First Draft - Lily King (Returns)

Summary

First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing

Episode Summary – Lily King (Returns)

Host: Mitzi Rapkin
Guest: Lily King
Date: June 1, 2026
Recorded: Aspen Words 2026 Winter Words Series, Aspen, CO

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Episode Overview

This episode features celebrated novelist Lily King in a live conversation with Mitzi Rapkin. They delve deep into King’s latest novel, Heart the Lover, the power of emotional writing, the complexities of love triangles, and the challenges and exhilarations of the creative process. The discussion is rich with insight on fiction’s ability to distill personal truths, the mechanics of craft, and the ongoing search for hope and connection, especially in turbulent times.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. About Heart the Lover

• Plot Introduction ([06:25]):
  • Lily King resists summarizing her own work, noting: “If I could summarize it, then I wouldn’t have had to write it... I also don’t like to give anything away. I mean, anything.”
  • The novel’s inciting incident: a college senior, nicknamed Jordan, goes on a disastrous date with Sam, a moment that alters her life’s trajectory.
  • Jordan develops significant relationships with both Sam and his roommate, Yash; the novel follows her as she discovers her love for writing, pursues graduate studies, and journeys through adulthood.

2. Writing from Emotion ([08:43]; [10:03])

• Central Role of Emotion:
  • King states, “Emotion is the only thing I really care about. ...When I read books, I want to be moved. I want to feel what that person’s feeling. I want to be taken on an emotional journey.” ([08:43])
• Rooting Fiction in Experience:
  • She describes using her own emotions as source material, but always channels them into fictional vessels: “It’s definitely emotions that I have felt, but I put them into vessels that are not me.” ([10:03])
• Nonfiction vs. Fiction:
  • King notes her nonfiction writing often feels “flat… I need fiction. I need to make things up.”

3. The Creative Life and Process

• Writing Routines: ([12:07])
  • King needs quiet and stability to write fiction; travel and book tours make it difficult to access her “introverted self.”
  • She journals regularly even during writing dry spells.
• Critical vs. Generative Modes: ([29:13])
  • King stresses: “For that first draft, really get the critic completely out of the room… The critic is not helping you do anything.”
  • Revision stages gradually invite the critic back, culminating in sharing drafts with trusted readers.
• Subconscious Influence: ([26:25]); ([26:55])
  • On discovering her character’s future unexpectedly, King says, “All kinds of things are working below the surface. …It’s not cerebral…it’s really much more from my gut.”

4. Literary Craft: Love, Friendship, and Tension

• Mind and Body Attraction: ([13:51])
  • King enjoys exploring connections that are “exciting both mind and body”—beyond mere physical attraction.
• Love Triangles Complexity: ([15:24])
  • Describes the dynamic as “very triangulated…which is much more tense, because we’re supposed to be in twos, not threes.”
  • King, referencing her own interview history: “I often say that the biggest love story in this book is with Sam and Yash."
• First Loves and Decision-Making: ([18:11])
  • The theme of how youthful choices and vulnerability shape us: “You’re just so—you’re like a blank page, you know…this thing happens, and it’s so big and you’re so vulnerable, and you have no idea how much it’s gonna hurt when it ends.”

5. Communication, Assumptions, and Growing Up ([20:42])

• On Misunderstandings:
  • “You make all kinds of assumptions…all these cues and triggers…you don’t have enough distance, and you haven’t had any therapy necessarily. …You don’t really understand how your reality is being twisted and how much you’re not saying.”
  • King relates this “wall” of miscommunication back to her own early relationships and to her character’s struggles.

6. Connection to Writers and Lovers ([23:32])

• Connection between Heart the Lover and King’s earlier novel happened organically, not by design: “It just kept on being her and the details and things started dovetailing…” ([23:32])
• King was initially uncertain about tying the books together but became committed during revisions.

7. The Structure Breakthrough ([31:39]; [34:51])

• King recounts years of struggling with the novel’s structure; breakthrough came after her husband suggested, again, “She needs to go there with a secret.” ([31:39])
• In an intense 11 days before deadline, King rewrote significant sections: “It was just the most exhilarating 11 days... everything changed.” ([38:40])

8. Writing in Difficult Times ([39:32])

• King finds writing challenging in moments of collective crisis but is heartened by community resilience: “Never underestimate our capacity for love…love is the only thing that’s gonna save us. And I actually think it will.” ([41:21])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Emotional Fiction

  • “When I read books, I want to be moved. I want to feel what that person’s feeling. I want to be taken on an emotional journey.”
    — Lily King, [02:38]

• On Subconscious Writing

  • “Writing really is not cerebral. It’s not something I’m planning out. …It’s really much more from my gut.”
    — Lily King, [26:55]

• On Love Triangles

  • “Everybody kind of wants a piece of everybody else...the biggest love story in this book is with Sam and Yash.”
    — Lily King, [15:31]

• On First Loves

  • “You’re like a blank page, you know, that has no writing on it. And then this thing happens, and it’s so big, and you’re so vulnerable, and you have no idea how much it’s gonna hurt when it ends.”
    — Lily King, [18:11]

• On Hope and Love Amid Hate

  • “I didn’t realize writing this book, what a time of hate we were going to go into...but I think...that surge of love is so much bigger than their surge of hate.”
    — Lily King, [41:21]

• On Reader Experience

  • “Any book that you read, you’re bringing your own thoughts and memories and imagination...I want it to be an emotional experience. A journey like that. That’s it.”
    — Lily King, [41:46]

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Key Timestamps

• [06:25] – Lily King and Mitzi summarize Heart the Lover
• [08:43] – Discussion on writing from emotions
• [13:51] – The mind/body duality in love and attraction
• [15:24] – Delving into the dynamic of love triangles
• [18:11] – First love, youth, and their lasting impact
• [20:42] – Communication barriers and assumptions in relationships
• [23:32] – Linking Heart the Lover and Writers and Lovers
• [31:39] – Breaking through with structure, last-minute rewrites
• [39:32] – Creating art during tumultuous times
• [41:21] – The sustaining power of love
• [44:15] – Lily reads from Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
• [48:09] – Lily reads a passage from her own novel
• [52:38] – On rejection and favorite word ("tocca te")

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Selected Reading (with Attribution and Context)

Excerpt from Mrs. Dalloway

Read by Lily King ([44:15])

“Then came the most exquisite moment of her whole life. Passing a stone urn with flowers in it. Sally stopped, picked a flower, kissed her on the lips. The whole world might have turned upside down. The others disappeared. There she was, alone with Sally, and she felt that she had been given a present, wrapped up and told just to keep it, not to look at it, a diamond, something infinitely precious…”
— Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

Lily’s reason for selection:
“This kiss with Sally at the urn really does prove to be one of the most exquisite moments of her life… And it’s also, you know, to the reader… a woman who has the capacity to love other women romantically but isn’t allowed to in her culture and her society. And so that is so poignant to me.”

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Excerpt from Heart the Lover

Read by Lily King ([48:09])

“If there’s any place I can point to where my writing life actually began, it’s here with Dr. Felsky on Thursdays at 1pm… She steers me away from the Southern Gothic plots I was enamored with last year and encourages me to write from my own emotions. I start to understand the power of fiction, the reason we make things up…”
— Lily King, Heart the Lover

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Rapid-Fire Q&A Highlights

• Where do you write?
  “In my study, in my house, usually sitting down. But I’m really trying to train myself to stand up because of my back.” ([51:56])

• How do you get away from writing?
  “I take a lot of walks with friends… I play a lot of pickleball.” ([52:12])

• First feedback?
  “First my husband, then my writers group, then my agent and then my editor.” ([52:38])

• On rejection?
  “It’s just so much a part of this work...I work hard not to take it personally.” ([52:47])

• Favorite word or phrase?
  “‘Tocca te’ — Italian for ‘your turn’. I just love that.” ([53:11])

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Concluding Note

Mitzi and Lily bring the conversation full circle to the importance of emotion in fiction and living, especially in uncertain times. King’s reflections on the writing process, creative vulnerability, and the hope embedded in love offer both practical advice and inspiration for writers and readers alike.

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For more:

• Visit Aspen Words
• Explore the First Draft archive: firstdraftwriters.com

Transcript

[Mitzi Rapkin]

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[Lily King]

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[Mitzi Rapkin]

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[Lily King]

Take the first step toward your nursing career.

[Mitzi Rapkin]

Save your spot [e-mail] events. For information on program outcomes, visit carrington.edu sci. This is First Draft A Dialogue on Writing. I'm Mitzi Rapkin.

[Interviewer/Host]

This is a show about craft, the

[Mitzi Rapkin]

writing life, and the themes that are present in a writer's work. Every interview is a journey. I don't really know where our conversation is going to go, but I do know that it's fascinating every time, and one way or another, we seem to get around to what it means to be human and how, through craft, that idea is articulated on the page. Thank you for joining me on this literary pilgrimage into the mind of one writer at a time. This podcast turned 12 years old last June, and to celebrate the 12th anniversary of first Draft, A Dialogue on Writing, I am picking out 12 of my favorite episodes out of more than 550 interviews in the archive. I'm choosing based on my memory of talks with writers or a feeling I had during the conversation or or some way they help me think of something in a new way. But please know this is not a definitive list. Each month on the last Friday, one of the 12 episodes will drop and you can listen wherever you get your podcasts. My interview today is with Lily King, author of the novel Heart the Lover.

[Lily King]

When I read books, I want to be moved. I want to. I want to feel what that person's feeling. I want to be taken on an emotional journey. And so, you know, I'm trying to kind of take myself and the readers on a trip.

[Mitzi Rapkin]

We'll be back with Lilly King after these essential words. Hi First Draft listeners. I create this podcast with the underlying values of honesty, vulnerability, connection, and curiosity. If these conversations and my passion for offering them to the world are meaningful to you, I'd love to hear from you via Patreon. You can find the page to donate at patreon.com FirstDraftWriters that's P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com FirstDraftWriters support starts at just $6 a month and every tier of donation includes extras at the end of every month. As I was preparing to write this pitch, I dug out my notebook that I still have from high school I where I would write down my favorite quotes. It's a hard backed notebook and I would take a deep breath and try to copy the quotes into the book with my absolute best handwriting. The neatness and the words mattered so much to me.

[Interviewer/Host]

This show is similar.

[Mitzi Rapkin]

I take a deep breath and try my hardest before every interview, every edit session and every moment of recording. If that care and attention is something you feel, please let me know. One of my favorite quotes that I wrote in my journal when I was 16 years old is by JRR Tolkien. He wrote still around the corner there may wait a new road or a secret gate. This podcast still fills me with hope and anticipation that there will always be a sense of discovery with an interview, a book, a sentence or even a word which, if you've listened before, you know that I ask every author on this show their favorite word. I invite you to join me and travel a new road of support for First Draft. Open the secret [e-mail] First Draft writers and please rate the show on itunes and tell everyone you know to subscribe. And thank you for being here with me today, right now, in this moment and on to the show which hopefully will will open a secret gate or a new road. My guest today is Lily King, the award winning author of six novels including Euphoria, which won the Kirkus Award, the New England Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book critics award. Her 2020 novel, Writers and Lovers won the New England Society Book Award and was a New York Times Notable Book and chosen as a top 10 best book of 2020 by the Washington Post, NPR, People magazine and the Los Angeles Times. Her short story collection, Tuesdays in Winter. Her most recent novel is Heart the Lover. This episode was recorded live at The Aspen Words 2026 Winter Word series in Aspen, Colorado. Aspen Words mission is to encourage writers, inspire readers, and connect people through the power of stories. You can learn more about the nonprofit [e-mail] thanks, Lily, for coming here.

[Lily King]

Oh, thank you. Thank you all. Thank you so much. Aspen Words and Adrienne and everybod. I know it took a lot to put this all together, and I'm so, so grateful to be here. Thank you so much, Rincey.

[Mitzi Rapkin]

Of course.

[Interviewer/Host]

So I thought maybe at first we can start with a summary of the novel in case there's one or two who haven't read it yet. I am happy to do it, but if you would like to do it, go for it.

[Lily King]

Okay, well, I'll try. And maybe you can continue because mine will be bad.

[Interviewer/Host]

Okay.

[Lily King]

It's the wor. I mean, you know, if I could summarize it, then I wouldn't have had to write it. And so. And I also don't like to give anything away. I mean, anything. And so I won't tell you anything that happens. I'll just say that at the very beginning of the book, a college senior goes on a date with. Goes on a bad date with a smart guy, and it changes the entire course of her life. Do you want to elaborate?

[Interviewer/Host]

I will elaborate. I'm going to elaborate without spoilers. So this senior that goes on the date, her name is. They call her Jordan. It's kind of a nickname. And the boy she goes out with is Sam, and he's very heady and intellectual and kind of religious. And he has a roommate named Yash who becomes very important to Jordan throughout the course of the novel. She has sort of a love for both of them, and that kind of changes over time. And she stays at school, actually, to do an extra semester, which is where she really starts to write and find her true love for Yash. And then she goes to Paris and she goes to grad school, and then we see her later. We're not.

[Lily King]

If you haven't read it, plug your ears at this point.

[Interviewer/Host]

And then we see her later in life where she's married and has children. Yeah, but we won't give anything away about what happened, all that.

[Lily King]

No.

[Interviewer/Host]

So over the course of the book, one of the things you write this is when she is doing her extra semester and she's really starting to understand herself, I believe. And she gets this teacher, a writing teacher who's pretty meaningful and is a catalyst for her to see things in a new way. And you write. She steers me away from the Southern Gothic plots I was enamored with last year and encourages me to write from my own emotions. I start to understand the power of fiction, the reason we make things up. And so I wanted to start with asking you about writing for your emotions, because you write a lot about love and friendship and parental relationships, but what about writing from emotion?

[Lily King]

I really think that emotion is the only thing I really care about. I mean, when I get an idea for a book, I usually see some main character and maybe a handful of other people. But what I really feel is where that character is emotionally, what they're struggling with. And it's usually a struggle. I mean, I never think, you know, I don't get an idea for a perfectly happy person on a boat. You know, like, they're usually in some sort of fraught situation. And then usually I have a sense of where I want that person to land. And so the whole book, really, the plot, the situations, everything is in surface, is in service to that arc, that emotional arc. When I read books, I want to be moved. I want to feel what that person's feeling. I want to be taken on an emotional journey. And so I'm trying to kind of take myself and the readers on a trip, usually.

[Interviewer/Host]

And is it really your emotions that you're feeling that you're trying to create this truth from, like, your life, Lily? Or is it the emotions of the characters?

[Lily King]

Yeah, it's definitely emotions that I have felt, but I put them into vessels that are not me. And, I mean, sometimes, you know, you can definitely point to things where I intersect with the character, but none of the characters that I've ever written have been me. If I try to write about myself nonfictionally in an essay, I can do it for a little while, but it's pretty flat. Like, I don't love. Doesn't excite me, really, to write. I don't know. I need fiction. I need to make things up. I need to have that tool in my toolbox. When I'm writing, I usually. I write from my own experience. Things I've read, things people have told me, and a vast amount of my own imagination. And so anytime I'm writing a scene, I just try to grab every single tool I have to have everything at my disposal. And so whatever's going to make the scene best in my mind is what I'll use.

[Interviewer/Host]

Are you always writing?

[Lily King]

No, I have not been Writing for a long, long time. And it's really. I mean, I should have hives all over, but I am researching and I am thinking about it, and I do write in my journal.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah, I was wondering if you're channeling some of your emotions into writing. If you feel like there's a quality to your life that is different when you're writing versus when you're not.

[Lily King]

I mean, yes, writing for me requires kind of my introverted self, and that can't happen when I'm traveling on book tour. And so the extroverted side kind of comes out and the introverted side. I honestly can't find her. And I. I can't like, sit on a plane and suddenly conjure her up to write fiction. It's just. I'm bad at that. And so when I'm home, I really. I have to be home or I have to be somewhere for a sustained amount of time to write. Well, I think I can't bop around

[Interviewer/Host]

and.

[Lily King]

Yeah, I mean, I'm much quieter when I'm writing and. And my days are certainly a lot slower and I'm always wearing slippers, you know, and I'm drinking a lot of tea. So I do feel like a very

[Interviewer/Host]

different person in this novel and sort of the companion writers and lovers. There's almost. I would call it. I'm open to your interpretation if my word is wrong. Almost like a biblical spiritual level that. Jordan, your character refers to writers writing and quotes from writers. And I wanted to ask you about that because it's very elevated for her.

[Lily King]

Yeah, I mean, it's her passion. It's her one thing that has sustained her, I think. I don't think she really talks about it, but from childhood on and just, you know, writers, books, writing is the thing that keeps her going and the thing that she has just had a passion for forever. And then she finds Sam and Yash and she can speak that language with them. And they all three share that in different ways and for probably different reasons. But it's such a relief to her because she's gone all through college without meeting people like that.

[Interviewer/Host]

Something that struck me about her relationship with these two Sam and Yash was a very mind and body thing. I mean, I think. Think she's attracted to the minds of both, but one really appeals to her mind a lot more. And one, it's the mind and the body. There's like an electric, electric ness there. Can you talk about that a little?

[Lily King]

Yeah. I mean, there's nothing I like better than when I can get A character to meet somebody who is exciting, both mind and body. And it was really, really fun to develop that because it is so much more thrilling to her, you know, to be able to, like, have sex and have banter at the same time. For me, as a reader, it's more entertaining than just, like, you know, physical attraction and describing that. I'm just. I'm not really so interested in that. I'm more interested in really something that can become something very, very big, you know, like a big, big love. And I think that's an element that's essential.

[Interviewer/Host]

Can we talk about love triangles?

[Lily King]

We can.

[Interviewer/Host]

Okay.

[Lily King]

We can.

[Interviewer/Host]

So, I mean, it's something. I interviewed you in 2017, and we talked about love triangle in Euphoria, and there are some, you know, competing friends who are interested in Jordan and how she kind of moves from one to the other. And I'm again, about your interest in this, but something that struck me. So she dates Sam and she dates Yash. We can say that. And Yash is, I think, equally in a love triangle as much as she is. And I want to ask you about that.

[Lily King]

Yes. The triangle in this situation is very triangulated, isn't it?

[Interviewer/Host]

Like, it's almost a circular triangle.

[Lily King]

Yeah. Yeah. Everybody kind of wants a piece of everybody else, you know, like, it's not just. There's somebody off in the off stage. And. Yeah, I mean, I often say that the biggest love story in this book is with Sam and Yash. I mean, that is the love that really, really proves itself, you know, and she threatens that. She really does. She comes in the middle, and it could easily have all gone to smithereens. A writer wants situations that have tension, you know, and that have drama. And so having three people instead of two people is, you know, just much more tense, you know, because we're supposed to be in twos, not threes. And so it's. It's something that I obviously like to play with. It just keeps coming back. I'm really gonna try not to do it in my next novel. But I also think there's an element of unavailability when you have a love triangle. And kind of a. I was asking a friend of mine when I went to Atlanta, and she's a psychologist, and I was kind of picking her brain about love triangles, and she's like, well, you know, there's the unavailability aspect, and there's also, you know, you can't get everything from one person. And so, I mean, that's just a fact. And so there's you know, there's that piece of it, too. Like, you know, what do you sacrifice? What do you keep? You know, that kind of thing.

[Interviewer/Host]

I think there's also something in there about youth. Right. She's a senior in college. This is her first love. She has these first loves, and it's so fresh and it's so exciting for her. It's an awakening, basically. And she has some decisions to make later as things are getting a little bit more convoluted. And there's a character that basically says to her, you know, these decisions that you make in your youth, they don't come back. You know, don't put this love second. And I just. I wanted to see if you wanted to talk about that. That feeling of first love and these decisions you have to make and the people we are growing into becoming because of that.

[Lily King]

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting, that comment that's by a French woman that she meets. And. And the French woman is coming at it through very much her own perspective. And it really interests me when people give advice that's basically just very, very strictly based on what they've experienced and what the outcome was. And she really regrets giving up her first love. And then she's ended up, years and years later back with him. And she just kind of wants Jordan to skip that step and just stick with him and not let it go. But in Jordan's case, it's terrible advice. So it is funny because some people point to that, you know, as good advice. I'm like, no, no, that's bad advice. But there is. I mean, it is. First loves are so. So intense. And, you know, it's all new. You know, you're such a. You're just so. You're like a blank page, you know, that it has no writing on it. And then this thing happens, and it's so big and you're so vulnerable, and you have no idea how much it's gonna hurt when it ends. You know, for whatever reason, I just find that vulnerability of the character and sort of the poignancy of the situation. You know, I just. I'm really interested in that.

[Interviewer/Host]

I mean, basically a lot of what happens in the book, which is good for fiction. And so I wanna ask you about it for craft. But also in the book is sort of, you know, we have these opportunities to maybe tell someone how we feel or what we're thinking. And sometimes we miss each other or sometimes we make assumptions and someone else is making a completely opposite assumption. And so you get tension in fiction and you certainly get tension in real life. And that's a big part of it, is, how do we really understand each other? What does it mean? But I think Jordan has certain expectations of Yash, and they have plans and certain things she believes are gonna go a certain way. And he has assumptions about what's going on for him and who his allegiance lies to. So there's big things that happen in the book where they don't go her way, and she goes on and lives with a complete assumption of how. And there's maybe an opportunity for her to discover that maybe it was something else. And that's really important for fiction.

[Lily King]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that is part of the poignancy of first love, too, is that you're. I mean, unless you came from an extraordinarily healthy family of origin, you really are not great at communicating. And you make all kinds of assumptions, like, you know, someone I don't know doesn't pour you a glass of water, and you take it so badly because it echoes all these things that you experienced in your family when you were growing up. And, you know, there are all these cues and triggers and all kinds of things, and you can't. You don't have enough distance, and you haven't had any therapy necessarily. And so you don't really understand, like, how your reality is being twisted and how much you're not saying and how much you know you are. You are assuming and guessing and. I don't know. I mean, that was definitely true for me when I was early on, you know, having like, you know, first couple of relationships, I just didn't know how to say, talk about anything. I could not. I could not be vulnerable like that. I just would not. I would just shut down. And I think that is what happens to her in a way, because he does this thing that really disappoints her, and boom, the wall goes up so high. And it's inexplicable to him too. Yeah. Trying not to say too much.

[Mitzi Rapkin]

We'll be back with this interview in just a moment. Remember, you can listen to this and every episode without ads and without these pitches by becoming a patron of First Draft at patreon.com First Draft writers,

[Lily King]

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[Lily King]

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[Lily King]

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[Lily King]

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[Lily King]

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[Interviewer/Host]

That's why you rack. Can you talk about the relationship of this to writers and lovers and that, you know, digging into the youth of Jordan and how they sort of relate and how this came to be?

[Lily King]

Yeah. So I won't say exactly what the connection is between the two books if you haven't read it, but I didn't think, I mean, it's not like while I was writing Writers and Lovers, I was thinking, oh, I've got another story about so and so here. I didn't at all. In fact, I didn't think about those characters really ever again. And then, you know, Covid hit the day, the week that writers and Lovers came out. And then I went on to a short story collection. And then I started writing a murder mystery that really, really went badly pretty quickly. And then I started writing this and she. I wrote that the first scene takes place in the classroom when she first kind of. Or they first notice her, really. And. And she didn't have a name. I didn't need a name. It was first person. And then I knew that there would be a leap. I knew that we were going to make this leap in time and I knew that she would have a husband. And so when I wrote in a note in the back of my notebook, I write by hand in the back of the notebook. I keep notes. And I wrote, I was meaning to write, you know, her husband, blah, blah, blah. But instead of writing her husband, I wrote a name. And then I looked at the name and I was like, she's married to him. Well, that can't be. That cannot be. And I can't do that. And my editor won't like that. And I don't think I like that. And I don't write, you know, connected books. And then I kept on writing and it just kept on happening like it kept on being her and the details and things started dovetailing and. And so that's how it came about very, very inadvertently.

[Interviewer/Host]

Did you resist that?

[Lily King]

Well, a little bit. I tried. I kept on not resist exactly, but I was like, maybe not, maybe not I'll kind of go with it, see how it goes. And then I still was open. Like, I did it lightly enough that it could be withdrawn if I needed to. And I just. I needed to know how my editor thought about it. I felt like it was. It was kind of going to be. Have an impact on everything and like, foreign sales and blah, blah, blah, Like, I don't know. And so I wasn't. Not that if I was really, really 100%, I wouldn't care about any of that stuff, but because I was on the fence, I was willing to be swayed. Then, you know, with draft after draft, I got more and more kind of dug in with it.

[Interviewer/Host]

Where do you think, like, when you wrote that sentence and a name came up for who her husband was, and you're like, she's married to him.

[Mitzi Rapkin]

Where do you think that comes from?

[Lily King]

I don't know. I mean, I think all kinds of things are working below the surface. I found that many times, writing this book that there were things there kind of waiting that I don't feel consciously I knew about, but sort of, obviously I must have known about, you know, very, very odd. I can't really. I can't really explain it.

[Interviewer/Host]

Like, do you think it's like that the subconscious plays a big part in

[Mitzi Rapkin]

your writing experience, or do you think it's maybe more tangible?

[Lily King]

I don't know. I can't really access that. I just know that for me, writing really is not cerebral. It's not something I'm planning out. It's not an intellectual experience. I'm not thinking now, what are the themes here and what are. You know, I'm not doing any of that English teacher stuff. It's really. It's really much more from my gut and much more. I don't know. There's a writer, Robert Olin Butler, and he has a book about writing called from where you dream. Yeah, it's a good book. Isn't it? Amazing. I feel like that describes my process more than. More than most, you know, that it is this. It's not actually dreaming, but it's more like dreaming than anything else because you're. It's a little bit like when you're just waking up and you're having a dream, but you can slightly control it. You know, you can slightly be like, bring the cute guy back into the room, you know, but you can't control. It's a little bit like that, you know, you go, it's not a trance exactly. But he does call it a trance, I think. And it's just a state of being. It has its own conscience.

[Interviewer/Host]

I think when you think about the duality, like I was asking you the beginning, about the love for the mind and the body, what you're saying reminds me of, you know, there's this maybe magical part when you're generating, but there's a very critical part that comes in when you're editing.

[Lily King]

Yeah, exactly.

[Interviewer/Host]

And in your book, because your characters talk so much about writing, they are also kind of trying to dissect it. Sometimes they argue. Like there was a point where the characters were arguing about. One was saying, it's structure that makes a book.

[Lily King]

Yeah.

[Interviewer/Host]

And Jordan was saying, no, it's everything else. It's character, it's setting. So there is this very critical part to it. What is your experience, then, of the critical part? Because you also write about that. All fiction is. It's like time and distance or something. It was the teacher, Dr. Felsky, is always talking about the two things that bring perspective and revelation to a character. Time and distance.

[Lily King]

Interesting.

[Mitzi Rapkin]

Yeah.

[Interviewer/Host]

Maybe it was your generative brain that wrote that.

[Lily King]

How exactly are my bullshit capacities? So I really wanted to talk about that because sometimes there are a lot of writers in the audience of my readings, and I think it's so important for that first draft to really get the critic completely out of the room. I mean, that critic is not helping you do anything. And it's just only going to stop you in your tracks and keep your page empty. And so I, like, very consciously, when I'm writing a first draft, put the critic out the door, the judge, that voice in your head that wants to really, really, really tell you it's not going well, you don't know how to write this sentence. You're never gonna get to that next scene kind of thing. I put that out the door. But then the critic has to come back a little bit. When I go from my handwritten notebooks and I put it onto the computer, then there's a little. There's definitely some editing that's happening, but there's also some creating that's happening. I definitely change things. I try to make it better. I try to enhance it. I usually, with my earlier drafts, I'm not a writer who writes too much and then has to cut. I'm a writer who writes too little and then has to expand. So putting it into the computer, I'm definitely expanding and writing. But there is an element of the critic, but there has to be room for the creator as well. And then in future drafts, then the critic Then I'm printing out the whole thing. I'm reading it over like a reader, like a teacher, like somebody in my. If I'm reading somebody in my writer's group, then I have my real critical hat on, and I'm marking things and writing things in the margin. So then I go through that draft, and then I put it all. I put the changes onto the computer, and I print it out, and I read it over again. I put the changes in, and it goes on for a long, long time. And then finally, there's nothing that I can do. Like, I don't know. I know it still has problems, perhaps, but I don't know how to fix them. And I don't know what other problems are that I'm not seeing. And so then I have to give it to people. So I give it to my husband and my writer's group, my agent and my editor.

[Interviewer/Host]

And I think there was something when you finished this book that wasn't quite working, and you got some advice from your husband.

[Lily King]

I did. I think he's a little tired of the story, and I'm sorry if you've heard it before, but it was kind of like one of those writing moments that I honestly didn't think I would ever experience. And so this book, that comment when Yash says every book of genius is genius because of its structure, that really haunted me because I could not figure out the structure for this book. I could not do it. I took a walk with my friend Richard Russo, and I was just desperate. And he was like, well, you have to start at the end and then go back and. And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I tried that. It didn't work. And then I had a writer's group friend, we had a lunch, and I was really struggling with the end. And she's like, well, she has to go on a walkabout. And I wrote 38 pages that take place in Iceland. She's, like, literally climbing up the mountain and making a sacrifice for her son's health. And it was just like, I really, really was at a loss for a long time. I had the first part, the college part, which was just supposed to be, like, 20 pages of backstory, because I thought that most of the story, when I first got the idea, was gonna be this leap that she takes where we go 30 years in advance, and they all end up in the same place. And that was my interest. That was my great passion about this book, was kind of getting down those scenes. But the reader needed to know what happened before. And so I just went back, but then that kind of really took over. And so that was the first part, and I guess it takes place over maybe a year and a half, and then we made the big jump, and then I wrote the other stuff, and that was all there was. There was just two parts. Now there are three, but there were just two then. And I wrote the part that I wanted to write that was supposed to be the whole book, and I read it over, and it wasn't good. I mean, it wasn't bad, but terrible. Like, really, I have to start again. But it was flat. It was a little just. It just. It didn't have enough tension. And so I went back in and I tried to ramp it up, ramp up the tension, like, oh, well, you know. You know, just kind of make the timeline shorter because of her son and everything that was going on with him, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'd read it over again, and it was flat, and it just. This kept happening. And I'd read over the beginning parts, and I'd just tinker with it, and we'd bup, bup, bup, bup, bup. And then I'd get to this, and I'd be like, ugh, it's not working. And So I had 12 days before I had to hand in the very, very final draft of the novel to go into production. My editor was very clear, we are going into production. You can't stall any longer is basically what she was saying. And I'd done all sorts of things to stall. A friend of mine ran over my foot, and so. And it was due. And so I got, like, another six weeks out of my deadline. You know, I'm like, oh, my foot's been run over. You know, but there were no broken bones.

[Interviewer/Host]

But it still affects me.

[Lily King]

So you're right, I milked it. And so with a car. I mean, it wasn't like he didn't run over with a bicycle, but it was definitely a great excuse. And so then I had 12 days left, and I'd written another draft. And I read it over, and it was the same thing. I hadn't improved it. I hadn't fixed it. I just hadn't. And it was winter in Maine, and my husband was doing an erg. You probably don't even know what ergs are because you never have to be inside exercising here, but, you know, it's a rowing machine. And it was kind of behind the couch, and I sat on the couch and I was sitting so bummed. And he looked at me. He stopped His. Urgh. And he was like, what is the matter? And I said, it's still not working. I can't get it to work. And I saw him, he was going to open his mouth and say the thing that he had been saying for a year, which was. And because he had read this book called Plot and Structure for Screenplays, and there was a list in that book of 10 tips to make your screenplay have more tension. And he. He thought that one of them would work. And so for a year he had been saying, she needs to go there with a secret. And I was like, she has no secret. She has no secret. And he would say it again. And I'm like, she has no secret. In my back of my mind, I kind of like, well, she had a secret, it would be this. But I was like, she has no secret. And then, you know, a few months before that, he had said it again. I was shut up. She has no fucking secret. There's no secret. There's no secret. So then he said it again that day, 12 days before I had to turn it in. And he's actually said it. And I looked at him and I was like, fine. And I went into my study and I opened up the last page of the first section. And when she goes to see her friend in Brooklyn, Carson. Carson opens the door and sees her. And I change like three lines of dialogue and one little description. And then I called my husband in and I read it to him. And this is my memory, don't correct me, but I remember that you had a little tear in your eyes and I got goosebumps. And I was like, okay. And so I was like, okay, okay, I'm gonna go finish it now. And So I had 11 days to change the entire rest of the book. Like, I had to change everything. I had to introduce a whole new section. Part two, I had a little tiny tree climbing scene that was like three pages long. That was at the very, very beginning. I put that in the middle. And then I had to write, you know, 20 more pages of that, which is something I'd really, really tried not to write. When she brings him back to dinner, I did not. I had avoided writing that. And then I realized I had to write that and I had to have a flashback to the whole secret thing. And I had to write so much. And then we get to part three where they, you know, the 30 year thing. And then I had to write it. I rewrite everything. I mean, everything. Everything changed. And I. It was honestly, I just felt like I was on the Scent. I really felt like I knew finally what it needed. And so it was just the most exhilarating 11 days. But I worked so, like, night and day. Like, just had to really, really, really, really, really crank it out. And then I gave it to my editor, and I was really worried because it was a dramatic change. And she was like. She was so happy. She was so happy. It was really, really great just to see her response and relief all around. And so that was, you know, I have to thank you. Thank you.

[Interviewer/Host]

I think that's so interesting, too. I mean, I don't know. This took you years, but you work on something for years and you turn it into your editor and you turn it in, and then all of a sudden, there's, like, one fresh 50 pages that are hot, and you didn't have to work on them for years.

[Lily King]

And they're in the book. I know, right?

[Interviewer/Host]

They're just, like, fresh out of the oven. It's kind of amazing.

[Lily King]

I know. I felt like I was so lucky.

[Interviewer/Host]

Is there, like, a tactic there you could do next time?

[Lily King]

I know. I'm just gonna go to the God on the urg and get my next installment.

[Interviewer/Host]

So I'm curious in general, I don't know if you are working on something new now, and you write so much about love and feelings, and we started this talking about emotions, and this is a very emotional time to be living in this country. And I'm just curious about creating today.

[Lily King]

Well, as I said, I haven't been creating. I think it's very, very hard to write in these kinds of times. You know, it's really hard to do anything. I mean, I feel in so many ways, Maine is having a surge in ice like Minnesota. But, you know, we don't have the. We have a smaller population, obviously, but it had been very, very intense in the last week that I was there, and then I just left, and I felt really guilty leaving and, you know, to go around, like, talking about this love story. And at the same time, I feel much less embarrassed about having written a love story because I didn't realize writing this book, what a time of hate we were going to go into. I mean, a time of true cruelty and hate that is coming from the top, you know, that it's coming at us from our own government is really, really shocking. But I think, you know, what I've seen in Maine and what we are seeing in Minnesota is just a huge surge of love. I mean, and that surge of love is so much bigger than their surge of hate, and it gives I mean, I know I'm sure we are all feeling this. It just. It does give us so much hope and so much faith and like, never underestimate our capacity for love and for, you know, real caring of our communities and our neighbors and. And I really, really believe that love is the only thing that's gonna save us. And I actually think it will. So thank you.

[Mitzi Rapkin]

Thank you.

[Lily King]

We got through it without crying.

[Interviewer/Host]

I mean, I think that's also a question in your novel. Is. Is love crushing and dangerous or is it hopeful?

[Lily King]

Yeah, I mean, for me it's pure hope. I mean, I side with Jordan on this one. Very, very much so. It really is.

[Interviewer/Host]

Is there anything that you really hope that people take away from this book?

[Lily King]

You know, I don't. I feel like I really write for each individual reader to have their own experience. And it is so interesting because each individual reader really does have their own experience. Any book that you read, you know, you're bringing your own thoughts and memories and imagination to it all. And it is an individual experience. And so I never want to like shove something down someone's throat. I mean, I know that's not what you're asking, but I'm not, you know, I'm not interested in people liking one person and not liking another person or, you know, I really, I just feel like, especially again in this time, if we can connect to our own emotions, whether it's, you know, our own first loves or our own regrets or our own desire to communicate better. Just any, any. I just, I want it to be an emotional experience. You know, a journey like that. That's it.

[Interviewer/Host]

I love that. We started with emotion, we'll end with emotion. Thank you so much.

[Lily King]

Oh, thank you, Mitzi.

[Interviewer/Host]

So much.

[Lily King]

Yeah, thank you. Thank you all. Thank you.

[Mitzi Rapkin]

We'll be back with this interview in just a moment. Remember, you can listen to this and every episode without ads and without these pitches by becoming a patron of First Draft at patreon.com FirstDraftWriters Good Sleep is everything. That's why Ollie's science bag support is made with a blend of melatonin and L theanine for both kiddos and grown ups. So when your mind won't switch off, just you've got something that can help your racing thoughts and restless nights won't stand a chance. Find Ollie sleep solutions for the whole [e-mail] that's o l l y dot com.

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[Interviewer/Host]

Can you read a passage from an author that speaks to you or influences you as a writer?

[Lily King]

Sure. So this is from Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. She stood by the fireplace talking in that beautiful voice which made everything she said sound like a caress to Papa, who had begun to be attracted rather against his will. He never got over lending her one of his books and finding it soaked on the terrace, when suddenly she said, what a shame to sit indoors, and they all went out to the terrace and walked up and down. Peter Walsh and Joseph Brightkop went on about Wagner. She and Sally fell a little behind. Then came the most exquisite moment of her whole life. Passing a stone urn with flowers in it. Sally stopped, picked a flower, kissed her on the lips. The whole world might have turned upside down. The others disappeared. There she was, alone with Sally, and she felt that she had been given a present, wrapped up and told just to keep it, not to look at it, a diamond, something infinitely precious, wrapped up, which as they walked up and down, up and down, she uncovered where the radiance burnt through the revelation, the religious feeling when old Joseph and Peter faced them. Stargazing, said Peter. It was like running one's face against a granite wall in the darkness. It was shocking. It was horrible. Not for herself. She felt only how Sally was being mauled, already maltreated. She felt his hostility, his jealousy, his determination to break into their companionship. All this she saw as one sees a landscape in a flash of lightning. And Sally never had she admired her so much, gallantly talking her way, unvanquished, she laughed. She made old Joseph tell her the names of the stars, which he liked doing very seriously. She stood there, she listened, she heard the names of the stars. Oh, this horror, she said to herself, as if she had known all along that something would interrupt, would embitter her moment of happiness. Yet how much she owed Peter Walsh later, always when she thought of him, she thought of their quarrels for some reason, because she wanted his good opinion so much. Perhaps she owed him words. Sentimental, civilized, they started up every day of her life as if he guarded her. A book was sentimental, an attitude to Life. Sentimental. Sentimental. Perhaps she was to be thinking of the past. What would he think, she wondered, when he came back, that she had grown older? Would he say that? Or would she see him thinking when he came back that she had grown older? It was true. Since her illness, she had turned almost white.

[Mitzi Rapkin]

Tell me why you chose that.

[Lily King]

Well, I know it doesn't make much sense, kind of jumping into it like that. I love this passage because it reverberates and echoes through the entire book. This kiss with Sally at the urn really does prove to be one of the most exquisite moments of her life. And it's also, you know, to the reader, possibly to the modern reader, I don't know. It's a woman who has the capacity to love other women romantically but isn't allowed to in her culture and her society. And so that is so poignant to me. And there are also so many layers in that passage. You know, there's the past and there's the more recent past, and then there's closer to something, closer to the present where she's sort of anticipating seeing Peter Walsh again. And I just love the exuberance of that moment. And I love the. The way she's treasured it all her life.

[Interviewer/Host]

Can you read something you wrote? Maybe it was tricky or hard or

[Mitzi Rapkin]

changed from the first draft or something you like.

[Lily King]

I was thinking that I would read this passage. I have a tendency. It's not a passage that I worked over a lot, but I do have a tendency in first drafts to leave things blank where I should fill them in. And this was a case of filling in something that really proved to be sort of an essential little paragraph to her development as a writer. And my writers group read the book first for me and one of my friends in writer's group. Susan really felt that there could be more about her development as a writer in this last semester of college. So I'll just read it. For my thesis, I'm assigned an advisor I've never heard of, and I meet with her every week. If there's any place I can point to where my writing life actually began, it's here with Dr. Felsky on Thursdays at 1pm I come in each week with two copies of a new story, and I have to read the whole thing out loud while she follows along on her copy. Circling words, squiggling a line under sentences, slashing whole paragraphs. Very occasionally there's a tiny check in the margin. I write for these tiny checks. I get more and more of them as the Semester goes on. She quickly understands how limited my reading has been and how male she feeds me. Virginia Woolf, Kathryn Mansfield, Zora Neale Hurston, Elizabeth Bowen, Dejunah Barnes, Nadine Gordimer and Jamaica Kincaid. By mid November, I've written 12 short stories. We choose five for the thesis and begin to revise. Revision for me in the past has been some light polishing. This is more like root canal on every paragraph. The writing professors I've had before often spoke in generalities, in quotes by famous writers. Chekhov said, Beckett said, and we scribbled down those pearls. Dr. Felsky only talks about what she sees on the page. She taps her silver mechanical pencil on a passage. What is truer here? She steers me away from the Southern Gothic plots I was enamored with last year and encourages me to write from my own emotions. I start to understand the power of fiction, the reason we make things up. My best story is about my father. It is not autobiographical. It is about the manager of a shoe store and the high school boy who gets a job there. But it is about my father, about my rage and shame and love for him. These scenes that didn't happen concentrate and distill the emotion of what did. The truth has nothing to do with the facts, one of my professors said. Faulkner said. Dr. Felsky shows me what that really means.

[Interviewer/Host]

Is there anything else you want to say about that?

[Lily King]

I was really glad for that advice and relieved that I could figure out what, you know, what to put there. And I kind of gave this character the mentor, the female mentor I never had in college. And I've always been very jealous of writers who talk about, you know, that one professor who just kind of took them under their wing and fed them the literature that really mattered to them. And that didn't happen to me. I feel like I. I found a lot of those books when I was working in bookstores. And, you know, I was kind of, you know, the bookstores were my mentors, so. But I liked. I really liked writing that passage.

[Mitzi Rapkin]

Where do you write?

[Lily King]

I write in my study, in my house, usually sitting down. But I'm really trying to train myself to stand up because of my back.

[Mitzi Rapkin]

What do you do or where do you go to get away from writing?

[Lily King]

I take a lot of walks with friends in the afternoon. I have to confess, I really. Not sure I've confessed this before, but I play a lot of pickleball. It just is a good outlet to just whack things, you know, And I play with a lot of friends and so it's social time and it's exercise time and it's also just getting all your frustrations out on that ball.

[Mitzi Rapkin]

Who do you show your work to first to get feedback?

[Lily King]

I first show it to my husband and then my writers group and then my agent and then my editor.

[Mitzi Rapkin]

And how have you dealt with rejection?

[Lily King]

You know, I don't rail against the gods, really. You know, it's just so much a part of this work. And I think I work hard not to take it personally, not to really think about it and to move on.

[Mitzi Rapkin]

And what is your favorite word?

[Lily King]

I thought long and hard about this one. I have to say that my favorite it's kind of a favorite expression. And we lived in Italy when my kids were little for a year. And when you're playing a game in Italy, we're big gamers and when you play a game in Italy to say it's your turn, you say tocca te. And I just love that. So that is my favorite expression.

[Interviewer/Host]

Awesome. Thank you so much.

[Lily King]

Thank you.

[Mitzi Rapkin]

Thank you to the nonprofit Aspen Words Literary organization for allowing First Draft to air this interview from its 2026 Winter Words program. You can learn more about aspen [e-mail] if you liked today's episode with Lily King, author of the novel Heart the Lover. Check out my first interview with Lily on her novel Euphoria. We talked about how she stumbled upon a biography of Margaret Mead, her her discovery process in writing and trying to capture who Margaret Mead was. You can find that interview and the entire First Draft archive of more than 560 interviews@first draft writers.com you can stay tuned to First Draft on social media, on Facebook, Instagram and threads. Just look for First Draft ADOW. You can email me@first draftwritersmail.com anytime. Remember, there are plenty of extras for becoming a member and donating to First Draft, including access to pitch, free ad, free content, as well as cuts from the interviews that didn't make it into the final show, writing tips from my guests, books and more. Join me as I reach for honesty, vulnerability, connection, curiosity and insights on craft with each episode. I can't tell you enough how much each and every single dollar counts to keeping this show alive, so please participate in the Giving and receiving loop. The first tier of support is just $6 a month, so please go to patreon.com FirstDraftWriters I want to send out a huge thank you to my patrons for making this interview happen. Your support makes First Draft a dialogue on writing a reality every week. Please stay healthy and safe. The theme for First Draft was produced and performed by Murph Mahaffy. I'm your host and producer Mitzi Rapkin. Thank you for listening.

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