BookCon 2026: Veronica Roth on how her new dream of dystopian romance brought her back to ‘Divergent’

On Jan. 13, 2026, Veronica Roth published a newsletter titled “Do I Like It? Reflecting on Being different After 15 years,” when talking about how he feels about his best seller Being different series. Despite selling more than 32 million copies worldwide and launching a series of film adaptations, the negative reception is often overwhelming. The end of the series divides the fans, and as Roth well said in Substack, “Your brain is good at keeping you safe by keeping negative experiences.”

And despite publishing 10 books out of a series, readers still come back to it Being differentand Roth saying in his newsletter: “And the people who hated Being different? See indeed they hated it, and often went out of their way to tell me why…whenever I tried to talk about any new work. Or an old job. Any job.”

However, the writer has not stopped writing. Look for the Traitor’s Sonthe first book in Roth’s new dystopian fantasy series, is coming on May 12, 2026. But perhaps more surprisingly, it’s not the only series Roth has coming this year because on Oct. 6, 2026, the Being different the series continues with Group Sixthe first in a new duology.

At BookCon 2026, Roth announced the series to his fandom after keeping it a secret for a long time. But it’s not a sequel or sequel to his original series; instead, it’s an alternate universe where the heroine, Beatrice Prior, makes a different choice at her Choice Festival.

We had a chance to sit down with Roth at BookCon 2026 to hear about his new fantasy series and how he feels about it. Being different with the announcement of Group Six.

Samantha Mangino: How do you feel about celebrating 15 years? Being different?

Veronica Roth: I feel good about it. Writing [The Sixth Faction] books, having finished both, really helped me feel positive about the series. It doesn’t bother me too much when people talk to me about Divergent because I don’t feel like I’m still stuck in the past, because I’m writing something new, so it feels like we’re talking about what I’m doing now instead of what I was doing at 24, which is refreshing, refreshing, and exciting for an older person.

SM: You are very honest about your writing. Do you think that’s something that just happened in time and you can look back?

VR: I think this is true of how I am. I have a Polish mother, and I live in the Midwest, so I think we’re really straight people. It costs me nothing, and I do it. I am a terrible liar.

SM: Do you feel this way?Being different the mind led to the ability to write Look for the Traitor’s Son? Or was it something that felt like a natural progression?

VR: I worked Look for the Traitor’s Son within five years and 10 documents. It was a fun job for me. It’s full of everything I love, and I’ve learned valuable lessons from it, about keeping stories close, even if the background is big and epic. And you know I wouldn’t write Group Six besides that because I needed to not be able to think about all the things Being different of course, and just focus on the story and the characters that I love. So Look for the Traitor’s Son he taught me how to do that.

SM: Being different it’s very popular and popular, but I think it also falls into opinionated internet discussions. I’m curious, how did that feel like it affected your writing in general?

VR: I think it’s been a challenge to navigate because there’s a lot of negatives, although there’s also a lot of positives. And as I’ve discussed, I’m much better at maintaining pessimism than optimism. That’s how my mind works. What I have been able to do is create a safe space for myself in my writing. I think about the writing process Look for the Traitor’s Sonthat’s what I was doing because I wasn’t doing it for anyone else. It was a healing book.

SM: Do you have to limit yourself to online spaces to stay clear-headed while writing?

VR: I have rules, so if someone treats me badly, I stop them. I set up filters, sometimes I have to filter them myself because the algorithm is like, ‘you might be interested in this,’ but, no, I don’t like – I don’t want to see that. I don’t make anyone else responsible for my emotional well-being – that’s my other rule. But it’s fun interacting with students, so you want to talk to them and answer their questions and play with them. It’s just a bunch of people talking about books; we all love books.

SM: I wonder if you have noticed a change in the internet spaces now compared to when you were publishing Being different in 2011?

VR: I think it sounds very similar, but the platforms are different. My real thought about it is that it is my responsibility to develop an adequate measure of resilience. To face some criticism, because that is the nature of being a public person. It was my sister’s nature working at J. Crew. As an adult, everyone has to put up with other people who are unkind to you – that’s what’s in the world. But you are also allowed to protect yourself and separate yourself from toxic substances. So I try to balance those two things. I can’t control people. I can only control me.

SM: After taking a break Being differentyou feel like you’re gaining new wisdom Group Six?

VR: Stories about young people have changed because the world has changed. So in this book, Tris is less of, ‘I’m going to save the world by myself,’ and more of a 16-year-old navigating a very difficult social and political situation for which she was unprepared. And that feels like the reality of being a teenager right now, and I wanted the story to speak to that. When you get more life under your belt, as a person and as a writer, you are able to approach this series from a new perspective.