What do you do when the world shuts down? A heartwarming story of friendship and overcoming adversity in a time of COVID, When the World Turns Upside Down is about community, giving back, and understanding the world around us through the power of generosity from debut middle grade author K. Ibura.
We chat with author K. Ibura all about her debut, along with writing, inspiration, and more!
Hi there! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
I’m a writer, visual artist, mother, co-worker, traveler, and dreamer. I’ve been creative all my life and am looking forward to a time when I can be a full-time creative.
How has the first month of 2022 been for you?
The first month of 2022 has been amazing. I traveled to Senegal during the last month of 2021 and it reminded me of all there is to experience in the world. I’ll admit the return to work is hard. Vacation life is all about flow, everyday life is all about schedules, but I’m thrilled to be reconnecting with friends, making art again, and working on the third draft of my next book.
When did you first discover your love for writing?
I think my love for writing was always there but I never recognized it. My father is a writer and my mother had many bookshelves filled with novels and nonfiction books—mostly by Black women. I read them voraciously and I made up stories all the time. I just never thought of it as being a writer. When I got to college, a classmate had a racist incident. It got under my skin, and I wrote it as a story as a way of coping with it. That story got published in a magazine, and that woke me up to the possibility of being a writer. I have been writing and publishing ever since.
Your new novel, When the World Turned Upside Down, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Timely + full of community connections
What can readers expect?
Readers can expect to enter the world of four young friends who are dealing with the tumultuous impact of COVID. Readers will travel with those friends as they learn coping strategies, deal with their family’s challenges, and struggle to find their own place in a world that has turned upside down. When the friends realize others in their building are also struggling, they begin to make community connections and find ways to help others. Finally when faced with social injustices, the friends discover the power of using your unique voice.
Where did the inspiration for When the World Turned Upside Down come from?
When reflecting on COVID, I was extremely aware of all the issues adults were going through, but one day I just started thinking about children. With all the financial ups and downs, the mental health challenges, the anxiety, I wondered how kids were coping. Adults and children were all stuck in the house together. Adults couldn’t hide our challenges and anxieties from children in the way we often do. So I wanted to look at how kids survived during COVID and what it was like for them to experience this incredibly difficult historical moment.
Can you tell us a bit about the challenges you faced while writing and how you were able to overcome them?
Well, two challenges come to mind. The first challenge was my character Ben. What was amazing about this book is that the characters and the story evolved quickly. Right in the pitch stage, as soon as I named my characters I knew who they were. It was as if they were just sitting fully-formed in my imagination waiting for me to write them down. Ben, however, was a challenge. He was so rigid and controlling. These are personality traits I don’t share with him. At some point in the second draft, I had an a-ha moment. I realized Ben loved his family and his friends, and his rigidity is his way of trying to manage change as he works to hold on to a life he loves. It allowed me—through Ben—to meditate on one of the biggest challenges of growing up, managing change.
My second challenge was writing about racism. There is so much that could be said about racism, it’s history, it’s current practices and impacts that I didn’t know where to begin, I didn’t know how much to say, and I didn’t know what to emphasize. One of my first chapters about racism was like a long informational speech, lol. My editor encouraged me to embed the information in the story more, and eventually I found a balance that worked within the flow of the plot. It is immensely challenging to deal with so huge a topic—especially when it is frequently misunderstood, ignored, or avoided.
What do you hope your readers take away from When the World Turned Upside Down?
Two things: I hope parents and kids take a moment to reflect on what they survived—and have deeper discussion about their feelings, their anxieties, and what they’re proud of as a family. I also hope kids feel validated in their identity. The characters in the book are so different from each other, but they all find a way to express themselves. I want kids to feel confident in the power of their ideas and the power of their voices.
What’s next for you?
Next up is a YA contemporary fantasy book about a girl with mysterious powers. When her grandmother gets sick, she has to move to New Orleans (my hometown), where she learns about being a teenager, and also about the dangers her powers attract. I’m excited for people to meet the main character and travel with her as she tries to make sense of a mind-blowing situation and her ever-evolving world.
So proud!!!