Our chat with Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner
- Allen & Unwin
- 17 hours ago
- 4 min read
Read our interview with bestselling co-authors Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner about all things Lady's Knight and One Knight Stand.
The funny cosy fantasy YA sequel to medieval romp Lady's Knight, from NYT bestselling duo Amie Kaufman and Megan Spooner, is here!
To celebrate the duology's completion, we chatted to co-authors Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner all about this delightful, sapphic series that's more fun than cheesecake-on-a-stick.
A&U: Would you both be able to give us a little introduction to Lady’s Knight and One Knight Stand?
AK&MS: This series is full of fun, funny, cozy medieval fantasy, full of anachronisms – there are cheerleaders at the tournament, your horse can get a parking ticket, we’re inventing brunch. It’s a sapphic love story between Gwen – a blacksmith’s daughter who dreams of being a knight, but knows that nobody would ever let a girl do such a thing – and Lady Isobelle, who’s just been put up as the prize for the local tournament, and is determined to find a way out of it. It’s also a scream about the patriarchy, in between the jokes.
A&U: What was the first spark of inspiration for the books and was the story always going to be a duology?
AK&MS: Way back during lockdown, we were stuck on opposite sides of the world, and tried just about everything to find ways to spend time together. One night we were watching a movie together (both hit ‘play’ in your separate homes, and then chat about the movie as it plays!) and we settled on the classic, A Knight’s Tale. It’s such a creative achievement – a genuinely moving story, the playful anachronism of soundtrack. Who can ever forget Queen playing during the jousts?
We loved it all over again, but we also came away wishing that the female characters had more agency. (Or in some cases, names.) We wondered what the story would look like if the women took centre stage. We wondered how the presence of those women would change the nature of the story itself – what they’d do differently. And in no time, we were started.
We always knew we’d be writing more than one book, and always had an eye on the question of what happens after one slays a dragon…
A&U: A lot of your prior published works together have been science fiction, but Lady’s Knight and One Knight Stand sit more in historical fantasy. Did you find this shift easier or harder to write?
AK&MS: We’d both written sci-fi together, but fantasy separately, so we had that experience to lean on – and funnily enough, you’re still researching the rules, whether they’re about how gravity would shift as you come into orbit around a planet, or which medieval dance would allow the most eye contact at a ball. Although this series is full of fun anachronisms, there was still a lot of behind the scenes accuracy work! We both found it a completely delightful process – just so full of joy, and such fun to make each other laugh every day!
A&U: Gwen and Isobelle are so beautifully written – they really feel like they leap right of the page. How did each of you go about finding them, their distinct voices, and fleshing out their narrative journeys?
AK&MS: In many ways, their voices came from their narrative journeys. The story of the knight and the maiden shows up in so many different cultures, albeit with different names. We wanted to ask what happens when you queer that story – how does it change, when two women are involved? Does the maiden engineer her own salvation, instead of waiting passively? Does she recruit her rescuer? And does the knight remain a lone figure, or does she learn to lean on a network of women around her, and solve the problem in a new way? Once we had this down, we found that Gwen and Isobelle’s voices simply showed up.
A&U: Both books are described as medieval romps, but they also have an incredible amount of heart to them. How important was it for you both to find that balance? Do one of you tend to take the more emotional scenes and one the lighter ones, or is it pretty evenly split?
AK&MS: We definitely split the load – one day we’ll be making the other one laugh, and the next day, we’re hoping to squeeze a tear out of our co-author. We knew we wanted these books to be very funny, because it’s through humour that we can tackle some of the biggest questions. We also wanted to write humour, though, because as we began on Lady’s Knight, we were both coming out of the burnout of lockdown, and we knew that joy was the best way to heal.
A&U: A fun one: if Gwen and Isobelle met up with characters from some of your prior books together (Lilac and Tarver, Jules and Mia, and North and Nimh), what would happen? Friendship, or absolute chaos!?
AK&MS: What a fun question! Lilac from These Broken Stars is the richest girl in the galaxy, and absolutely understands the power of the right outfit – she and Isobelle are both frequently underestimated, but they’d certainly get along, even though they grew up millennia apart. Mia from Unearthed is absolutely pragmatic, but her huge heart is what drives every decision she makes – she and Gwen could spend some time together, sighing over the impractical people in their lives that they happen to love.
A&U: And finally, can each of you sum up these 2 books with just three words?
AK&MS: Torture, for authors who write books that run to 100,000 words, but we’ll try!
Lady’s Knight - Chivalry needs updating.
One Knight Stand - Everyone needs therapy.
One Knight Stand
by Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner
Saddle up your dragons, we're going on a road trip in this outrageously funny cosy fantasy YA sequel to medieval romp Lady's Knight.
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