Ella Stern, a journalism student at Macalester College, interviews me about my standing Macalester literature course "LGBTQ2S+ Literature in America: Identities and Differences in U.S. Literature." We discuss why I teach the class, what things we read, and my teaching methods.
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Hi! As you can see from the dates on these posts, I’ve been away from my website for a while—teaching LGBTQ Literature at Macalester. (More about that in a future post). I did pick the wildest semester to start teaching college with a global pandemic in the middle of it. And also I live in Minneapolis, which is hopefully ground zero for the revolution, so let me formally start this post saying: Black Lives Matter My recent novel, In the Silences, is about a white teen learning to be a good ally, to see their implicit bias and to talk to other white people about implicit racism. It includes much of what I have to say on the topic and I’ll repeat some of it below. (This is primarily about the anti-blackness component of racism in the US. I know racism is broader than that and will write about it more broadly in the future. This post focuses on anti-black racism.) First, here are some of the books I read that I recommend specifically to other white people: So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo – Great basic primer. You can jump to chapters on topics you have the most questions
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Because I like science, I read a lot of it while updating Being Emily. This ended up with many books and studies turning into only a few sentences on the page, but hopefully they’re the right, impactful sentences. Here are some of the core concepts I heightened or added in the new edition of Being Emily: Being transgender (and gender identity in general) is influenced to some degree by genetics, hormones and hormone receptors. It’s unclear whether gender identity is also influenced by the shape of your brain or your gender identity shapes your brain. Kids learn gender early and begin to have a gender identity at young ages. Many trans girls know they’re girls at early ages both consciously and subconsciously. Trans kids who can socially transition young are not at high risk for depression and anxiety. Here’s some of the science behind that understanding: Genetics, hormones and hormone receptors Laura Erickson-Schroth, MD, MA, examined over 60 years of studies about trans people to create the “Update on the Biology of Transgender Identity” published in the Journal of Gay & Lesbian Mental Health in 2013. She found that: “Overall, genetic studies suggest a possible heritable component to aspects of gender identity…” For example,
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Got great reader questions this week: where does Nico's dance style come from? And what was the inspiration for the cabaret scene in Nico & Tucker? Second question first: I've been to a few genderqueer/genderfluid performances in the last few years. A cabaret at the Philly Trans Health conference provided the framework for the scene. And it gave me some ideas of the kinds of performances to showcase. As for Nico's dance style, I took my inspiration from two dancers. Darrion Gallegos comes very close to how I see Nico dancing, especially the facial expressions and playfulness. I'd say Darrion is about 75% of Nico's style (though Nico is younger and less professional). Plus Darrion and Nico are similarly pretty! And the other 25% of Nico's style, look and body is influenced by early Parris Goebel (of whom I am a huge fan). Warning: this song is explicit, so don't crank the volume if you're at work in a non-explicit workplace. Also, if you're one of my parents, just turn the volume off. Thanks! And if you're curious about some of the music I was listening to while writing Nico & Tucker, check out this post. It features the video where I first saw Darrion Gallegos
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You get a short blog this week with more videos because I’m hard at work on the Just Girls sequel. This story starts the night that Just Girls ends and follows the stories of Nico and Tucker over the next several months. After much brainstorming, the title is one again Nico & Tucker. It was the working title and I've yet to come up with anything better. Here are a few songs and videos that give you the feeling of the new book plus some musical background to Just Girls. And if you didn't see the early blurb of what the book's about, read the post where I signed the contract for Nico & Tucker. Also if you're wondering who did that great illustration of Nico and Tucker at the top of this post, it was the fabulous Mandie Brasington (more of her art here) and you can click here to view and download the full illustration. Trini Dem Girls It's not the song itself but the video that is core to the feeling of Nico & Tucker. Nico dances at a performance space called "Jim's Glorious Noodle," which I imagine is somewhat like the space you see in this video —
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All of my novels have playlists, often multiple playlists if there's more than one significant character. The playlists for MYZ are very long, but I pulled out a few key songs for Lauren and Blake so you can listen with me. Lauren What's the quintessential Lauren song? Probably one from Halestorm below. But in the context of this specific story, the learning and changing she's going through, this is her song. I think she'd admit that in the novel she's doing her "shadow work," or at least she'd admit to it after Blake points it out for her. This is Tool's "46 and 2" covered by a group of incredibly talented kids. Vocals start just after the 1 minute mark. Below is the video of the Halestorm song that Lauren is singing in the first scene of the book: And here's the other Halestorm song mentioned by name in the novel: "You Call Me A Bitch Like It's a Bad Thing." I love that this footage was shot in Minneapolis. I want to think that Lauren could've seen this performance live, but she'd have been too young for her big brother to agree to sneak her into a bar. But hey, maybe she got a
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I get more input on my covers than most traditionally published authors. This is because I have a marketing background and access to an amazing graphic designer, and because my publisher is awesome. So I can actually tell you some of what went into that cover. I worked with Kristin Smith, who designed the covers for my two previous YA novels, and brought in illustrator Alexis Cooke. Alexis was particularly ideal for this project because her illustrations frequently have mental health themes in them. Go check out more of her art here, I'll wait. The layout I wanted to do something different from the Being Emily and Just Girls covers to show that this is a different story. Also the main character is an illustrator, so it seemed natural to have an illustration on the cover. We looked at a lot of popular book covers that utilized illustration -- and that’s as far as my thinking went. The layout was all Kristin’s genius. I asked Kristin how she came up with the idea of two off-center pages: Since we wanted the cover to showcase the two main characters, and already had the page with Lauren’s drawing, we decided to add a second sheet
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