Exclusive Interview with young adult fiction writer Robin Talley

Robin Talley writes Young Adult fiction and her first book Lies We Tell Ourselves is out now. The book explores issues such as race and sexuality and the story starts in 1950's Virginia. Robin spoke exclusively to rucomingout about her writing and her own coming out experience.

Lies We Tell Ourselves is your first novel and in it you tackle issues such as race and sexuality. Why did you decide to write about these themes in your debut book?
The idea for Lies We Tell Ourselves started with my parents. They both grew up in Virginia, and they were both in high school when their schools were integrated for the first time in the 1960s. One afternoon, they were telling me about their memories from that time, and I realized I wanted to write a young adult novel exploring what it might’ve been like for those first black students entering all-white schools, knowing the lengths the authorities had gone through to try to keep them out. At the same time, I wondered what it would’ve been like to be going through that ― and to be gay, too. Statistically, some of the black students who integrated those first waves of all-white schools were like gay, but being a gay teenager in 1959 meant being closeted to the extreme. I wondered how hard it would’ve been to keep a secret like that while also serving on the front lines of such a momentous time in history.

You write a lot of LGBT characters for a young adult audience. Why do you think it is important that young adult fiction has characters who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender?
I think it’s crucial for all art, but especially art created for young people, to reflect the world around us. Not a whitewashed or straightwashed or ciswashed version of that world. It’s vital that queer kids and teenagers see people like themselves in the books they read, the movies they watch, and the games they play ― and it’s equally vital that non-queer kids and teenagers see those characters too. That’s one of the most important ways we can show the next generation that queer people make up part of the landscape just like straight and cisgender people do. This way, we can move toward a world where “normal” means something bigger than it used to.

There seems to be a boom in young adult fiction including characters of different sexualities and gender identities. Do you think that mainstream adult fiction is falling behind and YA fiction is leading the way?
To be honest, I don’t read enough mainstream adult fiction to give a good answer to this one! Though I am, of course, delighted that we seem to be seeing an increase, especially this year, in the number of YA books coming out with LGBTQ characters from major publishers. But we can’t let ourselves get complacent. As Malinda Lo’s statistics consistently show, we’ve still got a long way to go on writing and publishing enough YA books with queer characters to represent the actual population. That goes for diversity across the board, too ― we need to see more characters of color, more characters who are disabled, more characters who aren’t Christian, characters who aren’t native English speakers, etc.

Could you tell us a bit about your own coming out story?
Like most LGBTQ folks, coming out has been a multi-year process for me. First I told a few friends, then a few more friends, then a few more. Then my family. Then more friends. Co-workers. Annoying guys in bars. Strangers sitting next to me on airplanes. I recently got married, so coming out is now as easy as mentioning my wife casually in conversation. It was harder when I was single and had to come up with creative ways to say “I’m gay” that didn’t bring a conversation to a sudden awkward halt. So I’m probably more out now than I was a few years ago for that reason. If my new co-worker is talking about her fantastic hairstylist and I say, “What’s his name? My wife’s looking for a new hairstylist,” the conversation goes on without skipping a beat. But I’ve just come out, and now my co-worker is aware there’s another gay person in her world.

Tell us about your next book Unbreakable.
First of all, I should mention that the title might change. But what I can definitively say is that my next book will be out in fall 2015 and that it stars Toni, who’s 18 years old and genderqueer, and Gretchen, who’s also 18 and who identifies as a lesbian. Toni and Gretchen met in high school and quickly fell in love. Now, after two years of everyone treating them like an old married couple, they’re off for their first year at university, where they’ll be separated for the first time. They’re confident nothing could get in the way of their incredibly strong bond. The distance is harder than they expect, though ― especially when Toni’s gender identity starts to play a bigger role in both their lives than they ever expected.  

Do you have any advice for anyone who would like to be a YA fiction writer? 
Make friends with other writers! There are a ton of folks out there working on YA novels. Get to know people who are at the same point in the process as you ― the beginners, the NaNoWriMo-ers, the agent-queriers, wherever you are. Form a posse, whether online or off. That’s the one thing I wish I’d done differently when I was new to this game. 


When I finally did make some writer friends, it changed everything for me, because I could talk to someone who finally understood what I was saying, which is vital for mental health. Plus, writer friends make excellent beta readers, which are also essential when you’re starting out.

Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley is out now in paperback (£7.99, Mira Ink).
Follow Robin Talley on Twitter @Robin_Talley
Visit Robin's website www.robintalley.com
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