The Nerd Daily recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Becky Albertalli, award-winning author of extraordinary novels such as Simon vs. The Homo-Sapiens Agenda, Leah on the Offbeat, Yes No Maybe So (co-authored with Aisha Saeed), and What If It’s Us (co-authored with Adam Silvera).
We got to ask Becky all our burning questions about her upcoming YA novel Kate in Waiting (that is a love letter to friendship, musicals and communal crushes), her writing advice and so much more!
Hi, Becky! Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us! Why don’t you tell our readers a bit about yourself before we get started?
Thank you so much for having me! I write realistic contemporary books for teens, and I’m best known for writing the book that was adapted into the film Love, Simon. I live with my family in the suburbs of Atlanta, where most of my books are set, and I have a really cute cat named Willow.
Quick lightning round: tell us the last book that inspired you, the last that left you speechless, and one you never want to let go of!
Was recently inspired all over again by David Arnold’s The Electric Kingdom. Angie Thomas’s Concrete Rose left me speechless. I never want to let go of Rachel Lynn Solomon’s Today, Tonight, Tomorrow.
Now, what can readers expect when they pick up Kate in Waiting?
Readers can expect friends, kissing, friends kissing, and high school theater nerd hijinks.
I loved that, as much as Kate in Waiting was about communal crushes and falling in love, it primarily focused on friendship – Kate and Anderson’s bond is #friendshipgoals. What was your inspiration for this story and especially its primary focus on friendship?
I tend to draw from several inspirations at once, and that’s certainly true for Kate and Anderson’s friendship. My friends were my entire world in high school—and even as an adult, my friendships are deeply important to me. Certain parts of the story mirror the dynamic between Adam Silvera and me—it’s almost like I got to imagine what our friendship might have looked like in high school.
While I read Kate in Waiting, I felt like Kate and Simon Spier (from Simon vs. the Homo-Sapiens Agenda) could be long-lost twins. What kinds of shenanigans would Kate and Simon get up to if they ever met?
It’s so true—they’re both absolute disasters, and I can only imagine how much havoc they’d wreak. They’d probably run into each other at the Georgia Thespian conference, and—maybe this is too on-the-nose– but I think Kate would have a very short-lived, utterly pointless crush on Simon, but she’d be too flustered to tell him directly. She might send him a secret admirer note, though, which would COMPLETELY DELIGHT him. Of course, he’d be too clueless to figure out who it was from until several years later, when Kate retroactively confesses via DM.
I confess that I grinned proudly every single time the word fuckboy was mentioned in Kate in Waiting because we all meet at least one fuckboy in our lives (and yes, they can be redeemable). If you could go back to teenage you and give her some advice in how to deal with the fuckboys of this world, what would you tell her?
Teen me already had the one song she needed to fight back against all fuckboys (TLC’s No Scrubs, of course). But beyond that, I’d tell her that the greatest revenge against fuckboys is to be successful in a way that gets widely shared onto their social media feeds.
Your co-written book What If It’s Us with Adam Silvera is getting a sequel Here’s to Us (set to release in Fall 2021)! What has it been like to get back into Arthur’s head for the sequel and what’s your favorite part about teaming up with Adam to write?
I’ve loved getting to live in Arthur’s head again! It’s been really interesting to discover what he’s like two years after the events of What If It’s Us. He’s still fundamentally himself, but he’s also grown up a lot. And my favorite part about the process has been talking through all of those nuances with Adam.
Speaking of writing – heaps of readers (me included!) praise your authentic voice and your characters’ relatability. Do you have any advice for aspiring writers on how to nail that character voice?
That’s such a kind thing to say! This is a tricky one for me to explain, since I don’t entirely understand where my characters’ voices come from. But in general, writing fanfiction is a really great way to develop this skill. The better you get at capturing existing characters’ voices, the more likely you’ll be able to transfer that skillset to your individual work.
You’ve written quite a few books at this point and have explored so many different topics, from politics and activism to the on-going LGBTQIAP+ fight for equality. If you could only write one more book or series about a topic dear to your heart, what would you choose? [edit: if this is too personal, feel free to just reply with a topic that you will always cherish discussing in your novels]
I usually see my books as more character-driven than topic-driven, so I’m not sure I have a real answer for this one! But it’s really important to me that my stories are inclusive, and I’m always drawn to love stories.
Authors often say that they’ve given each of their characters a piece of themselves (e.g. their stance on movies, love for Oreos, or inability to whistle etc.) What random piece of you did you give your protagonists Simon, Leah, Molly, Jamie, Arthur and Kate?
I’ve given them all so much of me—more than I could possibly list—but to start:
- Simon: my birthday, my high school, my hometown, my love of Oreos, my discomfort with conflict, my ambivalence about change
- Molly: my anxiety disorder (and Zoloft), my fatness, my relationship with my sister, my love of crafts and baking, and my feeling of being a late bloomer
- Leah: my moodiness, my love of fandom, my protectiveness of my friends, my introversion
- Jamie: my social anxiety, my somewhat reluctant activism, my synagogue, my love of Target and The Office
- Arthur: my college, my love of Broadway, my favorite bakery, my ADHD, and the summer I once spent sorting through files at my dad’s law firm
- Kate: my high school theater experiences, my super close friendships, my divorced parents, my experience being bullied (and its emotional fallout)
Last but not least, do you have any anticipated releases for 2021 that our readers should put on their TBR?
I have SO many, but a few I think will appeal to Kate’s audience in particular:
- Perfect on Paper by Sophie Gonzales
- Jay’s Gay Agenda by Jason June
- Meet Cute Diary by Emery Lee
- Cool For the Summer by Dahlia Adler
