PHOTO: Laurisa Brandt at home in rural Pennsylvania, where her imagination thrives among books, birds, and boundless creativity.
Exploring Love Justice And Identity In A Dystopian World
Laurisa Brandt discusses the emotional and thematic depth of Birthright of Scars, delving into world-building, character conflict, and how speculative fiction can foster empathy and reflection.
Laurisa Brandt’s imagination was shaped beneath the slow skies of the Alabama Gulf Coast, where childhood afternoons flowed like the creek behind her house—dreamlike, fearless, and filled with wonder. That same spirit now pulses through her work, where speculative worlds are meticulously crafted and characters wrestle with themes both intimate and universal. A brush with lightning and an encounter with a ghost only deepened her sense of the uncanny—an intuition that continues to echo in her storytelling.
Her debut novel, Birthright of Scars, is more than just a richly imagined dystopian landscape—it is a mirror turned toward the human heart. At its core are questions of identity, justice, and redemption, explored through characters navigating love in the shadows of power and resistance. Brandt’s world-building serves not as a stage but as an extension of emotion and conflict, drawing readers into scenes where a birthday party can double as a moment of reckoning and a banquet table as a harbinger of genocide.
There is a quiet conviction in the way Brandt approaches her craft—a belief in the transformative potential of fiction to not only entertain but to shape and challenge us. Her writing does not merely present sides; it searches for the human truth in between. In doing so, she invites us to ask not who we are in opposition to, but who we are for.
What inspired you to set Birthright of Scars in a world so rich with political tension and cultural suppression?
The premise was inspired by Tron: Uprising, in which the ISOs are being eradicated from the grid. The political tension was enriched through osmosis and internal processing of current events at the time. I have no interest in fantastical renderings of American politics or Western Imperialism, but I believe speculative fiction is a great vehicle for having those difficult discussions and processing human struggles that we can all relate to.
Disrel and Ambrosia are complex characters caught between duty and love—what was the most challenging part of writing their evolving relationship?
Ambrosia is a military commander on the oppressor side, and Disrel is one of the oppressed. The power imbalance made any attraction between them unlikely, so their development focused on balancing that power before attraction occurred. Furthermore, Ambrosia must find redemption for Disrel’s love for her to not be a betrayal of those he’s fighting to save.
What themes do you hope readers will reflect on after reading Birthright of Scars?
I want readers to reflect on how unjust systems strip even those in power of their birthrights and innate identity. The necessity of mercy, justice, and compassion. And hopefully the greatest takeaway will be that whatever the world’s next hot humanitarian or political issue: it’s not about sides. It’s about being love in the middle of it all.
How do you balance world-building with maintaining a fast-paced, emotionally charged plot?
The emotions and plot go down on the page first and the world is built around them to give clarity to a theme or emotion I want to draw the reader’s attention to. Information can also be slipped into dialogue. In “Birthright of Scars: Rising”, a fellow officer casually tells the FMC about an island off the coast and why the fishermen avoid it. This informed the reader prior to the sequel, when both protagonists wind up on the island. Typically, I use character activities to paint the details of life in the world, such as a political affair being conducted at a banquet where we learn about table etiquette and cuisine from dubious aristocrats and states people while they discuss their plans for genocide. Or, having the hero process trauma, while his friends throw a birthday party around him.
What advice would you offer other authors seeking to blend romance, rebellion, and speculative fiction into one compelling narrative?
This blend of fiction has incredible heart-shaping power. It gives you freedom to touch on real world issues without being overt. Give your manuscript time to speak to you and show you deeper, literary reaches.
