Samantha Shannon was 20 when she signed her first six-figure book deal. A decade later, she went back and rewrote it

Walk into any Dymocks, QBD or even Kmart in Australia, and you'll find Samantha Shannon.Not the bestselling English author herself, but the fantasy novels that made her famous before she hit 21.Shannon was 19 when she wrote her debut novel The Bone Season, which Bloomsbury Publishing bought (along with two sequels) for six figures the following year.READ MORE: How Ana Huang's 'spicy' romance book got 800 million people talkingThat's the kind of money most aspiring authors only dream of, but the reality wasn't that glamorous."It was one of the most stressful and wonderful periods of my life," Shannon, now 32, tells 9honey. She was studying English Language and Literature at Oxford when she landed the deal and didn't expect the massive media interest that followed, with headlines labelling her "the next JK Rowling".It was a "terrifying" amount of pressure for a 20-year-old university student whose first novel hadn't even hit shelves yet."There was a certain amount of danger around it, because it was essentially setting me up for something I could never achieve," Shannon admits."It was an expectation I was never going to be able to meet as a debut author [...] I never had any illusions about that."She was barely an adult, thrust into the spotlight as she tried to edit her book while juggling uni exams, and it was "wonderful, but also completely terrifying".Shannon adds casually, "I ended up having a bit of a breakdown."But the rest of the world didn't see that; they just saw The Bone Season became an instant New York Times bestseller when it was published in 2013, shortly after Shannon graduated.For a daily dose of 9Honey, subscribe to our newsletter hereThat might not have happened without all the media interest, but looking back it troubles Shannon how obsessed people were with her age."It's a shame that we put this pressure on people to make their life achievements by a certain age,'" she says."Don't use my story as your example of what to do. There are downsides to starting young."For example, when you write a bestselling book at 19, it will follow you for the rest of your literary career.Over 10 years after writing it, Shannon still adores The Bone Season, but there's no denying her age showed in some of the writing. That knowledge started to nag at her."I was constantly haunted by the idea of how much of a better book it could have been," she says. "I thought, 'What if I could do this again?'"Years after signing her first book deal, Shannon set out to do something unheard of; she wanted to totally revise the original novel, as well as its three published sequels.Surprisingly, Bloomsbury was on board.Reworking what she wrote at 19 without the media spotlight was an incredibly "cathartic" process for Shannon, but she won't be doing it for all her works.The Priory of the Orange Tree is arguably Shannon's biggest success and, at 225,000 words long, one she doesn't plan to revise. Ever.A sapphic, feminist reimagining of the legend of Saint George and the Dragon, Shannon discovered her own sapphic identity while writing the book, but never expected it to become a "blockbuster success".READ MORE: Queen Camilla's book club podcast back for second series"It felt like a risk at the time because it was a love story between two women," she explains."I had got an anecdotal sense that lesbian fiction was considered to be a risk in publishing [...] I didn't really care about that. It meant a lot to me, the love story."It meant a huge deal to her readers too, with many reaching out to Shannon to say what the book's central love story between Ead and Sabran meant to them."It has been one of the great privileges of my career to have people say that they connected with the story, that it showed them that it was okay to be themselves."https://www.instagram.com/p/CXvkiWaAkM5/?hl=enPriory has since sold over one million copies worldwide and gone viral in online reading communities like 'BookTok', helping boost the novel's success while also opening its author up to new scrutiny.But she's not 20 anymore and these days Shannon knows how to protect her mental health.She avoids most social media platforms and steers clear of review sites, leaving those spaces for the readers alone."I'm always fascinated by authors who say they go looking for bad reviews," she laughs.READ MORE: Everything my book club is reading this monthShannon prefers to connect with readers the old fashioned way, at in-person literary events like the Sydney and Brisbane Writers Festivals.Interacting without the filter of social media can lead to some awkward moments – "one time some guy asked me to sign his boxers" – but Shannon doesn't mind.After all, she was once an awkward fan meeting her own literary idols."I got to meet Margaret Atwood in 2013 [and] I just didn't know what to do with myself. I was very, very awkward," she confesses."I was at a dinner party with her and I couldn't even think of what to say for about 20 minutes, then I just did this stream of consciousness at her, where I poured out how much The Handmaid's Tale meant to me and how brilliant I thought she was."So to fans hoping to meet Shannon at one of her upcoming events in Brisbane, Sydney or Paramatta, don't worry – she's "only human" too.FOLLOW US ON WHATSAPP HERE: Stay across all the latest in celebrity, lifestyle and opinion via our WhatsApp channel. No comments, no algorithm and nobody can see your private details.