YA is now as much a sub-genre of adult fiction as it is its own genre, so I get readers as young as 11 and as old as 80. What sorts of readers pick up your books? Nina and I wanted to create a book that was unabashedly more than that on the gay/lesbian front, but also having much of the rest of the spectrum represented. With You Know Me Well, we wanted to talk about queer identity beyond the gender-identified labels, because sometimes ‘gay fiction’ and ‘lesbian fiction’ are shelved separately, as if queer kids and adults should only read one or the other. It’s vital for any identity to be represented in literature. How important are books like You Know Me Well for young queer-identifying adults? We made it up as we went along, which is the way I always do it, but Nina usually doesn’t write in such a linear way, so it was a challenge to her (that she gleefully accepted). I would write one chapter, email it to her, and then she’d write the next, and email it to me. What were the practical mechanics of you and Nina writing together? You have a place in life and together we gonna make sure it’s a safe one."Īhead of four appearances at this year’s Melbourne Writers Festival, we popped Levithan some questions of our own. "Wherever you are and not matter how tough times are right now: You are never alone.
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