you and meet all of you. We're gonna get started with our very fun fundraising game called Heads or tails. But before that, I just want to say that everybody who bought if I pin, thank you very much, you have helped us raise over $2,200. Yay. And I will tell one person, at least one person in this room before the end of the week, because Judy has heard from lots of people who need some help. So thank you for being there for each other. We appreciate it. Yep, okay. So hold on. So, I want to thank I want to thank my lovely assistant, Nancy, at publishing who, because of their generosity, all of that money will help will come back to me so thank you. Arcadia for for doing this. So just guess Thank you. Great. Okay, so what we're gonna do is we're gonna have everybody who has a pin, stand up. Yep, yep. Yep. I love it. Oh, look at all these people. Got to be very excited. Okay, so, I'm going to do a we're gonna do a quick practice round for those who don't know how this works. Um, so very easy game of chance. I'm going to say choose heads or tails. Okay, Nancy is gonna flip the coin. You guess right, you stay standing. You guys rock. You have to sit down. Unless you have a second pin. You get an you get to stay in the game gate. We're gonna go on honesty here. So on our system works. Okay, so one practice round. Or Tails. Tails, tails stays up. Okay, everybody gets how it works. Okay. Okay, everybody up again. This is for the D. This is the real deal. This is for $500 in cash. Hey, all right. Let's guess heads or tails. Heads, heads. Sorry, Tails. Okay, let's do again. Guess heads or tails. Ready? Tails we lost a whole bunch. Okay, I'd like everybody to move into the center it makes it a little easier for me to see everybody so move in a little bit. And while you're moving guests heads or tails here we go. Here we go. All right, everybody got their guests. Go ahead, Nancy. What do we got here? Okay. Come on, in. Come on in. We like to be a community break bits get close. Okay, ready? Heads or tails? Heads. Whoa. All right. What do we got here? We've still got still have a lot of flashing pins too. So we've got a couple All right, let's go ahead or tails. Heads. Heads heads. All right. Ooh, we're down to 1234567 All right, heads or tails. Tails Oh, all right, it right in here. Are you done? All right, here we go. Heads or Tails heads all right. Okay, three's it. Y'all want to get real Okay, heads or tails
tails still gonna have three cuz she had two chances. So okay, my number three come close together just just for photo for photo. Okay, heads or tails. Oh, Tails. Paid redounded to drummer. Oh, we need a little drum roll here. Back to back please. Back to back.
All right, let's get right to
the final round. Heads or tails you got to choose. One of you has to change. The drum roll. One of you has to change. Oh goodness. Okay, here we go. Tales yes we ever thank you everybody so much for this fun game we appreciate
I did not buy these buttons they were given to me in the agreement with the person who gave them to me with the money goes back to Big
Thank you that was so fun
have Nicole
come on in and sit down while they get a picture
Okay, so we're getting ready for the final keynote, which is going to be incredibly special. It's a great way to end Children's Institute and Pride Month. And so I would first like to bring up Kai Berner, who is also on children's Council and has been on the children's council for a long time. And Kai is from the bookworm of Edwards in Colorado. And Kai is going to be included
with the two guest.
Hello, everybody, can you hear me? All right. So as Joyce said, I'm Kai from the bottom of Edwards. Hello. And I have noticed because I block out when I talk in public, so I'm searching to be able to not really Mark I am so fortunate to be here with two amazing authors tonight to close out Children's Institute 2024. So thank you all so much for still being vertical. If you're coming here to talk, I think it's gonna be awesome. You absolutely incredible talents to deliver amazing books to us and all of our customers in the store. And these two new books of theirs are no exception. They both have this amazing ability to explore the deep wells of loss and sorrow that we all experienced. And the incredible bright shining moments of and the community that tells us that if we just kind of band together, we're all going to make it out somehow. Okay. So without further ado, I'd like to welcome Marco Sharon Rex Obul to the stage
maybe, maybe, maybe. Yes. No. Okay. Yay. Yay. All right. Bye. Wait to meet are you here? I saved her book anyway. These are sorry. Yeah. Are you kidding?
I'm gonna struggle with these. Okay. Okay. So I have a challenge for you guys to start off. Okay. Since this is a children's book, we are surrounded by wonderful children's. I'm gonna give you what I would call a bookseller challenge. Okay, which is you have a child standing in front of you, when a store who you think your book is perfect for. They will love it. They'll get so much out of it. This is the book for this child. They have about a 15 second attention span. So I want to pitch your book and explain what it's about to our audience and 15 seconds or less. It's an honor system. I'm not going to time you who's first. Do you want to go first? Who wants to go first volunteer want to go first? Okay, read some volunteer volunteering you Hi. Wait, wait wait started.
rode home is a true story about my dad kicking me out for being gay and the three months that I was homeless afterwards. It is a different story and by it
alright, Mark Europe.
I've a follow up question. Yes. What's the shaking the book of the child the child
Yeah, okay. generally frowned upon but we'll allow it in this okay?
It's fine. No Child Left Behind. Okay? Don't let me speak on public. Okay. All right, I got this. It's gay Ghostbusters. Perfect. I mean, we all know that with being able to like, you know when you need to just say like a WORD to activate the sleeper. Yeah. It's gay Ghostbusters.
Okay, so I want to start really super broad. And I'm gonna start with Mark because Rex our first question. Jasmine is haunted is really unique that it is like a haunted ghost story. It's grounded in a lot of like, real feelings and real struggles. So I wanted to ask you what inspired you to write Jasmine as haunted? Oh,
wow. Well, this is an incredibly grounded in real moment in a school visit. So if you're not familiar, Jasmine is haunted is my next middle grade book, it's about a 13 year old girl whose hand goes following her, she's had to move every single apartment because this annoying ghost will not leave her alone. She's very resentful though because it is clearly not the spirit of her father who passed away. It's just an annoying person. And so grounded is that she is just used to it. It is not the beginning event. I mean, it does frighten her sometimes. But it's not the frightening event we associate with ghosts. It is just an annoying part of her life that makes it so that she can't make friends. And so I had I was at school visits, all virtual, came out each of us a desert. And you know how kit, kids are very nosy. And I learned this that if you put something on Instagram, they will scroll to your first post and read every single thing on it. So these kids decided to research me. And so one of the kids is like, Oh, you tell us about your boyfriend told far back enough that they had gotten to the post about my boyfriend who had passed away. And I had to hit me like it was like a truck. I don't know what to do. I froze up. And then I started crying. And I was like, you know, he passed away last year. So I don't know if you know, I just didn't know what to do. And so then we just ended up having the summer because each of us a desert is about
this book. But at
the end of this visit, this kid said something that stuck with me and literally inspired this book. They just were like, Why don't we talk about this stuff. So all these kids have lost parents loved ones friends family with so much depth around and no one was talking about it. And so it was it was a very emotionally draining school visit. But at the end of it, I was like, why don't we talk about this. And I had written little bits and pieces of what would become insiders, the only live once David problem, there's little bits of grief in there. But this idea of like I want to address it head on, this girl has to think about it every day, because a dead spirit is in her life every single day. It's that feeling of you've lost someone know, to be talking about it, and you can't stop thinking about it. So there's that disparity of what is happening in your head versus what is happening in the real world. So this was my chance to do that through comedy to use middle grade voice and fiction to be like, oh, I want to be grounded and not feel
slick. Doesn't feel real. Fantastic.
Can just like throw it throw that like a flip. I
don't do that coordinated. So we're gonna do a pass. That was
Thank you, whoever bought these. And then Rex,
I know that Road Home is a very, very long time coming. It's kind of the close, if you will on a trilogy slash set of four books, however you want to package it. What gave you the drive to finally sit down and write it?
Um, okay, so I'll try to be fast, but not too fast. Um, I, you know, come from a trailer park in Texas like childhood, domestic violence, poverty, all that fun stuff. And I always wanted to be a writer. So when I got older, I was like, how do I make this work? You know, and I wrote fantasy and fiction and horror and lots of rejections publishing. And then eventually, actually, I watched the first episode of Ryan Murphy's pose. If y'all haven't seen it, watch it. I started bawling. And it was at the end of this, my husband can attest and I just started crying and I felt this visceral visceral reaction after being homeless that's never wanted to talk about and never wonder to redesign number one and think about it but I watched pose there's a 17 year old boy, he's black. His parents can for being gay, he just wants to be a dancer. And I'm like, it just touched me. And I wrote, like an essay was, you know, just okay. This is what happened. Very short amount of space. And then the next day, I was chatting on social media and talk to a friend of a friend named Noah who works at the Huffington Post. And he was like, what, what were you talking about? Okay, yeah, you can read this. And he's like, can I publish this? I was like, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's do that. And then Simon mountain, who is the publisher at Norton for young readers, read the essay. mentioned, it's wild. Anyway, so he caught she gives him my phone number, he calls me. Will you write this as a book? And I said, No, absolutely not. That's a horrible idea. But I wrote a book five years ago called free lunch about growing up in poverty, domestic violence in sixth grade. And he's like, why isn't it published and was like, everyone rejected it. Like my agenda job. No one wanted it said it's too dark and too heavy for kids, which I disagree with. But he was read enough to publish it. And then he's like, What else you got? And I was like, he's like, rode home now. And I was like, nope. So I tricked him into letting me do two other books. We got to road. I don't remember the question. What,
what finally gave you the drive to just lay down. So
now y'all know the backstory, free lunch came out. I did all the school visits, and kids would DM me on instagram, twitter, facebook, and be like, You came to my school, I didn't have the courage to say it's amazing. I'm living with poverty. I'm living with domestic violence. I'm a queer kid. Your book makes me feel seen. And as an author, I never thought that I mean, before I was an author, I was not I've always been. I, I didn't realize that books have that impact. I knew for me, they were an escape. But I never read memoirs growing up. So for me to have these kids comments. Blew my mind. So when Simon kept pestering me, I was like, Okay, fantastic.
Okay, so I want to talk a little bit about format. And fiction versus nonfiction as an effect for telling really difficult stories.
I just want to your face. Thank
you. So I know that Rex you write under two names. One is a graphic novel.
Yes. Series. Yes.
And then you have written several nonfiction as we just established. Or you tend to stick to fiction. So all of us as readers, and booksellers know that the lines between fiction and nonfiction can get a little blurry.
And so I wanted to kind of talk about like Rex, how much do you think that like, what do you think that? That fiction doesn't and kind of vice versa.
Fiction for me is an escape. I love writing fiction escaping into a world I have, like a fantasy that one day I will publish. And it's sci fi because I love sci fi. 30 page story bible so that I know how the physics works. I know the characters and the aliens, the mutants, the lizards, the earth. So fiction is an escape. It's fun, it's pure. I said I didn't want to write stories about my childhood, or about myself. Shamed as a kid, I was ashamed as an adult. But I will say like, everyone was like, did you get closure from writing, it was like no. Therapy, I still am running antidepressants. I'm still like crying all the time, panic attacks, etc, etc. And writing it made it worse. While I was writing it afterwards, like it's done. And then at Agenda excetera punching bag, same room hardest. But when I finished it, and I got the book in my hand, this huge weight was lifted off of me. And I was like, Oh, my God, all that stuff happened 25 years ago. It's done. I survived. I don't know how. But I survived. And now I've trapped it in the book. But now I get to engage young readers who are
dying or
kids who aren't going through the same thing at all, but they read it. Like, one of the last things I say is like you don't have to give it a pass a youth on the street. Just smile at them, acknowledge them. Because I was invisible. And I think being invisible is something that everyone can relate to.
And Mark is gonna touch on this a little bit in the first question, but he's like you draw on like your real life and your real experiences for your books.
So we were told breakfast yesterday. I almost it's just a weird sort of coincidence as well, but I know I know. I am here promoting Desmond's haunted. But if any of you have read into the light,
it's the fictionalized
book. And when I compare timelines, what happened to me which, which is what happened to you was they were three or four years apart. Yeah. So at the same thing, I was also homeless teenager, also was rejected by my parents. Same thing of like, you have a choice to make, make your choice, I was homeless in high school, many of the things in your book I've never read in another book didn't vote for us. And so this is really weird experience, because I chose to write about myself through fiction. So I fictionalized it, part of it was the same thing. I'm never gonna write about this, I can't write about this. I can't write about how dark that was no history, this sort of thing. And then when I got the courage to do it, it was a little distance and into light as a speculative, speculative element to it. That being said, all the scary stuff is like 100%. Real. So that book is hard to talk about, because there's almost no difference between reality and fiction in that and when they read that book, and they have lots of very specific questions. They're like, I can tell reading this. Because it's just too detailed. It's too it's too rich. So it's weird. And the extra weird experience of, you know, the particular sort of focus in my
life. And then certainly.
And as an adopted kid, told your whole life, how lucky you are because your parents chose you. Because when your parents who chose you, and you have this extra layer of hurt, because then people I still deal with anytime I tell people, they're adopted, like, Oh, you're so lucky. And I might sit in there like, well, now I have to disclose this horrible thing to you even be able to engage, which I'm not going to do. But on top of that, it was this experience, where I wrote this book
still had the same
finished up, it's in a book now, I don't have this thing I've been avoiding. I sometimes don't talk about in school visits, like it's in a book. It's done. It's like trapped. It's wonderful. And then a week before the book came out, my mom died. And then of all the questions, when people want kids to be the Booker's, what does your mom think? How does she treat you? And I'm like, why don't know what she thinks? Because he's Did you ever tell a joke, and you're like, is this a safe space? I don't know what?
That was a really dark. Public Mark, what are you doing? It but it, and I'm interested to hear about this. And you too, is is the interactions I've had, like, Oh, I
didn't, I've never had space to talk about when you'd have a parent who doesn't love you. Because we are not primed for that as a society like, and that's the thing of like, I've lived my I know, fully 100% with full confidence. My mom doesn't never love me at all. And you we were not built for a society like that.
You were not built to handle that. So I'm glad question,
I don't think I would have done it as a memoir, because I and I am reading yours I might have could have done what you did, either. Because I think my thought of why I went to fiction is that he was too dark. I needed to have something in some fictional element, or Oh, it's just been a slog to get through that. Bad but yeah, I mean, even with jasmine, my father passed away, so the grief of my father is in there. But it's also the people to COVID. And that feeling of why aren't we talking about this? We just moved on with no national grief at all. Oh, we did not reckon with it for one second. And that's all the kids want to talk about is that was that and then the kids always been like, can you write darker like they like when I like I'm tired of the happy positive stuff like I need an outlet for the negativity where I'm why I'm tending to veer towards fiction rather.
It's but we have the dark
face face to face.
You know, I think like, like naming the bad things is so powerful. And I think that as a society, we're so into this culture of positivity of like, as long as you pretend that everything's fine, everything will eventually be fine. And then you don't need to talk about it and no one needs to hear about it and you won't bring down the virus. But I think that there's so much power in giving a name to bad feelings. And so I think you both kind of answered my question already. We'd be overachievers. But I think that like why do you think that there? Are there any additional reasons that you think there's such power? In specifically telling stories about queer kids going through difficult times, because I feel like trans kids are so under attack right now. Yeah. And so a lot of parents of people that come into our stores are like, well, they're having a hard time. So I just want them to read something positive on them read something fun, which has a place and a really important place. But why do you think that there is such that like therapy, or in reading about people like you going through struggle?
You You said it was,
I think talking about the negative things, and even dwelling on them for a moment, is a reminder that we survived them. And to me, that's way more hopeful than telling someone like it gets better. And it just it doesn't. There's an and this is what I'm learning now is the in therapy for complex beauty is that I've spent my whole life never being validated by anyone around. I was told to just do the positive thing, think positively challenge your thoughts. The negative thought doesn't matter. The negative thought isn't, you know, it's not real. That's not what reality is. But no, for kids like us, that actually was our child. And that really happened. And I spent my whole life denying that it happened. And that does the joy or any of this thing. So for me, that's why I'm always even in the middle grade, there's dark stuff and all my middle grade books. And it's there because in acknowledging it, that to me is what gives hope. And I just like I tell myself that every day like I when I think about being a homeless teenager, I had moments where I'm like, No, I should be dead, right? Like, I don't understand how I survived though. And I think we both actually know how we survived that some very bad coping structures, but also their resilience that I'm very proud of. And I love writing about resilience for kids of, of you. I don't like using this WORD all the time. But like if you feel broken at the end of the day, but you still have that. And so that's why that's why I choose to write more on the darker side.
So usually, I have a picture of my dog on my phone, because he's super cute. His name is Toby. But I have this other screen. Because sometimes like you know that dream when you're naked in your life. Everyone can see my bits. So after I wrote these books, especially the first one, I was like, Oh God, what have I done? I'm like naked in the world. Like and it's It's horrible to a bear yourself like that. So I put this on my phone and selling children in this country living in poverty. It is estimated that 3.5% experienced domestic violence, and 4.2 million do not have homes. And 40% of those
are 1.5. LGBT. One.
Why is this not talked about? Why is this not in school? Why is this not on the news more often? We wrote books because for me, I think I mean, the pain of being invisible pain of your parents rejecting society is I mean, I was homeless here in New Orleans. So coming back here has not been the funnest experience dollars super fun. But walking around first night going to the Garden District today, in my shower crying for its why are people not talking about this? Why do we not see this in society? And the funny thing is, I've wrote and written and the kids who are poor.
Green ones probably are not.
And I'm making a lot of assumptions, but homeless kids, I mean, where they didn't get books. Yeah. So I think these books are important. I think they need to bring awareness. And I think at the end of the day, it's good to have these difficult conversations because parents don't want to talk about sex. They don't want to talk about queer kids. They don't want to talk about it. They do not want to have conversations about this stuff. So we are starting conversations that hopefully let kids know Hey, you can talk about this if not with your peers but with a service that when 100 their resources now that I didn't have as a kid. There's hotlines, there's places there's already forgot the question. field.
So I think we're here ultimately to talk about power of community. Right? So this I think community concept in general is very powerful. And as I'm reading both of your books, I kind of was tracking these threads that both your stories definitely have an element of isolation from an eventual rest skewed by community, whether it's your abuela or an entire neighborhood. So can you both speak to the ways in which you see community playing a role in your stores?
Why? I mean, one, I think, grief is deeply, it's always isolating, even when you have a community, and part of their stigma of their shame. I tend to like writing about grief that has been around for years. Because I think immediate grief. At least for me, creatively, easier to write about because it just happened. But, you know, my first book, anger is a gift. Was it part of someone who, you know, like, you're meeting new people, and I was trying to make a new friend and someone asked, like, oh, what's your family? Like, you know, and I was, like, estranged from my mom. And my dad passed away. And I teared up, because I'm, I wear my emotions on my sleeve. And someone at the table who I am not friends with anymore, said, Why are you crying? Shouldn't you be over by now? Like, you'll be over my fifth No, that violence I've never had any? Well, that's not true. Okay. Anyway. But it just was very striking of like, this is how we deal with grief in this country is, was you should just be over it, like, be sad for like a week, and then you're fine. At
some point, it gets like inconvenient. Yeah,
and so a lot of my grief. And so in, particularly in this book, to run a lot as a kid, and then being someone who was homeless for a while, it was so easy to meet his daughter who doesn't have stability. And that feeling of like, I don't ever get just sit in my home, it takes until Slifer Euler the end of the book for the mom to hang something on the wall. Why would you ever put anything up and like commit to putting something on the wall? And so I wanted to write this, you know, this young girl who is related not only from her mom, but because she's always moving, she never gets to really true. Why would you even bother. And then exploring that because also, it was fun. I love writing adult characters in middle grade. It's like one of my favorite. So writing a mom who is also grieving and maybe messing up being a mom, because her husband is dead like and how to deal with that and have a job or whatnot. And so I love doing that. And then I also we chaotic community. And the two characters you mean in this band, Jorge, are just a hot mess. There's
so phenomenal. There's so I love them. They're messy.
They don't know what they're doing, because they're both 13. And, and like it was also, by the way, very important for me to write upper middle grade, because we forget about eighth graders all the time. They're thinking, how, what does community look like now? How is it going to change? What are taking and so, you know, at the heart, I tend to write about isolation. And then I tend to write about queries, and what that looks like. And so I just love that chance of getting to rate these kids who don't quite understand each other at first, but we have this shared language and the shared experience and what a beautiful thing when we get to be friends because of that.
Awesome. He's awesome.
So
I mean, I have to learn most. I was born in Abilene, Texas, my dad was an Air Force. So we immediately moved to Guam. No family. You know, I grew up with my two parents who are mentally and physically came back to Texas moved around a lot parents divorced. Then run fourth. We kept getting evicted. left in the car. The government subsidized like there was a lot of movements and just restart you don't have a community to make friends. Then when you hit your awkward phase for me it was 12 Woof woof I have a book from Scholastic called pizza face so obviously I was very awkward I'm friends but at home it was awful at school. I had like five people that I wasn't out to because I was like, I don't want any of them rejected me one was super Christian. I want to lose her as a friend so I just won't bring it up. In then the homeless which I'll be waiting and my abuela got me off the streets. immediately got me back into college. And then I was at the University of Texas in Austin. She was in Abilene, so three and a half hours away driving. I was in the new plus
period with my brother. That's a whole other story. I had no friends, no family, Austin, Texas. Everyone was having that dorm Mix. Aryans were there like meeting friends and joining sororities and fraternities. And I was like, That sounds nice. I had three jobs. While I was putting myself through college and first Christmas, I got a flat tire and I could not drive to Abilene. So I got a corner shin and stovetop stuffing and I made myself a little Christmas dinner and cried for about 30 minutes and then watch TV and I watched witness because I don't have to answer to anyone. And then I discovered book people for people's in Austin, Texas. Any night I wasn't working Saturday mornings, included as a people, I did my job.
I that was me, I went to
get signed by Agustin burrows, Davidson Daris. And I kind of cruised the gay section because even though I had been kicked out for being gay, I was still having a hard time. I was still difficult. Because I, I didn't want to be gay. I, after all that I was like, Okay, well, like, yeah, you're gay. I don't wanna talk about it. But I looked for community, I looked for connection. And I found it in that silly little gay section. And there was little it said, LGBTQ at the top. Now it didn't. This was in 1997. We have had that yet. Gay Lesbian section I should do. Anyways, but yeah. And my first two friends in Austin was called Travis, who was a cashier, but people and
who now works for pee
into each other last year, we were like, what? And so yeah, I'm happy to say that over the years, the coop, family found family, because I don't believe anymore, that family. She gets heart connections. I think it's bonding. A lot of y'all made me cry this week. So I don't appreciate that. But now we're like relatives, so you're stuck with me elevator? So yeah.
Amazing. So I think we have time for like one more question. So I want to go to a very relevant topic for all in this room, which is that books like yours and stories that every marginalized person experiences
are
hot right now. And bookstores in general, and the
brunt of that? Certainly,
unfortunately, sometimes physically. And so we can all access that experience from our side, literally, in this case, an author perspective, what? What do you want booksellers to know, from your side of the table? Or, you know, from your experience as authors undergoing some of these things, and writing stories like the ones that are under attack?
You go first, I'm not ready. I'm also not ready in, in part, because most of the time when I'm interacting with this is with educational priorities. And I think part of that isn't I'm very lucky to have the support of so many of all of you, who are extremely aggressive. And I love that I also understand why maybe that's not happening in the library educator space, because my put in the classroom is slightly different with a bookseller. It's also I find, because of the way capitalism works, it's much harder to go into a store and be like, you can't sell this thing. Because not saying it doesn't happen because it does happen. But there's a structure element to it, that makes it a little more challenging. I mean, what I what I would say is, first of all, just as history, I hope you people are recognizing what a cyclical thing this is because I remember the press in the 80s even though as a kid and like you know, no histrionics around music and how evil and satanic and all of it was, and the guy was a suit because I was a little heavy metal punk rock kid, you know, and I didn't turn out to be saying Mommy I did to beat me with like my nails and I'm like, I guess I'm thinking to them, but But remember, the multiple gay panic waves we've had over? You know? Is is recognizing not only that it's cyclical, but then that means that the cycle is gonna die down. And so I always it is one of the few things where I am aggressively hopeful I'm being foolish so that this is not going to last, it can't last forever. But also to remind booksellers, what are the ways you interact with your local community? In order to combat this? I love the booksellers who are coming to our publishers like here's a school with a GSA, I want you to go to this, like, what are the relationships that you have with these communities, particularly if you're in a place where they're being asked? How can you find because you know, my favorite way to deal with all this is is malicious compliance. And it's so much I think about this school in particular, in a state, I can't say, because I don't want to act like
none of these books can be. So they set up a book stand across the street with a big sign that says, Hey, kid. Incredible. I guess he says, they do that,
because the kids do actually want to read. And then of course, the second utility. I want to think about that, I think about also what the youth are doing in a, I did a school visit again, in the state of Montana, where I met these kids who their district had initiated one of the reporting procedures where you can report a book and you fill out a form, and then the book is then temporary.
And so the kids
and that school have since reported all of their textbooks. So
some of the books, it's like, this
triangle is way too sensual. I don't like how it made me take this up, they got the Bible take another library with. So if you think about that, it's like what are the creative ways that you can? Because to me, a lot of that stuff is actually very effective. Because what are you effective at these
because what people have these people are
used to annoy the hell out of them. So yeah, I think the biggest thing is that you aren't actually alone. You have educators, you have librarians, you have people who are counselors, you are not doing this alone. And when you have ways that you can support other people, that is how we're going to break through a lot of this stuff, and being creative and having a sense of humor about it, because it's otherwise just very dark and depressing to think about. But that's often what you know what I'm thinking about and the advice that I'm getting.
It's hard to follow. That's smart.
None of those were my ideas. By the way. Those are other brilliant people. But
yeah, maybe it's because I'm from Texas, where you're supposed to be polite. Like when you're driving down the road, you're like, that's just like, I don't know, common courtesy, like you're happy love each other, even if secretly you don't. And so I mean, my abuela was always like, kill them with kindness. And when I was a kid, I was like, I'll just kill them.
And I don't think I understood what that meant. Because I was filled with rage. I was filled with anger, I was filled with hate at my parents and society at the universe. Why would you just me. And so but as I got older, I started to understand and as I started to feel stronger, like, you know, you survived stuff badly. I mean, I felt broken and damaged and dark and awful. Most of my life, but I had these moments where I'm like, I'm a tough guy. Yeah, I'm a Leo. But one day, I was walking down the street in New York, and I was holding hands with a guy just met. He was cute. And a guy was like, fagot I was like, Wait, we're in New York, in the West Village. And it's 2008. And it was like, Okay, this is my city. And so it my boyfriend's like, like, just come my boyfriend. I just met. Sorry, yeah.
So you're my friend. And he was
like, come on. And I was like, No. And I walked over and I was like, What's going on, buddy? And I was like, what? And I was like, I am a faggot. And I guess you're not or you might be and whatever. But like, do you want to go grab coffee? And like, just talk about it? And use? Who? What? No. And also, no, I just really want to understand where you're coming from. And he did not want that. And I was like, an after that moment. I was like, I guess. So I was like, yeah, if someone's gonna call me a faggot, I'm gonna offer them by McCarthy. Give them a smile and be like, let's talk. Let's just have a conversation. And again, I think this goes back to so many people don't want to ask On the New York Daily podcast, I just discovered popout always read physical books, I can't do audio.
It was a podcast of success of sex therapist,
therapist, I'm trying to wrap this up and wrap this up. And it was a sex therapist who was an old woman from, and I think she spoke like 12 languages. And there was an article that an American woman wrote, titled, What I learned from singing with me.
Action is like, disgusting, you're horrible person, you're ruining marriages.
But the article was about how she would sleep with guys whose wives were dying of cancer and the permission. There was a man who loved his wife, but she'd had four children and was suffering from postpartum. And she was like, I don't
fare but he never told her about it.
But also, he was never gonna leave his wife, he loved her. These are difficult conversations to have, either with your wife, with friends, partners, whatever. The sex therapist said that in different cultures. There are different words in English in America is the most prudish Puritan language in the world. Because we don't want to have conversation. The end of the day, both conversations, banned books or conversations, what you'll do are and the people who come to your stores are probably willing participants, they're not going to call you a faggot if you're queer. And if they do, I mean, I know that urges them out. Offering coffee and the book. Fantastic.
Okay, so thank you both so much for talking to us today. Thank you
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. By the way, this was my first, you know, neato career. We didn't know we didn't know what to expect. But also I love that you in particular, like ask us and like we're the closing like it means a lot to us like so thank you very much. I really appreciate it.
Okay, last WORD. Yeah, almost like what we do,
do we just like keep hanging out. Okay, we're
I have Xanax in my pocket, because I was really worried. And for the last three days, you'll have shown me so much love. I've gotten a lot of hugs.
I didn't need it. So thank you.
Choice. planes do not exit yet. I just told you that was we can't thank you so much. Okay. Because most of you or many of you stayed in a WORD is going to be next year.
Which is what we're going to do. And you'll have reasons to be at your table. But first, I want it there supposed to be a slide about a new partnership, a BA house.
So that is being announced. And I just wanted you all to see. We need to all be active this year and get the vote out.
There. Thank you.
Yeah, good work. Alison and Ray have been working on that. So I really wanted to show you that. And now next year, June 12. To June 14, we will be on right and pass out the Presidents pass him out. You can pass him out now maybe the city center slots and you're getting on your tables and God
should I just
come to drag come to drag karaoke in Armstrong. See you there
