 OK, so we're going to take some questions. Y'all good? All right, serious? Taking naps? Question? Yes? Sure. So everything. So talk about everything. I can do that. Sure. I'll try to focus on something. Well, process is really, for me, I particularly, I call it the catapult method. Basically meaning there's a thing George R. R. Martin says where there's architects and there's gardeners as far as how we write. And architects will plan it out everything meticulously and have it outlined and know exactly what's going to happen. And gardeners are just like, hey, let's see what happens. Plant some shit. Which is generally what I am, a gardener. But I kind of think of it as the catapult method because for me it's like I'll have a notion of where this thing takes place and the voice of the main character. And then I'll have a very vague and kind of far off notion of where we're going but no details at all. And I'll just kind of aim in that general direction. And I'll just put myself in the seat and then launch and go, ah! And then find out as I go. And then sort of as I'm flying through the air about halfway into the process, I'll sort of start to be able to make out the details of what the ending's gonna be like so that I can really come down with precision when I land there. But I really don't know what's gonna happen when I write. Sometimes I'll start a scene and don't know where it's gonna go. Which is really the joy of it for me. I love that. I love having to find out, having to write to find out because it really keeps me awake as a writer and keeps me knowing that, well if I wanna know then if I have to put the energy to write it to figure it out and it's worth it to me then probably it'll be worth the energy to read too. And then you're kind of in this process that I think of very conversatory between yourself and the story. So it's not dictation. It's not like I'm just like, okay whatever spirit says I'm gonna write. Because you bring craft to the table too and strategy and your own, all your stuff. And then the story comes with all its stuff and then you meet it somewhere in between and find out what's really good basically. Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, yeah, yes. Oh, thank you. So if you kind of do the catapult method or I've heard of it, it's like panting, just like writing off the seat of your pants. How do you kind of, do you give yourself like daily limits or how do you like know, I don't know, I've started a thousand stories and I've never, yeah. No, great question and that's important. Finishing does matter. I do, when I'm on a roll with something, I will try to get, like if I'm gonna sit down and write, I tend to try to get like a thousand to two thousand words and then I feel like I know I'm moving solidly along. The thing to know really is that if you keep doing that regularly, you will finish the project and it's not always gonna be fun and there's gonna be days when you don't want to. But ultimately, like if you keep writing, the book will be done and then you'll have a book and then you can go back and edit that book. That's the whole sort of idea behind word counts. I do want to caution and I've written about this and tweeted plenty about it against the idea of writing every day. I think that's a very dangerous concept to impose on a writer. That might be your method and if that works for you, that's fantastic. But most of us don't have the ability to do that because we have lives and jobs and other things like that and they'll say like, oh, well, if you really love writing, then you'll figure it. Okay, that's great. However, I love paying my rent. You know what I mean? I love eating. Eating is awesome. So I just want to encourage you, all who are writers in the room, to forgive yourself and to not write every day but to write regularly and write a lot. I promise you I don't write every day. They're months that I go without writing and I'm a prolific motherfucker. I'm gonna put out my 10th book next year, y'all. Like that's no joke. Thank you. And I don't write every day and I tell you that not to brag, partially to brag, but also to be like you can still get the work done and not do it every single day. I promise you, not writing for a day is not a gateway drug to not writing ever but they act like it is the way they talk with that bullshit advice. Write a lot, write a lot and be hard on yourself but don't sit down and feel guilty. What good does that do? Your process is nothing. It trashes your process. And then you resent the process and then you resent the blank page because it's looking back at you like, where you been, my dude? Like, I haven't seen you for like four days. And you're like, yeah, I've been busy like working and being in love and whatever and shit. And no, yeah, that's what you're supposed to do as a writer. You have to live your life and you have to have a roof over your head. So allow yourself the room to do both those things. You can actually live and work and write and all those things. It's very possible and you should and you shouldn't be sitting down and feeling like bad about shit, I think. So I don't even know what you asked. You said, oh, with word counts. Yeah, just if you, but if you do stay on it and you will write a book, you will finish that book. And sometimes it's because you might have something about your process that's not working right for you. Because a lot of times it will be, maybe it's not that, but it's a matter of us trying to adopt someone else's process instead of our own. So the main best only piece of advice that is about writing is really honor your process. Know and honor your process, whatever it may be. It might be late at night. It might be early in the morning. You know, it might be both, it might be neither. Whatever it is, you have to be self-aware and reflective to understand what that is and what's your process so that you can do it and continue to do it. And then that's how you write the book, not by subscribing to someone else's WAC method or someone else's awesome method. You have to find your process. Yes. So when you first started writing, were you ever tempted to, in order to get your book sold, were you ever tempted to have fewer characters of color? The only modification I ever made, and I knew it was a very temporary one and a very strategic one, was that the first line of half resurrection blues, first of all, no. Just a quick answer to your question is no. But the first line of half resurrection blues, which I actually started, the inspiration for half resurrection blues came from this city. I was here over New Year's in 2008 into 2009 and I was just wandering around the hate all by myself and I grabbed like a pocket rum and a cigar and I just walked the streets and I was like the only person of color there until I bumped into this tall, very immaculately kept black dude with locks who just went, looked at the sky and went, what up douchebags and douchebagettes? And I was like, wow, this motherfucker. So we immediately became friends and just walked the streets obviously. So we just spent the whole time walking the streets making fun of people basically and bringing in the new year and that turned into the first two chapters of half resurrection blues. Anyway, the first line of that is, because I was in the hate actually and then I later transposed it over to Park Slope but it's something like it's a little past 11 on December 31st that Hazy Time when we're not quite here and not quite there and Park Slope is full of white kids. Originally, hate Ashbury, which was also full of white kids at the time. And I think when I said, when we went on submission I changed it to Park Slope is full of like rich kids or something like that. And then as soon as it got accepted I changed it back to white kids. And now I would never do that again because I don't wanna work with an editor that's gonna turn off. But I was brand new at the time and I didn't think there was any hope of getting that book published. So it was kind of just like a shot in the dark. And I didn't wanna come out the gate like literally the first line of the novel and have people be like, yeah, this is a little too much. I'm just gonna, you know. So it's all strategy. You know, you have to be very strategic and very clear of the marketplace you're working with. I'm at a point where I've, without really meaning to, made a name for myself as a loudmouth. But that's also worked in my favor because it's filtered out a lot of the trashy type of folks that I wouldn't work well with, right? And I also would say that I entered into publishing with a very clear and explicit mission. It wasn't to get published and get famous. It was to get like books like this, to write these books, this book, and put it out into the world and change publishing because publishing was a disaster. It's still a disaster as far as race goes. And so I entered like, I knew I was like a little bit of a sleeper cell. You know what I mean? And I was like, I'm gonna fuck some shit up and it's gonna be beautiful. And hopefully I can just, you know, get published and make some money while I'm doing it too. You know what I mean? And it worked out really well, but there was no model for that when I was doing that. And Shadow Shaper, which went on to win awards and be a New York Times bestseller, it was rejected 40 times on the path to publication because at that time, there was no movement around diversity in books. And publishing, which is still 80% white was 80% white then, but they were also 80% white with no sense of like decorum, first of all. And also just the very obvious idea that we actually read. So that was like news to folks. So they were reading it and being like, this is so pretty and nice and everything. I just don't know where we would sell it. Or I just don't identify with the main character, right? Which is like, how do you not identify with Sierra? Have you met Sierra? What's wrong with you? So, you know, it's been a process, but I knew that going in, I would face that kind of headwind. And that's part of also why, you know, with very selfish reasons in the way I started being very active was because I knew I had to clear space in the world for this book to come out because I knew it was coming. But I won't, no, I was never interested in writing books with like more white people with them to make, to be more publishable or whatever. And when Hollywood came knocking and they were like, this is great. Can we just put in some more mainstream characters? I was like, no. And they were like, oh, that's too bad. It is gonna be a TV show at some point. I don't know when. That's not officially yet. No one's bought it, but it has been optioned. So that's excited. But when it is, it's gonna be done right. It's not gonna be whitewashed because that's not what I'm about. As much as I have the control over it. As long as I have control over it. At a certain point, you don't have control anymore. You all should understand that because everyone's gonna still come knocking on my Twitter like, what'd they do that for? And I'm gonna be like, look, look, look now. I did what I could do. And then at a certain point, you do sign it over. But that means that when you sign it over, you have to sign it over to good people, which is what I'm invested in doing. So, yeah. Yeah, man. So these characters, like, how long have they been swirling around your head? Cause like, I don't write, but I have all this like weird like people and stuff fiction swirl in my head. So it's stuff like you just dreamed about like from when you were a kid or you just when you decided to write a book, then stuff flew. A little bit of both. I've always, I definitely always wanted to write more than characters though. What I've had in my head since I was a kid is monsters. Okay. And I know that, especially for those of you that know what what pad is. It's like a social media site for writers and a lot of young people are on there. It's pretty cool. But anyway, I've been posting the first draft of Shadow Shaper on there on what pad. It's pretty easy to find. It's called Sierra Santiago in the Invisible City. And it's a totally different book. Totally different book. It's about, let's say about 95% different. It has Sierra, it's in Brooklyn. There's like one scene in common. It's really interesting. So I posted up there to read so that people could see how much a book will travel between draft one and publication in part. And so people could see some of the mistakes I made. And one of the mistakes I made was because it was a classic first novelist mistake is that I was like, I've been, one of my dream jobs when I was a kid was to make up monsters for George Lucas' Creature Shop. That's what I wanted to do. So I'd just been making up monsters for an entire lifetime when I sat down at 29 to write this. And I was just like, oh, I could put all these monsters into the book. I literally put all the monsters into the book. But it's a full ass book. There's a ton of motherfucking monsters in there. So instead of just being like the paint, you know, this sort of shadowy world of paintings come into life, it's all the monsters live in Brooklyn. And they're invisible, so only Sierra can see them. And they just like pop up in Prospect Park and there's trash heap over here and then like at the river. And there's different monsters for every part of the city, which is dope, but it's a heavy burden for a book to carry. So I got the great advice to just calm down and just like pick one and roll with that. And the coolest one in that book was called The Paint to Dead. And it was the murals coming to life. And it was like a whole side. Like when I tell you, I try to put everything in, I'm reading it over now to post it. I'm just like, how many fucking things are in this book? I didn't remember. Shit, and what I ended up doing was cannibalizing and putting some over here and taking other characters over there and everything. But anyway, so I had lots of monsters and I tried to put them all into one book. Sierra and them though, Sierra showed up like fully formed basically once I was like, okay, I'm gonna write this book about Brooklyn and magic and whatever. Well, I'll see what goes down. I was basically thinking like Harry Potter meets the wire. Cause that's, you know, that needs to happen. So Sierra was like, that's me. I'm ready. You know, she just stepped up. And then I was like, well, who are you? And she was like, I'm fucking Sierra Santiago, son. And I was like, oh, all right, so what are we gonna do? And then, you know, then I had to ask myself, you know, as a man, as someone who didn't grow up in Brooklyn, as someone who's Latino, but not Afro-Latino, like, could I write this character? Was I writer enough to write this character? And maybe fortunately at that time, I didn't know enough to really fully ask myself those questions yet. So I started to ask them and I was trying to figure it out and I was a little bit gung-ho about the whole thing. So I just wrote. And then in the process, also fortunately, they took a really long time. It was about a six-year process from edit to publication, from first draft to publication, which is a little longer than some and shorter than others. I learned a lot about, I was already really engaged with questions of power and privilege because of work as an organizer. And so I really took that to the page and really demanded I'm like kind of like make sure I wasn't trying to protect myself. Because I think that's where a lot of us go wrong when we're writing characters who are in us is that we try to make ourselves come out on top somehow or pretend that everything is cool. It would have been really easy to write this book and not include the deep anti-blackness that happens in Latino communities and not include just so many of the problems that we have or the patriarchy that we enforce. And I knew I couldn't do that because that would be a lie, especially the stakes are so high for writers of color because this is like the Latino fantasy book of the year, of that year that it came out. Now there's another one, which is great because it's not fucking Highlander, you know what I mean? But like publishing treats people of color, like there can only be one and we have to chop each other's heads off. But that also adds to the pressure. Like now you're repping like Latinos, so you better be real about shit. And that's deep. But then once they all exploded to life, there was no stopping them. And that's why the novellas are about other characters like Izzy and Tea, who are two of her best friends are the main characters in Go School in the Corner because those characters were so alive just as I learned about who they are writing them in this book. I was like, man, they need their own shit. They have their own stuff, stories to tell and everything else. So now they're like that, this whole world is just very vivid and I can just kind of sit down and write it, which is good. Yeah. You said something about working with audio earlier. And then when you were just like reading out your typed words, it sounded like spoken word, you know, the rhythm of the cadence of it really translated really well. Thanks. I'm wondering how does audio play into your writing? Yeah. Like do you sub vocalize as you're writing or is one of your edits, like you go back and read it out loud? I do always read out loud. And I recommend that for every writer because first of all, you catch all kinds of stupid mistakes and it's very helpful for that. Just the basic stuff. Second of all, you get to interact with the actual sound of the words, which is what makes writing good. And I think we really forget a lot. And we were just talking about this in the back. You know, like the roots of all literature is in the spoken word, not Microsoft word, you know? That's where literature comes from. It comes from people talking to each other and having conversations and storytelling out loud. And that's such a powerful and beautiful thing to know. And I think that the more we honor that, the better our writing gets. So I don't write like, I don't speak while I'm writing at all, but I do take as much inspiration from like the gossip on the corner as I do from the Iliad and the Odyssey, which were originally spoken out loud anyway, right? So there's that. You know, homework was blind and illiterate. And we're over here acting like the written word is like primary somehow. It's not. The stories that we tell each other are so powerful and have their own just literature and epicness behind them. So I think in part my process just includes honoring that. And then I also just, I love talking. So that's part of it. Clearly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hi. I wanted to, I know you were talking earlier about your process and how you don't force yourself to write anything or whatever, but do you ever have moments where you're like, I'm stuck and how do you get unstuck when met with the page? Well, let me clarify. I don't force myself to write every day, but there are days when I don't wanna write when I write. And I do think you have to be somewhat rigorous, you know, on getting yourself to sit down and do the work. When I get stuck, it tends to be not so much. I don't think of it as writer's block because of my particular methodology. Generally when I'm stuck, it just means I'm not sure what's supposed to happen and I need to take a break to figure it out. And I think most writers will tell you that a lot of the writing doesn't happen in front of the computer at all, in fact, but it happens when you're taking a walk or having a conversation with someone that you're supposed to be paying attention to or showering or whatever. And you're like, oh snap, this whole thing, you know. So that's when, on the train for me a lot, you know, in the commute, I'll just put my headphones on and I'll just jam out and figure out what's supposed to happen. So it's become just a very built-in part of my process to step away and know when to step away and just be like, oh yeah, whatever I need to figure out is not gonna happen in front of the computer. So let me go do that somewhere else and then come back and do what I need to do. And allowing for that truth to be true is really helpful again in this forgiveness thing, right? Because you can very easily follow the advice of ass in the chair being the primary, like what you have to do and just sit there kicking yourself because you're not writing. When really what you need to do is take a damn walk and do that writing in your head and then regroup and come back. That's what I've learned from my own process. Yeah, yes. Hi, I'm a fan. Oh, thank you. And I tweet you too. Oh, what's your name on Twitter? CocoaFly. Oh yeah, cool, nice to meet you. Yeah, nice to meet you. So my question is, yesterday was a good timing actually. Cause I've been pitching a book, it's nonfiction. And an agent contacted me and said they were interested in representing me. Congrats. So I'm supposed to thank you. Excited. So I'm supposed to have a conversation with him actually tomorrow morning. And I've been researching questions I should ask. Any suggestions for questions I should ask? It's less about the questions you ask and more just about how y'all get along. An agent relationship is like any relationship. It involves communication being the primary thing. So if you find that, whatever you choose to ask, you find that you feel you can ask them and get the answer you need. And if they say something that you're not clear about, you feel like you can clarify that. That's a good sign. That's what you wanna look out for. Cause that's really what's gonna matter down the road. Not the details of like, cause all the details are basically the same. They take 15% and they have certain policies about this or that or the other. And you wanna do your research before you go in, check out the agency, make sure they're legit. Yeah, he's legit. That's what's up. So that's what matters. There's the basic stuff like I said, like who do they work for, who do they work with? And then there's the how and that's more complicated cause that's what you have to figure out. Like, do I work well with this person? I've left agents mostly on the strength that they don't really get my work and we're not communicating well. And it sucks. It's like leaving any relationship. It's a breakup and you gotta deal with it as such. But if you enter into it kinda knowing that, cause they don't really tell you that. They'll tell you like, oh, make sure they got high powered clients or whatever other bullshit things they'll say. None of that matters. If you can work with someone, that's what matters. If they have high powered clients and they don't have time for you or they're so like caught up in their head game about having high powered clients, that doesn't do you any good until you are one. And that's like a, you don't wanna work with that kind of hierarchical thinking anyway. So I would just have the conversation and see what you feel them out. But congrats, that's exciting. Yeah, yeah. Yes, right here. These are great questions, I appreciate that. So I also tweet you. I almost bought you a tote bag back there. Oh, you're the one. I'm the one. Wait, what's your name on Twitter? Robin Ravenclaw. Oh, you're Robin Ravenclaw, nice to meet you. Cool. Thanks for coming out. No problem. I hate tote bags, for those of you who don't. Yeah, it's rude. But I just had a question about like how do you, cause you do write both like adult and then now, how do you choose which story is which? Like when Sierra came to you, did she say, and I'm gonna be on the YA shelf? Or how do you, or do you not know that until afterwards? No, you know, I mean, it's sort of easy cause it's very clearly stratified with me. Like I write in two different worlds that are actually the same world, right? Two different series that are actually the same world. So, you know, if I'm writing a Bonesbury Rumba book, it's gonna, there are some teenagers in that world but it's an adult world. And so I can let them in and have, they have point of view roles and they have big roles in the story and everything else and even are on the cover of some of the books. To me, what defines a young adult book is that the primary crisis of the book is one that forces the main character to actively step out of some of the mythologies and shed some of the mythologies of childhood and into adulthood. That's what makes it a YA. That's it. So, a perfect example is Shadow Shaper came out the same year as Midnight Taxi Tango, right? Which is a book with a 16 year old girl on the front just like Shadow Shaper with a big ass fro just like Shadow Shaper. But Kia, thank you. Kia Summers is the shit. But her arc, while she does grow up some during Midnight Taxi Tango for sure and if it was just her arc, it would be a YA because of those other points of view characters who are both adults and because the heart of that book is not about her growing up but it's really about fighting off these evil cockroach dudes and dealing with grief in different ways because each character is dealing with grief and that's the heart of the book. You know what I mean? That's why it's not a YA, besides the marketing stuff and all the other bullshit, right? But with Shadow Shaper, this is a book about Sierra stepping up into the world and understanding her legacy in an active way and so thereby growing up, shedding mythology of childhood, whether it be safety or a sense that everything is all right or whatever it is, that's what the heart of this book is. That's the crisis at the center of this book. So that's the defining thing. And then when I'm approaching a story it's sort of a question of that. I might not know the details of how things play out but I do sort of have a sense of the heart of what it is and that's what's gonna guide me towards where it's gonna land on the show. Great question now. Yeah, yes. Could you talk about how you work with your editor and I'm kind of curious to know where there, if there were times when you're just like absolutely no fucking way am I changing that? Plenty. No. And just talking about that process about how you negotiate that working relationship. Yeah, I've been really blessed. Once I kind of got through like a couple duds I found really great people to work with. So in general and in any relationship with an editor or an agent it should be very conversatory just like the one between the writer and the story itself. You should be able to like push back and forth in a friendly way to see where you're at about stuff. It can't just be like, well this is how it's supposed to be done. And it's best it's like getting to talk about storytelling and writing with someone whose opinion you trust even if you don't always disagree with them so that you can get a sounding board and get different points of view and then bounce them back off each other. And that's what it's been so it's been really cool. Do we always agree? Absolutely not, but you know you shouldn't. So generally it's like there'll be something where they'll be like what about this? We had a really interesting conversation about the last line of the novella which I won't say what it is because that would be a spoiler but in my version of it it kind of slides into the future tense and then goes into almost a dream-like thing where it kind of fades off almost. I think of it as like a cinematic fade to black. And in Cheryl's version of my editor she really wanted it to be a very concrete action that happens at the end still in the future tense but the character actually doing this thing and then walking away to have that kind of image really just be like boom concrete, right? And it was fascinating because it really did come back to like many questions when you're editing it came back to what the heart of the novel was and what the story was really about. And I mean at the end of the day I had the last say so I went with it but with my version because that's really what I thought sang the most on top of speaking the most deeply to the book. That's what that's what left. You know there's different forms of resonance that come with the last line. It can be like a boom, you know or it can be like a fade out and this story really required a fade out but it was a great conversation, right? Even you can hear me describing it it's like we're still trying to find a language for some of these things and that's exciting, right? Every time you're hitting up against the edge of a language that means that you're somewhere exciting because you're pushing some kind of boundary which is cool. And to her credit, you know she's great. She was just like well this is what I think it should be in his why and boom and we went back and forth. So it's been really great when I was first starting out the agent that actually left part of the reason I left her was because she crossed out a line in Shadow Shaper where Sierra's uncomfortable in a white neighborhood because she doesn't have a white baby in a baby carriage basically she's the only person of color there and she's getting side-eyed by all the white people and the agent crossed out the whole section and was like it just doesn't happen in 2012 and I was like. That's not when I left but now I would, you know now I mean I was brand new, no one knew who I was I had no books out so I was like let me, you know I had been through that 40 rejections on Shadow Shaper so she was kind of the bottom of the stack so I was just like I have an agent she's trash but I have an agent, you know she's not trash, well that was a trash thing to do but yeah, so I didn't walk away at the time but it was kind of the first step to me walking away because there's some things that if you're showing me you're not gonna listen that's the communication piece again, you know if you're just gonna cross it out not even be like, oh I didn't realize that happened no, you're just gonna tell me it doesn't? Okay, that's cool, bye. So you know these are all the and it's hard, it's complicated because of stuff like that, you know that's where the gridlock of being, you know writing, being and writing characters of color in an industry that's not, you know that's white that's where it gets complicated it's things like that and then having to make decisions within that and know where to plant your flag and what's worth it and what's not and there's just no, there's no fucking map, you know there's no one to be like, here's what you have that's why mentorship and community are so important particularly the writers of color because we don't have, there's no one to be like okay, this is what you're supposed to do in that situation when someone tells you that something that you know to be true doesn't even exist in the course of editing a book and you're powerless as far as you know to push back because there's just so many opportunities for you to just be like, well I don't know what am I supposed to do and I don't we all make that robot walk in it and hopefully find mentors and people that we can talk to who are like, no, that's fucked up, you know, but yeah, it's complex. Thank you for the question, good question. Yes, sir. Yeah. If there's one, what is that? That's a great question. I feel like I'm supposed to have the answer to that like right there, because I think about that stuff a lot and I just, while I'm thinking, I'll just say that this is an exciting age of the counter narrative I feel like and it's really dope. Tor.com is putting out so many great novellas that are like anti-Lovecraftian, Lovecraftian and like, you know, Victor Levol is on it, like The Ballad of Black Tom. There's just so much good stuff happening in that realm. And in that realm, I also have a Rosarium is, I'm working on a comic book series of a Rosarium that's Lovecraftian, the anti-Lovecraftian that's like San Theodos in Brooklyn back in like the 19 deans and there's some dinosaurs up in there. So that's dope. I gotta think about it and get back to you. That's a great question though. Huh, okay, someone ask another question so I can keep thinking about it. I'll ask a question. So you just shared that you're working on a comic and it seemed, it's very exciting to me because the library does host day one of the Black Comic Arts Festival. And you see how many young or even not even young like black creatives are transitioning from, you know whether it's being essayist or novelist to writing, getting involved in graphic novels, comics slash graphic novels. And I wanted to talk to you a little bit about you throwing your hat in the ring as far as, you know, producing some comics. Yeah, I'm just really excited to do it. I don't have a lot of insight into it yet because I'm not, the comics head that I probably should be to be entering into the field. I do love this stuff, I love the work but I'm not like a fictionado or an expert but I do think it's just such an exciting and amazing medium that's just, people are doing so much amazing work with right now and it's really like so many other things achieving a kind of renaissance. And I think it's coming out of this place of people having much like all of science fiction and fantasy and stuff. You know, it's a medium that people sneer at and it's out here changing the world. I mean, look at March, which won every award known to man like so far, which is fantastic. You know, and people are just pushing boundaries with it in such excited ways. So it's an exciting thing to be a part of. I mean, I'm not a friend field. Yeah, Dracula's one of my favorite novels. I love Dracula and I love so much about it. It's also, I think, one of the first urban fantasies and doesn't get credited for that in some ways. It starts out in that castle in the mountains but most of it takes place in London and that's when it gets dope because we get to lose Jonathan Harker's loser ass. I mean, he's such a wack character, Jonathan. Who came up with his ad? He's like the damsel in distress, but stupider and just in the way. And then Mina comes along and they're just like, all right, we got this, you know, like it's a great story. But Renfield is a fascinating, you know, because he's the prototype of the kind of like insane henchmen. He eats bugs, what's up with that? And I feel like he's probably deeply misunderstood and it would be kind of fascinating to have his, you know, like, first of all, the way that we criminalize lunacy, you know, and just kind of blow brush off the insanity and use the word crazy as a slur and all these things. And here we have this character that's like thrown in his lot with this like, you know, most powerful being known to man, which is actually a good move if you think about it. That's probably smart. And then, you know, pay the price for it. I just think he could be a really fascinating character. And then, I know it is. I know, I know, it's on my mind, it's on my mind. And then, Richard III is my favorite Shakespeare play. And I think he's another one that's, I'm not even gonna say like he needs to be, like he was misunderstood because he was a dick. But, well, in the play, historically, apparently, he wasn't even that bad. But like, I just love that play. And I think that there's something to be done with it somewhere, cause it's just, it's so good. I just, I love, I love Shakespeare a lot. Yeah, other questions? Yes, love. You get the last question. Well, thank you so much. You've been really engaging and sharing and opening with us about your process. And I was just wondering more about what you were talking about in the beginning, like, you know, being like the first to deliver things for the, the society and community that you come from. How do you create this mentorship that you were talking about that would lead to a better publishing industry for people of color? Ooh, that is the question, isn't it? I think in some ways it happens naturally and it has to and in some ways it also has to be really, we have to be really strategic and intentional about it too. And those aren't really at, those aren't really at odds at all. I think that there's a, the natural part of it is that when you're on your way up and people make room under their wings for you as they did for me. And I think as most writers of color have had the experience of someone doing for them on some level, whether it's their English teacher or, you know, their professor or just someone random or a writer they admire, you know, or someone that they just follow on Twitter and just feel like they're speaking to them even when they're not. All those are forms of mentorship, whether we know it or not and whether we own it or not. So when you, when you have had that experience, even if it's, again, even if it's not personal, even if you just feel like someone was really speaking to you with the things they were talking about, even if they didn't at you, you then are a part of a community, whether the community knows it or not. And then that makes it sort of impossible for you to not go ahead and do that when you're somewhere where you have an opportunity to, which also doesn't mean that you need to burn out doing it for every single person that comes your way. It just means that this is a part of how we are in community and in the writing world. This is how we maneuver because this is how the generation before us taught us to maneuver. So this is what we need to do. Whether it's like, again, someone just having the talk with you. I remember how many different mentors have had to sit me down and give me the talk, which is the same talk that parents give their kids, which is to be like, look, it's fucked up out there. And you have to protect yourself and you have to do twice as much and you have to be twice as good at all this other shit that we have to tell ourselves and like is a badge of honor and kind of this burden that we carry at the same time. And we have to embrace some different levels. But once that happens, like you have to then go on and do that for the next person. So when, for me, it happened very early, both in getting the talk and then in giving it because Salsa Nocturna, which was my first book, which came out in 2012 and then I just re-released this year, last year, that had a story in it that really spoke to a young writer on Twitter who then like sought me out and was like, okay, you know, I'm gonna be a writer now because of you. And I was like, fuck, I guess I gotta take you under my wing, shit. You know, and then we became like really, really good friends. And when that happens to, especially when, like I said, I entered into this note with a very clear mandate to, you know, to fuck shit up. Like that was absolutely the goal from jump. And including in that, I knew that that had to, the leadership development had to be a part of that because I come from an organizing background and I know that we can't do this alone. You know, it's not about us, that very white model of success where we just shoot up over everything else and like become a part of the stars and the rest of the community is destroyed beneath you. That's not how the shit works for us. We can't afford that because our people got us here. Our people are gonna keep us staying together. So we all rise together. So knowing that it was like, well, duh, you know, the next thing you do is like open up your wings too and let those people in and then lift up their voice in any way you know how, which includes telling them, having that hard conversation with them and being like, look, this is a fucked up industry. Here's how we're gonna get through it together. Here's how we're gonna like have conversations when shit feels like it's falling apart, you know, whether it's because of the election because of publishing itself. Like all these different layers are part of doing the work. So that's the natural piece of it. I think the more intentional and strategic piece of it, it does have to be solidified and codified in certain ways. And that's why it's really great that there's organizations like Vona out there, which is a writers of color workshop that you all should know about if you don't check it out and try to work with them. And just different folks, you know, the Black Comics Initiative, like just different folks that are doing the work and finding spaces where we can all get together and have the hard conversations with each other and find each other. And then, but it does have to be codified. We have to make sure we keep to that and we make room for ourselves to have those conversations, whether it's a conference, you know, or a workshop or just online communities. Like, you know, for me, it's so key that there's groups like Black Girl Nerds or Black Nerd Problems, you know, or fan bros. Like, those are really important sites because, first of all, they weren't Nerds of Color. You know, they didn't have those when I was a kid, obviously, because there was no internet really, but like, also just, I didn't know. You know, I was like, when I first went to New York Comic Con, I literally had a fucking tear go down my face because I was like, there's some color. I have one. Oh my God. It was beautiful. Because I've been like majority white cons up until that point and it blew my mind. I just didn't know we were out there and those numbers showing up to places in costume. What? So that was really dope. You know, like just finding spaces like that and then holding tight to them. And then finally, I'll say, you know, we don't have the luxury of petty beef. And that's hard. That's a hard truth, because it's fun sometimes to have things like, it's great gossip and just trashing people and all kinds of shit. You know, it's great. No, it's horrible really. And it's exhausting and it wears everybody out and it tears us to pieces. And we see it happen on Twitter every day. It seems like, you know, and you've seen it shred, you know, some aspects of the Black Lives Matter movement and different forms of feminism have been really, hurt from it. And that's not to say we can't call each other out. It's to say we don't have the luxury of petty beef. Petty beef is not the same as calling people out. Calling people out is calling people out. When you fuck up a beloved community, we'll check you on it. That's love. We check you out of love. But beef, you know, bullshit, competition, you know, if we believe the lie that there can only be one, then we'll fight over it bullshit. But the resources aren't nearly as limited as they act like. Especially now, with self-publishing and with just so many different platforms. So that's the last thing I'll say on that, is that we don't have that luxury, which is actually a blessing. We just have to make sure we know that and act accordingly. Yeah, thank you all so much. You've been wonderful. I will absolutely sign books. I'll be right, whatever, somewhere. And again, I'm on Audible. I do the thing. If you're not tired of my voice by now, then you find it on Audible. And Shadow House Fall comes out in September. Battle Hill Boledo came out on the third. There's another novella on the way, but in case you haven't gotten Ghost Girl in the Corner, it's 99 cents on Amazon. Thank you once again. And thank you for bringing me. Thank you, Library. Thank you, everybody. You were wonderful.