[Interview] with Ivy Pochoda

By Betty-Jo Tilley

Ivy Pochoda’s latest spellbinder, Ecstasy, opens with longtime BFFs Lena and Hedy

reunited on the Greek island of Naxos at a luxury seaside resort, the Agape Villas, which Lena’s son Drew inherited from his father. In her twenties’, Lena abandoned Hedy to marry rich. The two former ballerinas and party girls are now middle-aged, confronted with the fleetingness of time, and conflicted by their life choices. They are soon drawn to a cult of women dancing on the beach in obvious disregard for local authorities and especially Drew, who thinks he owns not only the beachfront, but all the women in his life. 

Imagine Drew as Saxon Ratliff of The White Lotus, Season 3, only years later. Let’s say he inherits his father’s development chain, along with a petulance for his mother’s love of lorazepam and her younger freewheeling days. Next, imagine Victoria Ratliff and a hilariously snarky sidekick sassing her irate son and raving on the beach until all hell breaks loose. Or conjure up what you learned about body horror from Demi Moore’s character Elisabeth Sparkle in The Substance. Guaranteed you’ll still be shocked and thrilled by Ecstasy’s wild ride: When rave culture, orgiastic rapture, and rage combust in an ancient cave on a Greek island rampant with demons, demigods, and dark instincts. 

With Ivy Pochoda at the wheel, get ready for full throttle, hairpin turns, and no brakes when some very high women are fed up with it all. From start to fantastic finish, Ecstasy is fast and furious, cringey and grotesque, funny—and very fun. Kelp hereby crowns Pochoda “literature’s Queen of Female Carnage.”

Ivy Pochoda played competitive squash while earning a BA from Harvard College in

Classical Greek Literature. She published her first novel, Visitation Street, before entering the MFA program at Bennington. Her next three novels—Wonder Valley, These Women, and Sing Her Down—have garnered critical acclaim, including the International Thriller Writers’ Award, the Prix Page/America in France, and the Los Angeles Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. Her short story about a tattoo artist, “Jackrabbit Skin,” is available on Kindle. Her critical writing and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and Los Angeles Review of Books, among others. She teaches writing on Skid Row and at the low-residency MFA program at University of California, Riverside, in Palm Desert. 

Betty-Jo Tilley and Kelp had the privilege of scooping Ivy Pochoda’s first interview for her latest novel, Ecstasy, based on the Euripides play The Bacchae. Over Zoom, Pochoda reflected on her journey from classical literature nerd to international circuit squash star, to feminist crime writer, and with Ecstasy’s June release by G.P. Putnam’s Sons, to fantastic horror novelist. She also chatted about how she came to work with Kobe Bryant and what she learned from him, her teaching gig on Skid Row, and her affinity for stoner food. Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

[Kelp Journal] Tell us about your years as an athlete.

[Ivy Pochoda] Well, I played squash on the junior national circuit, and I was pretty good. I won a bunch of junior national titles. Then in college, my team was national champion several years in a row, and I won the Intercollegiate Squash Championships my senior year. I didn’t know what I wanted to do after, and the Dutch had a pretty well-established league system. The side benefit was that I could play on a team in Belgium, and in Germany, and also in Prague briefly, because it was centrally located in Europe and easier to get back and forth. It was sort of a training ground for a lot of squash players back then, in the early 2010s. I also represented the United States at the World Championships and the Pan Am Federation Cup and played in the world circuit. It was something to make the most of my skills and see the world, which was great. I put all that effort into it to see how far I could get, but I knew I wasn’t going to do it my whole life.

[KJ] How did your parents influence those years, and also academically, and in your career?

[IP] My parents were involved, but they didn’t put pressure on me. They’re literary and very progressive, and they were really good about encouraging and, obviously, driving to tournaments. I mean, I was a pretty self-motivated kid. My mom was a magazine editor. She always made sure my writing was held to a higher standard, like I could never submit anything to school that was sort of half-baked. So I knew that work had to be good, like it had to be polished—you couldn’t dash anything off. My parents had a lot of writer and editor and journalist friends, so I grew up surrounded by that sort of world. But I could have done whatever I wanted, and they would have been happy, as long as I worked really hard at it.

[KJ] But did it make sense to them when you became a novelist?

[IP] I wanted to do something in the arts, and my parents knew I wanted to do something with writing, but writing novels came out of left field to them. I kind of always thought I’d have a career in journalism. I worked at Sports Illustrated for Women when I was in college, helping with article ideas, and at Time Out in New York. Then when I was in Amsterdam, I quit squash for a while to work at an art, media, and fashion magazine, and I became the editor at twenty-three, which was probably the most fun thing ever, and I learned so much. 

My parents were confused because I’d studied playwriting through high school and college, written poetry, and done journalism and editing, but I stopped. They were concerned that I hadn’t really written fiction ever! When I said I wanted to write a novel, my dad said he was heartbroken because he knew how hard it would be. And then I wound up writing a book and selling it and then going to graduate school afterward because I wanted to get better. 

[KJ] You were first inspired by Euripides’s The Bacchae as a kid, right?

[IP] So I studied ancient Greek plays in eighth and ninth grade and all through high school. I was proficient at it, and it was fun. I was really into Greek mythology and Latin with my best friend in high school, Zoe, who’s my daughter’s godmother. We got into the language, and we studied it pretty intensively, and in our senior year, we translated The Bacchae from start to finish. I still have my copy. I fell out of love with it in college because we didn’t take the time to talk about the language or the meaning of the story, we were just translating by rote.

[KJ] What is it about the story that kept it in the back of your mind for so long? 

[IP] We were nerds, and we were kids, and we would talk about different Greek gods. There are mysteries and rites and cultic rituals, and lots of interesting things in the character of Dionysus as a deity, who was not actually a member of the Greek pantheon, though they claim him as their own. I also like parties and the things Dionysus is into. So yeah, I think about it all the time, and when you translate the work and spend that much time, it ingrains itself into you. And it’s a pretty modern play compared to the rest of the classical dramas and tragedies. When I did my dissertation, my thesis was on bridging the gap between classical Greek drama and Shakespeare and how they portray the character of transgressive women similarly. Agave kills her son, and she’s portrayed as anti-maternal and anti-nurturing. Modern women are always being castigated for partying too hard. It’s a thoroughly modern story: This woman wants to go out and rave, and her son is saying, like, “Hell, no, that’s not for women or moms to do,” and I feel it’s very, very relevant. It’s not like I wake up in the morning and think about The Bacchae, but there are callbacks to it throughout the ancient world and the current world.

[KJ] Give us a brief synopsis of the original story The Bacchae.

[IP] So in the play, the god Dionysus returns to Thebes, and King Pentheus refuses to acknowledge his divinity, or his merit. Dionysus is leading a bunch of women he’s brought with him from overseas, Bacchae, who are devoted to him and transported into ecstatic rapture. They’re raving; ecstasy and raving come from the Greek word ékstasis, which is X-stasis, or standing outside of your stasis, or yourself. Pentheus tries to crack down on this god and banish him. Meanwhile, Pentheus’s mom, Agave, is out there dancing the night away, transported into these states of rapture, and Pentheus and Dionysus get into a fight. And then Dionysus disguises himself and lures Agave to one of these parties. She’s high on whatever Dionysus has given them, and she mistakes her son for a wild beast and rips him apart limb from limb. 

[KJ] Okay, so why and how, decades later, did you come to reimagine the story through Ecstasy?

[IP] I wanted to write a short horror novella, and in The Bacchae, when a mom kills her son, there’s a certain understanding of what she does because he’s oppressing her by what he’s been saying to her, and by not allowing her to go to these parties.

And I’ve been interested in the ancient Greek concept of hubris, where people believe they are more powerful than they are, and overstep their human limitations and are punished by the gods, and Pentheus is the number one example of that. 

I was thinking, you know, my last book, Sing Her Down, touched on the way women are oppressed in major and minor ways. There’s a character, a cop whose husband is abusive, and she also suffers misogyny at work. And obviously the same sort of misogyny is present in marriages and parental relationships. I wanted to write horror because I’d been writing feminist crime, and I don’t think people are listening to what I’m saying in the way that I want them to, like, to pay attention to the serious oppression out there that women are always accepting. I think in a genre like horror, people might pay attention because the story is more gruesome, and I’ve just always thought about this story. I’ve wanted my whole life to write a classical reimagining. I have a degree in classics, and I love classical literature, and this is the one that popped out.

[KJ] How did it happen that Kobe Bryant chose you to write his children’s books?

[IP] He googled me! I mean, he was looking for a published author who was a professional athlete, who had a degree in classics and was a novelist, and he looked that up on the internet and came up with my name. Right. The year he retired. So that would be 2000. Wow. Yep.

[KJ] And the book was the first of what was intended to be a series, right?

[IP] Yeah, and we did two. One of the reasons Ecstasy takes place on Naxos is that Kobe sent me to Greece to research, and I went there. That’s how I started thinking about The Bacchae again.

[KJ] Before getting to know Kobe, had you seriously considered a link between sports and art?

[IP] Yeah, of course. I did my graduate lecture at Bennington on sports and fiction. But Kobe was the first person to say art and sports are two sides of the same coin. You have to be incredibly creative, and there’s overlap between the types of creativity on the page and on the court, and we talked about that. Kobe gave me permission to really embrace that. 

[KJ] How did you come up with the modern-day plot and the characters of Ecstasy? 

[IP] Well the plot is exactly the plot of The Bacchae! It is literally the same, and it’s structured the exact same way.  When I lived in Amsterdam, I had a friend named Lisa, and although we are not exactly like the main characters Lena and Hedy, we partied a lot and misbehaved and stuff, and I often thought about writing something about us meeting up in Europe, and I don’t know, it was just always in the back of my head. So when I started to write those two characters, some of the stuff they did in the book are sort of the stuff we did. And I know a lot of people like Drew. And Jordan. She’d tricked herself into the normalcy of family life, but it wasn’t what she wanted. They’re all based on someone or a hybrid of two people I know, like a guy who was in prison in France for selling drugs like Luz was. So yeah, I know a lot of weird people, and they just come to me when I start writing. But I had this story, and then I just had to find the characters to fit it. 

[KJ] Your books all have threads of racism and class distinction and gentrification. Tell us about the importance of these themes for you.

[IP] Gentrification is something I have experienced from both sides of the equation. My parents moved to Brooklyn in the ’70s. I grew up when the major wave started, and I thought that was the end of it. Now when I go back, the wealth and the destruction of community are never-ending. And my friends who live in places like Allentown, PA, will tell you gentrification is a problem they have. You know, I’m guilty of it also. I moved to the Arts District in LA. It is weird to say “gentrified” because if there wasn’t an original community, there were artists, and now it’s incredibly expensive. If you live in a gentrified community, class and race are interactions you have on a daily basis, like a bodega owner you feel close to, and suddenly it’s a fancy coffee shop. And there are pros and cons to that because it’s nice to have nice things, and I can see it both ways.  That seeps into my work because I like to feel at home and to feel part of things, and it’s awful to lose the authenticity of a neighborhood.

[KJ] Your books also all reflect on gender and power in everyday life, and your female characters sometimes go from not being aware of their power to really developing agency with it. 

[IP] Yeah, I think we often underestimate women’s power, especially if capable of more extreme acts of violence. It’s interesting, and you see it even more now with female athletes, how capable they are, how incredible women’s sports are. A lot of that comes from, obviously, training, getting better. But women are allowed to be more ferocious and more competitive and more aggressive, and that’s leading to way more incredible feats on the court, or at the gym or whatever, and I think it’s the same in fiction. I am hoping to unshackle women from traditional roles or ways in which they can be victimized or perceived. I think it’s part of the evolution of the world, although we seem to be backsliding.

[KJ] What I loved so much about Sing Her Down is that your violent female characters aren’t necessarily prompted by having been wronged. They’re just bad. I was expecting the same from Ecstasy, and then you threw in the fantastic and horror elements. Why?

[IP] I’m trying to draw attention to the way women are still being denigrated on a daily basis, like we just are, and when I did it in Sing Her Down, people pushed back, like women can’t be violent like that, or that it wasn’t so bad in her office. I feel horror is a way to amplify the stakes. It wasn’t the horror I was drawn to in making it more fantastical; it was the horrific. What’s being done to women, even in polite society, is horrific. People might pay attention to the reality underneath, if horror allows the horror of the everyday misogyny that is entrenched in modern society to shine through.

[KJ] Why do we find horror so much fun! Because Ecstasy is a really fun book, and the action is electrifying.

[IP] Yeah, it’s fun! I mean, there’s dance culture and party people in a beautiful setting, and you’ve got gods and drugs and Greece—yeah, it’s supposed to be a wild ride. With some messaging within it.

[KJ] You’ve taught writing for years on Skid Row and, more recently, to UCR MFA candidates. You also coach your daughter, who must be approaching the age when you were nationally recognized. How do you view your role as mentor in those seemingly very different roles?

[IP] Wow, that’s a really good question. With Skid Row, and with my daughter, I don’t really think about it. I just want to give the idea that their stories and lives and passions are valid, and that we can take them seriously. Everyone has a different trajectory and different potential. No one has to be the best at anything and nobody has to be published, but everyone has to have their work and their journey taken as seriously as what they put into it. With my daughter, I guess what I try to teach her is it doesn’t really matter what the outcome is. The most important thing is learning how to do something seriously, with all your passion and effort. And if you do that, I will take it seriously, too, and you will be rewarded regardless of whether it’s the National Book Award or self-publishing or winning a local club badge or getting on the national squash team. Actually, she should get exactly to where she deserves based on how much work she puts in and how much potential she has. And it’s the same with every writer. I mean, there is some luck involved in both writing and sports, but if you put the work in, I expect that you will get out of it what you merit.  And I will always be there to, like, cheerlead and to back that up.

You know, at Bennington, we were close to professors, but it’s a different relationship. What we provide at UCR is the thing that we were missing. I should say I’m really close to my teachers, but did they take any interest in helping my career afterward? Not really. A lot of programs are starting to do this because they want the success of publishing. But I think the thing that’s unusual about UCR is the amount of time we interface with our students outside of the program, the continued family aspect. In fact, you feel even more entrenched post-graduation.

[KJ] With so many mentorship and teaching roles, and continuing to play squash recreationally, any time for hobbies? 

[IP] Oh, I make my daughter crazy. I watch a lot of tennis. And I love to cook.

[KJ] Can we talk about stoner foods?

[IP] Stoner food is my passion. I was sort of disappointed to realize one of the reasons I haven’t done it in a while is that it’s become kind of a cultural phenomenon. 

[KJ] Isn’t stoner food essentially comfort food? 

[IP] Yeah, it’s wildly inspired late-night food. One of the things I make is called “condiment taco,” and it’s a soft taco that has no meat or vegetables in it, just a bunch of condiments, like hot sauce and jalapeños. And that’s pretty much a stoner thing. It’s like, yeah, there’s no food here. 

[KJ] What’s for dinner tonight?

[IP] So we are having deconstructed California rolls in a bowl with canned salmon, avocado, some smoked tuna, and some anchovies.

[KJ] Wow. I’ll be over. Can you give us a peek into your next novel before we say goodbye?

[IP] I don’t have anything on tap for the first time in my life. It’s a really weird feeling. I’m thinking of writing one of three retellings of classical dramas, another horror. I am doing another one; I just haven’t really had time to think about it.

[KJ] You’re at the beginning of a publicity stint for Ecstasy. How long does that normally last?

[IP] The book comes out in June, so I’ll probably be busy. I’m cutting my book tour short because I’m taking my daughter to Amsterdam for a squash tournament. I’m doing two weeks on the road, and then there’s a second part when the book does well, they call you back on tour.

[KJ] Which we know will happen.

[IP] Yeah, but this is the fun part. 

Betty-Jo Tilley is a Los Angeles–based writer who relocated to Atwater Village in January 2025 after losing her home in the Pacific Palisades wildfires. Her essay about the experience, “Fences and Neighbors,” appeared in Opposite of Nihilism, a new literary newsletter by Adam Zemel, on Substack. She met Ivy Pochoda in UCR’s low-residency MFA program, from which she graduated in fiction and nonfiction. The Coachella Review has featured her critical work and author interviews, and she has interviewed novelists Flynn Berry, Alex Espinoza, and Nicholas Belardes in previous issues of Kelp.