You may have already heard of Alice Oseman, thanks to Heartstopper, her heartwarming graphic novels, or Radio Silence, one of the most beloved contemporary YA novels in the British literary scene.
Today, we are chatting with her about her latest novel, Loveless, which is out now! We talk to her about her writing process, her trajectory as an author, and the importance of including aromantic/asexual representation in the media. Not quite convinced about giving Loveless a go? Well, you definitely should, because we are sure it will become one of the most relevant #OwnVoices of the decade!
Hello, Alice! Congratulations on your new novel, Loveless. Could you please start by telling us a bit about yourself?
Hi! Thank you so much! I’m a twenty-five-year-old writer of four young adult novels: LOVELESS, I WAS BORN FOR THIS, RADIO SILENCE, and SOLITAIRE. I’m also the writer and illustrator of webcomic/graphic novel series HEARTSTOPPER!
If you could identify Loveless with a song that captures its essence, which one would it be and why?
I think it’s got to be ‘Love of the Loveless’ by Eels! Though I do have a whole Loveless playlist, which you can listen to here.
Loveless is a novel full of love in all of its forms, but its title is quite paradoxical? Why did you decide to establish this contrast?
It is! One of the most important messages of the story is that nobody is really as ‘loveless’ as they think. But ‘loveless’ is a feeling that all of the protagonists are struggling with in one way or another – particularly the narrator, Georgia. It’s a word that’s haunted her for a long, long time, and it’s a feeling that she fears so much that she can’t even identify that she isn’t ‘loveless’. But it’s ironic too, because romantically she is loveless, and that’s okay, and she can still be happy! It’s such a big part of her and other characters’ journeys, it felt like the right title for the book.
You started your writing career with Solitaire, when you were only seventeen, and since then, so much has happened to you career-wise. What aspect of your writing process or of yourself as a writer do you feel has changed the most?
Well, I think I have become a better writer generally! I love Solitaire dearly because it began my writing journey, but it has a lot of flaws that I find hard to look back on. More specifically, though, I think I’ve gotten a lot better at fleshing out the supporting characters in my stories. Particularly with Loveless I feel that I’ve gotten much better at giving all the main characters arcs of their own, not just the central two or three, without feeling like those arcs are ‘lessons’ for the narrator.
Writing and illustrating are the two sides of your literary production, but if you were to choose one particular scene from Loveless to illustrate, which one would it be and why?
There is a scene in Loveless in which two main characters have a battle on a gameshow-style contraption – it’s a bouncy castle with two raised platforms, upon which the two rivals have to try to push each other off using foam pool noodles. It would probably be a nightmare to draw but it’s one of my favourite scenes in the book!
Shakespeare and his plays have a great influence on the development of the story and the bond Georgia, Pip, Jason, Rooney, and Sunil develop. Why did you decide to make drama their common ground? And why Shakespeare in particular?
I wanted ‘found family’ to be a big part of the story, and I figured the best way to do this was to have Georgia join a university society! I also liked the idea of incorporating theatre into the story, on a sort of symbolic level. During a lot of the first half of the story, Georgia feels like she has to sort of ‘fake it until she makes it’ when it comes to romance – aka, she has to act. So I landed on a theatre society! I didn’t decide to focus on Shakespeare specifically until the second or third draft. Before then, I’d felt something was missing – I wanted to add something fun into the story, something I’m personally passionate about. And I’ve always loved Shakespeare’s comedies and tragedies, with all their dysfunctional and funny relationships. So Shakespeare became a big part of the book!
Sadly, aro/ace identities tend to be quite underrepresented in the media. Of course, you already started fighting this lack of representation with Aled —who is demi-sexual— in Radio Silence, back in 2016. But what was the turning point for you to decide to fully center a novel around asexuality and the emotional implications that society’s idea of love has on people who fall anywhere within the ace spectrum?
Honestly, it probably was Radio Silence that began that desire to tell this story! But I suppose the turning point was when I started to feel more comfortable with my own identity. I was still figuring things out while I was writing Radio Silence, and even while I was writing I Was Born for This. But once I felt comfortable enough with being aro-ace, and able to talk about it in depth, I knew I wanted to write a book about it, because I couldn’t find any books that I really felt represented in. We’re fortunate in young adult fiction that there is asexual and aromantic representation out there, but aro/ace experiences are so wide and varied that I couldn’t find anything that really felt like it was about me. So I decided to write it!
As a story of aro/ace self-acceptance, Loveless is already an endless source of help and support for those discovering their belonging to the a-spec, but if you could give them one extra piece of advice, which one would it be?
It’s okay to take time in figuring out your feelings. When people ask me about asexuality and aromanticism, I often get the sense that people feel pressured to find their ‘label’ very quickly. I understand why – people often find a lot of comfort in being able to label their sexuality, and in that find community too. But feeling pressured to ‘pick a label’ can cause a lot of stress. Sometimes it takes longer than an evening’s worth of Googling. And that’s okay. Take as much time as you need.
We couldn’t let the small yet meaningful references to your previous books you included in Loveless slip by. Since all of your novels coexist within the same universe, have you ever considered the possibility of writing a crossover? And if you were to include a character from each of your four novels in it, who would you choose and why?
I love the idea of a crossover! I think a crossover between Radio Silence and I Was Born for This would be such fun – perhaps Aled, Frances, and the Ark all meet at a YouTube event of some sort. I’m not sure how the Solitaire and Loveless kids would fit in, though!
Finally, if each member of the Shakespeare Soc could recommend a book, which one would it be and why?
That’s such a hard question! Being an English lit student, Georgia would probably recommend something classic, and almost certainly a romance – maybe Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. That’s definitely one of her fave classics.
Rooney would recommend Much Ado About Nothing, even though that doesn’t really qualify as a ‘book’, but she is a Shakespeare fanatic so she’d choose it anyway.
Pip would probably recommend The Secret History by Donna Tartt, because it fits her aesthetic.
Jason would recommend… well, is there any sort of Scooby-Doo novelisation out there?
Sunil would recommend something that features a lot of queer joy, so perhaps You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson!
