Are you a fan of the royal family? Do you have a favorite (living or deceased)? Do you collect any of the memorabilia? There were a lot of words that got cut for space, mostly just fun asides like Henry filming a promo for the 2020 Olympics or Alex flirting with staffers for information, but I’m hoping I’ll find a way to use those one day. I didn’t think I needed to add any more cynicism to the world.

I began writing it in early 2016 as a Veep-esque affectionate send-up of American liberal politics, but after the 2016 election and all of the terrible things that came with it, the book transformed into something a lot more hopeful and a lot less cynical.

The biggest evolution this book went through was an overall change in tone. How did the novel evolve and change as you wrote and revised it? Are there any characters or scenes that were lost in the process that you wish had made it to the published version? I’ll never forget watching Wendy filibuster for abortion rights on the floor of the Texas State Senate for eleven hours straight, and when I was coming up with what I pictured for a first female president, that was the first image that came to mind. Most of my characters are pulled from a mixture of my brain, people I know, people from history, and tropes I love, but Ellen Claremont, in particular, was heavily inspired by a real-life Texas Democrat: Wendy Davis. Are Alex, Henry or any of the other characters inspired by or based on specific individuals? I was fascinated by the worlds of both of those books, so I wanted to do something fun inside them on the backdrop of an intense election year. The idea for this book came to me while I was following the 2016 presidential election and reading A Woman in Charge by Carl Bernstein and The Royal We by Heather Cocks & Jessica Morgan at the same time. RWRB was inspired by so many of my favorite things- Pride & Prejudice, Veep, Parks & Recreation, Chasing Liberty, The West Wing, first family memoirs, the list goes on. What was your inspiration for Red White & Royal Blue? Red, White & Royal Blue is her first novel and she recently agreed to be interviewed about it by Daryl Maxwell for the LAPL Blog. She now lives in the mountains of Fort Collins, Colorado, with a collection of caftans and her poodle mix, Pepper. She studied journalism and worked in magazine publishing for years before returning to her first love: joyous, offbeat romantic comedies and escapist fiction. Casey McQuiston grew up in the swamps of Southern Louisiana, where she cultivated an abiding love for honey butter biscuits and stories with big, beating hearts.

Casey mc quiston