Alex London--author of the Proxy Series, The Wild Ones series, and more, about his new young adult novel, Black Wings Beating--talks about the patriarchal influence on narrative structure, considering queer heroism, being terrified of coming back to YA, and why Jonathan Franzen owes him a thank you note.
LINKS AND TOPICS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Sarah and Alex last spoke back in 2015 before The Wild Ones came out. It was a middle grade trilogy. (Listen to Alex London’s first episode of First Draft here)
The Wild Ones won a Junior Library Guild award for the first two in the trilogy
The Adventures of Wrong Man and Power Girl by Alex London is comic books style book about a superhero who always does the wrong thing
Hope Nation edited by Rose Brock, where Alex London wrote a short YA story
Ursula K. le Guin, author of the Earthsea Cycle and the Hainish Cycle series, was a huge influence on him as a fantasy writer
Alex listened to the audio book of H is for Hawk by Helen McDonald while on a flight to Philippines. He fell asleep while listening to it and when he woke up he wrote down two things: “H is for Hawk but giant queer Tolkien” and a line that T.H. White wrote in his journals, “Need to excel in order to be loved.” And the second quote hit him so hard that he felt he needed to write a character that dealt with that feeling.
Mary Fran Rash, Owner of Main Street Books in St. Charles, MO, used to work at the World Bird Sanctuary and took Alex to meet a Golden Eagle. This eagle inspired the Ghost Eagle in Black Wings Beating
Alex was a 2017 board member and co-chair of the YALLFEST book festival
Adam Gidwitz, author of The Unicorn Rescue Society
Neal Shusterman, author of the Arc of a Scythe and Unwind series
Jason Reynolds, author of Long Way Down and All American Boys
Will Kostakis author of The Sidekicks and The First Third (listen to his First Draft episode here)
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