Tag: non-binary

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Interview with Lindz Amer, Author of Hooray for She, He, Ze, and They!

Lindz Amer (they/them) creates LGBTQ+ and social justice media for kids and families. They wrote, produced, and cohosted Queer Kid Stuff—an original LGBTQ+ educational web series for ages three and up—which The Huffington Post called a “groundbreaking YouTube educational resource.” They host the Rainbow Parenting podcast and wrote Rainbow Parenting, a queer and gender-affirming parenting guidebook for grown-ups, and the picture book Hooray for She, He, Ze, and They!. They also write and consult for preschool television.

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

What can you tell us about your latest book, Hooray for She, He, Ze, and They!: What Are Your Pronouns Today? What was the inspiration for the project?

I dedicated the picture book to my younger self! So much of my work comes from my own inner child healing where I make what I wish I had when I was younger. But recently there’s been something more urgent pushing me forward. I can’t gift my work to my younger self, so it’s about helping today’s young people navigate the culture and society we’re living in, combating anti-trans and anti-queer sentiments with a whole lot of joy and showing kids how they can tap into their authenticity and be proud of who they are even when the world tells them they shouldn’t be themselves.

As creators, what drew you to the art of storytelling, particularly picture book?

Stories are everything for me. If I believed in anything close to god it would be stories. Stories that we’ve told and retold again and again, reconfigured archetypes and heroes journeys and flights of fancy. For me, stories are everything. I consider myself to be an artist who works across many different mediums (prose, music, scripts, performance, painting) but the heart of everything I do creatively is always story. Picture books are some of the first stories we encounter and become conscious of. My favorite picture books from my childhood are stories that have grown with me throughout my whole life and have taken on new meanings through different context and moments in my own story. I think it’s pretty darn cool that I can contribute even a little bit to a young person’s life through a work like that.

How would you describe your creative process?

A great question! It’s very stop and start for me. I’ll get an idea and let it percolate or deep dive into a ton of research. When it feels like my brain can’t hold onto it any longer, that’s when I usually start putting words on a page and play with language. I work best when my work is in conversation with others so feedback and the back and forth process of editing is extremely important for me. I’ll do that back and forth dance until it starts to take on a sharper shape and that’s when it’s at some semblance of “finished.” Most of my creative projects take on some version of that pattern. Some are longer and take a really long time to come together and some just pour out of me.

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

I was a HUGE Harry Potter kid. That series is tough for me nowadays since JK Rowling has been so vocally anti-trans. I haven’t been able to revisit it for a few years and I used to listen to the audiobooks every year. But I’ve been getting into the Percy Jackson books recently and that’s been really healing for me, especially as a neurodivergent person!

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

People! I love true stories from my life or a friend’s life but I also get a lot out of history. There are so many stories out there yet to be uncovered, especially when it comes to LGBTQ+ history. Rabble-rousers and stories of outcasts and folks who made good trouble always get my gears going. There was a moment where I got super into pirates! I get inspired by real life, and history, and people I know and I filter them through story structures and archetypes to turn it into something that has maybe a bit more of a flourish or puts emphasis in a particular spot.

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

My favorite part of writing is when I get into the flow of it. That’s when I’m really living with the characters and watching the story unfold in my mind’s eye. But the most frustrating part is pretty much everything around that. Staring at a blank page, watching a deadline tick closer and closer. When I can’t find a good creative solution to a story problem. Those are the not fun parts!

Many creators would say one of the most challenging parts of writing a book is finishing one. What strategies would you say helped you accomplish this?

It’s so very helpful to have talented editors and a deadline. Sometimes you just have to call it when you’ve been messing with a manuscript for too long. It’s never going to truly be finished and I’ve worked on making peace with knowing things won’t always be absolutely perfect, but perfection is an illusion. Nothing is ever truly “finished” there’s just a point in the creative cycle when you decide that it’s close enough to being finished and then it needs to move onto the next part of the process for other artists to work on whether that’s an illustrator or a layout designer, because there are very few artistic mediums where a piece is only ever touched by one person. I have to finish my part of the process so others can do their part!

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

I have a wonderful wife and two very spunky rescue dogs Georgie and Charlie! I love to cook, I’m decent at painting landscapes and I probably watch too much reality tv competition shows. I was born and raised in NYC but now I live in New England. I miss the city that raised me but I love the slower pace my life has taken when I’m at home. I love my friends and community, but I’m also a huge introvert. I play goalie in a local rec soccer league and I love to share music with the young folks in my life 🙂 Thank you for asking!

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)?

Ooooo! If you’d asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up when I was 5 I would have said astronaut, but that dream died the first time I tasted freeze dried ice cream.

What advice might you have to give for other aspiring writers?

Keep writing! Even if it’s bad! Even if it’s terrible! If you keep at it, it won’t be terrible forever. To get good at something, you have to be patient with yourself and do it over and over again and you get better at it slowly. It may feel like forever but one day you’ll find an old poem you wrote in high school and it will be super cringey but then you’ll look at your newly published picture book and see how far you’ve come.

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

Mainly I’m focusing on my work through Queer Kid Stuff, the LGBTQ+ preschool webseries where I got my start (and what I’m probably most well-known for!). I’m working on some big stuff (including a possible rebooted version of the show?!?) so stay tuned for that! Lots more coming down the pipe. If folks want to stay up to date they can check out queerkidstuff.com and join our monthly newsletter!

Finally, what LGBTQ+ books/authors (comics included) would you recommend to the readers of Geeks OUT? 

Oh gosh, I’ll read anything by Kyle Lukoff, Kacen Callendar, Casey McQuiston, and ND Stevenson.

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Interview: Mason Deaver

A non-binary author with a love for baking and gardening, Mason Deaver (They/Them) is the best-selling author of their debut book, I Wish You All the Best. One of the first YA books featuring a non-binary protagonist written by a non-binary author, I Wish You All the Best tells the story of Ben De Backer who comes out their parents, and deals with the consequences of that decision, as well as falling in love for the first time. Geeks OUT recently had the pleasure of siting down with Mason Deaver to talk about their new book as well as their writing process.

How and when did you come to realize that you wanted to be a writer?

It’s a story that I think a lot of authors have. You know whenever you’re younger, you write a lot of books. You take drawings and stories that you type up and you staple them, and like that’s your book. But I really got serious about it after I read Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli. That was a book that sort of I guess kicked me into high gear about wanting to tell my own story and have something similar to that, that people could react to in the same way I reacted to Simon Vs. and Becky’s other books and other queer books that were out there.

How did I Wish You All the Best first come to conception? What were some of the original sparks?

Well, I guess you already answered that.

(Chuckles.) Well, there’s a few more things. Obviously Simon Vs., but then just wanting there to be more out there for trans teenagers. Like there was… I wouldn’t even say shortage, there were just no trans or non-binary books out there. The only one I would say I would even read at that time was If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo. So I saw this sort-of gap and I wanted to fill it because, you know, I can’t imagine what a book like this would have done for me when I was a teenager and confused. And so, there’s no way for me to go back in time and hand a book to myself, but if I can do that for someone who was like me, someone who struggling with things and trying to figure things out, then that is like what I wanted to do.

How would you describe your writing process?

For I Wish You All the Best, very chaotic, because I did not plan anything out. That first draft was a 120,000 words of just a hot mess I never want to see again. Thankfully I had people who helped me along the way. Friends, critique partners, and eventually my agent and editors who helped me trim it down and clean it up. And it’s very much different from the things that I had to write after. A lot of the time a book two is a contract obligation, so you have to plan things out so that you can actually sell it. And so book two, I had to plot from beginning to end, and it’s changed a lot, but the basics are still there. And then you know, I’ve had other ideas where I just want to see what happens, just plan this out. And of course I’m writing something else now, but it’s just out there in the wind and I don’t know what I’m doing, and it’s working for now. That might change. (Laughs.)

What has the journey been like since your debut as a YA author?

Oh, it’s been very interesting. A lot of things have changed. I’ve talked with friends who are in similar situations. You know, whenever you debut it’s almost like a wall has to go up, sort of in a way to protect yourself. There are mean people out there on the interest who want to send you random emails talking about how they want to kill you, and it’s not fun.

Oh my goodness (Laughs nervously.)

Yeah, that was a weird morning. But there’s a lot of good things too. Like it’s definitely not been a negative process, and I don’t want to make it seem that way. It’s seeing people online and on Instagram, posting pictures of my book, and reviews talking about how even if they are a cis person how much they still enjoyed it, and if they are trans or non-binary, like how much they saw themselves in the book, and that’s just been, I can’t describe it in any other way but magical. It’s very heartwarming and it makes me feel very good about like what I’ve been able to be

Yeah, you’re actually making a difference with your words.

Yeah, and that’s like what I wanted to do, and I feel accomplished in that now and it makes me feel very proud.

So what are some of the queer YA titles or some of the authors who inspired you?

So Becky Albertallli, who I already talked about her. Definitely Meredith Russo with her books, especially If I Was Your Girl. It was the first time that I saw a trans main character actually get her happy ending and what I felt that she deserved, and the book discussed and talked about her book, but it was never in a way that felt like it was…

Sensationalized. 

Yeah, exactly. It felt like it was coming from a real place, a real author who has gone through these things. And then of course, you have authors like Adam Silvera, who discusses such heavy topics but in such a neat and concise and sometimes messy way that I just adore. If I had to pick three it’s definitely like Becky, Meredith, and Adam.

In the scope of LGBTQ+ literature, how do you think queer YA differentiates itself or distincts itself from other fiction?

I think that, and this is a question that I get a lot and I’m glad that I’m asked it because I’m always feel like we are at the height when it comes to queer YA. You know there’s still a lot of work to do. Queer authors of color and queer disabled authors still don’t seem to have a space and it completely sucks and we still need to fix that, but I also feel like we’ve made a lot of strides in including a lot of people, specially in queer YA. And so, you know, I think what really sets it apart is whenever you look at, say Adult fiction that’s queer, a lot of that has been on tragedy, and it does not end well. But I think in queer YA we’re finally at a place where, you know… of course a queer author deserves to tell a tragic quote, unquote tragic story.

Yeah, like Adam Silvera.

Yeah, like Adam has every right to do that because that is his life and he has lived it, and he has the space to do that. But then on the other side you have people who are telling happier stories, like Becky Albertalli, or I would even say Shaun David Hutchinson. You know, his books are not tragedies, they end happy.

They’re hopeful.

Yeah, that’s exactly it. That’s exactly the world.

They’re realistic, but hopeful.

Realistic, but hopeful, and I think there’s really never been a better time for that.

Yeah, I also say that with new shows like Queer Eye, exposing that queer joy is a revolution in itself. 

Yeah.

Like people need to see that in order to let them know they can survive and thrive in our society.

Yeah, and it’s, you know, so much of, if you go back, older again quote, unquote queer YA which wasn’t really queer, is a lot of it based on tragedy.

Like Annie on My Mind was one of the first joyful ones, actually.

Yeah, and you have books that did have trans characters, but like they died. They were killed off, they were murdered, they died of something.

Luna by Julie Anne Peters was one of the exceptions.

Yup, and it’s just very refreshing that I feel like if you are a queer teenager there’s a lot to choose from nowadays.

There’s more variety.

Yeah. There’s definitely a lot of spaces that we need improvement, and, you know, keep striving for that improvement, but I don’t think we’ve ever been better.

Hypothetically, if any of the characters from I Wish You All the Best were to interact with characters from any other established fictional universe, what characters from which fiction universe would they be?

So this is another fun question that I don’t get very often, so I’m glad you actually asked it. But the popular thing, and I do not know exactly why, I have a hint of why, but not a hundred percent, but people seem to love the idea of Ben and Nathan being with Alex and Henry from Red, White, and Royal Blue. Which I, unfortunately, I do not think is plausible because one side of that is the Prince of England and the First Son of the United States, and my characters are just two teenagers in North Carolina. 

Who knows, they might do a political campaign. 

Yeah (laughs.) Nathan would work on the next one. I do, I am a firm believer that Nathan wakes Ben up at three O’clock in the morning, and while Ben is not happy about being up that early in the morning, they will sit there and they will support Nathan with the t-shirts and the snacks and the custom flags and everything.

Ok, last question. As a debut author what advice would you give to other writers who wish to write themselves?

That it’s going to be hard, and you are definitely going to have to reach into places that may not be comfortable. That you may not feel entirely ok with showing, and that’s ok. There are pieces of the book that I wrote that maybe going back I would not include, but I’m glad that I did, because the book is very honest and I think that that is the most important thing you can be whenever you’re writing a part of yourself into a novel is that you’re honest about the things that you’ve been through, the things that you experienced, the things that you thought, and the things that you know. I really think that honestly is the key. And again, it can be so difficult to be that vulnerable and present yourself in such a way, but in the end it’s worth it because the people you are trying to help that’s what they’re going to appreciate that most.