Delilah Dawson may just have one of the coolest job on the planet as the writer of several Star Wars novels, including the NYT bestseller Star Wars: Phasma and her latest work, Galaxy's Edge: Black Spire (out in paperback on June 30). A new Star Wars story inspired by the Disney theme park of the same name, Black Spire centers around a Resistance spy named Vi Moradi on the run from the First Order.
But Dawson says it's a long road to getting to write stories within the Star Wars universe — though it's one she's likely been ready for since childhood.
“I’ve always been a Star Wars fan. It’s always been a part of my life from when I threw up on the Star Wars sheets when I was 4,” she tells host Jake Kleinman as the guest this week on Inverse Happy Hour.
Below are the Inverse Happy Hour highlights, but check out the video above for the full interview and live reading.
3:40 What Disney World’s Galaxy’s Edge theme park is like.
(Spoiler alert: Making your own lightsaber is as cool as it sounds)
5:00 How she ended up becoming a Star Wars novelist (Hint: It involves patience, a little bit of black magic, and … cupcakes?)
7:00 The one thing you absolutely can’t miss during a visit to Galaxy’s Edge.
“There’s all these wonderful things that you can keep going back and every time have something new,” she says.
(Editors note: We're sold.)
8:47 The process of writing a mysterious character like Captain Phasma.
“We didn’t want Phasma to be someone that you knew. It wasn’t a book that was first-person through her mind and what she’s thinking,” she says, “because the whole point of her is that we don’t know what she’s thinking, that she’s mysterious and wears this mask on purpose.”
11:10 What a Disney+ Phasma show might look like. (Think Mad Max: Fury Road meets Star Wars.)
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12:40 The amount of creative freedom she has while writing within the Star Wars universe / The two biggest influences on Black Spire.
“A Star Wars book comes back with like 17 people’s thoughts in the comments,” she explains after writing about a ship she had randomly chosen off Wikipedia to exist in the Star Wars universe, “and it crashed the computer.”
16:10 Whether she will continue the story of Vi Moradi, the Resistance spy and main character from Black Spire.
16:50 Her thoughts on who Snoke is, where he’s from, and her Rick and Morty theory involving Snoke being pulled out of a vat.
18:50 How having synesthesia — attaching letters, shapes, numbers etc. with a sensory perception — factors into her writing.
21:00 Her favorite strange Star Wars creature.
23:35 Did Anakin just need a therapist?
26:00 A secret special announcement about Black Spire.
27:20 Live reading from Black Spire in which Vi is introduced to the character of Oga Garra.
“Oga Garra is kind of the mobster gang leader of Black Spire, and she’s a character that’s mentioned several times in the land who owns Oga’s Cantina but you never see her,” she says while setting up the scene. “So I thought I would read the page where we actually see her on the page, because many people that have been to that Black Spire don’t know her story.”
A huge thanks to Dawson for joining us!
