🎙️ Welcome back to The Mythic Mic Podcast, where grief meets magic, winter holds its breath, and love asks you to be brave even when it will break you.

This week, host Bethany Amanda sits down with New York Times Bestselling author Rachel Griffin to talk about her deeply moving novel, The Sun and the Starmaker. Equal parts luminous and devastating, this conversation weaves together craft, personal resilience, and the kind of love that lingers long after the last page.

Rachel takes us from her winding path into writing — from a career in diagnostic ultrasound to rediscovering her voice late at night on an old laptop — to the realities of querying, submission, rejection, and eventual success with The Nature of Witches. She offers honest insight into what persistence really looks like, why “no” is rarely forever, and how working on the next book saved her during long seasons of uncertainty.

We also dive into one of the most powerful parts of Rachel’s story: surviving a traumatic brain injury, navigating an often-dismissive medical system, and ultimately finding life-changing treatment. Rachel shares how her recovery reshaped her relationship with storytelling, how The Sun and the Starmaker quite literally helped her relearn how to write, and why she’s now a passionate advocate for concussion research — including donating $1 from every preorder to the Concussion Research Laboratory.

And of course, we sink into the icy, whimsical world of The Sun and the Starmaker: a land beyond the reach of sunlight, a weary immortal sorcerer who pulls the sun across the sky, and a love story that asks whether loving someone is worth the inevitable heartbreak.

🌙 What does it mean to love fully when you know loss is inevitable?
❄️ How can winter be both cruel and strangely tender?
✨ And what happens when a book becomes not just a story but a lifeline?

This episode is a must-listen for readers who love wintry fairy tales, aspiring authors chasing their own publishing dreams, and anyone who believes stories can heal.

🔥 IN THIS EPISODE, WE TALK ABOUT…

✨Rachel’s journey from healthcare to writing and why she returned to storytelling.
✨ Querying for over a year and why slow success can still be the right success.
✨ Why your first book doesn’t have to be “the one”.
✨ Surviving a traumatic brain injury and Rachel's advocacy for concussion awareness and better treatment.
✨ How The Sun and the Starmaker became part of Rachel's recovery.
✨ Aurora, the stubborn mortal beyond the sunlight, and her enchanted icebound world.
✨ Why loving someone — knowing you may lose them — is the ultimate act of bravery.
✨ What Rachel is working on next and why it’s a big departure from her prior works.

CONNECT WITH US

🎙️ The Mythic Mic Podcast – @MythicMic
👤 Bethany Amanda – @BethanyinFantasyland
👤 Sara Santillan – @the_magical_quill
📚 Rachel Griffin – @timesnewRachel

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