Liza Anderson: On Confronting Moral Problems in Fiction
In this interview, Liza Anderson discusses how following her obsessions led her to write her debut novel, We Who Have No Gods.
Liza Anderson is a recent graduate of Yale Law School and a not-so-recent graduate of the University of Texas, where she was the editor in chief of The Daily Texan. She has a background in media law and journalism, including bylines in The Dallas Morning News. She lives in Austin with her partner, cats Lyndon and Lady Bird, and a small army of houseplants. Follow her on Instagram.
In this interview, Liza discusses how following her obsessions led her to write her debut novel, We Who Have No Gods, her hope for readers, and more.
Name: Liza Anderson
Literary agent: Caitlin Mahony, WME Books
Book title: We Who Have No Gods
Publisher: Ballantine
Release date: January 27, 2026
Genre/category: Adult fantasy
Elevator pitch: In a world of witches, a human woman must hunt or be hunted in this explosive debut novel filled with dangerous rivals, guarded secrets, and simmering chemistry.
What prompted you to write this book?
I wrote We Who Have No Gods while I was a student at Yale Law School, and it was inspired by my own experience gaining insight into the shrouded world of American politics and law. I felt like I’d peeked behind the curtain, and I didn’t like what I saw. The novel started as pure escapism, but eventually I realized I was using fiction to grapple with moral problems I was seeing firsthand—the corrupting nature of power and the fact that so many people in positions of authority rarely understand the consequences of the choices they make.
I was also frustrated with depictions of authoritarianism and fascism in fantasy, and I felt that chronic misrepresentations of political extremism make it harder for us to recognize it in real life.
That said, I wanted We Who Have No Gods to be first and foremost fun to read. I wanted to write the kind of book that I wanted to read: fast-paced, plot driven, and a little bit sexy, but still with something important to say.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
I started writing in January 2022. I locked myself in a cabin in Brattleboro, VT, and promised myself I wouldn’t leave until I had an idea for a novel. I came up with the broad strokes of the story and wrote the first chapter that week. From there, it went pretty fast. At the end of 18 months, I’d done six drafts, two with feedback from beta readers, and I was ready to query the novel. I struck gold with a fantastic agent (Caitlin Mahony at WME), and we signed a deal with Ballantine in early 2024. The book will release four years after I came up with the concept, almost to the day.
The core of the story hasn’t changed much, but the writing and editing process has added so much depth to the novel. When I started the idea felt quite simple—my first draft was only about 30,000 words (barely 100 pages). But at the finish line I had the opposite problem. I’d learned so much about the story, the characters, the world I was building, that I had to hold myself back to keep it at a reasonable length.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
This is my first novel and my first exposure to the publishing process, so literally everything about this experience has surprised me. There are 1,000 little details I’d never considered as a reader that I think about when I pick up a book now. Things like endpapers and signed tip-ins and how many iterations of a cover have to get designed before you find the right one—who knew? The whole process is so much richer and involves so many more talented people than I ever expected.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
With the exception of some really terrible teenaged fanfic, We Who Have No Gods is the first piece of fiction I’ve ever written. I come from a journalism/legal writing background, so I felt I had a good grasp of the English language. I could describe things accurately, I knew what a lot of words meant, I had sentence structure and the rhythm of the writing down, but I was shocked by how hard it was to capture the emotions of the characters. Not technically, but emotionally. Writing fiction requires a level of vulnerability that few other things in my life have, and it’s completely rearranged my perspective on writing. It’s given me so much admiration for writers who can write honestly and earnestly about topics that will probably get them made fun of—things like desire and romance and anger. Writing well is easy, but writing raw is badass.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
I think the best thing I can hope for with my writing is that it leaves the right person feeling empowered. The main character, Vic, is an outsider, an underdog—not chosen by anyone for anything. No one expects anything from her, other than to maybe get out of the way, and I would love for readers who see themselves in Vic to also see themselves in her success.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
Follow your obsession. Whatever you can’t stop thinking about, whatever stories won’t let you sleep—go there. I started writing We Who Have No Gods as a 25-year-old law student who really, genuinely intended to become a lawyer, not a writer. I’d worked incredibly hard to get where I was, to get the legal career I was about to have, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that all I wanted to think about was witches and magic and men made out of shadow. I was obsessed, and I let it pull me away from the life I’d planned for myself. I’m glad I did.
