Q&A with Juliet Izon: Author of The Encore

Could you introduce yourself and your debut novel?

My name is Juliet Izon and I am a journalist and author who splits her time between New York City and the Hudson Valley in upstate New York. I live with my husband Mike, daughter Avvie, and two fluffy Ragdoll cats named Waffles and Biscuit. When I’m not writing fiction, my work mostly centers on pieces about food, travel, and interior design. You can read articles of mine in places like Architectural Digest, Vogue, or Conde Nast Traveler.

My debut, The Encore, was published by Hachette imprint Union Square & Co. on March 3. It’s a dual-POV, upmarket novel about an indie rockstar, a classical composer, a teenage piano prodigy, and the devastating family secret and long-lost love that ties them all together.

Can you introduce Lottie, Anna and Will to us?

While The Encore is told from Anna and Lottie’s points of view, there are three main characters in the book:

We meet Anna Buckley first, in the prologue: she’s a proper music star, with legions of fans, multiple Grammys to her name, and an electric stage presence. But Anna remains haunted by decisions she made decades earlier: both secrets she has kept and people she’s left behind. She buries herself in performing to keep the past at bay, leaving her life outside of music solitary and practically an afterthought.

Lottie Thomas is sixteen, and lives on New York’s tony Upper East Side with her uncle, fashion designer Aidan Thomas. Her adoptive mother Maya passed away years earlier and Aidan then became her legal guardian, although his job has him traveling nearly every week, which means Lottie is alone many nights. She instead finds comfort playing the piano, although the mystery of her birth parents is a constant, unanswered question.

And finally we have Will Pendleton, a gifted classical composer and conductor who met Anna when both attended the same prestigious music conservatory in the 2000s. While the two were kindred spirits while in school together, soon after graduation, Anna cut off contact with him, with Will none the wiser as to why.

What have been your influences?

In terms of authors, I love writers who can build characters so realistic, you find yourself thinking about them and their stories long after you’re done reading. Sally Rooney, Lily King, Ian McEwan, and Ann Patchett, are just a handful of those who can weave a narrative that’s riveting just on the basis of their characters’ desires alone.

For this book in particular, I was also influenced by a lot of musicians, particularly Tori Amos, St. Vincent, Maggie Rogers, and Steve Reich. I read or listened to a lot of interviews from all of those and many more to understand what it’s like to be a professional musician at that level—both the good and the bad that comes with success.

What drew you to writing?

Like nearly all writers, I’ve always loved penning stories, even as a preschooler. But I never saw myself as a novelist professionally—I always wanted to go into journalism and figured if I ever wrote a book, it would be ghost writing a cookbook or an interior design text.

The Encore is the result of characters who announced themselves in my imagination one spring and wouldn’t leave until I put them down on paper. And even doing that felt self-indulgent: I waited until my daughter was asleep and all of my articles were turned in before, one night, I finally typed out a scene. I still didn’t foresee then that their story would eventually coalesce into an entire book. But being able to use my imagination as the central engine in a piece of writing, as opposed to the interviews or research I use for my articles, has been exhilarating. Now that I’ve entered those waters, I never want to get out.

Has your job as a journalist influenced your writing?

In a few ways! From an output perspective, I’m used to the daily practice of writing, which helps with sticking to a word count goal when I’m drafting fiction. I’m also accustomed to being edited, which was helpful when I began doing multiple rounds of revisions with my book’s editor.

And from a story perspective, as a journalist it was important to me to make sure this make-believe world I’d created was still fact-checked. After all, I’m not writing fantasy or sci-fi and these characters, while fictional, still live in the real world. To the best of my ability, I wanted to ensure that whether it was scenes at the conservatory or on a tour bus, they would pass the sniff test if someone from the music industry was reading.

To that end, I did fairly exhaustive research for The Encore once I’d finished my first draft. I watched tons of YouTube videos of students at conservatory, posted on sub-Reddits for composers, and even attended a rock band’s soundcheck, for example, all in the service of rendering this musical world as accurate as possible.

What is your favourite quote from the book?

“But lying to yourself is an athletic pursuit: at some point, you get tired. At some point, your feet are blistered, and your lungs are burning, and there’s sweat in your eyes, and you stumble.”

What surprised you about the debut publishing journey?

How many new friends I’ve made! I’ve been lucky enough to be in a very active 2026 debut author Discord that has over 500 members around the world. The group of us in the New York channel, as well as those writing upmarket or literary fiction have grown very close, and some have even been my conversation partners at readings these past few weeks. Going through this yearslong journey with others who are all weathering the same milestones has been invaluable. I’m very grateful for their collective wisdom and support.

What would you like readers to take away from the novel?

I hope that they will have felt immersed in these musical worlds, whether that’s the early chapters at conservatory, or on the road in a tour bus. More broadly, I also hope the themes of found family, second chances, and the pursuit of creativity resonate.