Welcome to the Fresh Voices series! We are excited to share a special Q&A with author Andrea Beatriz Arango about their new middle-grade novel, IVELIZ EXPLAINS IT ALL.

The Fresh Voices series is brought to you in coordination with the RHCB DEI Book Club Committee.

What inspired you to write IVELIZ EXPLAINS IT ALL? 

That’s a hard one to answer! I’ve always been interested in exploring mental health and family dynamics in my writing, but I’d never tried to write middle grade before, and certainly not in verse. I think it came down to the timing of the world, really. We had just been sent home unexpectedly, schools closed for the indefinite future, and I suddenly found myself a middle school ESOL teacher (of newcomers!) far away from students who had suddenly been stripped of the place that provided them all of their communication and mental health support. I definitely used writing as a bit of an escape.

What was the most difficult part about writing the book? What part was the easiest?   

The easiest part was Iveliz’s voice. It came so naturally – like she had been waiting for me to tell her story just so she could burst out into the page. The hardest part was writing the emotional components of the book. If a reader has cried reading a particular scene, chances are I also cried while writing it.

What character or element of the story do you identify with the most and why?

I love intergenerational stories because I grew up in a place and culture that really values family duty and relationships. My maternal grandmother passed away from Alzheimer’s, and while I still lived in Puerto Rico, I helped with her care. Alzheimer’s is very difficult both for the person living through it and the people living next to it, and a lot of that emotion came from my family’s experiences.

What do you want kids to take away from this story?   

I hope the book helps kids strip away a little bit of that shame associated with going to therapy or being on medication. There is nothing wrong with needing or wanting either of those, and I think that needs to be spoken about more in classroom settings.

What are you currently reading?

I read a LOT (check out my bookstagram if you want constant book recs), but at this moment I am reading The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School by Sonora Reyes (YA), Adrift by Tanya Guerrero (MG), and The Romance Recipe by Ruby Barrett (Adult Romance).

Welcome to Fresh Voices! We are excited to share a special Q&A with author Glenda Armand and illustrator Steffi Walthall about their new picture book, BLACK-EYED PEAS AND HOGHEAD CHEESE!

The Fresh Voices series is brought to you in coordination with the RHCB DEI Book Club Committee.

Glenda Armand: Even though this story is very personal to me, I had no plans to write it. My agent, Karen Grencik, informed me that an editor, Sonali Fry, was looking for someone to write a picture book about soul food. Would I be interested?

I did not jump at the chance because I am not a foodie. However, my family is from Louisiana and I grew up eating delicious Creole cooking. With that experience and with picture books being in my wheelhouse, I thought I would give it a try.

It turned out to be an unexpectedly rewarding experience. I learned many things about the history of African Americans and of my own family. I learned how deep my family’s roots are in Louisiana. I gained a deeper understanding of how intricately the story of African Americans is entwined with the history of the United States. I grew to appreciate the extent to which what we eat makes us who we are.

Steffi Walthall: The story was absolutely beautiful and so joyful! I work on a lot of historical nonfiction and even though this book is based around facts during that time period, I had an opportunity to be playful and fun with the character designs and adding a little bit of magic to the pages.

Armand: The hardest part of writing the book was deciding what to leave out. There is just so much there! I’d uncover one bit of information and that would lead to another and another. I had to remind myself that this is a picture book and you only have room for so many words!

The most satisfying part, was weaving together the different threads of the story, the past and the present, the food and the feelings.

Walthall: I think the most difficult part for me was trying to best represent the vision of the author. Every book is different and I always want to do justice to the characters and the stories. We had to do some pretty creative thinking on how we would handle the historical scenes for the sake of content and time but I really love how they came out. The easiest part was adding in the final details and adding character to the house. I referenced things from my grandparents’ home like pots and pans and cabinets and I also looked at photos from my family.

Armand: I am Frances! Except that she has more curiosity about the process of cooking than I had when I was her age. Now I wish I had spent more time in the kitchen as Mom created the meals I grew up eating. Recipes are great, but there’s really nothing like learning from the cook herself.

While my four sisters learned at Mom’s side, I was somewhere curled up with a book or training our family’s dog, Mr. Boy, how to shake hands. I know that my mom would be tickled that, of her five daughters, I am the one who wrote a “cookbook.” However, I know that she approves because, even though the wonderful illustrator never met her, Steffi Walthall’s depiction of Grandma in Black-Eyed Peas looks remarkably like my mother. She is smiling down on us.

Walthall: The familial bonds are what resonated most with me. When I read the manuscript I was instantly reminded of my grandparents and great aunts and uncles and how we love on each other when we’re together. The celebration at the end reminded me of Kwanzaa with my extended family!

Armand: I would like young readers to take away from this story the same lessons I learned when writing it.

I would ask them to learn from their elders. Take advantage of family get-togethers to “interview” family members. What was their childhood like? What did they dream of?

I often told my students, “Once you learn to read, you read to learn.” So read and learn! Learn the history of our country, the good and the bad. Learn about your own ethnic group and the role it played in that history. Knowing these things will give you a sense of belonging, purpose, and pride. And learn how to cook!

Walthall: I hope that the kids who read this story are motivated to look into their personal histories and do research on their family traditions, regardless of background. I also hope readers are encouraged to look into some of the practices talked about in the book as well.

Armand: When it comes to books for pleasure, I listen to them. When I read a physical book, it tends to be spiritual in nature, or for research. I like to have actual copies of books that I use for research because, once I’ve written in the margins, highlighted and decorated them with Post-it notes, I return to them again and again.

As far as books I’ve recently listened to, usually while gardening, they would be hard to fit into one category. Yesterday, I finished Benjamin Franklin’s Last Bet, before that, I listened to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, after having spent about a month weeding with David Copperfield. Prior to the Dickens’ classic, I enjoyed an intriguing non-fiction book called A Short History of the World According to Sheep. Now I am listening toDragons in a Bag.

As a middle and high school teacher and librarian, I was always on the lookout for books that would hook boys on reading. Even though I’m retired now, I am still on that search, which shows up in my reading choices. When I am choosing just for me, I lean towards biographies and historical fiction.

Walthall: So a lot of times, because of my schedule, I don’t have a chance to “read” as much as listen to audiobooks and podcasts. I just finished listening to Ghost Summer by Tananarive Due and I’m adding Black Girls Must Die Exhausted by Jayne Allen, The Good House by Tananarive Due, and The Last Final Girl by Stephen Graham Jones to my rotation!

Welcome to Fresh Voices! In this new series, we are excited to share with you authors whose books capture a unique aspect of the human experience. Enjoy  a special Q&A with Elise Gravel and Mykaell Blais about their picture book, PINK, BLUE, AND YOU!

The Fresh Voices series is brought to you in coordination with the RHCB DEI Book Club Committee.

 What inspired you to write PINK, BLUE AND YOU?
Elise: I heard an artist on the radio say that school resources on gender and sexual diversity are extremely scarce and that her child’s first day in kindergarten was already stereotyped. The kids had to draw their mom and dad, and kids who had different family models felt excluded. I decided to help by writing this book.

Mykaell: I leave this one to Elise 😉

What was the most difficult part about writing/illustrating PINK, BLUE AND YOU? What part was the easiest?
Elise: The most difficult part for me was to realize that, as a cis straight woman, I had a very biased and restricted experience on gender, so I couldn’t do this alone. I’m very grateful that Mykaell came to the rescue! The easiest part was the illustration, which is always fun.

Mykaell: The hardest part was finding simple words and phrases to explain some complex concepts like what gender is and how it impacts social expectations. The easiest part was working with Elise, and how open Elise was to my feedback. I feel privileged to have been able to contribute to this book.

What character or element of the story do you identify with the most and why?
Elise: All of them! As a child, I didn’t feel like the stereotypes applied to me, and I wish I had friends who felt free to express who they were.

Mykaell: I identify with the child with short hair who says they don’t like sports! During my transition, I had to deconstruct a lot of stereotypes that I learned when I was younger such as boys love sports, they are strong and they never cry. I had to learn what stereotypes were and who I am. So even though I’m a boy, I don’t like sports and I cry and that’s fine.

 What do you want kids today to take away from this story?
Elise: That they can be whoever they want to be and respect the way people around them want to be as well.

Mykaell: I would like children to remember that some people can be different from our beliefs on how they should be and that they do not deserve discrimination, but respect. Everyone is unique, beautiful and deserves the same rights.

What are you currently reading?
Elise: A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet

Mykaell: A Quick and Easy Guide to Queer and Trans Identities by Mady G. and J. R. Zuckerberg

Welcome to Fresh Voices! In this new series, we are excited to share with you authors whose books capture a unique aspect of the human experience. Enjoy  a special Q&A with Marya Cuevas and Marie Marquardtabout their novel Does My Body Offend you? 

The Fresh Voices series is brought to you in coordination with the RHCB DEI Book Club Committee.

What inspired you to write DOES MY BODY OFFEND YOU? 

We met at the Georgia Romance Writers’ Moonlight and Magnolias conference in 2012 and instantly connected. We became critique partners and for years exchanged our writing every week and gave each other feedback and encouragement. In 2018, we decided to collaborate on a coauthored young adult novel. While brainstorming ideas, we came across multiple stories of teens fighting against their schools’ oppressive dress codes. These are dress codes that not only hinder the education of girls, but perpetuate sexism, victimization, rape culture, and racism. We recognized a story needing to be told.

As we drafted the story, we were very aware that many young adult novels tackling feminist themes had been written through a white gaze. We decided to write a dress-code protest story from two points of view, so that we could explore themes of feminism, allyship, and intersectionality in a very nuanced and authentic way. And because of our friendship, we were able to bring in the compassion and connection across differences that is sometimes missing in social justice narratives.

What was the most difficult part about writing the book? What part was the easiest?

The two main characters in our story, Ruby and Malena, have some incredibly hard conversations about race, power, and privilege. We wanted to be sure that these felt real and honest—that they were coming from a place of frustration and anger, yes, but also of love and mutual respect. We workshopped them again and again, sitting face-to-face with each other, speaking them aloud, to be sure that we got the tone and message right. All we can say is this: we did our very best!

The easiest parts to write were the scenes with Ruby and Malena surrounded by family, in their kitchens, sharing meals, laughing, crying and—of course—sometimes bickering. We both love food—cooking, eating, and writing about it! So, scenes involving big meals are always fun for us to create. We also have a great time writing complex families that somehow manage simultaneously to be loving, supportive, and utterly infuriating.

What character or element of the story do you identify with the most and why?

Malena comes from a modest Puerto Rican family with very traditional values. Ruby comes from white privilege and a liberal upbringing. When writing these characters, we both pulled from lived experiences, our own upbringing and worldview. We set out to build complicated characters that grow, adapt, and change in ways that felt authentic and relevant.

MAYRA: I grew up in a rural town in Puerto Rico to the same family-first values that anchor Malena. My awakening to topics like activism, feminism, and social justice came slowly and through many years of research. Like Malena, I still feel like I have so much to learn. I try my best to remain open because most of the time, I have more questions than answers.

MARIE: I grew up in northeast Florida, near the fictional high school where our story is set. Like Ruby, I was immersed in justice activism from a young age, but I sometimes struggled to grasp my own role and responsibilities. Also like Ruby, I was the youngest daughter in my family, and I idolized my older sisters. I definitely drew from my own experiences as I mapped Ruby’s journey to independence.

If you could put any character from another book into this story, who would it be and why?

Starr Carter from The Hate U Give because Malena and Ruby need some serious help navigating the social justice space.

What do you want kids today to take away from this story?

One of the things that our books encourage young people to do is to think broadly about the ways we collaborate: when is it time to step back and listen, and when is it time to step forward and take action? When we take action too quickly, we often overlook the most important voices. If you are a leader, build coalitions. Learn to listen with compassion, and always work alongside others to open space for marginalized voices to be amplified.

We are all living in different spaces and we experience the same events in very different ways, depending on the color of our skin, social class, sexual preference, education, even our citizenship status. We need to realize how the choices we make are shaped and constrained by the unequal conditions in which we live, and we should find ways to challenge that status quo that encourage dialogue, collaboration, and building friendship—even across very real differences.

There are so many ways to promote change. We hope Malena and Ruby’s story will inspire readers to advocate for change in ways that are safe and accessible, and that feel authentic. We hope this story will encourage building communities of support. When we have these, we can push boundaries and step outside comfort zones, while also feeling secure and affirmed.

What are you currently reading? 

MAYRA:

I read like 5 books at a time! So here it goes:

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

Cemetery Boys by Aidan Thomas

I Owe You One by Sophie Kinsella

Heart Principle by Helen Hoang

MARIE:

I only read one book at a time. I’ve just finished TJ Klune’s delightful The House in the Cerulean Sea. I’m currently re-reading Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz for the fifth or sixth time, while I wait for the next haul to come in from my local bookstore.

Welcome to Fresh Voices! In this new series, we are excited to share with you authors whose books capture a unique aspect of the human experience. Enjoy  a special Q&A with Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich about her novel Operation Sisterhood!

What inspired you to write OPERATION SISTERHOOD?

I was inspired both by childhood pretend play with my sister and friends, including many (many) “shows” that our moms suffered through, my “national cooking show,” and my longtime request that my parents “adopt” two more sisters for my sister and me, one each of our respective ages. I was also inspired by the family stories I read and loved by Noel Streatfeild, Elizabeth Enright, Madeleine L’Engle, Sydney Taylor, and more. But I had to work hard to write myself and other Black and Brown people into those stories. I knew from the real world that we existed, but we were too often invisible on the pages of joyful family tales.

In Operation Sisterhood, the family “freeschools” because the parents want to raise the girls to be “free within themselves,” to paraphrase Langston Hughes—to love who they are, know they are loved as they are, and be fully who they can be. I went to many different types of schools, public and private, in different countries. My family, and many of the other Black families we knew, believed in a kind of schooling outside of the school building, the kind that meant doing interpretive dances to “Young, Gifted, and Black” at annual Martin Luther King Jr. breakfasts, reciting the poems of Claude McKay at Thanksgiving, and memorizing the countries of the African continent with a puzzle. I learned about Black history and culture in many ways, through a variety of subjects and in everyday life, and my family made sure that it was grounded in an understanding that all Black children are capable, curious learners with a rich heritage to draw from.

I had the opportunity to live in a variety of cities, and my mom would always take us on “adventures,” wherever we were. And whenever we lived in New York, there was so much to enjoy – for free! I went on my own adventures as I got older, visiting some of the literary “landmarks” that I’d read about, trying the foods that my favourite characters ate. And as a mom raising a NYC kid, I’ve shared many of these joys with my own daughter (sometimes to her chagrin), including the National Cooking Show and cultivating an appreciate for this vibrant, community-minded, and incredible city.

I wasn’t allowed much television, so started writing my own versions of those family stories, influenced by my own life, very early on. Oh – and my sister and I, along with another pair of sisters, did form a band called GLOSS. But we never got past designing our very cool logo.

What was the most difficult part about writing the book? What part was the easiest?

I was working on this version of Operation Sisterhood during the horror of the previous Presidential administration, heightened racist violence, and a global pandemic. It was very difficult to write a joyful story when I was, to be quite honest, grieving deeply. In order to finish, I focused very much on what I wanted to give young readers who were also experiencing all of those things, particularly Black girls. I wanted to tell them that I saw them, that they are loved, and that they and their stories are precious, just as they are.

The characters were so much fun. It’s one of my favourite parts of the writing process (along with revision), creating characters. They tend to be very vivid early on, and I walk with them, live with them, have internal conversations with them for a long time before I even start writing. And I felt a freedom with this story and these characters, because from the very first conversation that I had with Phoebe Yeh about the story, I could see that she “got” it in a deep sense; she understood what I wanted to do, and what was important for the story and for serving readers in the very best way.

What character or element of the story do you identify with the most and why?

Bo is figuring out when to take risks, and to be flexible, and when to assert herself and set clear boundaries. I’m navigating that on a daily basis.

If you could put any character from another book into this story, who would it be and why?

Ryan Hart from Ways to Make Sunshine and Ways to Grow Love by Renée Watson, and Delphine from Rita Williams-Garcia’s Gaither Girls trilogy (so there’d be some time travel involved.) I think they’d all have a lot of fun being creative together. And they’d definitely put on a show.

What do you want kids today to take away from this story?

I hope each reader gets whatever they need from this story, and I believe that that’s something that can change over time too, and that’s a beautiful thing. Reading is so very much about relationship – with story, with ourselves, with the world…I’m a big re-reader, and my favourite books have always fulfilled different emotional and/or intellectual needs at different moments in life. I often read to figure things out about myself, and in my life; to understand some of the questions that I had about our world, to find answers, to ask more questions. I hope that readers can feel its warmth, love, and respect for them and their worlds, and sense (and maybe share) my love for New York City. And also for cake.

What are you currently reading?

I’m reading A Wish in the Dark by Christina Soontornvat, The Warden by Anthony Trollope, Micaela Coel’s Misfits, and Black Futures, edited by Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham. And I’ve got a re-read of Parable of the Sower on deck!