But I also wanted to step away from the idea of the Amazons as this kind of ancient super race living in splendid isolation. How deeply do you dive into the Amazon culture in this book? How did you go about establishing that culture for this book? My Themyscira was heavily inspired by some of the real religious practices of Ancient Greece, specifically the ideas of thanatos/athanatos and miasma. Yes, there are fifty plus years of Wonder Woman canon, but her strength and her compassion really shine through in every iteration and I wanted to stay true to that. But writing Diana’s character felt very natural to me. How does writing a well-established, beloved character compare to writing your original ideas (such as Six of Crows and the Shadow and Bone Trilogy)? The process is about the same, just with a lot more people involved-a lot more parents who have to sign off on the permission slips. So when this opportunity to write the story of Diana as a teen dropped in my lap, it felt a little like fate.

You’ve been a fan of Wonder Woman since childhood, but what further preparations did you make before setting out to write this book? I’d just come off of writing an essay on Wonder Woman for Last Night, a Superhero Saved My Life and I’d done what was probably an unnecessarily deep dive on the research- fell down the rabbit hole good and proper. We chat about her research, Amazon culture, and writing a feminist icon. I had the opportunity to ask Leigh Bardugo, author of Wonder Woman: Warbringer a couple of questions about the book, which releases August 29th.

Wonder woman warbringer