lipan Apache teens, just like me when I was growing up. They all live in Texas, which is our homeland. Our traditional homeland spans Texas and even parts of Northern Mexico. My family just happened to be on the side that became Texas when that border was laid down. It's all just one, one homeland. ⁓ and I find myself, I guess I'm writing what I know. It's just the same way I write about Texas. It's just cause I know what it's like to live there. Well, I know what it's like to be me and, ⁓ just the culture that I was raised in. And I also run really cool thing that I've found is when I was growing up, like I never read any books with. any Lipan main characters in them. And I don't think I read any science fiction or fantasy books with with Native American main characters. And now that I have published, I'm connecting with readers who are saying things like, ⁓ this is so cool. Like I'm seeing myself in them. And I'm also seeing young writers who are also native, even other Lipan writers who are starting to write stories. And I'm like, this the future is going to have a lot more of these stories. Yeah, just little elements like the Italatsui and Shenelende, the main character raises the ghosts of animals. And this was a talent that was passed down down her maternal line since her sixth grade grandmother. And the way that I conceptualize, especially human ghosts in the land below is really informed by that unique understanding of the afterlife that comes from my Lipan culture. ⁓ but like everything from like family dynamics to, language finds a way into my books, language being especially important in a snake falls to earth where the main character is really wrestling with trying to understand the story that her great, great grandma told her in Lipan Apache, which is a language that has a lot of holes in it, unfortunately. ⁓ and currently there's a revitalization effort. So yeah, it's just so many different ways. And, the. ⁓ Mainly I just think it's so much easier for me to write just what I'm familiar with sometimes. Thomas Nixon: That certainly makes sense. Similar question, how does having a PhD in oceanography inform your writing? Darcie: ⁓ gosh, that's, there's like also different ways, but I think one of the most fun ways is in a Latsui. There's a scene where the main character raises the ghosts of a bunch of trilobites and then she slips into this prehistoric ocean. And I got to put like different, both prehistoric, but also like more contemporary sea critters into it. But in a Snake Falls to Earth, my second book, I try to envision what Texas is like. in the near future. And this involves climate change. And I was thinking, well, how will hurricanes be impacted? Because, you know, living in Texas or really around the Gulf, like my family, going back generations has a lot of experiences with hurricanes, but as the surface ocean warms, there is this... danger that they're going to become increasingly more powerful. They're essentially just fueled by the heat of that surface ocean. And so I was putting this understanding into the world that I was building where things like drought is going to be more extreme. The hurricanes are more powerful. I was like, how are these characters going to survive and find a way to... maintain connection to their homeland despite all of these different factors that come into play. That was a cool way where I went back to, especially when I was an undergrad, I worked with my junior thesis. I was like, it a thesis? I think it's called something like that. But it was where I was trying to predict what the future would be like in terms of sea level based on what it was like 400,000 years ago. And so just like the lessons that I was learning from my professors during that time, I was like really drawing back onto that. Thomas Nixon: So your latest book is a, I believe, is a prequel to Alatsui. Why did you decide to go in that direction? Darcie: That was a conversation actually with Arthur Levine, who is the mind behind my publisher, Levine Corrito. I was on a call with him and my editor and in a latso way, it takes place in the 21st century and the main character, Ellie, has this gift of raising animals. It's like knowledge that was passed down through heroic generations and Arthur was like, well, what if you told the story of one of those earlier generations, one of those other heroes in her family line? And I thought to myself, like, that would be cool, but what time period? Because like goes back centuries. And I realized that I haven't heard much about 1970s Texas in terms of like the Lipan people and what it was like living in Texas during that time. And yet it was a period of both like, great hardship, but also a lot of coming into our strength and saying we're still here. And essentially it was a period that had both those positives and negatives. I was like, I want to tell this story that is both in Elatsoe's universe, but draws upon these real historical contexts. And I just started writing from there and Shenilende is the story of Ellie's grandma, Shane, when she was a teenager in 1970s. And she can also raise the ghosts of animals. And she and her mom, they search for missing people with the help of a ghost bloodhound. And during one of these rescues, her mom goes missing. And so Shane has to, on her own for the first time, find a way to bring back her family. But it's also kind of a journey of self-discovery and... realization that there's still a place for her in this world. So it was a cool thing to write. Thomas Nixon: would imagine the 1970s is long before you were born. I would imagine that, but I was actually a teenager in the 1970s. I would imagine you had to do some research on what the Lipan Apache tribe was like even in the 1970s and what Texas was like in the 1970s. Darcie: You Yeah. Yes. yeah. So I have to thank my mom for ⁓ a great beta reader. cause it was, it was essentially telling in a way her story just because she was a Lipan teen in 1970s, Texas. ⁓ And example, the hurricane that occurs in this book, it's based off of the hurricane that destroyed our family home, something that she, she experienced. so She was with me the entire way, essentially telling me these stories, ensuring that I understood the context and the world. And then after I'd written the book, she read through it and she was like, made little comments like, ⁓ hey, they could not leave a voice message. What are you doing? That technology was not in our houses. So I also watched a lot of like Columbo, mostly because I liked the series Columbo, but it's a mystery series that takes place. Well, there are actually several, several decades where they were making Colombo episodes, but a lot of the like original episodes are up to the seventies. So it's like, I kind of watched that to see like, well, how would someone investigate a mystery during this time period? But mainly it was just talking to members of my family, especially my mother about their memories and what things were like. Thomas Nixon: What is your writing process like? Darcie: ⁓ it's kind of chaotic. like to write things by hand about 50 % of the time. ⁓ so I'll go into a cafe, sit down and get an iced Americano and then start writing. And I'll have to transfer that into the computer pretty quickly, or there's this risk of me losing my journal. So, but that's only half of the time. The other half of the time, my brain is like, okay, I feel like writing with a laptop. So I'll take that laptop with me. And I write in bursts of two hours. I like to do several projects at the same time, just because it's sometimes difficult for me to maintain momentum on one project day after day. So I could, for example, I just finished writing a comic and before that I did two short stories and I'm working on a couple of books. So I just kind of switch back between them depending on what I feel like inspires me at any given time. I'm also somewhat of a night owl. So if I can, I'll start working after, after 12 PM and as late as 3 AM. ⁓ and yeah, I'm still trying to get a more regular schedule down. just recently switched to full-time writing whereas I used to be a scientist who wrote also and, that, that kind of forced me to write in very specific time blocks. And now that I have all this free time, ⁓ it's almost like too much time. I'm just. I'm just trying to focus, just maybe I'll make it like 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. every day and then read after that. That's probably the most concise answer I could give. Thomas Nixon: So what was that like to transition from being a scientist to a full-time writer? I know from talking to other writers, transitioning from anything can be challenging, partly monetarily, but all sorts of other factors as well. Darcie: have it has its, its definite benefits. The reason I did it was because I was finding that I just couldn't give enough focus to both of these careers at the same time. And I was able to which is also a great, like a great privilege because it's it's not common for a writer to be able to sustain themselves just by writing and I'm lucky in that. You know, my first book did well enough that I told myself, if I make as much as I'm making as a scientific editor, I will quit my scientific editor job. And that's the way it took off in a way that surprised me. So I was like, okay, I can do this. But also like, I don't have a big family I need to support. it's just all these things came together that made it possible. But I do, I have to say I do miss. being a scientist, like I'm thinking of ways where maybe I can go back a little bit to that just so that I can still dip my toes in the process of understanding more about our world and contributing to that knowledge, even if it's just like volunteer science type stuff. But the biggest thing for me is now I have periods where I could like go the whole day alone and I'm like, I don't have those coworkers around me anymore. So I've taken up some hobbies where I could at least just be around people now and then. Thomas Nixon: That makes a lot of sense. It can be challenging to be alone all day in your thoughts, if you will. Darcie: Mm-hmm. Yes. Yes, exactly. Thomas Nixon: Has book banning affected your work? Darcie: Yeah, which is unfortunately, yes, which is I say this just because the books I write, especially like A Snake Falls to Earth, which is the one that has been challenged the most, they're just the most PG things. I'm thinking in particular, there's this incident where I believe Samuel's Library in Virginia, a group of people gave a list of books to this library and said, you have to get these books out of your shelves. And a snake falls to earth was on them. And so one of my friends was like, ⁓ well, freedom of information, I can actually see what these complaints say. And the people, they said things like pornographic content. And I have to say the snake falls to earth. There's no romance, there's no sex, there's not even a romantic kiss. There's none of that. So like, clearly these people hadn't read the books, but what really keyed me into the reason why they're pushing back on what I write is they said normalization of LGBTQ plus. indeed, like I write, write books that tell stories about the world we live in and LGBTQ people are part of that. So they're included in my books. And so there is this, this effort to, regardless of the content of the books, try to purge all of these books that might have LGBTQ characters from libraries. And it was just very, it was very disturbing to me. But also it's not something that's going to change what I'm writing. So yeah, there have been more explicit challenges like that, but I was talking to my publisher and there's a great concern about, you know, teachers and librarians, you know, being afraid to stock books that might ⁓ provoke this type of response from people. So there's this kind of soft, soft censorship banning that might be going on under the surface where, where people just choose rather than to, potentially risk going through this. They were just like, okay, we're just not going to buy these books and then we don't have to worry about it. ⁓ so it is, it's like, I went to the Miami book fest and then the Texas, ⁓ book fest. right before that, so two weeks in a row, and I was talking to author friends and the people I was talking to, I couldn't find a single one that hadn't had at least one experience with somebody trying to, to like censor, ban their books. And, and I've talked to a lot of people about this. So it's, it's definitely something that's happening, but I'm, I'm just so grateful for the people who are fighting for. our stories, the librarians who are standing up for them, the teachers, because it was hard growing up not reading about people like me. And I'm thinking all these young readers who are being told that even just existing is something that is somehow taboo and shouldn't be normalized. They shouldn't see themselves in their stories. I don't know what kind of psychological impact that's having, but it can't be good. So I'm just like, I'll just keep writing when I'm writing. And I'm grateful for people who fight for those stories and for young readers. Thomas Nixon: Your story is unfortunately all too familiar. In a previous life, I was in charge of the libraries for a large school district. And I can assure you the number of book challenges we got, I'm in California, so we probably get fewer than Texas, but still the number ones we got versus the number where they had actually read the book. Darcie: Mm-hmm. Ugh. Yeah. Thomas Nixon: Some of the things I would get, I would get in the mail a list of you need to, we want to challenge all these books. It would just be a list and it would be the same list that's been floating around and. Clearly they had never read them. Clearly saying anything you have written is pornographic is that's just using incendiary language. Darcie: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's not surprising at all that it may be like a group where they just share this list or something among them. Oof. Thomas Nixon: ⁓ for sure. This was not even the one that comes to mind. From somewhere in Northern California, I don't remember where, which is Northern Northern California is much more conservative than a lot of the rest of the state. What are you working on now? Darcie: ⁓ boy, so I have two projects that I'm doing now that I've gotten all my short projects submitted by the deadline. I'm working on another young adult book for Levine Credo. It hasn't been announced yet, but I hope people like it. It's a little bit magical, but a little bit more grounded in the current reality than the other works that I've done. And I'm also writing a middle grade book for the Cabin 23 series. which is kind of spooky stories written by different authors every time a book comes out. And so the scary story I'm writing involves the ocean and it gets to be, I am once again drawing upon my love of the ocean for my fiction. Thomas Nixon: Nice. You mentioned that you do presentations at schools and libraries. Is this something that you like to do? Darcie: Yes, I definitely, I enjoy that aspect, especially now because I was published originally in 2020. So during that year, everything was very virtual. So it hasn't been until I would say the last, year, year and a half where I've really got to go and connect with readers on a face-to-face basis. And I've traveled the country visiting middle grade through high school students and I get to talk to them about writing and my journey as a writer and you know how to do comics and just all sorts of cool stuff, how to write horror stories and it's been great and it kind of balances off that isolation of the rest of the year. So like yeah you spend a lot of time alone writing but then you get to go and visit with your readers and just make those human connections so it's been cool. Thomas Nixon: With comics, are you also an illustrator or your publisher finds someone for you? Darcie: ⁓ yeah, unfortunately I don't have that illustration skill. was like, if I did, that'd be so cool. But I just write the scripts and I do mainly IP work. So for example, someone will be like, can you write a 10 page thing for Superman? And then I'll do that. But I am for that young adult book that I'm doing right now. There's actually a graphic novel component. where I'm going to be working with an illustrator to incorporate images into the book itself. So that's gonna be really fun. Thomas Nixon: that is that's gonna be wonderful. Is there a book or series of books from your childhood that still resonates with you? Darcie: I did, I'm thinking back when I was a child, I'd read a lot of those ongoing paperback series like Animorphs and Goosebumps and I love the Red Wall series with the talking animals. So I think those were the three primary ones that I became a big fan of, but I'd also go and I'd read whatever was in the fantasy science fiction section. But yeah, I like that cool little mix of having the sci-fi, having the horror, and having the fantasy that I could always turn to when I wanted to escape my reality. Thomas Nixon: One of my children was very much into the Animorphs series and they collected, I want to say maybe all of them and certainly read all of them. Darcie: ⁓ Wow. Well, your child has great taste. Thomas Nixon: They do, they do. I wanna thank you for joining me today. I greatly appreciate this time together. For those listening, please like, share and subscribe everywhere you listen to this. And again, thank you, Darcie. I greatly appreciate you coming. Darcie: Thank you so much. It was wonderful to chat with you. Thomas Nixon: ⁓ absolutely.