Vulgar Geniuses

Drawing from his own experiences as a refugee from Vietnam, Young Vo brilliantly weaves a tale that has resonated with children of all backgrounds in his book Gibberish. We are introduced to Dat, a young boy who has traveled to a new country to start a new life and is met with a new and very confusing language that sounds a lot like gibberish. But when he meets a peculiar character named Julie, Dat's world begins to unfold. In this episode, Young discusses the desire for children to recognize the power that comes when one can make genuine connections with others from different cultures and backgrounds. He also talks about the real-life "Julie" and his chance meeting with Arthur A. Levine that changed his life.

No matter where he resides, for Jamil Jan Kochai, Logar will always be home. And it is Logar that he returns to for a second time in his award-winning short story collection "The Haunting of Hajji Hotak." This book carries readers through Afghanistan with beautifully complex stories of multidimensional family lines and friendships that must find a way to breathe between the lines of war.

Through magical realism, Kochai writes of a young man unable to distinguish between reality and fantasy as he plays a game of Call of Duty. And a teacher who suddenly morphs into a monkey after losing his connection to his religion. We also talk about his favorite MF Doom album and if he dons his National Book Award Finalist medallion as he shops for eggs at the local grocery store.

We kick off the second half of our podcast season with our first live recording with a packed house at Stardust Video & Coffee in Orlando, Fl. We celebrate our third anniversary with the first in the Midnight Marauders Story Hour series. For this show, we bring to the stage four of Florida's most brilliant writers for a live reading, and of course, they all take turns in the hot seat chair. Brianna Johnson, Vulgar Geniuses alum Michelle Lizet Flores, Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya, and Ryan Rivas join us on the stage. Grab your favorite cup of joe, and get settled in for an hour of the Vulgar Geniuses Podcast live at Stardust!

Fatimah Asghar shows us the many faces of sisterhood when tested by the constant waves of grief and neglect in their debut novel When We Were Sisters. Kausar, Alisha, and Noreen are suddenly orphans after the murder of their father and the death of their mother years prior. Their uncle takes the girls away from the only home they've ever known and forces them to grow up in a run-down apartment abandoned for weeks and sometimes without food and adult supervision.

We mark the end of our second literary year with our interview with Fatimah as they speak about the creative format of centering this story around the girls, while leaving the adults nameless and, at times, redacted. They also share what it was like to approach this story of grief during the early years of lockdowns and what it means to give one's self the permission to create beyond the limitations of others.

In her memoir Fruit Punch, Kendra Allen's seamless and sublime merging of poetry, prose, and humor is captivating as she shares her life growing up in Dallas, Texas. Forging her way through family turmoil and unspeakable moments of sexual abuse, Allen finds herself in the chair of her therapist's office, attempting to work through the childhood memories that she continues to come back to over and over again. We take a deep and hilarious dive into the life of this talented writer as Allen shares with us her life growing up with a mother who would show up at the funerals of veterans she never knew. She also tells us how this book helped her to address things she tried so hard to say in her previous poetry collections.

Content Warning: Trauma, sexual abuse, and depression.

In an age of heavy attempts at erasure, visual artists and photographers Michael Davis and Douglas Shindler are making leaps and bounds to preserve for the future remembrance of all things Black. They are the masterminds behind The Black Library, a collaborative community-driven project with a mission to celebrate Black culture and history for the citizens of Sullivan County, New York, and all those who will visit.

In this episode, we are joined by these two creators as they discuss infusing their personal stories into their art, the urgency to create a space that highlights the contributions of the people of Monticello, NY and what it was like when they received the call that they had won a $400,000 grant to bring The Black Library to life.

Natalia Sylvester's young adult novel BREATHE AND COUNT BACK FROM TEN will have everyone reimagining a life where all we did was swim our hearts away in the cool spring Florida waters. This beautiful story opens us to the world of Verónica, a Peruvian-American teen who loves the water so much that she longs to become a mermaid at an aquatic theme park. She has two things standing in her way, her overprotective father and her diagnosis of hip dysplasia.

Natalia reveals her journey as a writer who wanted to see characters reflected between pages that mirrored her life as a person with a disability and desires to live beyond the expectations of others. She also talks with us about young people finding power in speaking up and advocating for themselves in a world that feels they would never know what would be best for them.

Debut novel, The Survivalists, from Kashana Cauley starts out as a rom-com that suddenly turns into a love story made for Dateline. We look to see what happens when a young New York lawyer meets a coffee lover who has an over-zealous obsession with preparing for disasters and mastering the right cup of joe.

Kashana joins us on the podcast to discuss her novel's inspiration, her own experience of watching a friend get sucked into a life of becoming a survivalist, and her decision to switch from a career as an attorney to venture into the world of comedy writing for The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, and the animated series The Great North.

Delivered in a magnificent thread of verse, We Are All So Good At Smiling by Amber McBride offers a message of hope found in a forest full of secrets and monsters. Whimsy is a teenage girl receiving treatment in a mental hospital when she meets a boy named Faerry. Both of them realize they are magical beings battling secrets from a shared past they are unable to fully remember. Amber Mcbride talks to us about writing this novel for those who may find it hard to get through the darkness of life, her endearing relationship with her grandmother, and we see if she is ready to break the bank for a pair of Beyonce tickets. 

Pink and blue, step to the side. There is a new color in town! What Does Brown Mean to You? is the debut children's picture book from educator Ron Grady. In this book, we meet Benny, a little boy talking about different ways the color brown is explored and celebrated throughout his life. From Benny's beautiful brown skin to the color of his grandmother's coffee, the color brown shines throughout this delightful story.  Ron Grady joins us to talk about how his career as a nature preschool teacher and his love for drawing brought about this much-needed story. We also speak about the ways parents can be encouraged to have conversations with their little ones about race and ethnicity.