Welcome to Fresh Voices! In this new series, we are excited to share with you authors whose books capture a unique aspect of the human experience. Enjoy  a special Q&A with Elise Gravel and Mykaell Blais about their picture book, PINK, BLUE, AND YOU!

The Fresh Voices series is brought to you in coordination with the RHCB DEI Book Club Committee.

 What inspired you to write PINK, BLUE AND YOU?
Elise: I heard an artist on the radio say that school resources on gender and sexual diversity are extremely scarce and that her child’s first day in kindergarten was already stereotyped. The kids had to draw their mom and dad, and kids who had different family models felt excluded. I decided to help by writing this book.

Mykaell: I leave this one to Elise 😉

What was the most difficult part about writing/illustrating PINK, BLUE AND YOU? What part was the easiest?
Elise: The most difficult part for me was to realize that, as a cis straight woman, I had a very biased and restricted experience on gender, so I couldn’t do this alone. I’m very grateful that Mykaell came to the rescue! The easiest part was the illustration, which is always fun.

Mykaell: The hardest part was finding simple words and phrases to explain some complex concepts like what gender is and how it impacts social expectations. The easiest part was working with Elise, and how open Elise was to my feedback. I feel privileged to have been able to contribute to this book.

What character or element of the story do you identify with the most and why?
Elise: All of them! As a child, I didn’t feel like the stereotypes applied to me, and I wish I had friends who felt free to express who they were.

Mykaell: I identify with the child with short hair who says they don’t like sports! During my transition, I had to deconstruct a lot of stereotypes that I learned when I was younger such as boys love sports, they are strong and they never cry. I had to learn what stereotypes were and who I am. So even though I’m a boy, I don’t like sports and I cry and that’s fine.

 What do you want kids today to take away from this story?
Elise: That they can be whoever they want to be and respect the way people around them want to be as well.

Mykaell: I would like children to remember that some people can be different from our beliefs on how they should be and that they do not deserve discrimination, but respect. Everyone is unique, beautiful and deserves the same rights.

What are you currently reading?
Elise: A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet

Mykaell: A Quick and Easy Guide to Queer and Trans Identities by Mady G. and J. R. Zuckerberg

Welcome to Fresh Voices! In this new series, we are excited to share with you authors whose books capture a unique aspect of the human experience. Enjoy  a special Q&A with Marya Cuevas and Marie Marquardtabout their novel Does My Body Offend you? 

The Fresh Voices series is brought to you in coordination with the RHCB DEI Book Club Committee.

What inspired you to write DOES MY BODY OFFEND YOU? 

We met at the Georgia Romance Writers’ Moonlight and Magnolias conference in 2012 and instantly connected. We became critique partners and for years exchanged our writing every week and gave each other feedback and encouragement. In 2018, we decided to collaborate on a coauthored young adult novel. While brainstorming ideas, we came across multiple stories of teens fighting against their schools’ oppressive dress codes. These are dress codes that not only hinder the education of girls, but perpetuate sexism, victimization, rape culture, and racism. We recognized a story needing to be told.

As we drafted the story, we were very aware that many young adult novels tackling feminist themes had been written through a white gaze. We decided to write a dress-code protest story from two points of view, so that we could explore themes of feminism, allyship, and intersectionality in a very nuanced and authentic way. And because of our friendship, we were able to bring in the compassion and connection across differences that is sometimes missing in social justice narratives.

What was the most difficult part about writing the book? What part was the easiest?

The two main characters in our story, Ruby and Malena, have some incredibly hard conversations about race, power, and privilege. We wanted to be sure that these felt real and honest—that they were coming from a place of frustration and anger, yes, but also of love and mutual respect. We workshopped them again and again, sitting face-to-face with each other, speaking them aloud, to be sure that we got the tone and message right. All we can say is this: we did our very best!

The easiest parts to write were the scenes with Ruby and Malena surrounded by family, in their kitchens, sharing meals, laughing, crying and—of course—sometimes bickering. We both love food—cooking, eating, and writing about it! So, scenes involving big meals are always fun for us to create. We also have a great time writing complex families that somehow manage simultaneously to be loving, supportive, and utterly infuriating.

What character or element of the story do you identify with the most and why?

Malena comes from a modest Puerto Rican family with very traditional values. Ruby comes from white privilege and a liberal upbringing. When writing these characters, we both pulled from lived experiences, our own upbringing and worldview. We set out to build complicated characters that grow, adapt, and change in ways that felt authentic and relevant.

MAYRA: I grew up in a rural town in Puerto Rico to the same family-first values that anchor Malena. My awakening to topics like activism, feminism, and social justice came slowly and through many years of research. Like Malena, I still feel like I have so much to learn. I try my best to remain open because most of the time, I have more questions than answers.

MARIE: I grew up in northeast Florida, near the fictional high school where our story is set. Like Ruby, I was immersed in justice activism from a young age, but I sometimes struggled to grasp my own role and responsibilities. Also like Ruby, I was the youngest daughter in my family, and I idolized my older sisters. I definitely drew from my own experiences as I mapped Ruby’s journey to independence.

If you could put any character from another book into this story, who would it be and why?

Starr Carter from The Hate U Give because Malena and Ruby need some serious help navigating the social justice space.

What do you want kids today to take away from this story?

One of the things that our books encourage young people to do is to think broadly about the ways we collaborate: when is it time to step back and listen, and when is it time to step forward and take action? When we take action too quickly, we often overlook the most important voices. If you are a leader, build coalitions. Learn to listen with compassion, and always work alongside others to open space for marginalized voices to be amplified.

We are all living in different spaces and we experience the same events in very different ways, depending on the color of our skin, social class, sexual preference, education, even our citizenship status. We need to realize how the choices we make are shaped and constrained by the unequal conditions in which we live, and we should find ways to challenge that status quo that encourage dialogue, collaboration, and building friendship—even across very real differences.

There are so many ways to promote change. We hope Malena and Ruby’s story will inspire readers to advocate for change in ways that are safe and accessible, and that feel authentic. We hope this story will encourage building communities of support. When we have these, we can push boundaries and step outside comfort zones, while also feeling secure and affirmed.

What are you currently reading? 

MAYRA:

I read like 5 books at a time! So here it goes:

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

Cemetery Boys by Aidan Thomas

I Owe You One by Sophie Kinsella

Heart Principle by Helen Hoang

MARIE:

I only read one book at a time. I’ve just finished TJ Klune’s delightful The House in the Cerulean Sea. I’m currently re-reading Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz for the fifth or sixth time, while I wait for the next haul to come in from my local bookstore.

Welcome to Fresh Voices! In this new series, we are excited to share with you authors whose books capture a unique aspect of the human experience. Enjoy  a special Q&A with Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich about her novel Operation Sisterhood!

What inspired you to write OPERATION SISTERHOOD?

I was inspired both by childhood pretend play with my sister and friends, including many (many) “shows” that our moms suffered through, my “national cooking show,” and my longtime request that my parents “adopt” two more sisters for my sister and me, one each of our respective ages. I was also inspired by the family stories I read and loved by Noel Streatfeild, Elizabeth Enright, Madeleine L’Engle, Sydney Taylor, and more. But I had to work hard to write myself and other Black and Brown people into those stories. I knew from the real world that we existed, but we were too often invisible on the pages of joyful family tales.

In Operation Sisterhood, the family “freeschools” because the parents want to raise the girls to be “free within themselves,” to paraphrase Langston Hughes—to love who they are, know they are loved as they are, and be fully who they can be. I went to many different types of schools, public and private, in different countries. My family, and many of the other Black families we knew, believed in a kind of schooling outside of the school building, the kind that meant doing interpretive dances to “Young, Gifted, and Black” at annual Martin Luther King Jr. breakfasts, reciting the poems of Claude McKay at Thanksgiving, and memorizing the countries of the African continent with a puzzle. I learned about Black history and culture in many ways, through a variety of subjects and in everyday life, and my family made sure that it was grounded in an understanding that all Black children are capable, curious learners with a rich heritage to draw from.

I had the opportunity to live in a variety of cities, and my mom would always take us on “adventures,” wherever we were. And whenever we lived in New York, there was so much to enjoy – for free! I went on my own adventures as I got older, visiting some of the literary “landmarks” that I’d read about, trying the foods that my favourite characters ate. And as a mom raising a NYC kid, I’ve shared many of these joys with my own daughter (sometimes to her chagrin), including the National Cooking Show and cultivating an appreciate for this vibrant, community-minded, and incredible city.

I wasn’t allowed much television, so started writing my own versions of those family stories, influenced by my own life, very early on. Oh – and my sister and I, along with another pair of sisters, did form a band called GLOSS. But we never got past designing our very cool logo.

What was the most difficult part about writing the book? What part was the easiest?

I was working on this version of Operation Sisterhood during the horror of the previous Presidential administration, heightened racist violence, and a global pandemic. It was very difficult to write a joyful story when I was, to be quite honest, grieving deeply. In order to finish, I focused very much on what I wanted to give young readers who were also experiencing all of those things, particularly Black girls. I wanted to tell them that I saw them, that they are loved, and that they and their stories are precious, just as they are.

The characters were so much fun. It’s one of my favourite parts of the writing process (along with revision), creating characters. They tend to be very vivid early on, and I walk with them, live with them, have internal conversations with them for a long time before I even start writing. And I felt a freedom with this story and these characters, because from the very first conversation that I had with Phoebe Yeh about the story, I could see that she “got” it in a deep sense; she understood what I wanted to do, and what was important for the story and for serving readers in the very best way.

What character or element of the story do you identify with the most and why?

Bo is figuring out when to take risks, and to be flexible, and when to assert herself and set clear boundaries. I’m navigating that on a daily basis.

If you could put any character from another book into this story, who would it be and why?

Ryan Hart from Ways to Make Sunshine and Ways to Grow Love by Renée Watson, and Delphine from Rita Williams-Garcia’s Gaither Girls trilogy (so there’d be some time travel involved.) I think they’d all have a lot of fun being creative together. And they’d definitely put on a show.

What do you want kids today to take away from this story?

I hope each reader gets whatever they need from this story, and I believe that that’s something that can change over time too, and that’s a beautiful thing. Reading is so very much about relationship – with story, with ourselves, with the world…I’m a big re-reader, and my favourite books have always fulfilled different emotional and/or intellectual needs at different moments in life. I often read to figure things out about myself, and in my life; to understand some of the questions that I had about our world, to find answers, to ask more questions. I hope that readers can feel its warmth, love, and respect for them and their worlds, and sense (and maybe share) my love for New York City. And also for cake.

What are you currently reading?

I’m reading A Wish in the Dark by Christina Soontornvat, The Warden by Anthony Trollope, Micaela Coel’s Misfits, and Black Futures, edited by Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham. And I’ve got a re-read of Parable of the Sower on deck!

Welcome to Fresh Voices! In this new series, we are excited to share with you authors whose books capture a unique aspect of the human experience. Enjoy this Q&A with Katherine Locke and Nicole Melleby about their anthology, This Is Our Rainbow!

Nicole and Katherine: Dahlia Adler, another queer author who runs LGBTQreads.com and has put together a bunch of anthologies herself, had tweeted something like, someone should be putting a queer MG anthology together if they’re not already. Nicole said, I would love to, but I am absolutely not equipped to do this, I have no idea how. And that was when Dahlia said, look, Katherine Locke has done it before, and they’re great, so I’m going to pair you two up. We talked and realized that we had similar visions for the project, so we decided to go for it. 

Choosing the contributors was really a matter of, okay, how many voices can we include in this anthology? How many different identities could we have stories for? And we started making lists of the authors who always pop into my head when I think about queer kid lit. At the end of the day, it was more about wanting to appeal to as many different types of readers as possible, in addition to reaching as much representation as possible, than it was just reaching out to our friends or anything like that.

Nicole: My answer for both “most difficult” and “easiest” is actually the same exact answer: Keeping it short! This was my first time writing a short story for a project. On the one hand, it was so nice to be able to really hone in and focus on a really simple emotional thread and run with it. On the other hand, I wanted to make sure I was able to do the character and story justice, just as much as I did having only around 5,000 words as I do when I have 50,000 words to play with. I was also able to take my pitch of “What if the song Stacy’s Mom was about a queer girl?” and use it. It’s a little too simplistic for a full length novel, but was perfect for this, so I was excited to finally have the chance to use it.

Katherine: This was my first time writing something fully secondary world fantasy for publication, I think, and so stuffing enough world building into a limited amount of words was a challenge! But I think the easiest part was the representation. Writing Jupiter, my little pirate protagonist, as nonbinary felt so right that I’ve never questioned or wondered about writing them in any other way. I loved writing a world where their identity isn’t questioned or a problem, where their gender identity is accepted by their family, where their sister is queer and married and normalized. Pirates already buck the system in so many ways, it was fun to think about them bucking the cisheteronormativity that might exist on land.

Nicole: I’m going to cheat and name two stories: “The Makeover” by Shing Yin Khor, because I constantly struggle with how I want to dress and present myself. Being quarantined during the pandemic actually helped me let go of some hang ups I had about appearances and start allowing myself to dress and look how I actually wanted. Having a group of friends to help support you finding your own personal style, whatever that may be, is such a wonderful concept.

The other story is “Menudo Fan Club” by Aida Salazar. I cannot even tell you how many times growing up—and into adult hood—I made up a male celebrity crush on the spot just so that things wouldn’t get awkward and I wouldn’t have to try and explain why I didn’t actually like any of the male celebrities that way.

Katherine: I also really loved Shing Yin Khor’s “The Makeover.” It’s the one that made me cry when I read it because I felt so seen. But I also really love Marieke Nijkamp’s “Splinter and Ash.” As someone who grew up on Tamora Pierce and absolutely adored the Tortall books, I am hungry for stories that feel like Tortall, but with gender and sexuality and disability representation that feels authentic and daring.

Nicole and Katherine: We really just want them to know that they’re not alone. And, ultimately, this is an anthology full of queer joy, and we want all of our readers to be able to experience that joy themselves. Even if they are not at that point in their own lives, we want them to see the possibilities. Possibilities are incredibly powerful.

Nicole: I am currently reading advanced copies of two really special books: The Ogress and the Orphans by Kelly Barnhill (out March 8, 2022) and In the Key of Us by one of our fabulous contributors, Mariama Lockington (out April 26, 2022).

Katherine: I’m currently jealous of Nicole’s early copies! I am reading Little Thieves by Margaret Owens and The Other Talk by Brendan Kiely, both out now.

Welcome to Fresh Voices! In this new series, we are excited to share with you authors whose books capture a unique aspect of the human experience. Enjoy this Q&A with Kwame Mbalia, editor of the anthology, Black Boy Joy!

This idea came about in part due to my wish to work with a lot of the amazing contributors, and also in part due to the constant barrage of negative labels assigned to Black children by the media. This was my attempt to say to those children–and especially those boys like myself when I was younger–that we recognize their happiness, their achievements, and their joy.

The hardest part of my story was trying to make sure each part had its own energy, and didn’t require readers to flip back to parts one and two to remember what was happening. The easiest part was embellishing Gary the Griot’s (Mr. G) wardrobe. It’s my wardrobe.

I think I connected on some level with each of the sixteen other stories. Getting dressed for school, relying on my grandmothers/elders for support and encouragement, trying to kickflip, etc. Each of them provided some harmony with my memories of growing up

I hope they take away a favorite story they reread over and over. I hope they take away inspiration to find their own joyful safe spaces. I hope they take away an appreciation for short stories, and how they can be about anything, from fantasy to sci-fi to contemporary fiction. I hope they take the book away from the library repeatedly, checking it out over and over because it brings them joy.

I am currently reading The Black Jacobins by C.L.R. James, a book about the Haitian revolution and the events leading up to it.