Speaker 1: Hey fam, Hello Sunshine. Today, on the bright side, we're
Speaker 1: talking alter egos, abandoning, limiting beliefs, and girlhood angst with
Speaker 1: Alexin Feral Fallmuth. She's the author of Twelfth Night, the
Speaker 1: summer young adult pick for Reese's Book Club. It's Thursday,
Speaker 1: July eleventh. I'm Danielle Robe.
Speaker 2: And I'm Simone Boyce. This is the bright side from
Speaker 2: Hello Sunshine. Danielle, our guest today, exemplifies what is possible
Speaker 2: when you stop caring about what others think, You let
Speaker 2: go of those limiting beliefs, and you just pursue that passion.
Speaker 1: Honey. Yes. Alexin Feral Falmouth is a New York Times
Speaker 1: bestselling author, and her latest book, Twelfth Night, is the
Speaker 1: summer young adult pick for Reese's Book Club, and her
Speaker 1: path towards success didn't start with the makings of a
Speaker 1: happy ending. So. She is the daughter of a Filipino immigrant,
Speaker 1: and Alexin has said that writing wasn't something her parents
Speaker 1: considered a quote unquote responsible career choice, So instead of
Speaker 1: pursuing writing at a young age, Alexin earned her master's
Speaker 1: degree in urban planning. Then she tried to stint In
Speaker 1: law school and worked in a public defender's office. She
Speaker 1: even pursued a career in real estate, but despite doing
Speaker 1: the responsible thing, Alexin never quite found fulfillment.
Speaker 2: Alexin said that she'd turned to writing during challenging times
Speaker 2: because it became this cathartic exercise that helped her process
Speaker 2: whatever she was going through. So she discovered fan fiction,
Speaker 2: and she became inspired and started writing her own fan fiction,
Speaker 2: even self publishing it on the Internet, and then ultimately
Speaker 2: she became the New York Times bestselling author of a
Speaker 2: book called Atlas six.
Speaker 1: And here's where there's a bit of a twist in
Speaker 1: her story. Alexin didn't want to publish under her real
Speaker 1: name because she still had some mixed feelings and she
Speaker 1: didn't want her mom to know that she was writing,
Speaker 1: so she wrote under a pen name. Most of her
Speaker 1: fans knew her as her alter ego, Olive Blake.
Speaker 2: And Olive Blake became this huge success in the fantasy
Speaker 2: novel space. But Alexine had the urge to try her
Speaker 2: hand at a ya novel, and so, for the very
Speaker 2: first time, she bet on her own name, and she
Speaker 2: did so confidently. That novel my mechanical romance became a
Speaker 2: huge success, and it led to another YA novel, Twelfth Night,
Speaker 2: the Summer YA pick for Reese's Book Club. It's loosely
Speaker 2: inspired by the famous play by William Shakespeare of the
Speaker 2: same name, and maybe even a little of that Amanda
Speaker 2: Bynd's movie She's the Man Today. She owns her voice
Speaker 2: and has the best of both worlds. She continues to
Speaker 2: write for adults under the pen name Olivi Blake, and
Speaker 2: then she writes for the young adult genre under her
Speaker 2: actual name Alexin Ferrel Falmouth.
Speaker 1: So I have a little bit of a confession. I
Speaker 1: love YA novels. I think they're so fun to read.
Speaker 1: People always talk about like a fun summer beach read.
Speaker 1: I love a YA summer beach read. So I really
Speaker 1: enjoyed reading this book. And Alexine has this sociological perspective,
Speaker 1: and so when she takes you through these characters' interactions,
Speaker 1: it feels like there's actually more depth to it. You're
Speaker 1: sort of learning You're not just learning about them, but
Speaker 1: you're learning about yourself as you're reading this book and
Speaker 1: kind of taking yourself back to your teenage girl years.
Speaker 1: And she also flips some traditional gender norms on their head,
Speaker 1: which is really fun to read. I'm a real Alexine fan,
Speaker 1: so I'm really excited that she's here with us today.
Speaker 1: Let's bring her in. Alexine, Welcome to the bright Side.
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you so much. I'm so excited to be.
Speaker 1: Here, Alexine. I think you're our first author here in person.
Speaker 1: We're so happy to.
Speaker 3: Have you, so happy to be here.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I think this is the first Oh no, wait, sorry,
Speaker 4: it's the second time I've done a podcast recording in person.
Speaker 4: But you know, second the best. As they say on
Speaker 4: the playgrounds, Alexiine, you've been largely known as Olivi Blake
Speaker 4: for years.
Speaker 2: Yes, and I am so intrigued into alter egos, Like
Speaker 2: I feel like this is something that I need in
Speaker 2: my life. But I know that there's a really personal
Speaker 2: story behind this for you. So where did the need
Speaker 2: to create an alter ego come from?
Speaker 4: Everything I bought my writing career is pretty much an accident.
Speaker 4: The only thing I did on purpose was the writing.
Speaker 4: I dropped out of law school and didn't know what
Speaker 4: I wanted to do with my life and was just
Speaker 4: sort of going from job to job for a while.
Speaker 4: Had some you know, menty ills to handle, and was
Speaker 4: having a particularly insomniatic week when I discovered fan fiction,
Speaker 4: and so I was like, well, this is something I
Speaker 4: can do. I can fill the nights with writing fan fiction.
Speaker 4: But I want to try my hand at writing erotica.
Speaker 4: I want to write sex. I don't want my mother
Speaker 4: to find it. So I just pulled up a name generator.
Speaker 4: The first name that came up was Olivi Blake, and
Speaker 4: I was like, all right, cool, that's my user name.
Speaker 2: No way, it came from a name generator.
Speaker 4: Oh yes, so yeah, and then and I wrote fan
Speaker 4: fiction for a while, decided like this is I feel
Speaker 4: best when I am being creative. But I think I'm
Speaker 4: the daughter of an immigrant, so a practical career was
Speaker 4: like always the only thing on the table, Like artistic
Speaker 4: pursuits were a thing you did for fun and not
Speaker 4: a real possibility. So like, this is something I could
Speaker 4: only have done later in life, after I had failed
Speaker 4: at other things. And yeah, and but once I decided,
Speaker 4: it was like, oh, this is when you know, I
Speaker 4: feel the most mentally healthy. This is when my brain
Speaker 4: is at its best and I feel most like alive
Speaker 4: this way, doing this channeling my energy into this. I
Speaker 4: decided that I wanted to be traditionally published, but that's difficult.
Speaker 4: It's a long road, and I would write ideas that
Speaker 4: weren't particularly marketable. The best example I have for this
Speaker 4: is my first book was Masters of Death. So I
Speaker 4: self published it because I had my fan fiction audience,
Speaker 4: and I made it as the price as low as
Speaker 4: I possibly could. It was basically just the price of
Speaker 4: print it. Anytime I had an idea that didn't feel
Speaker 4: right for the market, I would self publish it just
Speaker 4: to have the story be alive, I think, which comes
Speaker 4: from it. Those are like fandom instincts. It's just like
Speaker 4: I have a story, maybe someone will want it. And
Speaker 4: then finally I saw some success with my Mechanical Romance,
Speaker 4: which is my first YA rom com.
Speaker 3: It was Girls in Stem.
Speaker 4: It was something that was hot YA like specifically rom
Speaker 4: coms were very hot at the time. It was like
Speaker 4: once I had it, I was like, oh, this is
Speaker 4: something that like this I should direct to traditional publishing.
Speaker 4: I intended to keep myself published works up and then
Speaker 4: traditionally published under my real name because I was like, well,
Speaker 4: I guess like the alter ego Olive is already very
Speaker 4: well established, and so since I'm doing this for a
Speaker 4: different age group, I guess I'll use my name. Although
Speaker 4: I was just joking earlier that I would have happily
Speaker 4: invented another pseudonym. I'm totally fine having like my private
Speaker 4: life be one thing and then I just like put
Speaker 4: on the olive hat.
Speaker 3: It's like a persona.
Speaker 1: But yeah, your Sasha Fearce moment.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, yeah, I'm not sure which one is the
Speaker 4: Sasha fears Every time I do this, my therapist is like,
Speaker 4: please stop to associating, like she's not a different person
Speaker 4: from you. But but actually to that point, is it
Speaker 4: important that she is kind of is there a freedom
Speaker 4: in that? Yeah, I mean, like I said, it's like
Speaker 4: it's like the olive hat. It's something that I turn on,
Speaker 4: like when we're doing stuff like this. I don't want
Speaker 4: to think it's like disappearing into a brand or something.
Speaker 4: But the all of the works and the themes that
Speaker 4: I deal with when I'm being all of the are different.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of political rage, there's a lot of
Speaker 4: interpersonal conflict, gray morality, and then the stuff I write
Speaker 4: as a leccine is more like what do I wish
Speaker 4: I had known when I was a teenage girl. What
Speaker 4: are the tools that I have in my toolbox now
Speaker 4: that I'm theoretically a mature adult that I would have
Speaker 4: wonted at this age.
Speaker 1: Well, it's so interesting that you say that, because your
Speaker 1: book dedications are written to versions of your past self,
Speaker 1: and so what is the mission?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Definitely, so I was a teenager in the in the
Speaker 4: two thousands, and you know, not to say that any
Speaker 4: times are more or less misogynistic, but it was definitely
Speaker 4: a different flavor of misogyny at the time. Like the
Speaker 4: Ya protagonist was the not like other girls girl, and
Speaker 4: you know, you'd get one quote unquote strong female character
Speaker 4: and then a full cast of dynamic, diverse men. The goal,
Speaker 4: I think was to be like the most desirable woman
Speaker 4: or the most in the guy's capable, the guy's girl, right,
Speaker 4: the cool girl.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she looked great in a bikini, but also drank
Speaker 1: so much beer. We didn't know how those two things were.
Speaker 4: That character was very alive in that era, you know,
Speaker 4: and we were all trying to be her and it
Speaker 4: was such a waste of time. And I think, like
Speaker 4: that's something that I didn't understand as a teenage girl
Speaker 4: that of course there are going to be so many
Speaker 4: women you don't get along with. And that's actually something
Speaker 4: I like to write into my books, is like, sometimes
Speaker 4: it's just like you and this girl are not going
Speaker 4: to get along. And that's fine, because the spectrum of
Speaker 4: what it is to be a woman and to grow
Speaker 4: into womanhood is very different for everyone, and it should
Speaker 4: appear different on the page. But anyway, so the just
Speaker 4: the idea of if I could tell my past self,
Speaker 4: power is not desirability. Power is not being appealing, especially
Speaker 4: to men. Power is not making yourself palatable. Power is
Speaker 4: you know, what you gain from the collective and the
Speaker 4: relationships you have with other people, and that you are
Speaker 4: stronger with these other women. This real fallacy of scarcity
Speaker 4: that I think as women, we're taught that there are
Speaker 4: just limited resources for us. There are only so many
Speaker 4: women who can succeed, and there's only so many good
Speaker 4: men in the world, and we're all competing for them,
Speaker 4: you know, And that was just such a myth, and
Speaker 4: so I try to like de escalate that myth and
Speaker 4: fiction just to be like, you know what, you don't
Speaker 4: have to believe that you don't have to buy into
Speaker 4: that myth. There are resources for everyone. You don't have
Speaker 4: to belong in a certain place or have to be
Speaker 4: a certain way.
Speaker 1: I actually think stories of fiction like that are equally
Speaker 1: as powerful as nonfictional story.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, I think, and especially at this age, because the
Speaker 4: teen years are about trying to fit in for safety,
Speaker 4: like for social safety. You understand how to fit in
Speaker 4: with other people, and so it's not like the best
Speaker 4: time to learn about individuality, but I think it is
Speaker 4: a good time to be exposed to other perspectives and
Speaker 4: to understand what it feels like to empathize with other
Speaker 4: people who have different views, and like that's something specifically
Speaker 4: for the teen years, that empathy is so important.
Speaker 2: Alexien, you are exposing so many people to your own
Speaker 2: experience with mental health, and I think a lot of
Speaker 2: people can feel seen through the way that you've talked
Speaker 2: about your bipolar disorder diagnosis. You've also mentioned that that
Speaker 2: actually played a role in your evolution as an author.
Speaker 2: How did that diagnosis help you discover your best brain?
Speaker 4: The process of dropping out of law schools is a
Speaker 4: really interesting one because it's related to my mental illness,
Speaker 4: but not in the way that it sounds It's not
Speaker 4: like I was so ill i had to leave. It's
Speaker 4: more like, once I took steps toward being healthy, I
Speaker 4: realize that a lot of the coping mechanisms I had
Speaker 4: for getting myself through a life that I didn't love,
Speaker 4: like I said, started to see them as just coping mechanisms.
Speaker 4: And I think I started to really look at my
Speaker 4: life and realize that I could be happier, that I
Speaker 4: almost had a responsibility to be happier. At that point,
Speaker 4: I had fallen in love and I was with the
Speaker 4: man that I was going to marry and realized that,
Speaker 4: you know, his happiness was also it was important to me,
Speaker 4: and it was built into my happiness, and it was
Speaker 4: like I could make choices that could lead me down
Speaker 4: a different path than this. Like suddenly I can see
Speaker 4: how many paths there are, and the path that I'm
Speaker 4: on is not a good one.
Speaker 3: Going down this path is going to get uglier for me.
Speaker 1: Did you have a diagnosis as a kid or is
Speaker 1: it something no?
Speaker 4: Bipolar starts to show around like eighteen or something, And
Speaker 4: certainly in my late teens, I knew that something was wrong,
Speaker 4: and I think I was self medicating in different ways
Speaker 4: and just in a way that I knew wasn't healthy,
Speaker 4: but it wasn't important for me to be healthy. I
Speaker 4: make a lot of jokes about how Viy in Twelfth
Speaker 4: Night is an unlikable female character because I saw myself
Speaker 4: as an unlikable female character. That I had the sense
Speaker 4: that other people didn't understand me, or that my sincerity,
Speaker 4: my desire to be authentic, was not coming across in
Speaker 4: a way that other people understood or sympathized with, And
Speaker 4: so I totally put on this whole like, fine, make
Speaker 4: me your villain.
Speaker 3: You think I'm a bitch, I'll be a bit.
Speaker 1: You took on the persona yeah, and just.
Speaker 4: Was quite isolated I think, Which is not to say
Speaker 4: that I didn't have relationships. I just didn't take them
Speaker 4: as seriously as I could. I never really thought I
Speaker 4: deserved them. Sorry, I wasn't able to make my therapy
Speaker 4: appointment today, so I feel like I'm having it right now.
Speaker 3: I hope you guys are cool with that.
Speaker 1: No, I think this is so important.
Speaker 2: It's interesting that you brought up this idea that your
Speaker 2: main character, Viola could be deemed as unlikable because in
Speaker 2: the acknowledgments, you say if you're the kind of person
Speaker 2: who feels angry all the time but doesn't feel like
Speaker 2: you're allowed to be. I see you. Why was it
Speaker 2: important for you to write that, to vocalize that.
Speaker 4: This book is definitely about anger and about who's allowed
Speaker 4: to feel it. How many women, how many young girls
Speaker 4: become aware that their anger is not acceptable, that there
Speaker 4: is no way to remain dignified in anger, and they're
Speaker 4: not allowed to be undignified because the moment.
Speaker 3: You do, you lose your credibility.
Speaker 4: And so to have that, for Vie to be a
Speaker 4: woman who's told to smile, who needs to be tamed,
Speaker 4: things that I had heard growing up. And then also
Speaker 4: to have Jack, who's based on my best friend who
Speaker 4: I also met in high school, who's he's half black,
Speaker 4: and so he has the cariacture of the angry black
Speaker 4: man that he also, like, can't become angry, he cannot
Speaker 4: engage his anger in a safe way, and for that
Speaker 4: to be so hard because he's seventeen years old and
Speaker 4: the book is based on it's a fictionalized version of
Speaker 4: where I grew up, which was a predominantly white community
Speaker 4: at the time, it's not really anymore, and that that
Speaker 4: feeling of otherness that these two characters share, and little microaggressions,
Speaker 4: these little things that like I can't put them into
Speaker 4: words because they're not big enough on their own, and
Speaker 4: so this feeling of I'm angry all the time, but
Speaker 4: not about anything that I can say, because once you
Speaker 4: start to like pick apart your feelings and rationalize them,
Speaker 4: it's easy for people to argue with them. I think
Speaker 4: this is the problem with a lot of politics and
Speaker 4: a lot of just the sociolitical context. It's like, if
Speaker 4: you really get into the details, someone will find a
Speaker 4: way to delegitimize what you're saying. Yes, and so for
Speaker 4: them to just be like, well, this is my life
Speaker 4: and this is how I've come to deal with it.
Speaker 4: One is like she makes herself a villain and he
Speaker 4: is a total people pleaser, And you know, they see
Speaker 4: each other and almost admire what the other person can
Speaker 4: do that they feel they can't.
Speaker 2: Alexi and we need to take a quick break, but
Speaker 2: when we come back, we want to talk all about
Speaker 2: Shakespeare and the power of adaptation.
Speaker 1: Don't go anywhere, okay, Alexin you call your latest book
Speaker 1: a remix of the William Shakespeare play twelfth Night. I
Speaker 1: don't know about you, but I grew up watching She's
Speaker 1: the Man, which stars Amanda Bynes and Channing Tatum, who
Speaker 1: was my first crush, and that movie was also based
Speaker 1: on the William Shakespeare play. How did Shakespeare influence you?
Speaker 1: And this book?
Speaker 3: I love Shakespeare.
Speaker 4: I read his works and I read Twelfth Night when
Speaker 4: I was in high school and just loved it. And
Speaker 4: I don't know why, it's just it's my favorite play.
Speaker 4: I think the silliness, the absurdity that is captured by
Speaker 4: Shakespeare is so brilliant to me. I really think of
Speaker 4: Shakespeare as someone who, even though we treat him as
Speaker 4: if he's very highbrow and the work is very you know,
Speaker 4: it's English literature, but it was written for the masses,
Speaker 4: you know. It took advantage of tropes that were as
Speaker 4: popular then as they are now, and the emotions are
Speaker 4: just so big and loud, and it's so well suited
Speaker 4: to hi school.
Speaker 1: It really is.
Speaker 4: I feel the same way about Jane Austen too. I
Speaker 4: feel that Jane Austen and William Shakespeare really understood the
Speaker 4: absurdity of love and that just the silliness of being
Speaker 4: alive and the pitfalls of humanity and how it's so
Speaker 4: like beautiful and wonderful and stupid, Like there's a real
Speaker 4: presence of how stupid love can be in Shakespeare's works.
Speaker 4: That's like definitely not there. And Edith Wharton, like Edith
Speaker 4: Wharton is no, Well.
Speaker 1: How did you want to make this version unique to you?
Speaker 4: I love a little absurd, like I like the flavor
Speaker 4: of the absurd, and so that was definitely something I
Speaker 4: wanted to bring into it, Like a lot of the
Speaker 4: conversations that VI has with her twin brother Bash, like,
Speaker 4: that's very like this real comedy of errors vibe that
Speaker 4: that's to me, that's the Shakespearean aspect. That's like, here's
Speaker 4: this really silly thing happening, and there's a lot of jokes.
Speaker 4: And what I did not want to do was mimic
Speaker 4: beat for beat the play. So so I did not
Speaker 4: reread Twelfth Night before I wrote this. I was relying
Speaker 4: on my memory of reading it in high school. And
Speaker 4: I did not rewatch She's the Man either, But I
Speaker 4: did rewatch ten things I Hate about you many times.
Speaker 2: Well, that's the power of adaptation and authors like you
Speaker 2: feeling empowered to put your own unique voice into such
Speaker 2: a classic work like this, and I think there's no
Speaker 2: better way for us to understand exactly how you infused
Speaker 2: your voice into this than to have you read for us.
Speaker 2: Would you set up the scene?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm excited to read this particular scene because it's
Speaker 4: what I would have chosen to So I like that
Speaker 4: we're in agreement. So this is in chapter three, and
Speaker 4: basically VI is a huge gamer. She loves what is
Speaker 4: essentially dungeons and Dragons, and she plays this game Twelfth
Speaker 4: Night that is kind of, you know, my little play
Speaker 4: on World of Warcraft and like the Witcher. So she
Speaker 4: has just had an altercation with her group of friends
Speaker 4: who are really not open to her ideas. It's a
Speaker 4: group of mostly boys and her one female friend, and
Speaker 4: they've had an argument.
Speaker 3: She's in a really bad mood.
Speaker 4: She's really upset that they don't her ideas, and so
Speaker 4: she's going to do what is her favorite hobby, her
Speaker 4: her soothing emotional support hobby, which is playing the MMORPG
Speaker 4: Twelfth Night. I select my character and queue up for
Speaker 4: combat mode. Boys seriously think the girls only want romance
Speaker 4: and ball gowns and puppies, which is proof they don't
Speaker 4: understand the first thing about actually being a girl. I
Speaker 4: play this game because in the real world I'm stressed
Speaker 4: or angry, and don't I have good reason to be.
Speaker 4: When I first started playing mmoorpgs, I used to use
Speaker 4: a headset. I don't anymore. You know why, because when
Speaker 4: boys hear a girl's voice, they either come for you unnecessarily,
Speaker 4: thinking you'll be easy prey, or they think everything you
Speaker 4: say is flirting. Being nice to a geek while being
Speaker 4: visibly female is the kiss of death. Do you know
Speaker 4: how many times I've gotten vulgar messages or explicit pictures?
Speaker 4: And if I say no? Do you know how many
Speaker 4: times I've been called a bitch? Not that all guys
Speaker 4: are awful, but the awful ones are in possible to
Speaker 4: escape and certainly impossible to tell at first glance, Which
Speaker 4: is why I play under the user named Cesario and
Speaker 4: my character you guessed it modeled after Cesario.
Speaker 3: On War of Thorns.
Speaker 4: Tough, capable, muscular, sharp, the best blade in any given arena,
Speaker 4: and the most tactical person in the field. Quads the
Speaker 4: size of pillars, a man with everything the boys want
Speaker 4: to be and have and do, and guess what everything
Speaker 4: I want too, because, believe it or not, not every
Speaker 4: girl wants to be a princess, or a healer, or
Speaker 4: some big chested daydream who only plays to lose. I
Speaker 4: may like girly things on occasion, but I'm not just
Speaker 4: here for people to look at. I don't want to
Speaker 4: be considered beautiful without being seen as capable too. It's
Speaker 4: not that I don't feel at home in my body
Speaker 4: periods and awkward growth spurts aside. I don't have a
Speaker 4: problem with the form I take, but if I look
Speaker 4: like Cesario in real life, I'd have no reason not
Speaker 4: to be quest Master for the game I designed. Nobody
Speaker 4: would question my competency. No one would think they deserved
Speaker 4: a date with me just because they did one nice thing.
Speaker 4: Jack Orsino wouldn't be able to waltz around school like
Speaker 4: he owns it just because everyone forgives him his every
Speaker 4: personality flaw whenever he smiles or catches a ball. And
Speaker 4: most of all, Antonio wouldn't be able to say things
Speaker 4: like it's not personal whenever the boys gang up on me.
Speaker 4: I wish it were personal. I wish they could hate
Speaker 4: me for normal reasons, like my personality instead of just
Speaker 4: looking at me and seeing long hair and boobs and
Speaker 4: deciding that's enough to validate all of their presumptions. So
Speaker 4: of course I'm angry. I'm angry all the time, from
Speaker 4: the betrayals of my government to the hypocrisies of my peers.
Speaker 4: It seems like the awfulness never rests, and neither can I.
Speaker 4: No matter how many combat advantages I give Astria starscream,
Speaker 4: She'll never be taken seriously. No matter how smart I
Speaker 4: am or how hard I work, my acceptance is always conditional.
Speaker 4: And it's not just me. I don't know how any
Speaker 4: girl can exist in the world without being perpetually furious.
Speaker 3: But once I.
Speaker 4: Sign on as Cesario, my chat is instantly filled with
Speaker 4: dudes who want me to queue up for their battle campaigns.
Speaker 4: So in at least one place, I'm valuable. In at
Speaker 4: least one world, I'm safe.
Speaker 1: Wow, you captured girlhood, angst so well, all the things
Speaker 1: I felt and didn't have words for in high school.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I don't think I really understood why I
Speaker 4: was so mad either. Like, it's nice to revisit this
Speaker 4: with the words, hopefully the right words.
Speaker 1: Is it healing for you?
Speaker 3: It is? Yeah?
Speaker 4: When I wrote my first ya, I was like, I'm good.
Speaker 4: I think I solved all my think I solved all
Speaker 4: my inner child problems. But my mechanical romance, like by necessity,
Speaker 4: the main character is very go with the flow, like
Speaker 4: the whole thing. The whole plot kind of revolves around
Speaker 4: her falling into robotics, which is not what I was
Speaker 4: like at all. I was super hungry and very ambitious
Speaker 4: and very disliked and so it was nice to write
Speaker 4: a character like VI. And one question I get a
Speaker 4: lot from promoting this book is like, like, how did
Speaker 4: you feel about crafting this unlikable girl? Did you ever
Speaker 4: feel like you had made her too unlikable? And it
Speaker 4: was like no, I just didn't worry about this, so
Speaker 4: it was very freein.
Speaker 1: That's cool. Well, we're not the only ones with questions
Speaker 1: for you, Alexia. We're going to take a quick break,
Speaker 1: but when we come back, we're finding out about Alexin's
Speaker 1: future as an author. We're back with author Alexin Feral Fall.
Speaker 5: Move.
Speaker 1: Okay, we have some listener questions lined up for you, Alexin.
Speaker 3: Oh Boy.
Speaker 1: First up, a question about your younger self, which we
Speaker 1: touched on earlier.
Speaker 6: Actually, Hi, I'm a Manza, and I'm from Pennsylvania, and
Speaker 6: what I love most about your writing is, in a
Speaker 6: lot of ways, they make me feel us alone. I
Speaker 6: actually heavily related to Jack as a character. When I
Speaker 6: was a teenager, I also had an injury that made
Speaker 6: me have to quit my sport, and similarly to Jack,
Speaker 6: I felt very lost and very confused. And I think
Speaker 6: this story and the way that it exists, I wish
Speaker 6: I would have had it when I was younger, because
Speaker 6: it might have saved me that emotional turmoil that I experienced.
Speaker 6: I think being able to read it would have really
Speaker 6: taught me that lesson of like it's okay to have
Speaker 6: other paths and other experiences. And this all kind of
Speaker 6: ties into my question of what's the biggest lessons you've
Speaker 6: learned as an adult that you wish you would have
Speaker 6: known when you were a teenager.
Speaker 4: Well, thank you, Amanda, big question. Yeah, I have to
Speaker 4: sit with that for a second, So I did. I
Speaker 4: mentioned that Jack's character is based on my best friend David,
Speaker 4: who is like the perhaps second most important relationship in
Speaker 4: my life, second only to my husband, who is the
Speaker 4: other inspiration for Jack. Because my husband was a running
Speaker 4: back as well, and I don't think you can write
Speaker 4: a truly feminist narrative if you don't also provide a
Speaker 4: broad spectrum of masculinity and what masculine is can be.
Speaker 4: The argument that VI and Antonia have is one that
Speaker 4: I think is a really valid and very common one
Speaker 4: that there are, like, you know, kind of these are
Speaker 4: two sides of the coin in terms of how do
Speaker 4: you exist as a woman knowing how other people are
Speaker 4: going to see you that, if you're kind of forced
Speaker 4: to see yourself through this lens of people who will
Speaker 4: never respect you, how do you address it? And you
Speaker 4: can do what VI does and make everyone an enemy,
Speaker 4: or you can do what Antonio does, and neither of
Speaker 4: these are the correct approach. But what Antonia does is
Speaker 4: just like try to keep the peace right. And she
Speaker 4: kind of falls into that category of something that I
Speaker 4: felt was very common with my peers when I was
Speaker 4: a teenage girl, of just like, well, if the boys
Speaker 4: like you, then that'll make things.
Speaker 3: Easier for you.
Speaker 4: If they accept you, even if they accept you conditionally,
Speaker 4: even if they accept you based on your looks or
Speaker 4: the fact that you always agree with them, it's worth doing.
Speaker 4: And so I think she that conflict between them is
Speaker 4: important for multiple reasons. One because Antonia sees that she's
Speaker 4: a little bit wrong in a way that makes I
Speaker 4: think VI make a little more sense to her. And
Speaker 4: then also VI gets the experience of, like, you don't
Speaker 4: have to just cut people off all the time. I
Speaker 4: didn't want to soften VIY, but you don't always have
Speaker 4: to act like people want you to fail, or that
Speaker 4: you're performing for someone who doesn't believe you should succeed.
Speaker 4: That there are some people in your life you can
Speaker 4: have a disagreement with, but they still love you, they'll
Speaker 4: still forgive you, and it's still a relationship worth having.
Speaker 4: So there's a lot of layers to that particular argument.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wish I had read this book when I
Speaker 2: was a teenager. It would have been so helpful to me.
Speaker 2: I just love that you're reminding women that we can
Speaker 2: be beautiful and capable at the same time, and that
Speaker 2: our rage is justified and that doesn't mean that we
Speaker 2: are not good humans. I mean, rage is something that
Speaker 2: can be a solution in a lot of ways, and
Speaker 2: can it can also reveal our deepest desires. So I
Speaker 2: just love all of these messages you packed into this book.
Speaker 2: So meaty and it's so meaningful. And I think our
Speaker 2: next listener also really connected with one of VI's struggles
Speaker 2: in the book. So let's listen.
Speaker 5: Hi, Alexiing, This is Julie from Florida. I love your
Speaker 5: work and especially the characters you've written. In twelfth nine,
Speaker 5: I felt like I could really relate to Jack as
Speaker 5: he struggled to accept himself as a gamer. Ever since
Speaker 5: I was a little kid, I've been that nerdy girl
Speaker 5: who's way too into books and fandoms, and now more recently,
Speaker 5: i'm that homeschool lady because I gave up my job
Speaker 5: to educate my daughters. And I love both of these
Speaker 5: things about myself, but I feel like when other people
Speaker 5: find out about them, they just see a stereotype. I
Speaker 5: really appreciated how Viola was so confident in just being herself,
Speaker 5: but even she had to play under a fake name
Speaker 5: in order to not be hindered in the game. I'm
Speaker 5: wondering if you've ever felt limited by other people's perceptions
Speaker 5: of you or boxed in by your interests, tour abilities,
Speaker 5: and if so, how did you overcome that and feel
Speaker 5: free to just be yourself.
Speaker 1: Wow?
Speaker 4: Thank you, Julie. These are not softball questions.
Speaker 1: We read through softball here, but we have very smart
Speaker 1: women listen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 4: One of the things I like about myself is that
Speaker 4: I'm not really a judgmental person, and I appreciate that
Speaker 4: people who love me feel that way about me too,
Speaker 4: And so I think that, certainly I know what it's
Speaker 4: like to feel that you are being judged or that
Speaker 4: you do have been placed in a box by other people.
Speaker 4: I think, ironically, this is happening to me most now
Speaker 4: because some people view me as like a book talk author,
Speaker 4: so I understand the feeling, and part of what I
Speaker 4: wanted to write into this book is this sense that
Speaker 4: you don't have to decide who you are. Certainly, I
Speaker 4: did keep fan fiction a secret for a long time,
Speaker 4: mostly because I didn't know how to talk about it.
Speaker 4: And I also I didn't talk about mental illness, for example.
Speaker 4: And I think the more I talk about it, the
Speaker 4: more it becomes acceptable to talk about and not just
Speaker 4: me obviously, but you know, I think the more open
Speaker 4: we are about our experiences and the choices we make
Speaker 4: and not equivocating and not making excuses for why we
Speaker 4: love what we love, it just becomes more acceptable.
Speaker 3: For other people to love those things.
Speaker 4: And I mentioned earlier about the idea that real power
Speaker 4: is something you have as a collective.
Speaker 3: It's something that we share.
Speaker 4: Then, you know, the more that we are open about
Speaker 4: the passions that we have in following the things that
Speaker 4: we love, the better things are for everyone. It means
Speaker 4: that one more person can feel like they're not alone.
Speaker 1: Power is something we share. I really like that. Okay,
Speaker 1: this last one, it's about Alexine's future as an author.
Speaker 7: Hi, Lexine, This is Jordan from Pennsylvania. Your books really
Speaker 7: reflect on many different issues in our society. Growing up,
Speaker 7: I found a lot of fulfillment in community, in reading
Speaker 7: and writing fan fiction, and I actually read some of
Speaker 7: your fan fictions that you published as All of the Bleak.
Speaker 7: I know that you recently have become traditionally published and
Speaker 7: you have another book published under the name All of
Speaker 7: the coming out in the fall. Have you found fulfillment
Speaker 7: using your real name for publishing or do you think
Speaker 7: that all of you Blake is always going to exist?
Speaker 1: Great question?
Speaker 4: Yeah, So the separation is that all of you Blake
Speaker 4: always writes for adults and Alexine, for Fulmuth, always writes
Speaker 4: for teenagers. Because for me coming into publishing being a woman,
Speaker 4: being a woman period, but also being a woman of color,
Speaker 4: people look at me and they're like, oh, you write
Speaker 4: for children, right. So the reason I make this separation
Speaker 4: is is so that you know, when you pick up
Speaker 4: an ol of You book, I wrote it with an
Speaker 4: adult audience in mind. If you pick up on a
Speaker 4: Lexine book, I wrote it with a teenage audience in mind.
Speaker 4: And not everybody gets that, but it helps me to
Speaker 4: know that, Like I don't have to say, oh, well,
Speaker 4: sometimes I think it's just confusing to people. And for
Speaker 4: me it's more like it's not like teens couldn't read
Speaker 4: all of these stuff, or that adults couldn't read Elexceine stuff.
Speaker 4: It's more like who did I hold in my head
Speaker 4: as the audience? And yeah, just different themes. So all
Speaker 4: of you will always exist. And so to me, it's
Speaker 4: having the public persona and being my private self. It
Speaker 4: does feel like two separate things. If anything, I'm not
Speaker 4: I'm not sure if I would do more as myself,
Speaker 4: which is a weird thing to say.
Speaker 3: I am always myself.
Speaker 4: In case my therapist is listening, I promise you I'm
Speaker 4: not associating but yeah, like I am always being I'm
Speaker 4: always being authentic about when I talk about my life
Speaker 4: or whatever.
Speaker 3: It's just kind of who am I talking to? With
Speaker 3: which hat on?
Speaker 1: I really I don't mean to keep bringing it back,
Speaker 1: but it really sounds like Sasha Fears like.
Speaker 4: It's just like when you're on the stage, every different
Speaker 4: here you go, yes, yeah, just the performance.
Speaker 2: Seems like you've got the best of both worlds. At least.
Speaker 4: I thank you, I do, It's true.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being here today, Alexin. You
Speaker 1: made the bright Side extra sunny and extra interesting. You're
Speaker 1: giving me a lot to think about.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you, Thank you so much, Alexiin.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me. It was so
Speaker 3: nice to be here.
Speaker 2: Alexin Ferrell Fallmouth is the author of Twelfth Night, the
Speaker 2: Summer Ya pick for Reese's book Club.
Speaker 1: That's it for today's show. Thank you to Amanda, Julie
Speaker 1: and Jordan. You all had some really thoughtful questions. And
Speaker 1: stay tuned because later this month we're talking with j
Speaker 1: Courtney Sullivan, the author of the July pick for Reese's
Speaker 1: book Club. It's called The Cliffs. And if you have
Speaker 1: a question and you want to be featured on the show.
Speaker 1: Send it to us at hello at the brightside dot com.
Speaker 2: Tomorrow we're popping off with TV hosts and actor Julisa
Speaker 2: Bermudez will be keikying all about this week's biggest pop
Speaker 2: culture stories. You don't want to miss it. See you tomorrow, fam,
Speaker 2: and keep looking on the bright side.