Interview with Tracy Wolff, Author of The Aftermyth

Welcome to Smack Dab, Tracy! Please tell us about The Aftermyth.

Thank you so much for having me! I love your site and am so thrilled to be here.

The Aftermyth is the story of Penelope Weaver, a thirteen-year-old girl who is starting the first of six years at Anaximander’s Academy, a boarding school in the Massachusetts Berkshires, where each of the halls has a Greek god patron. Penelope has spent her life believing she’s going to be an Athena girl—studious, a good planner, conscientious—only to get sorted into the school’s “party” hall instead. Once there, she convinces her very fun, very sparkly roommate, Fifi, and several other hallmates, to engage in the school wide scavenger hunt based on the Pandora’s box myth so that they can win and she can impress Athena enough to get transferred to her hall, after all. Needless to say, things don’t quite work out the way Penelope expects …

One of the fun thinks about the book—and Anaximander’s—is that the whole school functions like a Rubik’s cube, and it spins at some of the most inconvenient times. There are also upside down waterfalls, a giant gumball machine, an attack vulture named Agatha, an eternal flame that Penelope accidentally blows out, a disco apple, a ton (and I mean a TON) of snakes, a bunch of grumpy Greek gods, a host of fun side characters including a pleather wearing muse who never gets to sleep and drinks coffee by the bucketful, and an Underworld unlike any you’ve seen before!

Can you explain the title The Aftermyth? What does this concept mean inside your story’s world?

Absolutely! Thanks for asking 😊 The Aftermyth is about what comes next … history, and mythologies, tend to be written by the winners and for millennia, those winners were men, which is why so many myths tend to have misogynistic overtones. I wanted to look at old myths in a new light, so each of the books in the series is going to revolve in some way around a different story. The Aftermyth deals with the Pandora’s box myth, a story that has bothered me for a long time. Pandora gets all the blame for opening that jar and letting bad things into the world, but she was created for that exact purpose by two male gods (Zeus and Hephaestus). Zeus was angry at two male titans (Prometheus and Epimetheus, but mostly Prometheus), so he went to Hephaestus and demanded that he create Pandora to punish them. Once she was created, he had the other gods and goddesses gift her with beauty and wit and intelligence and unending curiosity. Then he sent her to Prometheus to punish him for stealing fire from the gods to give to humans. The myth says Prometheus rejected her because he knew she must be a trap (which is misogynistic all on its own, when you think about it), but instead of sending her back to the gods, Epimetheus fell in love with her beauty and married her. It was after that that Pandora opened the jar that Zeus had given her and let all the bad things into the world. She’s been blamed for all of it ever since, when all she did was exactly what she was created to do. So who should really be to blame? Pandora? Or the gods who created her to punish two other men?

The Aftermyth, and Penelope who it turns out has a very special talent when it comes to myths, asks those questions and so many more as readers discover what happens after the myth ends and real life begins.

I know so many MG readers that absolutely love mythology or stories based on myth. What do you think makes mythology such an appealing subject for mg readers?

Mythology is filled with fantastical stories, and what’s not to love about that? Plus there are monsters, heroes, villains, and a whole lot of magic—everything you need for a fabulous fantasy novel! But I also think mythology appeals to MG readers on a deeper level, because myths are stories about figuring out who you are and how you fit into the world, questions that middle grade readers are just beginning to ask in a big way. The heroes in mythology face their monsters. They make mistakes, learn and grow from those mistakes, and usually find a piece of themselves along the way. Myths open a doorway to possibility, letting readers imagine not just other worlds, but who they might become. They create a safe, magical space where kids can see that even ordinary people can change their world.

So often, in literature schools like Anaximander’s are depicted as places where the main character truly finds they belong. But Penelope finds she’s a real fish out of water with her placement. Why did you decide to take that direction? 

Because fish out of water stories are so much fun! I love creating characters who are out of their element, who feel like they don’t belong. As an only child of older parents who moved several times while I was growing up, I spent much of my youth starting over in new schools with new people. In doing so, I learned a lot about not just who I was, but who I wanted to be. Giving that gift (even though it doesn’t feel like one at the time) to my characters—and to readers who feel the same way I did—is my way of spreading hope. Because Penelope may start her year at Anaximander’s feeling very out of place, but by the end she’s created a place for herself. And that is one of the most amazing powers of all.

You're described as a long-time lover of vampires, dragons and all things that go bump in the night. How does your love of all things paranormal influence your approach to mythology?

I love telling stories where things are just a little bit off from real life. Stories where the mysterious guy next door might be a vampire or the girl who never quite fits in is actually a descendent of a Greek god … Whether I’m writing about witches or goddesses, dragons or Cerberus, the stories are filled with magic, with mystery, and with my favorite question in the world: What if?

You've written sixty-four novels (!) Previously, though, you’ve written YA and NA, women’s fiction and erotica. How did MG feel? Was it a natural transition? What drew you to this age group? Middle grade felt amazing, honestly. It was a very natural transition, I think because Penelope’s voice came to me right away. I’m a very character-driven writer, so stories where the character shows up in my head right away tend to be much easier for me to write than ones where I have a plot idea and have to search for the character. In The Aftermyth, Penelope was in my head right from the start, chattering away. And once I have that, it’s really easy to build from there.

As for what drew me to this age group … I taught English to high school and college students for a lot of years and one of the things that always bothered me was the fact that so many of them would say they hated reading. I know things don’t start out that way—little kids love story time, at home and at school. So I’ve spent years wondering what changed between when kids would anxiously await reading time to when they actively grew to dislike it.  The Aftermyth is my way of going after those readers when they’re young and trying to hook them before they lose that love of reading. I’m so lucky to partner with Simon and Schuster on this project, as they feel exactly the same way. Together we hope to intrigue and captivate as many young readers as we can.

I’m so intrigued by the fact that you’re an English prof. I have to know what drew you to dark academia! 

Oh, well, what’s not to love about a boarding school with dark corners, mythic history, and endless libraries, where something is always going wrong? Dark academia books are among some of my favorite, and I’m thrilled to have gotten the chance to take the fun I had writing the Crave and Calder Academy series and bring some of that dark mystery and mayhem to middle grade.

I love this idea of Penelope having the power to rewrite fate. It’s something every MG reader dreams about. Where did this idea come from? Did you have the ending of this book in your head from the very beginning? 

I had the idea from pretty close to the beginning. The idea of history being told by the winner is one that has always fascinated and horrified me. From the time I realized that in middle and high school, I’ve always asked myself what other stories were there that needed to be told? How would what I was learning change if someone else was telling the story? The Aftermyth is a fun, twisty, turny race through Greek mythology, but it’s also my version of herstory instead of history.

From the first time I learned about the Pandora’s box myth—which is the story The Aftermyth is centered on—I thought it was completely unfair, which I mentioned above. In the Aftermyth, I wanted to give my heroine the ability to see how wrong some of the things she’s been taught are, and—more importantly—the ability to help right those wrongs.

What’s next?

I am currently working on the second book in the Aftermyth series, and it is so much fun! It’s double the chaos, double the adventure of the first one and I’m having a fabulous time writing it. I’ve also got the second Calder Academy book coming in 2026, as well as a surprise or two I can’t mention yet 😊

Where can we find you?

I am most accessible on Instagram. I’m @tracywolffbooks. But you can find my website at tracywolffauthor.com, and I also have a Facebook page and a Facebook reader’s group called the Wolff Pack.

Thanks so much for having me today! I really appreciate it.

 

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