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Victoria Aveyard on the Moment She Had to Become a Storyteller

19 Aug 2026 · 1 min

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In this interview excerpt, Victoria Aveyard recounts her first exposure to J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings at age 11. She had only seen the film The Fellowship of the Ring before reading the books, and the experience moved her profoundly—she describes feeling a soul being breathed into her body and shaking in her seat. While she had always loved stories, the combination of the movie and subsequent reading made her realize that she needed to become a storyteller herself, not just a consumer of stories. The interviewer asks how The Lord of the Rings changed her life, prompting Aveyard to begin explaining the transformative impact.

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I'm gonna admit something that is a shame that I carry. I know it's a shame that other younger Lord of the Rings fans have, and it's not the worst thing in the world, but I didn't read Lord of the Rings until I saw the first movie. So I was 11 when Fellowship of the Ring came out. We went to see Lord of the Rings, and it was like a soul had been breathed into my body. I'm just shaking in my seat. Up until then, I loved stories. I loved storytelling. But after Lord of the Rings and after reading Lord of the Rings, it wasn't just, you love stories, it's, you have to tell stories yourself.
Okay. So the big question, how did The Lord of the Rings change your life?
The Lord of the Rings—