By George & Josh Bate
If you’re like us, you genuinely enjoyed The Acolyte. The Star Wars series released in 2024 was marred by divisive fan reactions and all kinds of hateful vitriol directed toward the cast and crew, culminating in its unfortunate and premature cancellation. While we keep our fingers crossed for a Season 2 to arrive eventually, a number of books featuring characters from The Acolyte debut in 2025, starting with The Acolyte: Wayseeker by Justina Ireland.
The Acolyte: Wayseeker is an adult novel that takes place decades before The Acolyte and tells a story about Vernestra Rwoh, the well-known Jedi from a variety of High Republic stories, and Indara, the Jedi Master played by Carrie-Anne Moss killed at the beginning of The Acolyte. The novel begins with Vernestra out in the Outer Rim as a Wayseeker, a particular type of Jedi that only answers to the Force. When a Republic senator requests Jedi assistance for an important matter, Jedi Knight Indara is tasked with tracking Vernestra down. Together, the two vastly different Jedi begin an investigation that takes them into complicated Republic politics and underworld crime.
The HoloFiles and Star Wars Holocron recently had the opportunity to interview author Justina Ireland about her new book. In the interview, Ireland discussed her approach to writing The Acolyte tie-in novel, how she attempted to bridge the gap between the High Republic publishing initiative and the Disney+ series, her reflections on being a Star Wars author, what it’s like to write and publish Star Wars novels, and more.
Contrary to what one might think, author Ireland did not watch The Acolyte ahead of her starting work on her novel. “One of the things I did when The Acolyte came out was I didn’t watch,” Ireland said. “A lot of the High Republic authors they went out there for the premiere and everyone was very excited. But I knew I was writing the book already and I was like I don’t want to be informed by what [series creator] Leslye Headland is doing.”
This changed, however, when Ireland saw online negative reactions to Vernestra in The Acolyte. “Halfway through writing the book, things just weren’t kind of clicking, it was just it was really a slog,” Ireland reflected. “And then I saw somebody somehow. Either Bluesky or Facebook, or probably Reddit…Somebody had said how much they hate Vernestra in The Acolyte. I was like, ‘Oh, I gotta go and like dig into this, and I kind of like went. And then that’s when I finally just sat down and watched the first few episodes, and I was like, ‘Oh, I get it, I get why people are like what the hell happened?’ And so one of the things I want to do was kind of show that linkage. The book is not quite High Republic, and it’s not quite The Acolyte. It’s kind of that bridge between those two pieces of media.”
In order to bridge this gap, Ireland utilized first-person writing, a style seldom seen in adult Star Wars novels. “I really love first person,” Ireland explained. “I love reading first person. I love the first person present. Really [it] is my favorite tense and POV (point of view) to read because I like the immediacy, and I think it it feels a lot more dynamic….What I want to do is, is kind of give you that that idea of closeness. Because first person, it’s really great for making you feel close to a character without actually making you close to a character right? Because they’re telling you what they want you to know. Not necessarily everything that they they know and feel and think, and all those sort of things.”
Writing Vernestra in the first person allowed Ireland to show how a complex character drastically transformed over a century. “That was kind of where I wanted to kind of pull folks through, who knew Vernestra from The Acolyte, and were like, ‘I don’t like her’ – kind of give them like, ‘Hey, here’s a different perspective on this person.’ And, for the people who came from the High Republic and were like, What happened for Vernestra? You used to be cool. Now you’re now you’re hanging out with the squares,’ give them kind of a bridge back to like, ‘Hey, this is how people grow and change over almost a hundred years, almost a century right?’ And so that was really what I want to do.”
In the interview, Ireland provided some behind the scenes insights into what it is like to write a Star Wars novel. Ireland began by explaining the process of tackling a tie-in novel. “When you write anything that is a tie-in with Lucasfilm, they kind of give you like a little bit of a pitch deck of what the show is about,” Ireland explained. “Not necessarily the entire synopsis of what’s happening, because they keep a lot of that stuff under wraps. Sometimes you’ll get to go read like the script of what it’s going to be airing, but like you never usually get to see like the finished product. So I had no idea what The Acolyte was. I knew a general overview of what it was about. I knew, like what the inciting incidents were. I knew, like sort of what the role Vernestra played, but not really.
Once a deal is signed to write a Star Wars novel, the pacing can be relentless, as Ireland detailed. “The pace which you write Star Wars, novels, because they’re IP, any IP (intellectual property) is much faster than you write your own stuff. Like, I sell one of my books, and I have like a year before my editor even expects it, sometimes two years, because I’m a very slow writer on my stuff. And when I write a Star Wars book, it’s like I signed a contract, and I know, like 90 days is when I’m trying to get draft or, you know, six months.”
Writing Star Wars books like The Acolyte; Wayseeker pose other challenges. “Sometimes, Star Wars books are the easiest thing to write, and sometimes they’re the hardest thing to write, because you have to describe the landscape without spoiling the fact that there are mountains,” Ireland detailed. “it’s like, how do you describe your town without naming fixtures? Like, that’s the coffee shop. How do you describe that there’s a building there that serves beverages? We can’t tell you it’s a coffee shop, right? And sometimes it’s like a little bit of a sleight of hand.”
One of the joys of writing Star Wars books for Ireland is incorporating easter eggs to previous stories. Ireland explained the appeal of using easter eggs. “When I was writing this, I really wanted to give a nod to the High Republic, because I do think for me the High Republic fans have really been kind of the most solid, dedicated, consistent fans….And I’m like, if you had that level of dedication, I need to tip my hat to you, and so I always look at Easter eggs as a way to tip my hat to people who have read widely.”
After writing stories in a galaxy far, far away since 2018, Ireland’s time writing Star Wars stories will soon to an end after her Mace Windu graphic novel is published. During our interview, Ireland took some time to reflect back on her time working on Star Wars, in particular the High Republic. “I don’t think I enjoyed it as much as I could have while I was in it, because, for the most part, it was just very overwhelming,” Ireland candidly stated. “I think when we started, we announced the High Republic in February of 2020. Almost two weeks later, we were in Lockdown, right? So, it was a very strange project to work on just because of that time, because that was a strange time… It was just a very strange kind of insulated moment….I think for me, it’s just like a very weird, surreal time in my life that I’m still kind of analyzing.”
The difficulties that came with executing a massive publishing initiative during a pandemic aside, Ireland reflects fondly on her time writing stories that appeal to so many fans. “Mostly at the end of the day, I just feel like I’m glad I was able to create something in the world that gave people hope and excitement in a time when things were really bad and things are still really bad, right?” Ireland said. “And so I’m hoping like that… my books, especially the Star Wars books, give people a little bit of joy, because I always think Star Wars should be fun – it shouldn’t be something that makes people upset.”
One of Ireland’s first in-person encounters with High Republic fans came at Star Wars Celebration Anaheim 2022, an event Ireland recounts with joy. “When you go to something like Celebration, and you see a room full of people, especially, then, of course, online, the narrative is like, ‘It’s a flop. It’s not successful. No one is reading these books.’ And then, you see, the reality is quite the opposite.”
Speaking about Star Wars fandom more generally, Ireland expressed a message of community and coming together, rather than insulting one another for what we like or don’t like about the franchise. “I do think Fandom should be joyful,” Ireland said. “And I do think it should be something that brings us together, instead of like tearing us apart. Like we can all have spicy opinions about our ships, but, at the end of the day, we all are here because we love this thing…”
With Ireland’s time writing Star Wars stories is nearing its end, so is the end of the High Republic publishing initiative (or at least, that’s what we thought). This summer will see the release of The High Republic: Trials of the Jedi, the final adult novel in the series that began in 2021. Although this novel and an subsequent comic have been billed as the closing chapters of the High Republic era, Ireland suggested there could be more High Republic stories to to come. “I’m hoping that the new projects come out, because, you know, everybody knows there will be new High Republic projects. Like that. They bring this people the same joy that everything else has up to this point.”
In the meantime, fans can read Ireland’s The Acolyte: Wayseeker, a thrilling mystery that builds upon Carrie Anne-Moss’ character from the series and connects Vernestra’s character from High Republic stories to The Acolyte.
The Acolyte: Wayseeker is out now and can be purchased from the publisher Random House Worlds here.
