It’s happened again. You picked up a new book or started a show, and your spidey-sense began tingling. There’s something about this character. Something unique, compelling—relatable, even. There’s an element of their personality that reminds you of you. You have a hunch, a building suspicion, so you google the character, read interviews from their creator, scour message boards for fan theories and headcanons. You try to find out if anyone has seen the same something that you have. This character is definitely, undeniably, totally-saying-for-sure autistic. But this doesn’t seem intentional. And not for the first time you wonder: “Why are the best autistic characters always accidental?” 

“Woah,” you say, “Slow down. I’ve never had this experience. I’m not even sure I could tell you what autism is.” Never fear! For the uninitiated, here is a brief explanation: Autism is defined as a developmental disability or a neurodivergency that affects communication and how individuals process sensory information from their surroundings. Because it is a spectrum, autism presents differently in every person, and there is much variation in behavior from one person to another. However, there are traits many autistics frequently have in common, such as divergent thinking, processing stimuli differently, unique ways of speaking or socializing, moving differently, or having higher support needs. For me, autism primarily affects my communication style and the intensity of my interests. And one of my interests happens to be how the media portrays autistic characters. 

Despite my long history of enjoying media of all types, I have rarely seen depictions of people with autism that reflect autism that looks like mine. Intentional depictions of autism usually fall into two categories: stereotypical and/or negative. However, underneath the intentional, there exists an unseen world of accidental representation full of neurodivergent characters that resonate more authentically and affirmingly with a neurodivergent audience. So, why does this happen? And why should we care? 

Unsurprisingly, positive and negative representations of neurodivergent individuals have positive and negative consequences. To understand these consequences, let’s examine autistic stereotypes and their harmful impact, and in contrast, study what good representation looks like, and how we can make accidental representation purposeful and positive. 

Stereotypical and Negative Depictions in Media

The two autistic stereotypes most commonly found in media are the child and the savant. The child can be a literal child, or an adult treated like a child, but either way, this character is usually assumed to be incapable of caring for themselves. On the other hand, the savant is seen by others as a genius, but they are often portrayed as being socially inept, rude, emotionally stunted, or in other ways inconsiderate and unfeeling. Infamous examples of this include Dustin Hoffman’s character in Rain Man, and Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory, who is often quirkily callous or casually misogynistic. Even when autistic depictions expand past these two categories, it is rare to see characters that aren’t straight, white, and male. The image generally held in people’s heads is a skinny, pale, moody young man with obvious differences in mannerisms. We do not imagine autistic people as queer, fat, gender diverse, or as people of color. 

Autism focused studies over the years have indicated that depictions of people with autism in the media could have a significant impact on the public’s perception of autistic people. As summarized in a study by Sandra C. Jones, negative stereotypes can increase the alienation and isolation of autistic individuals, and promote misconceptions, prejudice, and negative behavior towards them. 

The theory is, if these depictions are narrow and negative, so will be people’s opinions of autistic people. I, unfortunately, don’t have to theorize. The most common reaction when I tell people of my autism diagnosis is: “But there’s nothing wrong with you!” Because autistic people are portrayed as unable to speak well or advocate for themselves, I cannot possibly be autistic. Because autistic people are portrayed as emotionally stunted or unempathetic, I cannot possibly be autistic. Because autistic people are portrayed as “superhuman” and robot-like, I cannot possibly be autistic. But I am, because I am a nuanced human being, not a stereotype. And good representation reflects that nuance. 

Accidental Depictions in Media (AKA: Nonstereotypical and Positive)

The accidental autistic varies wildly in race, gender, age, and personality. The accidental autistic is three-dimensional, well-fleshed out, and possesses agency and independence. Many of these characters go unseen as autistic by the majority of the audience because they don’t represent the stereotypical traits, but this is the very thing that makes them relatable to me, and other autistic individuals. 

“Well, that’s great,” you might say, “And you’re making excellent points, but can I get some examples of accidental autistics?” I’m so glad you asked. As I do not want to speak for anyone but myself, the following characters reflect what I consider to be my autistic traits, but I assure you that these results have been peer reviewed by an expert group of researchers (i.e. my autistic friends.) 

• I see my one-minded enthusiasm and passion reflected in Fox Mulder of the X-Files, an FBI agent pursuing the disappearance of his sister via extraterrestrial means. His authenticity to himself, to his beliefs, and to the people he loves even when they betray him—these traits are not seen as naive, gullible, or idealistic, but are venerated and valued. 
• Represented in Aloy of the Horizon series is my honesty, empathy, and unassailable sense of justice. The chosen savior of her planet, the only hope of humanity, her bluntness in social situations is not portrayed as inept or inconsiderate, because every interaction with her showcases the depth of feeling she has for human beings and their happiness and safety. 
• I find my expansive vocabulary and literal sense of humor in Xenk Yendar of the Dungeons and Dragons movie, a compassionate and dramatic paladin dedicated to the defense of his realm (and to sticking his nose in the business of lonely bards.) He is loved for his sweet naivete, and is found charming in his heartfelt declarations and his idealistic beliefs, not mocked, not belittled. 
• In Captain Holt of Brooklyn 99, the dry-humored leader and caring mentor of the 99th Precinct, I see my enthusiastic organization, my rigorous intellectual pursuits, and my happy disregard for conventionalities. This unconventional attitude is celebrated by his coworkers; it becomes what they love most about his leadership.
• From Katniss Everdeen of the Hunger Games series, there is my independence, my pragmatism, and my self-soothing stims. In her rebellion against the Capital, I see my desire to fight against impossible odds for the people closest to me, no matter the personal consequence. Even though Katniss struggles with connection, she is the spark that starts the flame of resistance, a resistance that would have been impossible without her contribution.    

The list goes on. But you may be thinking, “Well, these are traits anyone could have.” And it’s true. In accordance with the premise of the accidental autistic, all of these examples are noncanonical. We have no confirmation from their creators that they are autistic. But I invite you to google any one of these characters. I can already tell you what you’re going to find. Threads on Reddit, articles on WordPress, posts on Tumblr—all with neurodivergent people discussing, celebrating, and comparing their lived experiences to these characters. 

So, why are the best autistic characters always accidental? Well, when nonautistic people write autistic characters, they often make the mistake of looking only to previous depictions in media, or of writing to a set of stereotypes. But the accidental autistic is written with love, with fondness, with joy, not to meet a preconceived idea or a diagnostic criteria. The criteria isn’t the character, the character just happens to meet the criteria. Because their creators weren’t consciously writing an autistic character, they avoid many of the harmful stereotypes, and humanize these characters instead of alienating, parodying, or ridiculing them. 

So, What’s Next? 

Now, you may be saying, “Alright, I’m on board. What can I do to ensure that autistic representation is both purposeful and positive?” And you’re in luck, because I have a handy little list:

1. Gain awareness and education on autism: Talk to neurodivergent people, discover their art and inventions and stories! Find books written by autistic individuals, both educational and personal. Consider your preconceptions of autistic people and interrogate your assumptions.
2. Explore positive representation: Even and especially if it’s accidental! Ask your neurodivergent friends who they believe are good autistic representation, who they’ve connected to in their favorite media. Not only will you gain perspective on the breadth of the spectrum, you will also learn more about how autistic individuals experience autism.
3. Create positive representation: Now that you’ve broadened your horizons, it’s time to write autistic characters! These should be characters you love that just happen to be neurodivergent. Give them rich narratives, complex motivations, and non-stereotypical traits and flaws like you would any other character! 

Positive representation may seem a small effort in the face of the discrimination and prejudice autistic people face, but do not underestimate the power of a story and a lovable character to transform minds and touch hearts. It is my hope that, eventually, we will not have to rely on the “accidental autistic” to see ourselves but be able to seek autistic characters out across media: canonized, valued, and loved—just as we should be. 

You’ve heard it before—that sage, age-old writerly wisdom, supposedly enough to crack the code to creating vibrant, truthful, and resonant works of literature: “Write what you know.” Sounds simple enough, but what is it exactly that we’re supposed to know again? Surely not every story should be restrained by the quotidian characters and scenarios of real life; surely not every self-indulgent Mary Sue should make its way into a final piece. But the goal is not to turn fantasy into realism, or fiction into memoir—rather, it is to enhance your writing with the verisimilitude of life, whatever genre it may be. What the teachers, authors, and workshoppers bestowing this classic advice fail to explain is how to actually know what it is that you know.

Here are some concrete writing tips and exercises to help you truly “write what you know,” gathered over my time as a F(r)iction intern and a Literary Editing and Publishing student at USC.

1. Observe from Life

Just like visual artists practice live figure drawing, sketch out the characters in your life by taking notes on their conversations, mannerisms, and idiosyncrasies. You can even people-watch and eavesdrop on strangers’ conversations in public. These details can easily become part of a fictional character, a scene, or dialogue, but even more importantly, you’ll get in the habit of observation. The more you view life like a writer, the richer and more lifelike your work becomes.

2. Journal, Journal, Journal

This advice is nothing new; but how do your whiny diary entries help you when you want to write Good Serious Fiction, you might ask? To continue the artist analogy, treat your diary or journal like an artist’s sketchbook. Your diary isn’t merely a confessional experience, it is also a practice space, full of authentic introspection and observations about life that can be drawn out into a more formal piece of writing. You never know what snippets may fit perfectly in a piece or inspire an entirely new story.

3. Practice Self-Indulgence

Many writers share a fear that writing too close to your personal experience will come across as self-indulgent, flimsy, arrogant, cringe, righteous, boring, or any number of negative associations. It’s scary to reveal ourselves or our loved ones—and women writers especially face the dreaded accusation of the “Mary Sue,” as if a “self-insert” character is the most cardinal crime a genre writer can commit. Well, I say write it anyway. Write the cringey, self-insert fanfiction—you’ll still be practicing the essentials, like style, plot, voice, dialogue, theme, atmosphere . . . the list goes on! Write dumb things until you no longer believe that self-indulgence equals dumb.

4. Follow the Shadow Self

To get inspired, ask yourself one simple question: W.W.E.M.D.? What Would Evil Me Do? Take a scenario from your recent life and reimagine it: If the worst possible version of yourself took over and made all your decisions in that moment, what would have happened? Play out the most outlandish scenarios, discover new plot possibilities, and indulge in your shadow self to create exciting characters. By drawing from a real moment in your life, where you could have made a different decision, and following that shadowy voice that tempts you to take the low road, even the wackiest conclusions will be grounded in realism.

5. Embrace Autofiction

Writing from real life doesn’t have to be boring. Whether you’re writing fantasy, sci-fi, horror, or realistic fiction, literature can explore questions of the self regardless of genre. Autofiction, or stories that fictionalize elements of the author’s life and leave the truth intentionally ambiguous, proliferates the current literary fiction scene. Many authors are already out there blurring the lines between author and narrator, between the self and its representation, between fiction and reality; this is exciting new territory and it’s reshaping how we view the fictional novel. Don’t be afraid to write as yourself—or some skewed, semi-fictional version of yourself. Audiences are eating up the ambiguity.

As a writer, you are your own greatest asset. Anyone can learn how to string some pretty words together, but the most valuable thing your work has to offer is that it came from you. It is uniquely yours—a cocktail of your worldview, psychology, passions, interests, observations, past experiences, hyperfixations, and the characters that fill your life, shaken not stirred—and that is not a recipe anyone else can recreate. The first step to writing what you know is killing the critic inside your head that cringes away from anything that feels “too you.” Spoiler alert: you’ll never succeed at becoming not-you, so you might as well embrace what you got. I promise it’ll make your writing even better.

In I Love You More: A Reluctant Memoir, you mention your mother wanted you to write this story, and you usually do as your mother wants. In addition to this motivation, what else led you to write this book?

I wanted to address some deeper confusions I had about my childhood. I wanted to research and understand the truth because I wasn’t confident in the stories I’d been told my whole life. Searching for the truth led to writing, and writing led to the truth. After that happened, and with my mom’s encouragement, the story took on a life of its own.

Projects will do that! I’d like to talk about your choices regarding content. This story spans many years and many miles, beginning in the Appalachians and tracing back family lines. Was this one of the ways I Love You More took on a life of its own? What was it like as a writer to decide which places, people, and events to include in such an expansive project?

Choosing the places to write about was easy because each place is a character in the story, in its own right; they each hold a place factually, thematically, and emotionally. While that wasn’t an issue, how much life to give these places was difficult. I would have given them much more, but I already had 400 pages of content. I love to write about places. Describing them is fun for me; evocative nature writing is what I aspire to, quite frankly.

In terms of events, let me address my choices in terms of structure. This was tricky for me; I struggled with how to best present everything. Eventually, I realized chronologically was the best way… it’s an easy choice for readers to follow. However, I bookended this story with the present day as the frame, in which I meet with my father and present him with my questions. It took a while for me to come to that decision. What I came to realize is it was better for both myself, and the story to let the reader know from the very first chapter that this awful thing happened. I didn’t want to be coy about it because there was already enough to tease out and develop.

Another aspect of this decision that ties into character choices was my inclusion of Trudeau, the cop. Trudeau is a major character. I struggled with this choice until it became clear to me that you can’t include a cop until you have a crime, but the crime doesn’t happen until halfway through the book. So, I had to put it in context by disclosing that I only know about many details of the crime because Trudeau gave me the information. I realized that by just telling the readers what I know up front, and why, it gives me credibility. That was a choice related to structure that was harder, but in the end, I was very happy with it. The reader came along with me on my journey.

In a different interview, you mentioned the only structure you could tell this story through was as a memoir through your eyes. Can you speak about how you came to that decision?

I came to that decision through painful and excruciating trial and error! When you take writing classes, the teachers will tell you to explore different writing styles, and even copy them, much like a painter may copy the Mona Lisa as an exercise. They’ll say, “Well, pull up Tennessee Williams and try something that he did. Try it on.” So as exercises, I “tried on” various styles and literary devices to see how they felt. Writing can be very tedious work, so why not have fun and go off on a tangent every now and then? It’s like candy! My advice to writers is to just let yourself go and don’t take yourself too seriously; see what sparks from experimenting.

While working on I Love You More, I tried writing this memoir in third person and second person, but neither of these perspectives made sense; it wasn’t accomplishing the purpose of this project, which was to get my feelings out. So, I think it was inevitable that this story be written in first person.

Did the writing process of I Love You More differ from your other writing ventures?

Yes. Before I decided to write I Love You More, I had a job which required me to write pieces that were more technical and not conducive to telling a story. I had to learn not only how to write a story, but how to structure a story. I’m not saying you need a PhD, but you need to know some principles. I realized I had a big hole in my writing education, so I went to fill it at workshops with Lighthouse Writers, who do a great job. They made me become a better reader, and it certainly helped my writing. I would encourage anyone in a similar situation to get help; Lighthouse gave me vital feedback and helped me get on track when I was flailing about.

Another important note about my process for writing I Love You More is that even though I did all this learning on how to write story, I wasn’t being deeply honest with myself. At first, I didn’t know that was the case. I wasn’t consciously trying to hide anything; I just didn’t realize that I needed to delve deeper. Erika Krouse, a mentor I met through Lighthouse, was so generous with her time in helping me with I Love You More. She was very gentle about it, but she made me realize that I wasn’t addressing the big questions raised by the book. This forced me to address those questions, and in doing so, I became honest with myself. I highly recommend her book, Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation, in which she bared her soul, which gave me the courage to be brutally honest and totally vulnerable in my own writing.

Aside from writing, you’re also an artist, working primarily with glass. I’m curious about the creative process of fusing glass, and how it’s similar and different to working with words.

The beginning of both art forms starts with a glimmer. When I see light through colored glass, it just makes me happy. It’s beautiful to witness the incredible colors of colored glass come to life when lit up. That moment is what I call a glimmer. Writing, especially nature writing, needs to start with a glimmer: a moment you have all by yourself where you witness something beautiful—or even something awful—that moves you. That glimmer compels you to take the next step, which is to preserve it, getting it down and recreating it.

The actual work of glass fusing is very painstaking. There’s a lot of trial and error, at least when I was just starting out. That fits my personality: I’m an organized, picky person with a strong work ethic. My mother taught me to finish what you start, and that helped with putting together the different pieces of my book, finishing it, and publishing it. Like we discussed earlier, I Love You More took on a life of its own. But once it got that life, I couldn’t let it go! I had to finish it. Even when I realized it needed improving, I never gave up; with writing, you have to tell yourself if it’s not perfect, the next draft will be better, but you have to keep going! As an author, that picky side of myself is always looking for areas to improve or wishing I wrote x instead of y. It’s important not to quit what you start, but once your work is finished and out in the world, it’s not your work anymore. You have to let it go. It’s the same with glass.

What’s the most important thing you learned through the publishing process?

It’s important to clarify your goals with selling and marketing your project. With I Love You More, I decided I would not do the needle-in-the-haystack approach where I hope and hope against all hope that somebody would notice me and I’d get an agent. I decided to go with a hybrid publisher, meaning they’re not one of the big publishing houses; there’s more independence on the author’s end, but they help you with the process.

That meant I wasn’t going to end up in Barnes and Noble or have a hardcover version of I Love You More because it goes through a different system. But I didn’t care about that; I just wanted to tell my story. The amount of control I had during the publishing process was critical to me, I designed the cover myself, using a beautiful Alaskan photograph by David Parkhurst, and the book is available on both Amazon and e-readers; these are the things that really mattered to me.

Your author bio mentions another project that you’re currently working on called Light Through Colored Glass. Can you speak about this project and how working on it has differed from writing a generational memoir?

Light Through Colored Glass is a collection of short stories I’m working on. I want to finish some of the stories I tried to tell in I Love You More but was not able to for various reasons. I also have a growing list of other ideas. I’m planning to go to Juneau for a week in May to focus on this collection. I’m making an appointment with myself to work!

Lastly, I’d like to circle back around to I Love You More. There’s a line at the end that says, “My brave mother chose happiness over despair, so that is her destiny. If I can muster the strength to choose love over anger, grace will be mine.” Did writing this book help you choose love?

Absolutely. Mother Theresa said, “If we really want to love, we must learn how to forgive”; Gandhi said, “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong”; and Paul Boese said, “Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.” Although I had to absorb these basic principles on my own, all the research and writing helped me in my journey toward forgiveness. At the end of the day, what I do know is that it was critical for me to forgive in order to move on and experience the love, and the life, I wanted.

What was the inspiration behind writing The Insomniacs?

In high school, my best friend was (and still is) an insomniac. At some point, I realized she had a whole other life that took place at night. She had two social lives during high school while most of us have only one! Years and years later, I loved this idea for a story—the chance to have a double life but also tell the story of a friendship/romantic relationship that takes place strictly in the night.

In The Insomniacs, you include a level of mystery. Why is this aspect important for your style of storytelling? What challenges did you face while writing The Insomniacs when trying to incorporate this element?

I love writing stories with multiple layers and slowly revealing them. The set-up of the book was inspired by the Hitchcock film, Rear Window, although it was challenging because this book is a mystery, not a thriller. Instead of a dead body, the mystery revolves around betrayal. The book is in many ways, a psychological mystery, and that internal journey was extremely challenging to write! It incorporates the element of “Did I actually see that or was it all a dream?” and “Can I trust my own eyes when I’m exhausted and recovering from an injury?”

The novel touches upon familial issues with Ingrid’s absentee father and a mother who is almost always working. How does this play a role in Ingrid’s guilt and PTSD?

Ingrid, like many kids, is protective of her parent. She is powerless when her dad leaves, and watches how it impacts her mom financially and emotionally. As a result, Ingrid takes on more emotional responsibility and worry than she should—in doing so she’s sent messages of strength and independence that are easily misconstrued as “I don’t have any problems.” Both Ingrid and Van internalize much of their grief about their parents as their fault, becoming central figures in the stories they tell themselves about their parents and what happened to them.

When writing how do you decide which plot point to focus on? How do you bring your initial story idea into fruition? What plot point did you most want to focus on with “The Insomniacs?”

This book had pretty intricate plotting. I like to think of the different plot threads as spinning plates that need to be balanced, not dropped! If I’ve left one alone for too long, it was time to bring it back in. I mostly wanted to focus on Van and Ingrid’s love story! Those scenes of reconnection, flirtation, and misunderstanding were so fun to write.

Throughout the story, we also see Van and Ingrid’s romantic relationship develop as the story progresses. What was most important to develop this relationship? What role do you think romance plays in The Insomniacs and other YA novels?

I aimed to establish the slow burn in the story, highlighting the contrast between Ingrid and Van’s perceived social differences. Building trust between them, as well as rekindling their childhood bond was very important. I appreciate how an old friendship can transcend time and circumstances. To me, romance in YA novels represents hope and a new experience knocking on your door. Suddenly the day-to-day changes and ends up demonstrating how life can take on new dimensions overnight.

The Insomniacs has been described as a coming-of-age story. What elements do you think are important to you when writing such a story?

My characters grapple with flaws they see as permanent, terrible parts of themselves. They undergo a journey of self-forgiveness and realization that their flaws don’t define them as bad people. Easier said than done! Through their experiences, they gain awareness that they’re not alone, that we’re all flawed, including the adults in their lives. Almost all of my characters realize they need to listen to their own instincts over the opinions of those they love most in the world. They move forward, making decisions more aligned with their true selves.

It’s mentioned on your website that you enjoy writing YA. What is it about YA that draws you towards the genre?

I love writing YA because I remember that time in my life so vividly! Everything seems brand new because you haven’t made any permanent decisions that will take you down a set path. The world appears open. Not all of my books have this, but my favorite trope is friends to lovers. Also, a touch of Romeo and Juliet because I love when people cross perceived social barriers to be together.

How would you describe the publishing process? What was most difficult and what made it easier for you? What advice would you give to aspiring authors?

I thought it would be smooth(er) sailing once I signed with an agent. But then you need editors/publishers to say yes, then you need readers to say yes. My advice would be to remember that the process is SO subjective. One reader will love your main character and another will say, “your main character didn’t resonate.” My author friend and I say, over and over again, “It only takes one.” It only takes one agent to say, “I love it!” Also, you can’t just tell yourself to have a thick skin, but you definitely develop one over time. My best advice is to finish whatever you are working on. Just finish it!! So many writers never finish their project whether it’s a book, a screenplay, a play, etc. You are way ahead of the game if you complete something (even if it’s a terrible first draft!). Just keep going, even if you’re feeling unsure.

Flash: The Return of Barry Allen storyline just celebrated a twenty-year anniversary in 2023. Decades later, it still stands out to me as a story of Wally West dealing with/overcoming imposter syndrome, where, though someone might be high functioning in their role, external circumstances could cause them to still feel phony and doubt themselves or their abilities. Where was Wally at in his life when you took over writing this storyline in the nineties? 

As a fictional character, he was actually in a good place; my predecessor, Bill Loebs, is an excellent writer who brilliantly communicates his humanism through his work. As a comics series, not so much. It wasn’t not selling, but sales were sliding in the wake of the year-long bump the recently canceled CBS-TV show had given it. At a Christmas party, right after I’d taken the book over, a drunk DC executive said to me, “I don’t even know why we’re bothering to publish that book now,” which if anything only made me double down on my efforts. 

To give our readers some context, can you talk about Barry Allen, the previous Flash, saving the entire DC Universe during the original maxi series? And how his sacrifice was considered untouchable, as far as bringing Barry back, in an industry where characters are regularly resurrected? 

In short, as much as that can be: While there had been one or two parallel-world stories in DC comics before Barry Allen was introduced, in DC continuity he was the first superhero to discover the concept of alternate Earths, and a lot of his stories revolved around the concept. But by 1986, DC was interested in streamlining its continuity by eliminating the multiverse—hence, the Crisis on Infinite Earths series—and from a meta standpoint, just as Barry had been the one to open the multiversal door, he was killed off in the story that closed it. And it was, by all standards, a well-done and moving death with a solid sense of finality about it. (This was before the trend of killing-and-reviving characters was so common that comics Heaven installed a revolving door.) On top of all of that, through managerial errors less than the writer’s doing, the Flash series had been duller than dishwater for nearly a decade prior, and Barry was always portrayed as a good guy with all the depth of a bottle cap. So, his sacrifice was probably the best Flash story told in years and years. Consequently, there was real resistance to ever resurrecting him. So great was his sacrifice, he became DC’s first unofficial saint. And on top of that, his nephew and former sidekick, Wally West, took up the mantle in his honor, and that worked out so well no one wanted to take that away from Wally for the longest time. 

Your first, ongoing Wally West story in The Flash series, dealt with him as Kid Flash and gave readers a look into his safe space of visiting his Aunt Iris (Barry’s girlfriend and future wife). How did this time with Iris and Barry impact Wally’s time away from his home life? How would Wally’s relationship with his Uncle Barry, not just Barry as The Flash, create a situation where he would find replacing Barry unimaginable? 

You know what? I’ve never once thought about that. Nearly every time we ever saw the two of them together, they were superheroing, so I never really imagined they had a strong familial relationship out of costume! 

The very first issue of The Return of Barry Allen, Wally talks about his inner conflict of wanting to honor Barry’s memory by being The Flash but feeling he is not up to the task. At the time in comics, how groundbreaking was it that Wally was the first ever sidekick to take over the mantle of their mentor? 

Hugely. That had never been done before, and it made Wally unique in the superhero pantheon. It’s been done plenty since, but Wally was the first to take over the identity of his mentor. 

The Return of Barry Allen also deals with the physical manifestation of Wally’s imposter syndrome, namely that he can only run at the speed of sound following Barry’s death. Can you talk about how the Flash family gets Wally to address the issue and how it ties into his fear of surpassing Barry when running at his top speed? 

Wally’s limitations—chief among them, that he wasn’t nearly as fast as his uncle ever was—were certainly mentally imposed. That disparity in speed wasn’t there when Wally was Kid Flash. And even though Wally knew that intellectually, he couldn’t break through that barrier emotionally, where it counted, until Barry’s reputation was in danger of being permanently blackened.

There was a surprise outcome from this storyline. I don’t wish to talk about the ending for fear of spoiling the story, but can we discuss how The Flash comic became a beacon to guide the industry out of its “grim and gritty” era? Would you like to talk about the heroic age that followed this time of darker superhero stories and Wally’s part in connecting the whole DC Universe together? 

Editor Brian Augustyn and I shared a deep admiration for what were in the 1990s considered “old school” comics—comics where heroes saved the day because they were clever and had heart rather than because they could punch villains really hard. And I cannot overstate how absent that storytelling approach was from the comics medium in that era. It was a time of dark, cynical storylines and events, and neither Brian nor I had any use for cynicism. To us, cynicism was utterly antithetical to the very concept of superheroes, who were adolescent power fantasies created to do impossible things. Consequently, Brian and I and our book were looked upon as a throwback to the Silver Age of comics, and it took readers a l-o-n-g time to realize that, no, we weren’t trying to replicate the comics of our youth; we were trying to take the best parts of them and fold them into modern stories with modern storytelling. And we can thank writer Grant Morrison as much as anyone for pushing that idea. His open acknowledgement of how what we were doing was direct inspiration for his own DC superhero work was just the endorsement we needed. Slowly, we began to push the overall tide back towards a sense of optimism.  

When you later returned to writing The Flash comic in the aughts, you showed Wally as both a superhero and family man with two kids. Can you talk about how being a father to Iris and Jai West shows Wally moving beyond the broken home that drew him to run in the footsteps of Barry and how he now walks his own path as The Flash? 

Giving him children wasn’t my choice and was probably not a choice I’d have made, but my job when taking on a series is to play the cards I’m dealt, so I made an effort to, in fact, contrast his own painful upbringing with the happy home he gave his wife and kids. 

Was there ever a time that you dealt with imposter syndrome as you started writing comics and began working on characters that were iconic from your childhood? 

Christ, what time is it now? I still feel it. Find me any writer who doesn’t deal with imposter syndrome, and I’ll show you an overconfident hack whose work isn’t nearly as good as they think it is. Honestly, I consider imposter syndrome part of the writing equation, as a hell of a motivator to keep trying and keep inventing new techniques and new ideas. 

What was it like writing a teenage Wally Kid Flash? 

Fun! We sidestepped some of the ugliness of his life at that period, but honestly, the Wests weren’t monsters, and in my mind, it’s not like Wally suffered every day at their hands. The family simply flared with dysfunction frequently, and in that issue of WF: TT, we were lucky enough to be there on one of the good days. 

What are you working on now and where can our readers find you online? 

Currently, I’m working on DC’s Batman/Superman: World’s Finest and (issue two coming soon!), as well as their summer event series, Absolute Power. There are also a few other assignments in various states of completion that DC will be announcing soon. 

Online, I’m on Bluesky and Instagram (the latter as @waidmark), and because I’m old, also on Facebook. I don’t update markwaid.com as often as I ought to, but that’s also a part of my online presence. 

*SPOILER ALERT *This review contains plot details of You Glow in the Dark.

Published on February 06, 2024 by New Directions Publishing.

You Glow in the Dark is Liliana Colanzi’s breathtaking and haunting English debut. This collection of speculative short stories contemplates radioactive violence, environmental resiliency, and the ghostly inheritance of colonialism through the lenses of horror and cyberpunk fiction. With its heart situated in the Bolivian altiplano, Colanzi’s stories expand our political imagination through an interrogation of a history fraught with survival and revolution.

Although my knowledge of Bolivian history only extends to the research I did in relation to this collection, as a third-generation Latina, I’m aware of the specific and chilling ways the history of colonization lingers in Latin American communities. Stories like “The Greenest Eyes,” which explores a mestiza girl’s willingness to make a Faustian deal for eyes as green of those of her Italian father’s, felt all-too familiar, but may be read by other audiences as purely fantastical.

Similarly, when the narrator of “Chaco” is possessed by the ghost of a Mataco man he killed, I’m inclined to think of it less as a “ghost” story and more as historical fiction with paranormal elements. The region of Gran Chaco in Bolivia is marred with the forced expulsion of multiple indigenous groups, wars, and conservation issues because the land is rich in oil. The Mataco man’s words echoing in the narrator’s head reveal the truth that emerges when history is not told by the victors: “The river turned to poison, the fish turned belly up and died. Hunger was great, hunger was long, and food in short supply.” This incantation also serves as a warning for what could happen if a society continues to prioritize profit and resources over the land and the environment.

One possible future is imagined in one of my favorite stories in the collection, “Atomito.” This story follows numerous characters in an Andean cyberpunk society that revolves around a nuclear power plant ironically named after Túpac Katari, a revolutionary leader in colonial-era Bolivia. Looming in the background of the narrative is an impending radioactive disaster intertwined with a mysterious and fictional Andean deity, Atomito, who is linked to an actual Andean deity, Pachamama. The prose is flavored with Snow Crash-eque irreverancy, vocabulary from the Andes and Japanese diaspora in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, and the unique ways five young adults survive in this bizarre ecosystem. I was immediately hypnotized by Colanzi’s transcendent worldbuilding and felt connected to each character’s drive, desires, and fate. My only critique of this story is that I wish it was longer—I would be thrilled to read a novel as long as Snow Crash about this world and these characters.

Speaking of radioactive disasters, I can’t discuss You Glow in the Dark in good faith without discussing the final story in the collection, also titled “You Glow in the Dark.” This story is inspired by the unspeakably tragic 1987 Goiânia accident, wherein hundreds of individuals were exposed to highly radioactive caesium chloride. In such tragedies, it is easy to see statistics and forget the humanity of the individual lives lost. Colanzi rectifies this by creating compelling and unique stories for the otherwise voiceless: from the imagined perspectives of the families directly impacted to fictional accounts of the hundreds of thousands rushed to local hospitals to check exposure levels.

The story that haunts me the most is that of Devair Alves Ferreira, who, in both real life and the story, comes across the container of caesium chloride in his scrapyard after it was sold to him. In the narrative, he discovers it glowing blue in the night, and although the eerie luminescence reminds him “of the dead, of the devil, of aliens,” he is fascinated and brings it home to show his family. As an unfortunate result, Devair is left the sole survivor of his family, and his survival is turned into spectacle: “Open your eyes, ladies and gentlemen, what you are about to see is not for the fainthearted: the glow of death, the phosphorence of sin, the man who shines in the darkness.” If this glowing substance contains the allure of Pandora’s Box, perhaps the sole hope that remains is that some of us will survive these environmental disasters—and, if nothing else, Earth will survive, as it has for centuries, as Colanzi vividly displays in “The Cave,” a condensed epic of the history of our planet.

As the back cover blurb of You Glow in the Dark asserts, despite the diverse nature of each of these stories, “all are superbly executed and yet hard to pin down; they often leave the reader wondering: Was that realistic or fantastic?” This was one factor that drew me to read You Glow in the Dark, and Colanzi deftly delivers. I’ve been longing to read more works that eschew a traditional Western narrative arc for appealing to dream logic. However, there were some moments in this collection where I found myself longing for a little more grounding to understand what was happening in a narrative. At times, I oscillated between a lingering sense of wonder at Colanzi’s boundlessly imaginative narratives or worrying that my confusion had led me to misinterpret a story.

Nevertheless, despite occasional moments of narrative ambiguity, the overall enchanting experience offered by You Glow in the Dark is undeniable. This is easily one of my favorite reads of late, as it is one of those rare short story collections that transports me beyond the ordinary yet leaves me with a better understanding of it. Colanzi’s talent to pull from the traditions of horror and speculative fiction and transform them into something uniquely her own showcases the important role genre literature can play in highlighting stories previously relegated to the shadows.

The following piece is the poetry winner of F(r)iction’s Spring 2023 literary contest.

for Ba (Dec. 10, 1927 – Aug. 22, 2021)

Though it’s hard to take them 
through a grocery store – or 

on a plane – or even ride
them into a conference

panel – or across your cubicle, second
home which is sometimes your first

– horses 

are an excellent emotional		support animal.

          Watch their ears as you prattle on – attunement as if your mouth were a prairie opening– 
          as if your tongue were the grass of their fondest memories. In the 90s, as we traveled hills 
          of Kashmir on horseback, an army lathi jangled. The horse, sensitive. My father’s horse: 
          sensed. Horse reared & swept forth, as if it could suddenly fly, nostrils 

as wings. After flying, it clattered on
          the mountainside, my father –

sensitive to the rock next 
          to his head, sensitive 
to what memories he might

have missed in mountains

                          to come, sensitive to this new desire
for sensation. In 2007, my grandfather burbled, a lack

of oxygen to his brain. I stroked his face as if it were

wet rock, whispered into his sensitive ears, Shanti, Shanti, Shanti.

Perhaps these sounds reminded him of his own 	     mouth, morning
                                                                              mala japa. His burbling

receded. Some years later, I discovered in truly old
Vedic rituals, priests used to repeat Shanti before 

sacrificing horses. Horses are 	         sensitive, you
know, and must be calmed before slaughter. Rituals

today must not be too sensitive. My Dada

survived. Until four years later when
he died. Two weeks ago, I asked

my father how

my 93-year-old Ba
            is. “Ghoda 

jevi,” he says. Today,
we are all the horses

crossing rituals as if they were 	    nations – or 
loved ones – we could visit with visas – with

visas – we too could somehow 	        visit.

Creative Nonfiction winner of the Spring 2023 F(r)iction Literary Contest.

Because no one did anything, it became something I had to deal with.

During the spring of my fourth grade, arise with the bright seven o’clock sun, when I turned on this little asphalt road between an overgrown lot and an office building, I would see the body. When it started decomposing, it became a home, a colony, a system. It became breakfast. As I rode my bicycle closer, I couldn’t look away from the vibrating surface that was made of maggots moving in and out of its wound.

The first morning went like this: when I saw an animal lying in the middle of the road, I gasped. As I rode my bike closer to it, I saw that it was a fat hedgehog, the size of a soccer ball, marks of a car tire neatly printed on its flattened belly. Dark blood and body insides tumbled out from a hole torn on the side. The blood was dark and shimmered under the morning sun.

Later in life, I would study artists who were drawn to a single subject seen during different times of the day. Like Monet with Rouen Cathedral, which the artist painted in elegant violet in the morning, transparent white in midday, and suffocating orange in the half-light of the afternoon, never missing the fragments of shadows in its rose window and the ornate indentations all along its facade. Each day, each hour, each time the artist looked, the subject in question appeared minutely transformed, forever departing from the previous moment. And that’s how I felt about the body, each time I looked it turned, transcending its own time of death.

I just learned to ride a bicycle the year before, after I transferred to a new school as a second grader. I’ve been getting used to this route, after moving into a new housing complex with my parents. We lived a few years at my grandmother’s apartment, while she stayed in America with my aunt, all the while the place we lived in since I was born was demolished by the city for being structurally impermanent. I was told that the new housing complex we moved into was built on top of the place we used to live in. So it’s really like living in the same place as before.

Where we used to live was called a farm. I didn’t know whether there were many places like ours in Tianjin back then in the ‘90s, but I knew that they were all gone by the time I was in middle school. It was a loosely connected camp made of tiny brick row houses. Hundreds of people lived there; the trash that heaped in the entrance of the neighborhood proved our existence. Before you saw the people, you saw our things: formula cartons, beer bottles, menstrual pads. You smelled our shit, collecting in the bottom of the dark little brick building, a latrine that served everyone, old and young. As the children of this place, we played with dirt, we ran around with no shirt on, we stole garlic from thick garlic braids that hung on people’s doors. I loved living at the farm. I never thought I would stop living at the farm. One day, I thought, someone would help us build a bathroom in every house, and we would get some tiles on our floors, and plant flowers in our yards, and our lives would be better and better.

So I was shocked, when my parents came home one day and told me that we were going to move. That the entire farm was slated for demolition. They would tear down the houses, fill up the pond we used to play in, and turn this land into a new district. I was only five, and I thought that a home was forever.

The day after I first saw the hedgehog, I rode to school and turned on the same road. It was still there, round and plump, its blood still moist, dark, and flowing. The hole in its side was still open. A few flies buzzed above it, but besides them I was the only one here to gawk.

When I entered the road on the third day, another car had run over the hedgehog’s corpse, this time across its entire body, flattening out the other side that used to be plump. More blood gushed out and coagulated on the asphalt. The fourth day, another car drove over it with its dirty tires. By the end of the fifth day, the fuzzy skin started to lose its animal color and turned into a generic gray; the hedgehog spikes dried up and looked like pine needles in the winter. The blood had finally stopped flowing.

I rode past the body every morning, tried to look without staring, never holding my gaze for long on the gaping holes, the intestines, and the now small family of flies. I took a big gulp of air before I turned onto this road and held my breath, because I thought if I let down my guard, I would know how it smelled.

I used to wake up to my mother still sleeping in the bed in our old house. It would be a Saturday, and I would stay in bed with her for an hour, just talking. Want to go to grandma’s? She would say, her voice rose like a song. We always went to grandma’s on Saturday. My grandpa did not have cancer yet, and while my mother chatted with grandma he would chase me around the apartment like the bad guy on TV because I asked him to. He kept one nail long on his pinkie.

My mother let me ride on the back of her bike back then. The roads were unpaved and bumpy; I looked down to watch my feet hover above the ground, quickly fleeing underneath as we went forward. Sometimes we saw other kids riding on the backs of their parents’ bikes. Look, that kid’s too old to be carried around like that, my mother would point out, when we saw a student wearing an elementary school uniform with his arms around his mother’s waist.

One time when we rode to grandma’s, my mother rammed the bike over a step newly installed at the end of an unpaved road, and with one bump I fell off the back. I remember tumbling on the ground, landing face first, and felt a sore pang in my nose. Sitting up and feeling a sharp sting starting to spread on my face, I saw my mother still on the bike, both her feet on the ground to steady herself. The melons we bought for grandma rolled towards me, and the last time I had fallen felt like a long time ago. You should learn to ride a bike yourself soon, my mother said, after checking my face to see the big red hole in my skin where the ground had taken a lick.

I hadn’t thought about how soft hedgehogs were on the side that wasn’t covered with needles. They were like water balloons, filled with the good stuff they find in trash heaps like the construction lots near my new home.

The body of the dead hedgehog swelled. It was even more plump than when it was freshly dead. It looked like a bouncing castle, the kind you would find at a fair when they’ve just started inflating it. Its dirt-colored fur hardened with dried blood.

Each day, I rode my bike to school. On Mondays, we saluted the flag and sang the national anthem. On Fridays, we were let out half a day early. We were already given the sex talk, and the girls got free sanitary napkins. Everyone was given free toothpaste. I didn’t have a crush, not yet. Each day, more cars ran over the body. The blood turned maroon, then a bluish-maroon, then black, then white. The flies swarmed like when someone’s thinking really hard, their thoughts were zooming around in their head. The cars couldn’t kill them. Maggot bodies were elastic; I have seen them in the public latrine. They could become flat when pressures were applied to their boneless body, and bounce back. They moved slowly, but they lived.

All these different cars—the yellow minivan taxis, the 1997 Santanas, three-wheeled motorbikes—they all turned onto this narrow, badly-paved road, bouncing left and right over its ditches and hills, over the body. No one said anything, did anything, no one took it away or covered it up.

One day, as if they decided in a collective meeting that the body was not suitable for a home anymore, all the flies disappeared. There were a few lone stragglers picking over the body, now like a half-open felt hat, nestled on the ground, as if its owner would come back to pick it up any moment. No longer a home for maggots, now small troops of ants took the stage, busily forming a pattern around this monument of what flesh there was left.

After my mother dropped me from the bike, my face took a month to heal. Don’t pick at it, you’ll leave a scar, she reprimanded every time I fingered the edge of the itching, purple scab. When I peeled off its last morsel, I looked at my new, raw skin in the mirror hanging above the washing machine in our bedroom. I still remembered standing in the green machine’s open-top cavity when it doubled as a bathtub, but now I was so tall. The fresh skin was a slightly different color, but nothing other people would be able to detect.

It was around then that we had to move out. This was my home, I wanted to say to someone, but no one was a good audience for that sentence. Not even my parents. Why do you want to live in this garbage dump your whole life? We will move into a building, with hot water and heating, and electricity that stays on all year long. When it’s all built you can come back to visit, when this neighborhood is even better. You won’t remember anything, you are still so young.

So many other things happened around that time; my grandfather died. I was drawing in the next room at grandma’s when it happened. Then at the funeral, my mother and my grandma lifted a corner of the cushion on the bed and revealed a big wedding photo, and told me that the man in the suit was my real grandfather. When I was a little older than you, my mother said, he committed suicide. You know what that is? He died in the Cultural Revolution. You know what that is?

After the funeral, my parents, my aunt, and grandma sawed to pieces the old couch grandpa slept on when he was sick and tossed the parts out from the window, because it was too big to carry down the three flights of stairs.

Sometime after that, my aunt got married and went to America. Then after that, grandma went to America also.

I will remember, I thought in our old house, I will remember everything about this place: every blade of grass, every hole in the ground, every baby tooth my mother tossed on the roof for good luck.

I would never forget the grease that stained the ground. Morning, bike ride, dead hedgehog, main road, school. During that spring in my fourth grade, seeing the hedgehog eventually became a routine. I felt like I had transformed every time I saw it and left it behind, only to be greeted again with a new chapter of its decay. Months later, it was still lying in the same spot, only now much flatter, as if a photo of the hedgehog was pasted on the surface of the road. I tried to recall my memory of the freshly dead animal with flowing blood, and questioned whether it could have all been a dream.

My parents taught me to hide my key, to tell people I was going to the deli and my parents were at home waiting for me when in fact I was going to school and coming back home by myself. Our new home was really clean, there was no more trash, and everything was painted white, but I could not understand how it was built on top of where we used to live. My mother and I did a fun project where we recorded the temperature and weather of a city in the south everyday for a month, then at the end of the month she asked me if I would be okay if she went to that city, just for a few years, to get her doctorate. She told me to be strong, you’re not a kid anymore.

On the road, the photo became a shadow, and the shadow oozed fat from its edges. It once again shimmered, a small dark patch of liquid pooled around its blurry contour. The cars that drove over it left dark tracks further down the road.

By the time my fourth grade was almost over, the grass in the lot on the side of the road was just as tall as the kind I used to run around in, but now it suddenly felt too deep for me to explore. I never knew that hedgehogs could live inside a city like this, until I saw one die. All there was left of the body was an oil stain on the asphalt the size of a dinner plate. I could still see it even when I was in fifth grade, even though no one else would know what it was once before.

Published on February 1, 2024 by University of Notre Dame Press.

Upon discovering Jordan Pérez’s award-winning poem “Santa Tarantula,” my immediate instinct was to share it with every poetry-enthusiast I know. Pérez’s command of hypnotic alliteration and masterful weaving of technical language from the fields of arachnology, religion, and capital punishment create a haunting statement on womanhood. Her debut collection, Santa Tarantula, mirrors the themes encapsulated in its eponymous poem: the connection between women and the natural world; the oppression that occurs in Biblical narratives, patriarchal governments, and intimate relationships; and the urgent need to dismantle the legacy of silence.

Divided into three sections—”Smallmouth,” “Dissent,” and “Gospel”—Santa Tarantula guides readers on a journey of healing alongside the speaker’s search for autonomy and self-love. In the collection’s opening poem, “Smallmouth,” Pérez asserts that what is left unsaid “demands to be / known.” This becomes the central motif of Santa Tarantula, urging readers to confront uncomfortable realities. Pérez’s award-winning poem “Deadgirl” does this brilliantly through the speaker’s observation of how a brown mushroom sprouting from the soil looks like the knee of a dead girl. The rain comes and mushrooms sprout everywhere, impossible to ignore, but eventually, the mushrooms disintegrate back into the earth. Indeed, the dark underbelly haunting this collection is the way violence committed against girls is suppressed. The speaker is left with lingering silence and feels dangerously unsafe in her own girlhood, “the [same] way [she] couldn’t be sure / which house in the neighborhood held the man // who touched little girls, and so in every house / is the man who touches little girls.” The omnipresence of femicide and sexual abuse is spine-chilling and heartbreaking, yet real—this tangled web of suppressed cultural and generational trauma is the reality Pérez “demands to be / known.”

With these wounds left unhealed, the collection moves into Part II: Dissent. Women align themselves with hissing tarantulas as they warp an ode to a Cuban government that sends dissidents and marginalized citizens to work camps. Biblical women start finding ways to escape their objectified existence as fruit, “swell[ed] with sugar, / [resting] heavy in [the] unloved palms” of their God. Women starve, left empty not only due to lack of food, but by the lack of justice. However, a woman’s desire to quell her hunger does not come without consequence; in “Santa Tarantula,” women ally themselves with the tarantula once again, and both are exalted to sainthood: “Praise / the tarantula woman still alive at forty.” But sainthood rarely comes with respect during one’s lifetime: the speaker swiftly shifts from praising tarantulas to a bone-chilling directive for men who long to domesticate them: “This is how you kill a tarantula. / Cover her, and hope to God she suffocates.” Reading this line for the first time felt like a punch to the gut, and a painful reminder that women are always in danger. However, Pérez leaves a glimmer of hope in the final line: if the tarantula survives, its assailant will face consequences. Still, the speaker persists, and the final poems in this section consider different ways women successfully voice their dissent, like taking communion with open eyes.

This hope bleed into the collection’s final section, Gospel. In addition to extending the Biblical allusions, the word “gospel” urges us to think about what truths need to be shared, or even worshipped. Though an undercurrent of danger remains bubbling beneath the surface of this section, the poems overall are lighter in tone, carrying the radical power of healing, love, and freedom. In “Asymptote,” the speaker’s mother reminds her that the body is a temple, but all the speaker can think of is when “a man / is burning [a temple] in the news.” Despite this, when a man asks the speaker how she can be touched after everything she’s been through, she poignantly asserts, “I refuse / to die having not been pressed to someone / else’s heart, having not come into the fullness of myself, / having not said this is my blood. This, my body. Saying no / or yes, and liking it.” Pérez’s masterful use of enjambment in this section amplifies the speaker’s longing for autonomy: whether she refuses or accepts to be touched, the choice is hers, and hers alone.

The speaker also finds power in herself in the ghazal “I Was Named for the River of Blessings.” The ghazal, a musical form that often contemplates love, spirituality, and loss, is one of my favorite forms of poetry. Pérez chooses the words “halleluiah” and variations of the word “name” as refrains to contemplate the speaker’s origin, struggles with gendered violence, and desire to sing hymns of her female loved ones. The last couplet of a ghazal typically includes a name, usually that of the poet. Instead of explicitly providing a name, Pérez links the speaker’s growth to the Jordan River—a symbol of freedom to the Israelites escaping slavery in Egypt, and the site of many Biblical miracles and baptisms: “Bigger than I am, he touches each growing blackberry, naming / even the greenest ones. Oh, river of blessings. Oh, halleluiah, halleluiah.” These lines gorgeously portray the pure joy of healing, as the speaker experiences a symbolic baptism and flourishing rebirth.

There is much more to write about Pérez’s incredible debut, like her precise execution of form, including a subversive mixed-up sestina, a haunting reverse diminishing verse, poignant prose poems; her feminist reinterpretation of Biblical stories; and her recurring references to insect and reptilian eggs to represent the simultaneous fragility and regenerative power of womanhood. My only wish is that there were more poems in this collection exploring how the legacy of Cuban labor camps lives on in survivors, or that the poems already exploring this were more seamlessly woven into the collection. As with any themed collection, many poems explored the same motif using different forms and language, so it’s natural for the lasting impression to feel like a blended collage. Because Pérez compellingly links predominant narratives (such as those from the Bible) to the intimate struggles of women, I found myself longing for the specter of cultural trauma to linger more in my final impression of Santa Tarantula. Poems like “Mixed-Up Sestina,” “O God of Cuba,” and “Dissent,” which explore the haunting impact of an unjust government on its subjects, were some of Perez’s strongest, adding more nuance to Santa Tarantula’s project to weave a web between historical and personal traumas.

Overall, what most impressed me about Santa Tarantula is its unflinching honesty and urgency to shake its readers out of complacency. It’s a collection that not only conveys the importance of looking at the dark history humanity pushes into the shadows, but also compels us to imagine possibilities for rebirth that are grounded in radical compassion. I am surprised that Santa Tarantula is Pérez’s debut; her poetic finesse, unique use of language, and thought-provoking metaphors make this debut a poignant and unforgettable exploration of societal injustices and the resilience required to overcome them. I will never forget these poems, and I am so excited to follow Pérez’s career as a poet.

Skater Boy is your debut novel—congratulations! What was your biggest struggle when writing this story, and how did you overcome it?

Thanks so much! After a lifetime of writing (and perhaps a borderline unhealthy dose of wishful thinking), it is very surreal to know this story is now out in the world.

My biggest struggle in writing Skater Boy was creating a believable angry character that people could relate to, and maybe even want to root for, by the end of the story. When readers first meet my main character, Wesley “Big Mac” Mackenzie, he is quite literally confronting another character on the page, which I’m sure will elicit a visceral response in many. So, the main question quickly becomes­­—how do you take this person you’re supposed to hate and craft a story around them that leaves readers feeling satisfied? In Wes, I wanted to bring a character to life who doesn’t often get their story told—a gay kid on the outskirts who is conflicted and confused and maybe even operates in unhealthy ways—and show that there is so much more to them than how they present themselves to the world. To overcome this as a writer, I kept asking myself, what would I like to see Wes do to come to terms with himself? And sure enough, the answer ended up being a lot easier than I anticipated. It meant showing Wes interacting with the world and putting him up against situations and people he wouldn’t normally come across. In watching him break down his own barriers throughout the novel, I hope readers learn to love Wes—faults and all.

I’m seeing more and more queer YA books being published! However, the industry still has a way to go. Were there any challenges you’ve faced with this story?

Right from the start, I knew Wes’s story would be a hard sell. In an industry that historically only published young adult books that featured palatable gay characters—ones who always made the right choices, only ever expressed happiness, and never mentioned anything even remotely associated with sex—where exactly does Skater Boy fit? So, unsurprisingly, when it came to being on submission, I faced rejection after rejection for nearly two years from editors who couldn’t connect with Wes or didn’t have an editorial vision for the story. And I can’t fault them for that; when we’re constantly fed only one side of a story, it’s difficult to imagine what to do when confronted with the other. That is why I am so thankful for Soho Teen, and specifically my editor, Alexa Wejko, for taking a chance on me. Right from the start, Alexa inherently understood what Wes was about and loved him anyway.

What did your writing process look like for Skater Boy? Did you outline? Do you just go for it? Will you do the same for your future novels?

When it comes to writing, I am a chronic plotter (though in the editing stages I tend to write by the seat of my pants and will randomly throw in scenes or dialogue I make up on the fly). Typically, though, the overarching storyline comes to me first, so I like to jot down all the major plot points on cue cards and organize them on a corkboard so I can visually see what my story looks like. Of course, when it comes to character development, that usually throws a wrench in my plans, but for the most part, laying out every chapter helps me stay organized and on task.

Skater Boy touches on some extremely important topics—the idea of being labeled, the BLM movement, harmful stereotypes. What made you think, “This is something I have to write. Something I must put out there?”

I don’t think I necessarily went into this story knowing I would touch on such large/important topics, but as I got to know my characters more, I knew I couldn’t ignore them. I touch on this briefly in the Author Note at the beginning of Skater Boy, but I originally set out to write a light-hearted romantic comedy that paid tribute to its namesake. However, it was only after better understanding Wes’s internal motivations, that I realized that wasn’t the story I had to tell. Even with Tristan—Wes’s love interest—I couldn’t write a Black secondary character, at the height of the BLM movement, without acknowledging (even as an outsider) how being a Black male teenager in the United States would inform his own lived experience. In many ways, throughout the length of this story, Wes is exposed to several different lived experiences outside the narrow reaches of his own life, and it’s through them that he learns more about the world around him and grows. Whether we like it or not, everyone has dealt with labels or harmful stereotypes in some way (especially in high school), so making sure I touched on these topics become paramount to the story and helped inform many of Wes’s actions throughout it.

Are there any books coming out in 2024 that you’re looking forward to, and why?

Where do I even begin? I’ve had the absolute pleasure of beta-reading some incredible young adult novels coming out in 2024 and am so excited for readers to experience this new wave of queer stories filled to the brim with messy “gray” characters like Wes.

Some recent favorites include: Teenage Dirtbags by James Acker, The Last Boyfriends Rules for Revenge by Matthew Hubbard, and Cursed Boys and Broken Hearts by Adam Sass.

I always say, when I begin reading a story and immediately think “Wes would probably be great friends with this character,” I know I’m in for a real treat!

What are you working on now? Can we expect them to be the same genres as Skater Boy (YA, queer) or are you branching out into something different?

I am always ideating and brainstorming— my Notes app in my phone is a true testament to the chaos of my imagination, haha— so when it comes to branching out into something different, I never say never! For now, though, I have a few more contemporary/romance stories in the pipeline including a dual POV contemporary set in Los Angeles amongst the real-world events surrounding the L.A. Dodgers/Pride Night controversy that happened this past summer. I like to think of it as What If It’s Us by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera meets This Is Why They Hate Us by Aaron H. Aceves, with a focus on queer activism and joy as anti-LGBTQIA+ hate crimes are at an all-time high. It has similar, underlining themes that are present in Skater Boy, while also looking at what it means to be a queer teenager in the spotlight.

If you could give one, general piece of advice to aspiring authors out there, something that they should follow to the ends of the earth, what would it be?

This may sound cliché, and it’s said time and time again for a reason, but just keep writing. I was in the querying trenches for ten years before I landed my first agent and then spent two years on submission with Skater Boy. It would have been so easy just to give up, but instead of focusing on every rejection, I continued to write, I read and absorbed as much as I could, and I honed my craft. Every time you put pen to paper, or fingers to a keyboard, you are expanding your horizons and improving your skills as a writer, so don’t give up! It just takes one yes to make all your dreams come true.

You left a very meaningful message at the beginning of your novel. To those of your readers who can see themselves in Wes, those who have lost sight of who they are, what are you hoping they can find by the end of Skater Boy?

That really means a lot to me. It’s funny you should mention that because the Author Note at the beginning of Skater Boy was only ever meant to be in the advanced reader copies (ARCs). But after some initial feedback from early readers on the importance and resonating impact of that message, we decided to keep it in.

I wrote Skater Boy as much for myself as for all the queer kids out there who feel they don’t belong— because the reality is that being queer is not a monolith, it’s up to you to decide what that looks like for you. By the end of the story, I hope readers understand that no matter where they are in their journey of self-discovery, no matter how the world sees them, it is never too late to embrace the person they were always meant to be. Labels and expectations be damned!

*SPOILER ALERT *This review contains plot details of Hope Ablaze.

Published February 2024 by Wednesday Books.

“I am a pent up ball of energy / I will find my escape like a cosmic explosion / all starry rays before darkness claims me, / hope ablaze.”

For Nida, a young Muslim teen, poetry is an outlet for her deepest feelings and experiences. But after her poem about being illegally frisked at a Democratic candidate’s rally accidentally wins a national poetry competition, Nida becomes embroiled in the center of a political scandal. Hope Ablaze is a young adult novel by Sarah Mughal Rana that deftly criticizes the bigotry and hate facing Muslim people in America today and empowers teens to find their own voice in a country aiming to silence them.

Books confronting social and systemic issues can be difficult to write and even more difficult to publish. What I love about this novel is its unflinching exploration of American culture and politics and how these systems continue to harm Islamic people and communities. In Hope Ablaze, neither of the two featured politicians support Muslim people, yet Nida and her community still choose to vote in hopes of creating a path towards a future that supports their people in America. In doing so, Rana highlights how the bipartisan system in America doesn’t work when both parties are against one’s very existence. I’m sure it’s difficult to write a novel like this, and I hope this story helps to pave the path for more Muslim authors to write with the support of the mainstream.

In a story that deals with heavy, topical themes, Rana did an excellent job of creating balance between the pain that comes with bigotry and systemic oppression—especially when in the public eye—and the unconditional love and support that pours in from your communities. There are numerous small moments when this support becomes evident—through characters like Aunty Farooqi and Rayan—but there are also significant moments when the power of community and solidarity becomes starkly evident. After Nida receives public backlash for her poem, especially after it is reported her uncle is in jail due to “terrorist activity,” her mother’s catering business is hit hard: customers cancel their orders, and it becomes difficult for her family to sustain themselves financially. Soon enough, however, the Muslim community bands together to support Nida’s family, and they begin receiving new orders.

The characterization and dynamics of the characters surrounding Nida were wonderfully executed. Relationships never felt forced and characters, for the most part, felt fully fleshed out. However, I did have a little trouble with Nida’s characterization throughout the novel. To me, the heart of Nida’s conflict is not that she doesn’t know how to use her voice, it’s that when she does use her voice, she is silenced.

In the beginning of the novel, Nida channels her feelings about injustice and her desire for change into her poetry. We learn that she didn’t understand her mother’s paranoia until her uncle was imprisoned for performing his poetry, which occurs prior to the start of this book. Because of this fear, Nida doesn’t voice any of her thoughts about her faith or her politics outside of her immediate community. But after she wins the poetry competition and her words are twisted in the media, Nida attempts to deal with the situation in good faith—going on news shows to share her side or meeting up with politician Mitchell Wilson to find a solution—only to realize these people are exploiting her for their own narratives. I don’t quite understand why she trusted them to begin with, especially after everything she went through with her uncle. Nida is also caught between the expectations of her mother and uncle. Nida’s mother wants Nida to stay silent to prioritize her and her community’s safety, while her uncle wants her to speak up, use her voice, and preserve her poetry as an act of creativity and tradition. All of these people talking over Nida causes her to feel silenced.

The introduction of the blue thread , which silences Nida and prevents her from writing poetry, makes sense with this context. But rather than helping her find her voice and allowing it to thrive without being twisted by others, it reveals her family’s history—something she’s already connected to—and helps her understand the importance of poetry in her family. This knowledge of family history allows Nida to understand her mother and reclaim her authentic voice.

The ending worked, because the heart of the story is about Nida finding her voice—one way or another—but the way we got to the ending felt unfocused and tangential from the conflict that existed in the beginning.

On a craft and narrative level, I also felt that there were numerous opportunities to strengthen the power of the novel even further. For example, I really enjoyed the way the narrative moves between prose and poetry. I thought it was a fun and interesting way to play with structure and a great opportunity to explore Nida’s interiority and the complex, powerful emotions she had: “Eyes cast black as crow feathers. / The British weren’t knights but hawks, / circling above / ready to pounce. // These colonial regimes / live on through history,”

Yet, other poems felt lackadaisical at times. Some seemed like they were included for the sake of narrating through scene transitions and moving the plot forward rather than being used to explore Nida’s interiority: “Mr. Wilson’s attorney sat to the right, / in an identical crisp black suit. / A costume of diplomacy. / After Zaynab’s email, Mr. Wilson’s attorney wanted to discuss our options,”

However, all these technical aspects develop with time and experience. This is Rana’s debut novel, and I have confidence this is something that will only improve with her subsequent publications. I love the vision she had for Hope Ablaze, and I’m looking forward to seeing what Rana delivers to us next.

Congratulations on releasing your latest book, The Road Trip Agreement! What did your writing process look like for this story compared to your other series’?

Thank you! This story was inspired by a road trip I took along the Oregon coast, so the process kicked off with some real-life setting research—which is obviously quite different from writing fantasy books. I began the draft while on the trip and finished it fairly quickly while the setting was fresh in my mind. Compared to writing fantasy, I find contemporary romances to be quicker because you don’t have to spend time creating or researching the fictional world(s) and magic rules.

As a bisexual woman writing and publishing much needed sapphic stories, what are the struggles that you’ve faced within the industry?

When I first started publishing, there weren’t a lot of LGBTQ+ publishers or even that many LGBTQ+ novels, so I remember being unsure whether there would be space for my trilogy about a girl who falls in love with a mermaid. Now, there are more options than ever for sapphic literature, which is amazing! It’s lovely to see the genre grow and become more mainstream. I’m lucky in that I haven’t had serious struggles within the industry, other than the occasional bigoted one-star review. But those people don’t deserve my mental energy. Overall, the book community is a wonderful and accepting place, and I’ve definitely felt the love.

Do you think there are differences between writing adult sapphic romances and YA sapphic stories?

The only real difference is in the age of the protagonist. YA protagonists are teenagers, and adult books have adult protagonists—simple as that. For my stories, there is also a difference in the heat level of the romantic scenes, but that’s not necessarily a rule. There are lots of adult stories with closed-door romantic scenes and YA stories with more graphic scenes. Same with violence levels and the intensity of the subject matter.

Staying on the topic of genres, do you have a preference between writing adult sapphic novels or fantastical mermaid and valkyrie stories? Is there a new genre you’d like to try out?

I alternate between writing contemporary adult romance novels and YA Fantasy novels, and I love being able to do both. Fantasy novels are so fun to write but take a lot longer and are more mentally draining because of all the worldbuilding involved, so it’s nice to break those up with something that takes place here and now. Both genres are equally fun to write and have their unique challenges! As for trying out a new genre, I’ve always wanted to write a psychological thriller (à la Gone Girl, my favorite book), but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. One day!

Are there any books coming out in 2024 that you’re looking forward to, and why?

Oh, Ylva Publishing has a lot of sapphic romances launching next year that I can’t wait to read. I’m also always excited for whatever Kate Quinn’s next book is—she’s one of my favorite authors. She has a new one coming out in February that I can’t wait to get my hands on.

I noticed that you’ve had books optioned for film—that’s amazing. Which of your stories would you like to see on the big screen?

I’m still trying to pitch my Mermaids of Eriana Kwai trilogy to Hollywood! The world needs this story in cinematic form, and I know the audience is there—I just need to convince the studios. Really, as a writer, seeing any of your work on the big screen would be a dream come true.

If you could give one, general piece of advice to aspiring authors out there, something that they should follow to the ends of the earth, what would it be?

Being an author is super tough and a solitary career, so connect with other writers! I have a critique group that I owe my sanity to. I met them through a local writing group on Meetup.com, and we’ve been friends ever since. We meet in person once in a while to read excerpts and get feedback, and generally are just there for each other in a group chat. It’s nice to have people who are going through the same struggles, who you can go to conferences with, exchange drafts with, talk about the industry, and celebrate your successes together. Try checking out local writer conferences or joining various online spaces.

What can we look forward to from you in the future? Do you have any other stories you’re working on right now? Any other projects?

2024 will see the launch of my next adult sapphic romance, Snowed in with Summer, which is inspired by a dog-sledding trip I took in the Yukon. There’s also the third and final book in my Sigrid and the Valkyries trilogy, a young adult sapphic fantasy that takes place in the nine Norse realms. I’m also drafting several other stories in the meantime! I invite readers to sign up for my newsletter and/or follow me on Instagram to stay up to date with all of my new releases.