Category Archives: Better Know an Author

Better Know an Author: Kosoko Jackson

February 7, 2022 Dahlia Adler Leave a comment

I’m so thrilled to welcome Kosoko Jackson back to the site, this month of his newest release, I’m So (Not) Over You (Berkley), which publishes on the 22nd! I have been floored by how much he’s been putting out in the world lately, and I’m so excited about everything coming up, so please give him a warm welcome!

I’m so, so excited to see you keep jumping into new spaces, but perhaps the one I’m most excited about is the world of rom-coms! What’s the story behind I’m So (Not) Over You and making the move from YA to Adult?

Thank you! I’m super excited to be here. It’s been so much fun writing them, exploring tropes, and writing HEAs. Honestly, the story isn’t that jaw dropping, haha. About 3 years ago, I really needed to reevaluate what I wanted to write and what brought me joy. I was lying in bed, listening to Taylor Swift, as one does, and thought; I want to write rom-coms. I emailed my agent, and then over the next year or so, I wrote…4 different proposals, each 50 pages each, until we narrowed down the right one, sent it off, and 4 months later, I was signed to Berkley! It was a leap of faith I’m really happy I took.

Of course, that’s not a permanent move; in fact you’ll be back in YA in about five seconds with Survive the Dome, which could not feel like a more relevant story right now. What was it like to write that book against the background of 2020s America, and what do you hope readers take from it?

Don’t remind me! True whiplash! Survive the Dome couldn’t be more different than I’m So (Not) Over You. Survive The Dome was my act of resistance against everything happening in the news. I couldn’t go out and protest, thanks to the pandemic and living in NYC, so I wanted to do something, so I really poured my resistance into this book. I want people to take away that revolutions are often led by people of color, women of color, and youth of color, and we should put them at the forefront of conversations far more often than we do.

Dipping back into adult romance for a sec, you also published a short story last fall in Love All Year, which sounds like the most delightful anthology. How did you get involved, and can you tell us a little bit about “Kwanzaa Kiss”?

Sure! Honestly, it was an open call. I was chatting with Denise Wiliams (read her book The Fastest Way To Fall, by the way), chatting about a Kwanzaa rom com, and she mentioned the Love All Year sequel. The story wasn’t enough for a full book, so this seemed a perfect way to tell the story. “Kwanzaa Kiss” is a scavenger hunt rom com between two men who team up to find seven things that represent each of the core principles of Kwanzaa. And of course, love comes through!

You also have a new essay in the collection Black Love Matters, which released with perfect timing to kick off Black History Month. How was collaborating on an essay collection, and what do you love about it as a whole?

You’re making me realize I need to take a BREAK. I’ve written so much the past year haha. This was so much fun! I’m so honored Berkley put oy name forward, and Jessica was into the idea. I rarely see anthologies that center not only Black people, but Black love. It was so great to work with such rom com and romance titans, and be in an anthology with them and learn from them. I also got to talk about my favorite topics, movies, tv and love, so honestly, I won, haha.

I got the joy (completely coincidentally) of revealing the covers for both of your new books, but you had a fabulous third new cover out this year, for the paperback of Yesterday Is History. How did that cover change come about, and what do you love about the new design?

Thank you so much for doing them both by the way. The hardest-working person in publishing right here. I LOVE the new cover for Yesterday Is History. Honestly, again, not the most interesting story. My publisher, Sourcebooks, said they wanted a cover that resonated with the key thing people loved about the story; the romance. So they wanted to put that front and center with a speculative hint towards it. Having Andre falling also represents his first jump in time, in chapter 1. And the cover shows he ends up with someone but you don’t know who! It’s so beautiful.

You’ve also been on LGBTQReads before, in a pre-author capacity, in one of my favorite posts in the history of the site. Where is the Black Queer Male Voice in YA? was published back on August 31, 2017, back before authors like you, Ryan Douglass (also featured), Julian Winters, Kacen Callender, and Jay Coles made your way onto shelves and changed the game. How are you feeling about the queer Black male voice in YA now, and where you’d still like to see it go?

2017? That was so long ago and it feels like yesterday. I’m loving to see so many more queer Black boys. Especially in YA and Middle Grade. I wish I had these authors to look up to when I was 13. But it’s awesome to see that teens and young adults will be able to read books that aren’t just about coming out, or the struggles of being Black and queer, but to see stories where Queer characters are fully fledged and well thoguht out people, with motives, feelings, fears, and flaws. That’s crucial, not only for us, to see ourselves, but for others to learn empathy.

Of course, the conversation about being a queer man in romance is one that’s gotten a whole lot of traction lately as well. Given the floor to say your piece about it, what would you like both the industry and readers to know about the experience of publishing m/m romance as a queer (or whatever label you prefer!) man?

I think it’s important that we as a community understand we cannot and should not police who writes what. That’s a dangerous slope and a dangerous path to go down. That being said, I think its also very important we allow queer men to tell their stories authentically. We shouldn’t judge by hetronormative standards and publishing should, along with readers, make more of an effort to uplift queer stories. Marginalized voices within the community should be prioritized when telling those stories. That, to me, isn’t an out-there idea.

I think we’re all out of ways to sugarcoat the fact that publishing during a pandemic sucks, and debuting during a pandemic doubly so, although there are definitely some perks as far as increased access to events goes. What have you found to be the best and worst parts of debuting in 2021, and what fellow pandemic debuts would you like to shout out?

I think the best also goes back to the Great Resignation of workers. I’ve found that I’ve really honed in on what I care about and the stories I want to tell. I’ve become braver and more confident in my writing, because I’ve seen how fleeting everything that we have erected and held dear. I think that’s morbid, sure, but I embrace this confidence I’ve fostered. The saddest thing, as we all know, is no in person events, but also how much stress is being put on publishing employees. We’re losing great talent during this pandemic because of how our industry treats publishing employees, especially marginalized ones and people of color.

With so many different things under your belt, I’m particularly interested in your answer to my final question: what’s up next for you?

By the time this comes out my next YA, coming out in 2023 by Quilltree would have been announced, and I’m so so thrilled to be stepping into fantasy and dark academia. My next rom com also comes out December of this year, A Dash of Salt and Pepper, and it follows a small town DILF chef in a fictional version of Stars Hollow, the 20-something who returns home after losing his job and his boyfriend, and Taming of the Shrew vibes!

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Better Know an Author

Better Know an Author: Kyle Lukoff

June 9, 2021 Dahlia Adler Leave a comment

I am truly beyond excited to have Kyle Lukoff on the site today to discuss his work, and if you think I’m exaggerating, please know that this is the first interview I’ve been able to do in like a year because so many questions burst out of my it was like my excitement shook me out of a cursed state. His newest is his debut Middle Grade, Too Bright to See, which has received approximately as many stars as the sky in Montana, and he’s here to talk about that, his other work, and some pretty fascinating current events!

First of all, huge congrats on your first Middle Grade! Too Bright to See is such a beautiful book, and it’s fascinating to see a book for young readers so grounded in death. How did you come to choose that approach to tell Bug’s journey?

Thank you!!

The brainstorm that led to this book was the decision that instead of writing two different middle grade novels (a trans boy book and a ghost story using an old writing prompt of my dad’s), I could kill two birds with one stone. So I never intended to write a book about death, loss, and grief, but for there to be a ghost there has to be a dead person, and a relationship between the dead person and the alive person, so that part came about almost as an afterthought. But I have always loved kids books about death–I have really strong memories of The Tenth Good Thing About Barney, and read The Bridge to Terabithia countless times, and as a kid I always felt like the books that dealt with death well were the only books being honest to kids, about how sometimes bad things happen and then you feel bad. I didn’t have any experience with death as a kid (aside from a few pets), but felt bad a lot, and think I channeled a lot of that into Too Bright To See.

Bug finds some wonderful acceptance among friends, which is a really great thing to see on the page, especially for readers who could use the encouragement of knowing it’s possible, but it also reminded me of the first time I was on a queer panel where we got a question about whether we were “making it look too easy” by writing happy stories. What’s your feeling on portraying happier vs. harsher experiences in queer and/or trans lit?

Well! If anyone accuses me of “making it look too easy” I will invite them to look around at a) the world and b) the vast majority of books featuring trans kids and how they also feature transphobia. If they are concerned that showing positive responses to coming out will give kids the wrong idea, they’ll be thrilled to learn that my approach is a distinct aberration.

I do like writing positive experiences of coming out, in some ways fo idealistic reasons–showing kids, parents, siblings, etc. that it is possible, that you can respond with love and acceptance, and that there’s no earthly reason to do anything else. But the real reason I don’t focus on transphobia in my books is because, quite frankly, I don’t find it interesting. I’ve experienced plenty of it in my life. It’s hard, and it’s bad. But it’s also boring, because instead of just getting on with my day, I have to deal with some cis person and their ignorant and/or hateful ideas, none of which are new, or unique, or interesting, or intellectually sound, they’re all just rehashed and reheated talking points from before I was born. I’d rather write books about trans characters getting on with their lives instead of reacting to other people’s banal, unimaginative prejudice or bigotry.

Speaking of both happy and harsh experiences, you’ve had quite a 2021 so far, which is culminating in your traveling to the Utah State Capitol to give a reading and speech at a rally for LGBTQ+ Inclusion in Schools. Can you walk us through the events here and maybe give us a glimpse into what your visit?

“Culminating” is an optimistic word for May! But, yes, it’s been a Lot. Basically, what happened is that a school district outside of Salt Lake City decided to “pause” a program distributing books to kids that focused on progressive themes, mostly racial justice, because a child brought one of my books (which wasn’t even included in that program) to school and asked his teacher to read it. It turned into a tremendous transphobic kerfuffle, and teachers used it as a catalyst to organize a rally calling for more LGBTQ+ inclusion in schools. You can read my speech on my website here. Also, one month later a similar situation erupted outside of Austin, Texas.

I am 37 years old, came out as trans when I was around twenty, and have spent most of my adult life just being some guy doing stuff. It’s strange and upsetting to suddenly have to convince or remind people that we share a common humanity, and that my trans identity is one aspect of my lived experience rather than a rhetorical gotcha or a talking point. It’s also, as I said, boring. But I also feel really grateful that I’m only doing this work now that I’m firmly set into my life as a trans adult, because I can’t imagine what it must be like to have to advocate for yourself when you’re just discovering who that is.

You’ve now published books for three different age groups, but the Max and Friends series in particular is targeted to one that feels extremely left behind in queer literature. Why do you think that is, and do you have any recommendations for other LGBTQ+ titles for the early reader (or “pre-MG”) age group?

Early readers across the board have been in need of diversification for a long time. I can’t speak to why that is, but entrenched conservative opinions in publishing are likely the cause of it! Just, longstanding ideas of what is “right” for kids, and who exactly they think of when they think of “kids.” These are also books that are more likely to be selected by parents and educators, and then disseminated to kids, instead of kids choosing for themselves.

And then, well, it is tricky to organically incorporate LGBTQ themes into books for younger audiences. You can have those identities among parents, siblings, community members, etc., but the stories should be focused on the children. And little kids are still in so many ways forming their identities, that it’s challenging to honestly represent how a queer identity might manifest in someone that age. I would love to see what other authors come up with, because I’m kind of out of ideas!

We of course also must discuss When Aidan Became a Brother, your beautiful and critically acclaimed picture book illustrated by Kaylani Juanita. What was that collaborative process like, especially for a book so close to you personally?

Authors typically have very little, if any, collaboration with their illustrators! When it came to Aidan, Kaylani had free rein to interpret my words in a way that matched her creative vision for the story–the outfits, the setting, the emotional tenor of each scene. She’s Black and Filipina, which is why she depicted Aidan’s family that way, and I love telling kids about how we both put parts of our story into this book.

I did ask for a few small changes–the only one I remember is something hinting at what Aidan’s old name was, but since I never imagined what his name used to be, I asked to replace that detail because I didn’t want to give people permission to speculate. But I largely trusted her, not just because I’m not a visually-minded person, and now I can’t imagine the book any other way.

Also, Aidan is not especially close to me personally. It is close to me politically, in that I have a lot of opinions about transmasculinity and misogyny, parental responsibility, gender reveal parties, etc. etc., but my life story isn’t at all close to Aidan’s–I came out when I was in college, I don’t have a little sibling, etc. etc. I might feel more protective if someone were to make a picture book biography of me! (no one do that ever please and thank you).

You have so much professional experience with children, and prior to COVID, school visits were also a big part of being an author for you. What do you think adult authors of queer literature for kids misunderstand the most about their audiences, and what should they keep in mind when writing for them?

Kids are entire human beings with inner lives and moral compasses all their own, and you cannot mold a person’s sense of self by just telling them what to think. I read a lot of scenes in books (not just queer-themed) where there are moments that are so clearly didactic, imparting important lessons about intersectionality or assimilation or privilege or what-have-you, and I’m not sure if those land as clearly as the authors are hoping they will. When I read middle grade novels aloud to my students, I would often stop to discuss important scenes, and what kids took away from them was often nothing like what the author had intended (in some cases I knew the author and could ask about their intent, in other cases it was just clear to me as an adult). So I wish authors focused more on telling a story and allowing for varied answers to complex questions, instead of trying to tell kids what they should believe. I’m definitely guilty of that too, so I’m also telling this to myself.

Of all the age groups you’ve written for, is there one that’s closest to your heart and/or one you feel is most specifically in need of trans literature written by an actual trans person? Is there one you simply prefer most from a craft perspective?

Fifth grade is very close to my heart, because that’s the year my students graduate from the school I worked at–so, they were generally the kids I knew the longest (the 5th grade class of 2021 includes students I met when they were two!), and it was incredible to watch them develop into sophisticated, mature thinkers. When I write middle grade I think, more than anything, of my fifth grade students, because in one class a kid might be re-reading Wimpy Kid and another might be tackling The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks or The Martian (true story!). I love trying to reach all those kids at once.

I do think that all ages would benefit from trans-themed books by trans writers, because…well, why not? I feel really grateful I’ve been able to build a career in so many different genres (more to come! including a board book! keep an eye out for announcements) and want that for my peers.

From a craft perspective, I will always love the challenge of writing as much as possible in as few words as possible. I’ve been branching out into more creative structures; I have one book coming out that is the simplest story imaginable, told in a complex rhyme scheme that I think I invented, and that is the most fun I’ve putting a book together (well, “fun” in that I pulled out my notebook during an evening of existential despair, and putting words together like jigsaw pieces helped). I have another forthcoming project that’s an epistolary picture book, and I loved the restrictions that puts on the story. Basically the more restrictions on a project the more fun I have with it–someday I might attempt a novel written in blank verse or just (“just”) iambic pentameter, but that might be too ambitious.

I imagine launching your debut novel in a pandemic sucks, even if it’s not your first published work. What do you feel like you missed out on the most as a result, and were there any pleasant surprises that came with it? How did you celebrate?

It does suck! One piece of gratitude I’ve been holding onto, though, is that Aidan came out in 2019, and I took that fall off from my day job (which I’ve since quit) to travel all over the country. If I had had to cancel all that, I don’t know what kind of emotional state I’d be in (not a good one, I think!) so I have so much sympathy for my author friends debuting into this.

So, I know a lot of what I missed out on–baths in hotel rooms that someone else paid for, kid-made signs welcoming me to their school, a significant percentage of my projected income. But on the other hand, I don’t think I would have made my deadline for novel #2 if I hadn’t been just home writing. I also sold a bunch of other projects, for a bunch of different age groups. Too Bright To See still got six starred reviews. I still got to launch with Maulik, which was dreamy. I’m not good at celebrating in the best of times, but right after the virtual launch a neighborhood friend took me out for a beer and some microwaved crinkle fries. It was really nice weather, and I think it’ll be a good memory, everything aside.

Of course there’s already a lot of work under your belt in such a short time, but are there any other categories or genres you’d really like to publish that you haven’t attempted yet?

I love writing short stories (for adults) and have a lot of them that I keep trying to get published and they keep getting rejected! I am also not trying very hard, I suppose, because that whole process is really unpleasant. But in general I would love to branch out into adult fiction, not least of which because I’m worried that all the fun and cool adult trans writers think that I’m the FTM Mr. Rogers and I want them to think that I’m a fun and cool grown-up too.

Are there any queer and/or trans books you’d particularly like to recommend, especially if you don’t think they’ve gotten sufficient airtime?

So, my favorite thing is intra-community conflict and dialogue. As I said earlier, about why I don’t really write about transphobia, I simply don’t think that anything cis/straight people have to say about trans/queer people is interesting, but I am endlessly fascinated with how we treat each other, and how conflict within LGBTQIA+ communities play out, in both deadly serious ways and more frivolous ones. There are quite a few authors doing this, but I especially love Lev Rosen’s YA novels Jack of Hearts (and Other Parts) and Camp.

What’s up next for you?

I’m really excited for my first nonfiction picture book, a biography that I wrote with Gavin Grimm. He’s the trans activist who, as a teenager, worked with the ACLU (and Chase Strangio) to fight his school’s bathroom policy. It’s called If You’re A Kid Like Gavin, and will be out in summer of ’22 from Katherine Tegen Books, illustrated by J Yang. I also have…um…5? or 6? new books that haven’t been announced yet, so keep an eye out for those as well!

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Kyle Lukoff writes books for kids and other people. Right now you can read his debut middle grade novel TOO BRIGHT TO SEE, A STORYTELLING OF RAVENS, WHEN AIDAN BECAME A BROTHER (which won the 2020 Stonewall Award!), the MAX AND FRIENDS series, and EXPLOSION AT THE POEM FACTORY. You will be able to read more books by him in the next years, including a non-fiction picture book about teenage trans activist Gavin Grimm, and a book for babies.

Kyle spent eight years as an elementary school librarian, but now he writes full time and presents on children’s and youth literature all across the country. He got hired at a bookstore when he was sixteen, which means he’s been working at the intersection of books and people for well over half his life.

Kyle is represented by Saba Sulaiman at Talcott Notch. Find him on Twitter at @KyleLukoff and Facebook at fb.me/kylelukoffwrites. All purchasing links are through his affiliate page at Bookshop.org.

Better Know an Author

Better Know an Author: Sarah Gailey

March 5, 2020 Dahlia Adler Leave a comment

Happy March! I am so thrilled to have Sarah Gailey on the site today, because in case you have noticed, they’ve been utterly killing it and have not one but two new books out already in 2020. Gailey’s writing some of the best, queerest, most interesting, and straight-up weirdest stuff out there right now, and if you’re not already familiar, there’s never been a better time to fix that!

It’s been five seconds into 2020 and you are already having A Year, with publications back to back in February and March. How do you handle having two new books out in two different categories, and what important commonalities are there between Upright Women Wanted and When We Were Magic?

This year has already been completely bananas. It’s been tricky to juggle having two new books out so close together! Fortunately, both books have a similar heart; they’re about finding people who love you for who you are, and who want to support you in growing into the person you’ll become. Those parallels have made it easy to transition from promoting Upright Women Wanted to promoting When We Were Magic (even if that turn happens to be taking place on a dime).

Upright Women Wanted another foray into the queer wild west for you, following your American Hippo duo. What is it about that setting that calls to you, and how did you find doing it as a near-future this time around vs. as an alternate history?

I really love a Wild West setting because the characters we identify most with in that setting tend to be outlaws and outcasts who are fighting to survive in a world that wasn’t built for them. As a queer, nonbinary, and disabled person, that’s a feeling that hits pretty close to home for me. In writing Upright Women Wanted, I felt that it was important to connect that feeling to the fear so many of us have today — that the future doesn’t have a place for us in it. I wanted to answer the question: In a near-future wild-west, how do we find ways to survive? And how might queer people find joy in that survival?

After several years of being rather prolific in adult, When We Were Magic is your first YA. What inspired you to jump categories, and how did you find writing for teens for your first time?

I’ve always loved reading YA, but for a long time, I was intimidated to make an attempt at writing it. The field is populated with so many brilliant, incredible authors. The thing that really pushed me into trying my hand at wriiting for teens was, as is so often the case, my literary agent. He asked me if I really, truly believed that I had nothing to say to all the teen readers who might be able to see themselves in my work. I realized that my trepidation was nothing compared to the opportunity I had to reach out to young women, young queer people, and teen readers who are trying to figure out where they fit in a world that feels simultaneously too big and too small.

Writing for teens was a complete delight. I tapped into emotions that I rarely have the courage to explore in my adult work, and I wrote with a hopeful future in mind. I absolutely loved it and can’t wait to do it again!

One thing I think is so cool about your body of work is how you seem to thrive in all different formats – short story, novella, novel… How do you make the call about the right format for each of your pieces, and are there any you wish you could expand?

For the most part, my stories tell me what length they want to be. As I explore the concept of a story, I start to see the places that want to expand — maybe the worldbuilding needs more space, or the relationships need more time to truly flourish. While some stories want to be concise and direct, other stories want to stretch out and take up a lot of room. Really, all I do is listen.

I would really love to expand my recent Vice short story, DRONES TO PLOUGHSHARES. It’s the story of an agricultural resistance community offering reform opportunities and friendship to government surveillance drones, and I would love to take the time and wordcount to explore how the world they inhabit came to be.

You are no stranger to awards, from the Hugo for Best Fan Writer to the Locus for Best Novella. How do you celebrate yourself, and what is it about your work that you most hear clicks with your readers?

I’m still trying to learn how to celebrate myself! Usually, my instinct is to just work harder, which of course isn’t sustainable. These days, I like to cook something lovely for my friends and sit down with a glass of wine, so we can toast together — I find that the best celebrations are truly celebrations of community, and that’s where I find the most joy.

My readers seem to click a lot with the uncertainty I try to explore in my work. I love writing about people who don’t have all the answers, who aren’t sure about themselves or the world around them, and who can really only find certainty in community and vulnerability. My readers really seem to find themselves in those spaces.

There’s so much bravery in your work, and it’s clear that you put a lot of yourself on the page. Is it something you find easier to do with your fiction or your nonfiction, and why?

I have a much easier time with this in my fiction. In nonfiction, I can’t find anywhere to hide — I have to talk about myself directly, and the people in my life, some of whom are very aware of the moments when they’re the ones I’m talking about. In my fiction, I can tuck pieces of myself and my life into various characters, and although some people might recognize me, not everyone will. I find a lot of comfort in that, and as a result, I’m actually much more vulnerable in my fiction writing than I am in my nonfiction.

Your books are great and all but we need to take a minute to talk about your cooking. Where on earth did you get all that extra talent and what’s the best thing you’ve ever made?

Oh my goodness, I love cooking so much!! It’s truly become an enormous outlet for me over the past year or so, especially now that I’m cooking for a family instead of just for myself. Part of that outlet is in low-stakes risk-taking — I can try out totally bizarre things in my cooking, and if they go wrong, it’s not a big deal because there’s always a pizza in the freezer. But when things go right, I always feel like a golden god. The best thing I’ve ever cooked is, I think, a lasagna. I spent a month or so workshopping it, trying to find everything I could do differently about every aspect of a lasagna, and when I made the final version, it came out completely transcendent. I wrote up a breakdown of everything I did, including a final recipe for a ten-minute version of lasagna that’s perfect for weeknight dinners — but the fancy version of lasagna was definitely the best thing I’ve ever made.

What’s your first recollection of LGBTQIAP+ representation in the media, for better or for worse?

Oof, this is a tough one. If I’m going with implicit representation, it’s definitely XENA, WARRIOR PRINCESS, which is a show I was completely obsessed with as a kid (although at the time I couldn’t have told you why… I just really identified with Xena and Gabrielle, and wanted to be them, and wanted to kiss them, and wanted to be their best friend?? Who can say what it all meant). My first encounter with explicit queer representation on the screen was probably Willow and Tara in BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER — a story arc that had a huge impact on how much I was unwilling to embrace my own queer identity for so long.

I assume that your answer to “Are you a coward or are you a librarian?” is the latter, so please, help us find some books! For people who love your work, what queer titles should they go to next?

It feels obvious to say so, but please read everything that Mark Oshiro ever writes. Anger Is a Gift is a magnificent book, and their upcoming projects will blow you away. I also can’t recommend Lauren Shippen highly enough — The Infinite Noise is a beautiful book about queer love and mental illness, and I loved it with my whole heart. Finally, Maggie Tokuda-Hall’s upcoming YA novel, The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea, is a stunning exploration of queer love, gender, magic, and the cost of violence. Preorder it! Go!!

What’s up next for you?

I’ll be spending the rest of 2020 promoting When We Were Magic and Upright Women Wanted, my recent antifascist queer western novella! After that, I get to start gearing up for early 2021, when my next adult novel will come out from Tor Books. The Echo Wife is a science fiction novel about divorce, identity, duality, and cloning. It follows the story of a scientist whose husband steals her technology in order to clone himself a better version of her. The consequences are dire and far-reaching, and force her to examine everything about herself in a whole new light.

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(c) Allan Amato 2019

Hugo Award Winner and Bestselling author Sarah Gailey is an internationally published writer of fiction and nonfiction. Their nonfiction has been published by Mashable and the Boston Globe, and they won a Hugo award for Best Fan Writer. Their most recent fiction credits include Vice and The Atlantic. Their debut novella, River of Teeth, was a 2018 Hugo and Nebula award finalist. Their bestselling adult novel debut, Magic For Liars, was published in 2019; their latest novella, Upright Women Wanted, was published in February 2020. Their Young Adult novel debut, When We Were Magic, came out in March 2020. You can find links to their work at http://www.sarahgailey.com; find them on social media @gaileyfrey.

Better Know an Author

Better Know an Author: Katrina Jackson

February 6, 2020 Dahlia Adler Leave a comment

I am so excited to welcome to the site today Katrina Jackson, author of some of the hottest queer books on shelves right now and master of polyam romance (among other things)! If you’re not already familiar with her work, do yourself a favor and keep reading; your TBR is about to explode. And if you are, keep reading anyway, because she’s brilliant and talented and only just getting started!

You are such a prolific author, I’m barely sure where to begin, but let’s start with the series that first put you on my radar, which is Welcome to Sea Port. What do you think makes small towns such a perfect setting for romance, and what about Sea Port is particularly special to you and your characters?

I think the thing people like about small town romances are the communities around the protagonists; people who are as invested in the central romance as the readers, the quirky characters and a small cozy world that feels like an idealistic throwback to when everyone knew too much about their neighbors.

I’m not from a small town, so I’ve never related to the idea of “coming home” but I have lots of family members who came from or still live in small Southern towns and that’s what I wanted to create in Sea Port, especially a small town full of Black southerners. I wanted Sea Port to feel like a place where the characters could recreate themselves – a storyline people often reserve for big cities.

I love the way you rattle a bit the image of what makes a small town romance, kicking the series off with a steamy book about a throuple. For you is that more playing with the unexpected, or writing what you think should be more expected in life?

It’s a little bit of both. There’s a perception that small towns are racially homogeneous – usually white – and conservative. The former isn’t true at all and that conservatism isn’t monolithic either, so I wanted to play with that. I wanted to create a small town that was diverse (and with a diverse history), even though it’s primarily Black, and over time I wanted to illustrate how conservative ideas don’t play out along the fault lines we might expect.

I wasn’t planning a series when I wrote From Scratch, but when I had the idea for Mary I knew she was the kind of character who’d move to a small town and see it as an opportunity to have all the things she’d denied herself in her previous life. So when she meets two men she’s attracted to – men she never would have met elsewhere – she didn’t want to limit herself and neither do they. And while there’s a bit of a bump around their relationship in that book, what I’m trying to tease out over the series is that the pushback isn’t actually because they’re in a polyamorous relationship, it’s because they’re new in town.

Who’s your favorite character in the whole Sea Port gang and why?

Knox, hands down. There are some characters coming in future books that I love a lot, but Knox is the character who reminds me of people I love; people with really tragic backgrounds who’ve refused to let that define their futures. He’s charming and funny and sincere and just wants to love and be loved. And in the triad between Knox, Mary and Santos, Knox is the person the other two would fight anyone to protect because he’s so strong and also so soft. I feel the same about him.

Of course, we must discuss the The Spies Who Loved Her series, which is just unbearably fun and hottttttt. It also structurally operates in a cool fashion, with books taking on different couples and then returning to them later, and sometimes being set simultaneously. Can you give us a little rundown on the queer relationships in that series and how you manage to balance so much action with, uh, so much action?

This series started as a fever dream (literally) during a hot summer day and sometimes I still feel like that when I sit down to write in that world. And I think the tangled web of their relationships illustrates that!

Most of the characters in the series are queer. In Pink Slip, Monica and Lane are a married couple of spies, both bisexual and polyamorous. They’re in love with their bi personal assistant, Kierra. Kierra’s best friend and roommate Maya is also bi and she ends up in a relationship with Kenny, another spy and straight (Private Eye and His Only Valentine). Kenny’s best friend Chante is a pansexual hacker and in love with Asif, who’s also pansexual and a spy (Under Covers, forthcoming). Chante’s childhood best friend is another hacker, Caleb, and he’ll eventually end up with a somber DEA agent, Lamont – both gay – who’s Kenny’s former partner (Bang & Burn and Brush Contact, forthcoming). In New Year, New We, Monica, Lane and Kierra have a steamy foursome with a bi spy named Carlisle, whose spy partner is the male main character in the last book of the series and his HEA will be with a queer Black trans woman.

Just a whole bunch of queer people (of color) saving the world!

I don’t know that I always balance the action with the action as well as I’d like, but the web of relationships is my real focus. I love over the top spy movies like the James Bond movies and Mr. & Mrs. Smith, where everything seems ridiculous, fast paced and fun and that’s the kind of vibe I’m going for in all the books, but with way more sex. In each book I try to set up a story that gives the characters ample time to tease each other (and whoever’s lucky enough to be nearby) sexually, but with a hint of danger.

You’ve also got the Erotic Accommodations series, which includes your newest queer release, Neighborly, and really takes the work you do with established relationships mixing it up to the next level. Obviously there’s no one right way to be polyam, but do you see different responses from readers to the different ways you depict it? Do you have a particular grouping that clicks with you the most when writing?

I do see different responses for different relationships, but I don’t know what to make of those responses or expectations. I think a lot of people like From Scratch because Knox and Santos are also sexually involved, which I imagine is related to the popularity of m/m romances. And I think because of that story or those expectations, people expected Calvin and Stephen to have sex in Neighborly, but the story I was telling was always centered on Tasha and Heaven.

I think in mixed gender polyam romances different sets of readers want different things: some want everyone to have sex, some want a heroine centered story (reverse h*rem) and some want to make sure the “swords cross.” No story can appease everyone, so I try not to bother. What I want to do is create realistic relationships that are complex and simple at the same time. Polyamorous relationships might seem more complicated because there are more people involved, but in Neighborly there’s so little conflict because the female main characters have supportive straight male partners who just want them to be happy. Stephen and Tasha have also been in an open relationship for years, so their role is really to help usher Calvin and Heaven into this new phase of their partnership. None of this has to be that complicated if everyone is open and honest, and most of my characters thus far are. (Although I do have plans for future books, where characters have to work toward that openness, which is realistic as well.)

There’s no particular grouping that clicks with me right now, I’ll read anything, but in 2018/2019 it seemed hard to find wlw in polyam romances, especially woc, and I wanted to see more of that. That very personal desire gave me the ideas for Pink Slip and Private Eye.

Obviously it’s a very rocky time right now in Romance publishing, but it’s also obviously been a rocky path for Romance authors of color. What do you wish more people understood about what it’s like to be a Black woman writing Romance about queer people of color?

I wish so much. I wish people wouldn’t erase qpoc when writing about queer romance, characters and authors. I wish there were more romances with qpoc in relationships with one another. I wish queer white authors would get queer people of color to sensitivity read their books because our experiences are not the same as queer white people. I also wish people understood that qpoc aren’t a monolith either. I wish there were more romances with qpoc in platonic community with one another instead of being siloed in primarily white spaces. I wish people would check their racist biases when writing communities of color in queer romances. I wish it was easier for me to read queer romances without worrying the story might harm me or someone in my community.

I get a lot of requests for polyamorous romance, but I rarely see more than a handful of new titles per year. What are some titles you recommend?

I always have more books on my tbr than I know what to do with but these are some I’ve read, have been waiting for the right mood to read, or am eagerly awaiting.

Kit Rocha, Beyond Jealousy
Xan West, Their Troublesome Crush
Ash Dylan, Ariana and Isha
Savannah Frierson, Be Mine
Elia Winters, the entire Comes in Threes series
Brooke Winters, Bound to the Monarchs
Chace Verity, Dithered Hearts
Lucy Eden, Between the Lions (forthcoming)

What’s your earliest memory of LGBTQIAP+ representation in media, for better or for worse?

I have vivid emotional memories of watching Armistead Maupin’s Tales of a City on PBS as a kid. I’m also from Northern California, so it felt personal to me then and still does. I also loved The Color Purple. Even though it was years before I understood that Alice Walker is a lesbian and that much of the queerness had been edited out of the story for the movie adaptation, even as a kid I understood Shug and Celie’s relationship for what it was and it made me feel seen.

What’s up next for you?

This year I’m working on finishing the Love At Last trilogy. The second book is One More Valentine (a divorced couple reunited, straight m/f) and Just Another Pride, a love story between childhood acquaintances, two qmoc, who meet again by chance and fall in love.

I’m also working on the next books in the Welcome to Sea Port (Back for More, straight m/f) and The Spies Who Loved Her series (Under Covers, pan m/pan f).

Cannot wait! You can find all of Katrina’s books here, so go grab yourself a treat or three!

***

Katrina is a college professor by day who writes romances by weekend when her cats allow. She writes high heat, diverse and mostly queer erotic romances and erotica. She also likes sleep, salt-and-pepper beards, and sunshine.

I’m super active on twitter. Follow me: @katrinajax

Better Know an Author

Better Know an Author: Tara Sim

January 2, 2020 Dahlia Adler Leave a comment

Happy new year! We’re thrilled to be kicking off 2020 with none other than Tara Sim, author of the Timekeeper series and the brand-new series opener Scavenge the Stars, which releases on January 7! Clearly, she’s someone fans of queer fantasy have got to know, so please give her a warm welcome to LGBTQReads!

Congrats on the new release! Scavenge the Stars is built around the ultimate revenge fantasy, which is just so much fun. What was your favorite part of it to right, and what was way harder than people would imagine?

Thank you! I think my favorite part to write was any situation in which Cayo was utterly useless. There’s a chapter toward the end of the book where he does something kinda stupid (I won’t spoil it, of course) and that was honestly my favorite chapter to write out of the whole book.

The thing that was hardest to write was anything involving money laundering. I know how a character should stab another in ten different fatal ways, but that was the thing that tripped me up most.

Queerness is part of Scavenge the Stars for both main characters in very different ways. Could you share a little about both Amaya and Cayo’s identities and writing them in the context of your world?

Writing queerness in fantasy books is always a little difficult when it comes to terminology, because you don’t want to throw the reader out of the setting. That being said, I wanted a world where homophobia just never came up/wasn’t an issue, so there are nonbinary and trans folks who can present however they want to without fear.

I wrote Amaya as demisexual, partly because it reflected my desire to see more demi main characters and partly because it just felt right for her. She doesn’t feel attraction for people right away; she needs time to break down her barriers and to work toward trusting the person first. On the flipside, Cayo is bisexual and not discreet about it at all. I wanted to write a character who knew how to flirt and be charming without playing into harmful bisexual tropes.

Of course, you have an entire queer fantasy series already under your belt. For those who might just be getting to know you through your new book, can you fill people in on the world of Timekeeper?

Timekeeper is my debut trilogy about an alternate Victorian world where clock towers literally control time. If a tower breaks or runs faulty, time does too. Enter Danny, my grumpy Ravenclaw gay clock mechanic, who gets assigned to an out-of-the-way clock tower only to discover a cheerful sunshine boy who has an even more curious connection to time than he does. Shenanigans and explosions ensue.

Even people who are well aware of your novels might not be aware that you have another queer story out this year, which is pretty badass! What inspired your story in Color Outside the Lines and how did you find writing short fiction compared to full-length novels?

Just another step in taking over the world, obviously.

My story in Color Outside the Lines is an f/f retelling of Hades and Persephone, which is a story I’ve wanted to tell for a long time, so I’m not entirely sure where the initial inspiration came from. Loving Greek myth, I suppose. Writing short fiction, to me, is much harder than writing long form! I tend to ramble and have chatty characters, so confining myself to just 7,000 words was a challenge.

Writing Desi identity has been a part of all your work to this point, though it takes different forms. Could you share a little about that and how your background bleeds into your work?

I’m half Indian but white passing, which has led to a lot of complicated thoughts and feelings about my identity over the years. For the longest time I was afraid to write desi characters or anything with the aesthetic because I worried people would think I had no business doing so, or that my own experience within my culture wasn’t enough.

Writing Chainbreaker, the second book in my Timekeeper trilogy, was the first time I wrote Indian characters–and wrote about India itself, for that matter. One of the main characters, Daphne, is half Indian and white passing like myself, and I poured a lot of my own turmoil into her arc.That was a doorway opening for me, making me braver in exploring my identity and how I could portray it in different ways on the page.

In Scavenge the Stars, it’s a secondary world, but Amaya’s father comes from a country I modeled after India, and most of her knowledge of that country comes from her father’s stories. In my short story in Color Outside the Lines, Persephone is called Parvani, and she comes from an India-esque kingdom suffering under a harsh ruler. I really enjoy exploring different ways for characters to interact with their identities, whether it’s diaspora or national pride.

What’s the first LGBTQIAP+ representation you recall coming across in media, for better or for worse?

You know, I think it might have been fanfiction. But in terms of mainstream media, I can’t fully recall my first instance–my memory is awful–but I do remember being impacted by Brokeback Mountain when the movie came out. I saw it in theaters and it felt like a sucker punch. Looking at the movie now just makes me sigh, but back then it meant a lot, even if I didn’t completely understand why.

As queer fantasy seems to be on the rise, what are some titles you’ve loved and some you’re especially looking forward to?

Some queer SFF I’ve loved recently are Gideon the Ninth, Wilder Girls, Crier’s War, The Never Tilting World, and Reverie. Some upcoming titles I’m excited for are Bonds of Brass (already read it but it’s great), Infinity Son, Burn Our Bodies Down, and The Unspoken Name (again, already read it but it’s great!).

What’s up next for you?

Something really cool that I can’t talk about yet (gah), as well as working on Scavenge’s sequel. Also, keep an eye out for more short stories from me in the upcoming anthologies Out Now: Queer We Go Again and WNDB’s Fantastic Worlds.

***

Tara Sim is the author of SCAVENGE THE STARS (Disney-Hyperion, 2020) and the Timekeeper trilogy who can typically be found wandering the wilds of the Bay Area, California. When she’s not chasing cats or lurking in bookstores, she writes books about magic, murder, and explosions. Follow her on Twitter at @EachStarAWorld, and check out her website for fun extras at tarasim.com.

Better Know an Author

Better Know an Author: K.A. Doore

December 2, 2019 Dahlia Adler Leave a comment

I’m so excited to have K.A. Doore on the site as this month’s featured author, because frankly, a lot of the books that make it onto this site are thanks to her working to increase visibility for them, making her one of my favorite authors to follow on Twitter. But in addition to being an A+ advocate for queer books and for queer adult SFF in particular, she is also, of course, an author, who happens to have just released the second book of the Chronicles of Ghadid series. She’s joining us to talk about the books, SFF, discoverability, and more, so take a seat and get to know K.A. Doore!

Congrats on the release of The Impossible Contract! As we all know, the second book, especially of a series, can be a complete nightmare, so what was the process of writing it like and what was the absolute best moment?

Thank you!!

I have to admit I kind of cheated on my second book, in that The Impossible Contract was actually the book I wrote first. It was supposed to be a standalone, but when I was presented with the opportunity to write more in that universe, I jumped on it. I just, maybe, jumped a little backwards.

The Perfect Assassin turned out to be my second book, as well as the first in the series, which was its own specific kind of nightmare. I had to figure out how to write a book that felt like it had always come first, that was in some ways quieter, that laid the foundation of the worldbuilding done in the now second book without overshadowing it, that had its own stakes and characters and all tied up neatly enough to work on its own and also lead into the next book.

Hard, yes? And then do that all in nine months with a newborn.

That was the most difficult part, but that was also the best part. Having the chance to explore the world in greater detail, to dig into the myths and lore I hadn’t had the space to in the now second book, to share the roots of the family and the traditions of their world – I can’t imagine writing the series any differently now.

For those who aren’t familiar with the Chronicles of Ghadid series, how are the books, which have different main protagonists, connected? And can you tell us a little about both Amastan and Thana?

They’re thematically connected, each building upon the others’ answers – and questions – about what it means to be a family, what it means to take a life, and what it means to do the right thing, even when it’s the hardest thing in the world to do. They’re also, ultimately, a story about a city and its people and its history, and how each generation tells its own story about that history, deriving a separate but still valid identity from it.

I’m a historian at heart – if not quite on paper (does a Classics degree count?) – so exploring the ways the history of a people changes and shifts over time and is used for various purposes became the main thread of the story, and why ultimately this series is about the city of Ghadid more than it is about any individual person.

But it is still about Amastan and Thana and their fellow cousins. Those two are opposites in a lot of ways. Amastan is meticulous and highly risk-averse, preferring a quiet afternoon with tea and scrolls to any excitement. Whereas Thana wants to make a name for herself, she wants to stand out from her cousins and become a legend. I love them both and I loved exploring their stories and the way they feed off of each other – mostly for good, occasionally for bad.

The final book in the trilogy, The Unconquered City, releases from Tor on June 16th. What familiar things can established fans expect to see, and what can you say about it that should make clear to readers it’s time to get in on the ground floor?

Many familiar faces return in the third book and the story of a city and it’s magic that I’ve been not so subtly hinting at all along comes to a (hopefully) satisfying conclusion. A lot of questions raised about the nature of spirits and what happens to them, as well as what, exactly, it means to be a healer and how that talent developed in a far-flung city like Ghadid are answered as well.

While The Perfect Assassin and The Impossible Contract both work well as standalones, The Unconquered City draws heavily on themes, events, and characters from both. I did have one beta reader go in cold and they still enjoyed the story, but I wouldn’t advise it. TUC is a story about overcoming trauma and resilience and rediscovering hope, a story I needed during a particularly hard time in my own life. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever written.

But it’s also full of fights and magic and conflagrations and angry arguments in jail cells. In a way, it’s more of the same, if under a different light. But it’s also an ending to a trilogy that has been bittersweet and hopeful throughout, and it stays true to both.

It’s no secret I’m not a huge adult SFF reader, so I am undyingly grateful to you for your incredible enthusiasm for queer adult SFF and your championing it all over the place. Where do you find about new queer SFF, and how do you recommend readers stay on top of new books?

My secret is that I’m friends/acquaintances with a lot of awesome queer authors who know other awesome queer authors and are good about tipping me off to forthcoming books. Beyond that, I keep an eye out and read reviews (Tor.com is very good about explicitly saying when a book is queer, thank goodness) and then use lists other people have put together to try and fill in the gaps. Even with all that, I still miss some. I’m only one person and I’m only human, so it’s inevitable.

I would advise readers follow blogs and accounts that are dedicated to spreading the word about queer books – like LGBTQ Reads :), but also Reads Rainbow. A little bit more time intensive, but I’d also advise checking out publisher’s catalogues and reading the advance reviews on those books, since oftentimes reviewers will mention the representation they saw. You will start to notice those reviewers who are very good about spotting queer books in advance, as well as talking about the queer books they’ve noticed. Follow them.

Speaking of incredible enthusiasm for queer adult SFF…what are some of your all-time and recent favorites, and what are you most looking forward to in upcoming titles?

The Winter Duke by Claire Eliza Bartlett comes out March 3, 2020 and is basically lesbian Anastasia on ice. It’s fun and smart and thoughtful and deliciously queernorm and it tackles such lofty topics of power, corruption, dictatorships vs republics, and fetishizing the other in a way that never feels like browbeating. Plus, it’s Bartlett, so you’ve got that exquisite, vivid writing as well and the softest f/f relationship ever.

I also really loved The Monster of Elendhaven by Jennifer Giesbrecht and Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh, two novellas put out by Tor.com this summer, each delicious and well-written, each queer af. The former is gory and sharp, dark as all get out and just as sumptuous, while the latter is… not exactly a happy ending, but a lot softer, a gentle hug of a book with a fierceness at its heart.

In addition to your novels, you also write short fiction, which is wonderfully available on your website with Ao3 tags and all. What is it about short fiction and long-form novels that each speak to you, and what fandom is it that brought you to Ao3?

I have to first admit that I was only ever briefly on Ao3 – I cut my fandom teeth on fanfic.net way back in the day. Sailor Moon was initially what brought me in and taught me the ropes of writing a story that was season-length, aka novel-length, if by ropes you mean writing and rewriting and rewriting the same story but never actually finishing it. While I haven’t written fic for a long time now, I still love that particular art form (and yes, it is an art form) and if I ever have time again, look forward to swimming through comfort-fic.

But novels are where I started and novels are where I stayed. I’ve always naturally gravitated toward longer form, since it gives me more room to layer worldbuilding and play with characters. The pay-off of a particular moment that has been subtly – or not so subtly – foreshadowed for most of a book is one of my favorite things about writing, along with the way characters continue to surprise you, two things I find are much more difficult to do satisfactorily in short form.

Short form is also, in my opinion, a whole lot harder to write than novels. Which is probably why it took me so long to even dip my toe into that particular pool. In fact, I thought I was incapable of writing them up until this year, when I needed to work on something in between edits on The Unconquered City. I wasn’t ready to leave Ghadid, and I didn’t have the brain power to begin building a new and separate world, so I played with shorts. They helped me tie up loose ends and begin to move on from a story and world I’d been immersed in for the better part of five years, as well as realize that maybe, maybe, I could learn to do this short story thing after all.

People often think of SFF as an “escape from reality,” but in truth, it can be some of the best ground for exploring topics such as identity and bigotry (including the internalized kind), as you well know. What do you think it is about working outside the bounds of “reality” that makes such a great setting for discussing some of the hardest parts of our reality, especially in the current political climate?

It’s the ability to imagine a different reality, and in so doing come to realize it can be our reality. I write queernorm worlds – that is, worlds where homophobia isn’t a thing – because being able to imagine a place and time where we don’t have to worry about our identities, where it simply isn’t an issue and society works with us can help us believe that such a reality, or a form of that reality, is obtainable here. And that first step – believing it’s even possible – is how we obtain it.

It’s also, generally, easier for fantasy to take on such large ideas and truths because the reader is having a fun time and often doesn’t realize that their worldview is shifting along the way. A fantasy adventure makes it easier to internalize truths like treat others well, corporations are inherently selfish, and maybe people are just… people. Of course, the flip side of this is that fantasy can propagate harmful stereotypes and ideas just as easily.

If anything, while writing fantasy I’ve realized I have to be a lot more conscious of the ideas and truths floating just beneath the surface of my world and story, of what I’m saying if I make the antagonist a queer woman or the oppressive power structure a matriarchy. If I do make the antagonist a queer woman, then I’d better make sure there are other queer women in the story doing positive things. If I do make the oppressive power structure a matriarchy, then I’d better make it damn clear the oppression is because of humans being humans, not because of their gender.

Fantasy is the most powerful tool we have to imagine a better future, and thereby a better now.

Your kickstarter for the anthology Silk & Steel is seriously killing it! What was the process of putting that together like, and how can people help it come to fruition?

That is all Macey and Django’s doing! They are the architects behind the scenes, setting up the Kickstarter and organizing a literal cat-bag of writers. I just volunteered my services and yelling and the amazing writing community has boosted it from there.

As with all things queer and fiction-related, the best thing any single reader or excited patron can do is yell about it. Share it with your friends. Your coworkers. Your enemies. Being loud and obnoxious about the things you love is in, dontcha know.

What’s the first LGBTQIAP+ representation you recall encountering in the media, for better or for worse?

Does Xena count? Xena should absolutely count, although I don’t think I quite connected the dots until later. But her relationships were all pretty queer and even baby!Kai could read between those lines.

Once the series is over, what’s up next for you?

I have a few things in the works, and they’re all pretty queer, but nothing yet set in stone. I’ve got some potentially big life changes coming up, so no guarantee there will be anything soon, but whatever comes next will continue to be queernorm fantasy. 🙂

***

K.A. Doore grew up in Florida, but has since lived in lush Washington, arid Arizona, and cherry-infused Michigan. While recovering from climate whiplash, she’s raised chickens, learned entirely too much about property assessment, photographed cacti, and now develops online trainings while writing fantasy and wrangling a small child, none of which has anything to do with – or perhaps has everything to do with – her BA in Classics.

The Chronicles of Ghadid is her trilogy debut, beginning with The Perfect Assassin from Tor Books.

Better Know an Author

Better Know an Author: Rin Chupeco

November 8, 2019 Dahlia Adler Leave a comment

You’ve been seriously busy these past couple of years! But let’s focus on your newest release first: the fabulous The Never Tilting World, your YA fantasy that released on October 15 and has been billed as Frozen meets Mad Max: Fury Road. What drew you to this story, and were either of those movies in fact inspirations?

I love the aesthetics involved in Mad Max: Fury Road, and wanted to construct a world where those aesthetics would feel right at home. There’s a lot of sparseness to Fury Road that I wanted to emulate, and what strikes me is that the lack of any specific settings never detracted once from the story. In fact, the absence of any concrete locations is what helps propel the story – all Furiosa knows is that she must make it to the mythical Green Place, and is disheartened to find that it’s long gone. For the same reason, both Odessa and Haidee are trying to get to the Great Abyss, the center of Aeon where the worst of the destruction had happened, because they believe there’s something there that will help them figure out how to heal the world. Their hope is what pushes the story forward, too.

TNTW is a little different from Frozen in that, while it’s a story about two sisters, both Haidee and Odessa haven’t even met each other yet. Both begins their travels with an idealized idea of what their sister must have been like, what kind of a family they could have been, and it’s their motivation to try and make the world a better place, because its destruction is what tore them apart in the first place. And it’s a great way to highlight their similarities and their differences with each other before they even meet, so readers get an idea of what kind of relationship they could have as they barrel toward the story’s climax!

There are four characters who really take center stage in The Never Tilting World, including an f/f couple. What one character in the group would you trust to take you to the end of the world, and why?

Right off the bat, it’s not going to be Arjun. We are too similar in personality, which is why I know I can’t trust him for crap. His only advantage is that he’s got a better sense of direction than I do, but we are going to drive each other wild snarking on each other and ignoring all the warning signs and wind up getting eaten by a monster goldfish or something.

Odessa’s a bit too sheltered to understand how the world works at the book’s beginning, and Haidee will be too distracted by the possible automata she could be building en route, and also she will be absent-minded enough to bring helpful inventions to aid on the trip, but not enough food and water. So it’s definitely Lan I’m going to trust, because she’s a responsible leader who is also an excellent healer, scout, fighter, and tracker…. as long as we’re not making the journey on a ship.

You had another work out just before autumn hit, which happened to be in His Hideous Heart, an anthology I know a little bit about. “The Murders in the Rue Apartelle, Boracay” is such a cool and different take on one of Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous stories, and one you completely made your own, including setting it in the Philippines. Can you share some details about it that are especially meaningful to you?

Boracay was where I, four months pregnant with my first kid, was when Typhoon Haiyan hit. It was one of the first places in the Philippines where it made landfall, and considering that it was a super-typhoon – well, you can only imagine the destruction we saw, and the destruction we barely managed to avoid. Boracay had always been my safe place, in a way – it’s a gorgeous beach, I know how to avoid all the noisy party areas and where to go so it feels like you’ve got the whole place to yourself. That’s where my mind goes when I feel stressed and want to recharge. But that changed a lot after the typhoon, and I started to look at it as a place where bad things could and do happen, even though it’s still one of my most favorite places in the world. Edgar Allan Poe is a huge inspiration to me, and I thought it would be great then to marry a tribute to him with the one place that I know best. Most of the locations in the story are actual places in Boracay, down to the drinking challenges at the bars and the cafe where you can get calamansi cupcakes (although of course, I wish there were eldritches and fairy beer there, too!) One of the murders in my story though, was based on an actual murder of a trans girl by a US marine that made national news (and I can’t really say much else beyond this, because spoilers!).

But wait, there’s more! In just a few months, you have another queer YA fantasy coming, this one with a gay male MC. What can you tell us about Wicked as You Wish?

WICKED AS YOU WISH was seven years in the making, and it’s about a Filipina teen descended from the Filipino mythical heroine Maria Makiling, who winds up helping a young Avalon prince defend his kingdom against the Snow Queen. It’s my “what if fairy tales were real historical events” storyline that I’m really proud of.

My deuteragonist is Alexei Tsarevich, a prince with a HUGE chip on his shoulder, mostly because he’d witnessed his parents’ murder, had to flee his own kingdom when he was five years old, had to watch his kingdom freeze for twelve years, making it inaccessible to all and worrying about any survivors still inside, and had been bouncing from one hiding place to the next, because many governments are searching for him and the powerful spelltech patents his family own. (because yay, capitalism.) To make things worse, he also has a curse where everyone he kisses turns into a frog – excepting Tala, and he cries when he realizes there’s at least one person in the world he couldn’t hurt. He’s kind and loyal and supportive, but he also harbors a lot of survivor’s guilt, and also guilt for many other things he’d had to do to survive. He’d always believed his family’s most powerful weapon, the firebird, had been destroyed decades ago – so when it comes for him on his eighteenth birthday, he now has to deal with suddenly being given the power to change his destiny for the first time in twelve years. Sometimes he does that poorly, and often a little too aggressively to make up for the feelings of vulnerability that had been a constant to him over the years, but I think this is also why I like him very much. Like Lan and also like me, he deals very poorly with trauma, and I wanted to emphasize the different ways people process that, because those ways have happened to me.

One of the most interesting things about watching your career is seeing you thrive thousands of miles away from the so-called center of YA publishing. What’s it like building a career in American publishing from Southeast Asia, and what’s the bookish scene like in the Philippines?

The writing community in the Philippines is a lot similar to the one in the US, I think, albeit in a smaller scale. A big difference though, is that many writers prefer local publishing, which I find personally disheartening. There’s a lot of good stories here waiting for an international audience, but I also think colonial mentality plays a big part in the reluctance. We’re used to looking at the US as something infinitely grander, so we tend to think the works that we do pale in comparison to the works abroad, and that’s not the case at all. This was the mindset I had to unlearn because it’s very prevalent here, but that might also be because I had big dreams and wanted to write for a living, which would not have been possible with the local publishing industry. As odd as it sounds, my name is probably recognizable in the US pub field, but not in my own country. So many people have assumed I’m American simply because I published abroad, and most local panels I’ve done always inevitably wind up with people coming up to me and going “wait what, you’re Filipino?! You’re not visiting from the US, you actually live here?!” There’s a lot of other factors, too (my books are too expensive for many, I don’t look like a typical Filipino and my last name is more of a Chinese-Filipino hybrid, looking down on children / teen books – yes, this isn’t just an American thing – or looking down at books written in English and not in Tagalog) but what IS heartening is the number of writers here who do know me and started querying agents because they saw it was possible. That’s what I want to encourage more of!

What other books do you recommend for queer Southeast Asian rep? What would you still really love to see?

I can’t answer this question without talking about Gail Villanueva and My Fate According to the Butterfly, because I think it gives the best perspective on Filipino culture and issues, primarily the drug war here, and there are some relationships between Sab and important people in her life, including gay supporting characters, that breathe life into her work. America is Not the Heart by Elaine Castillo is about trying to define your own Filipino-American identity along with also being queer. For other Southeast Asian but not queer-centered, there’s also Hanna Alkaf and her gorgeous poem of a book, The Weight of Our Sky, and I can’t help but tear up just thinking about this. But speaking specifically for Philippine gay rep though – as I mentioned before, that’s the most frustrating part. There’s so many LGBTQ+ books here in the Philippines, many of which try to navigate being gay while at the same time still being Catholic – and often in humorous tones, because Filipinos find a lot of solace in humor – but they’re virtually unavailable to most people outside of the country. There’s Tagalog books written to make people laugh, like Happy Na, Gay Pa (“Not just Happy, But Also Gay”) by Danton Remoto, or something that explores the issue more seriously, like Don’t Tell My Mother by Brigitte Bautista, but as a whole it’s not something people outside of the Philippines can very easily find.

What’s your first recollection of LGBTQIAP+ representation in the media, for better or for worse?

I don’t think there’s been any one specific recollection that I remember, because I grew up with LGBTQ+ prevalent enough in local media. While that sounds like a good thing, considering that the Philippines is a very highly conservative country that doesn’t even have divorce laws yet, much less abortion rights or marriage rights for same-sex couples, it’s also very problematic. You’ll see a lot of gay celebrities and gay representation in TV series, but the mindset seems to be treating them for their entertainment value, not for them as people. You’ll also see problematic depictions of them (the one I remember most clearly as a kid was this movie called Barbie: Maid in the Philippines, which is a pun. A straight cis man pretends to be a female maid because he’s on the run, and gets into hijinxes. It’s like a weird combination of Some Like It Hot and Mrs. Doubtfire. They shot this movie across from my house, and I actually have old pics of toddler me being held by some of the actors, so I remember it well.) So it’s “you can give them rights in movies and other media, but you can’t make that official in law”, which has always been the strangest thing to me. I’ve seen some LGBTQ+ people enforce this opinion even, like “I shouldn’t be given rights because it’s against the Bible and so it can’t be officially legal – but as long as no one’s stopping me personally to be the way I am, it’s fine”. There’s a lot of Catholic guilt to unpack.

I know fandom and gaming are big parts of your life. What in particular are your great loves?

I feel like I’ve been in every major 90s and early 2000s fandom that’s ever been made, from Buffy to Harry Potter to Deadwood to even the really niche ones like Kindred the Embrace or Harvey Birdman. Star Trek is my first and biggest love, but I think the one with the really biggest impact to my life is probably anime, simply because so many people here were into it. Almost everyone in the Philippines with a working TV know what anime is, and we love it. (There was this popular variety program / gag show that has one frequent skit that satirizes televangelist Bible readings, and they used the Voltes V theme song as their ‘religious’ song to open, and it’s hilarious how so many people here can sing it from memory. Heck, we celebrate a Naruto Day.)

Anime was really the gateway drug that opened me up to gender fluidity. Ranma 1/2 in particular was very eye opening, but not necessarily the way I wanted it to be. This is about a martial artist who falls into a cursed spring, and now he turns into a girl when he gets hit with cold water, but turns back into a boy with hot water. The whole plot is about him trying to find a way to undo the curse, and I always wind up mentally screaming at him. Like – “You can TURN into a man or a woman! That’s a BLESSING! Why are you trying to get rid of this blessing?! I would kill for this power!” And that opened doors into understanding deeper definitions of fluidity beyond just the binary, for me. Anime really made me understand the gay parts of me I didn’t realize I had. I was defined by series like Gravitation (which was really gay boy porn for girls and it’s so embarrassing to remember how teen me was so hot for the main character, who was also an angsty brooding traumatized bisexual AUTHOR) and Revolutionary Girl Utena (lesbian swordfighting! personally, I believe Utena walked so that Gideon the Ninth could run). Video games really emphasized that too, particularly with my favorite category, mmorpgs / multiplayer rpg – I could subsume myself into the personality of a male berserker instead of being limited to say, a female healer. I was always the main (male) tank / defense for group runs with friends, for example, and that grew to be my trademark class.

As we stare into the abyss of 2020, what upcoming queer titles are you most excited for?

Is it too early to be super-excited for Harrow the Ninth??? Also, Reverie, The Gravity of Us, and Belle Revolte! I’m still only just starting on amazing 2019 titles as it is, including Crier’s War and Her Royal Highness, just because I’ve been so busy!

Rin Chupeco wrote obscure manuals for complicated computer programs, talked people out of their money at event shows, and did many other terrible things. She now writes about ghosts and fairy tales but is still sometimes mistaken for a revenant. She was born and raised in the Philippines and, or so the legend goes, still haunts that place to this very day. Find her at rinchupeco.com.

Better Know an Author

Better Know an Author: Candice Montgomery

October 24, 2019 Dahlia Adler 1 Comment

You may have already heard me hype Candice Montgomery a million times, but honestly, it’ll never be enough. Their voice in YA is like nothing else out there, and if you haven’t yet read their work, I hope this’ll convince you to dive in! (If not, just read the acknowledgements of By Any Means Necessary, which just released on October 8 and is basically a master class in voice all on its own.) Especially if you’ve been looking for more queer and/or nonbinary Black voices and/or Muslim voices, have I got some wonderful news for you. So please welcome the utterly fabulous Candice Montgomery!

New book! New book! It’s well documented that I’m obsessed with Torrey and By Any Means Necessary, but could you please share a little about your sophomore novel and how it came to be for those who didn’t get an early read?

HAAA! It is absolutely well documented that you run my literary (and personal) life better than I do.

So, By Any Means Necessary is a story about a newly minted college freshman. He’s hyped and ready to take on his new town up in San Francisco, and nervousness—though present!—takes a backseat. That is, until he gets news that the apiary he owns back home, by way of his late uncle, is being seized.

So he’s torn between taking on this new thing that’s only about Torrey himself (and also maybe a little about a certain dancer boy named Gabriel) and going home to a place that’s chewed him up raw, all to save his uncle’s legacy.

The idea for BAMN came to me when a friend and I were on the phone talking about gentrification and how it was affecting us directly, as individuals. And then, common to our conversational flow, we segued into talking about weird hobbies for main characters. She talked about her characters operating a vineyard and I suddenly had the idea for a character to run a bee farm where his struggle (getting stung constantly) and his desire to be free (flying away from the hive he knows) would mirror his hobby. In Torrey’s case, his passion.

Queerness (and specifically queer characters of color) also feature in your debut Home and Away, which has a kickass female football-playing protag and a wonderful male love interest who happens to be bi. What would you say draws Tasia and Kai together, and in your mind, where are they now?

I think Taze and Kai are opposite sides of the same very big coin. And that’s what works for them. Kai brings out Tasia’s looser side and she not only lets Kai just be who he is, but she actively enjoys it. It’s basically just two teens who don’t feel they fit in finding out that they actually DO. With each other.

In my mind, Taze and Kai are still very much together but also attending separate colleges about an hour from one another. Taze is playing ball for Cal and studying Pan African Studies and Kai is over at the San Francisco Art Institute taking the art world by storm. And making Taze laugh while he does it.

For readers looking for even more of your published work, you’ve got a fabulous story in Habibi, the all-Muslim anthology edited by Hadeel Al-Massari and Nyala Ali, starring a Muslim girl who’s managing both depression and her feelings for her best friend, a trans guy named Aaron. What made this the story you wanted to tell in this collection in particular?

Oof! Thank you! I love that story and that anthology so much. Don’t forget about that one by the way. It’s got big plans for the future.

But my story in Habibi is called “Love God Herself.” And it’s a story I wanted to tell because a muslimah (now) friend of mine tweeted on a trending about wanting to see hijabis who are questioning their faith, who are bucking back against traditional Islamic partnerships, who are depressed and not instantly healed, all—MASHALLAH!!!

I reached out to her. Asked her if she’d write it. And then she turned around and asked ME if I would.

And speaking of anthologies, we’ll get even more Cam goodness in 2020 when you feature in the upcoming all-queer anthology Out Now: Queer We Go Again!, the contemporary followup to All Out, once again edited by Saundra Mitchell. What can you tell us about your story for that collection?

My story for Out Now was honestly one of the most difficult things I’ve ever written. I’m so in love with it. I struggled for months with it and then one night it all just poured out of me, start to finish. I didn’t even read it through before I sent it off to Saundra; I was already so past deadline. Twice. And from there, I didn’t get asked to make any structural changes to the story, either. Just a few grammatical things. It’s a raw story and probably the best thing I’ll ever write. It’s about a skateboarding enby who has a crush on a girl whom they think will NEVER notice them. Maybe she will, maybe she won’t. But the main character will take you all the way through it.

Cam Anthology Goodness of 2020 Part II has you breaking into MG in Once Upon an Eid! What was it like to write for a younger audience, and is it something you could see yourself doing in longer form?

First—CAM ANTHOLOGY GOODNESS OF 2020! YESSSS. ONCE has been such a fun process. It was just happy-making anytime I worked on it. This was my first time writing ANYTHING MG. And immediately after my story was submitted, I started drafting an MG novel of my own. It’s on hold for a moment, but I’m 12K words deep and still sooo excited about it.

You’re such a great advocate for more midlist authors and especially for other queer/trans Black authors, and QTAoC in general. What books and authors would you love to see get more attention, and what queer books have meant a lot to you as a both an author and a reader?

Oooh! I love this question. There are a few key QTAoC that I’d undoubtedly return to religiously, one of whom being Rivers Solomon (they), author of An Unkindness of Ghosts. It is the queer Afro-futurist fic of my marshmallow heart. And I wish I’d written it myself. Also entirely jealous of this human’s 12-ton talent: Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi (they). I should say that these are some pretty heavy novels, though. But I think anybody who reads them will be made better for them. My heart needed ’em.

And if we’re talking books that formed me as both an author and a reader—it’s not fiction, it’s a memoir. But my favorite book in the world, the reason I was able to tell my family I’m queer, the path through which I found my label as a Pansexual person—it’s Paul Monette’s Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir. Yes, it’s a memoir. Yes, it’s horrifically heartbreaking. Yes, it ends in a way that will ruin your entire week (lololo). But also… it’s romantic in ways I’ve never seen expressed on the page before.

What’s your first memory of LGBTQIAP+ representation in the media, for better or for worse?

Glee. It was, unfortunately, when Glee introduced Kurt and… the kid with the chin and the hair? Blaine? My mom and my little sister and I would watch it together every week and I remember sitting in strained, awkward silence with them, while such an explicit and open GAY display moved across the television. We never talked about it. I just wanted it to be over, not for my discomfort, but for theirs. My mom and sister’s. I wanted to tone down my relationship to queerness in order to make others more comfortable.

And as far as I knew, out of the 3 of us, I was the only one who connected to it. (spoiler: my little sister is out and openly panromantic polyamorous).

As someone contributing to a couple of great collections next year, what would be a dream project for you specifically to helm?

I absolutely have an answer to this… but that’s all I can say for now. Stay tuned! 😉

What can you share about what you’re working on right now?

Right now, I’m pulling my own teeth out trying to draft a new YA romance about two Black teens who explore their ancestry through Hoodoo and Voodoo. It’s difficult. And it’s unlike anything I’ve written before.

***

Candice “Cam” Montgomery is an LA transplant now living in the woods of Seattle, where they write Young Adult novels. Their debut novel, featured on the 2018 Kirkus Best list, HOME AND AWAY can be found online and in stores now, and their sophomore novel, BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY was released earlier this October. By day, Cam writes about Black teens across all their intersections. By night, they bartend at a tiny place nestled inside one of Washington’s greenest trees. They’re an avid Studio Ghibli fan and will make you watch at least one episode of Sailor Moon and listen to one Beyoncé record before they’ll call you “friend.”

Better Know an Author

Better Know an Author: Katherine Locke

September 4, 2019 Dahlia Adler Leave a comment

I am so thrilled to have Katherine Locke on the site today, not only as one of my best friends and not only as one of my favorite authors, but as one of the editors of It’s a Whole Spiel, an anthology in which I happen to be a contributor and which releases on the 17th from Knopf! Here’s where I’ll mention that you can see us both at Books of Wonder in NYC on September 17th and Children’s Book World in Haverford on September 19th! And now, on to get to better know Katherine Locke! (Which, by the way, you can also do as a Patron at the $10+ level, as they’ve also done an interview there!)

Happy It’s a Whole Spiel month!

Thank you!! I’m so excited it’s finally here 😀

Of course, I have a little more insight into this one than usual being that I’m a contributor to this all-#ownvoices Jewish anthology you coedited with Laura Silverman, but for those a little less in the know, can you share a little bit about the process of editing it, and about the queer stories in it?

Yes! Spiel is Laura Silverman’s brain child. She called me in February 2017 and wanted me to co-edit this anthology with her. I was fresh off finishing my story for Unbroken (edited by Marieke Nijkamp) which had been a tough story for me to write (personally, but also from a craft perspective, I hadn’t written short stories since college and hadn’t read much either, to be honest.) But I said yes right away. We worked really collaboratively on putting together the author list, the proposal, and then the editing of the anthology.

It’s been a really interesting experience. There are four explicitly queer stories in it, all by out queer authors–Alex London wrote about a gay boy at summer camp who falls in love with a fellow camp counselor, while also trying to make sense of a crisis aboard the space station, one of his favorite nerdy topics. David Levithan wrote a really moving story about a Jewish boy’s coming of age, falling in love, and how that weaves through being Jewish too. It has lines that brought tears to my eyes and lines that made me sigh. It’s lovely. Hannah Moskowitz’s short story is about a Jewish girl who is dating a more observant Jewish girl, and grappling with her eating disorder on Yom Kippur. Hannah writes with this beautiful sparse language that really guts you, and this story really showcases that. I love that it’s the story of two girls dating and religious observance all tangled up together (with a good serving of self-acceptance and taking the first steps toward recovery mindset as well.) And my story is also queer!

Your own story has some A+ queer content, including a non-binary sibling who undergoes a religious coming-of-age ceremony. It’s a great example of how queerness and religion intersect, and I’d love for you to talk a little about that!

Yes! Davey, the younger sibling to my narrator Gabe, is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns. I used B’nai Mitzvah for the name of their coming of age ceremony (for non-Jewish readers, Bar and Bat Mitzvah are gendered (as is Hebrew) after consulting with a rabbi and parents of nonbinary kids. I really loved writing Davey and writing Gabe’s interactions with Davey. Gabe’s fiercely protective of his sibling (a theme that comes up a LOT in my work). Gabe identifies as cishet, but there’s another character, Yael, who is the moderator of the fandom website Gabe haunts, who is also nonbinary and uses they/them but online only. That’s all I can say without spoilers!

Of course, this isn’t your first queer work (or even your first Jewish queer work); your most recently published novel, The Spy With the Red Balloon, is a dual-POV set during WWII and told from the perspectives of two Jewish siblings, one of whom is a bi girl and one of whom is a demi boy in a relationship with another boy. How do you go about writing historical with identities that didn’t have the terminology we have now, and in what ways does their queerness impact the story you’ve told?

I struggle a lot with terminology in historical fiction. A lot of it, including phrases which marginalized people used to self-identify, would be considered slurs and harmful now. And sometimes, people just didn’t have the language we have now. I try to describe how they feel instead, being as precise as possible. I was more vague with Wolf (my demisexual MC in Spy) at first and my editor asked me to be MORE explicit. I balked at first, mostly because I think it’s hard to describe demisexuality on the page (I am demisexual and I wrote Wolf’s ID largely from my experience). But I’m glad I did because that’s been something readers really connected with. But Wolf uses the word ‘queer’ because that’s the word that came up frequently in my research that I could be comfortable with, versus other words I wasn’t comfortable putting on the page. Ilse doesn’t have the word “bisexual” but says she likes some girls the way she likes some boys.

Spy was the first time I’d written queer main characters. I really loved writing those queer relationships that felt bold and brave and hopeful in that book because a lot of that book is grim and dark. When I think about the book, I think about those quiet, gentle moments between those characters–Ilse and Polly’s first kiss, Wolf asking Max if he volunteered to be a pilot because Wolf was on the mission, Ilse teasing Wolf and Max, the last scene that I can’t talk about because spoilers. Those relationships got me through the dark parts of writing the book. And they were often the first scenes to come to me. Writing SPY was a really hard process and I wrote it in a pretty chaotic fashion. But Ilse and Polly’s first kiss has been there from the first draft, written exactly as it is now. Those are the lights in the dark. (Tl;dr: writing the queer relationships in SPY gave me the same joy writing fanfic does.)

Like our most recently featured author, you’ve got a short story in the upcoming Out Now, edited by Saundra Mitchell. What can you tell us about it?

Ahhh! I can tell you…that technically it lives in the same universe as my short story in It’s A Whole Spiel! There’s an overlapping coffee shop, because queer coffee shop AUs are the best? The Out Now story is called ‘Seditious Teapots’ because the main character, Rory, collects teapots. They don’t drink tea. They just like teapots. (Their mom does not get it.)

I’m not sure everyone realizes this, but back when YA Pride had a book club, you were its spectacular moderator! Any advice for someone seeking to do a queer book club, and any recommendations that sparked particularly interesting conversation?

Yes! I did that for many years, actually. I would use this lovely website, LGBTQReads as a great resource, if I was running a book club now. And I would talk and communicate with the group members! Some people really don’t want to read any stories in which queer characters come up against tragedy or hate, and that’s totally fair! Some people aren’t into coming out stories. That’s also okay. It’s good to know what your group’s hard limits are. Book recommendations: all of Ashley Herring Blake‘s books sparked great conversation, as did A Line In The Dark by Malinda Lo. I think that one makes a particularly good book club book because it gets that true crime x lgbtqreads crossover. Plus that cover literally sends shivers down my spine.

Your books require a lot of research, and your writing schedule requires a lot of discipline. What are your favorite resources for looking up historical details, and your favorite resources and tricks for staying on track?

I wish I had all the discipline my writing schedule requires! I do a lot of reading for my books. I think the book I’m researching now is going to end up being about 22 books in total. And then there’s the movies, tv shows, articles online, and interviews. I borrow books from the library when I think I can read it, get the general gist and won’t need to touch it again. I buy them when I think I’ll need to reference them again and again. I have a pretty good memory so for the most part, I highlight and bookmark. I only write down the timeline of the events because I do not have the brain for dates/years/times/etc (a problem for my previous two YA novels which were time travel books…)

I have a rule that I read 3 sources before I begin, and the rest I read as I go along. Otherwise, I’ll drown in the research and never surface to write the book. So I usually try to read an overview of the time or event, a personal memoir or biography, and then something broader about that time period in the world OR the time period right before the time period I’m writing about (history builds on what came before it. You can’t write historical fiction and only read about that ONE time period.)

I flag things in manuscripts as I first-draft so that I don’t slow myself down. Part of my problem is my brain gets distracted very easily (ADHD, and also, our brains are being rewired by our technology to have shortened attention spans). So if I open up a tab to look up a street name, I’ll end up with ten tabs open, buying a rug, researching swimsuits, and in a twitter argument. It’s best if I just put [STREET NAME] in my document, and fill it in later in revisions. Everything can be fixed in revisions. EVERYTHING.

What’s the first LGBTQIAP+ representation you recall in media, for better or for worse?

I think Jack? From Will & Grace. I can’t think of one earlier. I certainly didn’t read one in books until college, I think. Or one that I recognized. I suppose in retrospect there’s a lot of queer coding that I did not catch.

Naturally, you’re one of my favorite people to talk upcoming books with, so I have to ask: what are you really excited about this fall and in 2020?

OKAY. I’m excited for everyone to read The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern (which has a gay protagonist!) because it is simply stupendous. I’m also excited to read Gideon The Ninth which I’ve heard great things about. I have not read, but am absolutely dying to read, King and the Dragonflies by Kacen Callender. Kace is one of my favorite kidlit writers (they also have an adult novel called Queen of the Conquered coming out this fall I think that I want to dive into!) and King looks lush and magical and heartfelt. I am also DYING-ACTUALLY DYING to get my hands on Julian Winters’ next book How To Be Remy Cameron! I loved his debut, Running With Lions, so much and I just want to shove his books into everyone’s hands. And I’m excited to read By Any Means Necessary because bees! (BEES!) Also: Crier’s War. That’s on my list. (I’m just scrolling through pre-orders right now.) Jackpot by Nic Stone because the voice in Dear Martin blew me away and I just want to get sucked in like that again. OH and The Bone Houses by Emily Lloyd Jones because I try to read one creepy book each year even though I don’t do creepy well, and this is my pick this year. But I’m in it to win it because I’ve been promised an undead goat. [Blogger’s Note for readers: Those last three are not queer books, AFAIK, though both authors do have other queer work! I forgot to specify the queer part in my question.]

Also I hear there’s a really amazing Edgar Allen Poe anthology that’s coming out? His Hideous Heart! That’s the one. So I guess I’m going to get creeped out TWICE this fall. *shivers* *buys more blankets and hot chocolate to make up for it*

What’s up next for you?

*nervous laugh* UHHHHH. It’s A Whole Spiel is out on September 17th, and Out Now is out in May 2020. I am breaking out in my picture book debut in spring 2021 (!!!). And right now, I’m hard at work on another novel! It’s adult, historical fantasy (similar vein as the Balloonmakers books but with a weirder magic system), and I love it very, very much. It’s so weird. It’s so historical. That’s my favorite.

***

Katherine Locke lives and writes in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with their feline overlords and their addiction to chai lattes. They are the author of The Girl with the Red Balloon, a 2018 Sydney Taylor Honor Book and 2018 Carolyn W. Field Honor Book, as well as The Spy with the Red Balloon. They are the co-editor and contributor to It’s A Whole Spiel: Love, Latkes and Other Jewish Stories, and a contributor to Unbroken: 13 Stories Starring Disabled Teens. They not-so-secretly believe most stories are fairytales in disguise. They can be found online at KatherineLockeBooks.com and @bibliogato on Twitter and Instagram.

Better Know an Author

Better Know an Author: Julian Winters

August 7, 2019 Dahlia Adler Leave a comment

I’m so thrilled to have Julian Winters back on the site today, this time as the guest of honor! You almost definitely already know him, given he’s become quite the darling of YA even before debuting with Running With Lions last year, thanks to his boundless enthusiasm for books and support for their authors, but now you can get to know him even better as we await the release of his sophomore novel on September 10, 2019, from Interlude Press! Come say hey to Julian Winters!

Congrats on the upcoming release of How to Be Remy Cameron! Please tell readers a little about it?

Thank you! How to Be Remy Cameron is coming of age story about an out-and-proud seventeen year-old-boy named Remy Cameron who’s always been comfortable with who he is. He’s president of his high school’s Gay-Straight Alliance, has a very supportive family, and a diverse group of friends. When he’s assigned an essay in AP Literature about “Who Are You?” that will decide whether he makes it into his dream college, Remy’s forced to examine the labels associated with him and whether he truly knows who he is.

If you were sticking three post-it notes onto the cover to share your experience of writing it or your feelings on having it out in the world, what would they say?

“Be Yourself.” “Queer AF.” “Overjoyed.”

You, of course, debuted with Running With Lions, which is such a delightful mix of sports, romance, bi rep, and friendship, but is also pretty rare in being a male-authored queer YA rom-com. What was your path to publication like, and what’s response to the book been like? And, maybe more importantly, what’s your favorite soccer team?

My path to publication didn’t follow the traditional route. At the time I was writing Running With Lions, there weren’t many queer male authors being published in YA. I had one goal for Lions: to reach at least five queer teens who needed to know that they could be anything in life. But I didn’t see that kind of story being pushed in the major publishing houses—so I researched independent publishers and found Interlude Press. Independent presses provide the leverage needed to tell the story of your heart with all the support found in major publishing houses.

The responses to Lions have been overwhelming. From the bisexual teens who needed to see themselves on page more to the queer Muslim community who needed a character like Emir, it’s been incredible. It’s also been amazing to have so many athletes who didn’t have a queer YA sports book get so excited for this book. To know I’ve been able to give so many people a reason to smile, cry, or know they can accomplish things has blown me away.

As far as favorite soccer team, I’m a hardcore UCLA fan.

You’re also something of a pioneer in being a queer Black male author in YA, which we’ve discussed on the site before is one of the least heard voices in the category. In the time following this post, of course, there’s certainly been an increase (two of the contributors to this discussion have since landed book deals, as has Jay Coles, and I hope/imagine there are more I’m missing), but clearly there’s still a long way to go. Why do you think it’s still such rare representation, and what are some stories you’d still really like to see?

Oh, I remember reading that article and feeling so inspired! For once, I didn’t feel alone. It meant the world to me.

I’ve always wonder why there aren’t more queer Black male voices in publishing. Part of it is our intersectionality. We’re just beginning to get more Black voices in general out there. We’re still fighting to get more queer voices telling our stories out there. It’s almost an either/or situation where the intersectionality is erased in favor of one or the other. But there are so many talented queer Black male voices that need to be heard. We have so many stories to tell. I’m excited for Ryan Douglass and Kosoko Jackson to debut. I’m ready for more Jay Coles. I want us to have fantasy novels starring queer people of color. We need mysteries, horror, queer Black boys in space, romcoms. I’m ready for more Black male voices, period.

Speaking of stories! You’re a contributor to All Out Now, the upcoming all-queer YA anthology edited by Saundra Mitchell. What can you share about your contribution?

I’m so excited to be apart of All Out Now! My short story is one I rarely see but needed—a positive father/son coming out moment. It’s very special to me because it’s a Black father/son moment, which we rarely see because of the stigma within the Black community surrounding queerness. I won’t spoil everything but it’s a little bit romcom and a lot of heart.

What’s the first LGBTQIAP+ representation you remember seeing in media, for better or for worse

The character Hollywood in Mannequin. It’s kind of funny but also sad that I share this with Shaun David Hutchinson, who wrote about Hollywood in his YA memoir, Brave Face. In the ’80s, queer characters were painted two ways: either as a joke or as a tragic character. We weren’t taken seriously, we didn’t get happy endings, we fell in love with the wrong people, we died. I didn’t recognize that growing up because I was surrounded by a community that didn’t welcome LGBTQIA+ people. I was embarrassed by Hollywood, especially as a Black male terrified to come out. But he’s one of the reasons I write the stories I do. Because we deserve better.

You’re really getting into publishing as queer YA is wildly on the rise. What have been some recent favorites for you, and what are you so excited for coming up?

I have so many favorites, so this list isn’t complete but: Hot Dog Girl by Jennifer Dugan, Darius the Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram, The Disasters by M.K. England, Death Prefers Blondes by Caleb Roehrig, Brave Face by Shaun David Hutchinson, How (Not) to Ask a Boy to Prom by S.J. Goslee, The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali by Sabina Khan, I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver, Keep This To Yourself by Tom Ryan, Like a Love Story by Abdi Nazemian. And so many more!

I’m super excited for Full Disclosure by Camryn Garrett, By Any Means Necessary by Candice Amanda, Surrender Your Sons by Adam Sass, Reverie by Ryan La Sala, Monster of the Week by F.T. Lukens, Ruinsong by Julia Ember, Red Skies Falling by Alex London, The Gravity of Us by Phil Stamper, Infinity Son by Adam Silvera, The Henna Wars by Adiba Jaigirdar, Until You Come Back by Jay Coles, Yesterday Is History by Kosoko Jackson, Crier’s War by Nina Varela, Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas, We Are Totally Normal by Rahul Kanakia, Jake In a Box by Ryan Douglass… should I keep going?

It’s hard to miss, if you know any queer YA authors and go to their events, that you’ve certainly become a favorite human among them. What do you think makes for a great queer YA author community member/literary citizen?

Listen, be supportive, be kind, and hold the door open once you get in. I cannot stress the last one enough. As a queer author, our numbers are limited. It’s even smaller for queer POC. We must get past this mindset of only holding the door open for our inner circle/friends. This world is not built on the voices of select people. The publishing industry is not an Olive Garden on Mother’s Day. There are plenty of tables and seats for everyone! We can’t think that if we let someone else in, our spot will be taken from us. We can’t reserve seats for our friends. Every reader needs a book they can pick up and feel valid, understood, loved. They can’t find it in only one group of authors’ books. They need a variety. We must be willing to help each other so we can help them.

After Remy Cameron and All Out Now, what’s up next for you?

A nap! I have a short story in the Up All Night anthology, edited by Laura Silverman. There’s an unannounced project coming from Interlude Press. I just finished something that I’m really excited about but, of course, I can’t talk about it. I will say this: comic geeks, gamers, Pride, convention shenanigans, and Queer AF!

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Julian Winters is the best-selling author of contemporary young adult fiction. His debut, Running With Lions (Duet, 2018), won accolades for its positive depictions of diverse, relatable characters. A former management trainer, Julian currently lives outside of Atlanta where he can be found reading, being a self-proclaimed comic book geek, or watching the only two sports he can follow—volleyball and soccer. How to Be Remy Cameron is his second novel.

Queering up your shelf, one rec at a time!