From WBEZ Chicago, this is Nerdette. I'm Greta Johnson. Today, we are going to do something

a little different. Arthie Shahani hosts the WBEZ podcast Art of Power, and she recently

spoke with an author and former Nerdette guest named Li Bardugo. It is a fascinating conversation,

and Arthie and Li are both great nerds, so I thought we should share it with you. So I'm

just gonna let Arthie take it away. Writer's block. It happens to everyone. And before Li Bardugo wrote

one of the most successful book series ever, it happened to her. When I got the idea for Shadow

and Bone, I did not, you know, get this idea and then just race off to the laptop to start working

on it, because I thought why bother? This will be one more thing I start and don't finish.

For whatever reason, I said, I'm not gonna write a good book. I'm just gonna write a book,

and I... Good for you. That's the best goal to have. I'm gonna write a bad book, an unoriginal book,

and but it will be done, and then I'll know I can do it, and then the next one will be better.

From WBEZ Chicago, this is Art of Power. I'm Arthie Shahani.

Today, Li Bardugo is among the most celebrated young adult novelists of our time. She's the

author of Shadow and Bone, a fantasy series with over 2.5 million books sold, and now a Netflix hit

that became the most streamed show in the US earlier this year. But getting to that promised land

was not easy. Bardugo and I discuss all she navigated. An awkward adolescence, the loss of her

editor at a pivotal moment, and an abusive relationship with a man that threatened to extinguish

her career before it began. Yes, this is somebody who, when I was trying to write this book,

in the evenings would throw away pages that I had written. Oh my god.

So let us start with your origin story. Your parents met in prison in Israel. Oh my god,

how do you know these things? Carol, I look things up. Holy shit. Okay.

Li Bardugo was born of that relationship in Jerusalem in 1975. Yeah, my biological father,

...