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Joey Graceffa on Why There Are No Men in His Book The Twelve

23 Apr 2026 · 1 min

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1:09

In this interview segment, Joey Graceffa recounts the evolution of his novel The Twelve and why its cast consists solely of women. He began drafting the story in 2020 as a feature script during the MeToo movement, when Hollywood was actively seeking authentic, diverse voices. His manager urged him to write a gay male protagonist to secure meetings, but Graceffa felt the story was about magical power, not gender. Having already authored a female‑lead trilogy, he decided to abandon the feature format, return to novel writing, and deliberately create an all‑female coven of twelve powerful witches, each representing a zodiac sign. The decision was both a creative choice and a response to industry pressures, resulting in a story that celebrates female empowerment and mythic archetypes.

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Why are there no men in the book? Um, so it's actually funny. I was writing this as a feature, like it was going to be my first feature, and this was 2020. And so there was a lot of stuff happening, um, in the world. I think the MeToo movement was making it so Hollywood was looking for authentic voices. So I was, I was writing a female lead perspective and my manager at the time was like, I'm so sorry, but like, you have to write a story about a gay guy. Like, You're not going to get any meetings in Hollywood unless you write from your own perspective. I was like, but this is about magical power. So, like, if I can't transform into an animal, does that mean I can't write this book? Like, what do you mean? And so I had already written 4 books prior, and my trilogy was a female lead. So I was like, well, I'll just go back to writing books. I need to tell the story. And so it just kind of happened where I was like, fuck it, there's no men in this book. Like, I'm going to, like, just write a whole bunch of female badass witches that create a coven of the 12, one of each zodiac sign. And, and that's why.