Episode 25: Leslie C. Youngblood, Author

Author and former assistant professor of creative writing Leslie C. Youngblood joins Mary Kole on the Good Story Podcast. She shares her journey through her MFA program, gives tips on crafting interesting character relationships, and weighs in on one of the hottest questions for authors today: traditional or self-publishing?

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Transcript of Podcast episoDe 25: Interview with Leslie C. Youngblood, Author

Mary: Hello, this is Mary Kole and "The Good Story Podcast," helping writers craft a good story. With me, you will hear from thought leaders related to writing, and sometimes not, about topics important to writers of all categories and ability levels. Here is to telling a good story.

Hello, this is Mary Kole and the "The Good Story Podcast." And today with me, I am so excited to welcome author Leslie C. Youngblood who has joined me. Leslie, if you don't mind, can you tell listeners, readers, writers, our audience a little bit about yourself.

Leslie: Yes, thank you, Mary, for having me and Good Story Company. I really do appreciate it. I am Leslie C. Youngblood. I am the author of two middle grade novels, "Love Like Sky," that was originally published by Disney Hyperion, and later sold to Little, Brown for Young Readers. And, also, my second novel, "Forever This Summer," which just published July of 2021. So it's like a new baby book. It's not that old. So, that is my newest book. And "Forever This Summer" is a sequel to "Love Like Sky." And I have an MFA from UNC Greenboro. I really enjoyed that experience. And I'm just here to tell you what I know.

Mary: I love it. And I did notice on your website, July 6th was your publication date, which is actually my birthday.

Leslie: Oh, wow, cool.

Mary: I'm also a little baby. Twenty-nine forever is what I am, but your book, a little bit newer than that. I love it. So one of the things that I noticed right away is, though you have written these two middle grade books, you say on your website, "You know, I'm not so much a fan of categories," and that was one of the things I asked you before we got started. I said, "Well, do you want to be introduced as a middle grade author, just an author?" Of course, there's no "just" about it, right?

Leslie: There is no "just." No, never.

Mary: So tell us about this reluctance to be put in a category even when somebody would see your two middle grade books and say, "Oh, she writes middle grade." What are you thinking with that?

Leslie: Well, first, I absolutely love middle grade, and so to be called a middle grade author is an honor. But prior to being published in middle grade, I was also writing women's lit. So, I'm familiar with that category as well. So I guess what I'm noticing it becomes what you first published as is what people want to categorize you as. And my ideal with that is I'm a writer that whatever voice comes to me, that is what I want to write. So if I've written five middle grade novels and I'd get an idea or a voice comes to me and the voice of a 13-year-old that will put me in middle grade. If a voice comes to me as a 30-something-year-old woman, that will put me in women's lit. So I just want to be true to the voices and true to the stories I want to tell more so than following anyone's genre.

Mary: That's a really fair point, and I do think that sometimes people feel pigeonholed. They publish in a category, they publish in a category, well, can you make a move to young adult? Can you make a move to picture book to women's fiction to literary fiction? Sometimes publishing can be a little inflexible. They want to see a track record in a certain category. They want to see some branding. Are you making tracks to other categories right now?

Leslie: I'm always making tracks with... I'm drafting. I could be working on a thriller and no one knows. It doesn't mean it's going to publish. But what I do is the next story that I'm going to tell will be middle grade. But it really becomes when you work... It took so long to publish. I have been on this publishing journey maybe 15 years before I published. So when that is your story, why would I let anyone box me in? Even though, keep in mind, I love middle grade, if I did not publish anything but middle grade, then I'm fine as long as I know that this is what I want to do, and the stories I want to tell, and I'm not someone who really is writing middle grade longing to write something else. It's not that. When I get that urge, I'll write that.

So, that is where I am with that right now, and I think that as long as you love the stories you're telling, you're fine. But if you think that you want to explore another genre and you feel pigeonholed, you need to break out of that because this is our passion. This is definitely mine and what I love to do. So I want to make sure that I'm happy and I'm true to the story. I just don't want to crank stuff out.

Mary: Yeah. Well, let's, let's talk a little bit about how you got to this point, and I think one of the things that listeners will find very inspiring is that you did have a bit of a journey to get here. So can you tell us about those 15 years, and what you did, what you discarded, what you might pick back up again, the MFA process?

Leslie: Let me see. It's such a long journey. I started writing short stories. So, if you Google me, you probably will find a few short stories that I've written. So, I thought I would first be published as a short story writer, you know, or a collection of interlinked stories. So I was really big on doing that. And when I've thought about an MFA, I had a nice cushy job in Atlanta at Morehouse College, and I kept reading short stories, and everything, and every bio. And here's a tip. Read the bios and read the acknowledgment of any writer that you admire, because it tells you so much. So every time I would read the acknowledgement sections, the writers would mention their MFA. I said, "Hmm, let me look into that."

So, I did that and I was fortunate to get offered to attend UNC Greensboro. So that was a blessing. So I did that, and I worked on literary fiction because let me tell you at that point... This is over, you know, 10, 15 years ago maybe, maybe more. And at that point... No, it wasn't that long before I finished my MFA. At that point, I don't think that I...I didn't produce any stories with a middle grade voice. It's like when you're in an MFA program, at that point, it was before the popularity of children's literature. So I don't even know if there was an established program that I could have, you know, received an MFA in children's lit. And there's a ton of them now.

So, when you're in an MFA program, no one usually presents children's voices that fit middle grade. Of course that varies because you can't have a young voice, but it's adult like "Bastard Out of Carolina," Toni Morrison. So, once I decided to write... Let me back up and tell this story, okay? This is when I really said writing is for me. I was actually in my 20s. A lot of people think that every writer started, you know, out of the womb writing. I loved writing, I loved listening to stories, but because of my background, my mom being a single parent, I had things to do. I couldn't really...not get people that loved to read when they were young. I did not, but it wasn't really encouraged as much as grabbing my siblings and getting in front of the TV so we could just entertain ourselves.

So when I was in my 20s, I was a receptionist at a government agency in Atlanta, Georgia. So, I'm sitting there, and I'm reading, and I think I'm reading like... What am I reading at the time? I forgot. So, I'm reading these novels and doing homework, and a woman named Nettie...she was a secretary, I was a receptionist. She came to my desk and she says, "Hey, I have a book that I think you may like." And I'm thinking, "Okay, I'll take a look." The book was James Baldwin's "Go Tell It on the Mountain," which I have right up there on my bookcase. She gave me this book, Mary. I read this book for the rest of my shift. The next day, I changed my major from marketing to writing with a concentration in creative writing.

Mary: Oh, my goodness.

Leslie: The next day. So, to say a book changed my life is honest. So, from that point, that's when I went from loving to write to, "I have to do this." The emotions that I felt when I read a Baldwin, I needed to make people feel that when I wrote something and I want it to do that. And since then, it's been on to writing short stories, writing essays and finally onto my MFA program. And then from there, maybe about four or five novels that may see the light of day one day or maybe not, you know? I do look back on some of those and thinking, "Oh, okay, I can see why this wasn't published now." So, all I have to say is I love the journey. It's made me who I am right now. It's taught me a lot. I think the most important thing that I'm taking from that journey is the ability to share what I've learned with others.

Mary: Yeah. Well, if I'm hearing you, you went from sort of writing...it was aspirational. It was more personal to yourself. You were getting, let's say, the practical major. You were maybe going to go into marketing, into business.

Leslie: Oh, I was [crosstalk 00:11:11] a fashion designer. I wanted to go onto...

Mary: Also artistic. All right.

Leslie: Fashion design. I liked to sew. I did a lot of sewing or making my prom dress in high school. My grandma sewed, my mom sewed, and I just thought, "Fashion design." So, this is a very important point because sometimes it comes down to what you are exposed to as a child. So, keeping in mind, perhaps if I had a lot of writers around me at the time or people that were encouraging that, then it would've been different because I always loved to write. And, you know, I would just journal...not journal but I would just, you know, write little essays and things throughout elementary school and high school. My English teacher said, "Oh, you're great." And my English teacher did tell me, "Whatever you go into..." This is when I graduated. She said, "Whatever field you go into, you should write." And I was like, "I'm going into fashion design, you know?" She said, "Well, you should be a fashion writer." "Really?" And I was thinking, "I don't think she really understood." I didn't understand what that was. You know, it was years later before I would really understand the prominence of black writers. You know, I just wasn't aware.

So fashion design was it for me until I really decided, "I don't really like shopping. I don't really like the whole fashion design thing." So I decided to go into marketing. You know, I would be a buyer. And then, you know, still writing short stories for myself, but then when I saw and read Baldwin, it took me on this journey to learn more about black authors other than Richard Wright, which I think is the only one that I had really been exposed to some of his "Native Son" and things of that nature that didn't grab me as Baldwin did.

You know, so that's how it went. And now when though I landed on writing, it never ever wavered. Never. I've been on a steady course not always knowing what I was doing, but I knew that's what I wanted to do. I knew that writing would be...it was going to be in the picture somewhere.

Mary: So you studied, sort of, acknowledgements. You looked at what other writers were doing. Your world was, sort of, opened to the precedent that black writers had set. And you figured out that you had this community to participate in, and you decided MFA was really, kind of, a structured way to do that. You saw that as, sort of, a career building step for you.

Leslie: I saw it as a career building step. I saw it as, because of, you know, the people that I was reading at the time, this is what they've done. I was looking for a blueprint perhaps. You know, now there's so much that perhaps, you know, MFA or not, it could go either way. But at that time and not having the structure and not knowing anyone who was an author and able to reach out to, you know, hundreds of authors online at any given time, I just didn't have that. So the MFA was a way for me to stay connected. And I had such a, you know, up and down journey, just financially finishing my undergraduate degree, that this offer, based on short stories that I had written, to go for two years and just everything is taken care of, I was honored to do that.

Mary: That's amazing and such a gift.

Leslie: It is. It really was. It was a time that I learned, and I keep in mind, when I really locked on to creative writing, I also got a minor in African-American studies because I launched myself into English and I'm thinking, "Oh, yeah, now I'm going to..." And then, you know, I'm sitting there reading old English, and I'm sitting there feeling really disconnected, you know? [inaudible 00:15:46], that's great for other people, but it made me... I was at a distance. I was back to where I was before, and I'm thinking, "Wait a minute."

So then I had to change my minor to African-American studies. And so even though whatever they threw at me with Shakespeare, some good, some bad and all the others...you know, because keep in mind, when you don't have the community around you that is... You know, normally I was the only African-American in my workshops, only African-American here, there when I went to these conferences, that I needed that to really say, "This is what I can do. These are the people that have done it before," because it's just not... If what you've seen is always people that look like you, then you don't understand that I'm thinking, "I want to write, and I know there has to be more than Baldwin out there, and I had to have those doors opened for me." And now, my gosh, what I've found is just amazing.

Mary: Well, now we have... I mean, publishing is very slowly having a cranial rectal extraction, if you will, of representing diverse creators, diverse voices on the shelves, representing the larger world that we all live in, giving people those opportunities to have a seat at the table that they should have had many, many, many years ago. But at the time when you were coming up, I can appreciate that you needed to see what was possible. You needed to see that blueprint. You needed to see other people who look like you, who sound like you, who have the stories that you have to tell that context to see that represented in the larger world, to know that it was possible.

Leslie: Right, to write the stories. Now, keep in mind. I'm very fortunate to have a family. My family is very good at oral storytelling. That's what we do, you know, around the dinner table. So I had that ear for a good story. And I use that today because that is what I think most of my stories' dialogue is my thing, just listening to people talk, and appreciating that my, you know, grandparents had maybe second, third grade education, but they could tell a story. They could hold you with a story. And some of us, we can get MFAs, but what it takes to hold a person to a story, to really capture a character, we really have to hone that.

Mary: I have, like, seven questions for you. So, Les, I would love to, sort of, talk about, kind of, the things that you learned in your MFA program in a different category, in short story, in literary fiction, how you apply it to your work now. So after your MFA, you actually went and taught. So these elements of a good story, not only have you experienced them, not only do you apply them to your own work, you teach people. You teach other writers how to tell stories.

Leslie: I absolutely love being in creative writing. I was assistant professor of creative writing actually. With the MFA program, I earned a lectureship. A lectureship is after you do your two years, they give you, like, another two years to work on your craft and teach. So that, you know, developed my skills at teaching and really having that access to students to show them what I knew as well as just give them that encouragement, that, "Hey, if you want to write, this is what you can do." And I was happy that now I was that writer that another African-American person could see or just someone who really just didn't know that a novelist is something to aspire to because I was teaching but still understanding that I wanted to do both.

It was going to be this. I was going to write and teach, or I was just going to write. It was never going to be, "I'm going to teach and never write," because, you know, people would tell me, "Oh, when you've been here..." because I was on a tenure track. "Oh, when you've been here and you've tenured, that writing thing, you know, you'll forget about that." And people do. And a lot of people do. They just say, you know, "Hey, I have a good job. That was just a dream I had." I vowed never to do that because I think sometimes... Maybe if it was just something they were not...it wasn't [inaudible 00:20:54] like it was with me, then they could give it up and still teach and be happy or—and unfortunately we see this a lot—they're secretly, like, disgruntled and miserable and they really wish they had stuck to it. Now they're taking it out on students and not giving students everything that they need. So we don't want that.

So, you know, I just knew that I was going to write. I said, "Well, I will let the teaching go before I let my dream of being a writer/author go." And eventually that's what happened. I did step away from teaching. I could have stayed perhaps and published, not everyone can do that, and give students what they need 100%. Some people can do it, and I love the ones that do. I have several colleagues, friends that do it very well. They published, you know, top tier and still teach. I mean, Morrison does it or did it. So it can be done, but everyone can't do it, you know, especially if you're teaching comp and you're grading, you know, 40 essays a class period.

Mary: That's a lot.

Leslie: It is.

Mary: Yeah. So you were teaching. You had this lectureship. You know, you had on the one hand, this idea like, oh, you have this great job. It's writing adjacent. You know, you have the security. Where were you in your quest for publication at that point? Did you step away from teaching because you felt like you were racking up publication credits? Were you getting closer on your novels? Where was your writing at that point?

Leslie: Oh, I was working on novels, and I was getting rejected left and right. You know, just rejection [inaudible 00:22:45]. I have perhaps every single rejection I've ever received even the ones that even before... Yeah, I have all the ones on email. It may be more than 200 or so. So that is, you know, where I was with just being rejected, which taught me just to endure to stay in there, which takes me back to one of my quote that I'll paraphrase from Baldwin that says, "People have talent. They could be a genius, but it's the endurance and the discipline that will keep you on your quest to be a writer."

So I think, while I was teaching, I would get up at 5, which I still do today and write. So I would do 8:00 classes because I'm a morning person. I'm bubbly in the morning. I would get up at 5. I would write, then I would have my 8:00 classes and, you know, maybe one or two after that. And that's the way it went. But none of those... I think I did three novels that were not published/unpublished.

Then unfortunately I experienced a family tragedy. We lost one of my younger brothers. And so when I dealt with that, this was like, you know, 2010, 2012, that changed everything. And I personally, kind of, don't talk about that much because it's too emotional still. You know, sometimes I do and I'll start crying and all that. But I just wanted to tell people that, you know, something happens and you just say, "Wait a minute. I'm not giving everything I need," because I didn't take a sabbatical or anything. I tried to come back to teaching. You know, and I was on my way to one of my classes, and I believe it was my brother's spirit that said, "Hey, are you here? Are you giving students what they need?" And honestly, It was draining me, and I knew that I probably wouldn't be able to do it, and so I resigned.

When something hits you, it hits you. And it's just like what happened with Baldwin, when that thing says, "You have to resign," I was in Missouri at the time at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri. I resigned. After that class, I went to my department head and said, "I'm resigning." I'm like, "I just know in my spirit, I need to walk away." Two years later, "Love Like Sky." So I do think it was a sibling.

It wasn't the first time that a middle grade voice came to me, because if you look at some of my MFA thesis, these characters, believe it or not, are secondary characters in my MFA thesis, but never would I have thought to put them at the forefront, to have that voice carry the story. So it was literally this 11-year-old girl, and she's like, "I can do it. I can do it. I can be the voice." Really, I tell people that. This voice is like "put me in, coach" type thing where, "You're always making me the secondary character." It comes to trusting your voice, trusting those voices that come to you, you know, and not trying to write to market or be the next this person or this person. Trust the voices that come, which circles us back to why I particularly don't want... You know, I kind of shy away from being pigeonholed because a voice may come to me that's outside of middle grade. I would have to follow that.

Mary: So, this is very, very interesting. You have now written to...you've written more, obviously. You wrote your thesis and maybe one of those other novels that is on a hard drive somewhere, maybe will stay there, maybe not.

Leslie: They're all here, everyone. It's still on my hard drive. I look at them sometimes.

Mary: They're hanging out with your rejection letters, reminding you of how far you've come, you know? And then you have your two novels that are now published, and they're in the same world. Is it a sequel? Is it a continuation? So, you've come at these characters a couple of times, first with your thesis and then you gave them a run at, kind of, top billing in your middle grade. How do you decide that there are more stories to tell in this world? How do you, sort of, now chunk out those stories into separate books? How do you make those decisions?

Leslie: Well, I think for my third book, chances are... Well, I know for a fact, the third book, these characters are on hiatus. So I'm probably going to... I know that I'm working on totally different characters, totally different setting. So, it gives them a break. But I know that there's more to tell because, like I said, when you are writer, you know, like many of the people who are listening to us are, the character is always talking to you and it's your job to just come in, write, tell the story you want to tell at the time. And when you've fleshed out a character's soul, you can rejoin them where they are at the moment or where, you know, they would be when you look in on them again.

So I don't ever close out a character like, "This character is done." You know, the character to me is a living and breathing person in my mind. And hopefully when readers read it, they feel that way. So when you take that approach, that I am, to the best of my ability, creating fleshed out characters that are just carrying on with their lives, you know, so to speak when I'm away from them as the creator, when I pick back up, I know that I can reconnect to them. And I think that's why you have some writers who can give you, you know, six, seven, you know, novels and you're still like, "Oh, what's next?" So hopefully these characters will be that for me, but I am going to go to, you know, some other characters as well.

Mary: So for those of us who maybe can't channel characters, sort of, whole from the universe or wherever it is that they live... I love that by the way. I love the idea of just listening to intuition and just, sort of, tuning in. I think all of us need to take more time to do that, especially right now. Everybody is running around, stressed out. There are so many personal and global stressors on all of us, that I think people are just, like, running roughshod over their intuition and their inner voices.

So you strike me as a writer who can tune in when you are in a place where you can tune in and you do, sort of, open your inner heart, your inner ear to those voices. How do you then take that and shape it into a character that people want to follow? You know, you seem to lead with character first. That's what we've mostly talked about.

Leslie: I'm definitely a character-driven writer. There's plot-driven writers and there's character-driven. And I'm a character... If I don't have a character that I can connect to, then I'm not going anywhere. So I really just think of it... Because I'm a people watcher, and because I hear stories and all these stories are about people, and I really believe that my job as a writer is to bring these people to life and to tell whatever story I believe they want to tell, that's the only way that I can explain it is to really go into it with what do you think this character want to say.

And I think sometimes we get in trouble when we're wondering what the world wants to read, and I know it's important, and I know that, you know, you have to think of marketability somewhere down the line. But if that's your driver when you're sitting down like, "Oh, I know this will..." then you may only reach a character that may be hot at that moment but doesn't have any longevity for you as a writer because you didn't honestly create that person or that character. So when I think of these characters, I really just think of characters that I would want to visit, you know, 5, 10 years in the future to see how they are.

Mary: And what is it that you think draws you to them? This idea of this emotional truth. The character is speaking to you. It's something that you connect with. Is it their hopes and dreams, their ambitions? Is it what they want and need? Is it their relationships and, kind of, how they function interrelatedly with other characters and, sort of, the life that springs from that? What elements do you find yourself most drawn to exploring?

Leslie: I think I'm exploring relationships with others. Relationships is a big one because all of the characters... I know once I wrote a story called "Poor Girls' Palace." It was published in Indiana Review. And the editor wrote back, "Hey, there's a lot of characters here," because I love characters, you know, and sometimes, you know, maybe I have too many. And he says, "This reads more like a novel," and I was like, "Well, that's a good thing sort of." But I think I'm always curious how my characters relate and so I have to develop another character.

So, at one point, it becomes, "Okay, Leslie, you have too many characters." And then one of my professors said, "Hey, that's not a bad problem to have. You just have to know how to understand that sometimes you have to pull back and just work with the ones that you have." And it may be like someone else. They have all these beautiful and interesting plot points where I'm struggling with that, and I'm just working...I'm still on the character. So, I have to kind of balance, and you just can't have characters. You have to have plot. But as a character-driven writer, I love developing characters. That's probably one of my favorite parts of writing.

Mary: I think this can sometimes be a piece of feedback that middle grade writers especially run into, which is that a coming-of-age story, it's like, okay, well, what else is going on. And have you ever heard of feedback like that? Like, "Oh, okay. These are interesting characters. They're coming of age in front of our eyes. What else is going on here?"

Leslie: I've never heard of that actually because, if anything, I have too much going on. You know, I have, like, another subplot because I want everyone to live out and to do what I think they need to do in the story. So sometimes I have the protagonist, what they're focused on, but then I have these two and three subplots. So I don't think I've run into that. If anything, it's like there's so much going on. You know, what is the main theme here? Something like that.

Mary: You say you're not a strong plotter, and yet now I'm hearing about just subplots coming out of the woodwork.

Leslie: It's really following the relationships. It's following that this person wants to live out this particular dream or this person wants to connect with this person. So, when you build it, first, on character, plot comes. You know, plot will definitely come. It's just not where I start, but follow an interesting person around, they're going to get into some stuff, you know?

So if your characters are interesting, like human beings, sometimes, you know, we just get into...sometimes we get into trouble. Sometimes, you know, we fall into different things, fall in love, fall out of love. And with middle grade, sometimes you don't have to look very long before there's trouble or there's something else. So when you create a character that you want to follow, trust me, they're going to run into an obstacle, and then there is the plot.

Mary: So, relationship, obstacles, the fancies of the human heart, right?

Leslie: Yeah, [inaudible 00:36:54] the parents. Of course, you know, for middle grade, it's more so bullying and then there's, you know, maybe small crushes. But then there's how do they relate to family drama? How do they relate when parents split? How do they deal when their best friend has to leave the state? How do they deal with failure? So, within that, you know, they get themselves in and out of trouble or situations, or even find out what makes them happy. You know, that's a lot when you're just coming of age and you realize what makes you happy and how do they show up in the world, you know, how do they show up, how do they best live their life.

Mary: I think that's an amazing additional point when we talk about character. They're still individuating themselves. They have no idea about some of these things. They are making bold decisions. And one day, it's one decision. Another day, it might be a different decision. But just what lights them up is something that I don't think I've talked to anybody about as a character consideration.

Mary: Because I don't think we do it a lot. We don't think about that at middle grade, because I don't know if often we pay attention to that with kids of that age, because we usually think it's things when usually it may not be. So, when you're developing characters and you're character-centered, you look for those things. What brings character joy at this age? And that has been something that I have found that really keeps me connected to my characters and learning them as I write.

Mary: What have been those drivers that you found for your main characters just out of curiosity?

Leslie: Well, one of the drivers is really... For "Love Like Sky," I think one of the drivers for... This is my first novel. You know, she's dealing with her parents splitting, and trying to deal with a new step-mom, and trying to find her place, and trying to navigate that experience. And she's trying to be the best big sister she can for her little sister, which brings her joy. But then she's trying to wrestle with the fact that, even though she loves her little sister, she sometimes finds her irritating as well. So, you know, am I still a good big sister if I find my little sister irritating?

You know, all of these things are going on with her, but what I really think the driver for that story is, is her trying to figure out what this divorce means. And that's big because adults don't usually know. And then they have a habit of looking... They understand, you know, that the kids are going to react to it, but they don't really know how. And they also, kind of, talk over them. And I think one of my mentors told me, you know, which is I think we learned this as we go, that kids are usually smarter than we give them credit for. They pick up things way more than we give them credit for, so I try to walk that line in my stories where I try to make sure that I'm not writing down to my readers. You know, so that helps me a lot. And that really helps drive my stories because I'm not writing down and I'm having them confront issues head on.

Mary: So you're, sort of, observing your characters. You're following them around with a notepad. Have you injected any of your personal experiences growing up into your fiction or does it exist sort of outside of you?

Leslie: No, never personal. Never. [inaudible 00:41:31].

Mary: I was going to say, "Well, that I have never heard before."

Leslie: I love to say that. I don't know. I would love to meet that writer. I would love to. I mean, what would be the fun in that? I don't understand that. I mean, I can't imagine that. Sometimes this life that we live to me, if you're not taking it and you're not helping someone by putting what you learned in the story or sharing it, I mean, where does it go? So, to me, yes, I do... I'll just tell you particularly, say for instance, in "Love Like Sky," my first novel, the sister has meningitis, the baby sister. I mean, that's not giving away the plot. It's in the back of the book.

So, she has meningitis and growing up, my sister had spinal meningitis. And now what happens though, what I figured out and sometimes writing is... People say write what you know. We've heard that adage before. And sometimes it's like, well, we have to keep in mind, sometimes we write what we don't know. We write how we wish things could have gone. We traveled that road with writing.

But I remember when my sister was struck with meningitis, you know, I was very young and she was younger. And I just remember, I wake up, we have these twin beds and her bed was empty, and we've always been in the same bedroom and she's always been over there. For her bed to be empty was the scariest thing. And no one talked to me about it because my mom, everyone was so focused, of course, on making sure she was okay. They were at the hospital and as a child, they were so busy parenting and they didn't think that, "Oh, my God, you know, we need to, you know, walk her through this as well."

So in my novel, I take that one and say, "Wow, we have to talk about this fear because there's another kid out there that has a ailing sibling and maybe this book will help them walk through it." So that's just one of the things I put in. I had to research meningitis. I don't remember anything from then, but guess what. I remember the emotion. I remember that fear. That never goes away, and so that's in the book from me.

I didn't have any of these divorce discussions. My mom was a single mom. And this girl, Georgie, my character, you know, she has the love of two dads, a step-dad and her biological father. So everyone thinks that's my experience, but it's not. The things that people think are my experience in the book aren't. Like, nobody thinks that my sister had meningitis. People think, "Oh, you had two dads growing up." I'm like, "No, I don't. I didn't have a relationship with my biological father." Then they're like, "Well, how can you write about a biological father and daughter if you've never experienced that?" because I wanted to imagine how it would be. So that's when you're writing to something that maybe you wanted to experience or you wanted to know. So, you know, that's something, too. So, a lot of my... I wouldn't say... Of course not the majority, because a lot of it is of course fictionalized. But, yeah, I always put a little something of me in the books.

In "Forever This Summer," my second book here is actually... The setting is Bogalusa. "Love Like Sky" is set in Atlanta, but this one is set in my actual hometown of Bogalusa, Louisiana. So, that right there is, you know, something that I wanted to do.

Mary: So as we wrap up here, I am struck by your colleague delivering the James Baldwin volume into your hands and, sort of, setting you on a path. And now you're in this position to create community and to engage other writers, and you are now in that position to, sort of, reach out and who knows who you can influence, who knows who you can make community with, and empowering your own right. Is that something that you feel like you're taking on?

Leslie: Definitely. I love to take it on. I love to visit schools, talk to young kids to make sure that they know and they can say, even as young as 6, 7, 8, they've seen a actual published author, an African-American published author. It's one thing to see them on the internet; it's one thing to talk to one and to have one there. So I take that on. I'm always open to talk to people online about the process. And I know we probably went a little into my whole character-driven thing, and I just want to make sure that we talked some craft issues as far as... You know, like, I write in the mornings. Now, I don't necessarily write every day, but every day I'm thinking about writing. I'm doing something writerly as they say. But I don't necessarily have to write every single day. But most days I do. You know, 95% of the time, I'm writing.

And then you have to understand, if you self-publish versus, you know, traditional publish, learn both is what I would say. And I'm a fan of not boxing yourself in with that as well. So far, I've only traditionally published. But who knows in the future I may self-publish? It has come a long way since 10 or 12 years ago. But people don't understand when you've been on the... If you were teaching at one point, the odds of you even thinking about self-publishing at that time were slim. You know, it didn't count for tenure. So it wasn't that you're in this ivory tower where you don't appreciate people who self-published. You didn't even think about it because it didn't count as tenure. I don't know if that's changed.

Mary: The barriers to entry are so much lower. The barriers to marketing are a lot higher. The legitimacy barrier, I would say, I don't know in so far as a master's program tenure, I'm not sure. I would still say that independent publishing has its own legitimacy issues and also, like, self-validation issues as well. But it is such a path that, for certain categories especially, makes so much sense for writers to take. And to your point, yes, you've traditionally published these two projects, but for different category, maybe for a different project, you might find yourself [inaudible 00:49:21].

Leslie: I think people shouldn't...that they shouldn't count it out. And I'll tell you this once. Do not count on once traditionally published, always traditionally published. That's not the case. You are really only as hot as you are that first three or four months your book is out. So we can have a whole nother talk about...

Mary: We could have a whole different conversation about sales numbers. No, I mean, what I love about your bio and we didn't even get a chance to talk about what we should have been talking about this entire time, which is the TV show short take, you love to see people, kind of, at the top of their game, but what I think is really interesting about this little aside that you've gotten into is that, at the top of your game, can look like so many different things.

Leslie: At the top of your game, one person's top of their game is not the other person's top of the game. And I do think that, as a writer, if you're top of the game is only "The New York Times" bestseller list, not saying it can't happen, and goodness knows it will be great if it happened for me, but if that is the only thing how you are going to define your success, that is a long road to hoe, as my grandma used to say. There are so many other joys and plateaus that sometimes we don't look at those. It's only success if you hit "The New York Times" bestseller list. It's only success if you're doing this.

And we miss the things that we've talked about here, encouraging others, being a role model for others. Many more people will be what they call a midlist writers than they will be New York Times every time you put a book out writers. So where do you find your happiness? Is your joy in the craft or is your joy in just only hitting that plateau? My joy is in the craft and writing the books and telling the stories. You know, if "The New York Times" bestseller happens, great, but you have to find your joy in this process because publishing is pretty cool. I mean, it really is.

Mary: So I have writers who come to me because you have to write a complete manuscript of a novel to get consideration for a literary agent in most cases. So, you have to do the whole thing, the whole sweaty work of writing a complete manuscript, and I've had writers be like, "Well, if I don't get an agent after all that, it was for nothing."

Leslie: Oh, my goodness.

Mary: I just want to tell those writers. I'm like, "If you're not getting anything from the actual writing process, if it's so only goal-oriented," to your fabulous point, "you're going to have a tough time. You're going to have a tough time."

Leslie: Like I said, I had three or four. There would probably be... Now, keep in mind. There's always lightning in a bottle. There's always a writer that comes along their first novel, they're millionaires. It happens. I know these people. They're on my bookshelves. I know them personally. It happens. So please don't think it doesn't, that I'm not a naysayer. It doesn't. But is that the norm? No. The norm is maybe it's your first, second, third book before you even land an agent. That's the reality of it.

For me, it was my fourth completed manuscript before I landed an agent. Would I take any of those novels back? No. I've learned something from every one, and I love what I do. I love the art of, the act of putting words on the page. That's what I love. So, I'm doing what I love. You just have to get to the point where doing what you love and you're making the money to sustain, because right now, it's working but most of the time it doesn't work.

I was working at the post office not too long ago, you know, just making ends meet. We can have another podcast about that. There's things that you do. And if you're not willing to do those things, you know, everyone wants it right now, right now, right now. And that's not how it happens in most cases. And we didn't even talk... I don't know if we have time. Remember we were going to talk about being from Hyperion to Little, Brown.

Mary: So you had a publisher change. So I think "Love Like Sky" was acquired by Disney Hyperion. Disney Hyperion went through some changes. Their list was bought by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. That's who issued "Forever This Summer." So you've had some ups and downs in terms of even the publishing home that you thought you had.

Leslie: Right. When I first landed my agent, like I said, it took me years and years and years. But when I wrote this novel, I wrote it in probably a year and landed an agent in just a few months. That's how it happens.

Mary: Amazing.

Leslie: That's how it happens sometimes. But people hear that, but they don't know about the 10 years I spent being rejected. So landed the agent, wrote the book, published with Disney Hyperion, everything was going well, but Disney... This is realistic fiction, that's what I write, and Disney is mostly known for our fantasy and magical realism. So Disney decided to cut back on their realistic fiction titles and strictly focused mostly on their trademark.

And one day, I just woke up and I received this email that says, "Welcome to Little, Brown." I'm like, "What? I was just working..." I mean, it really happened... I was working with the editor at Disney maybe two or three days before we were working on "Forever This Summer." And a couple days later, it was, "Welcome to Little, Brown." That's how it happens. Fortunately, for me, I have a very happy ending because everything flowed so smoothly. I mean, they didn't miss a beat. I had my publicist, I had another editor, and things carried on, but sometimes I've heard that could be a really big issue.

But anyway that's just one example of how things change with publishing. You never know. I've had in the course of completing "Love Like Sky," like, two editors... No, I never had an editor change for that book, but I did have an editor change, of course, going into "Forever This Summer." So you just never know. You just have to be attached to your work and love what you do.

Mary: And I think that that has been more or less your story, whether you were officially pursuing writing, but you called yourself a dyed in the wool writer. That's just always been what you come back to when it comes to this craft.

Leslie: That is it. That's it, Mary. At the end of the day, I am truly fortunate that I found my passion, that I found my calling. And everything else from here is just sharing what I know and also just staying true to what I do and writing more books.

Mary: And writing more books.

Leslie: Writing more books, you know? There's so much in making... And I'll just end on this. I have these little hand-written posters around my home, and it says stay aligned. Just stay aligned because sometimes I think we get ourselves out of alignment where, you know, I'm doing this and I should be focused. The ideal of staying aligned and staying in my craft and just staying focused with that is it helps. You know, so just stay aligned, stay focused. And I think you can apply that to pretty much everything.

Mary: I think a lot of people are just trying to stay alive at this point. It's a beautiful reminder to stay aligned.

Leslie: Stay aligned.

Mary: Just a slightly higher level when it comes to yourself and your writing. And that's clearly been working for you.

Leslie: Why thank you, Mary. I appreciate it.

Mary: Thank you so much. What a wonderful story you've told us about yourself, about your work. I think that we need... So this was the warm and fuzzy craft focused interview. I think we need, like, down to basics like business interview where we just ruin everybody's dreams of...

Leslie: Like I said, sometimes I'll just get... I'm so emotional about this thing, and I love it so much that I have a tendency unless, you know, you have this list of questions. I'll just get off into... because it's just what I've been doing for so long. People, they come at it with, "I want it now." I'm like, "Really? Do you? Oh, okay. That's not usually how it happens." They don't want to do the work.

Mary: I mentioned "Shark Tank." You see somebody up on that stage. You see their, like, two-minute performance, right, you see their pitch, and you're like, "Oh, man, they just got up on reality TV." Reality TV has ruined everybody's sense of craft and hard work and perseverance, and the time it actually takes to do something. They just see the "American Idol" audition. They don't see the voice lessons and the dance training and all of the stuff that went into that one pinnacle moment.

Leslie: Interesting because those are... "The Voice" and "Shark Tank" and some comedies are usually it for me for TV because I love "Shark Tank" because I understand what it takes to be just like you, to be there and, you know, they're going for their dreams and they spent years, in most cases, coming up with this. So I love watching "Shark Tank" for that reason and I love watching "The Voice" because they are, like, "Here's my shot." And that's how it is with writing. "Here's my shot." They shoot you down sometimes, and sometimes not. But that's how I look at it. When I'm on my writing breaks, I watched "Shark Tank." I do.

Mary: I love it. I watch it for the business advice. Like, when Kevin O'Leary's like, "But how does it make money?" I'm like, "Yeah, Brenda. Yeah, Brenda, how does it?"

Leslie: Yeah, I like that. I like it for the fact that they can stand up there and take the critique, which is people need to learn. You have to learn how to take critique. You have to do that well. And then you have to go for your dreams, which is, at the end of the day, what writing is about. You're going for your dreams. You're putting it on the line. And even if they say no, you're going to stick with it and you're going to do it anyway.

So you have to have all of that. And the same with "The Voice," you have people just putting not themselves but actually their stories. When we tell our stories, we're putting it out there for the world. And, you know, there's a whole nother podcast about how you deal with criticism. How do you deal when the book is not doing as well as you thought? How do you deal when it's... So much goes into this. So I think that's what people need to understand. And it's never just a warm and fuzzy. It's never just the overnight success because there is no such thing in most cases.

Well, even people that I know who got, like, seven-figure deals, it's still not overnight. Maybe it wasn't 15 years, but it still wasn't overnight, you know? All of that good stuff. And, you know, I've paid for editors out of my pocket. I've learned hard lessons with that. Just so many things, you know, that you really have to take in consideration. I've paid for editors too early. Never did I not have an editor though, because I believe in the importance of that. Once you've done the best that you can do, some people don't believe in getting someone to help you take it to another level. I believe in that, you know, sharpening your work. So all of that good stuff.

Mary: Well, thank you. I really appreciate it. I do feel like we could talk for hours and hours.

Leslie: We can. You know, we got so much to say.

Mary: And maybe we will. Maybe we'll do a Part 2 for, kind of, nitty-gritty author considerations.

Leslie: We can do that. And keep in mind, I have other work coming out. There's also another good topic to talk about, which is outside of the novels, I have really opened myself up, which is something that I didn't think that I would do to doing, like, collaborations because you have to keep the lights on. You have to understand this vision as a writer, especially when you're working to be 100% full-time writer, it takes a lot more because everybody thinks, you know, two books, oh, you know, some people in my family, I'm sure they think that I'm rich now, you know? But people don't understand there's the payment structure for publishing. There's...

Mary: And they chop into as many as payments as they can get away with.

Leslie: Right, all of that is what we need to talk about. So what do you do... And when I say stay aligned, I mean it in the sense that, Leslie, you have bills to pay. You don't have another book contract right now, but working at the post office is not where you need to be. So you have to stay aligned. I have to figure out how do I continue to make money in this field. So, I've been working on that and this is paying off for me.

Mary: Thank you so much. Thank you for speaking with us, sharing what you know, your books are "Love Like Sky" and "Forever This Summer" out from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers now.

Leslie: Little, Brown Books.

Mary: Little, Brown, and just thank you. Thank you for spending this time with me.

Leslie: Thank you, Mary. Thank you. And hi, everyone, with Good Story Company. I look forward to hearing from you.

Mary: Yup, here's to a good story. Thank you so much for tuning into "The Good Story" podcast. My name is Mary Kole, and I want to extend my deepest gratitude to the Good Story Company team, Kristen Overman, Amy Wilson, Rhiannon Richardson, Joiya Morrison-Efemini, Kate London, Michal Leah, Jenna Van Roy, Kathy Martinolich, Len Cattan-Prugl, Rebecca Landesman, Steve Reiss, and Gigi Collins. Please check us out at goodstorycompany.com, and I would love it if you joined Good Story Learning, a monthly membership with new content added where you can learn everything you ever wanted to know and more about writing and publishing for writers of all categories and ability levels. Thanks again for listening. And here's to a good story.

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