Born and raised a voracious reader of anything she could get her hands on in rural Nova Scotia, Rose Sutherland has an overactive imagination and once fell off the roof of her house trying to re-enact Anne of Green Gables. She’s continued to be entertainingly foolhardy since, graduating theatre school in NYC, apprenticing at a pâtisserie in rural France, and moonlighting as an usher and bartender in Toronto. Her hobbies include yoga, dance, singing, searching out amazing coffee and croissants, and making niche jokes about Victor Hugo on the internet. She’s mildly obsessed with the idea of one day owning a large dog, several chickens, and maybe a goat.
I had the opportunity to interview Rose, which you can read below.
First of all, welcome to Geeks OUT! Could you tell us a little about yourself?
Oh gosh. I grew up in rural Nova Scotia, reading everything I could get my hands on, drawing, writing weird little stories, and being deeply uncool. The second I was finished high school, I left home to pursue a career in theatre —which I loved, but was ultimately frustrated by, so I went back to school in my 30’s to train as a pastry chef. At the same time, I started writing again, with no expectation of making a career of it—it was just for fun, to reconnect to something I used to love. Somehow, five years and a lot of hard work later, my first novel is being published.
What can you tell us about your debut book, A Sweet Sting of Salt? What drew you to write this project?
A Sweet Sting of Saltis a reimagining of the folktale of the Selkie Wife, as a queer historical fantasy set in early 19th century Nova Scotia. It’s told from the point of view of Jean, a young midwife who finds a mysterious woman in labour outside her home in the middle of the night. The stranger turns out to be the wife of Jean’s neighbour, but the entire situation raises instant red flags for the midwife, who sets out to discover what’s going on with the couple next door.
I’d been wanting to write a love story between two women for a while, but what really set the wheels in motion for Salty was a Tumblr post, of all things, about modern iterations of fairytale creatures. It mentioned selkies testifying before the UN about human trafficking, and boom! I had this galaxy brain moment, making utterly unhinged connections: Fifteen minutes later I was like: Oh, I found my story!
Since your debut is said to be inspired by the classic folktale “The Selkie Wife,” I’m curious what draws you in the selkie myth?
I have an interesting relationship with this myth. I’ve always connected with the setting, and the aching, capital-R Romantic sense of loneliness and longing baked into it. But it also left a bad taste in my mouth, because I couldn’t sympathize with the man whose wife disappears into the sea at the end. Even as a child, I was too keenly aware of how he’d forced her into a marriage through magical means, and the implications of that situation are even more disturbing to me now, as an adult. It’s the messy contrast between those different ways of viewing the story—as romance, or horror— that really drew me to it.
As a writer, what drew you to the art of storytelling, specifically speculative fiction?
Storytelling feels like it’s always been part of me. There’s a scene in this book that features a family repeating stories around the dinner table, and that’s very much how I grew up—some of those tales are cribbed directly from my parents, in fact. I love to entertain people, to open windows into other worlds, and to live in them myself as I work—my writing grew out of the same impulses as my love of theatre. I’ve always adored myth and folklore and history, and throughout my teens and early twenties I got very into fantasy and the gothic end of horror, gravitating toward books with a strong romantic subplot and focus on character. Even though I tend more toward historical than fantasy these days, the fingerprints of everything I loved reading in the past turn up all over the things I write now.
How would you describe your writing process?
Messy? But seriously, I’m very much a discovery writer. I come up with a situation, and some characters to throw into it, and spend my entire first draft figuring out what happens right along with them, and letting them lead the way forward as I discover more about who they are. I’ve tried planning and outlining but they don’t work for me—it just turns my brain in knots! Besides, it’s the wild surprises that the characters throw at me, the happy accidents and discoveries I make along the way that are the most fun and exciting for me, and where I often find the real heart of the story.
Growing up, were there any stories in which you felt touched by/ or reflected in? Are there any like that now?
There were so many that it’s hard to point at any single one, but an older book I feel particular affection for is Mercedes Lackey’s Arrows Of The Queen. A friend handed me a copy of it when I was thirteen years old and going through a really hard time. It was the first book I ever read that included queer characters, and I connected deeply with its young protagonist, Talia. No lie, I’m not sure I would have survived seventh grade without that book. The first time I read Sarah Waters’ Tipping The Velvet was a real Ah ha! moment for me.
I’ve also felt a particular affinity for Jo March since I was a child.
As a writer, who or what would you say are some of your greatest creative influences and/or sources of inspiration in general?
I find inspiration in such random places sometimes that it’s hard to pinpoint, but I get a lot from just walking around and looking at the world, at old buildings and natural locations: I’ll see a place and know it’s going to turn up later, somehow. If I had an unlimited travel budget, I would never stop exploring. I also get a lot of ideas from historical and informational plaques. I spend a non-zero amount of time mucking around in weird corners of the internet, too— I’m fascinated by people’s niche interests and hyperfixations, and some of the deep dives I stumble across on unexpected topics send my imagination in unexpected directions. Conversations with my friends are good for that too—we’re like a flock of magpies, attracted to shiny and unusual tidbits; you never know what’s going to come up over coffee.
What are some of your favorite elements of writing? What do you consider some of the most frustrating and/or difficult?
I adore settings! To me, finding the words to evoke not only how a place looks, but the entire feel of it—in all five senses— is its own kind of alchemy. Location is key for me in storytelling, the specifics of where and when impact everything.
Writing conversations makes me a bit nuts sometimes—not because I’m bad at it, but because it can get frustrating. It would probably be easier if my characters weren’t always trying to hide things from each other, saying things that aren’t exactly lies, but aren’t the whole truth, either…but where would the fun be without it? With Muirin, I added a language barrier on top of that, which made things even more complicated—clearly, I’m a glutton for punishment.
Many authors would say one of the most challenging parts of writing a book is finishing one. What strategies would you say helped you accomplish this?
Writing what I found exciting and wanted to read myself was a big part of it, but I have to give most of the credit to my trusted beta readers for giving me a sense of accountability. I send rough chapters to them as I draft, to read like a serial—I find it so much easier to push through the sticky bits when I know there’s someone else waiting to see what happens next, and if I really start to go off the rails, it’s nice to have someone to call me on it before things get too out of hand!
Aside from your work, what are some things you would want readers to know about you?
That I’m gobsmacked every day when I think how something I loved doing but dismissed as a viable career option more than twenty years ago and picked back up for fun ended up being the thing that finally stuck, after years of spinning my wheels and failing to find success with anything else in spite of all my best efforts. And maybe that I don’t have my sh*t particularly together, no matter how good a job I do seeming like it: I’m an ADHD hot mess who struggles with executive function, and it’s been a real battle finding the habits and routines that work for me, and I want other folks who are in the same boat to know that they’re not alone.
More than anything, I’d like folks to know how grateful beyond belief I am to have them as readers, to know that a book I wrote is finding its way into their hands, and hearts. Thank you, thank you, thank you: I would bake you all a cake if I could!
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 wish folks would ask if there have been any life-imitates-art coincidences involved in the writing of this book, if only so I could tell them about the day I ended up with a man named Tobias working on the roof of my house following a chimney fire… at the exact same time that I was doing revisions on a scene that features A MAN NAMED TOBIAS WORKING ON THE ROOF OF HIS HOUSE. Utterly surreal.
What advice might you have to give for aspiring writers?
Write what you love, because you’re going to end up spending a lot of time with it. Make friends with other writers, and support each other. I’ll also paraphrase this particular gem from Neil Gaiman: If people tell you that there’s something wrong with your work, they’re probably right—but they’re almost always wrong about how you should fix it. I like this a lot; it always leads me to creative problem solving.
Are there any other projects you are working on and at liberty to speak about?
I have a couple of things on the go, but the one on the front burner right now is another historical, set in 18th century provincial France. It’s loosely based on a true story, and although I wouldn’t consider it a direct retelling, it is a riff on a popular fairytale. I’m having a lot of fun researching a very specific branch of French folklore as I work on the first draft!
Finally, what LGBTQ+ books/authors would you recommend to the readers of Geeks OUT?
I always find it difficult to make blanket recommendations, as people have such varied tastes, but that said, my friend Isa Arsen’s debut Shoot The Moon came out earlier this year, and it’s spectacular: The main character is working with NASA in the lead up to the moon launch, and it’s speculative in a way that plays fast and loose with time.
For something completely different, if you’re into pirates, indie author Katie Crabb‘s epic Constellation trilogy is concluding this spring, with the third book, Sailing ByGemini’s Star, coming out on May 28.
Today, April 6th is International Asexuality Day. To quote directly from their website, “IAD is a coordinated worldwide campaign promoting the ace umbrella, including demisexual, grey-asexual, and other ace identities.” We put together a round up of ace authors we interviewed for IAD in 2022 which you can find here. This year we would like to acknowledge this day by highlighting and promoting interviews we’ve conducted here at Geeks OUT with ace authors since our last round up, which are linked below.
Kara Jorgensen (they/them) is a queer, nonbinary oddball with a penchant for all things antiquated, morbid, or just plain strange. While in college, they realized they no longer wanted to be Victor Frankenstein but instead wanted to write like Mary Shelley and thus abandoned their future career in science for writing. Kara melds their passions through their books and graduated with an MFA in Creative and Professional Writing in 2016. When not writing, they can be found hanging out with their dogs watching period dramas or trying to convince their students to cite their sources.
First of all, welcome to Geeks OUT! Could you tell us a little about yourself?
Thank you for having me. First and foremost, I am a queer, nonbinary, neurodivergent writer of queer historical paranormal books, most with a healthy dose of romance. I like to describe myself as Vincent Price meets Julia Child because I love things others find spooky or macabre, but I also love to teach and encourage others to experiment with their art. My day job is teaching college students creative and academic writing at my alma mater, so I spend much of my time talking about writing. My interests are numerous, but I really love my dogs, art history, crafts (and the history of), crustaceans, dinosaurs, medical history, and of course, queer books and history.
Congratulations on your recently released book, The Reanimator’s Soul! Could you tell us what it’s about and where the idea for the book came from?
So The Reanimator’s Soul is book 2 in the Reanimator Mysteries series. Without giving too much away, book 1, The Reanimator’s Heart, is about Oliver, an autistic necromancer, who accidentally reanimates the guy he has had a crush on for years after finding him murdered. Together, Oliver and Felipe team up to solve his murder and the murder of a nun. In book 2, they are called to investigate a body that was dumped in the middle of a cemetery with its organs missing. The investigation leads them to a mysterious clinic that claims it can remove people’s magical abilities. Unfortunately, Oliver’s obnoxious ex is also working the case, so they all must work together, all while Felipe is dealing with his recent un-death and family obligations.
With this book, I really wanted to explore what it’s like for Oliver and Felipe to navigate the complexities of being magically tied together while Felipe’s family has no idea he’s undead. Felipe and Oliver are both adult men with lives of their own trying to figure out a relationship, their own insecurities, and solve a mystery at the same time. It’s a lot. Most queer romances are one-and-done, but I enjoy exploring what comes next and how they grow as a couple in order to overcome whatever is thrown at them. The Reanimator’s Soul also explores some heavier topics that are as prevalent today as they were in the 1890s, such as conversion therapy, how medicine upholds the patriarchy, and ableism.
Since Geeks OUT is a queer centered website, could you tell us a bit about the LGBTQ+ characters featured in your books?
Basically, every character in this series is queer. Oliver and Felipe are both cis gay men, but Oliver’s best friend Gwen is also queer (this will be discussed more in future stories). Felipe’s lavender marriage wife, Louisa, is a cis lesbian who is partnered with a bisexual trans woman named Agatha. Most people who work at the Paranormal Society are some manner of queer as that tends to go hand-in-hand with having magic. While the outside world in the 1890s might not have been accepting of queer and trans people, the Paranormal Society is a community where they can thrive.
I didn’t see many characters like me growing up, so something that’s very important to me is portraying disabled and/or neurodivergent queer characters. There are quite a few of them sprinkled throughout my various books with Eilian being asexual, ADHD, and an amputee, Oliver being gay and autistic, and Theo being bisexual and dealing with epilepsy.
As a writer, what drew you to writing fiction/fantasy, especially that intended for adult audiences?
I’m not exactly sure, but that’s always what I’ve written. Even back when I was a teen, I wrote about adults. I think I prefer the autonomy and complexities of adult characters, but this might be because I didn’t realize I was many layers of queer until I was an adult. The whole young adult coming out narrative often feels alien to me as that wasn’t my experience growing up in the early ‘00s with very little queer rep. It’s also important to me that queer, neurodiverse, and disabled adults are portrayed as people living full lives with people who love them, even if they’re still figuring some things out. There’s a lot of infantilization of neurodivergent and disabled adults, so it’s important to show them doing adult things, and while that does often include sex and romance for me, it’s also things like managing their own lives (sometimes with help) and going on adventures.
Were there any books that touched you or inspired you growing up?
I feel like these will sound very weird yet make total sense if you’ve read my work, but the two series that had a major impact on me as a kid are the Bunnicula series by Deborah and James Howe and Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. The Bunnicula books were my first brush with the Gothic or spooky narratives beyond those Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books, and I devoured them in elementary school.
Anne Rice’s vampire books were probably my biggest inspiration and what made me want to become a writer. I probably read them too young (I was eleven), but the lush historical settings, sensuality, and queerness drew me in and resonated with me, even before I realized I was queer. I don’t often reread books, but Anne Rice’s The Mummy is one I have gone back to several times as it made me want to write my own archaeology adventure story when I was in college and realize I might be queer.
You do not shy away from making your characters unique, seeming to focus on people with different ways of dealing with the world and those with non-typical behavior living patterns. Can you go into more detail on how that evolved?
I write about this a lot because that’s how I, as a neurodivergent, chronically ill person, move through the world. Often, what is taken for granted as “normal” by neurotypical, non-ill people is wildly difficult and inaccessible for people like me. In writing from the perspective of characters who live in ways that go outside the norm, I hope that people can see themselves or see how they can make things easier for others by pushing back on norms that don’t work for a lot of people. When I wrote my first book, The Earl of Brass, Eilian’s AuDHD comes across as somewhat muted because I wasn’t sure if readers would get him, and I was afraid to be too pointed with the representation. With Oliver in The Reanimator’s Heart, I went full tilt into him being autistic and based a lot of his experiences off my own. If readers don’t like it or think it’s too much, then my books probably aren’t for them, and at this point in my career, I’m okay with losing readers in favor of authenticity.
What inspired you to pick the location and time period you’ve set the Reanimator’s Mysteries and Paranormal Society series in?
All of my books so far are set in the 1890s, and when I was writing my first book, I was struggling to decide on the time period until I realized the 1890s were referred to as “The Gay Nineties.” My twenty year old self took this as a sign. After doing research, the 1890s appealed to me because so much of what society was exploring and grappling with, we are as well, such as quack medicine warring with science, anti-queerness laws, and purity culture that was enforced through Comstock Laws that can be seen in modern book bans.
In terms of location, my first six books are set in England, but I wanted to explore my own local history on the East Coast of the US. I’ve grown up traveling to New York City regularly, so setting the Reanimator Mysteries and the Paranormal Society Romances in New York felt right since in the 1890s not only was it a hub of queerness but it was exceedingly diverse.
What’s something you haven’t done as a writer that you’d like to do?
One day I would love to write a Scandinavian-inspired fantasy trilogy. It’s still marinating in my brain and has been for a while. I’ve never written an epic, expansive fantasy before and still don’t know exactly how to do that, so I probably won’t get to it for a while. It’s one of those projects where every once in a while you sit down to think about it, add a few ideas to a running document, then confirm you are not ready and/or skilled enough yet to pull off this idea, and vow to come back later.
What do you wish you had known at the beginning of your writing journey?
That half of writing is maintaining your mental health. I write to help purge my brain and stay mentally balanced, but if things go off the rails, I struggle to write and things go from bad to worse. Early on in my writing and publishing career, I tanked my success several times because I was running myself into the ground instead of listening to my brain and body when I needed a break. My biggest career regrets stem from not allowing myself more time to breathe, recover, and avoid burn-out. When you’re mentally fried, you don’t make good decisions or produce your best work, so if you can avoid that hustle culture mentality, you’re more likely to succeed long-term, no matter what others lead you to believe.
Are there any projects you are currently working on and are at liberty to speak about?
There are a few in various stages of completion/development. Currently, I am writing a Reanimator Mysteries short story set after The Reanimator’s Soul, which will be a freebie for my newsletter subscribers. Felipe convinces Oliver to take a vacation at the beach, and the plan goes completely awry. I think my readers will really like this one; it’s quite sweet and silly.
Once that’s finished, I will be working on the third Reanimator Mysteries book, which involves Oliver, Felipe, and Gwen going to a “murder town” to investigate only to discover the secrets hit far closer to home. I also want to write a story featuring Joe and Ansley from The Reanimator’s Soul, but I’m not sure when I’ll get to that book.
Aside from writing, what do you enjoy doing in your free time?
My two favorite things to do besides writing are crafting and learning. I love to do deep-dives on things I need to research for my books or random topics my partner or I stumble upon (we love to share a good info dump), like uranium glass or how the undead manifest in different cultures. On the crafting side, I started crocheting a few years ago and really enjoy it. I also like to do plastic canvas village kits, painting, and whatever new craft I can get my hands on. I like to joke that every mental breakdown or burnout leads to learning a new hobby.
What’s a question you haven’t been asked yet, but wish you were asked (as well as the answer to that question)?
Kara, what is your writing process like?
I’m not going to lie, I enjoy talking about my writing process because I find the way people’s creative brains work to be fascinating. I know a lot of people sort of go off what tropes they want to put in a book, but my brain immediately goes for who are the two main characters and how do they fit together? For example, with Oliver and Felipe, I knew I wanted an autistic main character and that he should be gothy because that’s the tone I wanted for the story. What works well with that? A necromancer, which then leads into how can a necromancer get in trouble in a story? By accidentally reanimating someone. Even though my stories have magic, my brain is always fixated on logic, so I was like, how could I keep MC2 from decomposing? If he is a self-healer, his body can stave off decomposition. What jobs might be good for a self-healer? Anything dangerous, and that’s how I decided that my two main characters were a monster hunter and a necromancer. Once I have the characters, I struggle for a bit to figure out the conflict and how that fits with the overall theme and growth these characters need to go through.
From there, all my ideas get tossed into a doc and slowly hammered out, but I tend to only loosely outline one act of the book at a time. I’m a plantser/gardener, so I don’t outline too heavily or I lose interest. Each day, I edit the chunk I wrote previously before starting my writing for the day in order to tidy up what I have and reacquaint myself with where I left off. I tend to be a slower writer, but this process works well for me.
Finally, what LGBTQ+ books/authors/creators would you recommend to the readers of Geeks OUT?
This is a very non-exhaustive list, and I’m sure I’ll be kicking myself later for forgetting someone, but here are some of my favorite queer authors and/or authors of queer characters: Anna-Marie McLemore, Nghi Vo, Jordan L. Hawk, Cat Sebastian, KJ Charles, Joanna Chambers, Talia Hibbert, Freya Marske, Azalea Crowley, Arden Powell, Vanora Lawless, Olivia Waite, A. E. Bross, Darcy Little Badger, Sakaomi Yuzaki, Rebecca Roanhorse, and P. Djèlí Clark.
Rory Michaelson (they/them) is the author of the multi-indie-award winning Lesser Known Monsters books, a queer dark fantasy series with a diverse found-family cast. Rory is always too busy but rarely doing the things they ought to be. They are generally a solitary creature that can often be found hunched over their laptop eating cookies in London, England.
First of all, welcome to Geeks OUT! Could you tell us a little about yourself?
Thank you so much! I feel welcomed. I’m very much an introvert (though publishing demands I pretend otherwise on social media). I’m queer, neurodivergent, non-binary, and love writing stories. It’s something that allows me to connect with other people in a really special way. If I can make you laugh on one page and cry on the next, I’ve done my job–but if I can make you laugh and cry at the same time, even better. Interesting fact: though I write about monsters and darker themes, I am too scared to watch most horror films (but do need to read the full synopsis of every horror film I hear about on Wikipedia and look at the cast to know what happens to each character!).
Congratulations on your very successful series, Lesser Known Monsters! Could you tell us what it’s about and where the idea for the book came from?
Oh I don’t know about ‘very successful!’ Maybe if there’s ever a TV adaptation or something? Lesser Known Monsters has found quite a few people that it really connects with that tend to be loud about how much they love it. That’s my favourite kind of success, really though.
The Lesser Known Monsters series follows a character called Oscar Tundale who is “entirely average in many ways and less than average in more.” Oscar gets dragged into an investigation of his workplace crush and discovers that not only do monsters exist but for some reason they’re very interested in him. Now, the fate of the world is in Oscar’s dithering hands, and the best he can do is try to not end it by mistake.
With Lesser Known Monsters I really wanted to give urban legends and folk-lore some love and send people into google-loops to learn even more about them. I often find traditional ‘hero’s journey’ and ‘chosen one’ narratives a bit uninspiring and tired, so writing Oscar–who is far from heroic–gave me an exciting angle into that world. Because he’s overwhelmingly human, I got to explore the world of monsters through a character who struggles with his own agency being faced with difficult situations. The stakes of the story in terms of events might be apocalyptic, but the heart of it is absolutely Oscar finding his own kind of strength, even if it doesn’t seem like much to others.
As a writer, what drew you to writing LGBTQ+ fiction, especially that intended for mature audiences?
As a queer person who grew up in section 28 in the UK I was very starved of representation. I was a huge Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan and when Willow and Tara kissed it was like an awakening. I got to see queerness brought into a world and characters that I loved, and it made my existence feel more possible. When young people don’t get to see characters like them, I think it really impacts the growth of their identity. I don’t think I really hit what should have been my ‘teens’ until my early twenties. This made that sort of ‘new adult’ phase an incredibly important growth period in my life and one I wanted to try and represent. I remember hearing V.E. Schwab talk about how when she writes, she does it for a very specific version of herself, so I wrote Lesser Known Monsters for that tired and fragile adult version of Rory that was struggling to figure things out. As creators we put parts of ourselves in our work, and we also are gifted with the chance to create a place for others, too. Now I get to help other people feel like their existence is more possible, just like Willow and Tara did for me.
Since Geeks OUT is a queer centered website, could you tell us a bit about the LGBTQ+ characters featured in your books?
I really wanted to center the story on a small found-family that was representative of a few different parts of our community. The main character is a gay man, and his best friends are a lesbian (Zara) and a trans man (Marcus). All of the characters come into the story fully realised in terms of their queer identity. Queer trauma and coming-out narratives are super important, but I wanted to write stories with queer leads that were just getting into trouble and experiencing peril and joy of a different variety! We later get to meet bi/pan, and non-binary characters who play important roles, and there’s a variety of different romance pairings throughout the cast. Personality wise, I really wanted to create a group that, whilst they were all very different from each other and at times argued or fought, they offered a real sense of belonging both together as a group and to the people reading.
Were there any books that touched you or inspired you growing up?
I don’t think I really found books that spoke deeply to me until I was quite a lot older, maybe even in my thirties. When I was a teenager I mostly remember reading a lot of Buffyverse books, and then moving onto The Wheel of Time. Interesting that these both have a lot of found family vibes, right? I didn’t really get access to queer literature until I was older–at least not without the sense of shame around it that had been forced on it and me whilst I was growing up. I try to read a lot of stories now that nourish my inner teen and find that incredibly healing; reading the books today that I wish I’d have been able to read when I was growing up. I’ve started writing YA too, which adds a whole new layer to that. This is why a lot of authors joke about writing being cheaper than therapy, huh?
Where did you get your start in creative writing? What pulled you to fiction?
Fanfic! I used to write secret stories about my favourite TV shows but make the characters queer–creating my own representation since I couldn’t get it elsewhere. I think I stopped doing that when I was about sixteen. Then I was wrapped up in the drama of college and university and things, then went into a career in science, so all my writing became of a strictly academic nature. I don’t think I did any creative writing at all then for maybe fifteen years, until I finally found myself in a space to start rampantly consuming media that primarily focused on queer characters. It was incredibly revitalising and refilled a creative well inside me that I didn’t really know existed anymore.
I’ve always gravitated toward fiction. I love the escapism and adventure of it all. I suppose transplanting personal parts of ourselves to characters into fantastical settings and putting them through grueling, thrilling, and liberating experiences is a way for us to find a different sort of satisfaction that which we consider ‘mundane’ at a safe distance. It just scratches that itch that I can’t quite reach otherwise.
What’s something you haven’t done as a writer that you’d like to do?
Because of the little snippets I put in chapter breaks in Lesser Known Monsters (which feature things like poems or doodles) I technically became not only a published author, but illustrator and poet, too. This is hilarious to me because I think I’m pretty awful at the latter two things. Honestly though, I’d also love to be invited to things like events and panels. It’s quite a challenging prospect for me (as I’m very anxious and shy), but one I’d also really love to explore more. In terms of writing, I’m working on a book with a non-binary main character which I’m really excited to share in the future as I think it’s something we need more of, and also something which is really fulfilling for me to create.
The second book in the series, The Bone Gate, deals with a world wide illness, was that inspired from the COVID-19 pandemic?
It doesn’t feature much! Early on in The Bone Gate, I mention that there’d been a pandemic following the events of the first book, but never really elaborate (beyond a little speculation of the magical-realism variety). It was mostly because I wrote it amidst the height of COVID-19 and it seemed strange to completely separate the world I was writing from the world we live in. I think the characters having experienced that event provides a grounding for relatable context within the narrative for readers. The pandemic was a life changing event for lots of us, so showing an echo of that in my story allows people another step closer to being tethered inside the characters heads, but it also doesn’t feature enough to be distressing.
Your main couple, Oscar and Dmitri, exhibit a few common tropes in their relationship, but you also seem to be having them grow beyond that. Was that all planned out? Or did it change as you wrote them?
Yes! I love tropes, but even more I love subverting them. One of my guilty pleasures is taking something that people expect and understand and giving it to them until they’re about to get sick of it, then revealing that it was actually something else all along. Lesser Known Monsters was the perfect story to do that with. I honestly don’t think that what I’m doing really starts to hit hard until the middle of the series, which I realise is pretty risky, but I’m so happy with how the series turned out all put together. I’m very much a discovery writer, so I like to let my stories run wild as I create them, but most of the big character and plot notes I absolutely had in mind from the beginning. There’s quite a lot of foreshadowing throughout–even from small occurrences in book one that pick up again in the finale.
Are there any projects you are currently working on and are at liberty to speak about?
I actually have two books finished that I’m querying with agents at present! They’re both YA and sit within different shades of horror. The first is my spin on one of my favourite movies ever The Mummy, and features a queer autistic librarian as the lead. The other is about trying to rescue all of the queer characters killed off in stories before their time with a Happy Death Day meets Addie Larue sort of vibe. I’m also working on a few other things in earlier stages. A YA horror about a sleep paralysis demon, an adult fantasy about steampunk sky pirates with superpowers, a heist, and perhaps a standalone foray back into the Lesser Known Monsters universe from a different angle…
Aside from writing, what do you enjoy doing in your free time?
So much of my time is spent balancing overstimulation and understimulation. I work a full-time day job and spend just as much time on my writing work as I do there, but I also love playing video games (Dead by Daylight, and recently Baldurs Gate 3). I’m also a big fan of traveling and holidays (though I usually need a few weeks and a spreadsheet to prepare myself and spend almost all my time when I’m there writing). That’s all quite a lot, isn’t it? Sometimes I just lie under blankets holding my big plushie bulbasaur and close my eyes.
Finally, what LGBTQ+ books/authors/creators would you recommend to the readers of Geeks OUT?
There are so many incredible creators out there that I’m terrified of missing someone amazing out. Terry J. Benton-Walker is doing incredible things in YA (Blood Debts) and MG (Alex Wise) with rich and heartbreakingly brilliant storytelling and vivid characters. Adam Sass is another one that somehow destroys and nourishes me in equal parts with amazing YA stories like Surrender Your Sons and Your Lonely Nights are Over. Both of them have such wickedly addictive writing but also descriptive and exciting voices. I’m also a huge fan of Jonny Garza Villa (Ander & Santi Were Here), A.J. White (Hell Followed With Us), Xiran Jay Zhao (Iron Widow), Kalynn Bayron (You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight), and V.E. Schwab (The Shades of Magic). I also beg people to check out indie and self-pub authors which have so many diverse voices that bring new and exciting perspectives and imaginative stories you won’t find in other places. Check out books by Tiny Ghost Press who are an indie imprint specialising in Queer YA fiction, and also explore work by authors like Jayme Bean (Untouched), Gabriel Hargrave (The Orchid & The Lion), and Gideon Wood (The Stagsblood Trilogy) among so many others!
Joy Ladin is the author of a memoir of gender transition, National Jewish Book Award finalist Through the Door of Life; Lambda Literary and Triangle Award finalist, The Soul of the Stranger: Reading God and Torah from a Transgender Perspective; and ten books of poetry, including her new collection, Shekhinah Speaks (Selva Oscura Press), National Jewish Book Award winner The Book of Anna, and Lambda Literary Award finalists Transmigrationand Impersonation. Her work has been recognized with a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Fulbright Scholarship, an American Council of Learned Societies Research Fellowship, and a Hadassah Brandeis Institute Research Fellowship, among other honors.
I had the opportunity to interview Joy, which you can read below.
First of all, welcome to Geeks OUT! Could you tell us a little about yourself?
Thank you! I grew up white, lower middle class (my father was a social worker), assimilated Jewish, terrified, marginalized, annoying, and hyperverbal (in schoolyard sports, I played announcer) in the 1960s and 70s Rochester, NY. Though I knew nothing about anything, I spoke as though I were an expert on anything I talked about (this continues to be useful as a poet), particularly on Star Trek, which was having its first brief run on our black-and-white TV. When I wrote on freshly painted walls in magic marker, I was punished by not being allowed to watch Star Trek.
Though I hid my trans identity, it wasn’t safe at home when I was an adolescent, and I more or less left after graduating from high school at 16, though I continued to see my family and get financial support through college. I was very interested in math until a college calc class I took when I was a high school sophomore taught me that, unlike poetry, you couldn’t just make things up in math.
I had started writing what I thought of poetry as soon as I learned to write, took my first writing workshop in junior high school and continued straight through till I graduated as a creative writing and social sciences major from Sarah Lawrence College. Instead of going to graduate school, I decided to focus on writing poetry, supporting my habit with what was at first my only marketable skill, typing. That decision led to ten years as an administrative assistant at The State Bar of California, during which writing piles of poetry, most of which never got published, while writing memos, managing budgets, and thinking about great writers like Kafka who were also office workers.
I left to get an MFA I hoped would jump-start the career as a poet which, despite my hard work (I wrote constantly) and occasional publications, had remained a daydream. The MFA program I got into – Umass Amherst – didn’t teach me much about writing or help with my career, but it did lead me to what became my second vocation, teaching. I fell in love with teaching during the first class I taught (ironically, on “Man and Woman in Literature”) and never fell out of love with it, though illness forced me to leave the classroom a couple of years ago.
In order to become marketable, as they say, for a tenure-track job in teaching, after I finished the MFA thesis that eventually grew into my first book of poetry, Alternatives to History, I got a Ph.D. in American Literature from Princeton, which, after a few years on the market, helped me land the David and Ruth Gottesman Chair in English at Stern College for Women of Yeshiva University, the flagship school of modern Orthodox Judaism. I loved the students there, and the university’s support helped me write most of the work I’ve published. But it’s hard to mix openly trans identity with Orthodox Jewish culture, and uncomfortable to be the one and only openly trans person doing the mixing, and, over the twelve years following my gender transition, it got harder and harder to work at Yeshiva University.
Despite the discomfort, my experiences on the border of contemporary secular and traditional religious culture launched me on what became a third career as a speaker and writer about gender identity, particularly about the intersections and collisions between trans and nonbinary identities and traditional religions. Much of the non-literary work of which I’m proudest wouldn’t have been possible without what I learned – was forced to learn – by teaching in an Orthodox environment, and Yeshiva University’s support enabled me to write dozens of essays, a memoir of gender transition, a book of trans theology, and numerous books of poetry.
Unfortunately, over those very productive years, I was also getting sicker and sicker from ME/CFS, and in 2021 finally had to go on disability. These days, I’m mostly housebound, though still writing (I’ve just finished a collection of selected essays) and doing speaking events via (what else?) Zoom.
What can you tell us about your most recent book, The Soul of the Stranger: Reading God and Torah from a Transgender Perspective? What inspired this project?
Actually, my most recent book is Shekhinah Speaks, a collection of poems intended to give voice to the Shekhinah, Jewish mysticism’s name for the immanent, female aspect of the divine. But I couldn’t have written it without first having written The Soul of the Stranger, a book of intimate theology that grew out of a lifetime of thinking about and talking with God. I don’t think it’s unusual for children to have a sense of divine or other presence beyond the human, and from what others have told me that sense is often particularly keen for LGBTQ+ kids and others who, as I did, grow up feeling isolated by their differences from those around them. It wasn’t the easiest relationship – when you’re a lonely child, God is not the kind of companion you are longing for – but I don’t think I would have survived my childhood if I hadn’t felt God there with me. Without God, I wouldn’t have anyone to talk with who didn’t mistake me for the boy I was pretending to be and knew who I really was.
A lot of children have that sense of God’s presence educated or beaten out of them, or displaced by institutionalized religious ideas, worship, and community. But my family wasn’t religious, and my relationship with God has continued throughout my adult life. Though it took place outside institutionalized Judaism, my relationship with God was still connected to Jewish tradition, primarily through my independent reading of the Hebrew Bible, texts I saw as portraying God as someone who, like me, was isolated and often heartbroken because, like me, God doesn’t have a body that would enable the people God loves to see that God is there.
I didn’t start publicly talking and writing about my relationship with God until after my gender transition. At first, I did so as part of explaining how I grew up as a trans kid. But to my surprise, many people seemed as interested in the idea of having a personal relationship with God as they were in what I said about trans identity.
The Soul of the Stranger is a response to that interest, an effort to think through what I learned about God and the portrayal of God in the Bible from experiencing them from a transgender perspective – that is, experiencing them in the context and through the lens of my experiences as a person who doesn’t fit binary gender categories. I wanted the book to demonstrate that, contrary to what many think, trans experience is not opposed to religious experience or even religious tradition, that, as in my life, each could sustain and illuminate the other. I hoped it would help bridge the often bitter gulf between trans and nonbinary and religious communities, help trans and nonbinary people see themselves as inherently entitled to religious traditions, and help people inside and outside religious communities recognize and explore the possibility of having their own relationships with God.
Speaking as a queer Jewish person myself, I know there’s often been some tension between the queer community and the concept of religion. What are your thoughts on this and how would you describe your relationship with Judaism?
I think the opposition between religious traditions and queer identities is too often taken as a given by people in both kinds of communities. There are and have always been deeply religious LGBTQ+ people who adhere to traditional forms of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and I have heard many of those people tell me that they feel marginalized on both sides of the divide: marginalized by LGBTQ+ identity in their religious communities, and by their religious identification in queer circles, sometimes so much that they feel they have to “closet” their religious affinities.
The fact that there are so many people like this shows us that there is no necessary opposition between being traditionally religious and LGBTQ+ identities, that those identities are not, as we often assume, inherently secular and opposed to or incompatible with being traditionally religious. So where does this assumption come from?
One source is obviously the explicitly phobic elements in religious traditions and their expression and magnification in some contemporary religious communities – elements that have harmed generations of LGBTQ+ people, and driven many of us to reject religion and embrace secularism. But, at least in terms of Judaism, these phobic elements are fragmentary, intermittent, go in and out of mainstream fashion, and center on male homosexuality rather than general opposition to sexual or gender difference. (There’s barely enough awareness of lesbians in Jewish tradition to generate prohibitions, much less hatred.) When I came out as trans at Yeshiva University, there was no general anti-trans discourse in Orthodox Judaism (there is more now), no tradition of hating on trans people. That discourse grew in response to the increasing visibility of trans and other queer people, but, except for homophobia, this is not traditional or central to Jewish tradition.
Another thing that feeds this assumption is the historical fact that our language of sexual and gender difference is secular, a mishmash developed first by scientists (more or less) interested in describing behaviors and biological and psychological types, and more recently by activists interested in asserting and defending individual identities and rights. The assertion of individual identity as the most important aspect of our humanity is indeed a secular idea, a response to both democracy and capitalism, and it stands in opposition (as the early standard-bearers of Enlightenment knew) to not only traditional religions but to traditional modes of community, which tend to define people first in terms of their roles and relations to others and secondarily in terms of individuality.
But even in those kinds of traditional communities, people are recognized as individuals as well as who they are to others, and even in LGBTQ+ communities, people are recognized in terms of relations to others as well as individual identity. While secular and traditional societies ascribe different priorities to each, both are necessary aspects of both community and humanity. In other words, they are complementary, not contradictory – which makes queer discourses that value only individual identity limiting and damaging in ways that are analogues to the limitations and damage caused by traditional religious discourses that value only whether we fit assigned roles and categories.
Because I grew up in isolation as a trans-Jew, I managed to avoid all of this growing up. Judaism was mine, I was told, because I was born Jewish, and in the absence of teachers who promoted a strong idea of what Judaism was, I made up my own version, a version centered, as I talk about in The Soul of the Stranger, on a relationship with God and reading of the Torah based on my trans experiences of not fitting human categories. I never accepted others’ versions of Judaism, though I have learned a lot from them and participated in them, and so I never experienced a tension between being trans or queer and being a religious (though non-Orthodox) Jew. It can be lonely to have a Judaism made for one – I have never fully felt at home in any Jewish community, and Jewish community central to much of Judaism. But I have accepted that loneliness as the price for practicing a Judaism that fits and embraces both my trans identity and my idiosyncratic relationship with God.
What inspired you to get into writing? Were there any favorite writers or stories that sparked your own love and interest in storytelling?
I don’t know why I started writing poetry – I just did, even though our family didn’t read or have books of poetry around. Most of my non-school reading was science fiction, one of the few things I could really share with my father, who grew up idolizing Isaac Asimov, a writer who came from a similar background. There were boxes of SF magazines from 40s and 50s in a room in our basement, and I read my way through them, as well as experimenting with then-up-and-coming writers like Harlan Ellison, who I adored for his snarkiness, his anguish, and his overwriting, qualities I shared.
But aside from a failed (ie, unpublished) fantasy novel, I have always seen poetry, mostly lyric poetry, as the focus of my reading and writing life. The poets in my personal pantheon – the ones who keep teaching me what great poetry is and what poetry can be – include Emily Dickinson, Cesar Vallejo, Pablo Neruda, Basho, and Issa, among others. I have written some narrative poems – it’s something that interests me and that I can at least sometimes do, and my most ambitious literary work is The Book of Anna, a sort of novel made out of the diary entries and poems of a fictional concentration camp survivor trying to make sense of what she has survived. But my interest in storytelling was truly kindled after my gender transition when publicity in the New York Post led to my giving scores of talks about trans identity. At first, most of what I knew about trans identity was my own life story. As I told stories of my growing up hiding my identity, gender transition in middle age, and then creating a life as myself in different ways to different audiences, I learned to love storytelling, to see it as a way of not only communicating but of understanding myself and the profound questions of gender and identity that have shaped me. That love deepened as I wrote my memoir of gender transition, and though I doubt I will ever write prose fiction again, I expect that storytelling will remain central to my teaching, my thinking, and even my spiritual life.
As a poet and non-fiction writer, how would you describe your creative process within both mediums?
For me, poetry (at least good poetry) either starts somewhere other than my conscious intentions or quickly grows beyond them. A good example of the latter is Shekhinah Speaks, which started with a conscious intention to write in the voice of the Shekhinah, but only became something worth doing when I recognized that what I really wanted was not to masquerade as a divine being, but put words together in ways that would enable divinity to speak through them. The Book of Anna was even less conscious in origin – it began when I heard a voice in my head suggesting I write about Anna, a fictional character I had not yet imagined. (I don’t understand that either.) But most of my poems start just by throwing words on the page and seeing what happens – which is probably why most of my poems end up falling short of poetry. However, when the words I’ve thrown down engage my unconscious imagination and feel like they are coming from or pointing beyond me, that’s when I know a draft might grow into real poetry.
All my non-fiction prose, even my academic writing, also has an element of unconscious impulse and imagination, and the best stuff always goes beyond what I think I know, but for me, that kind of writing always starts with conscious intention. The Soul of the Stranger grew out of my desire to develop a Jewish trans theology based on Biblical texts and informed by my own experience; my memoir of transition, Through the Door of Life, started with the intention of articulating aspects of gender transition that, as far as I could tell, no one had yet written about. Both of them grew in ways I couldn’t have imagined when I had those intentions, but both of them remained driven by those original conscious intentions in ways that isn’t true of my poetry.
What are some of your favorite elements of writing/ research? What are some of the most challenging?
Even in my most conscious prose, the part of writing I have always loved most is thinking on paper, free-writing, getting high on the feeling of words and sentences coming together and of new meaning finding its way into the world through me. But I love the feeling of discovery and revelation at every stage in the writing process, including the often difficult process of revision – and I love when I discover something by editing or cutting a sentence. Even though it’s often hard work, and even though that work often leads to writing I end up cutting or abandoning, I love writing. I never want to live without it.
What’s a question you haven’t been asked yet but wish you were asked (as well as the answer to that question)?
I’m not sure what the question would be (good thing I’m not on Jeopardy!), but one of the big shifts in my life as an openly trans – and thus openly queer – person was from seeing myself as a deviation or an exception to humanity, as a problem to be accommodated or explained, to seeing them as simply ways of being human. Rather than assuming, as I did most of my life, that the ways I am different were inherently marginalizing and problematic, I realized that they not only need no justification or defense but that they are sources of insight and wisdom, that they offer me perspective on the common dynamics and challenges of being human. In other words, I started thinking and talking and writing about how what makes me seem different can enable those who see me that way to understand aspects of themselves and their own lives. That shifts the incentives for inclusion of those who seem different. In addition, being something we owe people who have been excluded or marginalized, inclusion becomes a way of expanding our understanding of our own humanity. This shift, I’ve found, reduces resistance to inclusion (self-interest is a more reliable motivator than high ideals), and makes it more likely that people who are seen as different are listened to and valued rather than simply tolerated or treated as virtue-signifying tokens.
What advice might you have to give for aspiring writers?
I don’t know how good a source I am for that kind of advice, since most of my life I received little recognition, and even now, after publishing 12 books, rarely get reviewed or receive mainstream attention. But here are some things I’ve learned that has helped me.
I don’t need anyone else’s permission or recognition to be a writer – being a writer just (just!) means making writing central to my life. To do that, I need to write what delights and matters and is true to me. I also have to do the hard work of revising my writing so that it delights and matters and is true not only to me but to others. I have to simultaneously be tirelessly committed to the work of writing, and compassionate to myself when my human vulnerability (or just the need to have a life!) get in the way of it. In my life as a writer, I need to strive for greatness (by which I mean, strive for writing that is bigger, better, truer, more honest, smarter, wiser, more insightful than I am) rather than praise or recognition, because when I do that, the work is worth doing no matter what the rest of the world makes of what I write.
Most importantly: always make writing sure that in addition to working hard, you write for pleasure, that you do writing that just feels good to you, because it’s the pleasure of writing that gets us through the sometimes brutal cycles of revision and rejection and so on.
Besides your work, what are some things you would want readers to know about you?
I don’t know how much is interesting about me outside my work. That’s especially true now that my life is circumscribed by illness and disability, but I have always tried to put the best of myself into my writing, and the other aspects of life I value most – loving and being loved, friendship, conversation, reading poetry, trying to be a better, more curious, more understanding, more generous, more grateful person – are pretty common.
But I do want readers to know that even though, as someone who grew up in the shadow of the Holocaust and the cold war nuclear threat and who obliviously contributed to the cascading catastrophes of climate change, I am afraid of and for humanity, I love our species. I believe that we can learn to stop destroying ourselves and one another, and that our best is still to come.
Finally, what LGBTQ+ books/authors would you recommend to the readers of Geeks OUT?
I’m going to leave out the usual (and great) suspects like Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich and Allen Ginsberg, and recommend a couple of less-read authors I admire. In poetry, I strongly recommend the now-neglected W.H. Auden, as well as contemporary poets such as Trace Peterson (and check out her magazine EOAGH for great LGBTQ+ writing), Cam Awkward-Rich, Taylor Johnson, and Chen Chen. In terms of academic writing, I’m a big fan of Talia Bettcher‘s well-thought-out and clearly written philosophical examinations of trans identity and the issues surrounding it. Max Strassfeld‘s work on trans-Talmud is everything I think public scholarship should be, and Finn Enke is a less-known but wonderfully thoughtful and reader-writer on trans history.
Lio Min writes about music, magic, and sadness at the nexus of queer youth culture and metamorphic Asia America. Their culture reporting and fiction have appeared in The FADER, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Nylon, and many other outlets. They live in California.
I had the opportunity to interview Lio, which you can read below.
First of all, welcome to Geeks OUT! Could you tell us a little about yourself?
At various points in my life, I’ve been a boba barista, mailroom attendant, summer camp teacher, floral clerk, and call center operator. Throughout it all, I’ve reported and written stories all over the internet and a few times for print. The things I most write about are Asian American youth and music. Beating Heart Baby is my first novel.
What can you tell us about your most recent book, Beating Heart Baby? What was the inspiration for this project? And where did the title come from?
BHB is about boys, bands, and Los Angeles—and also internet friendships, anime, viral stardom, historical trauma, and modern Asian America. The summary that I personally feel is most accurate comes from a writer for the Chicago Review of Books, who described it as a story that shows “the violence and ecstasy of what it means to become an artist, to really be seen, both as and beyond a young adult.” My joke/not joke synopsis is, imagine if The Song of Achilles was actually about a song, set in our contemporary world, and ended with something more ambiguous than death.
So. Back in 2018, I worked at a summer camp, primarily with kids aged five to thirteen. There were a couple of kids there who left an impression on me — as an adult, you can too easily build an idea about who kids are and what they want out of life, and lose sight of the wonder and mischief and dangers and desires of childhood as it plays out. (Which, of course, you lived through the whole circus yourself, but at a certain point you begin to slip into the binary thinking of “my” generation versus “other” generations.) So I came into this job thinking I knew about kids and left the job much more tender-hearted about the trials and tribulations inherent in modern childhood. Some of the kids are, based on honed intuition, definitely going to go through “gender stuff” in the future, at a time when that vector of children’s autonomy is more and more surveilled if not outright criminalized. I found myself wondering if/how I could build a vision of the future these kids deserve, one that’s set in “the real world” but imagines what could be as the template for reality.
Re: the Asian American POV centricity, there are unique cultural frameworks within the multitudes of Asian Americas that I wanted to blow up (as in photography, not explosives) and examine as someone who lives in, critically observes, and conflictingly loves the coalition and histories suggested by the term “Asian American.” Re: the music element, I wanted to play with ideas about ownership, visibility, and identity (as an aesthetic influence but also as a commercial imperative) within the music world, focusing specifically on the increasingly more meteoric journeys that increasingly younger artists have to navigate with infinitely more eyes watching their every creative but also personal move.
The name of the book comes from a song released in 2004 by the pop-punk band Head Automatica. I liked it a lot when I was a kid; I definitely downloaded it off Mediafire or some site like that and revisited it every so often, usually as a running song. A decade later, one of the editors at my then-job polled the newsroom for their favorite crush songs. That was my contribution, and when years later I tried to figure out what to name the manuscript I couldn’t stop working on, I eventually thought of “Beating Heart Baby” — its relentless pacing and pleading as the singer sounds like he’s about to get crushed by his crush.
As a writer, what drew you to the art of storytelling, specifically young adult fiction?
Growing up, I was an avid reader of pretty much everything. The stuff I wrote in my spare time was also pretty much anything. But once I got to high school, I stopped being encouraged to read widely and was definitely not encouraged to write, period. So for the most part I just didn’t. I eventually found my will to write (or rather, couldn’t keep it muzzled), but it took me well into my twenties to start reading regularly again, and then yet another internal push to start reading literary fiction again, which was a precursor to writing fiction not just for myself, as I’d done as a child, but to be read by other people.
I actually thought I was never going to write fiction as an adult. Then I started experimenting with some short stories and was like, “Okay, that’s it.” Then I had that fateful summer experience and realized that the only way I was going to export all of these ambient influences and ideas out of my brain and into the world, given my limited creative toolbox, was through…sigh…long-form fiction.
There was an early crossroads for BHB, whether it would be a YA or an “adult” book. What pushed me to choose YA was because the only time in my life when I read like my life depended on it was in childhood, because in some ways my life did depend on the worlds and ideas I only encountered and imagined through reading. And while plenty of adults read YA, there are some people who will only ever be able to (for a variety of reasons) read like their lives depended on it during childhood, and who will only have access to books through portals like teachers and librarians tasked with the job of curating books “for them” specifically. So I made that choice “for them.”
In addition to writing fiction, you are also a pop culture and music journalist. How did you find yourself getting into that line of work?
I’ve always loved music but I wasn’t allowed to go to shows as a kid, so once I moved from suburban New Jersey to Los Angeles for college, I gorged myself on all of this culture that I’d only been able to admire from a far distance. Through a stroke of divine intervention, the journalism school (of which I was initially not a part) had just started a new digital outlet and was actively soliciting writers. (This is different from most college newspapers as far as I know, in that you normally have to have more samples/experience and formally apply. I did not have to turn in a serious application and sometimes that makes all the difference.) Through another stroke of divine intervention, my editors had no interest in covering music outside of celebrity news, so with their complete blessing/indifference, I took my college press credential and shared use DSLR into LA’s music scene and never looked back.
How did you find that connecting to your work with Beating Heart Baby?
I’m generalizing wildly here, but I think music is the most galvanizing and popular force within modern youth culture. Maybe all culture throughout history, but I can only really go to bat for the “modern youth” modifier. To some extent, the relationship between artists and fans has always had the potential to be downright religious with obvious cult overtones, but these associations are growing stronger and starting younger. Those relationships are then intensified in ways both affirming (as with the markedly more gender/race diverse pool of working musicians creating art on their own terms) and debasing (cult overtones are not good!), all filtered through the distortions of social media. When you combine this with the traditional coming-of-age narrative, specifically the somewhat traditional queer coming-of-age narrative, you have an endlessly replenishing powder keg of conflicts and desires.
Also, I love describing music through writing, even though it’s a Sisyphean endeavor. You don’t always have the full creative freedom to get weird/go deep with those descriptions in reported work, but in fiction, you have that freedom and in fact must follow it in order to get readers to imagine something that, by virtue of its existence, is impossible to pin down into words alone.
As a writer, who or what would you say are some of your greatest creative influences and/or sources of inspiration in general?
I always tell people that BHB is the novelization of an anime. I grew up reading manga and watching anime, and the intentionality of animation is my single greatest artistic inspiration. As with writing, nothing exists until you place it just so; there are no accidental symbols, no ambient scener and sounds, or improvised moments. Every sunbeam was designed and drawn and its movement over and against someone’s outstretched hand is choreographed in sync with that hand, with the leaves that swirl in the languid late summer breeze— You get the gist. My favorite anime series simultaneously leave nothing and everything to imagination; you sense the impossible world beyond the impossible frame and long to step into it.
So, anime. And then there’s music. As I wrote BHB, I obsessively curated three playlists: one for the events of the book from the protagonist Santi’s POV, one for the events of the book from the protagonist Suwa’s POV, and one from my authorial POV. There are sequences of the book that are beat-by-beat soundtracked by a specific song; for example, the ending of Track 7 is synced with Mitski’s “Geyser.” On a structural level, the moment when the POV switches halfway through the book was my way of pulling off a beat switch; the song that inspired that choice was Frank Ocean’s “Nights.” Pretty much all of my writing is “scored” to, rather than inspired by, what I’m listening to.
And then of course, other writing. Specific to BHB, I meditated on Bryan Washington’s Lot, Cynthia Kadohata’s The Floating World, Andrea Lawlor’s Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl, and Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko.
What are some of your favorite elements of writing? What do you consider some of the most frustrating and/or difficult?
I love writing sensory immersion and crescendoing a scene toward a specific action or line. Dialogue is fun to refine; I imagine it as parrying myself until both of “my” weapons have been honed to gleaming.
The most frustrating part of writing is getting not just a first draft down, but connected, which is a bear no matter if I’m reporting a story or writing something personal, and especially gnarly when I’m both the conductor and the train, so to speak. An exquisite corpse is still a corpse…
Aside from writing, what are some things you would want others to know about you?
I did marching band for three years at a big football school and learned all of my music by ear because I couldn’t read/translate the sheet music. (The double-edged sword of perfect pitch.)
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)?
“What, if any anime was the main inspiration for Mugen Glider?” (The fake anime in BHB.) In terms of imagery/mood, From the New World, specifically this ending credits sequence. In terms of story, the films 5 Centimeters Per Second and Millennium Actress, directed by Makoto Shinkai and Satoshi Kon respectively.
What advice might you have to give for aspiring writers?
Live. Both as an imperative and as a person beyond writing.
Are there any other projects you are working on and at liberty to speak about?
I’m doing a residency soon wherein I will supposedly be working on Book 2… More generally, I write a monthly-ish column for Catapult called Formation Jukebox, in which I deep dive into songs and relate them back to transness/transitioning, a process I am currently…undergoing? Living?
Finally, what LGBTQ+ books/authors would you recommend to the readers of Geeks OUT?
David Wojnarowicz’s memoir Close to the Knives cleaved me to my core. There’s my writing and like, life and thinking pre-Knives and then post-Knives. I like their books too but I go up for the “other writing” (short stories, essays, criticism, reports) by Bryan Washington, Andrea Long Chu, Alexander Chee (especially this, oh my god), and K-Ming Chang. Anthony Veasna So’s “Baby Yeah.” (RIP.) If it’s a cliché to recommend Ocean Vuong, I don’t want to be original. Our Dreams at Dusk by Yuhki Kamatani is a gorgeous and tender manga for those of y’all searching in that world, as is Blue Period by Tsubasa Yamaguchi (which is also about becoming an artist, in this case within the unique ecosystem of fine art).
Dan Clay is a writer and drag queen thrilled to be making his debut as a novelist with Becoming a Queen. Until now, he focused on spreading love and positivity online through his drag persona, “Carrie Dragshaw.” His writing as Carrie has been featured in hundreds of magazines, newspapers, and television shows–from Cosmo to People to Watch What Happens Live–and his TED Talk on being your “whole self” details his first-hand experience with the healing power of drag.
I had a chance to interview Dan, which you can read below.
First of all, welcome to Geeks OUT! Could you tell us a little about yourself?
It’s an honor to chat! Thank you so much. I love what you do and the beautiful community you’ve built!
I’m Dan, and I was cruising along in a relatively traditional business career until, long story short, I started doing drag! I’d post pictures and write captions as “Carrie Dragshaw,” and it was such a source of joy for me that it motivated me to explore even more creative pursuits, which led to longer-form writing, which eventually (after a lot of studying and learning!) led to this book.
What can you tell us about your debut book, Becoming a Queen? What was the inspiration for this book?
The inspiration was two-fold. The first I must warn you is a little heavy! I had this question rattling around in my head. The more life I lived, the more amazed I became at what people can get through. So many lives are hit hard, upended by unexpected pain and heartbreaking tragedy. It’s all around us. How on earth do we get through it? And often with so much love to spare? I wanted to zoom in on someone facing what felt like one of those insurmountable tragedies. And I wanted to try my very best–based on what I know, have experienced, have observed–to help him out of it.
The second inspiration is much lighter! The biggest surprise of my own life has been the healing power of drag. Maybe there’s something in the wigs, or perhaps it’s just the simple fact that everything gets better when you learn to love your entire self. On the heels of my own enlightenment, I wanted to write a book where LGBTQ identity was not a source of pain, but rather, the spring of salvation.
Put those two together, and bippity boppity boop, you’ve got Becoming a Queen!
Since so much of the book revolves around drag, I was wondering what drag as an element personally means to you, and how you would describe your connection to it?
Yes! Well, an unexpected thing happened for me when I started doing drag, which is that I started being more myself. It’s almost ironic that dressing up as a character made me more “me.” But it just pushed me toward authenticity, encouraged me to embrace parts of myself that I was still ashamed of, pushed me toward fuller self-expression (there are confessions “Carrie Dragshaw” makes that I could never dream of making! But they are, in fact, my confessions …)
And I learned, wow … authenticity can save you from a lot more than shame! It can be the force that propels connection, growth, healing, and most of all, love. Drag, and the authenticity that it compelled in me, has been the source of so much love in my life.
So in Becoming a Queen, I tried to capture a little bit of that broader role that drag can play. The book—while, yes, it’s a story about drag—is really more about taking masks off than putting them on. Exploring that gnarly truth underneath the masks we all wear, the parts we think make us broken but really allow us to heal.
What’s something you might want readers to take away from this book?
Oh gosh! It’s a beautiful thing to consider. I think a big part of the journey that Mark goes through is about trying to see others as fully as he sees himself. He starts out incredibly interior, and while he certainly doesn’t get to some enlightened state of non-self, he gets on the path. I do believe that striving to give joy is the best way to get it—even if you only make it halfway there—so I’d be delighted if someone took that away from this book!! See others more fully, see the weight that we’re all carrying, the grace that we all deserve.
As a writer, what drew you to the art of storytelling, specifically young adult fiction?
It really all started with the writing that I did as “Carrie Dragshaw.” I have always been absolutely obsessed and enamored with reading. I worship authors to the point of never even considering that I could be one! I thought books were born in the mind of genius and then dropped, fully formed, from the sky!
But when the Carrie Dragshaw writing started connecting with people, when people started playing the words back to me or sharing quotes, it was a level of fulfillment that I’d never experienced before. And I knew I absolutely had to at least try to pursue writing in what, to me, is its ultimate form: the novel!
What drew me to young adult fiction was partly functional … the story that I wanted to tell was of a teenager, and I wanted to tell it from his perspective. But it was also aspirational! I feel so very lucky that I’ve gotten to connect with folks through Carrie Dragshaw, and young adult was really exciting to me because, oh wow, maybe I could try to connect with people who’ve never even seen Sex and the City! Haha. Who don’t even know if they’re a Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, or Samantha. And are maybe at an age where certain doubts and insecurities (that I personally have spent way too much of my life focusing on) haven’t fully set yet. The idea that I could help someone, in some small way, skip faster through some of that fear … that was a very rewarding prospect to me.
How would you describe your writing process?
A bizarre combination of diligence without structure!
When I first started attempting longer-form writing, I was very loose and limber with the ambition, but very diligent with the time. I told myself: you have to write every morning. What you write is up to you! But you have to write. And once the story started taking shape, it got a momentum of its own, and I became nothing less than obsessed! I knew there would be a lot of challenges on the way to publication, but I didn’t want something as controllable as “how hard I was willing to work” be the thing standing in the way.
I’d say the most rewarding part of the process was when I could carve out three full days over a long weekend, or take vacation time and fully immerse in the world of the book. The characters started to feel real then; my world started blending with theirs in this surreal and beautiful way.
Growing up, were there any stories in which you felt touched by/ or reflected in? Are there any like that now?
Oh gosh, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds! I have always absolutely loved reading. It is still a singular joy! Two particularly profound reading experiences come to mind from the “growing up” days, one I felt “reflected in” and one “touched by.” The first: Where the Red Fern Grows. The week before I read the ending to that book, my absolutely perfect family dog died. This dog was my whole entire little life! And then I read the ending of Where the Red Fern Grows (I assume we all know what happens!) and cried tears I didn’t even know I had. I was not a sobber but I sobbed on the floral couch of my childhood living room. The fact that a book could reflect, deepen, add color to something I was experiencing, help me understand my own emotions better. It was almost shocking! How did the book know? It changed my relationship with reading. Deepened it, for sure, because I felt so very seen.
But I’ve also been permanently moved by books where I didn’t necessarily see me in the book, but I grew to understand the world a bit better because of the book. Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye remains one of my most profound reading experiences. I read it around my junior year of high school. I have blue eyes, and until reading that book, I hadn’t really thought too much about them. But then I read about Pecola Breedlove, a young girl who wanted nothing more than to “see the world with blue eyes.” It took me a while to understand what she was saying, but once I started to—I shifted. It has done more than perhaps any other individual thing to influence how I look at the world and how I try to interact with it. Pecola Breedlove. One of the greatest teachers I will ever know.
As a writer, who or what would you say are some of your greatest creative influences and/or sources of inspiration in general?
Well, I do feel like every book I’ve ever read is rattling around in my head in some way or another, influencing the words that come out. I have particular heart for writers who bring humor to decidedly unhumorous scenarios. Edward St. Aubyn and the Patrick Melrose novels, Betty Smith in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Kurt Vonnegut, Maya Angelou, Gabriel Garcia Marquez—brilliant, evocative writers who also somehow make us laugh. Dostoevsky in Notes from Underground or Crime and Punishment—both a lot funnier than I thought they would be! This, to me, is the height.
When I’m writing, I read a lot of poetry and listen to a lot of lyric-driven rap music, because I find the precision of language required in those forms to be particularly inspiring!
And this sounds silly, but the biggest inspiration is the world!! Perhaps my favorite thing about writing is it makes the world more vivid. For example, when you know that you have to write a description of a tree, you start looking at trees a little more closely. And that has been very rewarding for me.
What are some of your favorite elements of writing? What do you consider some of the most frustrating and/or challenging?
Connecting one on one with readers is a gift beyond description. Much of what I write is quite personal, and a lot of it revolves around lessons that took me a rather long time to learn. When someone gets it, when it helps them in some way … well, it’s the reward of a lifetime. What a privilege to be a writer!
On the challenges side, I’d say, really trying to embody an alternate perspective or life experience from your own. I mean, this in some ways is simply the definition of fiction, but it’s not easy! I am me! We are us! What else do we know? Colum McCann has this great little book of writing advice, and he says, “Don’t write what you know, write toward what you want to know.” Your navel contains only lint. He advises you to step out of your own skin. Explore new lands—even if you don’t know if those lands exist yet. I absolutely love that sense of expansiveness, but it’s also a challenge because of course, you want to get it “right.” You want to be true to the experience, the land, the person you’re portraying. So that, to me, is a challenge. But one I embrace with passion and humility!
Aside from writing, what are some things you would want others to know about you?
Well! I have two other formal jobs, one at a climate change nonprofit and one at a branding agency here in New York, and I love both! I think my absolute favorite thing about growing up is realizing that the answer to “What do you want to be when you grow up?” can be more than one thing! I love different elements of the different jobs, and what a joy to get to work on all of these interesting/rewarding challenges.
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)?
For fear of giving a long-winded answer to a self-created question, I will leave you in the driver’s seat …
What advice might you have to give for aspiring writers?
I would say, be sure to find joy (or some other fulfilling emotion!) in the process. If you’re pursuing publication, it can be a long time coming, and there are so many variables that influence that outcome. But if you can find joy in the process! Well, that no one can take from you! And even finding small, direct ways to connect to people with your writing. This can be the good side of online outlets, social media.
I made a list for myself, “Ten reasons I love writing that have nothing to do with getting published.” And it kept me going with it when the prospect of getting a book into the world seemed far-fetched to the point of delusional!
Are there any other projects you are working on and at liberty to speak about?
Well, Carrie Dragshaw is always prancin’ around! A drag/writing project that I thought might last a couple weeks has now gone on almost seven years! And I can’t imagine stopping. I will be in the retirement home in a tutu. And I’m also in the process of seeing if there’s another book up there. TBD! You’ll find out when I do 🙂
Finally, what LGBTQ+ books/authors would you recommend to the readers of Geeks OUT?
Oh gosh! Millions upon millions! What a gift it is to be a reader. Two that stick out: Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts—the writing is so precise and fierce and the ideas of self-creation and individual freedom very powerful–and Carmen Machado’s short stories, Her Body and Other Parties—I found them surprising, even startling, and the writing is mysterious and brilliant. Oh, and for something a little back in time, Carson McCullers’ The Heart is a Lonely Hunteris something I revisit quite often! And we’ve talked a lot about writing, and Patricia Highsmith has an amazing book, Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction, that I found incredibly valuable and would be useful regardless of your genre, as any story needs at least some suspense!
What a pleasure to be able to chat with you! And thank you for such thoughtful questions. It’s really been a treat!
Dominic Evans (he/they) is a freelance illustrator and merman based in London, from not-so-sunny Bolton, via Narnia. Growing up with a love of Buffy, short shorts, and Starlight Express, Dom, like many others, struggled to fit in at school, in life, and mainly with himself. However, he soon found his voice through his passion for illustration and stories. This led him on a path to illustrate for large brands, stores, clients, and agencies. He currently lives in East London and spends his time immersing himself in a graphic novel or an amazing book and then creating illustrations that he hopes will make your day and make you slay.
I had the opportunity to interview Dom, which you can read below.
First of all, welcome to Geeks OUT! Could you tell us a little about yourself?
Hi Geeks OUT! Thank you so much for having me on your site, I’m made up. My name is Dom, I’m an illustrator and author and I LOVE drawing and creating art around queer icons. If there’s an iconique moment or person that is slaying, hun, you bet I’ll be drawing them.
What can you tell us about your latest book, QUEER POWER: Icons, Activists, & Game Changers From Across the Rainbow? What was the inspiration for this project?
QUEER POWER is ultimately, one super big love letter to the LGBTIQA+ community. It’s packed full of illustrated epic humans and information and is all about celebrating queer icons, whether they’re from the red carpet to organizing a local protest to doing their activism through social media. Each of these icons through their visibility and representation are doing something to help advance queer rights and I absolutely love that we managed to give everyone a double page spread and equal billing.
This may sound cringey but my inspiration really was my community. I love seeing queer people go out there and make a change in their respective industries and completely kick-ass. It’s a massive inspiration to me.
As an author, what drew you to the art of writing/illustrating, specifically non-fiction?
I grew up loving comic books, fashion illustration and educational picture books, so in a weird way, QUEER POWER kind of pulls all of those together. I really enjoy drawing and writing stories but I also love creating art around people and their own personal stories. I’d illustrated and written non-fiction before but this book was so unique and a totally different process pulling together icons, researching them, and then writing about them.
With non-fiction work especially, I feel at the moment, it’s so crucial to have those books and resources out there for queer youth growing up. It’s something, I especially didn’t have and I really get a buzz seeing so many educational LGBTQIA+ picture books and resources on bookshelves out there and seeing that category expand more and more each year.
How would you describe your writing process?
I’ve realized over the years working on different projects that I’m very much someone who has to sit down and write all of it in one go. I can’t rest or do anything else until it’s all out of my brain onto a page, so I will hyper-focus on the task until it is done. With QUEER POWER, the writing stage actually came last as I wanted to get the visual language finalized first. I then sat down and wrote it all out, every icon, then went back over them again and again and then sent it to my lovely editor.
Growing up, were there any stories in which you felt touched by/ or reflected in? Are there any like that now?
There wasn’t really much representation around growing up for me. When I was younger, I definitely felt a huge pull to the X-Men comics and cartoon, as the idea of someone that didn’t fit in saving the world looking fabulous in a catsuit was something I could relate to! Growing older I, like many gays, fell in love with Buffy. As I came out at seventeen, Will & Grace had been airing in the UK for around a year so that really helped me in terms of representation on screen.
As a writer/illustrator, who or what would you say are some of your greatest creative influences and/or sources of inspiration in general?
I think my greatest creative influence was and will always be comic books and graphic novels. I love that when you look at a comic shelf in a store there are so many stories all being told in a zillion different ways with a zillion different art styles and a zillion different characters. I always turn to comics for any sort of creative boost. They’re my happy place!
I’d also say fashion illustration and costume. I really enjoy drawing outfits and lewks so QUEER POWER was a dream come true as so all of these icons look so fierce. I took so much pleasure in researching their fits or classic outfits to be worn in the book.
What are some of your favorite elements of writing/illustrating? What do you consider some of the most frustrating and/or difficult?
This is such a good question! My favorite part of writing/illustrating is when a plan comes together. Kind of like a really good date – you know, that moment when the text and image have a great chemistry, it’s all looking good and BOOM, you have a cute visual moment and it all makes sense.
The most frustrating bits are the days where my hands just cannot draw or my head cannot write, or both. That block can be a difficult space to navigate through and it’s times like that, that as a creative, you have to be very kind to yourself and go easy on yourself as if you try to force something, I’ve found personally, it will always end up getting redrawn again.
Aside from writing/illustrating, what are some things you would want others to know about you?
That I love my sci-fi, my fantasy, my anime and manga. I live for a good comic con! I also love fashion and styling, I worked in the UK for fourteen years in womenswear fashion retail, with the final five in London and three of those being a personal shopper. The stories I could draw and write about those years helping people who were going through various life dramas whilst trying to zip them into a hot pink fitted jumpsuit for their divorce party that evening? SO many.
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)?
What’s your favourite dinosaur? Because I really like dinosaurs. I don’t want a pet cat or a hamster, I want a feathered Velociraptor, they’re sassy and fierce but also cute and would eat anyone who tried to break into my house so I feel they’re a good investment. I grew up loving Jurassic Park so anything dinosaur-related I love and I don’t get enough dinosaur-related work. If anyone reads this please hire me to draw some dinosaurs, ok thank you!
What advice might you have to give for aspiring writers?
Write for yourself first. You are your own reader and you know a good story or hook when you read it, so write for you. Don’t feed into comparing yourself to others, YOU are your own niche! Never be afraid to experiment and try something different. If it goes wrong, at least you tried it, and if it goes really right, even better! Also, Do Not Disturb and Airplane Mode are the best things ever if you struggle to focus hehe.
Are there any other projects you are working on and at liberty to speak about?
At the moment, aside from the exciting QUEER POWER US release, which, has extra pages and new artwork too! Yas! I have some things that, at this stage I can’t speak but trust me, if they do happen, I will SCREAM because they have been years of hard work…
Finally, what LGBTQ+ books/authors would you recommend to the readers of Geeks OUT?
First of all, welcome to Geeks OUT! Could you tell us a little about yourself?
Hi! I’m Lionel Hart, and I write M/M romance books. I write primarily fantasy romance but have plans to branch out into a few different subgenres of M/M romance. I live in North San Diego county with my partner and our dog.
Since Geeks OUT is a queer centered website, could you tell us a bit about the LGBTQ+ characters featured in your books?
For sure! Well, I’m a gay trans man, so having representation that mirrors my own experiences is important to me. Not all of my main characters are trans, but they are all somewhere in the LGBTQ+ spectrum. But, I do focus mainly on male-male relationships, since that aligns with my own identity and lived experience.
How did you find yourself getting into writing fiction, particularly fantasy adventure with a side of gay eroticism?
I’ve always wanted to be an author, but had put that dream on the back burner as an adult — paying the bills and keeping a roof over my head was my primary focus for a while after getting out of college, when I came out and lost a lot of familial support. Then even when I was in a more stable place, it was hard to get back into writing. It was actually a few months into the pandemic, after I was laid off, that got me into writing seriously again. I had so much free time all of a sudden and decided now was my best chance at making writing my career.
I did a ton of research into the world of indie publishing and decided romance was a genre I enjoyed reading, would enjoy writing, and would give me the best shot at making a living doing what I loved. I knew I would want to write gay romance, of course, and as an avid Dungeons and Dragons player and general fantasy enjoyer, I saw there weren’t a ton of the sorts of stories I liked to read in indie published gay romance. So I decided that would be the niche I focused on, and here we are!
Your book(s) tend to center around male protagonists of fantastical origins. Could you tell us about some elements of these characters you’re excited for others to see in stories?
My debut series, The Orc Prince trilogy, features an arranged marriage between an elf and an orc. I wanted something that felt like a D&D inspired world, and I thought that would be a fun pairing. And since this was going to be a spicy romance, I included some omegaverse-like elements in my lore for elves — the series isn’t exactly an omegaverse series, but there are definitely shared elements so I’d say it’s omegaverse lite, haha.
I also have a more paranormal/urban fantasy series that’s in progress, the Chronicles of the Veil, which features a trans MC with a cis male love interest. The main character Florian finds out that he’s secretly a fae prince prophesied to save the world, and falls in love with his wolf shifter bodyguard along the way. This is a different take on fae and shifters, but I really love these characters and this series, and put a lot of myself in Florian. My partner is a cis man, so their dynamic was one I loved writing and felt very comfortable with.
Lastly, I have a dragon romance duology featuring an immortal dragon with a mortal fated mate. This is a darker romance which I really loved writing, as I got to explore what morality means to an immortal, extremely powerful creature. The dragon MC does a lot of morally questionable things in his attempts to keep his mortal mate with him forever, and I loved writing a villainous character who would not consider himself evil in the least, but would gladly destroy the world for the one he loves!
Were there any books that touched you or inspired you growing up?
Too many to name! I was a voracious reader as a child, so it’s hard to name any in particular. I re-read the Chronicles of Narnia a lot, so I’d say that really started my love of fantasy as a genre. I think that the book that made me decide I wanted to write fantasy books was The Secret of Dragonhome, a YA fantasy novel which I randomly found in the school library and loved it so much that I just never returned it… oops! It’s fairly obscure and I’ve never met anyone else who’s read it, but I read it over and over. I’d say that was my first experience with romantic fantasy, and while I’m not sure that book specifically stands up to the test of time, it definitely shaped my reading and writing habits into adulthood.
Where did you get your start in creative writing? What pulled you to fiction?
To be honest, I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. I wrote my first story in kindergarten — my mom still has it — about me finding a dalmatian puppy on the way home from school and convincing my parents to let me keep it. I was obsessed after watching 101 Dalmatians, but wasn’t allowed to have a dog at the time. The story didn’t convince my parents, but I never stopped writing after that. I got my bachelor’s degree in creative writing, and for a while wanted to get more into literary fiction to be a “serious writer” but honestly found I had a lot more fun writing genre fiction instead.
What magic systems/worlds/characters draw your attention?
I play a ton of D&D, specifically 5th edition, so I think that influences my magic systems and worldbuilding. For a future project I’d like to create a new magic system from the ground up, but for now, the worlds I write in have a softer, looser version of D&D’s magic system.
My partner is deep in the A Song of Ice and Fire fandom, so I know a lot about it even though I’m not nearly as big a fan as he is. I don’t know if I’d ever be able to pull off writing a world as intricate and deep as George R.R. Martin has accomplished, but I do love the idea of creating a fantasy world from the beginning, having its own mythos to self-reference and an entire history to pull stories from. I think a lot about that when trying to come up with ideas for future books, so maybe I’ll attempt something that ambitious someday!
As far as characters, that’s so hard to say! I love tragic characters and angst in general, so I think I’m drawn more to characters like that. Those who have dark pasts and carry deep sorrow or grief with them, but work to keep living until they find purpose again. I think a lot of LGBTQ+ people can resonate with those sorts of characters, because we still live in a world where just openly being LGBTQ+ means experiencing a loss of friends and family for a lot of people. That was my reality, too, so seeing characters who struggle but ultimately triumph is a comfort and an inspiration.
Is writing in the genre you have chosen difficult? Do you consider the results worth the challenge?
Fantasy can definitely be a challenge just by the virtue of how much worldbuilding goes into creating a good fantasy story, and while romance has a different reputation, it can still be a challenge for very different reasons. Putting both together creates unique challenges that encompass the pillars of both genres, but I think that when they’re done well, this is absolutely worth the challenge! I love the familiarity of romance beats contrasted to the new, unknown elements of a fantasy backdrop.
Do you have any plans to branch into other genres?
I do, actually! While I plan to stick with MM romance at the core, there are other subgenres I’d like to explore. I recently have been reading a lot of litRPG as a genre, so I have some ideas for more litRPG/progression fantasy-inspired romances, and I’d also like to dip my toes in contemporary MM romance in the future as well.
What’s something you haven’t done as a writer that you’d like to do?
I’ve never fully fleshed out a custom, hard magic system. It seems daunting from the outside, but the more I read about creating magic systems, the more I think it’s a challenge I’d like to take on at some time. So I’d like to do that in the future, especially if I decide to move forward with the litRPG-inspired fantasy ideas I have.
Are there any projects you are currently working on and are at liberty to speak about?
Definitely! I’m currently working on finishing my paranormal romance series, The Chronicles of the Veil. Books one and two are out, and I’m finishing up book 3 now and hope to have it published this spring. Book 4 will be the final book of the series and should be published later this year. I’ve really enjoyed writing this series and I’m eager to share it with my readers!
After that, I think I might give contemporary MM romance a shot. I’ve had some ideas for an angsty rockstar romance series, which would be pretty different from what I’ve written before, but I have three books basically already outlined so I think it would be a fun but fairly quick project to experiment with.
Aside from writing, what do you enjoy doing in your free time?
As mentioned, I play a ton of D&D, haha! I used to be a DM but when I started writing seriously again, I found it difficult to put my creative energy into two big projects, so now I’m a player in two different campaigns. I’m also a huge Pokemon fan and I play a lot of that when I have the time — I love shiny hunting, but I’m not very good at competitive battles unfortunately! I live in San Diego, so when it’s warm my partner and I spend a lot of time at the beach as well.
What’s a question you haven’t been asked yet, but wish you were asked (as well as the answer to that question)?
This is a tough question, haha. I think someone’s favorite food can tell you a lot about a person, so — Lionel, what’s your favorite food? Thanks Lionel, if I had to pick, it’d have to be sushi for me!
Finally, what LGBTQ+ books/authors/creators would you recommend to the readers of Geeks OUT?
So many!! If you want more M/M fantasy romance, especially if it’s spicy, check out Ben Alderson’s books — he has quite a few, but I loved his gay vampire Beauty and the Beast retelling, Lord of Eternal Night.
For a more high fantasy inspired omegaverse series, I’ve loved Corey Kerr’s The Middle Sea series, especially The Sorcerer’s Alpha. Kerr really nails keeping the appeal of omegaverse books in a very different setting, and the fantasy world of this series feels very expansive.
For some spicy trans rep, I’ve loved everything I’ve read by Freydis Moon, especially their novella Exodus 20:3. If you have some lingering religious trauma like me, I think you’ll enjoy this spicy story between a trans man and an angel in disguise.
And finally, for a cozy, non-spicy, sapphic fantasy, I adored Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree. I read it with a friend who’s into a very different vein of fantasy romance (cough, ACOTAR, cough) and we both loved it, so I would highly recommend it to just about everyone, especially if they love D&D flavored fantasy.
I had the opportunity to interview Mike, which you can read below.
First of all, welcome to Geeks OUT. Could you tell us a little about yourself?
Cheers, queers! I’m Mike Curato. I am an author and illustrator of graphic novels and children’s books.
What can you tell us about your most recent graphic novel, Flamer? Where did the inspiration for this story come from?
Flamer is the story of Aiden Navarro, a chubby fourteen-year-old Filipino-white mixed kid who is away at scout camp. The year is 1995, and Aiden is navigating friendships, bullying, and how they can overlap. He has lots of questions about his religion, struggles with his body image, and deals with racism. All of that is the backdrop to Aiden confronting his sexual identity, and questioning his very existence. Also, there are fart jokes. The story runs parallel to a lot of my personal experiences as a teen.
As opposed to your other work, much of which includes children’s books based in fiction and fantasy, Flamer is semi-autobiographical. What made you decide to explore the personal in a young adult graphic novel?
While much has changed in nearly thirty years, queer youth still face many of the same challenges that I did. Except now, they don’t have to think they’re alone. I wrote Flamer as a life raft for those young queers who have not found their community yet, who don’t feel safe, who feel like there’s no one out there who understands them. Writers are called to create the books they want to read or wish they had when they were younger. Flamer is my response. I’ve also heard from a lot of adults who felt very seen by this story in a way that they hadn’t before.
How did you find yourself getting into storytelling, particularly comics and children’s books? What drew you to the mediums?
I loved picture books as a child and was an avid comic book reader from middle school through college. In high school, my dream was to one day write and illustrate for X-Men. In college, as an illustration major, I rediscovered my love of children’s books. I figured, why limit myself? I want to do it all! The magic of picture books is that there is so much emotion and wonder boiled down into just 32 to 40 pages. Meanwhile, a comic plays with time and pacing in its own unique way with limitless possibilities. Picture books and comics lay somewhere between the written word and film, each commanding their own realm. That kind of magic excites me.
As someone who has worked on many of their own picture books, as well as having collaborated with others, can you give insight or advice into what goes into making a picture book?
Laughs? Tears? Metric tons of ice cream? There are so many ways to approach making a picture book (or any type of book), but my free advice is that you have to be moved by your own book if you want it to resonate with a reader. That’s the test. If your book doesn’t make you feel something, then it’s not ready to be shared with others. Don’t waste the time and trees otherwise.
As a creative, who or what would you say are some of your greatest creative influences and/or sources of inspiration?
Whoa, buddy, that’s a long list. Here are some names in no specific order: Alison Bechdel, Edward Hopper, Ian Falconer, Michael Sowa, Jillian Tamaki, Mariko Tamaki, Mark Ryden, Gene Yang, Berenice Abbott, Pierre + Gilles, David Small, Tillie Walden, Wes Anderson, Isabel Arsenault, Beatrice Alemagna, Chris Van Allsburg, Shaun Tan… I think I need to stop with names because I will just keep going, but I also need to say that my friends and family are probably my biggest inspirations and support system.
Besides your work as an author/illustrator, what are some things you would want readers to know about you?
My sister made fun of me once for a promo reel I made for a picture book that I illustrated. I guess I have a certain way I speak when talking to children and parents that’s “cutsier” than my normal self. But in my defense, I can’t really sell picture books by being a sarcastic cussing mess, which is how I appear in my natural habitat. So if you see those clips, just know that I did it for the kids. You should also know that I am a sugar fiend, film buff, Pisces sun (splash!), Scorpio rising (smack!), and world traveler who loves karaoke.
What’s a question you haven’t been asked yet but wish you were (and the answer to that question)?
THANK YOU for this.
Q: MIKE! If you were on Drag Race, who would you be on Snatch Game?
A: Edina Monsoon, darling!!! Help mama…
Are there any projects you are working on or thinking about that you are able to discuss?
Well, wouldn’t you like to know! Yes! I am currently working on my very first adult graphic novel called Gaysians, which centers the gay Asian American experience, all T (some shade). It features an ensemble of friends in early 2000s Seattle as they navigate dating, family, racism, and transphobia. It is going to slaysian the house down boots.
Finally, what LGBTQ+ books/comics would you recommend to the readers of Geeks OUT?
