Danai Christopoulou’s writing consistently makes me smile and/or cry—often within the same story. Danai’s work features lyrical prose, incisive character choices, and an undercurrent of triumph against an unjust world. These elements lead to striking, memorable stories. Their debut novel, Vile Lady Villains, will be released in early 2026. I can’t wait!
Thanks to Danai for answering my questions!
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Cover artist: Audrey Benjaminsen
Myna: Tell us about your upcoming novel, Vile Lady Villains! What’s it about? Who are your characters?
Danai: Vile Lady Villains (out on April 02, 2026, in the UK with Penguin Michael Joseph and on May 12, 2026, in the US with Union Square & Co) is in a sense a story about stories. It’s about what would happen if literature’s most stabby queens, Klytemnestra and Lady Macbeth, met in a limbo realm and had to work together to survive. Mostly, it’s about my belief that any act of retelling is an act of rebellion—and about what it means to be a “villain” as a female character, and how we can revisit such characters with a contemporary gaze without trying to instill our contemporary morals on them. It’s also about daggers to the throat as a love language and about aesthetically pleasing cloaks, but I would say these are happy bonuses 🙂
Myna: What’s unique about this book?
Danai: I firmly believe that, while every book is unique in the sense that it carries the unique creative spirit of its author, no book happens in a vacuum—we are all building upon the already paved path of other storytellers especially when we’re revisiting “classical” characters. Vile Lady Villains would not have been possible without the labor of all the poets and playwrights and authors across the millennia, from Aeschylus to Shakespeare to contemporary adaptations.
But I do believe, to my knowledge, that it’s unique in being the first traditionally published novel that combines Greek myths and Shakespeare into a sapphic mayhem. And by a Greek author.
Myna: When a reader finishes the last word in the book, what emotion will they be feeling?
Danai: I guess that depends on how much they love (or hate!) Shakespeare… But no, seriously, the ending is probably my favorite part of the book; I still get misty-eyed every time I read these last few lines even though I know them by heart by now! Perhaps hope, and defiance—both of these are feelings I’m wishing readers will get to experience after closing this book.
Myna: How did this story come about?
Danai: In a way, Vile Lady Villains first came about as a tweet I made in zest back in 2021, when I was still querying my first manuscript and was losing hope traditional publishing would ever be interested in the kind of stories I wanted to tell. (Spoiler alert: I got agented later that month. And then spent three years on submission, before publishing finally got interested in the kind of stories I wanted to tell. Good times.)
But truly, this book has been brewing in me ever since I was a kid. With both my parents being actors, I was raised with Greek drama and Shakespeare monologues, and made to memorize them from way too young an age.
So Klytemnestra and Lady Macbeth had always been favorites of mine, and growing up I started seeing the parallels between their characters, how they were almost an allegory for female ambition and power. And I wanted to write them new adventures—worthy of their villainness, but not limited by it.
Myna: Did you find any surprises while writing the story?
Danai: So many! The biggest surprise was the format of the story itself: it was supposed to be short fiction, around 7K words at first, haha! Then I realized it was probably a novella… Then I started writing, and it became a novel. But plot- and character-wise too, so many characters surprised me—either by becoming more villainous on the page than I was originally planning them too, or by showing an unexpected mushy side. Two side characters insisted on having their own sapphic love story, and who was I to refuse them? I’m usually a meticulous plotter, but so many times this book zagged when I meant for it to zig. And I think, in the end, it became better for it.
Myna: If your book had a theme song, what would it be?
Danai: “King” by Florence + The Machine.
Myna: How would you describe your writing style, in general? Does that hold true for this book?
Danai: I tend to write the kind of prose people call “purple” and “musical”—I love my similes and my alliterations, and my poetic turns of phrase, and I examine every sentence to ensure it has the rhythm I am going for. That means I can have some very long, breathless sentences sometimes, but I can also turn sharp and staccato when it’s needed (years of working on advertising campaigns will do that). Depending on the story, or the needs of the text I’m working on, I can restrain myself a bit so as not to sacrifice the pacing for the prose—or let loose entirely. In Vile Lady Villains, I gave myself permission to go overboard with all my favorite linguistic and stylistic elements, to the point that I’ve gotten experimental in some bits (like a certain scene that’s from a first-person plural perspective). In my defense, I never thought this book would sell! I was mostly writing it for myself and now, hilariously enough, this is the book that ends up being my debut.
Myna: I’m a huge fan of your short fiction. Of all your stories, do you have a personal favorite?
Danai: Thank you so much! I really owe a lot to short stories, they taught me to take risks with format and genre that I perhaps would not have taken otherwise. For instance, I owe that first person plural scene in Vile Lady Villains to my experimenting with it in the flash “When We Became Trees” published in my beloved Hex Literary. But if we’re talking about a favorite story in general, then I think it would be “Sunset With the Sixth”, published in Fusion Fragment, written in second person POV about the stolen sixth Caryatid escaping the British Museum and returning home in Athens.
Myna: Please tell us about the recurring themes & subject matter in your body of work?
Danai: Greek rage. I have, like many immigrant and diaspora humans, a complicated relationship with my home country—I had to move to the other end of the continent, away from it, to be able to understand how I feel about my Greekness and all that it entails, and to write stories steeped in Greek myth and folklore. There’s a rage always simmering there against many things, and perhaps I’ve never been able to express it more eloquently than in this non-fiction essay about the importance of Greek and BIPOC voices in Greek myth retellings that I wrote for khōréō’s 5-year anniversary issue.
But myths and folklore in general interest me greatly, as do different religious and spiritual practices—and magic in all its expressions. I enjoy writing about liminal spaces and taking characters outside of the confines of their worlds to see what makes them tick. There’s also some gore and blood that keeps seeping into my work not unlike Lady Macbeth’s claret stain on her hand. The other day I was writing a scene in a Norse myth fantasy I’ve been tinkering with and, don’t ask me how, but apparently zombies showed up? Bones and skeletons and horror and monstrous women and horrible mothers are always present in my work. But paired with queer joy and relationships, because I like my darkness glittery.
Myna: What’s your favorite thing about writing?
Danai: The aftermath, when the blood has been shed and the skin has been peeled, and I can tell myself that I have written. Dorothy Parker was right. The process of writing is hell, for me—but even more hell is to not write. Editing though, polishing every sentence until it shines, that’s heaven.
Myna: You’re on the editorial staff at several prominent speculative publications. Can you tell us about your role at these publications? What do you enjoy most about this work?
Danai: So until recently I was the poetry editor at Haven Spec, and I’m so proud of the work we did with Leon and the whole team—I was so thrilled to see one of our published poems nominated for a Hugo award! But I had to take a really critical look at my schedule and let go of some things I loved, especially as the publication date of Vile Lady Villains approaches. I remain a part of the khōréō team though, as a fiction editor, and I’m beyond excited that we’re now acquiring short stories for the magazine’s sixth year! SFF magazines are such a labor of love, and a work of many—and they are that much stronger when their inherent plurality is allowed to shine through, something both Haven Spec and khōréō are truly committed to.
Myna: You’re also an assistant literary agent. What does that work entail? Do you have any advice for writers seeking an agent?
Danai: Yes, at The Tobias Literary Agency. I currently co-rep several clients with the agency’s president, as well as with another senior agent there. It has been such a rewarding experience, seeing a query in the inbox, falling in love with a manuscript and then working together with the author to polish it and find it its perfect home. As an author myself, with an agent who has been my fiercest champion, this is the kind of support I try to extend to my own clients too.
Publishing is a brutal industry, especially for marginalized authors, so my advice to querying authors would be to not give up!
I’ve seen agents ask for full manuscripts after years, I’ve seen editors offer on books that have been on submission for years. Don’t let the impressive stats and success stories you see online convince you that you’re going nowhere—more often than not, those are the unicorn stories you’re seeing.
Myna: As if all this isn’t enough to overfill a schedule, you also do freelance editing. Do you have an area of specialization? How can potential clients reach you?
Danai: Yes, please book me! I love my jobs with a passion, but neither writing nor agenting offer what you’d call a “stable income”. It can take years for the money to start trickling in, that’s why the publishing industry in general has such a classism problem—it’s ridiculously difficult to survive in it if you’re someone from a working class background, without any generational wealth to cushion you or a spouse with a stable job to support you. So I need to somehow keep my flock of animals and myself fed along the way!
I offer everything from query critiques to full manuscript edits and author coaching, and you can find all the information here.
Myna: How do you stay motivated? And how do you keep up with all your commitments?
Danai: The ever present threat of poverty, ADHD, and insomnia. But also, I have an amazing partner who has taken over all the house chores, keeping us clean and fed and alive while I work at all odd hours of the day and night.
Myna: Tell us about a recent accomplishment or share some happy news with us!
Danai: I’ve been really surprised and elated to see Vile Lady Villains sell US rights, especially as a very queer book in this political climate—and I’m still pinching myself that we’ve already secured a Greek translation as well! Seeing this book in Greek bookstores will be a childhood dream come true, despite the fact that it also means my mother will now be able to read it.
Myna: Do you have a pet, or other non-writing hobbies/activities?
Danai: I am a humble butler of several cats and chickens, along with the visiting deer, birds and cows that tend to visit us here. There’s a lot of feeding happening. Sometimes it feels like a third (fourth? fifth?) full time job.
Myna: What’s next for you?
Danai: Right now my main focus is to survive another Swedish winter in this frozen cottage in the woods that I live in. And then launch Vile Lady Villains next year. I’m also working on what I’m hoping will be my option book for my publisher to consider next (gods willing!), and because I like to torture myself it’s the most ambitious project I’ve embarked on yet. I can only describe it as Bury Your Bones In the Midnight Soil meets Greek myth and folklore… Yeah, it’s Greek myth vampires. I’m sorry, or you’re welcome.
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Danai Christopoulou is a Greek author raised on a diet of myths and tragedies. Danai’s writing has appeared in Glamour, Marie Claire, khōréō, Fusion Fragment, Flame Tree Press, Writer’s Digest and more, nominated for a Pushcart Prize and for a Best of Small Fictions, and featured on the Nebula and Stoker recommended reading lists. Vile Lady Villains, Danai’s debut novel, comes out in the UK with Penguin Michael Joseph in April 2026, in the US with Union Square & Co in May 2026, and in Greece with Anubis Books. Growing up amid the ancient ruins of Athens, Greece, Danai currently haunts a forest in Sweden. When not writing, Danai is an editor for Hugo-nominated khōréō magazine and an assistant literary agent at The Tobias Literary Agency. You can find them on social media at @danaiwrites.
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