The Nerd Daily had the pleasure of sitting down with Leah Johnson, debut author of the recently published sapphic rom-com You Should See Me in a Crown in which two girls running for prom queen fall head over heels for each other! We got to ask Leah all about her debut novel, epic promposals, and upcoming projects!
Hi, Leah! Thank you for joining us! Why don’t you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hi! I’m Leah Johnson, the author of two young adult novels, You Should See Me in a Crown and the forthcoming Rise to the Sun. I say often that I’m an eternal Midwesterner moonlighting as a New Yorker because I will never be able to shake the small-ish town girl in me, which I hope is more charming than it is frustrating for all of the Very Serious New Yorkers I’m slowing down on the sidewalk.
Now give us the elevator pitch for You Should See Me in a Crown!
You Should See Me in a Crown is about a girl named Liz Lighty who wants to escape her small (and small-minded) Midwestern hometown and go to her dream college. So when Liz’s financial aid falls through, she has no choice but to run for prom queen in hopes of winning the scholarship attached to winning the crown. But when Liz starts to fall for her competition, will she choose the girl of her dreams or her dream of getting out?
You open your novel with a quote from James Baldwin, “The place in which I’ll fit will not exist until I make it” and I absolutely loved that! I mean, a story of two prom queen contenders falling in love? I didn’t even know I needed it until I got it! What inspired Liz’s story?
Liz’s story rose out of an attempt to write into the empty spaces that I saw in YA growing up. I wanted to put a girl on the page who lived and loved and did her best by the people she cares about that I hadn’t read before. I was also thinking a lot about the imagery of what it would look like to give a queer Black girl everything she deserves—to literally put a crown on her head and call her a queen. What would seeing that have done for me as a teenager? What does seeing that mean for me now? All of the pieces sort of fell into place when I began framing it for myself in that way.
We get a glimpse at some swoony and heartwarming promposals in You Should See Me in a Crown. Did you ever do/receive a promposal? Or witnessed one that had a lasting impact on you?
Ha! No, I didn’t get an elaborate promposal in high school. And honestly, thank God. I don’t think I would have responded well to that type of public display of affection. I went to prom with the guy I’d been sort-of-but-not-really dating for nearly a year-and-a-half, so from what I remember there was no real fanfare in the ask. I saw it coming. But I loved watching promposals on YouTube in the years after I graduated. Or, like, really dramatic marriage proposal videos. This one by Justin Baldoni had me and my best friend crying for days.
On that note, your novel is set in a town obsessed with prom. There are lots of prom court shenanigans, volunteer projects and campaigning for the crown. Did the idea stem from personal experience? What did your research process look like?
The prom culture at my actual high school was not nearly as involved as Campbell County’s, I have to say. In fact, my high school was much different in that there wasn’t really a cookie-cutter expectation for what king and queen were going to look like. Sometimes it was the Popular Kid, but other years it was the Theatre Kid or the Class President or the list goes on. I think what I was most interested in exploring in Crown, actually, is how to take what is the ultimate symbol of All-American girlhood and turn it on its head. The stereotypical prom queen is white, popular, and “perfect”? Okay, well then in this book I’m going to put a girl in serious contention for the crown who is Black, hopelessly awkward and deeply anxious. And she’s still going to be worthy of it all. You know what I mean?
The research process was pretty simple. I spent a lot of time looking into the different prom traditions of communities across the country and plucked some of my favorites for the book. I turned them up by, like, ten notches, of course. But, they all came from somewhere real.
You Should See Me in a Crown is your debut novel (and a fantastic one at that!). What were the biggest struggles for you on the road to publishing?
Publishing a novel is a deeply personal thing to do—much more so than I assumed before I went into it. You’re taking this thing that comes from the most intimate parts of you (or at least that’s what I was doing in my case), and pouring it onto a page. And past that, you’re asking people to look at it—your agent, editors, readers, booksellers, etc—and be gentle with it. Every time someone picks up my book, I’m placing my heart in their hands. So, I’ve had to power past the intimacy of that, past the way imposter syndrome sets in: Am I queer enough to write this? Am I Black enough to write this? Is my experience with anxiety “accurate” enough to write this? And learn to stand firm in who I am and what I know to be true. That’s tough.
Without spoiling too much of the story, what was your favorite scene to write? Which one was the hardest?
One of my favorite scenes in the book is Liz and Mack’s first date. Actually, I loved writing all of their scenes together, but that first date has a special place in my heart. It’s so place-based, such a love letter to one of my favorite streets in my hometown, that it brought me a lot of joy to relive my time there while writing it. I’d say the hardest scene to write, emotionally, came the easiest to me as far as narrative is concerned. I don’t want to spoil anything, but there’s a moment between Liz and her Granny that still gets me choked up sometimes!
Robbie, Liz’s brother, as well as her mother live(d) with sickle cell anaemia, an illness I definitely hadn’t heard much about before this book. What sparked your inspiration for including it?
Sickle cell anaemia is an inherited blood disorder that affects predominantly Black people, which was a fact that I’d grown up hyper-conscious of but had only seen in a novel maybe once. Crown exists, largely, to keep opening windows into different aspects of the Black American experience—to make opaque in a book things that, in my real life, that had always seemed shrouded in shame or mystery to me before. Taking a closer look into this illness that affects a lot of my people, and attempting to do it honestly and tenderly, was an extension of that.
I confess, Liz’s (former) best friend Jordan was a showstealer for me – I loved how you not only explored romantic relationships but also friendships and how they can grow and evolve with time and care. Would you ever consider returning to his character in the future?
Can I tell you the truth? I would follow Jordan to the ends of the earth. I love him! He’s wrestling with so much of his own baggage but does his best to do right by Liz at every turn—he’s the kind of friend (by the time they reach their senior year) I think everyone deserves. That said, I don’t believe in saying never when it comes to characters making appearances in future books. In fact, keep an eye out for Rise to the Sun next year. There might be a familiar face or two from Campbell County…
The whole vibe of your debut was very cinematic! Did you have a dream cast for Liz, Mack and Jordan in mind while writing?
Thank you for saying so—film has always been a huge part of how I conceptualize narrative structure and character. This is such a tough question! I think if Rome Flynn were a little younger, he’d make a great Jordan. Or maybe Jharrel Jerome? Mack looks a lot like an older Sadie Sink, for sure. And Liz? Well, I have a feeling there’s a perfect young Black, queer actress out there just waiting for her big break. I think that’s the kind of person I’d want playing her.
With You Should See Me in a Crown releasing soon, are you already working on another project? If so, can you share a few tidbits with us?
Yeah, I’m already in the revision stages of my sophomore novel, Rise to the Sun. It’s a story that takes place over three days at a music festival, where two girls go in search of two different things but end up finding each other—and love—instead. It’s been my way of living out my favorite time of year—summer music festival season—while trapped in quarantine. Hopefully, it does it justice.
Last but not least, do you have any bookish recommendations for us?
Of course! My friend Adiba Jaigirdar’s debut The Henna Wars is an absolute delight of a queer rom-com and I highly recommend it. A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Rosie Brown is out on the same day as mine and is a truly incredible fantasy based on West African mythology that everyone should pick up. And I recently returned to This Adventure Ends, one of Emma Mills’ earlier novels, and was reminded why she should be a staple author on everyone’s shelves. Love her work.
