Aaron H. Aceves, author of This Is Why They Hate Us (Spring 2022), interviews Kacen Callender, author of Felix Ever After.
Hi, Kacen! In the span of only two years or so, you’ve published two Middle Grade books, two Young Adult books, and a novel for adults. First of all, how are you so damn prolific!
Haha, thanks! Honestly I tend to work on multiple novels all at the same time, jumping from one WIP to the next, so I usually end up with about five projects within a quick succession. But, then, I have to retreat back into the writing cave to write five projects all at the same time again.
I see. Second question: I was wondering how the experience of writing differs depending on the age group of your intended readers.
The process changes from book to book, but my intention is the same for each age group: my writing requires hope, in the voice and plot, for my MG readers. The voice might be a little more jaded, but the plot will also always be hopeful for YA. My adult voice tends to be more jaded, and the plot could either end with hope or not. When I was a MG-age reader especially I needed stories that ended with hope, so that’s what I always deliver.
Something that happened to you that must have been hard to deal with was the Kirkus review of Felix Ever After. That whole situation was incredibly offensive, and I obviously don’t think there necessarily needs to be a realization tied into that traumatic experience, but was there anything you took away from that incident?
I think I realized how much more work the industry as a whole needs to do. I knew that Felix would face transphobia and bigotry from the average every-day reader, but it was a little more of a wake-up call that a professional trade reviewer would make such horrendous mistakes, and not take accountability by fixing those mistakes and apologizing. Even if publishing Felix feels like a win, there needs to be more of an awareness for the weak-spots in the industry. Kirkus specifically holds so much renown that no one wants to fight them, and still secretly hopes for that illusive starred review, even in the face of Kirkus continuing to harm marginalized authors. If all authors refused to send their work to Kirkus, I’m betting the reviewer would shift a lot of its problematic tactics very quickly.
I love a good debate about labels within the queer community. In Felix, you provide both sides of the argument well, but I particularly resonated with the feeling you described associated with finding a label that validates how you feel about a particular aspect of your identity. Can you talk about your personal view of labels and how you incorporated it into this book?
Yes! I agree with both sides of the argument, so I was able to put both of my opinions in there. In This Is Kind of an Epic Love Story, I explored a world that wouldn’t have any need for any labels, because the characters don’t have to deal with the problematic stuff we have to deal with on a daily basis—and for the most part, I do think that’s how I would be as well if I didn’t have to deal with transphobia, or people trying to invalidate me and my identity. There would be no need for me, personally, to say that I’m a demiboy—I would just exist, and fall in love, and be loved in turn. But that isn’t the world we live in, and people do try to invalidate my identity—so it feels good to know that my label fits so perfectly that it’s proof others have felt and do feel the same way. I wanted Felix to be in direct conversation with Epic Love Story in this way. Ezra says his views, which are the same as the views in Epic Love Story, and Leah and Felix respond.
You also delve into what I imagine were incredibly hard topics to talk about (class disadvantage, transphobia, body dysmorphia, among others), and I was wondering how you took care of yourself while confronting your trauma.
It was pretty difficult, but these are the same issues that I already face consistently, so acknowledging those realistic issues felt more healing than difficult, especially when I had the power of the last word in Felix. I always made sure to respond to the transphobia especially with words of validation and empowerment, from Felix or from others, for example. This in itself was the biggest form of self-care.
I was very pleased to see your use of two of my favorite tropes: “enemies to lovers” and “the fake relationship/catfish.” Can you talk about how it feels to reclaim these tropes for a group that hasn’t seen those tropes as often (if at all) like others have?
Haha, thanks—they’re two of my favorites also! Just like my answer to the last question, it feels incredibly empowering. I don’t think a lot of our white queer siblings realize that they’re erasing so many of our unseen experiences and stories when they make general, broad, sweeping statements like, “There’s too much queer rom-com,” or “It’s time to move on from coming out stories.” They have been able to see themselves so much more than queer and trans people of color. It feels amazing to tell the story that I wish I could see myself in, and I hope there are many more stories like Felix Ever After to come.
Born and raised in St. Thomas of the US Virgin Islands, Kacen Callender is the award-winning author of the middle-grade novels Hurricane Child and King and the Dragonflies, the young-adult novels This Is Kind of an Epic Love Story and Felix Ever After, and the adult novel Queen of the Conquered.
Kacen was previously an Associate Editor of Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, where they acquired and edited novels including Tyler Johnson Was Here by Jay Coles, the New York Times bestseller Internment by Samira Ahmed, and the Stonewall Honor award-winning novel Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World by Ashley Herring Blake.
They enjoy playing RPG video games in their free time.
Kacen currently resides in Philadelphia, PA.
Aaron H. Aceves is a Mexican-American writer born and raised in East L.A. He graduated in 2015 from Harvard, where he received the Le Baron Russell Briggs Award after being nominated by Jamaica Kincaid. His work has appeared in Germ Magazine, Raspa Magazine, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, and New Pop Lit. He currently lives in New York, where he is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at Columbia University, and is the author of This Is Why They Hate Us (coming in spring 2022 from Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers).
