It's National Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month, and we jump off this year's celebration with a special interview with YA author Daniel Aleman. His debut novel 𝑰𝒏𝒅𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒔𝒊𝒃𝒍𝒆 follows Mateo, a gay teenager in New York City who must keep his sister safe after his parents, undocumented Mexican immigrants, are detained by ICE.

We talked to Daniel about how he drew upon the stories from his community to help build the moments he created in his novel,  the necessity for more narratives to have LGBTQ+ as lead characters in fiction, and his love for the musical Wicked.