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 to release in 2025. She has also been published as the writer for the graphic series Clara and the Devil and a variety of other adult SFF books. 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, I do not have a Facebook profile, and I do not 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.
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AFTERPARTY, formerly STARGAZING IS NECROPHILIA, an Alone with You in the Ether-esque romantic narrative about life, disappointment, desire, and the uncertainty of art.
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UNTITLED ASSASSIN WIFE, a '90s inspired SFF action/adventure about a very healthy marriage.
Reading
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MODERATION by Elaine Castillo. This book is one of my favorites in recent memory and defies genre conventions on so many levels—while certainly literary fiction, it also rings of sci-fi while being very much a romance novel. The concept of content moderation for a social media company turned virtual reality playground (literally) is dark, gritty, cyberpunk-adjacent, a fascinating stage for one of the gentlest love stories in living memory. I mean, there is an elderly dog involved. A man who loves his dog. But the book also spoke to me specifically because I have never read the Filipino experience written this way—I'm not even sure what I mean by that. Unapologetically? Dauntlessly, almost? Sometimes I do feel an unavoidable aspect of being Filipino American is a talent for disappearing into the American part, but this book reminded me there is much behind the curtain. Also, a subtweet: this is what an Eldest Daughter is.
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WORKHORSE by Caroline Palmer. I was in conversation with Caroline Palmer for the GIRL DINNER US tour and it was a very fitting match-up; an interesting one, too, contrasting the shape of Gen X femininity culture with the Millennial and Gen Z experiences that are the focus in GIRL DINNER. I would call this a mash-up of The Devil Wears Prada and, in a kind of slow burn twist, GREY GARDENS—it's about the last gasp of magazine glamor in New York City, much like the film, but also about a wide array of social and interpersonal toxicity. It's all the decisions that drive ambition for wealth and power (the complicity required in circles therein), the nature of class-driven envy that lives in the dichotomy between "workhorse" and "showhorse," and a fascinatingly toxic mother-daughter relationship from the perspective of a hugely unreliable, morally suspect narrator.
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PARK AVENUE by Renée Ahdieh. Another tour partner who led an incredibly interesting conversation on the GIRL DINNER tour about motherhood and consumption under capitalism. This book is comped to Succession for good reason—in that sense, it shares a lot with GIFTED & TALENTED, including the use of a surprise narrator. It's about the aspiration for wealth and success, but is also a family drama at its heart. It also has a very good love story and the propulsive pacing of a mystery novel, and I really enjoyed following along.
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ITCH! by Gemma Amor. This is folk horror that's releasing next year, and I think it read a bit like THE LAMB by Lucy Rose, in some ways a bit of BLOOM by Delilah S. Dawson. THE LAMB struck me as a fairytale and so did this one, with a very interesting blur between real and imagined monsters (though the discerning reader may predict a lot of what eventually occurs from the first chapter). The ant motif was very uniquely skin-crawling in a way that made a fitting allegory for trauma, and I also enjoyed the shifting perspectives on the types of abuse women may experience. I struggled to put it down.
Listening
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The Life of a Showgirl by Taylor Swift. Let's just get this out of the way: I think the album is sonically pleasing, lyrically less so. I don't think Taylor and I share the same perception of her current muse, so that's partially user error, I suppose. I did enjoy "Father Figure" and "Ruin the Friendship," which I agree with another reviewer should probably have been Track 5 on this album (Taylor... should not be appropriating the concept of "the eldest daughter," it is really not intended for affluent white children in families of 4). Most of the other songs will probably not be listened to again except for my favorite song on the album, "Elizabeth Taylor," which I read as quite a loaded threat: "all my white diamonds and lovers are forever / in the papers, on the screen, and in their minds" absolutely promises that she'll go for the jugular if her future husband ever screws up. And you know what? Good for her. It also reminds me of how, when my husband first heard "Lover," he said, "This is a sad song if the answer to these questions"—Can I go where you go? / Can we always be this close?—"is no." Tonally, then, the cynical approach to asking a seven-time divorcée "Tell me for real, do you think it's forever?" makes a lot of sense to me.
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The Hours: Night by Cautious Clay. This is a relatively short album from one of my established favorite R&B artists. I played it while walking from Chelsea up to Times Square and found it was very appropriate for the task—my favorite is "5th Floor (10pm)" with Q-Tip, though the whole thing is so cohesive I also recommend it in its entirety for driving, background dinner party music, etc.
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Deadbeat by Tame Impala. Another solidly established vibe, Tame Impala doing Tame Impala. This is another album where one song in particular is being played over and over—"Dracula," of course (the Dracula/spectacular rhyme is inspired)—and then the whole thing kind of pleasantly blends for me. You know, I think I can fit a third album into this streak of "good albums to just put on": Death & Love by Circa Waves, which is brit alt-pop that feels in line with Catfish & The Bottlemen, maybe The Wombats, sonically speaking (can't really compete with The Wombats' lyrical eccentricity), with a bit of The Strokes in "Stick Around."
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The GIRL DINNER playlist. This was an interesting playlist to curate because, as you may know by looking up slightly on this page, I tend to listen to genres that are dominated by men, and I wanted this playlist to focus on art made by women. There was also much to balance in terms of the book's inherent absurdity (songs like "Independent Women, Pt. 1" by Destiny's Child, "House Tour" by Sabrina Carpenter, "I Love It" by Icona Pop, "Bikini Porn" by Tove Lo), the particular experience of women loving and/or wanting women ("Jealous" by The Aces, "Lacy" by Olivia Rodrigo, "Good Luck, Babe!" by Chappell Roan, "Lunch" by Billie Eilish), songs thematically focused on the feminine experience and the difficulties therein ("Mantra" by Lauren Mayberry, "Pity Party" by Lydia Night, "Sympathy is a Knife" by Charli XCX), songs about the world being shit ("C'est Comme Ça" by Paramore & Wet Leg, "Just Around the Corner" by Beach Bunny, "CRACK!" by Au/Ra), and songs I chose because the vibe was right "Dream Girl Evil" by Florence + The Machine, "Gimme" by BANKS, "Portrait of a Dead Girl" by The Last Dinner Party—especially worth pointing out for the lyric "I wanna feed you to my friends / over and over again"). Bon appétit!