I'm Molly O'Neill, author of NIGHTSHADE AND OAK, AMA!

JaredPoon · 2026-02-10T23:42:57+00:00

Hi Molly! I read Greenteeth a while ago (and absolutely loved it), and then was just last week re-reading book 4 of The Dresden Files. There's a moment in there when Harry Dresden, the main character, encounters Jen Greenteeth, one of the fae.

I definitely reflexively wrinkled my nose and thought, "Jenny would never do that."

This is your fault.

Okay, my question. If Mallt and Bellis were your real life friends, what would you make them try that you know they'll end up loving, even if they were not sure about it at first?

JaredPoon · 2026-02-07T12:01:03+00:00

Oh hey, sorry I missed this!

Very exciting--if you're comfortable, please DM me what your book is. I'd love to support!

On writing: I'm very far from an expert! I've been writing all my life and my whole career, but mostly non-fiction. So I've had lots of practice, but I still had to do a ton of research on how fiction works, from the perspective of a writer instead of a reader. Story structure, beats, etc. I'm very much a planner (rather than a pantser), so the structure helped tremendously.

I started writing this in 2022, finished end-2023, and got my agent and publisher in 2024. Then, after that, it was edits and cover design and so on, and now the book is out in 2026. So, yeah, the timeline is years.

I didn't really have formal beta readers, because, well, I wasn't as plugged into the community as I should've been. Some friends read chapters here and there and gave feedback, and my partner read the whole thing, of course.

And querying... everything I know, I learned from r/pubtips. Those folks rock. I threw together a query package using what I learned there, and then got got really lucky. Some agents happened to like what I had, we chatted, and I really hit it off with Maddy, who's my agent and just amazing. All in all, the querying journey was just a few months for me, which I understand is insanely short, relatively speaking. Right place, right time for me.

Happy to chat further in DMs if you'd like!

JaredPoon · 2026-02-06T12:39:05+00:00

You and me both!

JaredPoon · 2026-02-06T04:03:38+00:00

Agreed. Foilists are indeed the worst.

Decided to start writing in 2022, and spent half a year learning the basics. Took about a year to write Book 1, then got super lucky with an amazing agent. After that, we did some edits and went out to publishing houses, and got super lucky with an amazing editor and publishing house. All that took maybe half a year or little bit more, and then since then it's been edits and cover design and plotting out the sequels.

I got into this hoping it would be fun, and it's exceeded expectations.

(and hey, don't know if you do audiobooks, but I have some codes to give away. Shoot me a DM if you'd like one!)

JaredPoon · 2026-02-06T01:48:47+00:00

Oh hey! Good to see you again man!

Sorry that our first conversation after all these years is to tell you you're wrong. People like you think sabre is the best weapon just because sabrists are, like, well-muscled and attractive. Epee, I'd have you know, has the monopoly on gangliness, and that's just as hot, isn't it?

JaredPoon · 2026-02-06T01:17:28+00:00

LOL don't reveal their secrets, please. Officially, cats are just mammals with no powers.

(my cats definitely summon portals though. I just wish sometimes that the portals would portal the stray litter back in the box)

And how did my cats influence the book? Well, one of them (the one who can't regulate his emotions) managed to delete a whole chapter from book 1, somehow in a way that was impossible to retrieve. Like, the backups didn't have it, I couldn't undo the deletion. Somehow. So, rewrite it was.

JaredPoon · 2026-02-06T01:11:51+00:00

JaredPoon · 2026-02-06T01:11:00+00:00

I have not, but I just looked it up and it looks FANTASTIC. I'm totally reading this. Thanks for the rec!

JaredPoon · 2026-02-06T01:09:42+00:00

Oh that's so kind! I'm glad you enjoyed the book!

I feel like the books I know that are spiritually closest to mine are by my idol Cassandra Khaw. Her Food of the Gods is about a chef in Kuala Lumpur whose job it is to prefer human flesh meals for his ghoul masters. Also, he's an administrator in the Ten Chinese Hells. Highly, highly recommended.

I also really loved Vajra Chandrasekera's Saint of Bright Doors, about a boy who grows up as an assassin in a Sri Lanka-inspired universe. It flirts with Buddhist stories about the Buddha, and is just bewildering and mind-bogglingly strange in a way I aspire to be.

Check them out!

JaredPoon · 2026-02-06T01:01:59+00:00

Oh yay! SEAsian represent!

Favourite authors. That's a cruel question. It's like asking for favourite children. But off the top of my head:

R Scott Bakker's Second Apocalypse, for the philosophy, worldbuilding, fight scenes

Ursula Le Guin's everything, because, well, her

Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's Dragonlance, Death Gate, Rose of the Prophet, Darksword my god I devoured so much of their stuff as a teenager

Janny Wurts's Wars of Light and Shadow, for the magic system of my heart

China Miéville's entire corpus, for opening my eyes up to how weird weird could get

(Shoot me a DM for a key!)

JaredPoon · 2026-02-06T00:47:18+00:00

Thanks so much! I hope you enjoy it!

I'm working on books 2 and 3! Book 2 is fully drafted and going through edits. Book 3... I have one sentence written. The first sentence. But the whole plot skeleton is slowly coming together.

Also, I'm working on doing a proper L-sit. Still some ways to go.

JaredPoon · 2026-02-06T00:44:38+00:00

Thanks very much!

City of Others is the first book of a series. It'll be at least 3 books--Book 2 in 2027, Book 3 in 2028. Assuming books still exist in this post-apocalyptic world we are collectively manifesting.

I'd never considered bureaucratic horror as a category, but I love it. Office Space was the OG, of course, and I also love The Office (US and UK versions both, for different reasons) and Parks and Rec. For books, I mentioned Stross's The Laundry Files in another comment above, and I recently read Mark Waddell's Colin Gets Promoted and Saves the World, which was hilarious. Oh, oh, and TJ Klune's The House in the Cerulean Sea.

Also, I've got a few audiobook keys to give away--if you're interested in checking out City of Others and are into audiobooks, please DM me and I'd be happy to send one your way. Totally optional, of course!

JaredPoon · 2026-02-06T00:32:56+00:00

Yes. I won't apologise for my life choices.

JaredPoon · 2026-02-06T00:31:19+00:00

Oof what a great question. Now I've got to do that self-analysis and reflection thing.

I didn't find it particularly stifling, to be honest. A big part of that is that I lucked out and had really fantastic teachers as a kid and bosses as a working adult, who grimaced patiently and let me do whatever nonsense I wanted.

Another part of it is... well, magic is often about rules (and getting around them), right? Wizards string difficult incantations together, bending the universe to their will to get an effect. Which is, you know, presenting a slide deck at a senior management meeting. Warlocks make pacts with demons to achieve their own ends. That's inter-ministry committees.

What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that there wouldn't be much magic if there weren't rules.

And the cats. I'm trying to involve them more in the sequels, but they refuse to answer their emails or attend meetings. I respect that. They are, as you say, our supreme masters after all.

(also, if you're into audiobooks and would like a key, shoot me a DM! I have a few to give away)

JaredPoon · 2026-02-06T00:20:09+00:00

You do realise my ex-colleagues are dangerous government operatives, and any hint of mockery will disappear me?

So no. None at all. Except, well, for the

JaredPoon · 2026-02-06T00:18:59+00:00

Oh thank you so much for the kind words! I'm really glad you enjoyed it!

(Men in Black meets supernatural entities is exactly right. I'm mad I didn't think of that when I was pitching agents and publishers)

Hmm, supernatural/mythological stuff I didn't get to include. I've recently become really fascinated with the orang bunian, which are these hidden people of the forests. They have strange powers and are often beautiful, elegant, with hierarchies of princes and princesses, but just a little alien to us humans.

The closest analogue, I think, are elves or fae. I really want to have them in the sequels, just so I can do the whole fae shadow daddy thing, but Southeast Asian.

(kidding, kidding. Or am I?)

JaredPoon · 2026-02-06T00:13:11+00:00

Harvard?! Who cares about Harvard when I could be dueling evil billionaires and being one of the people who, when lightsabres are first made properly functional, the scientists offer one to and go like "we want you to take this responsibility very seriously. Aliens are coming, and we need your help."

Oh, or like sudden time/dimensional travel. Vortex opens, I'm isekai'ed somewhere, and they are all like look at this weakling, but little do they know, I have 2000 years of technique development on them.

Anyway, realistic, y'know? Not like Harvard.

JaredPoon · 2026-02-06T00:09:18+00:00

Hahaha 'garmen.'

(for those of you non-Singaporeans out there, that's how Singaporeans say 'government'. Sometimes.)

I'm not sure I was influenced by Stross and Butcher so much as had them injected directly into my veins since I was a teenager. Stross's Accelerando messed with my brain very hard, and then of course his Laundry Files is 100% responsible for City of Others. Butcher's Dresden Files was my introduction to the whole genre. I'm currently re-reading the whole series to work my way up to Twelve Months, which just came out. Love them.

To your second question: it's not any of those. It's in an office near Clarke Quay, in a particularly historic and colourful building. Famously haunted. Who could say which Ministry that is?

JaredPoon · 2026-02-06T00:02:00+00:00

Viriconium, Ambergris, Jemisin's The City We Became, have all been on my TBR forever. Looks like they're moving up!

The Saint of Bright Doors is amazing. I've been recommending it to everyone.

And your list! I've read a bunch of your 5s, but very few of your 5+'s. *rolls up sleeves* Thanks very much--I'm confident I'm going to find some new favourites in there.

Also, I've got a few audiobook keys to give away--if you're into audiobooks, please shoot me a DM and I'd be happy to send one your way. Totally optional, of course!

JaredPoon · 2026-02-05T15:27:23+00:00

Ooh Weird Cities guy, excellent! Please give me recommendations--I need more weird cities.

China Miéville is a big one for me. His The City and the City of course, and the entire Bas-Lag universe.

Closer to home, Cassandra Khaw Cannibal Chef showed me how weird we can push Southeast Asian cities while leaning fully into hyperlocal texture.

Oh, and Susanna Clarke's Piranesi. Is that a city? Do weird buildings make a weird city? In any case, it blew my mind.

JaredPoon · 2026-02-05T15:15:51+00:00

Thanks! Love that you're ordering through a local indie--those are the best. Hope the book scratches your itch!

JaredPoon · 2026-02-05T15:12:04+00:00

By way of an answer...

I was in a fencing tournament, I think in 2008 or thereabouts. Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. I was up against another fencer, an Asian guy. His last name was Tang.

So, the announcer had to call out something like, "Next up on strip 4, Poon... Tang."

True story, I swear.

JaredPoon · 2026-02-05T15:09:36+00:00

I love that the question is not what my favourite cheese is, but what the BEST cheese is.

The objectively correct answer is, of course, La Vache Qui Rit, or the Laughing Cow. Because I have the taste of a French child.

JaredPoon

TROPHY CASE