The Sun Is Also a Star Author Nicola Yoon Talks Shop with Adam Silvera

Adam Silvera: Nicola, as you’ll remember, we were writing our second books at the same time. There was a lot of texting back and forth along the lines of “OMG this is impossible!!!!” We no longer had the privacy to write that we’d had when we wrote our first books. In addition to having to write “The Next Book” while promoting our debuts, what were some of the particular challenges you faced while writing The Sun Is Also a Star?
Nicola Yoon: I do remember those texts! They really helped save me. It was so great knowing you were suffering along with me. Not that I was happy you were suffering! 🙂 Just that I wasn’t alone in suffering through the book two blues. I think the hardest thing is all the new voices you have in your head. Not just critical voices, but voices of praise as well. It took me a while to shut all of them out and write the book I wanted to write. I was also still working full-time for much of the writing of this book, so time management was an issue.
I’m so happy you’re writing full-time now! This will be amazing for my shelves. Whenever I speak to friends and readers about The Sun Is Also a Star, I always tell them the love story between Natasha and Daniel is beautiful and constellation-worthy. Natasha and Daniel are charming and continually push back against the universe that not only brought them together but also threatens to tear them apart. Since you and your husband are also a true OTP, is it safe to say you pulled a lot from the heart of your own relationship, or did something else inspire the love story of Natasha and Daniel?
You know me too well, Adam! Yeah, the story was definitely inspired by my relationship with my husband. Anyone who knows me for any length of time over three minutes knows I’m crazy about him. Not that the book is autobiographical. We didn’t meet and fall in love over the course of twelve hours in New York City while under threat of deportation. But the spirit of the book is close to our relationship. Natasha and Daniel are quite philosophical and really love talking about big ideas. They want to understand the world they live in; they want to know the meaning of life. Also, despite the fact that they’re from very different backgrounds, they have a lot more in common than they initially realize.
I often feel like we’re on the same wavelength with themes in our books, and when reading The Sun Is Also a Star, I felt this again because it reminded me of the structure of my third YA book, They Both Die at the End: two primary narrators with a series of interstitial characters whose own lives have either been affected by the central narrators or whose lives have had an impact on them. What drew you to include these outside points of view?
Great minds, Adam! The Sun Is Also a Star came from a couple of ideas. Have you ever heard of the Big History Project? It was started by an academic and educator named David Christian. The idea is that subjects shouldn’t be taught in isolation, that we need to take more of an interdisciplinary approach to education. You can’t really learn about poetry at a particular moment in history without knowing what the astronomers were discovering at the same time. I really love this approach.
I’m a huge Carl Sagan fan and had the chance to see him lecture in college. His writings and way of thinking have always stuck with me. He has this great quote: “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
So these two ideas merged in my mind when I was writing. I wanted to show how everyone you meet—even the random stranger on the subway—can have an influence on your life that you might not even realize. At the same time, we don’t exist in isolation in time or space. We’re formed by our own histories and the histories of our parents and the histories of their parents, etc. Basically, I wanted to explore the ways in which we are all connected.

I hadn’t heard of the Big History Project and now I’m obsessed with this whole thing! I’m also incredibly jealous you shared air with Carl Sagan.
Your endings always blow me away. Contemporary novels have a reputation for being too happily ever after. In both your books, your characters have to really fight for their happy endings and even then it’s never presented to them tied up with a pretty bow. They win some, lose some. It’s very realistic. Is this intentional?
Definitely intentional. Not to sound simplistic, but life is complicated. Many of our best moments involve some sadness. You gain some things. You lose some things.
Totally agree. I don’t think I’m capable of giving a character every possible victory, no matter how much I love them, without feeling as if their ending isn’t genuine to their actual trials.
It has been incredible seeing your novel with a half African American, half Japanese narrator find huge success. And correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe you’re the first Jamaican American author to debut at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. We first met at the ALA Midwinter conference in 2015 for a We Need Diverse Books panel. Have you seen improvement in the call for diverse books since then? And where do you think we still need to improve?
I think it’s great that more people are having conversations about diversity. It’s important to say that people of color and other marginalized groups have been having these conversations for a long time, and it’s good to see a broadening dialogue. We still need to improve in many areas. We need more agents, editors, and critics from marginalized backgrounds. I think if we can improve at those levels, we’ll get more diverse books and more diverse authors being published.
Okay, I’m done picking your brilliant brain on craft questions! I want to talk about some other exciting things of the red carpet variety: the Everything, Everything movie, which began filming before the book even reached its one-year anniversary of publication and has recently finished shooting. How wonderful, wonderful (sorry, Nicki!) has that experience been? Not only did you get to visit the set, but you, your husband, and your daughter will cameo, too!
How our friendship has managed to survive your terrible puns on that title is a mystery to me. 🙂 The movie experience has been surreal and fantastic! I cried on set when I first saw Amandla Stenberg and Nick Robinson in a scene. I was a mess. The absolute best part of the experience has been seeing my daughter on set. I’m so glad she has had the chance to see and share in this thing her mom and dad made. I want her to know she can do this, too. She can do anything she wants.

Last question! You’re always generously talking up other authors’ books while touring because you’re the hashtag best. For any reader who might not be able to see you while you’re touring this fall, which books do you expect you’ll be talking about?
I’ll be talking about Furthermore, by Tahereh Mafi, and A Torch Against the Night, by Sabaa Tahir, A LOT. Oh, and one more: History Is All You Left Me, by Adam Silvera. Have you heard of him?
I love Sabaa and Tahereh’s books! I’ll look into this Adam character. He sounds tall.
 
 
Nicola Yoon’s The Sun Is Also a Star is available now; Adam Silvera’s History Is All You Left Me is available for pre-order.