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Interview

Lauren Groff's discusses her acclaimed first novel, The Monsters of Templeton and her 2021 novel, Matrix.

A Conversation with Lauren Groff about Matrix

Your first novel since Fates and Furies takes a dramatic shift from your usual contemporary settings.

How did you land on this particular setting? Where did the idea first come to you?

I had a fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study when I heard Dr. Katie Bugyis give a speech on medieval nuns' liturgical notes.

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I had thought, going in, that it perhaps wasn't something I would be interested in, but her talk just exploded my mind. Also, we were in the middle of the Trump presidency, and I was exhausted; I just wanted to live in a female utopia.

After Katie's talk I knew I wanted to go to a nunnery, all the way back to the days of medieval Benedictine enclosures, to be entirely surrounded by women. Hers was the right lecture at the right time.