YA author’s fantasy novel takes inspiration from her childhood in the Philippines

Photos courtesy of Elisa A. Bonnin

Fiction and fantasy has served as a respite for many, especially young people who are still trying to figure out their place in the world. For the diasporic Filipino youth, representation and relatability when it comes to the popular media they consume can still be hard to come by. Slowly but surely, though, more stories catered to that demographic have been coming into the light. 

And that’s exactly what Elisa A. Bonnin’s debut novel “Dauntless” does. 

“Dauntless” is a young adult novel set in a Filipino-inspired fantasy realm. The main character, Seri, is a member of the valiant, a small group of warriors whose duty it is to protect their land from the beasts who prowl about the boundaries of their known world. Her society’s status quo is clearly defined: The beasts are evil and the People must be protected. 

It isn’t until she meets Tsana, a girl from the unknown world (who shouldn’t even exist to begin with), that all of her beliefs are challenged. 

Bonnin is a Filipino author. She was born and raised in the Philippines and is currently based in Germany. Aside from being an author, Bonnin also has a degree in chemistry with a doctorate in oceanography. Since releasing “Dauntless” in 2022, she has also written another YA novel, “Stolen City,” released in the same year.

We got to catch up with Bonnin and ask her questions about her author aspirations, debut novel, her background in science, and how her Filipino roots helped her write her first book. 

Have you always wanted to be an author?

I’ve wanted to be an author for almost my entire life. When I was eight years old, I wrote my first story. It was a really short story about a fairy princess who ends up trapped in the human world and has to find her way back home, and I wrote it on scraps of notebook paper bound together with yarn, but from the moment I finished it, I was hooked. Becoming a published author became my dream. 

I wrote several stories about that fairy princess all throughout elementary school, giving it to anyone who would read it, and graduated to longer fantasy novels in high school. I started searching for every opportunity to write and improve my writing skills. I would write in class, and I would rush home to work on my stories. In college, I started sending my novels out to literary agents, and although I had limited success at first, I kept it up all throughout graduate school. Twenty years after I sat down and wrote that first fairy princess story, I signed the publication contract for “Dauntless” and “Stolen City.” 

Where did the initial idea for the book come from? Where did you draw your inspiration for the book?

“Dauntless’s” initial idea actually came from a dream. I went through a phase towards the end of my PhD program where I wanted to remember my dreams, so I would write them down as soon as I woke up. One night, I had a really involved dream about armored hunters walking through the snow, tracking a massive beast. I couldn’t shake the imagery of the dream, and since I was between writing projects, I started trying to shape a story around it. 

Over time, the snow became a rainforest and I began adding in other elements, giving the fantasy world some Filipino-inspired touches. But some aspects of the work have remained the same from that first dream. The armor became central to the story, and both the beasts and the hunters made their way into the lore of the valiants. 

Why is the book named “Dauntless?”

My books often need to be retitled somewhere between the first draft and publication. When I start writing a book, I often don’t have the clearest idea of how the book will actually turn out, so my working titles tend to be a bit dry. They’re summaries of the main idea of the book, but it often takes on a life of its own. 

“Dauntless’s” working title was “Brave” because I wanted to write about an ordinary girl, Seri, who faces her fears and grows into a warrior. But as I was writing the book and coming up with Seri’s backstory and the lore of her People, I came up with a phrase that took on a life of its own and started being referenced all over the book. It’s the first charge of valor, and it reads: “Be dauntless, because the hopes of the People rest in you.” 

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That phrase came up when the characters hit their lowest points, when they needed a little bit of inspiration to press on, and when they struggled under the weight of expectations placed on them. It became a powerful charge, tying the book together from start to finish. When it came time to select a new title for the book, it was hard to imagine calling it anything else. 

Did your background in chemistry and oceanography come in handy while writing the book?

I didn’t really use my background in chemistry to write this book, but oddly enough my oceanography background did help, if only for the inspiration. The world of “Dauntless” doesn’t have an ocean (at least, not one the characters have discovered), but it does have a seemingly endless rainforest.

When I was writing “Dauntless,” I was finishing up my oceanography PhD, and I was struggling to stay motivated. I was so caught up in the fine details of things and felt really low. At the time, I tried to remind myself of why I started this PhD, of why I started studying oceanography. And I remembered that I got into oceanography because of a sense of wonder. 

The ocean is still one of the least explored environments on Earth. For a lot of people, that can be scary, but I got into oceanography, into science, because I’ve always been intrigued by the unknown. There’s a very strong allure to the unknown, and I wanted to express that in “Dauntless.” Seri’s People are explorers, still learning about the world they live in and still mapping the rainforest around them. But I also wanted to recognize that exploration does have a dark side, and I wanted to explore what happens when Seri’s People, who up until this point thought they were alone in the world, encounter another society. The two societies naturally clash, but through this conflict, I wanted to present a resolution different from colonization or war. 

What made you want to write for the YA genre?

Although I’m very happy to be writing YA, I never intentionally drafted “Dauntless” and “Stolen City” as YA novels. While I was writing them, I was mostly reading adult fiction, and so I thought that I was writing adult fiction as well. But as the books came closer to completion, I started realizing that the themes in both my books were very strongly YA. Both “Dauntless” and “Stolen City” are books about growing up, becoming independent, and defining oneself in the world. Both books feature characters just on the cusp of adulthood, learning how to live in worlds that seem challenging or unfair. When I looked at those books in that light, I realized that most of the books I’ve written share those themes and would probably also be considered YA. 

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I once heard someone say that you write for the age group that you’re stuck at, the one that you’re still trying to unpack, and my late teens were incredibly defining for me. At Seri’s age, I was leaving the country for an indeterminate period of time, going on a long journey towards a future I really couldn’t have imagined then. At Arian (the protagonist of “Stolen City”)’s age, I was finding my feet in an American university, living away from my parents and trying to discover who I was and what I wanted to do with my life. I have a lot to unpack from those days, and now that I have the advantage of distance, I’m starting to understand them and insert those themes into my works. 

I try to write the books I would have loved to read as a teen, the books that would satisfy my yearning for wonder and adventure while also showing me that anyone can be a hero and that even heroes struggle sometimes. While writing YA definitely wasn’t something I planned, I do think it’s something I’ll be doing for a long time. 

What other authors (local or international) do you look up to?

I’m so grateful to have a lot of author friends, most of whom debuted at the same time as I did. Releasing a book for the first time is a scary prospect, and I’m glad that I found the 22debuts because we could all go through the process together. There are a ton of authors there that I personally admire, and if I go through the list, I’m sure I’ll leave some people out, but fellow YA authors like Emily Thiede, Judy I. Lin, Lillie Lainoff, Maya Prasad, and more have done so much to help me with the task of bringing “Dauntless” and “Stolen City” out into the world. I’m also grateful for publishing mentors like Aiden Thomas, Sam Taylor, and the others at Swoon Reads who helped me navigate the publishing industry. 

I’m also really lucky to be in contact with so many amazing Filipino authors, both in the Philippines and abroad. K. S. Villoso, Caris Avendaño Cruz, Tracy Badua, Rin Chupeco, Tessa Barbosa, Alex Brown, Thea Guanzon, Mia P. Manansala, and so many others are bringing Filipino stories to the forefront of the publishing market. When I was younger, I had never seen any books traditionally published in the US and UK with Filipino protagonists, and now there are enough to fill a shelf, something that my younger self would never even have imagined. 

What do you want readers to take away from the novel?

The main theme of “Dauntless” is courage. I wanted to write characters who were flawed, human, and afraid, and I wanted to write them doing unquestionably great things. I also wanted readers who had never seen themselves as the protagonist of a book before could see themselves being heroic, strong, taking charge, and saving the day. If this book helps someone feel like they have the strength to take the next step, to do something that scares them, then I think I will have done my job as an author. And if that person is someone who has never seen themselves in books before, and who sees themselves in “Dauntless,” that’s even better.