The silence in each poem is important, too: an interview with Hayley Chewins, author of I Am the Swarm 

★ Written in delicate, sparse, almost fragile verse . . . Chewins examines each of Nell’s emotions as if it’s a butterfly preserved in amber, held up to the light for careful study. The elements of magic interwoven with the very real cruelties of girlhood is a case study in successful fabulism. A beautiful, introspective slow burn of a book.
–Kirkus, starred review

★ This cutting novel in verse is fearless, biting, and raw…there is a painful, sharply realistic thread that zeroes in on the way that girls are often stifled, silenced, coerced, or used…though there is a tender, quiet hopefulness that finds purchase in each of the women’s stories.
—BCCB, starred review

★ In this deeply felt verse novel, Chewins expertly leverages evocative language . . . for a moving tale of self-discovery and healing through connection.
–PW, starred review

★ In verse that flies across the page, Chewins weaves multiple apt metaphors with sensory detail . . . themes of music as a powerful tool for self-expression and anger as an important self-protective measure in this one-sitting read.
–Booklist, starred review

★ Vividly and fluidly written verse sets a gradual pace that allows readers to immerse themselves in Nell’s complex reality and her path to womanhood in a world both harsh and hopeful.
–The Horn Book, starred review

Please tell use about your book.

I AM THE SWARM is a YA novel in verse about a family of women who each inherit an irrational, life-complicating form of magic at the age of fifteen. 

The main character, Nell, turns fifteen at the start of the book and is waiting to receive her magic—and she’s dreading it. Her mother’s age changes constantly; her aunt’s hair whispers secrets; her sister bleeds music (and self-harms to release the songs inside her).

When her emotions start to manifest as actual insects in the air around her, she has to figure out how to live with her new reality. She’s always seen the magic as a curse, but—as the story unfolds—she begins to see how it might be a gift, too. 

I feel like I want to tell you things, like the absolute power this story holds in its imagery. I keep thinking about insects as a perfect metaphor for a person not facing or perhaps not being aware of their feelings. And how those insects are sometimes a fluttering and sometimes a swarm. And how there can be entirely different ones present all at once. And holding them back, how they’ll surface in other ways. This book broke my heart but it strengthened it too as I watched Nell come into herself. How did you come to this idea of Nell’s magic?

Nell’s magic was the one I figured out last.

Way back in 2015, I had this idea that I wanted to write about a girl who had music for blood. But I could never figure out how to get her into a story. 

I wrote THE TURNAWAY GIRLS, then THE SISTERS OF STRAYGARDEN PLACE (with lots of abandoned projects in between), and then I decided I wanted to write a book about wasps. In particular, I wanted to write a YA book about a house that had a room called the wasp room. The room was always filled with wasps, and the whole house thrummed with the sound of them. I rewrote that book over and over, but I could never make it work. 

Then, in 2021, another idea dropped into my head: a family of magical women whose magic is complicated, irrational, strange, uncontrollable. I immediately knew that one of the characters would be a girl who bleeds music. But I couldn’t figure out what the main character’s magic would be. I played around with a few different ideas: at first, she could see invisible rivers; then, when she wore other people’s shoes, she could feel exactly what they were feeling; at some point, I thought maybe she wouldn’t have any magic at all. But none of those solutions felt right. 

And then, one evening, as I was falling asleep, I saw Nell, in my mind’s eye, surrounded by wasps. The next day, I sent my agent an email with the subject line: I figured out her magic! She loved the idea, and I immediately started writing the new draft. 

You were made for verse novels. I know you’ve wanted to write one for a long time. Your background in music and poetry made this story come alive. Can you talk about what your experience was like writing in verse and how it was the right fit for this story (it is, absolutely)?

Thank you so much. It was always going to be in verse, and you’re right, I have wanted to write a novel in verse for a really long time, ever since I read THE WEIGHT OF WATER by Sarah Crossan. 

Honestly, the experience of writing in verse was like coming home. I’ve been a singer and songwriter all my life—literally since I was two years old. Writing songs and poems is like breathing to me. It’s this flow that’s running through me all the time. 

I’ve always wanted to write a novel in verse, but I had what was essentially an ideas problem. Basically, the stories I wanted to write wouldn’t have worked in verse. But as soon as I had the idea for I AM THE SWARM, I knew it could work in verse. Not just that: I knew it had to be in verse. 

This is a book, in many ways, about my childhood, my adolescence. I had to go back to verse, to my beginnings, for that reason. It’s a book about music, too, about songwriting, and expressing music in verse felt right to me. Plus, writing in verse gave me a lot of white space to play with. There’s a lot of silence in this book. There’s a lot about what can be expressed, and what cannot be spoken about. So the silence in each poem is important, too. 

I remember once you look for elements? Images? (I don’t remember your exact term) when writing a book. This book is awash in color and sound and different types of silence. In garden loam and rain and waves. In shadow and light. What were your elements for this book?

I think I said textures! (This was years ago, in a random tweet; thank you for remembering.) For THE TURNAWAY GIRLS, it was gold, stone, and salt. THE SISTERS OF STRAYGARDEN PLACE was silver, marble, and fur. 

I actually don’t have textures for I AM THE SWARM. At least, I didn’t think about it consciously. 

My writing process has changed a lot since I wrote THE TURNWAY GIRLS, and there were so many things that were different about I AM THE SWARM. I wrote it by hand first, in a notebook. I didn’t write a single outline. My plotting technique was simply: I’d read the previous scene and then “listen” for what should come next. (If that sounds too woo-woo, I’m sorry. For me, writing is equal parts persistence and magic.) The poems practically fell out of me. Of course, I still did edits, but the revisions were not nearly as extensive as the ones I’ve done for previous books. 

Not too woo-woo at all. I’m actually teaching a class this summer called Listen to the Work, and a main focus will be finding the direction a story is meant to take from listening to what is already on the page.

If had to choose textures for SWARM, though, I’d say: moths’ wings, loam, hibiscus petals.

We all get the magic we get.
We have to decide for ourselves.
What to do with it.
This is something Nell’s Ouma tells her, an empowering and liberating way to see ourselves and our place in the world. I don’t think I’ve got a question, but I just wanted to say I love that Ouma shares this wisdom and Nell is learning to live with this truth.

I love it, too. And it’s something I am learning to hold, too.

I loved seeing I AM THE SWARM set in your home, South Africa. What was writing from this setting like for you?

It was emotional. I haven’t been back to Cape Town for an extended period of time since I left when I was seventeen. The last time I was there was eight years ago, just before THE TURNAWAY GIRLS came out, and I couldn’t stop crying. It’s a beautiful place and I don’t want to give the impression that I don’t have good memories about growing up there—I do. And also: things happened there that left me deeply scarred. Writing about it, though, was really cathartic. I realized how much the landscape lives in me, is so alive in me, and visiting it in the book helped me to put into words some of the feelings I had about it. It’s a really vivid, strange, beautiful place, and there’s a kind of violence to it, a kind of sharpness and intensity to its beauty. The story couldn’t have taken place anywhere else. 

Anything else you want to add?

Just thank you. For reading I AM THE SWARM and for your thoughtful questions about it. I really value our friendship. 

I do too.

Hayley Chewins is the critically acclaimed author of The Turnaway Girls and The Sisters of Straygarden Place. She grew up in Cape Town, and now lives in Johannesburg, South Africa, with her husband and daughter. She is the singer and songwriter for EIGHT THOUSAND BIRDS. You can visit her at HayleyChewins.com.