Five questions for Julia Dielmann
I’m a book/musical theatre nerd and I’m a writing a YA novel called Love and Liberty, which is set in 1830s Paris and centres around Adrien, a nonbinary aristocrat, who ends up getting involved in a student revolution.
You can contact Julia via email and follow her on X (Twitter) and Instagram.
What is your writing routine?
I tend to write in the mornings right after breakfast, usually with a hot drink at hand and some quiet music in the background. Nothing with lyrics, though, because I find it distracting. I force myself to keep my bum in the chair until I’ve done between 1000-2000 words.
What was the inspiration for your manuscript?
Like I said, I’m a massive musical theatre fan and I’m especially obsessed with Les Misérables. If you read the original book closely, there’s a lot of queer subtext in it and I thought, ‘Hey, what about a full-on queer reimagining?’ (which then branched off into a much more complicated story in its own right). It was supposed to be a lesbian story initially, but then, Adrien popped into my head and insisted they were nonbinary.
Who is your favourite character in your book?
Tienne, who is one of Adrien’s closest friends and the smartest and calmest person you can think of. I think I wrote him that way because I secretly wish I were like him! I also love Nette, Adrien’s love interest, because she is brave and badass and usually has the snappiest lines of dialogue out of anyone in a scene.
Describe your book in five words.
Queer, emotional, sarcastic, revolutionary
‘Get to know me’: Describe your perfect day.
Sleeping nice and late (I am so not a morning person), a lazy breakfast, hopefully getting a bit of writing done and then a walk or a trip to a bookshop in the afternoon- or ideally both. If it’s a really perfect day, somebody else makes me dinner. 😊 And then, I curl up on the sofa and watch a movie with my adopted cat.
Photo by Chris Abney on Unsplash