#shadowhouse fall
¡Qué bonita bandera! AKA what heritage(s) do you claim?
Cubanooooo (and Jewish American on the other side)
When was the first time you saw yourself represented?
Sonia Manzano aka Maria from Sesame Street was the first and most important. And then not again until I was like in my twenties basically…there were some here and there of course but The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Waowas a landmark for Latinx nerds like me.
How do you connect to your heritage through your books (if at all)?
I write a lot about the sustaining power of ancestors—a reclamation of the ghost story, which white western culture has turned into such singularly horrible narrative, whereas so many of grew up with a much more loving and nuanced relationship to our dead. Also, I write Latinx characters in all my books. Why? Because we exist and we are amazing.
What do you hope for the future of Latinx books?
That it expresses the endlessly complex humanity that we are composed of, in all our glory, joyfulness, sorrow, messiness.
What is the book that inspired you to write for kids/teens?
The Harry Potter series inspired me, but also made me want to write a kind of counternarrative because as much as I loved it, so many of the same old white savior tropes are still present. All of Octavia Butler’s books, Oscar Wao, Nalo Hopkinson, Nnedi Okorafor…
What are your working on next?
An upcoming Middle-Grade sci-fi adventure, Flood City, about two boys named Max and Ato who team up to stop the destruction of the last urban outpost on a flooded Earth. Out from Scholastic in 2018.
Daniel José Older is the New York Times bestselling author of the Young Adult series the Shadowshaper Cypher (Scholastic), the Bone Street Rumba urban fantasy series (Penguin), and the upcoming Middle Grade sci-fi adventure Flood City (Scholastic). He won the International Latino Book Award and has been nominated for the Kirkus Prize, the Mythopoeic Award, the Locus Award, the Andre Norton Award, and yes, the World Fantasy Award. Shadowshaper was named one of Esquire’s 80 Books Every Person Should Read. You can find his thoughts on writing, read dispatches from his decade-long career as an NYC paramedic and hear his music at http://danieljoseolder.net/, on youtube and @djolder on twitter.
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