Publishing Pride In A Pandemic: A Discussion With Queer Authors Leah Johnson & Kristen Lepionka | GO Mag

Queer presence in news is frustrating on good day, but what happens when the guide release is happening, well, today? writers rely on revenue to continue informing stories, but when basic emergency takes precedence over reading, just how can queer writers get their information out to the planet?


Kristen Lepionka


writes mysteries and


Leah Johnson


pencils younger adult fiction, but both are right here, queer, and thrilled for their new publications. I inquired all of them about their newest jobs, Zoom events, and just why queer female stories tend to be more vital than ever before.

GO Magazine: Tell me a little bit about your self.

Kristen Lepionka:



I am composer of the


Roxane Weary mystery show


. I reside in Columbus, Ohio with Joanna, my spouse of very nearly years, and all of our two kitties. My personal guides tend to be occur Columbus, as well.  While I’m perhaps not writing, I’m most likely working as an independent visual designer, undertaking crossword puzzles, or preparing my after that tricky task.

Leah Johnson:



I say often that I’m an endless Midwesterner moonlighting as a New Yorker because i am going to never be able to move the small-ish city lady in myself. And I believe that appears plenty in my own authorship too. Actually, it really is almost my personal whole brand! I reveal black women from Indiana wanting to browse competition and sex while falling in deep love with by themselves and falling crazy — full end.

GO: Tell me about your guide.

KL:



“After You Get This Far”


[available for preorder July 8th] will be the last guide inside Roxane Weary detective agency mystery collection. Roxane is employed to look inside relatively accidental death of a middle-aged college nurse on a hiking walk. The investigation results in a missing troubled teen, a church with a troubling level of power over its members’ resides, a charismatic female tech entrepreneur who’s running for Congress, and someone that does indeednot need Roxane to get the parts collectively. In explaining the ebook to pals, We keep locating myself stating that it’s about religion, politics, also impolite celebration subjects.

LJ:



“you will want to See Me in a Crown,”


available these days every-where]


is actually a queer YA rom-com about a woman known as Liz Lighty whoever goal is to get away from her little (and small-minded) home town and choose college. But when their educational funding drops through, Liz needs to operate for prom king your possiblity to win the grant that is attached to the top. All that will be tough sufficient naturally, but Liz meets the brand new lady in town, exactly who in addition is actually her competitors for prom king, and has now to figure out how exactly to keep the woman newfound crush from destroying her try at winning the competition. Its heavy in the joy while the romance, but in addition the need for those relationships that change your existence additionally the ways that familial ties — both found household and blood — can hold you together once you feel like you’re slipping aside.

GO: Why do you determine to write stories about queer figures?

KL:



We determine as bi, and I should compose books about folks anything like me and like people I know. Discover not enough mystery/crime novels with well-drawn queer figures (a thing that is evolving, though not fast sufficient for my flavor!), so it is crucial in my experience to compose complex LGBTQ+ folks in my personal books. Great fiction should reflect reality, specifically crime novels, which have been written about social problems.

LJ:



I didn’t come out until my personal adulthood — I did not actually see the next by which becoming any such thing apart from right ended up being a choice — but i could merely envision exactly what authorization has been awarded for me and therefore a number of other kids whenever we’d viewed more varied representation on shelves. If guides indicate to us what is and certainly will be possible, subsequently we are in need of several stories available audience mirrors. I want the decorative mirrors my books offer to reflect the sum of exactly what challenging, beautiful, incredible, dirty physical lives of possibility every child is deserving of.

GO: your own book is releasing in the middle of a pandemic, whenever in-person activities are particularly restricted, or even more often, restricted completely. Preciselywhat are you undertaking to obtain the phrase out?

KL:



Though in-person occasions are extremely much up in the air now, i am appreciating carrying out plenty of Zoom activities. The vitality varies without a doubt but it’s an enjoyable strategy to have the ability to connect to people in a tremendously strange time. In addition co-host a podcast,


Unlikeable Female Characters


, in fact it is another way of attaining folks.

LJ:



I have been privileged because


the majority of the activities I was intending to perform


have not been terminated, simply relocated on the web. It has been astonishing to find out, though, that digital activities basically since tiring as an in-person event — if not more very! Just because I’m filming from my youth bed room with my Glee poster in history does not mean that I am not nevertheless trying to appear and take part in the same exact way. (the only real difference is actually I’m usually wearing pajama jeans.)

GO: would you believe queer books are especially crucial now?

KL:



Queer books will always vital! Now, things are hard across-the-board, and queer-identifying people are currently at a better risk of having loneliness, isolation, despair, etc. publications aren’t a secret cure in the slightest, but witnessing your self shown from the pages of a book you might be checking out will create individuals feel less alone. Although it is like the whole world has actually ceased during all of this, it hasn’t, and each story is actually a way to achieve some body.

LJ:



Even as we’re carrying this out interview, black people across the nation come in mourning. George Floyd. Tony McDade. Breonna Taylor. Ahmad Arbery. And numerous others. We are losing all of our siblings, still, how we’ve constantly missing black colored people within country: to racism, to sexism, to homophobia. All of that to state, the job of reminding black colored young children that they’re worthy of schedules without discomfort and violence never stops. The job of reminding black colored queer young ones that even yet in a nation that won’t protect all of them they are taken care of and seen never puts a stop to.

In my situation, as well as in these guides, battle and sexuality are inextricably connected. Whilst very long as both my blackness and my queerness is actually a hazard to the country, and people in opportunities of energy, we’ll keep getting these stories of black joy and triumph out to the world. It is all I’m sure tips carry out, you are aware? A little sum to unraveling programs which can be likely browsing take my personal whole lifetime to unravel. Black queer joy is actually a radical act, so these pages tend to be my movement.

To get more throughout the writers, follow


Kristen


and


Leah


on Instagram, and Leah on


Twitter


!