The Lighthouse at the Edge of the World: An Author Interview with J.R. Dawson
- Swords & Sapphics team
- 6 days ago
- 9 min read
Dive into today's unmissable author interview with award-winning author J.R. Dawson, who tells us about her upcoming sapphic Orpheus retelling, The Lighthouse at the Edge of the World, out next week with Tor. We also explore life, death, grief, representation, and everything in between!
Thank you for joining us! Could you start by introducing yourself?
Hi! I’m Jen, or J.R. Dawson. I wrote The First Bright Thing and a bunch of short stories (most recently “Six People to Revise You,” in Uncanny Magazine), and now my second book is coming out. I live in Minneapolis with my three dogs and my wife, and I really love pizza.
We would love to know more about The Lighthouse at the Edge of the World and what inspired you to write it!
Lighthouse is a sapphic Orpheus retelling, taking place in Chicago. Which makes perfect sense to me! I lived in Chicago in the early aughts and was always taken aback by how alive and bright the city was, juxtaposed with the stillness and inky dark waters of Lake Michigan. If you’ve not been to the Great Lakes, they’re not really lakes at all. More like seas … They resemble tideless oceans more than a typical lake. So I put the edge of the world there, and when people die in Chicago, they go to the lake and the ferryman of the dead helps them cross into the world to come. This book opens when a live woman finds the station and sneaks onto the boat and all hell breaks loose.
What drew you to the fantasy genre in particular?
I loved speculative fiction as a kid, and when I grew up and was trying to figure out what I was going to focus on, I discovered the short stories of Charlie Jane Anders and I was like, “Wait, I can just write cool stuff like this??” So I immediately started learning all I could about the genre and I never looked back.
What did the world-building process look like for you, and how did you decide to settle on Chicago for the setting?
I started with setting for this book. I always knew I wanted to write a story that took place in Chicago, and I always knew it was going to be about life and death and spaces in between. I usually start with characters, but this time it was a little different. Even back when I lived in Chicago, I was taking copious notes because I knew someday I was going to need them for something. Chicago is so weird, so ethereal, and the city as a whole lends itself to so many ghost stories! Once I’d connected all the real-life stuff, I started to build out the fantasy. What did the Station at the edge of the lake look like? How did all of this work? What was magical about the lake and where did the Veil begin? And then into the characters. Who was Nera? Who was Charlie? Who was around them and who was lost?
Can you tell us a little bit about your characters? Which, if any, do you identify with most and why?
So Nera is a love letter to my wife. She is strong and capable and kind, which is a hard thing to be these days. Nera is discovering the world around her and her relation to it and she keeps choosing to believe in herself and the good of the world. Charlie, by contrast, is a chaos gremlin. She is deeply hurt, stuck in a hole of grief, and wishes she could remember how to love her art and the life she’s been given. I think I stuck a little bit of myself in Nera, too, the part that wants to be awed by everything. And I think the anger and frustration and rage I feel at the world and at the losses I’ve endured leaked into Charlie. I also think there’s a lot of me in Gurty, the best little grim reaper dog that there ever has been. That’s the fun thing about being a writer, you get to play all the characters. And I especially loved that I was able to write music for the book, and really encapsulate Charlie’s late sister in my love of composition.
And which characters, or stories, do you hope your readers will connect with the most?
I hope that at the end of the day, they find solace in Nera. I hope that when reading, they understand both Charlie, who is alive and yearning for death, and Nera, who is not fully alive and yearning for life. But I hope that at the end of it, there’s this wish to keep seeing the good in even the smallest, most insignificant things on a random Tuesday. We need more Neras in the world.
What interested you about the themes of death, grief, and the afterlife?
I think as soon as you lose someone who is close to you, there is a relationship with death that you develop, whether you want it or not. In order to keep the relationship with the person on the other side, you have to come to terms with what it means to not “be here” anymore. So the long list of people I’ve lost, this was a way for me to spend a little more time with them but also to honor their memory and try to remind myself that I’m not the only one who has ever grieved and I am not the only one who has questions … and anger. It is something we all are going to face, it is something we all wonder about, and how does that affect the way we spend our time here in this realm? I think the answer for myself is to feel it all, the rage and the pain and also the love. There is always still love.
As an ace author, is there any representation that felt particularly important for you to explore in this story? Additionally, is there any rep you’d love to see or write more of going forward?
I wanted a relationship that was on my terms. So many times, I read a book and I have to interpret it in my head to understand the allo experience to get the beats and hills and valleys of the romantic plot. This one, I wanted to unabashedly be me. I wanted to show what intimacy looks like to an asexual person, where there might be sex but it’s not the main focus and it’s one of many things that are considered romantic moments. I wanted to have characters that related to one another the way that I relate to others. As for rep I would like to write or see moving forward, I would love to write more on disabilities, keep exploring what it means to have my diagnoses, and seek out more ace literature. So please, everyone write more ace literature! I will also gladly take recommendations of stuff that already exists!
You’ve worked in theatre education for most of your life. Has this experience informed your writing at all?
Absolutely. I was just listening to the audio version of the short story I co-wrote with John Wiswell, This Mentor Lives, and I realized just how much of my teaching was in there. Usually I write about the relationship between teacher and student and how it feels to hold that amount of grave responsibility and how heavy that weight can be. The short answer is, very heavy. In The First Bright Thing, my favorite subplot is the mentorship Rin has with her apprentice, Jo Reed. And there were a lot of me and my students in those moments, and also the teachers that I had when I was young. I think students are always in the back of my head: if they read this, are they going to get something out of it? If they read this, will they understand how much I love being a teacher? This new project I’m working on really dives into what it means to be an arts teacher, because there’s teaching and then there’s teaching a bunch of budding chaos artists how to grow in a subjective profession. I’m having a lot of fun with it so far!
The First Bright Thing, released in 2023. Could you tell us about the story?
A queer magical circus tours the Midwest, trying to change their audience’s lives for the better by inspiring them with their artistic acts. But someone is coming for them, from a rival circus. And a war is barrelling in from the future, making all their plans feel pretty small and hopeless. But somehow, the Ringmaster still needs to steer the ship and figure out how to believe in a better day, even if there’s currently no proof of one.
Have you come across any challenges in writing or publishing so far? How have you overcome them?
I think a lot of my challenges have been based in disability. My health fluctuates, especially with so many blows to the American landscape the last few years. So you figure out how to work through the tiredness, the brain weasels, the days you can’t get to the computer. You realize that you may not go the same pace as others, and that’s okay. And ever since coming to terms with the fact that I might not conquer the world every single day, I’ve found that even if I can do a sentence, a paragraph, a blog post, I am still moving forward.
Are you a plotter or pantser, and did any additional research go into any of your books? Anything you might have learned along the way?
So I am a plantser, a mixture of the two. For sure. I outline and write the synopsis ahead of time, I jump around in the document for the zero draft. And yes, I research and research and research. I’ve actually taught a research class at Drexel’s MFA program because of all the research I had to do for TFBT. I think the biggest thing I’ve learned is to make sure if your book is going to require a lot of research, it’s on a subject you really love and can handle reading about for months to years. Be ready for it to become a temporary hyperfixation. But also realize you cannot just research; you’re going to have to come up from the hole at some point and actually put that information to use. Don’t get overwhelmed, and don’t forget to write the actual story. And however you write, it’s valid. Backwards, forwards, hell, I’ve outlined using a Spotify playlist before. Just follow your gut and what your body and mind are telling you to do. As long as the words are coming, you’re doing it right.
We’d love a hint about what readers can expect from you next! What are you currently working on?
There are a few things in the works and I don’t know if I can talk about them yet! But I will say I’m neck-deep in my next zero draft for my brand spanking new WIP that has to do with teaching the magical arts.
What made you want to pursue traditional publishing as opposed to alternative routes? Do you have any advice for querying or debut authors?
I knew more about trad pub than I did self-pubbing. So it’s just where I ended up. I would say that for querying authors, it’s going to take a while and that’s okay. It’s very hard to get an agent, it’s very hard to publish a book. You’re not doing anything wrong, you just have to keep going. And for debut authors, I’d say center yourself in your real life, find joy in things that are not book related. Make sure to stay on top of your stuff, but also don’t let it consume you and drown you. You have a life outside of the debut.
Has anything about the journey surprised you so far?
How nice everyone is? Which shouldn’t be a surprise, most artists who are worth their grit are nice people. But so many people are there to lift each other up, to give advice, to plan events, to signal boost things, to really champion each other. Writing can feel like such a lonely, solo act, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised it’s not as lonely as I thought it would be. We’re all here together.
Our podcast focuses on media we’re currently loving. Are there any books, shows, movies, or games you’re enjoying at the moment? Any recommendations for our audience? Bonus points if it includes sapphics!
So my favorite read of the year has been Notes from a Regicide, which is not sapphic but it is queer! And it’s very very good. I am currently reading The Memory Hunters by Mia Tsai, which is sapphic and has a grumpy sunshine (the grumpy has a blade and the sunshine eats mushrooms and dives into the earth’s memory). I also am reading Sophie Gonzalez’s Nobody in Particular; I really loved her Never Ever Getting Back Together, it was one of my favorite reads of 2023, so I am very excited to be back in her worlds. For TV shows, I always recommend people watch Centaurworld, it's incredible, and the less spoiled, the better. As for games, I played and loved Spiritfarer, which is subtly powerful and queer and beautiful.
About the Author
J.R. Dawson (she/they) is the Golden Crown award-winning author of The First Bright Thing. They have had shorter works in places such as F&SF, Lightspeed, and Uncanny. Dawson currently lives on Dakota land in Minnesota with her loving wife. She teaches at Drexel University’s MFA program for creative writing, and fills her free time with keeping her three chaotic dogs out of trouble. Her next book, The Lighthouse at the Edge of the World, is a sapphic Orpheus retelling that releases from Tor on July 29 2025.