We chat with author Kyle Casey Chu about The Queen Bees of Tybee County, which is a charming, poignant debut from a founding queen of Drag Story Hour—think Better Nate Than Ever meets Dumplin’,
You have made quite the impact in the book industry with your work as a founding queen of Drag Story Hour. Have you always wanted to be a writer yourself?
Short answer: Yes! One day, as a 7-year-old in summer school, we were tasked with writing a children’s book. That afternoon, I ended up writing and illustrating five books. Come seventh grade, I wrote a hundred-something-page book: “Brother’s Ethnicity,” a vaguely plotless fantasy adventure novel about four best friends who embark on a cross-country road trip together. Looking back, I realize writing this helped me process the crushy-crush feelings I was developing toward one of my closest friends. I came out to my friend group shortly after completing the book.
Writing continues to be cathartic for me in this way, allowing me to safely unpack and process my internal world, no matter how intimidating, through the safety of scenes and hypotheticals on an open page. It reminds me of what I am capable of. I want kids to access a similar sense of satisfaction and empowerment through reading and writing.
Your protagonist’s journey is inspired in part by your own personal journey. When did you know you wanted to be a drag queen?
Often as a kid, when adults asked me, “What do I want to be when I grow up?” I had at least 17 answers. At certain points, I wanted to be a detective, a figure skater, a writer, a teacher, an actor, a musician or a “face painter,” which I now know, of course, interpret as a pull toward drag.
Much like writing, drag encourages you to be and experience all of these things — to imagine expansively. As a drag queen, you are at once expected to be a makeup artist, a dancer, a comedian, an actress, a hostess. You can be a figure skater for the night, or a noir detective, until you whirl off a trench coat at the exact right moment to reveal a stunning sequined gown.
People used to tell me I was “a handful” and that I wanted to be too many things. It wasn’t until discovering drag in middle school that I realized the art form could contain all of these wants and more. That in fact, what I wanted, was just enough.
Why did you decide to pick Georgia as the setting?
I’m a nerd who wanted to learn more about Southern pageant culture!
Doing drag during my teens and 20s, many of the queens I met in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York City regarded Southern drag as an entirely different drag tradition.
I wanted to know why.
I chose Georgia because Atlanta is commonly regarded as one of the South’s largest queer metropolises. Doing research for this book helped me better appreciate pageant culture, a tradition that focuses more on jaw-dropping regalia — high-stacked wigs, dripping drop-earrings and resplendent gowns — as opposed to the more edgy experimentation and genre-bending performances I was used to, coming from San Francisco.
I also learned how the pageant model is a bedrock for so much of the drag we consume today. For instance, as much as RuPaul’s Drag Race fans tease contestants for being “Pageant Queens,” the show is structured like a pageant!
And let me tell you, I’ve helped my drag sisters train for pageants, and it is NO JOKE. Designing, sewing, tailoring and stoning a host of looks, readying time-constrained talent performances, prepping for Q&As — both silly and deep, intimate questions. The process really forces you to reflect and be honest about who you are and present your best self. It challenges you. At their worst, they can reinforce harmful thinking, but at their best, they can help you better understand who you are, what you believe in and how you want to impact the world. I thought this was a great structure for Derrick to question and explore who he is and what he wanted.
What inspired you to share this story, particularly now?
Queer and trans joy subverts the media’s standard formula and approach to our stories and who we are. Today, LGBTQ+ youth are phoning crisis hotlines in record numbers. Trans kids are being banned from competitive sports despite comprising negligible percentages of youth athlete populations. LGBTQ+ books have been purged from shelves and mischaracterized as overtly sexual content, and LGBTQ+ resources have been expelled from government websites.
The media’s blueprint to approach LGBTQ+ stories is through the lens of trauma, a real impossible-struggle-to-triumph arc. There’s good reason for this, for there’s a lot that we’re up against. It is not enough to live like this, set on our back foot, always responding to the latest terror. We must also imagine the futures we want and dance toward them.
This is what I hope to put forth in “The Queen Bees of Tybee County.” It is a joyous story about a fish-out-of-water who boldly proclaims who he is, and is met with support that overwhelms any discouragement. Not only is this story, and the world it introduces true, and quite possible, but I think it’s the type of tale we all need right now.
How has your background as an educator and in social work informed your storytelling?
My book draws on a lot of concepts I learned in social work school that wish I’d learned earlier on. Ironically, many queer stories out there still operate on binary terms — having to be one or the other, to choose this identity or that. Queer imaginations are more creative and expansive than that. This tale shows us that we don’t always have to choose between our differing parts. That we can integrate our masculine, feminine and androgynous qualities, or our interests in sports and drag, as equal and essential parts that make us whole and unique.
What do you hope your readers can learn from your book that readers and industry critics alike have acclaimed for its authenticity?
Like me, my book’s protagonist Derrick Chan is a Queer fourth-generation Chinese American drag artist, raised by a third-generation, acculturated American parent. He takes a journey that I myself once took — investigating my Asian American heritage and reclaiming it with pride, after growing up with a dearth of positive, dignified and accurate representation. Through this story, Derrick is able to explore his identities alongside trusted loved ones, relatively insulated from the misinformed playground taunts that so often (and inaccurately) equate Asian Americanness with shame, invisibility and a stinging alienation. Connecting with drag, punk music and Asian American history as a teen offered me a resilience and pride in who I am that is distinctly my own. I wish this same sense of power for every reader who picks up this book.
And you use your art as a means of fighting back against those who try to erase or silence LGBTQ+ voices?
I wrote this novel driven by a fire to make up for what happened to me at the San Lorenzo Public Library. For all of it to land somewhere, with a conclusive exclamation point. This was my healthiest point of closure.
It’s important to acknowledge that nothing became of my library incident. The sheriff and authorities didn’t lift a finger until the media caught on, and once the circus died down, they neglected to file a crime report. Today, the authorities still have no record of it ever happening. I don’t want kids to grow up and internalize that being targeted as queer and trans people is a part of life they must simply accept, without consequence.
This story is, in a way, a survival guide. It contains a lot of lessons I learned as both a social worker and a kid who came out extremely early. Support systems are essential. Your friends are everything. And as drag queen Sasha Velour would say, take your broken heart and turn it into art. Simple axioms with a lot of heft to them. Writing this story was a practice in hope and optimism in the face of unrelenting political chaos. It’s been wildly cathartic and healing to the way I relate to both writing drag as art forms.
For your multi-award-winning and entirely grant-funded short film, you decided to shoot on set of the former incident. Why did you feel it was important to revisit that scene?
People often ask me, “Why revisit the incident?” both literally/physically and figuratively. The thing is, I never really left the site of the incident. There’s still a part of me in that reading room. I return to the library often in my head, like when I hear a loud noise while walking home from a drag show, or in the dark, before asleep, when all you can do is think. I can’t help it. Because I never got resolution or closure.
It is difficult to experience something painful. And it can feel altogether more difficult when that first pain goes unacknowledged and unseen.
Writing, producing and starring in “After What Happened at the Library” felt somewhat like an exorcism. Sure, I was back at the scene of the crime, but I also had a script mapping out our day. There were frequent check-ins, and I was encouraged to ask for breaks. I was surrounded by people I love and trust, who believe in this story. There was a sense of care, control and authorship that was wrested from me on the day of the actual incident. This time, the pain was seen and acknowledged.
Are you working on any new projects – either books or film?
I am blessed to have many irons in the fire!
“After What Happened at the Library”: A Debut Feature Film (for adults)
The short film, “After What Happened at the Library,” is a character introduction and proof-of-concept for the eponymous surrealist drama feature film (Comps: “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” “I May Destroy You,” “May December,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”). The feature expands on the world of the short in the days and weeks post-virality, when everyone — friends, authorities, politicians, bad actors — want a piece of Akita.
You’ll meet Akita’s absurdist drag sister Tonya; outspoken, neuroatypical leftist work wifey Eve; and charming, anime-obsessed, autistic twin brother Mikey, as Akita’s mind bends around reality in her struggle to reclaim authorship of her viral story.
“Betty”: A Short Film (for adults)
Thanks to a short film production grant from NewFest and Concord Music Originals, we are producing a grimy, heartwarming, absurdist drag queen comedy with the same director of “After What Happened at the Library,” Syra McCarthy (“Grey’s Anatomy”, “The Dropout,” “Josephine”).
“Betty” follows Betty St. Clair, mother of an all-Asian American drag family (based on my all-Asian American drag family, the Rice Rockettes), as they perform for an all-Cantonese-speaking senior center (also based on a real-life performance at San Francisco’s On-Lok Senior Center). Betty soon discovers her Yeh Yeh (paternal grandfather), who isn’t aware of Betty’s drag persona, is in the audience! Gulp!
Will Betty overcome her debilitating self-doubt and her sisters’ poorly-timed backstage hijinks to come out to Yeh Yeh through an epic drag performance??
“What Kind of Queen?”: A Picture Book on José Sarria” (for kids)
My friend, an LGBTQ+ Historian and I, are releasing a historical children’s picture book on San Francisco drag legend and activist José Sarria, an opera-singing WWII veteran and the founder of the Imperial Court System, a network of regional royal drag courts raising money for charitable LGBTQ+ causes.
Book 2 of “The Queen Bees of Tybee County”: A Companion Book (for kids)
Derrick and JJ’s adventure continues in a forthcoming soft sequel/companion book that I am currently drafting! No sneak peeks to speak of yet, but on the foundation of self-reflection and discovery built in the first book, you can expect more light-hearted adventure, as well as developments on JJ and Derrick’s relationship in this second novel.
