On February 15th, Fort Hamilton High School’s library doors opened to welcome Mark Oshiro, an acclaimed LGBTQ young adult author, who talked about their creative process, their books, and the life they poured into those books.
Oshiro is the award winning author of books Anger is a Gift, Each of Us a Desert, and Into the Light, as well as The Insiders and You Only Live Once, David Bravo. Oshiro talked to students about each of the books they made, the joy of making them, and the way they use childhood experience in their books to express and guide the young generation on how to navigate complex emotions. They spoke about being kicked out of their home for being gay at age 16, being an interracial adoptee, being homeless, battling complex PTSD, and other tribulations that occured during their childhood.
Oshiro explores trauma in their stories, often reflecting honestly on their own traumatic childhood to inform the way they develop their child characters. But Oshiro’s stories are not simply about suffering or the fraught relationship between queer children and their parents; in fact, the parents in Oshiro’s stories tend to be loving, kind, and supportive.
This is intentional, according to Oshiro: LGBTQ children deserve to hear from their caregivers, “You are okay. It is also okay that you are a little weirdo. It is okay that you are different from everyone else.”
After Oshiro’s presentation students were able to ask questions. This article features some of the key moments of the conversation.
Q: “When you went through getting kicked out as a teenager, did that affect the relationship between you and your brother?”
A: “Yes, but positively. One of the things that was really meaningful to me was that my brother never once made me feel bad about what happened. He was always like, ‘What’s happening to you is the bad part.’ So no, my relationship is strong as it is because he was as supportive to me at that time. I am very thankful for how he treated me at that time.”
Q: “How did writing interviews impact your writing?”
A: “When you interview people, it is the best practice for creating characters because you learn how complicated humans are, how people may look a certain way and then when you meet them they are not who you think they are. We all have an idea of what people look like, and when you meet them in person you’re like, ‘Oh that’s a persona,’ you as a person are different. That is such good practice when I’m creating characters. I always think about how my main character looks to other people and when they get to know them how they look different.”
Q: “Is it difficult to shift genres [in your books]?”
A: “The hardest part when writing fantasy is what I call the ‘pants problem.’ When I wrote the first draft of Each of Us a Desert, around the second or third draft of it my editor called me and was like ‘Hey, why does your character wear pants?’ and I was ‘uh what does that mean?’ She was like ‘Well, you keep talking about this character who wears pants but this is a fantasy book; what are pants in that world?’ I said, ‘Oh. I hadn’t even thought of that.’ That made me have to take a step back and think about when you create a fully second world fantasy you do have to think about every detail you put in a book. Anything you assume your readers are going to know you have to question, so it was hard to switch from contemporary to fantasy. I now have a better sense on how to do that and world building, creating a world from scratch. Now I kind of just bounce around genres.”
Q: “What major did you graduate with?”
A: “I don’t have a college degree. I started with creative writing then switched to political science because the school I went to had a terrible creative writing program. Unfortunately I dropped out since I couldn’t afford college anymore, it was too expensive. So I have one semester in creative writing under my belt but I think I’m doing fine!”
The library was full of smiles and stomachs hurting from laughter as Mark Oshiro signed copies of Anger is a Gift. It was a delight to see a successful queer Latinx author in the real world. Readers cannot wait for the release of Into the Light and already have their eyes on Each of Us a Desert. You can find most of Oshiro’s books in the school library, so make sure to check them out!
