"True Biz is an ASL idiom. It doesn't have one direct translation into English, but a few of the things that it could mean: seriously, literally. Real talk is one that I think gets used a lot. No kidding. Like, if someone says like, No, you made that up, no true biz, you know, and I thought that it was a good title for the book, because it doesn't quite translate directly into English." We've been fans of Sara Nović since her page-turning, coming-of-age debut, Girl at War. Sara's back with a new novel, True Biz, which she calls both a "coming-of-age and a coming-of-middle-age" story set at a school for the Deaf. She joins us on the show to talk about CODA's Oscars, Deaf culture and degrees of Deaf experience, punk rock, the fluidity of ASL and how best to represent it on the printed page, giving her Deaf characters agency and the space to be real teenagers, writing joy into her story and much more with Poured Over's host, Miwa Messer. And we end the episode with a TBR Topoff segment featuring Margie and Marc.

Featured Books:

True Biz by Sara Nović

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

Poured Over is produced and hosted by Miwa Messer. This episode was mixed by Chris Gillespie. Follow us here for new episodes Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional bonus episodes on Saturdays).

A full transcript of this episode is available here.