[This interview was conducted online and there may be some audio variation.]

Newly anointed MacArthur Fellow and best-selling, award-winning author Jason Reynolds returns to the MiP podcast for the 10th anniversary year! His new book, Twenty-Four Seconds From Now, joins the compendium of many of Jason's love stories for and featuring young people. Jason speaks to the transparency of larger conversations around intimacy--what it means, feels like, and actually looks like outside of "mainstream" representation--the multidudes of love in relationships and storytelling, as well as a very necessary need for more discourse around the emotions that come with Black male's sexual experiences. Particularly the need for more tenderness.

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This month's episode & newsletter were sponsored by Writeability, a nonprofit writers guild, in defense of the imagination.

Intro/Outro music is by Moutaineer and licensed through Premuim Beat.