11 Authors Discuss Dress Codes, Bullies, and More in June’s YA Open Mic

YA Open Mic is a monthly series in which YA authors share personal stories on topics of their choice. The aim of the series is to peel away the formality of bios and offer authors a platform to talk about something readers won’t necessarily find on their websites.
This month, eleven authors discuss everything from dress codes to bullies. All have YA books that either release this month or released in recent months. Check out previous YA Open Mic posts here.

Aminah Mae Safi, author of Not the Girls You’re Looking For

I was named to pass between worlds. It’s something my main character Lulu and I have in common.
Ila Mae was my mother’s mother—a German Texas farm girl born between the two world wars. Her first language was German, though she was quickly taught to forget it. She was tall, had blond hair and blue eyes, and never met a stranger.
Aminah was my father’s mother. She was the daughter of a local tribal malik, or king—a fact she never let my grandfather forget. She had tattoos on her face and her wrists, didn’t reach five feet, and wore a hijab. She was, to date, one of the most fearsome people I have ever known.
My parents told me they named me after my grandmothers because they were tough, independent-minded women. But they had also named me so that there was nowhere on planet Earth that couldn’t understand some piece of my name. It was one of the ideas I thought about as I wrote my first drafts of Not The Girls You’re Looking For—how does Lulu’s name change the way she moves through the world? Why was she given her name in the first place?
It was an ambitious goal.
It wasn’t always easy, these two names of mine. They have been mangled and mispronounced. They have been misspelled and misplaced (there was a notable time when Mae became my last name, only it was spelled Maye. I don’t know either). Aminah, for sure, has gotten me pulled aside for more airport security screenings than I need to count.
I was named to pass between worlds, and sometimes, that can be a frustrating experience. One that means I fit in nowhere and belong to no one. But it gave me the sense that the world was my home and that I would always belong to myself.

Zoraida Córdova, author of Bruja Born

One of the constant writer refrains is, “the second book is always the hardest.” This is absolutely true. But then I wrote the third book. And the fourth. And so on. I thought that when I got to the eighth book it would somehow, magically, be different. It wasn’t.
Bruja Born is, after all, a second book. It’s the second book in the Brooklyn Brujas series and follows the eldest of the Mortiz sisters. Writing this book is as close as I’ll ever get to walking across a tightrope without a safety net.
This past year has been a series of first. The first time I understood the crushing weight of anxiety. The first time I acknowledged my own depression. The first time I let myself think that all of my creativity had been wrung out, squeezed for some breakfast juice that no one wants to drink because it’s too pulpy. Raise your hands if you like pulp?
I had many coping mechanisms, some of them healthy. Culturally, Latinx people do not talk about things like anxiety and depression. You light candles and talk to saints and are reminded that your mom and grandma and great-grandma had it worse. It’s toxic and harmful, but the thing I could do was give that voice to my character, Lula Mortiz.
I realized what was missing, and it was so obvious, so simple, that I felt ashamed that I didn’t realize it sooner. Lula is depressed, anxious, and hurting. It’s a hurt I didn’t let her voice for many drafts because, of course, why would she voice it? I dug deep into the toxic cultural aspects of Latinx communities and mental health issues. Why are these things held close to the vest? Why couldn’t I let her deal?
Lula and I are better for dealing.

Mark Oshiro, author of Anger Is A Gift

Before I started the Mark Does Stuff universe, before I began writing Anger Is A Gift, music was my first true love and career. I used to work in music journalism! Music is so ingrained into my life at this point that I find it difficult to write or revise without music in the background. I was lucky enough to grow up in a household drenched in music: old soul and R&B, Motown, classic rock, pop. When I was still a kid, my older sister noticed when I would sneak close to her room, to peek at the posters of metal bands or the gig fliers tacked to the walls. It is because of her that I came to fall in love with many formative bands of my youth: Depeche Mode. Nine Inch Nails. Bad Religion. Black Flag. Iron Maiden. Metallica. Siouxsie and the Banshees. Bikini Kill. I fell into the worlds of heavy and hard music, which wasn’t always easy for me. I grew up in a religious, conservative household. My mother once threw away a bunch of thrash and hardcore records because she found them and was convinced they had corrupted me. They had, just not in the way she thought they did. More so than books, films, or any other form of art, music helped me feel seen. Understood. Loved. The bands I listened to changed how I thought about the world and how I thought about myself. I promise you that one day, I’ll write about this. Music can have such a pivotal impact on teens, and it certainly did on me. I was a teenage punk rocker/metalhead, and I don’t plan on giving it up anytime soon.

Rebecca Roanhorse, author of Trail of Lightning

I was seven the first time I remember being called a racial slur. My mom had sent me to get something in the grocery store, and there I was, on my own. Feeling confident, grown up, trusted enough to do this important job solo.
As I entered the cereal aisle, I spied two boys about my age, maybe a little older, walking my way. One white, one Asian. Potentially cute. My stride got a little more confident, my cool a little more…cool. I was ready to walk past these boys with my chin up as the beautiful girl I thought I was. I even had a smile at the ready should they look my way.
But they didn’t look my way, at least not in the way I had hoped. The white boy, the bigger of the two, knocked shoulders with me and muttered the slur under his breath as they passed. I was devastated. Not only physically shoved, but metaphorically shoved violently back into “my place.” But mostly I was confused. What had I done to deserve that from a stranger who had never even laid eyes on me before we passed in front of the Frosted Flakes? Why had he felt the need to hurt me?
The good news is that I’m a grown woman now, and no amount of racist name calling is going to send me into a self-esteem spiral the way it did when I was in first grade. The bad news is there are still racists and others who feel the need to lash out and try to hurt people for no other reason than they can. This is particularly true online, but becoming more common IRL, too. These people are bold, but let it be known that they are also trash. So keep your head up and stay confident in who you are, and don’t let anyone take your cool away.

Ellen Oh, editor of A Thousand Beginnings and Endings

I hate bullies. I hate bystanders even more.
I moved in the middle of seventh grade and the junior high school I transferred into had a special program that skipped the eighth grade. There were only ten students in that program, six of whom formed what was essentially a mean girl posse. They were five white girls and one Chinese American girl who might as well have been white as she said nothing when racist remarks were hurled at me. I remember staring straight at her in disbelief as her “friends” called me chink and slanty-eyed and said I smelled of soy sauce and cat. And she laughed with them. Laughed as if she was somehow magically not Asian. As if she was immune from the racism they unleashed on me because she was their token Asian friend. And I despised her more than the other girls. Because she was a race traitor. And despite the fact that I can understand the reasons why she might have done what she did, I can’t find it in my heart to forgive her. I don’t want to. Because those girls made every single day of my seventh grade experience miserable. Decades later, I can still remember their names and faces when usually I can’t even remember what I ate for breakfast on any given day. As with any mean girl posse, only one or two of them were real bullies, the rest were followers. They were the girls who were nice to you one on one, but sneered at you when with the others. I despised them more. Because they enabled the bullies. They helped create the bullies. They gave the bullies power.
The lesson I learned from this experience was how important it is to stand up to bullies. To speak up when someone does wrong. To not be a bystander. And even though I understand all the reasons why people don’t get involved, to me they are all just excuses. For me, being a good person means calling out behavior that is wrong, especially if it’s a friend. Because if you don’t, then you are no better than the bully.

Jenny Torres Sanchez, author of The Fall of Innocence

In fourth grade, I wore the most amazing T-shirt to school. It was black and oversized and had a cool-looking bunny outlined in the electric teal blue that ruled supreme in the eighties. I strutted through the halls and into my classroom and felt on top of the world.
That shirt also happened to be a Playboy logo T-shirt, one of a few my dad was given from an opened package of merchandise he hauled as a trucker.
So yeah, that happened.
But here’s what didn’t happen: ridicule.
I had no idea what Playboy was. I’m sure my teacher did but she didn’t give me a disgusted look upon seeing me, or tell me to turn my shirt inside out. She didn’t send me to the lost and found to find another, or to the principal’s office to be shamed and lectured on how boys couldn’t learn because of the neon sex symbol on my shirt. My parents weren’t summoned so they, too, could be shamed. Nor did they have to explain how to them—two immigrants from countries where they’d been surrounded by poverty daily—a clean shirt was a clean shirt. And to me, their nine-year-old daughter, a bunny was just a freakin’ bunny.
When I hear stories now of how girls are policed in school for what they wear, my blood boils. They are sized up to determine whether their leggings are too revealing, whether she is or isn’t wearing a bra. This is done by school personnel we ask girls to trust. It is beyond disturbing. As is the message it repeatedly sends to girls—You are inappropriate. You should be ashamed. You should apologize. You need to change.
I say, NO. You are NOT. You should NOT. You do NOT. Please hear that loud and clear. You are not the problem. Your clothes and your body are not the problem. You are so much more than your clothes and body. The problem is the person who only sees a girl as a body to be objectified, policed, and criticized.
So you go wear what you want. Strut through the halls and into your classrooms and feel on top of the world. It’s okay. And don’t let anyone tell you it’s not.
You don’t need to change.
They do.

Michelle Falkoff, author of Questions I Want To Ask You

My friend was staying at my house while I was out of town, looking for a snack, when she discovered the nut butter shelf. She’d expect to find peanut butter, sure, but five different kinds? And then there were the two almond butters, the cashew butter, the sunflower seed butter…what did it all mean? She called another friend to check. “Is Michelle okay?”
“She’s probably trying another thing,” the friend answered. “Whole 30, maybe.”
For some reason it was hearing about this conversation that made it all kick in for me. The years and years of trying to address what I’d always called “the weight problem,” since no one seemed to like to hear me use the word “fat.” All the things I’d tried—nutritionists, Weight Watchers, Paleo, juice cleanses, running, weight lifting—which apparently my friends had noticed. Everything worked a little bit until it didn’t, depending on how you defined “worked.” None of it led to happiness, though.
I wish I was about to say I’d figured out what does lead to happiness, but I’ve learned that when it comes to self-acceptance, we all have hard and different paths. I search for options in the same place I look for everything else: in books. I read books about eating disorders and recognize some of my teenaged thinking; I read books about kids who accept their bodies as they are, in all their various and beautiful forms, and dream of a day when I can get there myself.
In the meantime, I write. I write about characters who share the struggle, who take lots of approaches that might not be right for them or for anyone else but who are able to learn about themselves as they go. They may not find easy answers, but I haven’t either, and I like to think if we show all sorts of characters with all sorts of mindsets, we’ll all feel less alone.

Sheba Karim, author of Mariam Sharma Hits the Road

I grew up in the Catskills and commuted to Albany every day for high school, up and down the Thruway, first in a school bus, later in a car.  I got my license at seventeen and it was beautiful, to not be dropped off and picked up like a parcel, to drive yourself to school. You could pick up a friend, and no one would know.  You and your friend could share secrets in the car and no one would hear. You could kiss someone in the back seat and hopefully no one would see.
But I was most grateful for the solitude, to play music I liked, chase cool songs on WEWX, an alternative radio music station from Vermont.  I could sing along, dance. I could grab a bagel if I wanted, stop at a store. As excited as I was to drive, I found upstate New York dull, and dreamed of living in a big city, with more diversity, more culture, more everything.  When I moved to Philly, I didn’t miss everyday driving. I loved walking, and the subway, sharing the momentum with all kinds of people. It was different kind of freedom, more accessible, more interesting, often more convenient.
But even as I become less inclined toward driving, the road trip remained a beloved beast, with its unique highs and lows and challenges.  For example, it’s a special test of a relationship. In the car, there is no escaping someone’s joke or fart or confession or musical taste.  I’d be curious to know if more friendships have been broken by the road or sealed by it. I’d like to think it’s the latter, and that’s the kind of road trip I write about in my latest novel Mariam Sharma Hits the Road, a journey that is ultimately an affirmation of the protagonists’ love for each other and the endless possibilities of the open road.

Kelly DeVos, author of Fat Girl on a Plane

“What’s your favorite book?”
When anyone asks me that question, I feel like my brain is going to explode.
I’m a lifelong reader and I’ve probably read thousands of books. How hard could it be to pick and name one? But for me, this has always seemed like a momentous and character-defining question. The answer is a tell. A giveaway. To name your favorite book is to make a revealing confession about the inner workings of your mind.
When I was in college, I desperately wanted to work at the Barnes & Noble around the corner from my house. I was a creative writing student. I loved books. I loved coffee. And B&N has an endless supply of both. I went in each week and pestered the manager. “Look! I’m here again. Wouldn’t it be great if I worked here?” I told him.
I filled out a job application once a month. After a while of this, I wore the manager down and he called me in for an interview. He began with what he thought was a softball question. “What’s your favorite book?”
I absolutely could not answer.
I sat there staring back at him blankly while my mind was in a state of complete and utter chaos. Should I reply with The Great Gatsby? Is that pretentious? Should I name something more current? Should I choose a bestseller? Should I mention something on display in the store?
I’m not sure if I ever answered the question. But I AM sure it will surprise no one that I did NOT get the job.
To this day, I love to talk books, But please, don’t ask me to name a favorite.

Shveta Thakrar, contributor to A Thousand Beginnings and Endings

For most of my life, I watched others, aching to belong. To be trusted and loved and wanted. To trust and love back.
I yearned for friends.
In fifth grade, twin sisters invited me over. When I got there, no one was home. Though I waited anxiously for half an hour, they never showed up.
In seventh grade, a girl accused me of spreading rumors about someone I’d never heard of. When I denied it, she sneered. The lie took on a life of its own until strangers taunted me in the halls.
It crushed my heart.
In high school, a popular girl threw something sticky in my hair and laughed. Another person handed out party invitations in my English class—to everyone but me.
That really stung.
For most of my life, I tried so hard, gave so much of myself. But people just claimed I was too weird, too needy, too brown, too ugly, too stupid.
I believed them.
So I tried to turn off my heart. I even dreamed of turning off my existence.
In a novel, this is the watershed moment where everything changes.
I never had that moment, but the older I got and the more I endured, the more my heart opened. It wouldn’t let me just check out.
Looking deep within, I asked myself what I believed. Slowly, beneath the self-loathing, I started to see my strength, my kindness, my magic.
To honor them, I had to stop chasing friendships. To heal, I had to work on loving and trusting myself first, even if it meant risking always being alone.
Choosing that path felt like scaling a steep mountain, and I fell down a lot. But years later, when I finally reached the top, I didn’t want to settle anymore.
And in time, I found my people.

Tiffany Jackson, author of Monday’s Not Coming

I met my best friend Tara at a YWCA Summer Camp before the start of second grade. It was easy being her friend. We were both only children with vivid imaginations and didn’t need much to keep ourselves entertained. There never seemed to be enough hours in the day for all the games, ghost stories, languages and mini-adventures we made up with one another. We had a thousand “Let’s pretend we are…” scenarios and could finish each other’s thoughts. She is truly the Monday to my Claudia in Monday’s Not Coming.
High school separated us. College separated us. Facebook brought us back together. But it felt like not a day had gone by. Even now, we can go weeks without speaking but as soon as we link up…to go salsa dancing in Cuba, beach bumming in Puerto Rico, or eating a steak in our old hood…we’re right back where we left off. I can still sense what she’s thinking without even uttering a word.
Often the title “friend” is tossed around without grounds or merit. And as you head into the next chapter of your life, whether it be graduating from the sixth grade, marriage, babies, or a new career, remember that the key ingredient of true friendship is not how often you talk or how many pictures you post with one another on Instagram. The key ingredient is genuine love, knowing with unwavering certainty that your hearts are forever tied and that no scissors the shape of time, distance, family drama, or cute boys can sever the connection. Those types of friendships are worth ten thousand of the fake ones.