Author Interview: Jill Tew & Her New Special Editions

Jill Tew writes the kinds of dystopian stories that feel pulled directly from the headlines and handed back to you with a Black girl at the center and a love triangle that will ruin your life. Her debut, The Dividing Sky, and her sophomore novel, An Ocean Apart, are both out now, and as of July 15th they are available in limited edition special printings at jilltew.com. Both editions feature gorgeous sprayed edges that tie directly into the covers. To honor the new editions, we sat down with Jill to talk about both books!

The Dividing Sky

by Jill Tew
on October 8, 2024
Goodreads

A cunning memory merchant falls for the handsome rookie officer on her tail in this swoony dystopian romance, hailed as “dynamic, vivid, and electrifying” (Ayana Gray, New York Times bestselling author of Beasts of Prey)
In 2364, eighteen-year-old Liv Newman dreams of a future beyond her lower-class life in the Metro. As a Proxy, she uses the neurochip in her brain to sell memories to wealthy clients. Maybe a few illegally, but money equals freedom. So when a customer offers her a ludicrous sum to go on an assignment in no-man’s-land, Liv accepts. Now she just has to survive.
Rookie Forceman Adrian Rao believes in order over all. After discovering that a renegade Proxy’s shady dealings are messing with citizens’ brain chemistry, he vows to extinguish the threat. But when he tracks Liv down, there’s one problem: her memories are gone. Can Adrian bring himself to condemn her for crimes she doesn’t remember?
As Liv and Adrian navigate the world beyond the Metro and their growing feelings for one another, they grapple with who they are, who they could be, and whether another way of living is possible.

Interview with Jill Tew

Both books put Black girls at the center of worlds that are extracting something from them, one their emotional labor and memories, one their home and their future. What does it change, for the story and for the commentary, when the girl at the center is Black specifically? 

I’ve loved the dystopian genre for almost as long as I’ve loved reading. Many of these stories center situations and circumstances that, today, primarily affect marginalized communities. Despite this, we’re never front and center in the fictionalized dystopian adventures. It means everything to me to put Black protagonists at the center of these stories, both because Black communities are so often the canary in the coalmine for these atrocities, and because it’s important to me to show Black girls falling in love and thriving in the future.

Putting a Bachelor-style competition inside a climate dystopia is a genuinely unhinged (genius) idea that works completely. Where did that come from and did the format open up things you could not have said any other way? 

There’s a running theme in the story of truly appreciating things vs. just consuming them. The most obvious example of this is the way the Cruisers exploit the environment, but I also thought the idea of commercializing love itself tied in nicely. The idea of taking something as natural and beautiful as falling in love, and turning it into one big commercial for this evil water corporation– it felt appropriate. 

Let’s talk about these gorgeous new editions. You described these limited editions as finally making the outside match the inside. What do you want someone who is brand new to your books to feel when they pick one up for the first time? 

I’m so in love with them! It can take a lot for a book to get sprayed edges in traditional publishing, but at the same time, so many books have them, that the books without sprayed edges tend to get overlooked. I wanted my books to have the same gorgeous details on the outside that I put into the inside. Beautiful sprayed edges that tie in so well with the already stunning covers– to me, it tells a reader that this is a story worth investing in, a story that tells itself with care and will leave you seeing the world just a bit differently than you did before.