Episode 5: Jake Burt, Middle Grade Author
A podcast interview with middle grade author Jake Burt, all about writing diversity from a place of privilege.
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Transcript of Podcast episoDe 5: Interview with jake burt, middle grade author
Mary: Hello, this is Mary Kole and "The Good Story Podcast," helping writers craft a good story. With me, you will hear from thought leaders related to writing and sometimes not about topics important to writers of all categories and ability levels. Here is to telling a good story. Thank you so much for joining me. This is "The Good Story Podcast," and with me today I have Jake Burt. And we are going to make a valiant effort to have a conversation about diversity and publishing as to Caucasian people. Jake has had some very interesting experiences in this seam. And I wanted to bring him here live after I saw a Twitter thread of his. So, Jake, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself to start?
Jake: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, first, so much for having me. My name is Jake Burt. I'm an author of children's literature. I've written "Greetings from Witness Protection," which came out in 2017, "The Right Hook of Devin Velma," which came out in 2018. "The Tornado," which came out last year, and my next one coming out is called "Cleo Porter and the Body Electric." The first three books are realistic middle-grade contemporary novels. And what I'm here to talk about is "The Right Hook of Devin Velma," which is about two 12-year-old boys who live in Los Angeles, California.
Mary: Great. So I'm going to post a link to the Twitter thread, but you were there, you originated it. So, in addition to what people can read there, just give listeners the skinny on kind of what happened. Well, first, let's say, we've been having quite a big conversation in publishing, and I think just in the culture about race, especially...race and diversity as it pertains to media books, especially, I think one of the questions that sort of implied in all of this is, you know, who can write what story? And I work with a lot of writers, and this is one question that I've gotten a lot as publishing has started to champion diversity, sometimes with good intentions gone awry, sometimes with good intentions that play out wonderfully. We're sort of watching that happen right now with the "
" controversy.
But writers ask me, "You know, I am a Caucasian person, or I'm a female, and I want to write this story about a different culture, or a different gender, a different sexuality, a different experience, a different mental health experience." Just a different perspective, and in this atmosphere of own voices, and this move toward representing authentic voices from those experiences, a lot of my writers who maybe are stepping into different shoes with their projects are worried, and they say, "Can I write this? Do I have the right to write this?" And I think you spoke to this issue very intelligently. So why don't you tell us, lay the groundwork for us? What happened to you specifically?
Jake: Yeah. And I think I will start with that disclaimer that what I'm about to talk about here is what happened just to me and is my own writing experience that's not only unique to me but is unique to this book. The book itself is very much centered on these two boys' family lives, their home lives, their interactions with each other, and their interplay at school. So because of the kind of book this is, I think that's one of the reasons why we...and when I say, "We," I mean, Macmillan, my publisher, Feiwel & Friends, and I wanted to do this justice and wanted to tread very carefully here. But the original genesis of the book came from my own anxiety about being on social media in the first place. When I first became an author, they said, "Jake, you need to publicize your books. You got to get a Twitter account. You got to get your own website." And I'm this, you know, fifth-grade teacher in New Haven, Connecticut, I've never touched Twitter before in my life. So I had a lot of anxiety around that.
And so the story developed about these two boys, one of whom is also very, very anxious about those sorts of things, and his best friend who isn't. And so the storyline, the problem in the story isn't focused on their heritage. It's focused on their friendship, and how social media and fame sort of unravels that and forces them to come to grips with where they are growing up. So, their heritage, their background isn't the focus of the problem of the story, but it informs everything within there. So when I decided to set it in Los Angeles, because that's where, you know, fame happens, that's where a kid would naturally think to himself, "I can do this. I can get famous quick." It seems like a natural setting, not because it makes that easy, but because it would make my main characters' life that much harder because he lives in Los Angeles.
I, of course, did all the research I could on Los Angeles. And I said to myself, "I wanna do the demographics of this place justice. The world is a diverse place. Books should reflect that diversity, whether they're written by a Caucasian author or an author of color, anybody, it should reflect the wonderful diversity of our country." And so I said, "Well, it makes sense to make these two boys Latino." And so I did, and I wanted to make absolutely certain that I wasn't writing stereotypes. That was my fear. And so I did all the research I could, got second readers who were Latino, who were Hispanic, and got their feedback. And the question I kept asking them was, "Are my kids stereotypes? Am I portraying them stereotypically?" And I kept getting this really generous answer back, "No, your kids are not stereotypes. No, they're not stereotypes. You've done a good job of not writing stereotypes." And I was just as pleased as punch with myself for that.
And that being pleased with myself I think is where I could have gone awry because, you know, it is really...I think I said this in the Twitter thread, but I don't know what I don't know. So, in terms of allyship, in terms of supporting the diversity of our world, not just in a story but in real-time as an author who's on this author journey with all these other wonderful writers, supporting them also means understanding when I have a story that I can tell and when it's not so much my story to tell. And that's where this sensitivity reader that Feiwel & Friends contracted came into play. And I got this person's feedback. I don't even know if he was a he, or a she, or they, but I got this person's feedback and they said, "Hey, no stereotypes in this book. In fact, you don't actually have any Latino characters in this book." And it did catch me off-guard at first.
It's one of those things that always tell you whenever you get any type of critique on a book, sit with it a couple of days. Don't immediately jump back on your email and try to respond to the stuff. And so I sat with this for a couple of days, and I realized that she was right, or he was right, or they were right and that I had not really done a Latino character's heritage justice because I had been so careful to make it antiseptic that I had not written that story at all. And so I'm going to release this novel with a big five publisher and take up all this publishing oxygen with my story of two Latino characters that...yeah. I mean, Feiwel & Friends could be putting publicity toward an own voices author who's characters would be more authentic, who would be more likely to be mirrors and windows for children who would pick up this book.
And so I said, "You know what? As much as I think of these two characters as Latino in my own head, that might just be my own Caucasian brain thinking of them as Latino." So, I decided to back off and make them white. And the real learning experience for me was how easy it was to do that. How easy it was to go back into this manuscript, copy and paste some names in or find/replace some names, and then I was done. And that's where I realized that for this story, again, not necessarily for anybody else's story out there, but for my story, the way their heritage should have been rooted throughout the manuscript, it just wasn't. And that's where I realized I didn't do the story justice, and maybe I'm not the guy to do it at all.
So I'd hesitate to say to any other author, "Don't try to write from another perspective." Because I think that's one of the ways we learn about other perspectives. It's one of the vital ways we connect with other human beings, especially as authors. You try to put yourself in their shoes. You try to think of what their story would be. I mean, that's why we enjoy reading own voices authors as, at least, I do as a Caucasian is it gives me a window into somebody else's life and that I wouldn't know otherwise. And so I get to learn. But there's a difference between writing from somebody else's perspective, I think, and publishing in somebody else's perspective. Because publishing is a business, and it's...this is gonna be a weird metaphor, but it's kind of like a pie. And there's a certain amount of pie that can be purchased and consumed by customers. And for centuries, that pie was baked by white people. White people own the ovens. White people own the recipes, and they sold the pie to other white people. But when you look at the industry now, continuing with this terrible pie metaphor, you see that, you know...
Mary: You're a writer, you said? No, I'm just...
Jake: Yeah, yeah, occasionally. I have wonderful editors who are not here with me now to tell me to stop with the pie thing. I'll keep going anyway because I'm on a train and I can't stop. That's another bad metaphor. But anyway, the bestseller list are being dominated by own voices authors right now, Kidlit, YA, adult across the board. And I think this sort of shift has left white authors sometimes asking, "Well, hey, the pie has always been ours and it's suddenly not. But I'm not used to not having it be my pie, so I'm gonna go ahead and bake the type of pie that everybody else is eating now." Even though you don't know the recipe. And it's not what people are looking for. And so, people of color, authors of color are looking at white authors trying to get this market share, and rightfully asking, "You know, what gives you the right? Other than the long-standing tradition of white people dominating the industry, how are you taking up the space?" And I didn't wanna be one of those authors that tried to take up that space. I think, I mean, the most overt example of this, even more galling to me than "American Dirt" over the last couple weeks is the Barnes & Noble cover...
Mary: The covers.
Jake: ...thing. Like, I was flabbergasted that, like, and it's a clear example of this. Okay. People of color are finally getting a chance to have their stories heard and moreover, purchased in this market. And so Barnes & Noble is gonna try to capitalize on that by taking a bunch of books by dead white authors and putting people of color on the cover...
Mary: On the cover only, not affecting the inside at all. But suddenly Romeo and Juliet is a mixed-race relationship. We're all supposed to feel great about that.
Jake: Right. Exactly. And so again, I'm just thinking about a random customer walking into Barnes & Noble, and they're looking at the shelves, and, you know, they see Supriya Kelkar book, or a Karina Glaser book, or a Renee Watson book, or an Alicia Williams book, and they say, "You know what? I could get one of those," or "Ooh, here's a classic with a diverse character on the cover." You know, it's "The Secret Garden." That sounds interesting. But it's wrong-headed to me.
Mary: Nice try, Barnes & Noble. Nice try.
Jake: Yeah, and to their credit, they pulled it. And, you know, it's one of those there, but for the grace of God, go I sort of things because if that sensitivity reader hadn't helped me, I might have a very similar story here. But I mean, if there's any lesson to take from my approach to this, it's, A, find the people who are willing to put in the work to tell you what to do about it, be paving for that work, and see, listen, once they tell you. I think if I had any advice for white authors, that would be it, those three things.
Mary: So let's unpack a little bit. I'm very curious about the decision points that went into this novel. So, you said you started out conceptualizing these characters as Hispanic because of, you know, the setting, LA, California demographics. Any other affinity that you had for that culture, any other thing you wanted to sort of not accomplish, that makes it sound kind of mercenary, but any other reason for the choice initially as you sort of approached it in the outline phase or the drafting phase?
Jake: Yeah, it was really just sort of naivete on my part, just a, "Hey, I want to write a diverse story. I wanna make sure that I am...my characters are diverse, and that I'm being, you know, true to the wide variety and wonderful variety of kids out there." My first novel was about a white girl and her white family. So, you know, maybe it's time that I, you know, diversify my characters. Yeah, and so that was my sort of modus operandi there before I got into asking myself, again, those questions, I mean, should I be telling the story? And then is there anything inherently wrong with me writing white characters? You know, I'm a white guy, and so all of my main characters, thus far, have been white.
And, you know, I don't think there's anything wrong with that as long as I'm doing the work of putting diversity into my books in a general sense that is reflecting the world as it exists. There are way too many wonderful authors of color out there writing their own characters for me to...you know, I try to muscle in on or compete with on that level, and I don't even want to. I would cringe at the thought of somebody buying one of my books over another author's book. I wouldn't want that to happen, so...
Mary: Then the draft went to several readers. You made sure to include people. Your concern, of course, was a stereotypical portrayal, but you weren't really...I don't know. You say that you think you weren't really asking the right questions or the deep question about how pervasive that cultural identity was for this character. So this manuscript went through a couple of different hands, you have an agent, your publisher. At some point, Feiwel & Friends must have said, "Hey, let's get a sensitivity reader on it." Did you know they were doing that or was that a discussion with them at some point?
Jake: I didn't know they were doing it. So my editor, Liz Szabla, wrote me and just said, "Hey, Jake, you know, we decided to send this off to a sensitivity reader. And we think that we got some really great feedback on this. Would you please take a look at it and let us know what you'd like to do about it." And so I got sort of the copy and paste of the sensitivity reader's notes and went off that. But we didn't have a conversation in advance of me requesting the sensitivity reader or them asking me if it was okay that they get a sensitivity reader. They just got the sensitivity reader, and it was a great idea.
Mary: So, you took it back, you noodled it, and you did come to the decision to recast the characters as Caucasian. Was that a joint decision? Was there a conversation with your agent or your editor at that point, or did you just kind of go back and say, "This is what I'm gonna do," and then just do it?
Jake: I tend to retreat into a revision cave and try things and then spring them on my editor. For example, for the book that's coming out this fall, one of her very brief editorial lines was, "This book needs another kid." And so, rather than dialogue with her about that, I said, "Okay." And I just went back and I wrote this entirely new character into the book and sent it back to her, like, with my fingers crossed. And I just tend to work that way. And so for "The Right Hook of Devin Velma," I just went back in and said, "Okay." The first question I asked myself is after the sensitivity reader said, "This isn't authentic," I said, "Okay. What is the authentic Latino experience?" And that's, of course, when I had the epiphany or whatever you want to call it, I don't know. You know, I grew up suburban white kid and I don't know.
And there was no amount of research, I don't think, that I was gonna be able to do. Certainly, not in that amount of time in the revision, turning it around to get first pass pages, and then final pass pages done that I was gonna be able to do this justice. And I hate reading books where characters don't seem real to me, where they don't seem authentic. And I didn't want that to be me or didn't want that to be my characters. So I just made the decision to say, "All right. Let's make them white and see how that works." And it was almost painfully easy to do. So that's where I learned my lesson. I learned that in this type of book, for this book, I didn't have the...I don't even know if it's a writing chops thing or the empathy thing, it just it wasn't my lane. And I had to, you know, put the turn single on and shift out.
Mary: Yeah. And I think the most interesting detail for me when I was reading over your Twitter feed was that it took you about, you said there, four hours to remove that element from the book. It hadn't penetrated, you know, to the very marrow of the story. And so, this brings me to...I have a couple of questions that I wanna get your take on. But one would be are there circumstances under which...
So you make it a point to say, "You know, for this book, it was not the right choice. This is, you know, what I ended up doing instead. I realize that I had been treating the cultural element as a kind of surface or superficial elements of the story." Let's not just say for a Caucasian writer, let's say for any writer who's trying to write in another lane, I like that, under what circumstances or with what kind of due diligence or with what kind of approach might you see it working better for them to try a different lane? Whether with a protagonist or a really needy secondary character or an antagonist, how do we step outside?
Because I think one of the main objections that I get to this whole movement from writers who feel like they have to censor themselves is that fiction is the act of stepping into somebody else's shoes as a writer. And as a reader, we read because we wanna step into the experiences of other people. And so if we want to do that, but we want to do it "right" to do a lane change, how might you see that working?
Jake: It's a great question. And I think it's one that if we're gonna do it justice is gonna necessitate what's gonna seem like a lame answer at first. And it's that age-old depends on the author, depends on the book sort of thing. But I really think it does. I've had very good friends write books that have been successful. And that, at least, I haven't seen any negative feedback on that star main characters who are different in race, or different in gender, or different in sexuality than themselves. And I think they've done a really good job at it. What I would say is a way to approach it carefully would be to ask yourself whether or not the heritage, the sexuality, the gender, the race of my character is understanding that essential to the entirety of the story? For "The Right Hook of Devin Velma," it would've been. And it would have been noticeable immediately that I didn't know what I was talking about with these families.
One of the people who responded to the Twitter thread...I'm not looking at Twitter right now, and I don't know their handle, but I will give them credit for having asked this question or having said this, they said something like, "If I'm writing a story about pirates in space and I wanna have a black main character, do I have to be black to write the story of that?" And I guess my question would be, "Well, is it essential that that character be black?" So why make that choice? And I think that's where the questions need to start. Why are you choosing this? And if it's not essential for the story, if it's not critical for the reader to understand why this person is black, or Latino, or a girl, or a boy, or transgender, what have you? Then why are you making that choice?
Is it because you want to have your narrative be part of that new you? Is it because you want part of that pie, or is it because there's something plot-related that will happen that will be discriminated against in some way and that will help propel your story forward? I guess that's the question for a white author or any author writing outside of their lane is what is the essential narrative point of making this character that particular race, gender, so on and so forth?
Mary: Yeah, I think that one of the most, I would say, cringy...I think you said "cringy," which opened the door for me to say cringy. One of the most kind of gross a little bit approaches that I see some people taking is it almost seems like box-ticking in order to get a piece of this pie is to, you know, "Oh, okay. I need a character who is a different race. I need a character who is a different sexuality. I need a character who, you know, who is differently-abled." And you sort of put together this cast of all sorts of different characters. And I just think that that is so the wrong reason to be doing anything. I think it's mercenary. For me, the rubric really when I talk to writers in this situation, and I try to answer the question, and my answer to the question is also lame, I think, but I always ask them to examine, not just the narrative utility of the choice, but their intentions with doing it.
And if it's to convey an important experience to do it justice, if they're not approaching the element that they are including from a gratuitous or just superfluous standpoint, they're not just adding it as nice window dressing. I think we do have to have these conversations with ourselves and with our ideas. You know, writers talk to themselves all the time in order to determine, you know, is this being done for the right reasons? Is it being done the right way? Are we going to do the right research, and talk to people, and interview people if we need to step outside of our lane in order to sort of really do the thing justice, whatever it may be?
I just think an approach like that is very warranted and, frankly, with like you were saying just now, "I have friends that have done this that haven't gotten any negative feedback." I think that's one of the compounding factors right now as you can tell from the Barnes & Noble backlash, the "American Dirt" backlash. I think that there are people out there on Twitter and online who are almost like the lane police. There are some people of the extreme opinion that nobody can step outside of their lane, and they're pretty vocal. And so, unfortunately, you know, this is a very complicated topic that goes way beyond storytelling because there is the social perception of it. There is the potential public backlash. There are people who, you know, take it upon themselves to really take writers to task for any glimmer of something inappropriate, whether it may not be anything. So, it's a really, I think, tough pie to consider. A pie train is what I've...
It's late. This interview is being recorded way after my bedtime and, certainly, after yours. I have small children. I think you also have children in your life as well as the children that you teach. The other question, and you address this on Twitter, but I wanted to get your recommendation. So in addition to being very, I think, intentional in the way that we write, we approach character, we make decisions as writers as to the cast of characters that we create and develop, how can we be allies? And what I really liked about what you said is, you know, you don't want to take somebody else's place with your story. You know, I do believe that, hopefully, there is room on the shelves for everybody. But you as a teacher get to boost these books by own voices authors and really, I think, you're trying to do your best to be a vocal support of some of these books that are coming out now by all kinds of voices. How do you be an ally in your role as author?
Jake: Yeah, I mean, it starts with book recommendations as you suggested, boosting other authors' books is a fantastic way to be an ally. And the way you described it is right. It seems like it's a competition for shelf space at some level. But I also get to be a teacher, and I get to put books into the hands of my fifth graders. And the way it works is one of the most beautiful parts of our industry of books, in general, because if I put somebody else's book, not my own, somebody else's book into a kid's hands, they're never gonna say, "Oh, wow, I love this book. I'm never reading another book in my life." It works the exact opposite way.
Mary: That's a great point.
Jake: Yeah, if I put a Ronald Smith book into a kid's hands, and they love it, they're immediately gonna ask, "Do you have anything else like this?" Then I get to start piling them up, and then they get what all of us adults have, which is TBR piles that reach the ceiling, and that's what we want. Then they become readers. And then hey, publishing industry, they become book buyers. And so there's plenty of space out there. The pie thing is one thing, but there's so much appetite that it's not going away. And the more we do to recommend books and make kids readers by putting great stuff in their hands, whether by white authors or authors of color, it's just going to, you know, multiply exponentially the space for books. So yeah, recommending books to my students, recommending books on Twitter, boosting other people's giveaways, all sorts of things, you know, the Twitter-sphere gives you opportunities to do stuff like this.
Those are sort of the ways that any author can help out, and I love to do that. You know, I am a member of a group of authors called the Renegades of Middle Grade. James Ponti, the mystery author, started it up. But we've got this wonderful group of authors, and so I...you know, Alicia Williams, who just got the Newberry Honor for "Genesis Begins Again" is part of the group. Renee Watson, you know, "Piecing Me Together" is another author in there. And, you know, so even now as I am saying these names, I'm boosting these authors. They're intentionally, yet sneakily doing that.
Mary: You're a good pal.
Jake: Yeah, I try. But yeah, that's the way. That's how we can do it is put the books in the hands of the kids and let them run with them.
Mary: I think, ultimately, because we are all watching the market to see what happens, and I think it's undeniably amazing that we have all of these. We need diverse books and own voices, the movement has just been phenomenal at exposing a lot of white publishing's blind spots and giving people voice and platform that has long been, I think, denied in a lot of cases. And so we watch the market and we say, "Okay. This is very much the zeitgeist straight out. This is what's happening and it's a phenomenal thing." And then we have some of our concerned Caucasian authors saying, "Okay. You know, what are we... What's next?" I do think that, in the future, to sort of go back to this competition's shelf space idea, I think maybe the pendulum may correct a little bit, especially about, you know, some of those French people on Twitter who go sniffing for controversy.
You know, I think some of the heatedness may die down. And I hope so because I think it's a conversation on a topic very much worth having. But I think some of the sensationalism that we're seeing right now with the Barnes & Noble and the...with the "American Dirt," the centerpieces with the barbed wire, just this kind of sensationalism, I think...I don't know. I hope it kind of tempers itself. And I hope the whole topic matures a little bit. And I think the great takeaway will be that everybody has a seat at the table. And we should all just continue writing very intentionally, telling stories that we feel we can do justice. And if there's somebody in the next lane that's doing something amazingly, boost them up, and give them a shout-out, and put their book in somebody's hands. I don't know. I really hope that that's, like, phase two of this whole conversation.
Jake: Yeah. But the conversation itself, I think, is so worthy and so rich. And I think some of the, maybe, venom that you're alluding to in the conversation, it is described, at least to me, well by another Twitter user who's handle I don't remember. I apologize, but they were responding to the Barnes & Noble thing, so shout-out to all of Twitter. But their response is that they're just so tired, you know. And I think some of the edge to the commentary on Twitter is justifiable because of that. We are in, for lack of a better way of describing it, an exhausting sort of national and international time right now. It's really easy to get tired, especially if you care. And that's the underlying heartbeat of this is that all of these people who are responding, they care. They care about what kids are reading. They care about what people, in general, are reading. And they care about who's voice gets heard along the way. And I think as long as that remains our motivation, as long as that remains the energy behind all of this, then eventually we'll, to crib somebody who spoke better than I do, eventually, we'll bend toward the positive.
Mary: No, I think that's a wonderful way to end, a wonderful final note. Also, pro tip, if you wanna avoid the whole issue altogether, just write a fantasy and set it all in space and make them all aliens. I think that's a really...
Jake: Though I have some writer friends who have written fantasies that have needed some work in this regard as well because of colonialism and...
Mary: Oh, rats.
Jake: ...stuff like that. I know, there's no genre that's immune to white people writing things poorly.
Mary: Mulling over each other. Oh, goodness.
Jake: Yeah, exactly.
Mary: It's an onion. It's an onion pie, lots of layers on a crazy train.
Jake: We are just gonna keep throwing metaphors at this until we find one that actually works.
Mary: Saturday night. Yeah, yeah, people listening are gonna be like, "No, seriously, are you guys writers?" Right? You put two words together before you know what an image is, right?
Jake: Right, right. Exactly. Yeah.
Mary: But no, thank you so much for... You know, like you said, this is gonna be a long-term conversation. It's definitely not one that's ever gonna conclude, I think. But I think a lien is in our future. You've given, I hope, a lot of my listeners something to think about, about their own work, about how they approach the issue of diversity representation, who's allowed to tell which story. I loved hearing intimately about your experience with the decision that you wound up making, why you ended up making it? I think the more we can actually talk about, you know, not just here's the right thing I did, but here is the journey I went onto to make a couple of different decisions. I really appreciate you letting us into that process. Once again, this has been Jake Burt. What is your fourth book that's coming out?
Jake: It's "Cleo Porter and the Body Electric." It's my first science fiction novel, super stoked about it. It's my favorite thing I have ever written.
Mary: Fabulous. I love the title by the way.
Jake: Thank you.
Mary: Well, check out Jake Burt, his work. Where can we find you online?
Jake: At www.jburtbooks.com.
Mary: And, of course, your Twitter is the same @JBurtBooks. I will have links for you. Thank you again for joining us. And to everybody listening out there, here is to a good story. Thank you so much for joining us for "The Good Story Podcast," my name is Mary Kole. "The Good Story Podcast" is made possible by my team, Abby Pickus, Amy Holland, Amy Wilson, Jen Petro-Roy, Jenna Van Rooy, Kristen Overman, Paige Polzin, and audio and video wizardry from Steve Reiss. You can find us online at goodstorycompany.com, goodstorypodcast.com. I'm at marykole.com. And also, find your writing partner at critcollective.com. And here is to a good story.
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