Racquel Marie grew up in Southern California where her passion for storytelling of all kinds was encouraged by her friends and big family. She received a BA in English with an emphasis in creative writing and a minor in gender and sexuality studies from the University of California, Irvine. There is, unexpectedly, a C in her first name. She is the author of Ophelia After All, You Don’t Have a Shot, and This Is Me Trying.

I had the opportunity to interview Racquel, which you can read below.

CW: Brief conference of mental illness and fictional suicide

First of all, welcome to Geeks OUT! Could you tell us a little about yourself?

Thank you for having me! I’m Racquel Marie, YA contemporary author of Ophelia After All, You Don’t Have A Shot,and This Is Me Trying. I love coming-of-age stories, big casts of characters, and books that make me cry.

What can you tell us about your latest book, This Is Me Trying? What was the inspiration for this project?

This Is Me Trying is a dual-pov YA contemporary about estranged childhood best friends, Beatriz and Santiago, who haven’t spoken in years since the funeral of their mutual best friend, Bryce, who died by suicide. The book begins on the first day of twelfth grade when the two are unexpectedly reunited. Over the course of the year, they slowly reconnect as they navigate complicated grief, mental illness, and forgiveness. This book has been with me for about eleven years since I was fourteen, so it’s fueled in part by an awareness that these are themes teens want to and should be able to talk about more openly.

As a writer, what drew you to the art of storytelling, specifically young adult fiction?

I’ve always loved storytelling, whether in the form of books, video games, music, playing make-believe, gossiping, etc. Writing books allows me to tap into that passion and share it with others on a broad scale. I am still in awe every time a complete stranger sends me a dm or email about how they connected with something I wrote. The YA space specifically is so ripe with potential for dramatic introspection and big feelings, which I think suits my style of storytelling.

How would you describe your writing process?

My writing process is a little chaotic. I am not big on outlining or plotting my books beforehand. The first three books I ever wrote—the third of which became my debut novel, Ophelia After All—began with me having no story in mind at all. I just wrote a first line and said okay, let’s follow that. But while that was fun and very artistic of me at the time, I’m slowly learning to do some planning now that I’m in this professionally. Loose, timeline-based outlines have been helpful for me to block out important story beats. The scenes connecting those moments tend to be where I let myself run freer.

Growing up, were there any stories in which you felt touched by/ or reflected in? Are there any like that now?

YA contemporary novels like those written by Courtney Summers and YA shows like Degrassi and Dance Academy really validated a lot of my teen angst and struggles when I was growing up. And nowadays, I relish the growing diversity in publishing, especially—selfishly—books by queer and/or Latine authors. Though they definitely existed when I was younger, I rarely saw stories that reflected those elements of my existence. I am particularly grateful for books like Don’t Date Rosa Santos by Nina Moreno, We Are Okay by Nina LaCour, and History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera for coming into my life at the time they did.

As a writer, who or what would you say are some of your greatest creative influences and/or sources of inspiration in general? 

Music is a huge inspiration in my writing process. For someone who has dedicated so much of her life to books, I think I’d have an easier time living without those than without music. Listening to songs just transforms my brain into this really fertile canvas. I can picture particular scenes from stories I’m already working on, montages for one’s I’m still ruminating over, build up a narrative around one lyric to start something entirely new. Over the past few years, I’ve been especially inspired by artists like Boygenius, Jensen McRae, Jake Minch, and countless singer-songwriters I find while scrolling on TikTok.  

What are some of your favorite elements of writing? What do you consider some of the most frustrating and/or difficult? 

At this point in my life, my favorite part of writing is late-stage revisions. The story is pretty organized and locked in by then, so most of my focus can go to polishing prose, fine-tuning voice, and cleaning up the threads I’ve sewn throughout. I used to be a huge fan of drafting, but that was largely because I hadn’t committed myself to the amount of revising I now do. So drafting is probably the most difficult these days (I know, the whole not-outlining thing is not helping). I get really in my head comparing every page to a hypothetical final copy of the book and the knowledge of all the revising to come looms over me. That being said, there is always something very enticing about a fresh page and the potential for filling it.

Aside from your work, what are some things you would want others to know about you?

So much of my life surrounds books that I sometimes blank on facts about me unrelated to them. But let’s see. I love makeup—both special effects and beauty—and am still considering getting professionally certified one day. I am a fiend for the Sims, but particularly Sims 3. I am a strong advocate for the C in my name, as she is often forgotten. I am not beating queer stereotypes by being without a driver’s license in my mid-twenties.   And I feel strongly that the world can and will be better than it is now, but we have to push for significant systemic changes to get there.

What’s a question you haven’t been asked yet but that you wish you were asked (as well as the answer to that question)?

I love asking and answering this question! I haven’t yet been asked about my experience writing a book in dual-POV, since This Is Me Trying is my first foray into that. I had a lot of fun craft-wise working out how Beatriz and Santiago would each talk, both internally and externally. Focusing that closely on things like sentence structure, cadence, punctuation, and even unique word choices was so satisfying and felt like stretching out neglected muscles. I think the experience made me a better writer by drawing attention to details I’d gotten laxer with, and it definitely encouraged me to experiment more in the future.

What advice might you have to give for aspiring writers?

It’s hypocritical given what I’ve admitted already about my drafting struggles, but try to remind yourself that while you can edit bad writing, you can’t edit nothing. Pages of mess are always going to be better than blank pages, even if you end up scrapping it all or sticking it in a folder never to be seen again. The process itself brings you closer to the story you’re trying to tell. And creating for the sake of creating will always be worthwhile.

Are there any other projects you are working on and at liberty to speak about?

Yes! I’m currently revising my 2025 novel, If We Survive This, which is a YA horror about a teenage girl trying to lead her brother and a small group of survivors to an isolated cabin during a rabies-induced zombie apocalypse. I’ve dabbled in horror before—with a short story in the anthology Our Shadows Have Claws—but this is my first time tackling a whole novel in a genre other than contemporary, and a novel with multiple timelines at that, so it’s been a terrifying and fun experience. Lucky for me, I’m working with the same wonderful editor (shoutout Rachel Diebel) that I have on my first three books, so I have some reliable stability in this new landscape.

Finally, what books/authors (LGBTQ+ or otherwise_ would you recommend to the readers of Geeks OUT? 

In the YA space, I am an auto-buyer of books by Nina Moreno, Tashie Bhuiyan, Courtney Summers, Zoe Hana Mikuta, Sarah Everett, Brittany Cavallaro, and Chloe Gong. In adult, I adore Ava Reid, Olivie Blake, and Stephen Graham Jones. And upcoming releases I’m especially excited for are True Love and Other Impossible Odds by Christina Li and The Blonde Dies First by Joelle Wellington.