Satan’s Diary: Interview with Nicholas Ponticello

It’s our pleasure to host Nicholas Ponticello, whose latest fantasy novel, Satan’s Diary was just released on July 1st, 2025!

Nicholas Ponticello is an educator and writer in Los Angeles, California. He graduated from University of California, Berkeley with degrees in mathematics and astrophysics and later earned his masters in education from the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Ponticello is interested in exploring the intersection of science, sustainability, mental health, and education, and hopes to encourage more systems thinking and sustainability-themed curricula at the secondary school level.

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We’ve all heard God’s side of the story—but Satan has a story too.

Heaven has been modernized. Angels carry iPads. God is taking antidepressants and seeing a therapist in London. The Devil lives in the East Bay, serves coffee to Berkeley students, and flies kites at the Berkeley Marina. A retelling of the fall of Satan from the point of view of the Prince of Darkness himself, Satan’s Diary follows Lucifer from ancient Mesopotamia to 21st century America in his quest to understand the human race.

Lucifer is God’s attempt at perfection. But Lucifer betrays God to live among the mortals on Earth, making enemies of God and God’s many followers. Lucifer is just like you and me, looking for love in all the wrong places and trying to eke out a living on a quickly evolving planet. But when Lucifer falls head-over-heels for a mortal girl amid the seventeenth century witch trial madness, he must risk everything for a shot at true love. Instead of bolting, as he has been doing for thousands of years, he must stay and face his true nature.

This irreverent retelling of a well-known tale will find an eager audience among readers who enjoy a witty story of love and loss across the ages—great for fans of the Song of Achilles, Interview with the Vampire, and Outlander.

Welcome to the Asylum, Nicholas! Take a seat by the fire, have a glass of beverage of your choice, and tell me something about yourself that’s not in your bio!

Thank you for having me. I’m honored to be here. Something about me that’s not in my bio? I love junk food. Give me a box of Oreos or a bag of Lays, and I’ll devour it in one sitting.

High five, fellow junk food lover!

What inspires your writing? Do you listen to music, stare into the fire, listen to the whispering of the wind, or make deals with the Devil?

If I made deals with the Devil, I expect my books would be New York Times bestsellers by now. No, I haven’t had the opportunity to trade my soul for a breakout writing career. But I did write a whole book defending the Devil (Satan’s Diary), so you’d think the Prince of Darkness would be willing to do something for me in return. If you see him, please let him know I’m still waiting for my reward.

I think the word “speculative” best describes the genre of book I tend to write. And that is because I’m inspired by games of “What if?” I like to imagine strange scenarios and how people might behave in such scenarios. My first book was inspired by the question: “What if I could back up my brain onto a microchip? How would that change how I behaved?” That’s how my debut novel Do Not Resuscitate was born. This most recent book was inspired by the question, “What if Lucifer had his own version of the story?” And in Satan’s Diary, he spills the tea!

What was the most memorable place you’ve visited? Did it inspire any of your work? How did that experience affect you personally?

When I was in my twenties, I spent eight weeks in Paris. I rented a little studio apartment on the eighth floor of an old Haussmannian building. No elevator. I trekked up and down eight flights of stairs multiple times a day. It was the summer of 2012, and I was there to work on my novel, Do Not Resuscitate.

The city inspired a whole section of the book I was writing then. I ended up taking my protagonist to Paris on several occasions. It is there that he meets the woman who will eventually become his wife. It is also in Paris where he has his brain backed up onto a microchip. Paris was featured prominently in my debut novel because most of it was written during the eight weeks I was there. I also incorporated a trip to Paris in my most recent book, Satan’s Diary. It is a very different Paris than the one I visited because it is set in the 17th century before the Haussmannization of the city. But even the Devil loves Paris. Who doesn’t?

Uh… is this the right time to say I never really cared about it? 😬 I mean, don’t get me wrong, it has amazing history, and I’m sure it’s beautiful, but somehow I never really had it on my bucket list of places to visit. It’s great you had a good time there!

Talking about Satan’s Diary, what was the main inspiration for the story? Which aspect of the book was the most challenging to write and why? 

I started writing Satan’s Diary in 2005 or 2006—almost twenty years ago. I was living in Berkeley and finishing my undergraduate degrees in mathematics and astrophysics. At the time, I was thinking a lot about the universe and my place within it. I was particularly attracted to the idea that no one person is all good or all evil. Everyone inhabits that morally gray space that makes people so uncomfortable. I considered the embodiment of evil: Satan. And I thought, “He can’t be all bad. And God can’t be all good.” Sort of like the Greek and Roman gods: they had to be flawed just like the rest of us. So I set out to tell that story.

I think the most challenging aspect of the book was humanizing God and Lucifer without losing too much of the mythology that people are familiar with. I wanted to incorporate characters like Adam and Eve and Mary and Jesus and show that much of how we understand their stories is based on grains of truth—that there are also so many more sides to the stories. I didn’t set out to make jest of religion. Rather, I wanted to consider another interpretation of the events while paying homage to the original mythology. That wasn’t easy, and I’m sure many people will still be offended by Satan’s version of things.

Satan’s Diary was published on July 1, 2025. Congrats! If you could have a release party with your MC present, how would that go down? 

Well, I’m certain Lucifer would not reveal himself to us. He would show up to the party looking like any other twentysomething, dressed in the fashion of 21st century men and bearing no distinguishing marks. I doubt anyone would be able to recognize him. He would want to keep it that way. In today’s world, many people would jump at the chance to send the Devil to the chopping block, and Lucifer would know better than to give himself away. I might recognize him, though. He claims to have modeled for Michaelangelo’s famous Statue David. So if I saw a man with David’s chiseled face, I might wonder if it was Lucifer. Either way, he’d come for a brief time to celebrate his side of the story being told for the first time. Then he would head back to Berkeley to sling lattes in a coffee bar.

What would you say the main themes are in Satan’s Diary?  Is there something you’d like readers to take away from it? 

You often hear only one side of the story. There’s always more to it. I hope readers get more comfortable with the gray zone that most of us occupy on a daily basis. As much as we prefer to see ourselves and others as good or bad, it is almost never that simple. If we could see the world in its infinite shades of gray, we might actually experience more of what life has to offer.

I couldn’t agree more with that.

Let’s talk a bit about the characters. What was one thing about your MC that you can identify with, and what were the most challenging bits of their personalities to write?

I definitely identified with Lucifer’s boundless curiosity, even when it got him into trouble. He wants to understand mortal creatures, especially humans, and I get that. Lucifer is baffled by many of the tendencies of mortals. He wants to know why they do what they do. 

For me, the most challenging part of Lucifer to write was his experience with immortality. The idea that someone can live forever is so foreign to a mere mortal like myself. What would it mean to have no fear of dying? I really had to dig deep to understand the experience of immortality. And when I did start to really consider it, I realized how awful it would be. As Lucifer says, “Certainly, angels cannot die, and that has its advantages. But that also means we can suffer longer.”

If your MC had to give a TED talk, what would their choice of topic be and how would they prepare for it? What would you talk about?

Lucifer would definitely give a TED talk on the joys of being mortal. So much of his existence has been spent trying to make sense of mortal creatures, and he would want us to appreciate our fragility. Living knowing that at any moment we can die is what gives life meaning.

If I had to give a TED talk, I would talk about uncertainty. I have spent many years trying to get comfortable with uncertainty. And although there is no way to fully eliminate the discomfort of uncertainty, there are certainly ways to embrace it that make it easier to stomach.

If you were a character in your book, how would you be described? And what would your profession/role be? 

If I were a character in Satan’s Diary, I would probably be a student at Berkeley where Satan works as a barista. Satan would describe me as nervous and unsure, because that’s how I am whenever I have to order food or drinks from a server. I don’t know why, but I always feel like the waiter is doing me some kind of favor, and I can’t seem to get comfortable with being waited on. I’d probably walk into the cafe and order an iced latte. Satan would ask me what I study, and when I tell him I study astrophysics, he would laugh and say, “Good luck,” because he knows exactly how complicated the universe is since he watched God create it.

Describe an asylum set in the world of Satan’s Diary!

I imagine an asylum in Satan’s Diary would be a beautiful lodge in the Pyrenees mountains where angels go to convalesce if they are suffering from any kind of major anxiety attack or depressive episode. Since humans are so much more skilled in therapeutic practices, all the doctors in the asylum would be on hire from the mortal world. God would be a regular patient in the asylum since he struggles so much with depression. Whenever he starts to spiral, he could check himself into the asylum for intensive treatment.

While you are locked in here for eternity, we will allow you to invite one visitor (fictional and otherwise) – who would you invite? And no, they can’t help you to escape.

Please ask my husband to bring me some Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. They’re all out at the vending machine.

Well then, it was a pleasure to have a chat with you! Please allow these nice attendants to escort you out. We hope you’ll enjoy your stay in the Asylum! Any last words? 

What’s for dinner?

*locks door*

Grab a copy of Satan’s Diary by Nicholas Ponticello!