Here on the KYD Podcast we may be quiet, book-loving types, but we like to think that doesn’t stop us from being revolutionaries on the inside. So the recent Melbourne Writers Festival was a fantastic way for us to celebrate writers who speak out, on more than just the page.

We took the opportunity to speak with one of the US’s most established authors, the inimitable Joyce Carol Oates, as well as one of the most recently celebrated, Angie Thomas. If they’re part of a revolution, it’s one we can definitely get behind.

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GIVEAWAY: Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts before 1 November to go in the draw to win a copy of this month’s First Book Club pick, Rachel Leary’s Bridget Crack! Simply use your Twitter or Instagram handle (or email a screenshot of your review to [email protected]) and you’ll be entered in the draw. (Australian entrants only)

Read Nathan Smith’s interview with Joyce Carol Oates.

Read contributing editor Samantha Forge on Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give.

Meaghan Dew (KYD): Hello and welcome back to the Kill Your Darlings Podcast. I’m Meaghan Dew and today I’ll be bringing you interviews with two of the headline guests at the Melbourne Writers Festival. The festival’s theme this year was revolution, so you’ll have the chance to hear both Angie Thomas and Joyce Carol Oates discuss this and other aspects of their writing. First we have Angie Thomas whose first book, The Hate U Give, tackles growing up between worlds in America. 

Angie Thomas: The Hate U Give is about 16-year-old Starr, who lives in two different worlds – the mostly black poor neighborhood where she lives, and the mostly white upper-class private school that she attends. And the struggle of being two different people in two different worlds becomes even harder after she is the sole witness of her childhood best friend Khalil being killed by a cop. Khalil was unarmed, and what Starr does or does not say could not only change her community, but it could end her life.

KYD: When you first began working on The Hate U Give, was that basic outline – a girl witnesses the shooting of her friend – was that what came to you first, and Starr and the other characters were developed to inhabit that situation, or do you feel like the characters developed first, and so in a way shaped the plot depending on what their authentic reactions to a situation would be?

AT: Oh yeah, the characters came first. The first three characters that I came up with from this story were Starr, Khalil and Maverick. Those three have been there from the beginning, so I wanted to write a story around those three. I knew from the beginning that Starr was this girl who lived in these two different worlds. I knew that her dad had a past, he was a gang member, and I knew that this young man Khalil was getting caught up in the