About Olivie
For an official bio, find my press kit.
Olivie Blake, the pen name of Alexene Farol Follmuth, is the author of bestselling fantasy and sci-fi crossover titles 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 2022 from Tor Books, rounding out the bestselling trilogy with The Atlas Paradox and The Atlas Complex 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 goblin prince/toddler.
Represented by
Amelia Appel, Triada US
Keep in touch
Currently . . .
Writing
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KISS YOUR DEVILS IN LOS ANGELES, previously UNTITLED HOLLYWOOD GOTHIC, a Gothic-inspired work of romantic suspense featuring extended immigrant families, the noble sport of pigeon seduction, and some demonic Santa Ana winds.​
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NEWPHORIA, a standalone SFF set three generations into 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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STARGAZING IS NECROPHILIA, an Alone with You in the Ether-esque romantic narrative about life, disappointment, desire, and the way love shapes us.
Reading
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THE LAST SAMURAI by Helen Dewitt. This book was recommended to me by a friend who was thankfully the second person to recommend it to me, because the first time I was like, what? Tom Cruise? But the source material for that film is a completely different book, so no worries. This book is, first of all, very much a writer's book, and by that I mean the casual reader may struggle to understand what's going on structurally. This is a piece of art that took a lot of wild, wild swings—for one thing, it teaches you how to read in Greek, and I'm not even kidding about that. The narrative is purposefully a series of puzzle pieces, something you only understand when it comes together near the end with a deceptively throwaway comment; the voice is, as I love, incredibly, subtly funny. A beautiful, intricate, strange, innovative work. I've never read anything like it and it lived in my brain for a long time after I finished.
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IMMACULATE CONCEPTION by Ling Ling Huang. I am so excited for this one after loving Huang's previous work, NATURAL BEAUTY. I'm purposely not looking too hard at what the book's about because I look forward to Huang transporting me, but this one is about an obsessive art school friendship. Things going terribly wrong strongly implied!!
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GREAT BIG BEAUTIFUL LIFE by Emily Henry. I really don't know why I was on Emily Henry's publisher's list to send an early copy to, but you better believe I ate this up the moment it arrived. I don't often enjoy contemporary romance, but Henry has this quality where the writing disappears and I just get carried along on the wave of the story. Her marketing materials say this book is different than her usual fare, but I kind of disagree—it has new structural elements, sure; it's a bit less like a traditional romance novel than previous formats, and has elements of "the last great american dynasty" mixed with THE SEVEN HUSBANDS OF EVELYN HUGO—but overall I would argue this is perhaps the Emily Henriest of her works.
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PHILOSOPHY OF THE HOME by Emanuele Coccia. I don't really know what I expected this book to be, but I wasn't expecting actual philosophy for some reason. Coccia begins by comparing the classic philosophical understanding of the city to the philosophical understanding of the home, and it ends up being a very elegantly argued account of what truly progressive domestic life could be. I highlighted a lot of things related to Coccia's understanding of love in particular. On some level it speaks to my own background in urban planning; I studied the way we use public space, and here Coccia makes arguments about how the way we use private spaces determines how we approach modernity in public life, and how we could change our social structures by changing our spaces. A short book, but meaty.
Listening
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Cowboy Carter by Beyoncé. I'm not really a country person, so I didn't come running when this album released. But I was glad she won album of the year and I also appreciated her saying that industry genre constraints can serve to put artists in boxes, because that's definitely something I relate to as an SFF novelist who tends to jump around. I decided to start with her collab with Post Malone (I read a blind item that they were having an affair and thought distinctly "good for her") and immediately hit play on the album from the beginning when the song ended. This album really broadened my understanding of what country could be, and it's probably the most I've ever enjoyed a Beyoncé album (so far).
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Shelby Ave by Max Frost. I was recently asked for a song that I thought would work for a cinematic introduction to the character Jack Orsino from my book TWELFTH KNIGHT, and my brain helpfully handed me "Good Morning" by Max Frost. Remembering how much I liked some of his older stuff got me excited for his new album, and I really like it. A lot of it is just very listenable, a bit mellowed since his last album, and (somewhat predictably) I particularly like "Halfway Love" and "Creep Back," with bonus appreciation for the "Car Stereo" lyric so here's a piece of my soul you can keep in your car stereo.
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TmrwTmrw III by Luke Christopher. I played Luke Christopher's song "Waterfalls" to death a few years ago (same with "Heartbreak Fiction") and it recently popped into my head when I was choosing songs for the GIFTED & TALENTED playlist, so I decided to listen to one of his newer albums while I was cleaning the house. It was a perfect choice, though it leaned more pop than I expected until I got a little deeper into the album. Standouts for me were "Cumulus Nimbus," "Love and Conversation," and "Rotation."
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Disney Junior Music: SuperKitties Su-Purr Edition by the SuperKitties cast. Listen. Idina Menzel has been my top artist for the last three years and not for Wicked, okay? My son's music of choice is by necessity something I'm also subjected to, but I have to tell you, I was absolutely not prepared for what SuperKitties was bringing to the table. For one thing, almost every song is a banger, and secondly many of the villains are voiced by people I straight up assumed were too famous for this kind of thing. Cat Burglar, my son's fave baddie, is voiced by Justin Guarini from the first season of American Idol and the seminal film From Justin to Kelly; his cousin Sassy, also a burglar, is voiced by Anika Noni Rose, the voice of Tiana from The Princess and the Frog; and Otto, my son's other fave, is voiced by THEE Jamie of "Jamie is over and Jamie is gone, Jamie has new dreams he's building upon" (Jeremy Jordan). My personal favorite villain is Mr. Puppypaws, but let's not get into that here.