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Middle School and Queer Superpowers, and a Comedian in a Car
Middle School and Queer Superpowers
Leah Johnson’s latest book is Ellie Engle Saves Herself. It came out in May. When she started it, she was supposed to be working on something else. It was just a fun escape. But she showed her agent, and they got a book deal for it within weeks.
It wasn’t her first deal. She got that first book deal a month after she finished her creative writing degree. The book that resulted, You Should See Me In A Crown, was a Stonewall Honor Book, the inaugural Reese’s Book Club Young Adult Pick, and it got on the list of Time’s 100 Best Young Adult Books of All Time. Her second book is Rise to the Sun, and it’s also a young adult book. Ellie Engle Saves Herself, and is not a YA book, it’s a middle grade novel. (In case you’re not a librarian who pays attention to these distinctions, middle grade fiction is directed toward 8 to 12-year-olds, whereas the audience for young adult novels is more like 12 to 18.) Ellie is about a kid who’s ends up with special powers just when you least want them – right before starting middle school.
I met Leah at her house in Indianapolis, and we talked her new book, about how, when writing is your JOB, you actually have to get up and do it. Every day. We talked about money, writing commercial fiction in an MFA program, how it really feels to join the list of writers whose books have been banned, and, of course, queer superpowers.
One Comedian in One Car
Indianapolis was the place for this week’s stories. Comedian Katie Bowman’s schedule was packed so tight that we had to sent producer Avraham Forrest to interview her on the drive from the Indianapolis airport to Bloomington. They talked about the preponderance of cis men in stand-up lineups, how she got into comedy (it involved a mediocre date), and how and when (not) to do intimacy in improv.
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By Indiana Public MediaMiddle School and Queer Superpowers
Leah Johnson’s latest book is Ellie Engle Saves Herself. It came out in May. When she started it, she was supposed to be working on something else. It was just a fun escape. But she showed her agent, and they got a book deal for it within weeks.
It wasn’t her first deal. She got that first book deal a month after she finished her creative writing degree. The book that resulted, You Should See Me In A Crown, was a Stonewall Honor Book, the inaugural Reese’s Book Club Young Adult Pick, and it got on the list of Time’s 100 Best Young Adult Books of All Time. Her second book is Rise to the Sun, and it’s also a young adult book. Ellie Engle Saves Herself, and is not a YA book, it’s a middle grade novel. (In case you’re not a librarian who pays attention to these distinctions, middle grade fiction is directed toward 8 to 12-year-olds, whereas the audience for young adult novels is more like 12 to 18.) Ellie is about a kid who’s ends up with special powers just when you least want them – right before starting middle school.
I met Leah at her house in Indianapolis, and we talked her new book, about how, when writing is your JOB, you actually have to get up and do it. Every day. We talked about money, writing commercial fiction in an MFA program, how it really feels to join the list of writers whose books have been banned, and, of course, queer superpowers.
One Comedian in One Car
Indianapolis was the place for this week’s stories. Comedian Katie Bowman’s schedule was packed so tight that we had to sent producer Avraham Forrest to interview her on the drive from the Indianapolis airport to Bloomington. They talked about the preponderance of cis men in stand-up lineups, how she got into comedy (it involved a mediocre date), and how and when (not) to do intimacy in improv.