 We'll get started soon. Welcome. All right. Thanks for being here. Good afternoon from the West Coast. Welcome. We'll get started in one minute. So get comfy. Welcome. Thanks for being here. We'll get started in a moment. All right. Well, welcome again. My name is Eliana and I'm a librarian for the San Francisco Public Library. Thank you for joining us today. We are so happy that you're here with us to celebrate Filipino American History Month at the library. Throughout the month of October, learn more about the unique history and contributions of this community through interactive workshops, demonstrations, book readings, and more. Check out the dedicated web page in the chat to see these events and find great books by Filipino and Filipina authors and illustrators. We are on the unseeded ancestral homeland of the Ramatush Aloni, who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula, and continue to live, work, and play here today. As the indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their traditions, the Ramatush Aloni have never ceded, lost, nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place, as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory. We wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the Ramatush community and by affirming their sovereign rights as First Peoples. Thank you to the friends of the San Francisco Public Library for their generous support of this entire program series. We couldn't do this without them. And now you are all in for a treat. I would like to introduce our presenters today up-and-coming emerging authors and illustrators. First up, we have Brighton Rose, who's a middle grade and young adult fantasy writer specializing in sky pirates and girls who lie. She's an author, mentor, match, mentee, ooh, say that like four times, and a pitch war's mentee and occasional doodler. She lives in central Texas with an electric piano and I have 43 houseplants, but I hear that number went up so she can share that if she wants. You're most likely to find her at a cheap taco place or the used bookstore stretching to reach the top shelf. So welcome Brighton, yay! And her conversational partner today will be Tracy Bedua, who's a Filipino-American author of books full of humor, magic, and young people with sunny hearts in a sometimes stormy world. By day, she's an attorney who works in national housing policy and programs and by night she squeezes in writing family time puppets and bites of her secret candy stash. So everybody ask what that stash is. Okay, and she lives in San Diego, California with her husband, her chatty toddler, and her photogenic Maltese. So welcome, Tracy and Brighton, and thank you for being here. Thank you for having us. Hi, we're excited to be here. All right, I guess we can go ahead and get started with our conversation. Thank you everybody for joining us for Filipino-American History Month. I know it means a lot to me and Brighton as well to have everyone come and join us for some middle grade chat. Brighton, did you want to give everyone an update on your plants just to let them know if the numbers change? I'm currently at 49 as of noon today. I'm hanging out with some of my old friends. This is Bernard, he's an aloe. And then I have Philip, the elephant ear plant, and they say hello. Nice. All right, so just to kind of give everybody a rundown of what we wanted to chat about today, we were, you know, trying to think of what would be a good topic that both Brighton and I can kind of talk about. What characters is what we came up with. So I wanted to kind of kick off conversation of just, you know, how did how did you get started writing Brighton? Like, when did you write your first book? How old were you? Like, tell us about the characters that you grew up with. I wrote a book before I actually knew the alphabet. I was four years old. And I love how like my dad would show me picture books like as like bedtime stories. So I made one of my own and I didn't actually know the alphabet so they were just scribbles. And my first book was about donuts because I really loved donuts at that age that was an important character in my life. So I wrote a book about scribbles. But as I got older, and I actually learned the alphabet and how to put words together, my very first book was actually a, it was kind of like a fanfiction of my friends. I wrote if me and all my friends were secret agents, and we would solve mysteries and like international crimes and all kinds of things like that. And then recently in the last few years I've actually been writing novels. And I'm currently working on getting a couple of them published. So I'm very excited for that. I'm excited to see what what's coming out from from your from your work. I, you know, I don't know if I if I do like scribble that paper I think we were probably the same and that we just took whatever paper was around like grabbed it from the printer or grabbed it from wherever, and then I started to like make our own stories out of my grandmother has a lot of mine still. I sold some of them for neighbors because I guess I was that entrepreneurial of like a five year old or whatever so I do remember writing a lot of stories about animals. This was back before I had, as if I have any understanding now but any understanding of plot and character and whatever so it would literally just be like, here's a teddy bear going to get a haircut, what haircut should he get. And then that was like the end of the story. You had a choice I do like four different hairstyles that this teddy bear could have. And I, you know, I actually know that I think of it I hope that my grandmother has that lost away somewhere because I'm curious maybe I was a little fashion trends that are way back when I didn't even know it. But, you know, those were my my early works and obviously like I got like my full book cover here over to the side I do have a middle grade contemporary fantasy novel Freddie versus the family curse this is. He goes through more adventures and just getting a haircut I can at least promise you that. So that's coming out next year May 3 2022 from Clarion books and I'm excited to tell you all about the different characters in that story and then everything that that we've been coming up with. I want to do want to kind of talk about is the fact that you know, I mentioned Freddie, Freddie is 12, and he is a Filipino American boy. So it was important to me when I was starting to write novels and when I when I say that I mean like in the last few years Freddie has always been really important to me you know I, I'm such a such an avid reader. But when I was sitting down to write a story. I wanted to make sure that I had a character that was of a similar background to me because I didn't really see that too much in the stories that I had accessible to me growing up. Yeah, I just like, I didn't have that many Filipino American characters I mean even even broadening that I didn't see many Asian American characters in the media that I consumed. So it was just kind of important for me to have that and you know Freddie versus the family curse is not really about. You know how hard it is to be a Filipino American kid or anything like that it's just about a Filipino American kid where who's having a hard time being a kid in general so I don't know that's kind of like what I what I try to do with my stories how about you Brighton. Oh, I definitely did not see a lot of people a lot of characters who looked like me growing up not really in books or movies and definitely not Filipinos are people who looks kind of like me but they weren't necessarily Filipino. So it was always really important to kind of write the books that someone like me would have wanted to see growing up. So I do have characters that have sort of my background being half Filipino. I have a character is half Jewish because I am half Jewish. And I think there's a very unique set of experiences that you have when you are a multiple races that I kind of wish I got to know growing up so that's always been really important for me. I'm so excited about Freddie how to come up with Freddie. This is like a story that's kind of just been in the back of my mind for a few years. I remember going to a, an event for Filipino American history month and so I'm actually I'm here in San Diego, California which is coming I land. So I went to an event here for in October of you know maybe it was 2016 2017 I actually don't remember. What they talked about was the Filipino soldiers who fought in World War two, and my grandfather on my dad's side was part of the Philippines scouts. And it was just one of those things that I didn't know a lot about and you can kind of tell with how I'm trying to like piece things together is that I still don't know a lot about it because it's not something that's really taught to us. Our heritage or history is not really something that's taught to us in the school we attend. One of this is a piece together from like sitting down in front of like my, my, my grandma or my aunties and big like so tell me about this and this and this. So a lot of it is we're seeing it together but you know I got in my head that I was like I really love to write a story where the features So this is a very, very, very minor spoiler, but there is. Freddie does come across an amulet carrying the ghost of his great grand uncle and his great grand uncle was a soldier who fought in World War two. So it's kind of a little, a little thing I put in there. What's awesome. Yeah, I mean, do you do the same thing do you kind of mine. Absolutely do like. I'm in some of my books I do have a character who is half Filipino and there's like some very funny little ways that your heritage is my mix in your house, like my mom she didn't cook a lot of Filipino food but every now and then to God words would just like end up in our house and we were just like kind of say them. And I use that in my book a lot of where the character she sometimes when she stressed out she reverts to God and I would notice my mom doing growing up and I unfortunately she never taught me. I'm learning to go later in life, but I always thought that was just kind of interesting how she like reverted back to what was really familiar to her even though she like lived in the States and I wanted to reflect that in my characters. And I also didn't do a couple things with my dad's Jewish. So we grew up celebrating both Christmas and Hanukkah. And I was always like really cool or I got to see two different ways of celebrating the holidays so I really wanted to show that because I do think that's definitely something that a lot of kids might grow up with especially children and interfaith families. And like it's kind of cool how you get Christmas presents and you get your Hanukkah presence, and you get to learn two very different very cool stories about behind those holidays. I love that because it's not like an either or thing like there's so many different experiences and so many kinds of families where you can experience all of it like and it's, it's great. And it's not like you have to choose or you have to do, you know, X, Y and Z. So that's really cool and I'm really, I'm really glad that's informing the kind of stories you write because, you know, you, you kind of mentioned it coming from the household. Both my parents are Filipino but you know my, my daughter going up is she's going to be half Filipino half Indian and then my nephew is also half Filipino half white. We're going to have a lot of different kinds of kids who are going to have all these different kinds of experiences. So the more that we can see just the range of, I don't know, just like life. I think it's going to be great. Now, I guess what I want to ask you is your bio mentioned pirate. Yeah, that was another. Family members are pirates that you drew. Oh man, I wish it would be cool if I had ancestors. I knew I've been can talk to but that was for a different story where it was about airships and they were sky pirates. So not just pirates like in the sea they were an airships flying around capturing other airships basically. That's so cool. You know, I find it. I know our conversation is really centering around character but if we want to talk about like setting and other kind of stuff. I find it's all the admiration out there for folks who write fantasy like a full on other world, because I have a hard enough time describing this. I think you had to come up with like airships and like, how do they work and what did they run on like, that's amazing. Thank you, thank you. So what was the for you, what were some of the hardest parts of developing your characters and really bringing them to life. That's a really, that's a really good question because I think, you know, I, I don't know if this, if I'd mentioned this earlier but I write middle grade and young adults. And one of the challenges is that going in between age ranges the kinds of stories is how the characters the main characters would approach things like when you think about the way a 10 year old would approach something versus like a 16 year old. It's kind of trying to make sure that whatever story I'm telling is authentic to that like if I had, you know, Friday's 12. So, if he needs help with something he's, he might still go and ask his parents to see if they're going to be able to help him with something. But if he's 16, he's like, no, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna ask these guys. It's like you really have to kind of think about when you were 12, like, what was realistic for you to do. And I know that's super specific to people like I, you know, even going up like what I was allowed to do as a 12 year old versus like what what if my cousin, like was able to do like it's so different but that was one of the challenges with coming up with, with characters is really just trying to make sure I'm being authentic to the kind of experience that they would have. Yeah, like the, we are writing for younger readers who are living it. So for me to rewind however many decades, like I have to really do my research I have to really really think about it. But I don't know how about you like writing for different age ranges like what what have you found like challenging or interesting about it. I definitely noticed the mistakes made are kind of different. And the fears that characters have are very different. Let's see. For middle grade I definitely noticed characters like reaching out more to the adults in their lives. Like you said, with young, with young adult I noticed characters kind of reaching out to their friends more. Because it feels like young adult is a little different to me thematically and that it's a lot about characters finding out how they fit in the wider world. It's sometimes figuring out how they fit within like their own family or in their own town like that kind of thing. So that's very different to me. And it's also they have a little bit young adult characters have a little bit more experience, but both of them still deal with firsts, like first crushes first days of school, first heartbreaks even first major life event so having those in common is also very interesting to me as well. I love that. I love that. In the stuff that we're writing and a lot of other Filipino and Filipino American writers are working on. I love that we're kind of showing these folks living their best or, you know, words live like it's not all about. You know, you don't always have to deal with a some like super serious issue you could be fighting over or going to space like our imaginations and our dreams are just as wide and limitless as everyone else's so it's really exciting to see. You know, I know that in a few years we're just going to have a ton of our stories I know there's the on Twitter there is a movement Twitter and Instagram of hashtag fill the shelves file the shelves and it's highlighting creators of like Filipino literature I think it's expanding a little bit other kind of art. So I would suggest you guys check that out to see what everybody's up to it's really it's really cool it's really nice that we're finding each other and boosting each other that's really one of the cool things about our writing community is that where everyone is really supportive. And I love that we're showing a wide range of experiences. I think it's important to also show that oh there's no universal experience whether you're Filipino or half Filipino, Filipino family members. It's very cool to see that you can have all kinds of different stories you can be all you can have all kinds of different heroes different obstacles people face. It's interesting that I mean we keep coming back to it we keep circling around the same idea that like all of our experiences are different and it's even to the point where I may be of the same age of somebody you know like another Filipino American but maybe they grew up in the Philippines and then moved here or you know there could be some slight difference in the way they grew up with our stories may not next at all like I don't understand the lick of the gallows. I'm learning later in life too. And I swear it's on my to do list it literally is because my family is actually Ilokano. So I know all these Ilokano words still can't speak it, but I'm able to you know pick up on the stories that they tell and like when they're scolding people for things. My daughter is like two and a half and she knows these random like Ilokano words like to learn. I love it and it's like it's going to be one of those things that's going to be so cool like when you're when she's older to look back on and be like all right like I grew up with this kind of stuff. But you know, it's different the different experiences of it like she's going to have a different experience as a US born. You know, half Filipino half Indian kid, then I did who is, you know, also us born but full Filipino grew up in a you know distance in the household so it's just, again, like it's really nice that we are going to be able to show through all of these different stories the breadth of experience that everybody has and just kind of the nuances involved. I think we're so used to seeing, you know, these characters that are really not one note but like our, you know, guitar on the TV and there's kind of like a lot of the stereotype about different characters and I'm glad we're breaking out of that. Like Freddie is a very, you know, American boy so he's not going to fit any like he's not going to fit any of these stereotypes he's just going to be a poor cursed kid. Just trying to get a schoolwork done. You know, he really has curses you know typical middle grade stuff. There are some there are some experiences that are universal and trying to survive, like seventh and eighth grade. True. Speaking of family how'd you go about rounding out all your supporting characters and putting those together. Yeah, so this was this kind of goes back to what we were talking about of just even building your characters in general. You know, one of the things that I try to do is really focus on what the character wants to like first of all what do they want to accomplish so Freddie obviously doesn't want to be cursed anymore. And so he's literally going to try to find everything that he can do to not be cursed and live as a regular you know some 30th grader. So what that does is that forces me as the author to figure out like all right what's his supporting cast going to be like how are they going to help him. And how would they like not solve it for him because that's also really important it's like it's not a lot of fun to read like a story where a kid has an issue and then an adult comes in like all done it's all fixed for you move along like oh okay. Like you want to see this kid do it for himself like really learn. You know how to how to solve the issue how to really like go over these obstacles himself so, for example, one of the characters that I have is his cousin sharky who is. He's not he's super cool he's like a break dancer. Freddie is cursed so he's very clumsy so in my head I was like you know who would be a good sidekick or a good partner in this someone who is not clumsy. So I did a I did a break dancer. I don't know how to do any like cool dance so please do not. And then like, you know another one other character would be. You know he's cursed and part of it is him trying to figure out what is the nature of this curse and how do I break it. And thinking about you know, where, where would he learn that from where in my life have I learned different bits of like folklore and history from. I mentioned it earlier all the aunties that I would see at parties and just go and send and you know ask them about things so I threw in his a great grandmother who would be the person to impart this information to him. But again because you don't want an adult kind of swooping in and solving everything for him. Of course she's going to have like her you know she's got her own priority priorities she's got her, her TV shows she needs to watch she can't get too involved in a stuff like this. It's, she's got her own life like figured out Freddie. I love how I kind of do something similar when building out supporting cast like designing characters specifically to contrast other characters. I think it brings out like that a deeper part of that character when you have someone who is very different from them. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's, because you also don't want that like if they have the same set of skills. It's just like, then why do you have that other character and that's actually an issue I had with some like older older books that I wrote. It's like I would literally have writing partners be like, I don't know what this person is here for. I just think they're cool just let them be in the story they're like, you're wasting a lot of time on the one character that's not really adding things like, oh, fine, fine. And I love Freddie and Sharpies dynamic. They're very different people but they are in the same family and they are like, you know, they're still both heroes and two very different ways and I love how they play off each other. Thanks. I, you know, one of the things that I did kind of want to feature in that was the fact that so in the story they're their cousins, and I grew up very close to my cousins we used to live fairly close to each other, see each other all the time. It's important to me to kind of highlight that kind of relationship where like when you, you know when I grew up a lot of, like, my cousins were my friends, and that's one of the things that I realized later on in life is not true of a lot of different families so it's one of the things that I kind of wanted to highlight. I love that I love reading it because I'm the opposite, like my immediate family really only branch of our family tree that lived where I grew up. So I didn't really have a lot of cousins around. I had a lot of friends, but it was really cool. I love reading books with very close extended family relationships it feels like I'm getting a peek into a whole other world. Yeah. You know, it's, we're back here in San Diego so we're close to a lot of family now and it's been great because it's, I not only get to see everybody again, but the, these, there's so many little Easter eggs in Freddie that come from the store like, oh gosh they're going to hate me when they read this is not about them but there's a lot of these things about in the stories where like I have drawn from like a something that I heard from, you know, so and so uncle did this and so and so you know it's like it's the more kind of people you bring into your sphere the more you can kind of figure out like what makes for an interesting story like what makes people more well rounded. Now that's not to say like you should just go take someone's story and run with it and just like write all of it down. Yeah, just to take inspiration from something. This is such a great conversation. We're getting some questions in and I wanted to. I wanted to see if you wanted to do some dance moves. First. No, no. No, no, no, no. But we, we, it would be a great time I think the character conversation has been fantastic the world building I'm like what like that it was kind of an added perk and yeah just to kind of show off some some skills that you have now I think would be a good time. As we get into some Q&A eventually. Awesome. So what we want Brighton if you wanted to pull up your, your screen what we wanted to kind of do with everybody today that is create our own main characters you know we Brighton and I were talking about how we go about creating our characters and how we shape the supporting character. So one of the things that we thought would be cool to do with everybody is, you know, just brainstorm like if, if we wanted to create a story today, who would our main character be so, you know, we'll kind of start off with a few things of just like, let's think of a person, a place, a goal. We'll keep an eye on the chat and I think, I think library folks is there a way for people to, you know, raise their hands or, or unmute their mics is there a way to have them participate in that way. They can raise their hands, and then we can, if they're in zoom, and then we can, we can unmute their mics for them, or they can add it in the chat. Okay, got it. I am smiling because I'm seeing some encouragement about dancing and I'm not going to do it. My mom is actually a pretty solid dancer. I, that's not one of her talents I inherited sadly. Hey, maybe, but maybe that could be the start of our main character right now. Maybe we can have a middle grade character. Yeah, I love that. He's a good dancer. So we're basically going into the realm of fantasy for me because that is definitely not me. Good dancer. All right. There we go. So by the way, I am drawing on my iPad for you all to see. That's what you'll see on this screen here. So as we go to create a character, I love thinking of what is the problem this character is trying to solve. There's like two things I think of first the first is like some really distinguishing characteristic like in this case for dancer. The second is problem they're trying to solve. So if they're a good dancer, what's a problem that a good dancer might have. So we're going to go into the chat and see if we can, we can get any participation from folks. Oh, I see something from Russia. Brain ankle. That's tough. That would be an interesting character if someone's been a good dancer for so long and they sprain ankle, and so much of their identity has been tied to dancing will have to grapple with, okay, who am I now if I can't dance for a little bit. Yeah, and that's, you know, one of the things I was talking about earlier is the fact that you really don't want like an adult character souping it and fixing it and everything and even if you had some like fantastic doctor. They're not going to come and be like now your brain ankles is all is all fixed you're back to being a star dancer you're going to have to sit and deal with it and heal. Oh, oh, this poor dancer. Okay, let's see. I'm going to grab a pen of my own second jot down some notes so we've got a dancer with a sprained ankle on obviously you know their goal would probably be to get right back out there. Maybe they would really want to, you know, go back to competing maybe they're on a team and the team is counting on them or maybe there's some big competition where there's a cash prize and they want to get it for some reason. Oh, that would be an excellent source of tension. Yeah, you like, you're the star of your team and then you're out what do you do. Oh, like I've already stressed out. I'm in my head I'm thinking well but it could be, you know, any range for middle grade. But I'm already stressed out thinking about this four character. Okay, so we've got a dancer. Oh my gosh you've already started drawing I love it. There was another perfectionism. We could tie that into the sprain ankle because you cannot dance the same way, perhaps like maybe the routine isn't something that you can do if you've got a sprain ankle. And maybe you hate that maybe you hate that you're not able to, you know, do everything you could like last week. So, oh, and I'm reading the comments again of the high school musical dilemma of another hobby versus a group judgment. Yeah, they have a dancer in that movie. And she's like on the math team but she's secretly a dancer and she was worried about the math team judging her. I, all my friends were on the math team in high school and they thought they would have probably thought it'd be really cool by dance. I like it. Oh, this is really cool because you know there's, as we're developing this main character together, you can already kind of see this inner kind of turmoil that's happening of they're not, you know, they, they want to help their team or they want to do something like they've got this sprain ankle. But maybe this sprain ankle is going to give them a chance to pursue something that they love instead. Oh, yeah, something we did not expect. Like your math club. Yeah, there you go. Sometimes people most creep up on you whether it's like hobbies or people and you like, all of a sudden you're like wait I actually am kind of into that. Yeah. Exciting. And I love the way that you're so quickly drawing this I am so glad that there's no way for you to see the notes and, you know, pen movements that I'm doing, because it's literally just chicken scratch and just draw everywhere. So. So, let's give them a couple attributes here what kind of hair can we give this character. Ooh, let's see if we can get some. Long, curly, straight. Ball. Ball dancer. I love it. I'm not used to. I love it. I love that they just threw a challenge at you. There we go. Very cool. Or pigtails. Because I don't. There we go. Let's see. They're a dancer how would they dress I'm not super. I mean, let's let's let's think about it because I am I'm seeing in the comments you know if this is a speculative setting for example like what if they're in like a magic school or what if they're in like a western like maybe it's line dancing or something you know like we have to aside from the character you kind of have to pull back and think like. Who would they you know where are they are they in a big city small town in the woods so give us some settings. Our folks in the folks in the chat. Because you know, with Freddie contemporary so it kind of occurs in like the suburbs of San Diego so it was really easy for me to imagine what he would be wearing and what he'd be doing but if it was like the 1980s like oh my gosh maybe what he'd be wearing and how would I do that and also climate part of it to like growing up in North Georgia I dressed very differently from my cousins who are from New York. I love chain mail but I've drawn it before and it takes a couple hours I don't think. I like it well three hours later we've done one shirt. And you know, we are throwing so many different ideas about there are just like ways that you could take this really simple idea of a character who is a dancer and has a spring ankle and just throw it into all these different scenarios so you know. Like, what if this was in medieval times and there was like a some sort of festival or not a ball I guess that would be like Renaissance era but what if there was some sort of thing that they had to be prepared for and as they can do it. Maybe like the King would get angry at them. Up to stakes. Okay. Oh I love it. I like it because we've got this like definitely kind of edgy cool character going and the fun. Thank you Ryan we also love the flowers. I just want to blow the way by how quickly you're just your, you're doing all of this and you know one thing I want to ask is folks in the audience or folks who are drawing this, or we're following along later on YouTube. I know Brighton and I really like to see the main characters that you guys come up with. So, if you wanted to do your own exercise and brainstorm the same way we're doing and then, you know throw it up online or get your parents permission to send it to us that would be great. Yeah, let's just see what people come up with and I love how you can go all kinds of different directions just by changing one small detail. So, for example, if we're doing a middle grade character imagine how different your character could be if you just age them up to YA. Or if instead of dancing you had some other thing they're really competitive about that would completely change them to there's so many like amazes me how many like little details you can change completely alter the course of the story. Right, because, you know, and, and even if we keep that same thing of brain ankle, you could change this to they are the star of their basketball team. You know, they're, and same thing where like they could worry about letting down their teammates or doing something like that so it completely changes the story depending on how, like on what you're shaping kind of the main character and their interest to be. Oh, that's a nice dress. I love it. Trying to remember how to draw a crutch. Well, it goes down like that right. Yep. That part and they have like the, there's a bar they hang out to. So this is kind of like a, I know we're, we're getting toward the near end of our time so we'll, we'll probably take some questions while you're finishing up the drawing but one thing I wanted to give a little bit of a sneak peek to is in Friday there is a little bit of a muscle sprain a little bit of an ankle injury that happens at some point. And I pulled some inspiration from real life of a home remedy that my grandmother did where she wrapped the muscle sprain in ginger, because, oh my gosh, we did. I remember it was my brother that had gotten hurt. And I remember watching my grandmother doing this. And just like my parents like, you know, watching and helping because this was like, this was medicine that they knew. And it was, it was so cool. So I threw some bits into that, some bits of that. Sorry. We just did VIX in my house. VIX Vaporum. You know, it's one of the, it's actually one of the things that my, my dad gave us for my daughter, he was like, when she was, you know, baby baby. And she wasn't, she was sniffly or something. My dad was like here, like passed down from the ages. It's like, it's come full circle. Wow, it is really hard to draw my past left handed. Wow. This is amazing. We do have some questions that have come in. So I think now would be a good time for that. One question is, what are your thoughts on villains? And what are some from media or other sources that inspire yours in your own stories? Brian, you want to tackle this one because you've made a noise that made it sound. I love villains. My favorite kind of villain is a villain that is similar enough to the main character that they could be the main character in a different set of circumstances. I think that is fascinating. It almost forces the main character to examine themselves a little bit more closely because if they went down a different path, they could be as bad as the bad guy. And I've always been so fascinated by how important the choices you make end up being. So love villains for that. And I love villains that are like horrible but have a very distinctive sense of style. Like I love Cruella Deville. I haven't seen the movie yet. I'm going to. It's on my list. But she's, all she wants to do is like make fur fashion out of puppies, which is such a strange thing, but that's her thing. And if you see a picture of her, if you see anyone dressed up as her, you know it's her because her stylization is so distinct with the really dramatic makeup and like the big furs. And that I think is making of a good villain is no matter who's dressing up as them is referencing them, you know it's that villain. So love that. And then what was the other question? What do they inspire yours in your own stories? I definitely have a character who is a villain and very, very fashionable. She doesn't want to like skin puppies. She's actually just a vampire. But she has a very distinctive sense of style. How about you Tracy? What are your, who are your favorite villains and what, how do you create villains? This one's harder for me because technically, you know, in Freddie, there is no like big villain. I, you know, I, there are spirits and shadows, but I think in my head, he lives in a world where there really isn't one or two people just like out to get him. And it's like things ended up in a way that negatively affect him and he has to work his way out of it. So I don't have as much of a strong villain. And I actually, you know, was you were talking about like fashion and flashy villains. I saw that Ryan in the comments was like, yeah, anime villains are kind of in that thing too. Yeah, there are some really good villains. I love that you don't have like a true main antagonist. So like that's very, very true to life. And I think it's maybe very comforting for young readers to see that sometimes there aren't major bad guys you can fight. Yeah, thanks. Because sometimes there aren't, you just kind of have to find your way through the mess on your own. And what I really like to ask our authors and emerging authors is what, what would complement your books or your creations. So, is there something else out there that would buy another author or illustrator that you feel like would complement or that you'd be like, yes, read, read this and read this, they would work really well together. Yeah. And my first thought was like, Oh, pairing like with food, like go get Filipino food and read my. That's what you were going for. But that works too. That works too. And my favorite is go get yourself some like some, you know, Filipino take out go get an auntie to cook for you. But I know, you know, thinking about like the Freddie is intended even though it's about like a curse and spirits it's really intended to be like a lighthearted fun story with elements of Filipino folklore so off the top of my head a few things that I can think about in terms of just humor and fun is stand up you me chung by Jessica Kim. And then with that contemporary fantasy spin, the total eclipse of Nestor Lopez or even so. So much. Oh my gosh, I love all of these books I'm like really actually very nervous about comping them because I love them. It was I listened to an audio book as I was driving and what I would do is I would just sit in like the parking lot of the grocery store just listening and laughing imagine like someone walks by and I'm just cracking up alone in my car and it's just because I like Nestor Lopez play. I love it. I think comps for mine. The one that I'm working on right now to Filipino, half Filipino and half Jewish main characters. I would actually, it's a little older but there's a movie called book smart that's kind of similar to them. And it's like, if the characters from book smart it's about these two high school girls who have been like straight laced their whole lives. And they deal with like situations that they're not used to that's something my characters go through a lot. And then for my middle grade book that I'm working on, I would say old fairy tales and like spooks of fairy tales and like books that pay homage to old fairy tales like Ella enchanted the disc world series. Any, any book that like is sort of an affectionate parody of fairy tales because I love unpacking things that have been done in the past like doing a new spin on them, and my middle grade book is about a sister of a chosen one. You know how in stories the chosen one's going to save the world. This book is about love that she has to deal with all the nonsense that comes with having a brother who's going to save the world. That's fantastic. We can't wait. We're at the end of our time and this has been so much fun. I feel like I've learned a lot. And it's been fantastic to watch this, this character come to life and just what you both bring to your stories and character hang on. We need a name. We need a name. And the cat throws a name. We have to name the character. I love that amazing name for an aspiring dancer. Chandelier Mariah. We have. Yeah, you got it. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Business business. But anything else you'd like to share with the audience before we, we, we finish. Pre-order Freddie or pre-order Freddie in the curse. It's great. Do it. It's funny. Thank you. I will echo that. Please order Freddie versus a family. It's from Claire on book. It's out May 3 2022. So just in time for Asian American heritage month Asian American and Pacific Islander heritage month. So May 3. I'm so excited. The book is really funny. Well, thank you both for your time and your energy and your knowledge and your, your lived experience bringing this program to our, to our families and our adults and our youth and our educators who are watching as well. So thank you so much. And thank you everybody for joining us. If you love today's program, check out our calendar. There are more opportunities to engage in cultural programs, just like this one to celebrate Filipino American History Month. So be sure to check out the links in the chat. Take good care of yourselves. Please stay safe. And we hope to see you all at another little library program soon. Bye. Bye. Thank you. Thank you.