Photo by Angela Sterling Toronto-raised writer Mona Awad has a taste for the occult. Her 2019 novel,Bunny, follows Samantha, a writer in a prestigious MFA program. There, she meets a clique of rich classmates who engage in all manner of witchery and call one another “Bunny.” Samantha spends much of the book castigating them, and in the sequel,We Love You, Bunny, the women take their revenge. Sam finds herself tied up and tormented by the Bunnies, who are furious about their depictions in the first book. It’s a dizzying perspective shift that gets stranger as each Bunny shares her story. Here, Awad talks about the upside of being an outsider, the high cost of creativity and whether there will be aBunny 3*.*

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What made you want to revisit the world of Bunny? I missed it. The book never left me. When I write my novels, I really inhabit them. When they’re over, I grieve. I started to see visions of the Bunnies when I’d see actual bunnies on walks.

Why did you opt to tell the story from their perspective? Because they’re villains. One of my favourite things in literature is trying to see a character from another perspective. I got to see Samantha through their eyes, which was fun.

The novel features an exploding rabbit, which is tame compared with the rest of the book. Are you ever surprised that your readers follow you into such dark and strange places? Creativity can feel like blowing up a bunny! It can involve going into very dark places. I wanted it to feel that way. There’s a metaphor for writing in there: the Bunnies have to destroy a beautiful, organic thing to create something new. They literally kill their darlings. There is always a cost to creativity.

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The Bunny novels are set in New England, but you spent your adolescence in Toronto. How much of the books were informed by your time here? I couldn’t have written either book without being Canadian. I have a fundamentally outsider view of the Ivy League experience. When I first went to New England for my MFA, it was wild to see how these incredible schools exist in towns where there’s such a disparity in wealth. That bubble was very particular to the US. I also grew up as a goth in 1990s Toronto, and that scene inspires everything I write. All of the old spots are gone now, but I loved the incredible clothing shops on Queen West and venues like Savage Garden and Sanctuary, which is probably a Starbucks or something now. I’m doing an event with the Toronto Public Library in October, and I’m looking forward to being back.

You did your bachelor’s in English at York University. What was that like? As soon as I arrived, I felt overwhelmed by the campus—it’s so huge. I soon transferred to the Glendon campus, which was cloistered and beautiful and had a great community. Glendon didn’t have bunnies, but it did have a garden that inspired the one in my novel All’s Well. And the beauty of the place informs the landscape of Bunny.

Margaret Atwood has named you her heir apparent. How does it feel to be in line for that crown? It was an honour to find that out. I was very moved. Her novels have been so important for me. As a teenager, I read her earlier books, which are very gothic and weird, and they inspired my own approach to storytelling.

Bunny has been optioned for both TV and film, with J. J. Abrams’s production house taking the movie rights. Is anything in the works? Yes, the story is currently in development for a film, which is very exciting. I’m an executive producer on it. I’ve read the script and spoken with the lead actor and director. It’s in good hands.

What’s next for you? I’m working on a new novel, and there will be a third book in the Bunny series. I can’t say much about it yet. Bunny wants to keep things secret—for now.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.