10 Comments

This was such a great conversation! I didn't even realize it, but it's been a long time since I've read anything where someone sounded so excited and bursting with ideas and just full of possibility.

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I love this conversation so much! Time to check a few new-to-me books out of the library...

And man do I want to go back to college and have super interesting conversations with professors and classmates 😭

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Thanks for this. As a high-school librarian, deeply embedded in all things YA, I love that you can discuss these books and authors without the kind of patronizing diminishing so common among the mainstream media. Every 5-10 years there's a new spate of "adults who read YA should be ashamed of themselves" brouhaha in the media, and I'm so over it. YA now is not the same YA my 65 yo self grew up with (Looking at you, Seventeenth Summer). She especially shows why it's so important to fight back against conservatives trying to squelch these voices. Side Benefit: I also found some books to add to my summer order!

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Well this is absolutely delightful! Thank you for helping me discover such an amazing new-to-me author. And gosh it’s thrilling that my daughter will have so many more examples of being a Black woman creative than I had. All the feels :)

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This was such a treat to read.

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The part about writing in three acts and wondering if you lost some freedom/creativity—yes!! I feel like I really lost my writing voice when I went to J school, and now I rarely write fiction. Thanks for such a great interview.

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Ahhh! I love to read such an effervescent and thoughtful take on the positive impacts of fanfiction/fandom — I was a fanart girl in high school (when Gundam W aired on Toonami ...... anyone else???) and my fanfic writing friend and I still feel embarrassed by our noncanonical ships* to this day lol. Thank you for this convo and for all the reading recs!

*A term that did NOT exist for us at the time. It’s so great to see this vocabulary develop and cross subcultural lines 🥲

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Wow! I’m a film school grad and professional film and tv writer and I can’t believe they’re teaching Save the Cat! Blew my mind that professors would be so pedantic in an era where the shape of media is constantly melting and congealing in new forms

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She is so filled with the wonder of the world and it's gorgeous to see. I love her thoughts on college. It was how I felt at university, so stimulating ...to listen and share and grow. It can be a time like no other. I feel her sadness that it has to end!

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Loved Off the Record - she balanced the themes so well and this reminds me I need to check out her other work!

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