About this episode
Just as books provide readers with a space to learn, see themselves, reflect, and cope with their inner thoughts, writing has served as a means for Kacen Callender to process and heal from their trauma. Throughout their writing journey, Kacen has traversed the various stages and ages of their life, opening wounds and finding ways to heal them through fiction.
"I think that has a lot to do with why I was so interested in writing for children. It's like, I was trying to heal. I was trying to heal my childhood experiences through writing, through these characters.” - Kacen Callender
This transformative process began with their debut novel “Hurricane Child” in 2018 which not only earned Kacen critical acclaim but also accolades such as the Stonewall Book Award and Lambda Literary Award. Since then, Kacen has authored other titles such as “Felix Ever After” and “King and the Dragonflies”, the latter of which won a National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. Now, Kacen is entering the next phase in their writing journey, delving into the enduring adult repercussions of childhood trauma.
Kacen’s vulnerable and emotional storytelling has had profound impacts on readers around the world, particularly Queer readers who often find their journeys reflected in Kacen’s work.
In this episode, Kacen shares more about their journey of processing trauma through writing. They also discuss how fanfiction played a pivotal role in inspiring their creative path and how the fictional storyline within a Canadian teen drama helped them come to terms with their own identity.
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In their reading challenge, Trans YA Spec, Kacen wants readers to imagine freedom for the trans community through works of speculative fiction.
You can find their list and all past reading challenges at thereadingculturepod.com.
This episode’s Beanstack Featured Librarian is Meredith Derrick, library coordinator for Klein Independent School District outside of Houston, Texas. She shares a funny story about a student’s attempt at a thoughtful teacher appreciation surprise.
Contents
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Chapter 1 - Reckoning with Trauma
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Chapter 2 - Annie John
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Chapter 3 - Fiction in Our Own Hands
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Chapter 4 - Honest Representation
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Chapter 5 - The Journey Continues
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Chapter 6 - Dream State
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Chapter 7 - Diversity on the Shelves
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Chapter 8 - Trans YA Spec
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Chapter 9 - Beanstack Featured Librarian
Author Reading Challenge
Download the free reading challenge worksheet, or view the challenge materials on our helpdesk.
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Kacen Callender:
And I think that has a lot to do with why I was so interested in writing for children. It's like I was trying to heal, I was trying to heal my childhood experiences through writing through these characters. And so it's funny that I'm also now at the moment I'm figuring out how to find the resources to heal the childhood trauma. I'm starting to write my first adult contemporary books. I feel like I'm starting to write through my experiences as an adult too.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Telling stories requires us to dig deep into our own personal experiences. For Kacen Callender writing is not only a creative outlet, it's a controlled way to process their own trauma and the difficult experiences they faced as a black trans person.
Kacen burst onto the scene with Hurricane Child in 2018. They went on to write titles such as Felix Ever After and King and the Dragonflies, notable both for their queer and trans characters and for their dreamlike prose. Kacen's books are a hit with young readers and adults alike. They have received the Stonewall Book award, the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ children's and Middle Grade Works and the National Book Award for Young People's literature.
In this episode, they join us to talk about the healing therapy of literature, critical importance of fan fiction and the connection between meditation and dreams. We'll also find out what '90s film helped inspire their upcoming book.
My name is Jordan Lloyd Bookey, and this is the Reading Culture, a show where we speak with authors and illustrators about ways to explore building a stronger culture of reading in our communities. We dive into their personal experiences, their inspirations, and why their stories and ideas motivate kids to read more. Make sure to check us out on Instagram for giveaways at the Reading Culture pod, and you can also subscribe to our newsletter for bonus content. That's at thereadingculturepod.com/newsletter.
I'd love if you could just start by painting a picture of what your early childhood was like there.
Kacen Callender:
I mean St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, for people who don't know, it's like the Virgin Islands are right next to Puerto Rico, so in the Caribbean. Absolutely gorgeous, but I had a hard time growing up there. I think it's a very small town stereotypical story of the queer person in the very small town space.
And it really took me until, honestly a couple years ago to figure out how to really start to heal from my experiences in St. Thomas. I was diagnosed with CPTSD, which I had not ever heard of before. It's complex PTSD. It tends to mean people who have had chronic childhood trauma experiences.
I really recently started to find out how to actually heal from that because I feel like a lot of people say, "Go to therapy." Talk therapy just never worked for me. And I started to experience more I think what people would call bottom up therapy, which is more like body somatic therapy, which gives me an opportunity to reprocess a lot of the traumatic events I went through.
Anyway, but it's funny, I feel like there's always this weird juxtaposition of I grew up in paradise. Also my childhood was sad.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
That is heavy. Can you talk a little bit about what your school experience was like?
Kacen Callender:
That was a private school where I was basically, for the first six years or so, the only black student there. And it was only until middle school where there were of lot more of us and it wasn't just feeling like the only person.
And I do feel like that's something that unfortunately is something I had to heal from because I did have teachers that I'm realizing now like, "Oh, wow. Yeah, they were slightly racist." Not only slightly, they were very racist actually.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Overtly.
Kacen Callender:
Unfortunately. My experiences were a lot of isolation, unfortunately a lot of bullying from students and teachers also at the same time. And I could not wait to escape. I could not wait to leave.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Even from a young age, that's what you remember?
Kacen Callender:
Yeah.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
This is just my own ignorance. I wouldn't think... That I guess obviously there are white people living in St. Thomas, but I guess so that's... I don't know. I just always thought it was primarily a lot of white people going as tourists but not actually living and having families and stuff. Yeah.
Kacen Callender:
Yeah, absolutely. There are two layers to that. It is primarily black. Most people, most of the locals are black. There are white people who come to the islands. And because of that, it was almost like a double-edged sword of being isolated at Antilles as one of the only black students and only black student sometimes.
And then I would leave and tell people who are primarily black, other locals, "Oh, I go to Antilles." I'm feeling isolated from them because they're like, "Oh, why are you going to that white private school?" And if you can listen to my accent for example, that was always something that would come up. It's like, "Why do you talk a white stateside person?" They would say like a Yankee. It just, I felt very isolated from all sides from a young age.
I feel like right now I am working on figuring out how to... Because for so much of my life, my adult life, it felt like my childhood was all trauma. And right now I'm figuring out little pathways to figure out in my brain it's not all trauma. I have some memories of this was safe, this was nice. And it always came back to writing. It always came back to finding little, even though it was moments of isolation, I had moments where I was able to find some peace and some happiness also. It wasn't all doom and gloom.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah, I mean, not all doom and gloom, but still a lot to unpack. Kacen, as you get older, does this get easier to reflect on or do you find yourself remembering things that made you feel safe more as you grow?
Kacen Callender:
Yeah, I mean I think that's the interesting part about CPSC. And I don't want to talk for everyone, but it really is like the body and the nervous system feels so stuck in the trauma of childhood that again, I started therapies that actually started to work for me about two years ago.
And up until then I was constantly, why does it feel like I'm so stuck? I feel like I'm stuck in this cycle of these childhood thoughts and feelings and emotions, this dysregulation. I can't figure out how to find the resources that will actually help me feel more regulated or more grounded.
Once I found those resources, I started to feel like, "Oh, I'm starting to feel like I'm not 13 anymore. I starting to feel like I'm 20, I'm starting to feel like I'm 25." It's now, even though I'm in my 30s I feel like I'm finally starting to grow up a little bit, in air quotes. Starting to feel like my-
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
You're having the 20s, the experience of the 20s in a way of the freedom that you start to feel it sounds like or the...
Kacen Callender:
Yeah. And finding that safety to actually be in my body instead of in the nervous system's trauma of this is everything you experience, this is what you have to stay safe from, this is what you have to... This is a very happy conversation.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Well, I think it's really important, I mean honestly for any writer, but it just really feels like so much. I mean every once in a while you get somebody, I interviewed Meg Medina, she was much later in life becoming a writer. She always loved to write, but she had a whole other life and career and this wasn't what she saw for herself.
But I think for people who really grew, always knew, which I think maybe it sounds like you've found some of the things that are coming back to you now that did feel like safe places where, like you said, writing, I think it's important to know where that starts.
And obviously for anybody who's ever read some of your books about young people, this makes sense. And you write from such an authentic place. I mean Moonflower, I'm hearing that in talking to you.
Kacen Callender:
Thank you. Yeah, and I think that has a lot to do with why I was so interested in writing for children is I was trying to heal, I was trying to heal my childhood experiences through writing through these characters. And so, it's funny that I'm also now at the moment, I'm figuring out how to find the resources to heal the childhood trauma. I'm starting to write my first adult contemporary books. I feel like I'm starting to write through my experiences as an adult too. Not to say that childhood or people who write middle grade and Y are only trying to heal I'm sure.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Have to wait, hold on. No.
Kacen Callender:
I'm sure that's not the case for everyone. Something that I was reflecting on was in Stars in Your Eyes, one of the drafts originally had Logan, the main character with CPTSD. Every now and then he would just make a very broad statement like, "Everyone hates me." And CPTSD creates very black and white thinking. It's very difficult to have the nuanced gray area.
And that's something that I continue to struggle with, this thought over and over again of. "Everyone hates me." It's like I have to take a moment to pause and reflect and say, "No, not everyone in the world hates me. Maybe there are some people who don't necessarily like me, but there are also some people who do like me." Trying to put myself into that nuanced grace space. I feel like that was the younger 13-year-old version nervous system me coming out in Logan's voice. And in later drafts I revised for him to think or to say things that were not as black and white.
The Anglican church bell struck 11 o'clock, one hour to go before lunch. I was then sitting at my desk in my classroom. We were having a history lesson, the last lesson of the morning. For taking first place over all the other girls I had been given a prize, a copy of a book called Roman Britain, and I was made the prefect of my class. What a mistake the prefect part had been for I was among the worst behaved in my class and did not at all believe in setting myself up as a good example the way a prefect was supposed to do.
Now I had to sit in the prefect's seat, the first seat in the front row, the seat from which I could stand up and survey quite easily my classmates. From where I sat, I could see out the window. Sometimes when I looked out, I could see the sexton going over to the minister's house, the sexton's daughter, Hilerain, a disgusting model of good behavior and keen attention to scholarship sat next to me since she took second place.
The minister's daughter, Ruth, sat in the last row, the row reserved for all the dunce girls. Hilerain, of course, I could not stand. A girl that good would never do for me. I would probably not have cared so much for first place if I could be sure it would not go to her. Ruth I liked because she was such a dunce and came from England and had yellow hair. When I first met her, I used to walk her home and sing bad songs to her just to see her turn pink as if I had spilled hot water all over her.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Jamaica Kincaid's 1985 coming of age novel, Annie John, depicts a life of a young girl on the Caribbean island of Antigua as she begins adolescence. The titular character grapples with the complex interplay of her cultural heritage and the enduring consequences of colonization and poverty.
The novel navigates multiple themes including strained parent-child relationships, teenage rebellion, and the exploration of sexuality. Kincaid's storytelling draws deeply from her own personal experiences of growing up in Antigua, providing an authentic perspective on the challenges and nuances of life in a post-colonial society. The passage Kacen just read for us reveals the minuscule ways our lens on the world is colored by our adolescence.
Kacen Callender:
This passage, I don't know if anyone would recognize that in my books, in every single one of my books, I always write, whenever a character has blonde hair, I always say yellow hair or pale hair. And it's because this passage really struck me at even a young age of realizing that the way media works and the way that media glorifies certain types of beauty.
A lot of the books I would read when I was a kid would be blonde hair, golden, yellow rays of sunshine, blue eyes like the ocean and sky. And just the way that that affects a person at a young age that does not look like that and has brown skin, brown eyes, brown hair or black hair, I realized that there was just a hierarchy in media and description.
And so I think it just always made me careful in being able to look at media first of all and analyze and see, oh, this media is trying to tell me that this person's more beautiful than this one. How does that affect me and how I feel about myself? And then that also just affected my writing and making sure I just never wanted to replicate that for young readers.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah, I was thinking, and I do remember that actually in King of the Dragonflies, that Mike... Is it Mikey?
Kacen Callender:
Yeah, yeah.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
He's got, and the description, it is striking. And that's interesting. I didn't realize that that was, or that is an ode to, or an homage I should say. Had you read a lot of books at that time by a lot of black authors? Had you, yourself and especially Jamaican Kincaid in particular?
Kacen Callender:
I remember Jamaica Kincaid was assigned in high school. I don't feel like books that I would pick up for fun necessarily. A lot of characters of color or black characters, especially Jamaican Kincaid and also Caribbean author was very influential I think for me when I was younger. But to be able to see black characters in books for the fun of it, for adventure, for fantasy, I never really experienced that until college.
And even that, I don't want to say college. I think it was like when I was after college, when I started working in publishing because I think that that was around the time of we need diverse books coming out. The movement, I was like there's a word here that fits. And because of we need diverse books seeing... Not because of it, but there was just such more a stronger push for a lot of books that were just for fun with people of color, with black characters as the main characters. I had never really experienced that before.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
While Jamaica Kincaid offered Kacen a refreshing perspective, Kacen longing for representation and relatable stories led them to a corner of the internet where both could be found, fan fiction. If you think of fan fiction as a choppy sea awash in Star Wars and Twilight retakes, well, you're not all wrong, but compared to the established publishing realm, fan fiction has been remarkably ahead of the curve on queer representation and literature, both in characters and the relationships depicted.
Gender swap is also a well-established fan fic sub-genre. Essentially, fan fic has long been an avenue for writers to reshape beloved narratives to be more inclusive than the originals. Not only is this impactful for readers, but it also gives a sense of empowerment and ownership of identity to the writers themselves.
Kacen Callender:
I started writing fan fiction, that was my first step-in into actually writing and showing other people, besides my mom. And actually getting positive feedback. And I think it was because of fan fic that someone actually put that seed into my head was like, "Wow, you should consider writing your own original stories also because this is really good." That one stranger from when I was nine years old, thank you whoever you were, because you put me on this path to deciding to try my own original stuff also.
I was mostly writing fan fiction for anime and manga and I think that that, I know there are a lot of people who are like, no fan fiction is just like, it's not serious enough. I just, I think there's something about it where there's so much love for the original story and for the original characters. Imagine the amount of love it takes to inspire someone to go and want to take those characters in that world and create something of their own because of it. I think it's beautiful, the communities online, the number of free stories. Very free stories.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. I honestly didn't really know about the fan fiction universe. And my daughter, Flo, she got really into it. She was super into Narnia, which as you know has no diversity, comes with a lot of Christian symbolism and it's super dated, especially for girls. It doesn't really go well with my mixed race Jewish daughter in 2023. But anyways, she was coming home and running to read it. I mean, I actually got to the point where I was worried and I went to read it myself because I was actually thinking, "I hope nothing in there is explicit." It wasn't. But anyways.
Kacen Callender:
Very smart move. I will not lie. There definitely needs to be some... If there are parents listening to this, definitely check what your children are reading too because there definitely, there's a lot out there.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
When you were younger, did you find a lot of solace in writing fan fiction? Was that an escape for you?
Kacen Callender:
Yeah, it was definitely. I mean, I think I stuck to fan fiction even past that for a while. I always thought to myself, oh, well, think about writing original. But I wrote fan fiction out through high school. It was definitely an escape. It was just constantly books, anime, manga, fan fiction, reading, just anything I could do to get out the world I was in, into these other worlds where really, honestly at times lifesaving. I did have other escapes where I would after school go into the woods. And at the time I didn't really realize I was meditating, but just close my eyes and just imagine leaving my body. And I feel like those were the more peaceful moments.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
It's amazing the coping mechanisms as a kid that you can have, that kids have. Has anybody ever written fan fiction for any of your works that you're aware of?
Kacen Callender:
I came across some fan fiction for Felix Ever After there were two fan fic.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I knew that was going to be the one that someone did. Okay. Yeah.
Kacen Callender:
I'm laughing because I don't remember what one of the fan fic summaries were, but the other one was like, "This is how Felix Ever After should have ended." It was like, dang.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Wow.
Kacen Callender:
At least they were passionate enough to write their own story from it, but it was just a little bit of a oof.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Do you think they knew that you read it?
Kacen Callender:
No. No, no, no.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Do you still reading anime and manga and stuff? Do you still enjoy it? Yeah.
Kacen Callender:
Oh, yeah.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
You keep up.
Kacen Callender:
I took a long break because I thought that I shouldn't like it anymore because I thought I was like, "Oh, I'm too old for this." And a part of my healing of my childhood trauma has been allowing myself to return to it and watch all of the anime I missed. It's become a ritual at night to enjoy. Right now I'm in the middle of My Hero Academia. I'm loving it.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
All right. Kacen, let's talk a little bit about this blog post that you wrote a few years ago in which you were basically asking, "What's the point of what I'm writing?" And you write a lot of books for young people especially that involve trauma, some pretty heavy themes. I wanted to ask you that same question, to pose that question to you. What do you see as the point? What is your motivating force for putting that type of heaviness, especially in some of your stories?
Kacen Callender:
I feel like I did start by writing and mostly just wanting to see reflections of myself and reflect more people who look like me, more characters with my marginalized identities and not just black and straight also or white and trans. I wanted to see the intersectional identities.
But the more I wrote, the more I feel like that this is an epic love story era. I was like, let's just see more characters who look and act like my communities. And then it started to become a, it's not just the identity, it's also the traumas that have informed us and who create each of us into such unique individuals that we all have to heal from.
It's not enough to say, "I just want to see more black people." It's also I want to see more black people who did have to heal from this particular trauma or also have to deal with intergenerational trauma and who create all these different traumas and wounds that create each individual story arc. I did feel like I started out with a umbrella motivation that started to go slimmer and slimmer into wanting to focus on characters that are healing.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
What do you think that it is about your writing that just has such a strong connection for young adults, for young people? What do you think it is that just that has this such strong connection?
Kacen Callender:
Thank you for saying that. I think a part of it is being stuck in the childhood nervous system like I was talking about before, being able to really very authentically talk to my experiences because it still in many ways would feel like I was still a teenager in that space that I'm trying to heal from. I think that maybe because of that it can feel more authentic to some readers.
I mean similarly for the adult book that I've just written, Stars in Your Eyes is also about healing of trauma. I think a lot of people tend to resonate with the books if they have experienced what I've written writing about and there are also healing themselves. I think I try to write with empathy also. I think I try to write with an understanding that everyone, every single human being and every single being is worthy of love.
If we're going to go into the spiritual conversation that we're all in the eyes of God, not Sky Daddy, but universal energy, we're all worthy. We're all made of love and light and all those beautiful phrases that everyone uses and that we're all worthy of that, and it's really the trauma and it's really the generational trauma and pain that dampens that and makes us scared and makes us afraid of each other and ourselves. And makes us feel like we're not worthy of love, others aren't worthy of love.
And trying to write from that place, I think even if some people haven't... I feel it's interesting, I feel like some people have an angry defense pushing against that and I think that that also speaks to the way that humans tend to be programmed into being more afraid and wanting to push against that.
And some people really feel that so deeply that yes, we are all worthy of love. And we are all these beings that are a part of consciousness and deserve that love. And all of this physical, whatever matter is just the pieces of what is a dream to me, I think it feels like. And then once the dream ends, it's like we all remember, yes, we're all worthy of love. Feeling that energy I think is what I try to put into my books and I think that that hopefully resonates with some readers on a deeper spiritual level.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. I mean also I think something that think I've read you talk about and certainly in your writing as well, this idea that... Which is hard I think in a very divisive environment right now for everybody, myself included, to view someone who maybe feels like a hurtful person as also being deserving of that love and also having themselves probably been harmed in some way to behave in that way. That's a really hard thing to... Tall order for a lot of people to think that way.
Kacen Callender:
I think what's funny is that this is all a cycle that's never going to end because they are the ones who are looking at us in the exact same way that we are looking at them. And so, being stuck in this us-them cycle, we're always going to be in this constant state of that person is doing this thing that's making me angry and it's hurting others. And they are saying the exact same thing about us.
How do we begin to get to a place where that cycle ends and we can all start to say, "We're all worthy"? I do think it starts with the healing and looking at ourselves first instead of looking at... I mean, I do know that saying that upsets very many people, but I also feel like that's what's true. I mean I feel that so especially strongly after I've meditated, so it's I feel like that's got to be coming from somewhere. It's not just me making up something.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
This exploration of breaking that perpetual us versus them cycle is evident in Kacen's upcoming novel, the Stars in Your Eyes. The book represents a natural evolution of the themes that have been central to Kacen's writing journey, symbolizing their personal growth and acceptance of both trauma and identity.
Kacen Callender:
Stars in Your Eyes is about two actors, Mattie Cole and Logan Gray, who are put together to star opposite each other in a romantic comedy blockbuster film. As I was talking about CPTSD, the book is a lot about Logan's CPTSD. And though the story follows this, the tropes that you would expect, the fun tropes that you would expect from a romance, it takes a swerve into the, okay, this is what CPTSD can look like from a relationship. It's all fun until you're triggered and then you actually need to heal. That's what the book investigates.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
And Kacen has been busy. They also have another novel coming out that branches off into a current area of interest for them, the bridge or balance between science and spirituality.
Kacen Callender:
Infinity Alchemist is set in a world where alchemy is known as the science of magic, an ability where everyone has access to it naturally, but only an elite few are allowed to participate. It was inspired by anti-trans rhetoric. And originally it was based in quantum physics, if you can believe.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. And that sounds like a fun book.
Kacen Callender:
Yeah. It was a lot of fun to write. I know it was successful and it's fun when I actually wanted to write it more than I wanted to play my RPG video games. I feel like that was the moment of, yes, made it.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
That's your bar. And what was your favorite part about writing that book?
Kacen Callender:
I mean, there are a lot of fun action scenes and there's a polyamorous triad, so all those elements were really fun. But I do think my favorite was probably finally figuring out because I've always had the idea of wanting to write a book about the science of magic. And I feel like when I finally started to understand my spirituality more, that clicked into the idea of the science of spirituality source. It all just came together in a way that felt like there was just a lot that really wanted to flow out of me and onto the page. I think that that was my favorite part.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I feel like you are operating on a different plane than a lot of people.
Kacen Callender:
No, I'm on the same plane as you.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
It really feels like... No, no, it feels like you are buzzing or something right here. I don't know.
Kacen Callender:
No, that's not true.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
No?
Kacen Callender:
See, I honestly, I feel passionate about this also because Infinity Alchemist, like I said, everyone has the ability for alchemy in this story. I'm having a gut instinct of don't push meditation on people because people do not like anything to be pushed on them. But I feel, I mean, we're all spiritual beings and I meditate. You don't have to meditate I mean.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
What is your meditation practice? I'll ask it as a question.
Kacen Callender:
It changes. It's interesting because at first I thought meditation was sit down, force your no thoughts, close your eyes. And the more I meditated, the more I realized, similarly to writing actually, I felt like there were streams of consciousness flowing through me and saying, "It's not just silence your thoughts. Sometimes the thoughts need to come up. Follow the thoughts. Where are the thoughts taking me? Taking me to on these memories of pain, taking me on these memories of trauma that need to be healed. Figuring out why is it that I reacted to this one person this particular way? Oh, that was a symbol of all this that still needed to be healed."
And it's like the more I'm healing, the more I'm lifting away. It feels like humans are all spiritual beings, but we're all covered by what's not really all this physical matter of trauma, pain, fear. It's like lifting that away. And so, the meditation heals through that and allows me to feel a little bit more of my actual spiritual self rather than the cloud of what isn't necessarily real. Or feels very real in this physical plane, but maybe isn't as.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
But that is the lightness that I think that people maybe see. Not the light, but the lightness of having taken those shrouds off in a way.
Kacen Callender:
Exactly. Exactly.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. But everybody can have that, you're saying.
Kacen Callender:
I'm sorry?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
It's not unique to you.
Kacen Callender:
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. That was the sermon by Kacen Callender.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I'm going to sell that to Headspace.
Kacen Callender:
Lord. Yeah.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
This foray into spirituality and energy is something that Kacen has been exploring more specifically recently. However, many of their books, for me at least, feel written in a way that seems dreamlike. Removing the reader from the barriers of the real world in a subtle way that allows for an emotional and intellectual connection without constraints. I asked if that was intentional.
Kacen Callender:
Dreams have always been such a massive part of my life and I think that that played a role in my writing. I feel like for King of the Dragonflies especially, that was a book that felt very, I... Just rushed out of me. It felt like I say this a lot, I feel like I didn't even really write it. And then I think it was maybe after... And I mean that by my fingers were typing, the words were just flowing through me and not really feeling like I was coming up with the ideas or coming up with the sentences, but something else was flowing through me. And it wasn't until after King of the Dragonflies that I... What is the name of that book? The same person that wrote Eat, Pray, Love.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Oh, Elizabeth Gilbert.
Kacen Callender:
Yeah. Wrote a book and I'm also forgetting the title.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Big Love, big something.
Kacen Callender:
It's Big Magic I think
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Big Magic.
Kacen Callender:
Yeah. After that, reading her ideas of how energy works and how energy flows through creatives in this channeling state, I was like, I feel like that's exactly what happened to me. And it was only until after that I started to feel like I had more experiences that led me to writing Moonflower and being a little bit more conscious of consciousness and meditation. And feeling like a whole lot of stuff I could say right now that might not necessarily resonate with what a lot of people believe.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
But you felt something, like some other power working through you.
Kacen Callender:
Mm-hmm.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I did want to say Moonflower is the book that I most recently reread of yours because I'd read it and then I did an interview with Ellen Oh. And she was telling about her son who transitioned and how Moonflower was this truly lifesaving book for her child in a different way than other. I mean, she just really got very emotional talking about it.
Kacen Callender:
Well, you're starting to make me emotional.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Do you hear from young readers often about the impact that your books have on them?
Kacen Callender:
Yes. It can be very emotional. It can. A lot of feedback. For example, Felix Ever After where people are saying, "Felix helped me discover my identity. Or helped me for the first time realize that I can be loved regardless of how other people treat me because of my identities." That's definitely, it can be emotional, it can be a reminder of yes, this is a motivation of why I wanted to write certain books.
My favorite interactions are always the people who do reach out to very specifically with Felix Ever After. I feel like that's gotten the most responsive people reaching out to say, "This book helped me discover my identity." Or, "I didn't even know that demiboy, the label that Felix ends up landing on for himself, existed until this book."
And that's instant crying for me, whenever someone reaches out to say, "This helped me discover my identity," because that was what the book was originally... The main motivation I felt like. Because for myself, there was another piece of media that had helped me figure out that I was trans. And it was like I wish that there was more media like this that could help people discover their identity. That's what I wanted Felix to be.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
It was a piece of media that helped you discover that? Okay, well now I just need to know that.
Kacen Callender:
Yeah, it's Degrassi.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Can you share about that?
Kacen Callender:
I watched the Drake one growing up and then I had stopped along the way of, it was college time, so I think I just stopped watching it. And I realized it had continued. And after college I went back and decided to rewatch the whole thing from beginning to end.
And there were a couple seasons after the original. Not the original, original cast, but the Drake version cast where the first trans guy I had ever seen on TV or as a character, he just sat and discussed his feelings of what it means to be trans. And that was the moment of... I know people say that this is a trans person. I don't know necessarily what that means internally, but the person discussing what it felt like internally was the moment of, that's how I felt ever since I was a kid. And that really sparked me. Even realizing I was trans, I think I was 25 and that just put me on a... If I had not watched Degrassi, my life would've been completely different.
I feel like what makes me emotional is the thought of a young... If I had the access to queer, trans stories at the age that so many people are now looking for those stories, I feel like my life would've been changed for the better. And to think that there are young people who those stories are being provided, written, trying to be handed to them, the fact that it's being stopped is like that's what's hurting my heart on their behalf.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Kacen's work began by having the imagination and will to write their own perspective, creating the representation so desperately needed in children's and young adult literature. In the wake of increasingly harmful transphobic rhetoric, for their reading challenge Kacen wants listeners to embrace the world of speculative fiction as a tool to imagine freedom for trans people
Kacen Callender:
Right now, very difficult time of course for trans people with all the rhetoric and anti-trans laws that are being passed. But I do think that fantasy speculative books in particular I think tend to be inspired or have the imagination to see what's possible and it's not necessarily just this world that we're trapped in.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
You can find more details about Kacen's Reading Challenge and all past reading challenges from authors like Jacqueline Woodson, Meg Medina and Kwame Alexander at thereadingculturepod.com. Today's Beanstack featured librarian is Meredith Derrick, library coordinator for Klein Independent School district outside of Houston, Texas. She shares a heartwarming story about a student's attempt at a thoughtful teacher appreciation surprise.
Meredith Derrick:
Being a librarian. I have kids, and it was teacher appreciation week and my son decided we had these little ladybug I believe planters with little roses in them that he wanted to get for his teacher. He was in second grade and he did not think it was a big deal, just throw it in his backpack, take to school. His librarian called and said, "Hey." And literally it was a couple of weeks later, she called and said, "Hey, Nicholas brought his book back, but I don't know if this was supposed to be a present for me." We got to pay for library books and they got a little delay in their teacher appreciation gift.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
This has been the Reading Culture and you've been listening to our conversation with Kacen Callender. Again, I'm your host, Jordan Lloyd Bookey. And currently I'm reading Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo and The Marvellers by Dhonielle Clayton.
If you enjoyed today's episode, please show some love and give us a five star review. It just takes a few seconds and it really helps. To learn more about how you can help grow your community's reading culture you can check out all of our resources at beanstack.com. And remember to sign up for our newsletter at thereadingculturepod.com/newsletter for special offers and bonus content.
This episode was produced by Jackie Lamport and Lower Street Media and script edited by Josiah Lamberto-Egan. Thanks for joining and keep reading.
And I think that has a lot to do with why I was so interested in writing for children. It's like I was trying to heal, I was trying to heal my childhood experiences through writing through these characters. And so it's funny that I'm also now at the moment I'm figuring out how to find the resources to heal the childhood trauma. I'm starting to write my first adult contemporary books. I feel like I'm starting to write through my experiences as an adult too.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Telling stories requires us to dig deep into our own personal experiences. For Kacen Callender writing is not only a creative outlet, it's a controlled way to process their own trauma and the difficult experiences they faced as a black trans person.
Kacen burst onto the scene with Hurricane Child in 2018. They went on to write titles such as Felix Ever After and King and the Dragonflies, notable both for their queer and trans characters and for their dreamlike prose. Kacen's books are a hit with young readers and adults alike. They have received the Stonewall Book award, the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ children's and Middle Grade Works and the National Book Award for Young People's literature.
In this episode, they join us to talk about the healing therapy of literature, critical importance of fan fiction and the connection between meditation and dreams. We'll also find out what '90s film helped inspire their upcoming book.
My name is Jordan Lloyd Bookey, and this is the Reading Culture, a show where we speak with authors and illustrators about ways to explore building a stronger culture of reading in our communities. We dive into their personal experiences, their inspirations, and why their stories and ideas motivate kids to read more. Make sure to check us out on Instagram for giveaways at the Reading Culture pod, and you can also subscribe to our newsletter for bonus content. That's at thereadingculturepod.com/newsletter.
I'd love if you could just start by painting a picture of what your early childhood was like there.
Kacen Callender:
I mean St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, for people who don't know, it's like the Virgin Islands are right next to Puerto Rico, so in the Caribbean. Absolutely gorgeous, but I had a hard time growing up there. I think it's a very small town stereotypical story of the queer person in the very small town space.
And it really took me until, honestly a couple years ago to figure out how to really start to heal from my experiences in St. Thomas. I was diagnosed with CPTSD, which I had not ever heard of before. It's complex PTSD. It tends to mean people who have had chronic childhood trauma experiences.
I really recently started to find out how to actually heal from that because I feel like a lot of people say, "Go to therapy." Talk therapy just never worked for me. And I started to experience more I think what people would call bottom up therapy, which is more like body somatic therapy, which gives me an opportunity to reprocess a lot of the traumatic events I went through.
Anyway, but it's funny, I feel like there's always this weird juxtaposition of I grew up in paradise. Also my childhood was sad.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
That is heavy. Can you talk a little bit about what your school experience was like?
Kacen Callender:
That was a private school where I was basically, for the first six years or so, the only black student there. And it was only until middle school where there were of lot more of us and it wasn't just feeling like the only person.
And I do feel like that's something that unfortunately is something I had to heal from because I did have teachers that I'm realizing now like, "Oh, wow. Yeah, they were slightly racist." Not only slightly, they were very racist actually.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Overtly.
Kacen Callender:
Unfortunately. My experiences were a lot of isolation, unfortunately a lot of bullying from students and teachers also at the same time. And I could not wait to escape. I could not wait to leave.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Even from a young age, that's what you remember?
Kacen Callender:
Yeah.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
This is just my own ignorance. I wouldn't think... That I guess obviously there are white people living in St. Thomas, but I guess so that's... I don't know. I just always thought it was primarily a lot of white people going as tourists but not actually living and having families and stuff. Yeah.
Kacen Callender:
Yeah, absolutely. There are two layers to that. It is primarily black. Most people, most of the locals are black. There are white people who come to the islands. And because of that, it was almost like a double-edged sword of being isolated at Antilles as one of the only black students and only black student sometimes.
And then I would leave and tell people who are primarily black, other locals, "Oh, I go to Antilles." I'm feeling isolated from them because they're like, "Oh, why are you going to that white private school?" And if you can listen to my accent for example, that was always something that would come up. It's like, "Why do you talk a white stateside person?" They would say like a Yankee. It just, I felt very isolated from all sides from a young age.
I feel like right now I am working on figuring out how to... Because for so much of my life, my adult life, it felt like my childhood was all trauma. And right now I'm figuring out little pathways to figure out in my brain it's not all trauma. I have some memories of this was safe, this was nice. And it always came back to writing. It always came back to finding little, even though it was moments of isolation, I had moments where I was able to find some peace and some happiness also. It wasn't all doom and gloom.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah, I mean, not all doom and gloom, but still a lot to unpack. Kacen, as you get older, does this get easier to reflect on or do you find yourself remembering things that made you feel safe more as you grow?
Kacen Callender:
Yeah, I mean I think that's the interesting part about CPSC. And I don't want to talk for everyone, but it really is like the body and the nervous system feels so stuck in the trauma of childhood that again, I started therapies that actually started to work for me about two years ago.
And up until then I was constantly, why does it feel like I'm so stuck? I feel like I'm stuck in this cycle of these childhood thoughts and feelings and emotions, this dysregulation. I can't figure out how to find the resources that will actually help me feel more regulated or more grounded.
Once I found those resources, I started to feel like, "Oh, I'm starting to feel like I'm not 13 anymore. I starting to feel like I'm 20, I'm starting to feel like I'm 25." It's now, even though I'm in my 30s I feel like I'm finally starting to grow up a little bit, in air quotes. Starting to feel like my-
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
You're having the 20s, the experience of the 20s in a way of the freedom that you start to feel it sounds like or the...
Kacen Callender:
Yeah. And finding that safety to actually be in my body instead of in the nervous system's trauma of this is everything you experience, this is what you have to stay safe from, this is what you have to... This is a very happy conversation.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Well, I think it's really important, I mean honestly for any writer, but it just really feels like so much. I mean every once in a while you get somebody, I interviewed Meg Medina, she was much later in life becoming a writer. She always loved to write, but she had a whole other life and career and this wasn't what she saw for herself.
But I think for people who really grew, always knew, which I think maybe it sounds like you've found some of the things that are coming back to you now that did feel like safe places where, like you said, writing, I think it's important to know where that starts.
And obviously for anybody who's ever read some of your books about young people, this makes sense. And you write from such an authentic place. I mean Moonflower, I'm hearing that in talking to you.
Kacen Callender:
Thank you. Yeah, and I think that has a lot to do with why I was so interested in writing for children is I was trying to heal, I was trying to heal my childhood experiences through writing through these characters. And so, it's funny that I'm also now at the moment, I'm figuring out how to find the resources to heal the childhood trauma. I'm starting to write my first adult contemporary books. I feel like I'm starting to write through my experiences as an adult too. Not to say that childhood or people who write middle grade and Y are only trying to heal I'm sure.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Have to wait, hold on. No.
Kacen Callender:
I'm sure that's not the case for everyone. Something that I was reflecting on was in Stars in Your Eyes, one of the drafts originally had Logan, the main character with CPTSD. Every now and then he would just make a very broad statement like, "Everyone hates me." And CPTSD creates very black and white thinking. It's very difficult to have the nuanced gray area.
And that's something that I continue to struggle with, this thought over and over again of. "Everyone hates me." It's like I have to take a moment to pause and reflect and say, "No, not everyone in the world hates me. Maybe there are some people who don't necessarily like me, but there are also some people who do like me." Trying to put myself into that nuanced grace space. I feel like that was the younger 13-year-old version nervous system me coming out in Logan's voice. And in later drafts I revised for him to think or to say things that were not as black and white.
The Anglican church bell struck 11 o'clock, one hour to go before lunch. I was then sitting at my desk in my classroom. We were having a history lesson, the last lesson of the morning. For taking first place over all the other girls I had been given a prize, a copy of a book called Roman Britain, and I was made the prefect of my class. What a mistake the prefect part had been for I was among the worst behaved in my class and did not at all believe in setting myself up as a good example the way a prefect was supposed to do.
Now I had to sit in the prefect's seat, the first seat in the front row, the seat from which I could stand up and survey quite easily my classmates. From where I sat, I could see out the window. Sometimes when I looked out, I could see the sexton going over to the minister's house, the sexton's daughter, Hilerain, a disgusting model of good behavior and keen attention to scholarship sat next to me since she took second place.
The minister's daughter, Ruth, sat in the last row, the row reserved for all the dunce girls. Hilerain, of course, I could not stand. A girl that good would never do for me. I would probably not have cared so much for first place if I could be sure it would not go to her. Ruth I liked because she was such a dunce and came from England and had yellow hair. When I first met her, I used to walk her home and sing bad songs to her just to see her turn pink as if I had spilled hot water all over her.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Jamaica Kincaid's 1985 coming of age novel, Annie John, depicts a life of a young girl on the Caribbean island of Antigua as she begins adolescence. The titular character grapples with the complex interplay of her cultural heritage and the enduring consequences of colonization and poverty.
The novel navigates multiple themes including strained parent-child relationships, teenage rebellion, and the exploration of sexuality. Kincaid's storytelling draws deeply from her own personal experiences of growing up in Antigua, providing an authentic perspective on the challenges and nuances of life in a post-colonial society. The passage Kacen just read for us reveals the minuscule ways our lens on the world is colored by our adolescence.
Kacen Callender:
This passage, I don't know if anyone would recognize that in my books, in every single one of my books, I always write, whenever a character has blonde hair, I always say yellow hair or pale hair. And it's because this passage really struck me at even a young age of realizing that the way media works and the way that media glorifies certain types of beauty.
A lot of the books I would read when I was a kid would be blonde hair, golden, yellow rays of sunshine, blue eyes like the ocean and sky. And just the way that that affects a person at a young age that does not look like that and has brown skin, brown eyes, brown hair or black hair, I realized that there was just a hierarchy in media and description.
And so I think it just always made me careful in being able to look at media first of all and analyze and see, oh, this media is trying to tell me that this person's more beautiful than this one. How does that affect me and how I feel about myself? And then that also just affected my writing and making sure I just never wanted to replicate that for young readers.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah, I was thinking, and I do remember that actually in King of the Dragonflies, that Mike... Is it Mikey?
Kacen Callender:
Yeah, yeah.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
He's got, and the description, it is striking. And that's interesting. I didn't realize that that was, or that is an ode to, or an homage I should say. Had you read a lot of books at that time by a lot of black authors? Had you, yourself and especially Jamaican Kincaid in particular?
Kacen Callender:
I remember Jamaica Kincaid was assigned in high school. I don't feel like books that I would pick up for fun necessarily. A lot of characters of color or black characters, especially Jamaican Kincaid and also Caribbean author was very influential I think for me when I was younger. But to be able to see black characters in books for the fun of it, for adventure, for fantasy, I never really experienced that until college.
And even that, I don't want to say college. I think it was like when I was after college, when I started working in publishing because I think that that was around the time of we need diverse books coming out. The movement, I was like there's a word here that fits. And because of we need diverse books seeing... Not because of it, but there was just such more a stronger push for a lot of books that were just for fun with people of color, with black characters as the main characters. I had never really experienced that before.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
While Jamaica Kincaid offered Kacen a refreshing perspective, Kacen longing for representation and relatable stories led them to a corner of the internet where both could be found, fan fiction. If you think of fan fiction as a choppy sea awash in Star Wars and Twilight retakes, well, you're not all wrong, but compared to the established publishing realm, fan fiction has been remarkably ahead of the curve on queer representation and literature, both in characters and the relationships depicted.
Gender swap is also a well-established fan fic sub-genre. Essentially, fan fic has long been an avenue for writers to reshape beloved narratives to be more inclusive than the originals. Not only is this impactful for readers, but it also gives a sense of empowerment and ownership of identity to the writers themselves.
Kacen Callender:
I started writing fan fiction, that was my first step-in into actually writing and showing other people, besides my mom. And actually getting positive feedback. And I think it was because of fan fic that someone actually put that seed into my head was like, "Wow, you should consider writing your own original stories also because this is really good." That one stranger from when I was nine years old, thank you whoever you were, because you put me on this path to deciding to try my own original stuff also.
I was mostly writing fan fiction for anime and manga and I think that that, I know there are a lot of people who are like, no fan fiction is just like, it's not serious enough. I just, I think there's something about it where there's so much love for the original story and for the original characters. Imagine the amount of love it takes to inspire someone to go and want to take those characters in that world and create something of their own because of it. I think it's beautiful, the communities online, the number of free stories. Very free stories.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. I honestly didn't really know about the fan fiction universe. And my daughter, Flo, she got really into it. She was super into Narnia, which as you know has no diversity, comes with a lot of Christian symbolism and it's super dated, especially for girls. It doesn't really go well with my mixed race Jewish daughter in 2023. But anyways, she was coming home and running to read it. I mean, I actually got to the point where I was worried and I went to read it myself because I was actually thinking, "I hope nothing in there is explicit." It wasn't. But anyways.
Kacen Callender:
Very smart move. I will not lie. There definitely needs to be some... If there are parents listening to this, definitely check what your children are reading too because there definitely, there's a lot out there.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
When you were younger, did you find a lot of solace in writing fan fiction? Was that an escape for you?
Kacen Callender:
Yeah, it was definitely. I mean, I think I stuck to fan fiction even past that for a while. I always thought to myself, oh, well, think about writing original. But I wrote fan fiction out through high school. It was definitely an escape. It was just constantly books, anime, manga, fan fiction, reading, just anything I could do to get out the world I was in, into these other worlds where really, honestly at times lifesaving. I did have other escapes where I would after school go into the woods. And at the time I didn't really realize I was meditating, but just close my eyes and just imagine leaving my body. And I feel like those were the more peaceful moments.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
It's amazing the coping mechanisms as a kid that you can have, that kids have. Has anybody ever written fan fiction for any of your works that you're aware of?
Kacen Callender:
I came across some fan fiction for Felix Ever After there were two fan fic.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I knew that was going to be the one that someone did. Okay. Yeah.
Kacen Callender:
I'm laughing because I don't remember what one of the fan fic summaries were, but the other one was like, "This is how Felix Ever After should have ended." It was like, dang.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Wow.
Kacen Callender:
At least they were passionate enough to write their own story from it, but it was just a little bit of a oof.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Do you think they knew that you read it?
Kacen Callender:
No. No, no, no.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Do you still reading anime and manga and stuff? Do you still enjoy it? Yeah.
Kacen Callender:
Oh, yeah.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
You keep up.
Kacen Callender:
I took a long break because I thought that I shouldn't like it anymore because I thought I was like, "Oh, I'm too old for this." And a part of my healing of my childhood trauma has been allowing myself to return to it and watch all of the anime I missed. It's become a ritual at night to enjoy. Right now I'm in the middle of My Hero Academia. I'm loving it.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
All right. Kacen, let's talk a little bit about this blog post that you wrote a few years ago in which you were basically asking, "What's the point of what I'm writing?" And you write a lot of books for young people especially that involve trauma, some pretty heavy themes. I wanted to ask you that same question, to pose that question to you. What do you see as the point? What is your motivating force for putting that type of heaviness, especially in some of your stories?
Kacen Callender:
I feel like I did start by writing and mostly just wanting to see reflections of myself and reflect more people who look like me, more characters with my marginalized identities and not just black and straight also or white and trans. I wanted to see the intersectional identities.
But the more I wrote, the more I feel like that this is an epic love story era. I was like, let's just see more characters who look and act like my communities. And then it started to become a, it's not just the identity, it's also the traumas that have informed us and who create each of us into such unique individuals that we all have to heal from.
It's not enough to say, "I just want to see more black people." It's also I want to see more black people who did have to heal from this particular trauma or also have to deal with intergenerational trauma and who create all these different traumas and wounds that create each individual story arc. I did feel like I started out with a umbrella motivation that started to go slimmer and slimmer into wanting to focus on characters that are healing.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
What do you think that it is about your writing that just has such a strong connection for young adults, for young people? What do you think it is that just that has this such strong connection?
Kacen Callender:
Thank you for saying that. I think a part of it is being stuck in the childhood nervous system like I was talking about before, being able to really very authentically talk to my experiences because it still in many ways would feel like I was still a teenager in that space that I'm trying to heal from. I think that maybe because of that it can feel more authentic to some readers.
I mean similarly for the adult book that I've just written, Stars in Your Eyes is also about healing of trauma. I think a lot of people tend to resonate with the books if they have experienced what I've written writing about and there are also healing themselves. I think I try to write with empathy also. I think I try to write with an understanding that everyone, every single human being and every single being is worthy of love.
If we're going to go into the spiritual conversation that we're all in the eyes of God, not Sky Daddy, but universal energy, we're all worthy. We're all made of love and light and all those beautiful phrases that everyone uses and that we're all worthy of that, and it's really the trauma and it's really the generational trauma and pain that dampens that and makes us scared and makes us afraid of each other and ourselves. And makes us feel like we're not worthy of love, others aren't worthy of love.
And trying to write from that place, I think even if some people haven't... I feel it's interesting, I feel like some people have an angry defense pushing against that and I think that that also speaks to the way that humans tend to be programmed into being more afraid and wanting to push against that.
And some people really feel that so deeply that yes, we are all worthy of love. And we are all these beings that are a part of consciousness and deserve that love. And all of this physical, whatever matter is just the pieces of what is a dream to me, I think it feels like. And then once the dream ends, it's like we all remember, yes, we're all worthy of love. Feeling that energy I think is what I try to put into my books and I think that that hopefully resonates with some readers on a deeper spiritual level.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. I mean also I think something that think I've read you talk about and certainly in your writing as well, this idea that... Which is hard I think in a very divisive environment right now for everybody, myself included, to view someone who maybe feels like a hurtful person as also being deserving of that love and also having themselves probably been harmed in some way to behave in that way. That's a really hard thing to... Tall order for a lot of people to think that way.
Kacen Callender:
I think what's funny is that this is all a cycle that's never going to end because they are the ones who are looking at us in the exact same way that we are looking at them. And so, being stuck in this us-them cycle, we're always going to be in this constant state of that person is doing this thing that's making me angry and it's hurting others. And they are saying the exact same thing about us.
How do we begin to get to a place where that cycle ends and we can all start to say, "We're all worthy"? I do think it starts with the healing and looking at ourselves first instead of looking at... I mean, I do know that saying that upsets very many people, but I also feel like that's what's true. I mean I feel that so especially strongly after I've meditated, so it's I feel like that's got to be coming from somewhere. It's not just me making up something.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
This exploration of breaking that perpetual us versus them cycle is evident in Kacen's upcoming novel, the Stars in Your Eyes. The book represents a natural evolution of the themes that have been central to Kacen's writing journey, symbolizing their personal growth and acceptance of both trauma and identity.
Kacen Callender:
Stars in Your Eyes is about two actors, Mattie Cole and Logan Gray, who are put together to star opposite each other in a romantic comedy blockbuster film. As I was talking about CPTSD, the book is a lot about Logan's CPTSD. And though the story follows this, the tropes that you would expect, the fun tropes that you would expect from a romance, it takes a swerve into the, okay, this is what CPTSD can look like from a relationship. It's all fun until you're triggered and then you actually need to heal. That's what the book investigates.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
And Kacen has been busy. They also have another novel coming out that branches off into a current area of interest for them, the bridge or balance between science and spirituality.
Kacen Callender:
Infinity Alchemist is set in a world where alchemy is known as the science of magic, an ability where everyone has access to it naturally, but only an elite few are allowed to participate. It was inspired by anti-trans rhetoric. And originally it was based in quantum physics, if you can believe.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. And that sounds like a fun book.
Kacen Callender:
Yeah. It was a lot of fun to write. I know it was successful and it's fun when I actually wanted to write it more than I wanted to play my RPG video games. I feel like that was the moment of, yes, made it.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
That's your bar. And what was your favorite part about writing that book?
Kacen Callender:
I mean, there are a lot of fun action scenes and there's a polyamorous triad, so all those elements were really fun. But I do think my favorite was probably finally figuring out because I've always had the idea of wanting to write a book about the science of magic. And I feel like when I finally started to understand my spirituality more, that clicked into the idea of the science of spirituality source. It all just came together in a way that felt like there was just a lot that really wanted to flow out of me and onto the page. I think that that was my favorite part.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I feel like you are operating on a different plane than a lot of people.
Kacen Callender:
No, I'm on the same plane as you.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
It really feels like... No, no, it feels like you are buzzing or something right here. I don't know.
Kacen Callender:
No, that's not true.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
No?
Kacen Callender:
See, I honestly, I feel passionate about this also because Infinity Alchemist, like I said, everyone has the ability for alchemy in this story. I'm having a gut instinct of don't push meditation on people because people do not like anything to be pushed on them. But I feel, I mean, we're all spiritual beings and I meditate. You don't have to meditate I mean.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
What is your meditation practice? I'll ask it as a question.
Kacen Callender:
It changes. It's interesting because at first I thought meditation was sit down, force your no thoughts, close your eyes. And the more I meditated, the more I realized, similarly to writing actually, I felt like there were streams of consciousness flowing through me and saying, "It's not just silence your thoughts. Sometimes the thoughts need to come up. Follow the thoughts. Where are the thoughts taking me? Taking me to on these memories of pain, taking me on these memories of trauma that need to be healed. Figuring out why is it that I reacted to this one person this particular way? Oh, that was a symbol of all this that still needed to be healed."
And it's like the more I'm healing, the more I'm lifting away. It feels like humans are all spiritual beings, but we're all covered by what's not really all this physical matter of trauma, pain, fear. It's like lifting that away. And so, the meditation heals through that and allows me to feel a little bit more of my actual spiritual self rather than the cloud of what isn't necessarily real. Or feels very real in this physical plane, but maybe isn't as.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
But that is the lightness that I think that people maybe see. Not the light, but the lightness of having taken those shrouds off in a way.
Kacen Callender:
Exactly. Exactly.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Yeah. But everybody can have that, you're saying.
Kacen Callender:
I'm sorry?
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
It's not unique to you.
Kacen Callender:
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. That was the sermon by Kacen Callender.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I'm going to sell that to Headspace.
Kacen Callender:
Lord. Yeah.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
This foray into spirituality and energy is something that Kacen has been exploring more specifically recently. However, many of their books, for me at least, feel written in a way that seems dreamlike. Removing the reader from the barriers of the real world in a subtle way that allows for an emotional and intellectual connection without constraints. I asked if that was intentional.
Kacen Callender:
Dreams have always been such a massive part of my life and I think that that played a role in my writing. I feel like for King of the Dragonflies especially, that was a book that felt very, I... Just rushed out of me. It felt like I say this a lot, I feel like I didn't even really write it. And then I think it was maybe after... And I mean that by my fingers were typing, the words were just flowing through me and not really feeling like I was coming up with the ideas or coming up with the sentences, but something else was flowing through me. And it wasn't until after King of the Dragonflies that I... What is the name of that book? The same person that wrote Eat, Pray, Love.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Oh, Elizabeth Gilbert.
Kacen Callender:
Yeah. Wrote a book and I'm also forgetting the title.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Big Love, big something.
Kacen Callender:
It's Big Magic I think
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Big Magic.
Kacen Callender:
Yeah. After that, reading her ideas of how energy works and how energy flows through creatives in this channeling state, I was like, I feel like that's exactly what happened to me. And it was only until after that I started to feel like I had more experiences that led me to writing Moonflower and being a little bit more conscious of consciousness and meditation. And feeling like a whole lot of stuff I could say right now that might not necessarily resonate with what a lot of people believe.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
But you felt something, like some other power working through you.
Kacen Callender:
Mm-hmm.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
I did want to say Moonflower is the book that I most recently reread of yours because I'd read it and then I did an interview with Ellen Oh. And she was telling about her son who transitioned and how Moonflower was this truly lifesaving book for her child in a different way than other. I mean, she just really got very emotional talking about it.
Kacen Callender:
Well, you're starting to make me emotional.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Do you hear from young readers often about the impact that your books have on them?
Kacen Callender:
Yes. It can be very emotional. It can. A lot of feedback. For example, Felix Ever After where people are saying, "Felix helped me discover my identity. Or helped me for the first time realize that I can be loved regardless of how other people treat me because of my identities." That's definitely, it can be emotional, it can be a reminder of yes, this is a motivation of why I wanted to write certain books.
My favorite interactions are always the people who do reach out to very specifically with Felix Ever After. I feel like that's gotten the most responsive people reaching out to say, "This book helped me discover my identity." Or, "I didn't even know that demiboy, the label that Felix ends up landing on for himself, existed until this book."
And that's instant crying for me, whenever someone reaches out to say, "This helped me discover my identity," because that was what the book was originally... The main motivation I felt like. Because for myself, there was another piece of media that had helped me figure out that I was trans. And it was like I wish that there was more media like this that could help people discover their identity. That's what I wanted Felix to be.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
It was a piece of media that helped you discover that? Okay, well now I just need to know that.
Kacen Callender:
Yeah, it's Degrassi.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Can you share about that?
Kacen Callender:
I watched the Drake one growing up and then I had stopped along the way of, it was college time, so I think I just stopped watching it. And I realized it had continued. And after college I went back and decided to rewatch the whole thing from beginning to end.
And there were a couple seasons after the original. Not the original, original cast, but the Drake version cast where the first trans guy I had ever seen on TV or as a character, he just sat and discussed his feelings of what it means to be trans. And that was the moment of... I know people say that this is a trans person. I don't know necessarily what that means internally, but the person discussing what it felt like internally was the moment of, that's how I felt ever since I was a kid. And that really sparked me. Even realizing I was trans, I think I was 25 and that just put me on a... If I had not watched Degrassi, my life would've been completely different.
I feel like what makes me emotional is the thought of a young... If I had the access to queer, trans stories at the age that so many people are now looking for those stories, I feel like my life would've been changed for the better. And to think that there are young people who those stories are being provided, written, trying to be handed to them, the fact that it's being stopped is like that's what's hurting my heart on their behalf.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
Kacen's work began by having the imagination and will to write their own perspective, creating the representation so desperately needed in children's and young adult literature. In the wake of increasingly harmful transphobic rhetoric, for their reading challenge Kacen wants listeners to embrace the world of speculative fiction as a tool to imagine freedom for trans people
Kacen Callender:
Right now, very difficult time of course for trans people with all the rhetoric and anti-trans laws that are being passed. But I do think that fantasy speculative books in particular I think tend to be inspired or have the imagination to see what's possible and it's not necessarily just this world that we're trapped in.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
You can find more details about Kacen's Reading Challenge and all past reading challenges from authors like Jacqueline Woodson, Meg Medina and Kwame Alexander at thereadingculturepod.com. Today's Beanstack featured librarian is Meredith Derrick, library coordinator for Klein Independent School district outside of Houston, Texas. She shares a heartwarming story about a student's attempt at a thoughtful teacher appreciation surprise.
Meredith Derrick:
Being a librarian. I have kids, and it was teacher appreciation week and my son decided we had these little ladybug I believe planters with little roses in them that he wanted to get for his teacher. He was in second grade and he did not think it was a big deal, just throw it in his backpack, take to school. His librarian called and said, "Hey." And literally it was a couple of weeks later, she called and said, "Hey, Nicholas brought his book back, but I don't know if this was supposed to be a present for me." We got to pay for library books and they got a little delay in their teacher appreciation gift.
Jordan Lloyd Bookey:
This has been the Reading Culture and you've been listening to our conversation with Kacen Callender. Again, I'm your host, Jordan Lloyd Bookey. And currently I'm reading Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo and The Marvellers by Dhonielle Clayton.
If you enjoyed today's episode, please show some love and give us a five star review. It just takes a few seconds and it really helps. To learn more about how you can help grow your community's reading culture you can check out all of our resources at beanstack.com. And remember to sign up for our newsletter at thereadingculturepod.com/newsletter for special offers and bonus content.
This episode was produced by Jackie Lamport and Lower Street Media and script edited by Josiah Lamberto-Egan. Thanks for joining and keep reading.