Tracy Deonn

Legendborn

Biography

(3)

Tracy Deonn is an African-American author who grew up in central North Carolina. Deonn earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in communication and performance studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Before becoming a New York Times best-selling author, Deonn worked in live theater, video game production, K-12 education, and documentary filmmaking. During her time as an educator, Deonn chose to teach theater to middle and undergraduate students, then pursued teaching creative/academic writing at a university level (3). Deonn recounts her love for writing when she was 9 years old when she wrote her first short story about a girl who wakes up one day and learns she can understand animals. It was at that point that her late mother took her passion very seriously and secretly got her work copyrighted. In 2008, after her mother passed, Deonn discovered the copyright at age 24 on the website of the Library of Congress. At the time of her mother's passing, according to the New York Times, Deonn envisioned a "16-year-old brown-skinned girl (that) was dynamic and electric, strong and vulnerable--and she was also grieving." But it wasn't until Deonn attended a science fiction convention in 2017, nearly ten years after her mother's passing, that she began to write about Bree Matthews, the powerful protagonist of the Legendborn Cycle (5). 

"I imagined, what if there was an answer out there? What if there was an explanation for why bad things happen, and what kind of quest would that be? And who would be the person that I imagined would go on such a thing? And so I thought of, like, an angry grieving girl, and that the beginning of Bree (1)." 

 The Legendborn Cycle

Published Sept. 2020 (7)

The story follows the journey of sixteen-year-old, Bree Matthews as she navigates grief, identity, and the hidden world of magical societies. After the tragic death of her mother, Bree enrolls in an early college program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she encounters a secretive group known as the "Legendborn." Drawn into their world, Bree discovers that the Legendborn are descendants of King Arthur's knights, who are tasked with protecting humanity from entities known as the "Shadowborn." As Bree delves deeper into this hidden society, she uncovers shocking truths about her own lineage and abilities, ultimately confronting her grief and embracing her destiny as a powerful warrior against the forces of darkness. As the story continues into the sequel, Bloodmarked, Bree is not only faced with a powerful position to uphold but an apocalyptic battle to endure as she fights against a hierarchal structure from a group called the Regents and the threat that they pose. Recently, Deonn has disclosed that Bree's journey will continue in a third installment called Oathbound, which is set to be released in 2025 and will eventually conclude with a fourth installment that has yet to be titled. 

Published Nov. 2022 (4)

Deonn's Inspiration behind Bree Matthews

Tracy Deonn was interviewed by the Young Adulting Editors and asked about her insight into a Black girl's experience navigating young adulthood and the hope readers can take away from Bree's character. Deonn states that "Bree's journey is driven forward by the mystery of her mother's death, but as a character, she's also driven forward by her emotional response to trauma, her pain, and her anger." Within her response, Deonn goes on to talk about how young readers can adapt to the validity of Bree's traumatic feelings of injustice and that the healing process "does not mean a disappearance of pain and anger, but an integration of those things (9)." 

As the New York Times declares "Tracy Deonn's Legendborn series braids Southern folk traditions and Black Girl Magic into a searing modern tale of grief, power, and self-discovery," Deonn states in an interview with the New York Times,  that if she had "written every day during that decade, it wouldn't be about Bree's journey." This alludes to that Deonn had to experience her own "continuation of grief" between the decade of her mother's passing and Bree's journey or the Legendborn Cycle wouldn't be what it is today (5). 

Reviews

Deonn's Legendborn, published on September 15, 2020, has achieved various accolades since its release. Legendborn became an Instant New York Times Bestseller, along with winning the 2021 Coretta Scott King-John Steptoe Award for New Talent (7). Abby Hargreaves from Young Adult Book Review expresses how Deonn discusses "pertinent topics such as institutional racism, intergenerational trauma, and feminism with grace and a natural, unforced style." Hargreaves reveals that Deonn may have packed a "heavy exposition," however executes "a surprise ending that will urge readers to start from the beginning, to collect the clues laid along the way." Deonn packs a lot of storylines and character background in this novel, to set a precedent for what's to come within this cycle (6).

It is known now that the story of Bree Matthews' story continues potentially with four installments, however, during the time when reviews were being released, the public only knew Legendborn as a stand-alone novel. Penny Moore, an agent from the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, published in 2020, states how Deonn may have introduced the novel with a "hazy exposition initially slow(ing) the narrative," by simultaneously "employ(ing) the haunting history of the American South (with) themes of ancestral pain, grief, and love, balancing them with a stimulating worldbuilding and multiple thrilling plot twists." Deonn may have created a novel that permeates various worldbuilding narratives, nevertheless, readers at the time of release didn't know that Bloodmarked, the sequel was just right around the corner (2).  

Reflection

Before I knew about Tracy Deonn or the Legendborn Cycle, I had always been interested in reading novels in fantasy fiction. It wasn't until I recently took a course about the Arthurian legend that I became enamored by the stories that were attached to this universe. The one aspect that piqued my interest with Bree Matthew's journey was how believable her character is, in regard to the emotions and tribulations she goes through as a predominantly woman of color oppressed by a deplorable, racist society. As I delved into the Legendborn fandom, I started viewing and listening to various interviews about Deonn's motivation behind Bree's character. I came across an Instagram Live in which Deonn is talking to a panel of other authors about the drive to make Bree's character a noticeably "angry character (8)."

Deonn says that she wanted to create a novel where her character's "anger was necessary," yet "believable" even though she figures out how to utilize and direct her anger, she still doesn't let it go at the end. This notion very much stuck with me because as I felt like I was going through Bree's journey with her, I second-guessed if she would succumb to the white, patriarchal forces that were against her. Tracy Deonn's journey from her story about the little girl who can understand animals to her understanding of the validity behind one's feelings toward death is quite admirable. Deonn's way of bridging contemporary issues to a legend that has been around for centuries is not only praiseworthy but innovative, to say the least. I hope the way that Deonn intertwined contemporary issues with an old-century legend, sparks an interest in future authors to do the same. I believe Deonn embodies the Arthurian legend in such an exquisite way, which has proven to spark the interest of a new generation. 

Works Cited

(1) Artist Profile: Tracy Deonn on Fear, Grief, and Storytelling | Arts | the Harvard Crimson. www.thecrimson.com/article/2022/4/5/tracy-deonn-artist-profile-legendborns.

(2) Berglind, Natalie. "Legendborn by Tracy Deonn (Review)." Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, vol. 74, no. 1, Aug. 2020, p. 14. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=dd2f9863-864b-3ab2-b23d-3aaf5efe3df3.

(3) "Biography -- Tracy Deonn." Tracy Deonn, www.tracydeonn.com/biography.

(4) "Bloodmarked -- Tract Deonn." Tracy Deon, www.tracydeonn.com/bloodmarked.

(5) Egan, Elisabeth. "Write Every Day? Tracy Deonn Recommends Thinking Instead." The New York Times, 24 Nov. 2022, www.nytimes.com/2022/11/24/books/review/bloodmarked-tracy-deonn.html#:~:Deonn%20wrote%20her%20first%20short,mother%20took%20it%20so%20seriously.

(6) Hargreaves, Abby. "Legendborn." School Library Journal, vol. 66, no. 7, July 2020, pp. 64-65. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=a5b48233-ad09-347c-987c-c2b350fea22e.

(7) "Legendborn -- Tracy Deonn." Tracy Deonn, www.tracydeonn.com/legendborn.

(8) Quail Ridge Books. "Tracy Deonn | LEGENDBORN | Bree's Anger." Youtube, 19 Sept. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=81d3KxeUr9Q.

(9) Youngadultingubc. "5 Questions for Tracy Deonn." YOUNG ADULTING, 24 Jan. 2023, youngadulting.ca/2023/02/06/5-questions-for-tracy-deonn.