SJM Interview - Our Dreams Have Been Answered
- Mar 5
- 5 min read
The stars have listened and our dreams have been answered, the queen of all fae Sarah J Maas has finally made an appearance on March 4th, 2026 on Alex Cooper’s podcast "Call her Daddy." Keep in mind, if you haven't seen the video, or listened to the podcast already, that there are spoilers for all SJM's series.
We have all been patiently waiting for the next ACOTAR or Crescent City book for a while now, and rereading has been our only solution for visiting Velaris again, but with SJM finally addressing her fandom, the hype has gone through the roof, and there is no going back now.
Apart from finally having more information about the next ACOTAR book(s) with no real spoilers whatsoever, this interview gave me a completely new look at all three SJM series, but also her as a human. We readers, especially die-hard fans of certain authors, sometimes forget that they are also humans with amazing brains, imagination, and writing skills, and having all this information shared on a podcast like this gave me a completely new impression of SJM as an author and why her books have the emotional impact they do.
Here are my takeaways from the entire interview that made me like her even more than before, and helped me consider different perspectives on her books and in general:
"Believe you can and you are half way there"
As we all know, she started writing very young. SJM always knew she wanted to be a writer, and she wrote "Throne of Glass" when she was 16, but it took her 10 years to have the book published. Being rejected multiple times by agents and publishers, discouraged by her parents, gaslighted by her advisor, and a director of an MFA program, only fuelled her determination. I was amazed by her attitude towards all of that, along with a promise she made to the MFA director, and I quote: “We are done here, I will sign a copy of my book for you one day”*. That right there gave me an indication of what kind of belief system you have to have in yourself and your goals to be able to swim through the sea of naysayers and haters. Knowing what you want in life, at any age is already half of the success.
Aelin Galathynius as a Mirror to SJM's Personal Development
One of the things I assumed, but finally got confirmation, is that the first female character she created, Aelin from "Throne of Glass" is a representation of her growth and a mirror to her personal development, which makes so much sense given that she created her at a very young age. The way I see it, and that’s just my impression, is that Aelin has the most intense and solid character growth from all her female characters, and it kind of solidifies the importance of the TOG series in the Maasverse in comparison to other series.
Dismissal of Fantasy Romance and "Faerie Smut"
Addressing the labels and the box people have tried to put her in for writing romantic fantasy was also another very important part of the interview. As she indicated, there is this dismissal of the genre and her books being labeled only as ‘smut’ has been common, but usually those who try to diminish such books don’t understand that fans of her work come to her with admiration for her characters and messages that were carried through the plot. She also commented, to which I fully agree, that when a woman suddenly writes more explicit scenes her work is immediately devalued, as none of the other stuff matters now that a ‘spicy’ scene was added. That just confirms that there is this universal hypocrisy, as such experiences are common to all humans, but only if a woman who declares herself as a fantasy writer does that, then her work apparently doesn’t matter.
All of us who have been familiar with the genre know that the explicit scenes sometimes do not add to the plot, but with SJM’s books the character development and the emotional journey is often tied to the explicit scenes, and that’s what makes her stories really stand out.
Needless to say, SJM’s books primarily bring people joy, and if you enter the Maasverse with an open mind, you can see that her stories and characters are tied to emotions and real human experiences, regardless of the type of the scene.
"A Court of Silver Flames" and Her Personal Healing Journey
One of the most emotional parts of the interview that surprised me in a very positive way is how she managed to pour all her frightening experiences with the first pregnancy and mental health issues into "A Court of Silver Flames." By hearing that, I remembered that Nesta’s character, trauma, and emotional struggles, along with a subplot with Feyre’s pregnancy left the biggest impact on me, and now it all makes sense. By describing her challenges and terrible experiences while carrying a child, gave me a whole new understanding of how writers reflect their lives in books, but not only that, her talking about it made her even more (super) human in my eyes than before. When figures such as SJM, maybe not as big in other industries, but with influence in bookish communities, publishing industry, and fantasy literature of our time, is comfortable and free enough to speak about her experiences in a particular female-only role in life gives me the courage to speak about mine, whatever those issues might be.
Speaking freely about our experiences is what is most needed nowadays, especially since we mostly read to escape from those things we do not want to talk about.
ACOTAR 6 -->
And when we got the human version of our favourite author, determined that it wasn't a number 8 but an arrow all this time, we finally got the information we were waiting for. A whole new ACOTAR book is coming our way in a format a bit different than before. She explained that the way the book was written was impossible to either publish it as one, so we now to have 2 publication dates, and one yet to be confirmed.
ACOTAR #6 is coming to our bookstores, e-readers, and headphones on October 27th, 2026, while the other two books will be published on January 12th, 2027. The ending and the last book of that part of the story SJM has prepared for us is still yet to be announced.
So what do we need to do now?
Those of you who haven’t read (at least) ACOTAR, where have you been and what the heck have you been doing?
Those of us who have read ACOTAR along with Crescent City - it’s time for a reread folks. Maybe some Fantasy Fangirls deep dive episodes along with that.
It's time for wild theories, zoomies due to this recent podcast, and pre-orders of course, because we all know what we will be doing on October 27th, 2026.
References:
*"Call Her Daddy" podcast episode: Sarah J Maas: The Wait is Over - 20:40
