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Why do you believe representation in school libraries is so important?
“So many of the conversations around representation have been about the
ways in which children need to see themselves reflected in the
classroom, and how the absence of [this] can create an atmosphere where
they feel unhealthy or abnormal. It can also facilitate racism, because
there’s an inherent idea of inferiority that is established. For me,
something that feels equally important to push is the way in which
representation actually serves everyone. It’s not just the students who
aren’t reflected that benefit from seeing representation, but also the
“dominant” groups. As a Brown, queer person, I have benefitted so much
from reading texts that aren’t about me; reading texts and stories by or
about Indigenous people or Black people because these stories reflect
the world that we live in. I don’t believe representation is just about
reflecting minorities, I feel it’s about the way it reflects the broader
world, and I think that there’s a social responsibility for that to
happen.”
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What kinds of representation do you wish there was more of?
“More queer and Trans representation in children’s books feels really
important. We’ve seen shifts in that arena, but I wish there was more
intersectional representation.
When I was working on
The Boy & the Bindi
back in 2015, I was looking at queer representation in children’s books,
and certainly these books existed, but so many of these stories were
white, and so many of them followed a similar trope. Usually about a
young, white kid who is into wearing a dress. While, I think that that’s
a great story, there are so many stories to tell.
Every year since The Boy & the Bindi has been out, I get
tagged on Pride kids’ book lists, which is awesome, [but] it makes me
sad is how often it’s the same books on those list, which speaks to the
fact that there’s still such a need in that particular area.”
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Representation should mean you have a kid with a disability who’s a
sorcerer, or queer stories that are just mundane, and people are just
living their lives.
“When we start moving into young adult, or even adult books, the
industry, and readers have a limited idea of the incorporation of
diversity in text. If it’s a Brown story, we want the immigrant story,
or the diasporic story about the person who is caught between two
worlds. Or if it’s a queer story, we want the coming out story, and
stories about being disowned by your parents. With children’s books in
particular, there’s so much opportunity to imagine different stories.
Since children’s books are read by such young readers, they can be used
as a device to show different perspectives, and model different
possibilities.”
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What books did you gravitate to when you were growing up?
“As a teen, I loved the Nancy Drew series, and the
Sweet Valley series, R.L. Stine, Christopher Pike. Normal,
boring teenager stuff.”
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So many of the books you read as a teen, I read as a preteen and teen as
well. It’s really interesting because with a lot of those authors, we
take them as timeless, but I wonder what it means to challenge that?
“Totally! The first time I remember coming across, or being taught, a
person of colour in my entire academic career was in third year
university. It was
The Bluest Eye
by
Toni Morrison. It was so eye opening mostly because it made me realize how much was
missing in my life. I try to imagine what my life would have been like
had I been exposed to a writer of colour, or a story about a child of
colour, overtly, at a young age, and that has become such a driving
force in my own work as an artist.”
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How do the books that you read as a child influence your writing now?
“My first collection of short stories is called
God Loves Hair, which I published 10 years ago. I self published because I knew I
wanted a book that featured brown skin, and an Indian aesthetic, and I
wanted to go full colour with the book. As a newbie writer that no one
had heard of, it was going to be an uphill battle to get published
because colour printing is much more expensive. I just felt so
passionate about the need for this book. I felt that the stories were
just as important as the illustrations.
I grew up in a household where what happens in the home stays in the
home, and God Loves Hair is creative nonfiction. It’s
largely based on my experiences growing up in Edmonton as a gender
nonconforming kid with immigrant parents. I remember my mom asking, ‘Why
would you write this book? Why would you expose yourself?’ I told her I
never want another Brown kid in Edmonton to have the same experiences I
had. That would be a huge part of what inspired me to become a writer –
it was the lack of representation.”
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If you could give your younger self a message, what would you say? What
do you wish someone had told you?
“Sometimes, as an adult, it kind of astounds me that, first of all, I’m
still here. And second, that I’ve been able to take some of the most
painful experiences in my life, and turn them into art. Art that has now
become tools of support for other people.
If I was going to talk to my younger self, I would say, ‘listen. One
day, all of these terrible things that are happening to you, you are
going to write about them, make art about them, and that art is going to
be a small gesture in trying to make the world a better place. The kind
that you deserved.’”