We chat with debut author Parisa Akhbari about Just Another Epic Love Poem, which takes readers on a journey that is equal parts joyful, heartbreaking, and funny as Mitra and Bea navigate the changing nature of I love you.
Hi, Parisa! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
I’m a mental health therapist by day and a writer by night. In my free time I can usually be found exploring Seattle’s parks with my wife and two goofball dogs, trying to master my grandmother’s Persian recipes, ferrying around the Puget Sound, and listening to Janelle Monae on repeat. I’m a Catholic school survivor, auntie to the best four-year-old on the planet, and forever on a quest to find the perfect cinnamon roll (hit me up if you’ve found it).
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I’ve been writing stories since I was little. When I was around six, I made a picture book called The Save, in which a girl saves a snail from being stepped on, only to take it home and (plot twist) fry it up to make escargot. In third grade I made a comic book about a couple of carpenter ants who had marital problems. I was a weird kid! By the time I got to middle school, my stories veered away from insects and toward people. Writing became a way I made sense of my experiences and the world around me.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: The first chapter book I remember reading and loving was Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. I was seven years old and had finally gotten reading glasses, and my attitude toward reading had completely shifted because I could actually read without getting a massive headache. My third grade teacher noticed that my appetite for reading had accelerated, and he gave me a copy of Walk Two Moons to read on my own, and I was hooked.
- The one that made you want to become an author: I’ve wanted to be an author since I was a kid, so this is a tough one. But in junior high, my friend and I discovered Sarah Dessen’s book Someone Like You, and that story stuck with us. I remember the two of us thinking, “Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could write stories like this?” I could say the same thing about The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares.
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: I’m a visual and sensory person, so graphic novels usually leave a lasting emotional impression on me. Some of the images and story beats from Tillie Walden’s On A Sunbeam are still seared into my brain.
Your debut novel, Just Another Epic Love Poem, is out March 12th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Messy queer longing, love, and poetry.
What can readers expect?
Readers can buckle up for an emotional ride including unrequited love and friends-to-lovers tropes, queer Catholic school angst, family issues, and themes of vulnerability, trust, healing and forgiveness. I hope readers, regardless of their age, come away from this novel with a deepened sense of compassion and kindness for their teenage selves and for their own healing journeys.
Where did the inspiration for Just Another Epic Love Poem come from?
Poetry is a big deal in Iranian and Persian cultures—it’s part history, part spirituality, part mythology. Poetry can also be an accessible way for teens to express intense emotions when other mediums of communication just won’t do. I wanted to find a way to combine the richness of poetry as a legacy in Iranian culture with the urgency it can lend to young people. It’s this concise and powerful vehicle for self-expression. Also, if I look back at the way my friends and I communicated in high school, we used every avenue available to us. We talked, texted, passed handwritten notes in class, wrote each other long, confessional-style letters, and so on. For this novel, I wanted to employ all these lines of communication—poetry, text messages, letters, notes—to convey a story that feels authentic to teen experience.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I especially loved writing Mitra and Bea’s never-ending poem. They’ve been writing this poem back and forth for almost five years, and it’s the one place they can share everything. They have rules for the poem, including no terminal punctuation (no periods, exclamation points, or question marks allowed, because the poem is never-ending), and they must start their line of poetry with the last word the other character ended on. It was a fun challenge to create different poetic voices for the characters, while still allowing them to resonate with each other due to their years of friendship.
This is your debut published novel! What was the road to becoming a published author like for you?
My road to publication has had plenty of starts and stops, and I’m grateful for the whole process. I originally started querying in 2018 after writing a different YA romance novel, and was lucky enough to sign with my top-choice agent, Quressa Robinson, after just a couple months and maybe only seven query letters sent out into the world. Things moved quickly for me in signing with an agent, but it was a different story when we went out on submission. We couldn’t find a publishing home for that novel, so eventually I set it aside and began working on what would become Just Another Epic Love Poem.
Writing JAELP was an involved process and took much longer to develop from the initial concept to the finished manuscript. By the spring of 2021, Quressa and I were ready to go out on submission again. This time around, the submission process felt lightning-paced. Within a couple days it was clear we’d likely go to auction, and on day six, we had a pre-empt from Penguin. I still can’t believe how fortunate I am to work with my editor, Ellen Cormier, and the whole team at Penguin. The past three years of revising, copyediting, designing and publicising this book has demonstrated to me what a stellar team they are.
What’s next for you?
I’m excited to be embarking on a mini book tour! I’ll be in Seattle, WA at Third Place Books Ravenna on March 15th; in Eugene, OR at Ophelia’s Place on March 19th; in Bellingham, WA at the Bellingham Public Library on April 6th; and at the LA Times Festival of Books on April 20-21st, among other events. I also have the opportunity to be a Writer in Residence at Hedgebrook later this spring, where I’ll get the time and space to start writing my next intersectional YA novel!
Lastly, are there any releases that you’re looking forward to picking up this year?
There are so many! I’ll keep it to YA releases to make it easier on myself: I can’t wait for The Breakup Lists by Adib Khorram, The Summer Love Strategy by Ray Stoeve, and for a YA poetry pick, Black Girl You Are Atlas (which just released but I haven’t had a chance to read yet) by Renée Watson.
