Interview: Kacen Callender, author of Felix Ever After
Aaron H. Aceves, author of This Is Why They Hate Us (Spring 2022), interviews Kacen Callender, author of Felix Ever After.
Hi, Kacen! In the span of only two years or so, you’ve published two Middle Grade books, two Young Adult books, and a novel for adults. First of all, how are you so damn prolific!
Haha, thanks! Honestly I tend to work on multiple novels all at the same time, jumping from one WIP to the next, so I usually end up with about five projects within a quick succession. But, then, I have to retreat back into the writing cave to write five projects all at the same time again.
I see. Second question: I was wondering how the experience of writing differs depending on the age group of your intended readers.
The process changes from book to book, but my intention is the same for each age group: my writing requires hope, in the voice and plot, for my MG readers. The voice might be a little more jaded, but the plot will also always be hopeful for YA. My adult voice tends to be more jaded, and the plot could either end with hope or not. When I was a MG-age reader especially I needed stories that ended with hope, so that’s what I always deliver.
Something that happened to you that must have been hard to deal with was the Kirkus review of Felix Ever After. That whole situation was incredibly offensive, and I obviously don’t think there necessarily needs to be a realization tied into that traumatic experience, but was there anything you took away from that incident?
I think I realized how much more work the industry as a whole needs to do. I knew that Felix would face transphobia and bigotry from the average every-day reader, but it was a little more of a wake-up call that a professional trade reviewer would make such horrendous mistakes, and not take accountability by fixing those mistakes and apologizing. Even if publishing Felix feels like a win, there needs to be more of an awareness for the weak-spots in the industry. Kirkus specifically holds so much renown that no one wants to fight them, and still secretly hopes for that illusive starred review, even in the face of Kirkus continuing to harm marginalized authors. If all authors refused to send their work to Kirkus, I’m betting the reviewer would shift a lot of its problematic tactics very quickly.
I love a good debate about labels within the queer community. In Felix, you provide both sides of the argument well, but I particularly resonated with the feeling you described associated with finding a label that validates how you feel about a particular aspect of your identity. Can you talk about your personal view of labels and how you incorporated it into this book?
Yes! I agree with both sides of the argument, so I was able to put both of my opinions in there. In This Is Kind of an Epic Love Story, I explored a world that wouldn’t have any need for any labels, because the characters don’t have to deal with the problematic stuff we have to deal with on a daily basis—and for the most part, I do think that’s how I would be as well if I didn’t have to deal with transphobia, or people trying to invalidate me and my identity. There would be no need for me, personally, to say that I’m a demiboy—I would just exist, and fall in love, and be loved in turn. But that isn’t the world we live in, and people do try to invalidate my identity—so it feels good to know that my label fits so perfectly that it’s proof others have felt and do feel the same way. I wanted Felix to be in direct conversation with Epic Love Story in this way. Ezra says his views, which are the same as the views in Epic Love Story, and Leah and Felix respond.
You also delve into what I imagine were incredibly hard topics to talk about (class disadvantage, transphobia, body dysmorphia, among others), and I was wondering how you took care of yourself while confronting your trauma.
It was pretty difficult, but these are the same issues that I already face consistently, so acknowledging those realistic issues felt more healing than difficult, especially when I had the power of the last word in Felix. I always made sure to respond to the transphobia especially with words of validation and empowerment, from Felix or from others, for example. This in itself was the biggest form of self-care.
I was very pleased to see your use of two of my favorite tropes: “enemies to lovers” and “the fake relationship/catfish.” Can you talk about how it feels to reclaim these tropes for a group that hasn’t seen those tropes as often (if at all) like others have?
Haha, thanks—they’re two of my favorites also! Just like my answer to the last question, it feels incredibly empowering. I don’t think a lot of our white queer siblings realize that they’re erasing so many of our unseen experiences and stories when they make general, broad, sweeping statements like, “There’s too much queer rom-com,” or “It’s time to move on from coming out stories.” They have been able to see themselves so much more than queer and trans people of color. It feels amazing to tell the story that I wish I could see myself in, and I hope there are many more stories like Felix Ever After to come.
Born and raised in St. Thomas of the US Virgin Islands, Kacen Callender is the award-winning author of the middle-grade novels Hurricane Child and King and the Dragonflies, the young-adult novels This Is Kind of an Epic Love Story and Felix Ever After, and the adult novel Queen of the Conquered.
Kacen was previously an Associate Editor of Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, where they acquired and edited novels including Tyler Johnson Was Here by Jay Coles, the New York Times bestseller Internment by Samira Ahmed, and the Stonewall Honor award-winning novel Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World by Ashley Herring Blake.
They enjoy playing RPG video games in their free time.
Kacen currently resides in Philadelphia, PA.
Aaron H. Aceves is a Mexican-American writer born and raised in East L.A. He graduated in 2015 from Harvard, where he received the Le Baron Russell Briggs Award after being nominated by Jamaica Kincaid. His work has appeared in Germ Magazine, Raspa Magazine, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, and New Pop Lit. He currently lives in New York, where he is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at Columbia University, and is the author of This Is Why They Hate Us (coming in spring 2022 from Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers).
Queer YA Books by Black Authors Spreadsheet
Hello readers! One of our core missions at YA Pride is to promote books that have been systematically pushed to the margins of queer young adult literature. Over the past days, the YA Pride team has been brainstorming ways to better promote Black writers of young adult literature and get their voices into the hands of readers. Today, we are publishing a spreadsheet of current and upcoming queer YA titles by Black authors that we will continue to update as future book deals are announced. In addition to author and title, our spreadsheet features the LGBTQIAP+ representation of the main character, the genre, the release date, and the link to the Goodreads synopsis. Our hope is that this information will allow readers to quickly find the rep or genre they are looking for. This spreadsheet will be a continuous work-in-progress, so we appreciate your support if you find any errors in listed representation, changed release dates, ect., and are happy to update as soon as possible after an error has been found. Now, let’s go show these authors some love! Happy reading!
#PreorderWithYAPride: Queer YA by Queer Black Authors
Let’s give an extra bundle of love and support to the queer Black authors in our community! Over the next few weeks we’ll be posting some of our favorite previously published titles by queer Black authors on social media, as well as sharing a database of LGBTQIAP+ YA written by Black authors. But we also want to give some love to upcoming titles! One way you can do that is by pre-ordering these three queer YA books by queer Black authors.
Let’s be clear: structural racism in the book community and publishing industry will not be solved by a few pre-orders, or support for one single author. White supremacy is built into the very foundation of the book industry, just as it is built into many other facets of the United States, and other countries. It will take long, sustained work from all of us to make real, lasting change. Our team is currently discussing how we will continue and deepen our efforts to decenter whiteness and dismantle racism within the LGBTQIAP+ YA community, and we hope you will join us in that work as we figure out specifics. But that is a longterm process, and while we remain committed to it, we also wanted to do something now. And right now, we really want to lift up the queer Black authors in our community. One way to do that? Showing these authors some pre-order love!
Our goal is to get to 25 pre-orders of each of these titles. If you pre-order one, you can either email contact@yapride.org with a screenshot of your receipt/proof of purchase or tweet it to us @YA_Pride. If you tweet it, make sure to also use the hashtag #PreorderWithYAPride! As we get those sent/emailed to us, we will add it to the number of total pre-orders!
We recommend buying from the author’s local indie bookstores, which we have linked to under each book.
If you have any questions or concerns, email us at contact@yapride.org.
Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron
It’s 200 years after Cinderella found her prince, but the fairy tale is over. Teen girls are now required to appear at the Annual Ball, where the men of the kingdom select wives based on a girl’s display of finery. If a suitable match is not found, the girls not chosen are never heard from again.
Sixteen-year-old Sophia would much rather marry Erin, her childhood best friend, than parade in front of suitors. At the ball, Sophia makes the desperate decision to flee, and finds herself hiding in Cinderella’s mausoleum. There, she meets Constance, the last known descendant of Cinderella and her step sisters. Together they vow to bring down the king once and for all–and in the process, they learn that there’s more to Cinderella’s story than they ever knew…
This fresh take on a classic story will make readers question the tales they’ve been told, and root for girls to break down the constructs of the world around them.
Note: Kalynn’s publisher is running a pre-order promotion campaign. If you pre-order Cinderella, submit your receipt here to receive an exclusive enamel pin!
Legendborn by Tracy Deonn
After her mother dies in an accident, sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her previous life, family memories, or her childhood home. A residential program for bright high schoolers at a local university seems like the perfect escape—until Bree witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus.
A flying demon feeding on human energies.
A secret society of so called “Legendborn” students that hunt the creatures down.
And a teenage mage who calls himself a “Merlin” and who attempts—and fails—to wipe Bree’s memory of everything she saw.
The mage’s failure reveals Bree’s own, unique magic and unlocks a buried memory with a hidden connection: the night her mother died, another Merlin was at the hospital. Now that she knows there’s more to her mother’s death than what’s on the police report, Bree will do whatever it takes to find out the truth, even if that means infiltrating the Legendborn by becoming one of their initiates. But when the Legendborn reveal themselves as the descendants of King Arthur and his knights and explain that a magical war is coming, Bree has to decide how far she’ll go for the truth and whether she should use her magic to take the society down—or join the fight.
Pre-order from Tracy Deonn's local indie!
The Summer of Everything by Julian Winters
Comic book geek Wesley Hudson excels at two things: slacking off at his job and pining after his best friend, Nico. Advice from his friends, ‘90s alt-rock songs, and online dating articles aren’t helping much with his secret crush. And his dream job at Once Upon a Page, the local used bookstore, is threatened when a coffeeshop franchise wants to buy the property. To top it off, his annoying brother needs wedding planning advice. When all three problems converge, Wes comes face-to-face with the one thing he’s been avoiding—adulthood.
Now, confronted with reality, can Wes balance saving the bookstore and his strained sibling relationship? Can he win the heart of his crush, too?
Pre-order from Julian Winter's local indie!
My YA Pride: Submit Your Story About LGBTQIAP+ YA
LGBTQIAP+ YA books change lives. This Pride month, we want to collect stories about those life-changing experiences.
Has your life been impacted by LGBTQIAP+ YA? Now’s your chance to tell your story! We want to feature as many as possible during this year’s Blogathon.
If you’re interested in submitting something, you can either email us directly with your submission at contact@yapride.org, or submit your experience via Google Forms (link below). There is no hard and fast word limit– our shortest submission to date is just under 100 words, but we also publish pieces on our site that are over 3,000 words. For this topic, we’ll probably have more that are on the shorter side, but if you need more space to explain your story, take it! We can always edit it down if need be.
We’re also very open to non-traditional post formats such as videos, poems, interviews, or anything else. Just give us a heads up on what you’re thinking so we can make sure it will work!
If you’d like to submit something but are stuck on a topic, here are some prompts: the first time you saw yourself on the page, meeting your favorite author, talking with a librarian who helped you find exactly the right book, recommending a book to someone who loved it, letting yourself write the story you really want to write.
Submit Here! Unless you’re a teen– in which case, submit here instead!
Email us at contact@yapride.org with any questions.
YA Pride’s Pride Month Blogathon– and how you can participate!
Although Pride is going to be a different and difficult experience for many of us this year, community remains more important than ever. In the midst of this scary time, the book community has already come together in so many wonderful ways, including virtual panels, instagram live sessions, and a plethora of giveaways. With most in-person Pride events, publishing conferences, and author readings cancelled, we wanted to provide a way for the LGBTQIAP+ YA book community to connect virtually: our Pride Month Blogathon.
Every day during the month of June, we will feature a post from a YA community member focused on the theme of queer bookish joy and community: stories about meeting a favorite author, getting a book deal, reading a queer book for the first time, connecting a teen to a new favorite book, and other moments related to books and writing that connected folks to community and joy. We will also be hosting giveaways, readalongs, and trivia on Twitter and Instagram!
As this is a community event, we want to feature as many voices and stories as possible. If you have a story about queer bookish joy or community to share, we would love to hear it. Find out how to submit one here. We’re also hoping to hear specifically from teens about their experiences with LGBTQIAP+ YA books! If you’re a teen or someone who knows a teen that has a story like this, submit your experience here. We’ll get back to you within a week if we select your story to feature.
This blogathon will be edited collaboratively by me (Vee!) and Kiki Nguyen, a guest editor who I’m so excited to be working with. We’re so excited for this blogathon and we hope you are too!