About Olivie
For an official bio, find my press kit.
Olivie Blake, the pen name of Alexene Farol Follmuth, is the author of internationally bestselling speculative fiction for adults. She is a lover and writer of stories, many of which involve the fantastic, the paranormal, or the supernatural, but not always. More often, her works revolve around the collective experience, what it means to be human (or not), and the endlessly interesting complexities of life and love.
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Olivie tripped and fell into writing after abandoning her long-premeditated track for Optimum Life Achievement while attending law school, and now focuses primarily on the craft and occasional headache of creating fiction. Her New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling The Atlas Six released in 2022 from Tor Books, with The Atlas Paradox and The Atlas Complex rounding out the bestselling trilogy in 2024. The re-release of her viral literary romance Alone With You in the Ether was followed by backlist titles One for My Enemy and New York Times bestselling Masters of Death, with brand new titles Gifted & Talented and Girl Dinner releasing in 2025. She is also the writer for the graphic series Clara and the Devil with co-creator Little Chmura. As Alexene, she is the author of young adult fiction (alexenefarolfollmuth.com).
Olivie lives and works in Los Angeles with her husband and son. She has trained in boxing for the last seven years and enjoys dinner conversation, art made by humans, and overindulging her sweet tooth.
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Please note: I will never solicit you via social media on any platform. I do not have a Facebook profile, and I do not use or offer any paid services—all of my writing advice is free.
Author Photo © Michelle Terris​
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Represented by
Amelia Appel, Triada US
Keep in touch
Currently . . .
Writing
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NEWPHORIA!, a dystopian satire set three generations in the future of Western technocracy about an archivist, a pop star, a neo-Luddite cult, and clicktivism in the digital dark age. Currently in revision.
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Dead Weight, a play about a complicated pair of frenemies and some priests on LSD. Currently in revision.
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CALL ME WHEN YOU MAKE IT, formerly STARGAZING IS NECROPHILIA, an Alone with You in the Ether-esque romantic narrative about life, disappointment, desire, and the uncertainty of art. Currently in revision.
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UNTITLED ASSASSIN WIFE, a '90s inspired SFF action/adventure about a very healthy marriage. On deck.
Reading
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HOLLYWOOD NOTEBOOK: Essays by Wendy Ortiz. A devastating thing happened to me this week: I was informed that I might not be able to use the Glass Animals lyrics I’d intended for an epigraph in DREAMLAND, which turns out to be something of a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, the other epigraphs in DREAMLAND are by authors who are famous for their contributions to Los Angeles literature: Joan Didion, Eve Babitz, and Raymond Chandler, leaving Glass Animals something of an outlier (a British band??? Have I lost my mind???). It also bothered me for a long time that I wasn’t using a Latinx author given everything about the city of Los Angeles. So, while the lyrics I wanted to use were very much the framework for the craft that went into the story—the song “How I Learned to Love the Bomb” is about the experience of loving a volatile person, which is essentially the plot of DREAMLAND as well—this was an opportunity to select a noteworthy piece of writing by someone who understands this city in a very specific way. HOLLYWOOD NOTEBOOK is a cerebral, vignette-style memoir that would likely appeal to people who enjoy poetry and/or IN THE DREAM HOUSE by Carmen Maria Machado. And! It recently came back into print! So why not, you know?
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HEAVENSENT & HELLBENT by Sara Jafari. I got an advanced read of this YA novel that’s coming out in August and I had a really great time reading. It’s difficult to express this without it sounding like a dig, but this is the type of book I would have absolutely eaten up as a teenager—which isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy it now, but I could tell it would have awoken some intensity in me back when I thought of all romantic stakes as life or death. The story does some really cool things with Iranian lore about jinns and angels—and would almost certainly appeal to people who enjoy the golden age of urban fantasy/monster-hunting TV—but what I particularly loved was the soulmate element. I love reading people who have known each other in every lifetime and keep having dreams about their pasts. Past Me would be writing so much fanfic in her head right now (because she didn’t discover actual fan fiction until her 20s, probably for the best).
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THE YEAR OF THE WITCHING by Alexis Henderson. This book is extremely evocative and cool—I think it’s fair to call it fantasy folk horror, because while it doesn’t take place in this world by any means, it has the feel of something set in an American rural community. The witchy aspect feels quite Southern Gothic to me, although what do I know! What I’m trying to say is: the vibes were very strong. On some level I could feel that it had to have been written in a more optimistic era (lol @ me, anything where people of a homogeneous/religious group come together on behalf of the ostracized MC to aid her against forces of oppression always feels slightly optimistic to me now, given everything about The Times) but I was happy to suspend my disbelief and watch Immanuelle succeed. Her kindness, which was certainly not weakness, was such a wonderful quality to read in a protagonist, and I did enjoy the plucking of my heart strings when it came to the romance and dire stakes.
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THE TAROT TRIALS by Katee Robert. I was so excited when I heart Katee Robert was going to be writing a more political fantasy on an epic scale, and this book absolutely feels epic. The stakes are high right away, with a main character who enters a tournament to the death in order to find out what happened to her mother and ensure justice for her underserved community, but true to Katee Robert, everyone is extremely hot and I don’t even know who might end up making out at any given moment! (No one so far, I’m still reading and they’re still mainly fighting to the death, but tell me honestly: what could be a hornier situation?) Katee and I both really love the KUSHIEL’S DART books by Jacqueline Carey, and I think you can feel what’s so great about those books happening in this one as well. It’s like if Jacqueline Carey wrote about a tarot-inspired Hunger Games, except it’s being written by Katee Robert, so literally nothing could be better than the situation I find myself in.
Listening
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Manic by Halsey. A lot of re-listens on this list; a lot of artists I love are coming out with new music soon but haven't YET, plus I haven’t been feeling up for exploring new albums of late. I’m actually juggling more than I can technically handle at the moment, but I digress. I forgot how much I love this album. There are the songs I loved right from the start (“Graveyard,” “3am,” “Dominic’s Interlude”) but it’s nice to be reunited with “You Should Be Sad,” “Beautiful Stranger,” and “I’m Not Mad.” I love Halsey. They’re younger than me but still gave me some really thoughtful and lovely language for how I discuss my own experience with bipolar. And I always tear up when I think about “Darling.” Oh, Halsey. I hope you’re having a really good day.
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I Love You So Fucking Much by Glass Animals. Re my earlier note, I can’t imagine the book DREAMLAND without the album I Love You So Fucking Much, because it’s what I listened to on repeat the whole summer I was writing. I love Glass Animals; I love that the beats are all so slutty (don’t ask me to explain that). I love that the main character of this album gets kidnapped or something. I love that I barely understand the events of this space opera or that it even is one. I love every strange line of “Wonderful Nothing,” and I particularly love how it includes some of the most wrathful sentences I’ve ever heard in my life and still ends with “I love you.” I love the song “How I Learned to Love the Bomb,” and I hope it gets to live in my book. But if it doesn’t, at least we’ll always have the summer of I Love You So Fucking Much.
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Prizefighter by Mumford and Sons. I love Mumford and Sons. I’m so happy they have a new album. Oh boy! I’m dangerously full of enthusiasm, perhaps the madness may take a rapturous turn? But it’s true. I loved the era of stomp-and-holler, and when I walked out of law school for the last time to let my books drop on the pavement, I was listening to “Lover of the Light” in my (wired) headphones. I remember feeling exactly what Mumford and Sons always makes me feel, which is the strangely undeniable sense that I can take the bad with the good, I can do hard things, I am just one in a long line of others who have wanted and tried and loved. Anyway, this is less stomp-and-holler than previous albums, but also a bit more of that than previous albums, too. My favorite is “Stay,” which makes me want to drop out of law school all over again. Don’t ask me to explain that, either. “Badlands” is good, too—you can feel how it’s a good choice for Gracie Abrams.
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Mind Over Matter (10th Anniversary Edition) by Young the Giant. Oh man, I LOVE Young the Giant!! Normally the album I re-listen to is the first one, the self-titled one, but this one recently(ish) turned ten years old, and my, my, it’s as transportive as ever. Not to the past, I mean. More like, transportive to a wash of dreamscape. The other day I noticed that my son often tells stories as if he’s visited another realm—I warned him not to eat the food in faerie, don’t worry—but on some level, I do feel like wherever he goes in his dreams is similar to the place I visit when I listen to Young the Giant. How’s that for a recommendation? Don’t eat the food when you get there, or do. Whatever.