by Adib Khorram
Queer bookish joy. That brief seemed like an easy one at first. There’s lots of moments of queer bookish joy! I love joy! I love books! I’m queer! This was supposed to be easy!
But I forgot. The quarantimes make everything hard. There are days when I feel almost normal. When I can follow a routine that’s not too far removed from what life was like before. And then there are days when I can’t motivate myself to do anything. When I sit on the couch and play too much Animal Crossing (gotta get those bells!).
So, maybe this is harder than I thought. But just because joy is hard to find doesn’t mean it’s not out there. And one of the things that’s been bringing me joy lately is, ironically, something I’m not ready to talk about yet. It’s something I’ve been working on with my twin, Natalie C. Parker.
You may be asking, wait, really? Adib Khorram and Natalie C. Parker are twins?
The answer is, yes. Definitely. No further comment. Don’t worry about it.
So though I can’t talk about what we’re working on, I can talk about some of my most joyful moments in our twinship.
One of those moments is an afternoon we spent at a hotel bar in New Orleans after our flights home got delayed. We sat together talking about how much we both loved Star Trek and how awesome it would be if we could write young adult Star Trek novels. We talked about my excitement for Star Trek: Discovery, which was on hiatus between its first and second seasons at the time. Natalie hadn’t seen it yet, but when I told her there were on-screen, canonical queer characters, she was ecstatic.
To see queer characters in a property you love—what’s more joyful than that?
We didn’t just talk about Star Trek, though. We talked about growing up queer in parts of the US that haven’t always made that an easy thing to be. We talked about navigating publishing publishing as a queer author. At the time, my debut was still two months away, as was Natalie’s third novel, the extremely epic SEAFIRE. I shared my fears and worries; she shared her wisdom and advice and passion for making books for young readers where queer kids get to be the heroes. Get to experience joy. Get to exist.
Since then, I’ve gotten to connect with a more extensive network of queer authors. I’ve made friends that are lifelong. I’ve been lifted up and supported when life has let me down. I’ve given the best advice I can to queer authors who are coming up behind me—often the same advice given to me by Natalie or her wife, my twin-in-law Tessa Gratton. I’ve made brunch and invited Natalie and Tessa over to finally binge-watch Star Trek: Discovery! (And what a joy that was!)
Queer people build communities. They find families. And that holds true in the book world, too. So even when I’m having a bad day, even when the quarantimes seem endless, what brings me joy is this: we are connected. And we’re going to keep going.
And my twin is just a FaceTime away when I need to scream about Star Trek!
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ADIB KHORRAM is the author of DARIUS THE GREAT IS NOT OKAY, which earned the William C. Morris Debut Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Young Adult Literature, and a Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor, as well as a multitude of other honors and accolades. His next book, DARIUS THE GREAT DESERVES BETTER, will be released August 25, 2020, and his debut picture book, SEVEN SPECIAL SOMETHINGS: A NOWRUZ STORY will be released spring 2021. When he isn’t writing, you can find him fixing other people’s PowerPoints, learning to do a Lutz jump, practicing his handstands, or steeping a cup of oolong. He lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where people don’t usually talk about themselves in the third person.You can find him on Twitter (@adibkhorram), Instagram (@adibkhorram), or on the web at adibkhorram.com.
