Kelsey Day

Kelsey Day is a young adult author and queer Appalachian poet. Their writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Orion Magazine, Freeman’s and more.

The Spiral Key is their first novel for young readers.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

Every year at Lincoln Academy, a high school student named Madison Pembroke throws a highly exclusive birthday party that takes place in a virtual reality called Ametrine. The high school’s social order bends around who receives an invitation and who doesn’t. Those invitations take the form of custom-made spiral keys—sleek, shiny keys that fit into the VR consoles used at Madison’s party. Receiving a spiral key means everything, especially for the social outcasts of the school. That’s why the book is called The Spiral Key: the key initially symbolizes the promise of acceptance, friendship, desirability…but turns to something much darker as the party begins.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

Teenage me wouldn’t be surprised, but they might be a little uncomfortable. This book draws so much from my own high school experience: the pain of social ostracization, the confusing intensity of queer friendship breakups, how life or death everything felt. I don’t pull any punches: every character is flawed in their own way. When I was a teenager, I hadn’t come to full terms with my queerness yet, so I think that aspect would be nerve wracking to read about at first, and then extremely illuminating.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Beginnings, definitely. Oftentimes the ending arrives for me first, and I work my way backwards. The Spiral Key has so many twists and turns, so much complex tension and terror, I needed to know the entire plot before beginning to write it.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

I don’t relate much to the individual characters in The Spiral Key, but I do relate to the feeling of the book: the terror of loneliness in high school, the betrayal and anger following friendship breakups, feeling like you would do anything to fit in. I was a highly sensitive, anxious and depressed teenager. Bree (the narrator of The Spiral Key) is sensitive and anxious, but more than that she’s angry. That’s a big difference between us. My anxiety tunneled inwards, and hers branches outwards.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I’m constantly influenced by the political state of the world, and I’m invested in the fury, resilience, and scathing intelligence of the teenagers today who are grappling with that world. The Spiral Key is particularly concerned with the rise of techno-fascism and surveillance in the United States, and how modern technology acts on the bodies and minds of young people.

Visit Kelsey Day's website.

--Marshal Zeringue