Episode 1: Getting to know us
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Summary
Episode 1, Getting To Know Us. Hosts Jen, nicholae, and Sofia introduce themselves; discuss their reading journeys & genre tastes; and share what you can expect from the podcast’s first season.
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Intro
nicholae: You’re listening to the We Reads podcast where we [nicholae,
Jen: Jen
Sofia: and Sofia talk about books, the authors we love and how our identities show up while we’re reading.
Jen: These books have brought us joy, nourished us and changed us for the better. We’re excited to discuss them with you!
Jen
All right, y'all. So this is the first episode of the We Reads podcast. What! This is so exciting. This has been a long time in the making. The hosts in the room have been dreaming about doing this for literally years. I want to say it might be three or four years that we've had this idea. So it's a joy to actually see it come together and to share space together. We We are going to divide this first episode into sort of a general discussion about who we are and what this podcast is going to be about.
So we're going to jump in to talk about what brought each of us to ah the We Reads project, how we like to read, what our reading journey has been like, and what you can expect from this first season.
Given that... I am happy to just start off, I guess, with kind of that piece about like who I am. ah So I'm Jen. I am a Black speculative fiction author.
I’m a librarian. And I'm also one of the admins for We Here. um And I'm also one of the team members on We Reads, which is a beautiful project that has been about collecting and organizing ah the reading interests and habits of the We Here community.
And I figure it would be good to maybe pass it to you, nicholae, as the founder of We Reads, to introduce yourself.
nicholae
Yeah, no big deal. ah you know all I did was sort of bring the idea to We Here and was lucky to, brought it to We Here because I knew some of y'all, especially Jen, and really wanted to find a space for the kind of project, the kinds of directory, that sort of collection of books by BIPOC authors that I really wasn't seeing anywhere else and really wanted to -- I'd been working on Stonewall Book Award Committee and the Over the Rainbow Book Award Committee through the ALA for a long time. And that's such a good place for learning about queer, trans, et cetera, authors.
But I really wanted that for authors of color too. And so I was really happy and it was so joyful to find a place for that in We Here through the We Reads Project. I am a librarian as well, an academic librarian at Indiana University, and I'm also one of the admins for We Here.
I'm on the We Reads team. I work with Sofia on community study and do all manner of other kinds of projects as well. And so I will turn it over to Sofia to talk a little bit.
Sofia
Hello, I'm Sofia Leung. I guess at this point I'm a former academic librarian because it's over five years, which wild. um But I still identify as a librarian.
And I now mostly do facilitation work. I'm the community school manager, although I've been on parental leave. As nicholae mentioned, I'm also one of the community study leaders.
Although we've been on a bit of a leave as well on pause. Yeah, I'm excited to be talking books with Jen and nicholae because as mentioned, it's been literal years that we've talked about this.
Jen, what do you like to read?
Jen
Oh boy. Okay. I have a very [laughs] long list. I'll start with one and then I want others to like connect in with what y'all like to read. But at the top for me, it's always going to be reading about Black queer folks exploring kind of desire, the sense of hunger thirst for power and kind of like reclamations of one's body, self, spirit, um even if it means the world as we know it or as the character knows it has to burn. have a number of things that I feel like kind of fall or trickle into this category, but they almost always fall into speculative fiction, science fiction, fantasy.
I am just, I am here for the explorations of other worlds of um I don't know, comparisons to where we are now, like taking where we are now, the context for where we are now, but also kind of extrapolating it, stretching it, kind of like molding it into where we could be um or like what could come. And I feel like speculative fiction obviously just as does does so good at that.
And I feel like it's joyous because I'm always trading recs with you, Sofia. A lot of our working meetings are always just like, what are we reading? and there's always this beautiful kind of like intersection with that genre, with those genres specifically. So Tell me more about what you like to read.
Sofia
I mean, just like Jen, I love me some fantasy, sci-fi, have for a long time. But anything that's got lots of world building, guess it also depends on the mood I'm in. I'm a big mood reader.
00:07:51.76
Sofia
But lots of like heavy world building, funny, strong characters. But then also if it's like a lighter like fantasy too, like I like um I guess you could even call them, are they called paranormal? Yeah, like a bit of a paranormal feel where You're still in the the quote unquote real world, but you're getting some like paranoid paranormal elements, some fantasy magic, you know, thrown in there.
I love an N.K. Jemisin. I mean, you know, one of the best doing it.
I also love to read, well, actually love is a strong word, but I have a strong curiosity for academic, you know, I guess, academic theory, mostly Black studies and Indigenous studies. And then sort of an intersection of those two things would be like dark academia, or even literary fiction about academia, which you're like, why are you so interested in reading about academia? and don't know, it's all the trauma [laughs]. I have to read about it and recover. Yeah. And then of course, like Jen, loving romance. Most, I mean, I've covered probably every single aspect of romance.
And right now, I mean, sort of my hardcore fallbacks, a little bit of like sports romance, even though that's kind of embarrassing. But I did read a rugby romance recently; love a rugby romance. And think I'll stop there and see what nicholae likes to read.
nicholae
I mean, what don't I like to read? I actually, you know, I don't read a lot of romance. I think at some point we'll have a genre episode to talk a little bit about what genres we love, what we don't. But that doesn't mean I don't love a good romance. But I think one thing that we all three share as a major, major love is sci-fi and fantasy. That's something that we've all talked about a great deal. I think like Sofia and Jen, I love lore. Give me all the lore. I want all the details. I want the stories, the histories, the mythology, right? The magic systems. I love the world building of a place.
Jen
Yes!
nicholae
I love seeing how an author is really able to take a world, a setting and show how the magic system, the cultural systems are all interconnected, right?
Jen
yes!
nicholae
Something that certain authors, yes! That's something that certain authors do so well. N.K. Jemisin has already been mentioned. I have been rereading that series over the past few months. Obviously, there are some authors that I think who just do it really well or who have writing that's just so beautiful in their ability to describe the, I think, the poetics of magic that some authors just don't kind of focus on as much. I'm thinking of Ursula K. Le Guin, right? The Earthsea trilogy, I think, does such a good job of not just like putting you in a place and fully enmeshing you in it, but also making the magic system feel so evocative and so able to kind of, you're so able to see how a character is not just like doing magic, but is part of the magic of the world.
And that's what I love so much. um Anything experimental and weird. I mean, I love to read fiction of all kinds, But if it really kind of challenges your understanding of what's happening or what can happen or what fiction can do or how literature can make you feel and see the world differently, that's what I'm into. And that's what really got me into reading when I was a kid, which of course was a lot of sci-fi and fantasy. But as I got older and moved into my sort of adolescence and teenage years, I really wanted things that shocked me and surprised me and made me feel new things, made me think about the world in a different way. Like Sofia, I also read a lot of academic works. I'm really into theory, so I do a lot of sort of dense philosophical critical theory, um particularly you know critical theory, embodiment studies, affect studies, indigenous thought.
I'm really kind of starting to get back into psychoanalytic theory. So I've been reading a lot of psychoanalysis, older works, you know, like Lacan and Freud, but also more recent folks like Laplanche and Avgi Saketopoulou, who does a lot of work with gender and sexuality and consent and bodies, which is something that I'm finding very compelling right now in both just things that I like to read, but also in my research as well. It's been very helpful so for some of the things that I'm working on.
And then one thing I don't think anyone has mentioned so far that I think has always been something that I've been very into is poetry. I read a lot of contemporary poetry. I studied poetry in college for a while. So it's something that I have longstanding interest And that's it for me.
Jen
I just want to like real quickly connect into something that you both brought up. um Obviously we we we have like a beautiful genre spread here, but I really feel what both of y'all talked about when it comes to like world building. And I just, I need to throw like a few few little things in there because truly the magic system piece, I think you both talked about was like, there is something about when an author is able to re-contextualize or re kind of analyze a magic system that takes the everyday or the everyday I think sometimes I might take for granted. Like recently I read Amal El-Mohtar's The River Has Roots, which is this beautiful, it's like a lyrical piece, but it's also exploring kind of like language and grammar as magic, which I think all three of us have also read. Babel by R.F. Kuang, and we love that one too, because it takes language as magic. And ah like you were saying, Sofia kind of recognizes the violence of academia. Oooh! When you said that I was like -- I had to like make sure my mic was off because I was, I was having a whole moment! I think that is something that y'all will probably hear from us more about in this podcast too, is kind of the violence of, um, and we've all been in academic environments as librarians and there is, there is violence in that space, um, in terms of just existing within it. And it is so critical how literature can kind of both elevate that, name it, um,I don't know. That's deep. And then something else, just one other thing I didn't hear quite come up yet, but I want to like give a shout out to is really loving science fiction and science fantasy that examine kind of the technocratic dystopia slash reality that we're all in right now. Some of my, I mean, Murderbot series by Martha Wells is probably one of my favorites in that respect, because it also is exploring that sense of embodiment you were talking about, nicholae, earlier with um this this construct that is trying to name its existence, this bot that's been made for a certain purpose, but is awakening to its own consciousness. And then there's a short story by an author I love, Switch* [NOTE: this has been corrected to "signal" in the show notes] by L.D. Lewis, which was in Fireside magazine several years ago. It's so good. It kind of takes that the the vibe of like the kaiju kind of mecca battle with, but with children and like asking what does it mean to to send children into battle for um kind of old outdated ideas and beliefs and in the name of like societal progress or it's such a good story. I feel like that's one that just always sticks with me. And to that end, short stories also to play a big role in, like I think, what you can do and how you can explore things. So if folks have not read short stories, either in the specific genre or elsewhere, do yourselves a favor, dip into the short stories. There will be things in the show notes that y'all can dig into, but yeah. But I think also, this is are there anything is there anything else that folks were thinking about or...
Sofia
Yeah, there's something I forgot to mention that I am recently starting to get into. I mean, I guess I was always into it, but sometimes, well, let me just say what it is first, which is literary fiction that's like really comedic.
Sofia
And like an example of this might be like Gary Scheitengard, who like every time I try to read him, I'm like, I want to like him more than I actually do and never actually finish his books. But they like have it's like, I guess maybe the premise he can't actually follow through for me in a way that I'm like I'm curious to know what the rest of it is about right um but there's like a lot of that right now like I just uh picked up Hot Girls with Balls by Benedict Nguyen um which is about like two queer trans are they basketball players? I think
nicholae
I really want to read that! Sounds so good.
Sofia
Yeah, I just got, I I'm so excited. And then another one I just picked up is Sky Daddy. I forgot who the author is. But it's about this like, woman who has an ah erotic fixation on planes.
Sofia
And her like, ideal dream is to die in a plane crash. It's just like, fucking hilarious. But
Jen
Yes.
nicholae
reminds me of Crash, the Ballard book
Sofia
oh I don't know that!
nicholae
which is about someone who has an erotic fixation on car crashes.
Sofia + Jen
Oh!
Jen
Oh, there's a whole subgenre here! I didn't even know.
Sofia
Yeah, right? Who knew? Yeah, so that's sort of like where I'm thinking. And I still like some literary fiction.
nicholae
Kinky Fiction.
Sofia
Yeah. Well, that's where I get my romance kicks, you know. But this is like a little bit different because I don't have an erotic fixation on planes. But I'm curious what this lady is about. So stuff like that. And a little, sometimes some literary fiction as well. But less and less so. Should we transition over to our reading journey, perhaps? nicholae, you want to start us off?
nicholae
Yeah, for sure. I also just want to pick up on one thing that Jen talked about regarding short stories. for sort of Short stories, especially in fantasy and Spec Vic, were, I think, really integral to my journey as someone one who reads. I love a short story, and I have for a long time, but I used to pick up these anthologies of fantasy and sci-fi fiction when I was a kid. I also used to read, I think it was called Worlds of Fantasy, which was a magazine um that had stories in it as well. I also think about really formative short stories that obviously there are a lot of books that stick with me, but there are shown some short stories that stick with me more than almost anything I have read. I mean, I'm thinking of certain Bradbury stories, like from the Martian Chronicles, but just the whole of Martian Chronicles, for example. There were a few Harlan Ellison collections that I really loved, but also, I mean, I can't go without mentioning The Ones Who Walk away from Omelas, the Le Guin story
Jen
Truly.
nicholae
Which I think is, it's so incredible in so many ways, but it also helps us understand certain like social and ethical kind of quandaries or realities of our world. And that's something that I also really love. I don't necessarily read quote “philosophical fiction” per se. Certainly I do, but it's not what I seek out, but I do like fiction of all kinds that helps me understand the world around me. And I think a story like that in many stories are really able to do that in such a such a clear way, that clarity that they're able to cultivate because of the constraints of the length of the form, which is actually ends up being quite generative.
Right. So I didn't want to go without mentioning that, but, you know, I think in terms of my kind of journey as a reader, I was that really stereotypical nerd who just always wanted to be at the library. I maybe had a different, I mean,
Sofia
Same, girl.
Jen
Relatable.
nicholae
and That's us, right? I mean, we also became librarians. I think it's a story that many librarians also can relate to. You know the nuances of my experience have to do with, you know, being a little queer brown kid in a tiny white town. An agricultural community where the library was really small. So I was really lucky that I knew the, like one of the librarians at our town library who was always recommending things for me to read. And there was definitely a point where I read everything you could read in the library that I wanted to read. So I found myself graduating from libraries. So, you know, by the time I was probably 11 or 12, there was just nothing else I could read at that library.
So I went to the next town, which was a bigger, a small city, but you know, bigger than my town of, you know, a couple of thousand people and read through that library.
Sofia
wow!
nicholae
And then by the time I got my license, when I was 16, I started driving to Louisville once or twice a week to go to the library there, the public library there to check out books.
Jen
Damn!
nicholae
Right. And I was also that kid. I was a very solitary kid, which maybe is also not super. It's definitely not surprising to either of you. Um, But perhaps a ah story that many of us can relate to. And my parents would take us, take me to the mall, we would go to the mall, and they would do their shopping and they would park me in the Walden books at the mall for three, four, five hours at a time.
Sofia
Yes, same.
nicholae
And I would just sit on a stool in the corner reading books off the shelves. And then of course would feel very lucky if I got to bring some of them home with me. And that was really formative too, because you know you go to a different mall, you get to go to a different Walden books and they have different books that you had never seen before. And absolutely RIP Walden books, RIP Borders. I don't know if Barnes and Noble is still around, but the one here in town is not here anymore.
Jen
oh dang
nicholae
And, um, but yeah, I was, I was that kid who was reading basically everything, including I would read every appliance manual that we would get with a new appliance.
Sofia (laughing)
Wow.
nicholae
Like I would read them cover to cover and figure out how to use them when we would go on trips, which wasn't very often, but we would stay at these kind of, uh, cheesy, cheap hotels, and they would have that area of the hotel where all the brochures were. And I would painstakingly grab every single one of every single brochure and read them cover to cover.
Jen
wow
nicholae
So that was the kind of like reading nerd that I was as a kid. And then when I got older, when I became a teenager, I started to really get into philosophy and theory and poetry and things like that.
nicholae
What about you, Jen?
Jen
I am so impressed because I feel like I just wanted my head to be in the clouds. I like I'm impressed by the reading the technical manuals to this day. It comes with instructions. We set up to record this and we had to set up these little boxes and I didn't sound dampening boxes and I just threw the instruction booklet to the side.
Sofia (laughing)
Oh, yes.
Jen
I was like, no. So that's some that dedication right there. Also, I am in awe of how you came to theory because I don't think I got to theory. I Well, no, think I think. I definitely didn't appreciate theory until college; until some kind of like professors brought it alive. But I fully feel like there was, ah like a lot of my young childhood was really, it was it sort of was like very formed around two pieces or like two halves. Like there was the youngest half that was very like Disney kid, you know, very, I loved to read and I had a few favorite books, but um it was a lot more about kind of kids movies or animated things. I was a big anime nerd. Growing up. Digimon forever. I don't know Pokemon. I don't know her. Not.
nicholae (laughter)
Matt and Ty, romance!
Jen
Yes.
Jen
So it's like, I think my first kind of story love was just media, like visual media. and then I do remember there was a distinct time at like 12 years old when I finally got old enough to get a library card. And my mom took me down to the library in our city, which was which was like, it was big-ish, but not the same as like the LA Public Library. So I'm from Southern California. We are we're in L.A. County, but we're not the city of Los Angeles is a massive place and the county is even bigger. So my actual home library was pretty small. But when I got that library card, it was like there was something that like clicked in it like, oh, I don't have no money, but I can go in here and just (laughter) I can leave with a backpack full of books!
Sofia
Yeah.
Jen
So it it was almost tied to that sense of like becoming, feeling like I was, like I had things of my own that my family could not monitor or stop me from getting.
And, you know, that was powerful. And at the same time, it could be kind of painful because I do remember at a young age. So, you know, I love my family very deeply, my father was not somebody I could talk to about queerness and, you know, coming from a religious background, there was just an energy of “we love you, but” there's just not enough of understanding about the larger world, about what it means to not be straight. And so there were times I would check out books from the library. And you know, what I mean, I don't even, I had trouble even finding good books with queer like overtly queer representation at that point. But I remember there was this one book, I want to say it was called Prep.
Jen
Was it called Prep?
Sofia
Oh, by Curtis Sittenfield?
Jen
Maybe?
Sofia
Sittenfield?
Jen
I don't remember the author at all, but I thought it was about a little white girl who was like not like coming out or beginning to question her sexuality. I could be completely misremembering it. But the thing I remember is reading the back jacket of that book and feeling something in my body be like, “is this for me? Is this what I'm feeling?” And I brought that book home because I had a library card and no one could stop me. And I was too scared to read it because I was like, I don't know.
Sofia
Oh no.
Jen
I know! But I was too scared to open this book! I brought it home but I was too afraid to actually read it. Too afraid to see myself in it because then what would that mean for this family life and dynamic? All of that is to say, my reading journey was sort of through the lens of like, okay, well, in the speculative, I could be anything. And my dad was a big, big, big, like science fiction, fantasy fan that was, he was more like, unfortunately, the very kind of like military, he was a very military sci-fi fan, like anything to do with
Sofia
Oh no!
Jen
you know, conquest and wars and (laughter) RIP, daddy, I love you, hope you’re good. He was one of those people that enjoyed Starship Troopers, which is a satire about fascism and so and like war and what we expect. So he enjoyed it because it was like, these Marines are sure they're fighting
Sofia
oh no
Jen
yeah I know. I know. And I say that because I think it's important for the context of like with the way he was raised, what he knew, raised to believe that, you know, serving in the military was a high distinction and honor. And so he had that that kind of filtered into how he viewed speculative fiction. But the gift he gave me was even knowing about speculative fiction! Because suddenly I could pick up books.
And I didn't have to worry about who I was in the now in this place. I could be any other place in any other time in any other reality. Um,
Jen
So that kind of became my escape. I would go to the library on the weekends, pick up books. And like, that was my Saturday. Like other kids was at the skating rink actually being cool and like being (laughter), being very like dope. And I was just, I had a backpack full of books that I would trundle, walk to from my house. Sometimes I was too scared to read them and I would put them on my shelf and I wouldn't open them. but They'd be in my vicinity. ah And as I got older, I remember there was a shift. And I think, you know, we've mentioned N.K. Jemisin already once. And that, for me, was the shift moment. There was a moment where I was tired of speculative fiction that did not center somebody Black. It's funny because, you know, the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms book, which was N.K. Jemisin's first published book, it I don't even think Yeine Darr, who's the main character of the first book, I don't even know if she is Black. But because N.K. Jemisin is a Black author and I saw that book on the shelves, I immediately felt this sense of, I don't know, like coming, like a home I didn't know I was missing suddenly opening up to me and And there there was just this shit. I was like, there was a point at which maybe it was the YA, the early aught YA craze of every chosen white girl who has a dark brooding, know, a dark brooding lord somewhere lusting after her.
Sofia
Hmm.
Jen
I was like, I don't want this anymore. I'm not enjoying this. Anymore. So it --there was a clear moment where I realized, like, actually, need something of substance. I need something that is saying something. I might need something that hurts me because I think it also opens up something for me. And I remember that's what, you know, Octavia Butler's Kindred and the Xenogenesis trilogy did for me. And those were books I started at a young age. Like, my sister is a Black speculative fiction writer as well. And she gave me those books early on. And at 15, I just, brain couldn't wrap around it. But as I got older, I came back to those books when I was like, oh, now I am hungry.I am seeing that this system, this structure of sci-fi first started with white men imagining themselves colonizing other planets, then filtered down to white women imagining themselves as the center of a white man's desire.
I am finally, like I felt like some somewhere along the way, them shackles fell out of my mind. And I was just, I was ready for speculative fiction that pushed me as a reader, that asked me hard questions, not just something that was kind of like, what is the word when you ah like see yourself That you just sort of graft yourself onto this character. There's nothing wrong with that. Inherently, I still enjoy a lot of romance books that are just like, “oh, I just love falling into this story.” But I felt like I gained a capacity from a young reader to now to be able to sit with books that ask me to do hard things and that ask me to look at myself in hard ways.
Jen
So I don't know. How about Sofia?
Sofia
No, I loved hearing about both of your journeys. I have like some parallels, obviously, as ah another librarian to be like, yes, I spent a lot of time in the library. My mother was like, you can only borrow five out of, I think we all shared one library card. I have two younger brothers.
And so my middle brother was like forced to borrow a couple of the books and then I was limited to however many was left. And I'd be like, “how come he doesn't even wanna borrow them? Can't I just have them all?” And I read it, mean, the stuff I really remember reading is like lot of Babysitters Club. um Who are those two blonde twins? Oh, something Valley High, Sweet Valley High.
Jen
Yes. Yes. Mm.
Sofia
even though it's like, who are these two blonde women? They're twins. They're like popular or some shit, which like none of that was me, but I was like fascinated by these people for some reason. That was like all I was reading in middle school. Oh, and then, you know, getting into fantasy, some Diana Wynne Jones. I think that's how I got into fantasy. Like her, like Howl's Moving. Is it Howl's Moving Castle? Is that her?
nicholae
That's right. So incredible.
Sofia
Yes. Yes. So then I was like, I got to read all the fantasy from there. And I think that was like kind of where I stayed for, don't know, the rest of my life (laughing).Because like Jen, I was just trying to get away. I was like, I don't, this is, my life is fine. It's not like super interesting. And I did have a bigger public library than nicholae because I was at Brooklyn Public Library, but I was in a branch library--
nicholae
(jokingly) just a little bigger.
Jen
Just a little bit. yeah But, you know, every time we got to go to the central branch, which is like this huge, like high ceiling building that's like honestly enormous. And every time we got to go there, I'd be like, this is fucking heaven. And I just want to be here like all the time. And I would always be mad when I had to stop reading in order to go do something else. I'd sometimes like pretend, ooh, this is what I used to do in high school (laughing). I'm like, mom, “I'm doing my homework.” And then I'd have like the book open in the middle of a textbook. So if she came to check, would easily just toss it aside and be like, see, I'm reading my textbook right now.
Jen
That's amazing. I feel like I saw that in like early TV show. Like that is legit.
Sofia
Right? It is.
Jen
Yeah.
Sofia
That's exactly what I did. And the funny thing is my mom loves to read. She loves to read Chinese mythology, like fantasy, romance, except she never talked to me about it.
She always felt guilty for reading that stuff. And so then she didn't want me to start you know replicating those things. But of course, like that's what I'm interested in. um So it's just kind of like sad that she felt like she couldn't share that love of reading with me. But now were we're both like that. We both stay up late reading when we should be sleeping, terrible sleep hygiene.[32:04.121]
And I think the other thing both of you were mentioning, like, honestly, you both got into theory so early. Like, I really didn't get into theory until after library school, when I was like, really in, you know, working in my first permanent full-time library job. And being told, no, don't do this. Don't do it this way, blah blah, blah. And like trying to find a way to understand the situation I was in. And that's how I came to theory. So that wasn't until I was like in my early 30s, which is like pretty late. But I think if I went to it earlier, I wouldn't have understood anything.
Jen
Right!
Sofia
I've been like fucking clueless about what's going on, guys. Oh, and just to double back real quick, I did go through a period of time where they started publishing a lot more like Chinese. Well, I think they had more Chinese-American authors writing about Chinese characters, but who were still like in China, for example, like historical novels. And so I got into that for a period of time. And then I was like, how come there's no books about Chinese Americans? Like, I want to read about us in this country, like fiction, but still like about us. And I didn't really get that until maybe college?
Jen
Hmm.
Sofia
Yeah, so going back to, you know, R.F. Kuang, when Poppy War Trilogy came out, I was like, what the fuck is this?
Jen
yeah ah
Sofia
fantay It's fantasy, but it's historical. But yeah, it was just so fun. So fun.
nicholae
I really vibe with a lot of what you both said. And I I wanted to circle back to something that Jen said about the experience of I guess otherness, but also navigating otherness in a familial context where that otherness was. And I won't sort of say what was going on for you, Jen, but I will say at least generally in in a familial situation where like maybe not all of you is held and wants to be seen.
Right. And I definitely felt that both like as a, as a queer person, as a non-cis person, as a brown person adopted into a white family. But I think specifically how religious my parents were required me to do a certain amount of underground reading, certain like underground process of coming to an understanding of who I was. And it was so natural for me to do that through reading primarily. But then the problem with that is there just weren't many books that were easily obtainable
by and about queer people and not to mention trying to find something about like a queer native person where I don't, that's even hard hard to find in the present sometimes, right?
Jen
Right
nicholae
And so it was, I think that early, feeling of necessity or urgency towards finding something that even remotely represented me or that I could understand as part of the queer experience. And I'm thinking like Oscar Wilde and Virginia Woolf Ian Forster and James Baldwin, especially Patricia Highsmith, Carson McCullers, you know, all of these people who wrote about queer characters, some of them were queer, maybe it was not entirely overt, but a certain queer sociality that pervaded many of these books was so important to me towards understanding who I was at the time, the things I was feeling, and kind of internal reflection and exploration that I was going through. But that process of finding those books was difficult and challenging. And the skill of finding them and the places I needed to go to find them, I think are deeply fundamental to both who I am, but also my orientation towards and dis disposition of being a librarian. And the kind of like various capacities and qualities that comprise that part of my life and part of my experience. Right. And, you know, I too, just like you, Jen, had experiences of a father as well who did not always like what I was reading and that could be like really kind of simple and abstract. Like, why are you reading such dark books? Like such sad, depressing books. I'm like, well, I'm feeling these things or like I can relate to these in a way because I'm having an intense experiences or really hard experiences for various reasons. And I have this early memory of reading a couple of books by A.M. Holmes. One called Jack and one called The End of Alice. Jack is a really early, like late, not early. I mean, there's been queer literature for a long time, but... like a fairly popular-ish book from the late eighty s about a queer character. And then The End of Alice is actually about sexual abuse. And my father found that I was reading these books, was very upset, you know, took them away from me. And it was a whole thing, right? And... I won't get into that relationship because that was actually quite fundamental, ah quite a rift in our relationship because you don't tell me what to read!
You are not telling me what to read ever, even as an 11-year-old child.
Sofia
Never.
nicholae
And you can try, but the first thing I did whenever he would leave me alone is go grab the books and read them and then put them back before I got home. So I think that that's such a formative part of who I am, especially who I am as a reader. And I just really related to that with what you were saying, Jen.
Jen
I I'm trying not to emote too much because I'm like, I don't want to drown out what they're saying, but this is so good! that was a whole, that was a whole. Yes. Yes.
Sofia
It's so interesting to me that both of your fathers were actually even interested in what you were reading. My father does hardly, I mean, he only reads the newspaper. And so I don't, he doesn't care. It's like so interesting to me that your fathers were like, no, but what are you reading?
nicholae
Luckily my mother did not care what I was reading. And when my father cared and they were divorced ah at an early, they divorced at an early age for me, but you know, whenever he was kind of going off on his domineering, you can't read this or that d he was like, she was, she was basically like, get a life. Like,
Jen (laughing
yeah yeah
Sofia
truly. Yeah.
nicholae
they're They're fine. but like They can make choices about what they read. It's not that deep and I always appreciated that.
Sofia
truly
Jen
Yes, that's powerful. Well, and it just goes to show too. You know, I think people act like books don't open these gateways or they don't, you know, ah they are forms of entertainment, they can be, but the reason why We Reads exists, the reason why this podcast is happening is because books can be formative and you know, people act like, as we know today, just sort of snatching things away or trying to ban or burn or remove things means you won't find them. But I love what you said, nicholae, about those underground strategies. Like people will find the books however they need to. People -are, the- the powers that be, the authorities are not doing what they think they're doing with this kind of censorship and suppression. Yeah. But that's anyway, we don't need it even need to get deep into that, but just feeling very much that that vibe of like the practices we develop to find the books that we need, whatever those books may be.
nicholae
And that they're powerful. And I think some of the forces and systems poised against something like how we read, what we can read, they know that and I think we are trying to recognize the power and beauty of what you can find in in a book, in a story, et cetera.
Jen
yes
Sofia
Yeah, not to like get into this too, too much, but I've been thinking about this too for like my kid, because have a seven and a half month old. You know, they're just baby books. they're like board books. So it's like whatever. But there's actually this one book that's called The Pout Pout Fish. And I don't know if you guys remember her but, and actually I realized much later, like literally last week, we've been like reading it for like months now. And every time it's like the whole premise of the book is this fish who's like all grumpy, frowny faced and like everybody else in the ocean is like why are you so grouchy? Turn that frown upside down. And it's like a rhyming book. I can't remember all the words. But at the very end, there's like this like silvery pretty fish that comes in, like swoops in kisses the pout pout fish on the mouth. OK, full mouth to mouth.
Jen
Wow.
Sofia
And all of a sudden, he's like, that turned my frown upside down. Now I'm happy?
This everything is good and great. And I was like, whoa, what the, what's the message here?
Sofia
Although there's a, so there's a note at the beginning of the book that I ignored for, but but like ah every time I get to the end of the book and I'm like, but don't do that without consent, even though he's seven months and can't understand it. (laughing with Jen)
Jen
Sorry laugh so loud, but that's what I would do. I have just ignored whatever was at the start. Thank you,
Sofia
It's like a little tiny note at the beginning. And it actually was like, yes, this, you know, you should never actually do this. um You should wait for somebody's consent. And I'm like, then what the hell is this book about?
Jen
Thank you! Right. Wow. Wow. wow
Sofia
But like, I've been thinking about that for like, you know, everything you're like reading your kid, you're like, but what is the real message behind this book? Because I'm going to read it to you like a million times before you outgrow it.
nicholae
and what are they integrating from that?
Sofia
You know, I'm just... Right, like what are they picking up? Because it's like so insidious, some of the themes that you like don't recognize right away sometimes.
Yeah, I was like, wait, what? What is this book talking about?
Jen
Wild.
nicholae
It's always a trip to go back and read books from your childhood. I mean, I was that kind of weirdo who at eight was reading all of the Lord the Rings books. But I mean, earlier than that about books that are for children and the messaging and the kinds of values that become clear through the text of those and the imagery of those and it's not always sometimes it's beautiful and joyous and so caring and thoughtful but sometimes it ain't and it's when I go back sometimes I have a godson he's 18 now um but you know back when I would talk more about with his mother about what he was reading there were these moments of thinking through, and I mean, we're basically always on the same page, but are these just moments of, my perspective shifting when I'm thinking about a book and like, oh, I didn't think about the messaging that was in this book. And I wouldn't necessarily in every case choose to, I don't have children nor will I probably ever. So I wouldn't, but I wouldn't even in that case necessarily choose to not read a book, maybe depending on the message or read them the book depending on the message. But I do think about it and it's forced me to think differently about things that seem otherwise innocuous, like a children's book or a pop song or something like that, right?
(affirmative sounds from Jen and Sofia)
The messaging that is like either quite intentionally or perhaps somewhat subconscious or subliminal in that book, song, whatever, because we don't always take a step back and think about that.
Jen
So real. Especially the songs. When I go back to some of the songs that I was singing at 10 years old, I'm like, what I know? What was I doing?
Sofia
Oh my God. and
Jen
Yeah, it was wild.
Sofia
Oh my God, TLC Digging on You that! I sang that all the time in fifth grade.
nicholae
I like to listen to pop radio a lot and I'll be said I'll be you know driving somewhere in my car and kind of listening to the song, listening to the lyrics.
Jen
Even
nicholae
I'm like, what didn't they just say? What are you saying? Talk about weird consent culture. I mean, we all know that about American culture, but the things that people think are okay.
Jen
Yes. Yes. Horrifying. Mm. Also, I think all of us like horror too. I don't know that.
Sofia
No, too scary.
Jen
Oh, wait, no, I forgot, Sofia.
Sofia
Not for me.
nicholae
The darker, the better! The weirder, the darker, the better.
Sofia
no no, no. Too scary.
Jen (laughing)
ah That's so funny.
Sofia
No.
Jen
I'm with you, nicholae. I do like, I like some horror. I do. Did you read Mexican Gothic, Sofia?
Sofia
Oh, I tried. I got, well, I didn't stop because of horror. I think I just got distracted by something else. But I do have I do plan to go back to it.
Jen
That's real. Okay, okay. I was like, there's probably a little horror subgenre that's like not too scary.
Sofia
Yes, there is like some...
Jen
You know what? I'm not gonna make you read something you don't like though, but I don't know why I was like, oh Sofia likes horror!
Sofia
I don't know. I could do like... Because like sci-fi and fantasy is very close to horror. So like a lot of the like horror elements, I do want like, oh, who's their author, the indigenous author who's got three names?
Sofia
Stephen Graham Jones.
Jen
Graham Jones, yes.
nicholae
Stephen Graham Jones.
Sofia
Okay, I always wanna read his books, but I'm like, am I gonna be like too scared?
Jen
Hmm.
nicholae
They're good.
Sofia
And I did try to read the one, yeah.
nicholae
They're gory.
Sofia
Oh, see, gory isn't, I'm not, that's not what scares me. don't like jump scares, psychological thriller type things.
Jen
Yeah.
Sofia
Or like haunted houses? No.
nicholae
See the three, the, oh, and um River Solomon has a new haunted house, one that I'm really excited to read.
Sofia
no
Jen
Yes.
Sofia
now no haunted houses!
Sofia
You guys can talk about that.
nicholae
the The freakier psych, yes, the freakier psychologically, the better for me.
Jen
I do love a haunted house.
nicholae
I mean, one one of the most, I like that.
Sofia
Why though? Don't you get scared to walk around your house?
nicholae
I kind of like that feeling.
Sofia
No!
nicholae
I will, like one of the most formative books for me as a young teenager was House of Leaves and that,
Sofia
Oh, that's a horror novel?
nicholae
It's radically, yeah, it's psychological horror. I mean, it radically altered the kind of book that I was oriented towards.
Sofia
Wow.
nicholae
And so after I read that book, I just wanted to read anything I could find that was like that.
Jen
Hmm.
Sofia
Interesting.
Jen
Mm-hmm. Wow.
Sofia
Yeah, sorry.
Jen
What
Sofia
That's one thing you won't expect from me this season.
Sofia
But now I would like to know.
Jen (laughing)
What a good segue!
Sofia
Thanks.
Jen
I love that!
Sofia
I would like to know what to expect from us this season. Jen?
Jen
Yes, I am, you know, I think besides just the the screaming about books we love, the the joys about all the feels that we're getting, I think y'all can probably expect me to be ah constantly having feels about craft and language and prose, partially because I am currently drafting a novel, And I'm, I just wrote in my notes here, I'm running on coffee, sleep deprivation and pure creative spite at this point. (laughing) So I I feel like you can probably expect me to just be screaming about books that do things in a way that I'm like, how did that author craft this, make this like very obsessed with the bones of books? Like what makes that book sing to me? Um,um That's me. What about y'all?
Sofia
nicholae?
nicholae
I think you can expect a lot of rambling, love and hate for what I'm reading. To the point where someone needs will just need to duality.
Sofia
Mmm, I hate.
Jen
Duality. Multiplicities.
nicholae
Right, right. you know I contain multitudes, and those multitudes are all opinions and feelings about what I'm reading for the most part.
Jen
Yeah.
nicholae
So I think you can also expect, I know this is a We Reads podcast, but you can expect me to talk about music, games, movies, in addition to books, like I'm just going to be referencing probably a lot of different kinds of media as well.
Jen
Hell yeah.
nicholae
I think you can also expect me to constantly be trying to balance my desire to go really, really deep and theoretical into a topic or a book that I'm talking about or a theme that we we're kind of exploring together. And so I want to find the right balance of for that and for our audience. What about you, Sofia?
Sofia
Interesting. I think I might be the opposite, in fact, where I am a new parent reading so surface level. I'm going to be so basic and be like, loved this book because I don't know, like, I just love the characters. Sorry, you can't say more. I'm just kidding. I will try to provide more detail.
nicholae
cover with The cover is orange, and that's pretty...
Sofia
Yes, I'm drawn to the cover. That's the only reason I read it. um Maybe I'll even talk about some kid books. Who knows? I'll be like, this is the board book that we've read 20 times today.
Jen
That'd be fun.
Sofia
okay.
nicholae
I would love that because I read no children's books at all. But I also, I guess I should have mentioned this, I also help run a bookstore, ah small and independent a bookstore in in my little college town.
Sofia
Yes, you should mention that.
nicholae
So I will also constantly be wanting book recommendations or for the bookstore of all kinds.
Sofia
Oh, okay. Okay.
Jen
Yes.
Sofia
Love to provide. um Oh, I guess I I forgot to mention too that I do like reading YA. So I'll probably mention some of those too.
Jen
Yes.
Sofia
Mostly YA fantasy, but do some other stuff too. um Maybe even some parenting books. Who knows? Sometimes I get ambitious and I'm like, I'll read this nonfiction boring book about feeding children. And then I really don't go any further than the first few pages. So that could be where we go.
Jen
Real.
Sofia
That could be where we go.
Jen
Real and relatable. Yeah. I mean, not in the sense that I don't have kids, but like if I did, feel like that's what I would do.
Sofia
Yeah, 100%. But we are excited because there's so much more to come.
Jen
Yes. Get to talk books with my friends. It's lovely.
nicholae (outro script)
Thanks for listening! This has been the We Reads Podcast, which is part of We Here: an inclusive, private community for Black, Indigenous, and other Library or Archives workers of color. If you want to learn more about us, visit the We Here website: we here dot space. That’s we here dot space. And if you’re a BIPOC library or archives professional, or an LIS student, join one of our private space communities for solidarity and professional support. ’Til next time.
Credits script:
The We Reads podcast is produced by Imani Spence and hosted by Jen Brown, nicholae cline, and Sofia Leung. Our intro/outro music was created by Kamari WV. This podcast is supported by a grant from the Mellon Foundation as part of We Here’s dream-shaping project. Big thank you to the We Here Grant advisory team and the rest of the We Here family for all their support to help make this podcast possible. Special shout-out to our pets: Blue, Junior, Hamlet and Beckett for keeping it real on the recordings.
Show Notes
Books, Authors, and Media Mentioned
N. K. Jemisin, almost all of her books, but especially The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
Ursula K. Le Guin, specifically Earthsea & “The Ones Who Walk away from Omelas”
The River Has Roots, Amal El-Mohtar
Babel, or the Necessity of Violence, R. F. Kuang
All Systems Red (the Murderbot series), Martha Wells
“Signal” by L. D. Lewis
Hot Girls with Balls, Benedict Nguyen
Sky Daddy, Kate Folk
Crash, J. G. Ballard
Worlds of Fantasy (magazine)
The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury
Prep, Curtis Sittenfeld
Starship Troopers (film)
Lilith’s Brood (the Xenogenesis Trilogy), Octavia Butler
Baby-Sitter’s Club, Ann M. Martin
Sweet Valley High, Francine Pascal
Howl’s Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones
Jack, A. M. Homes
The End of Alice, A.M. Homes
The Pout Pout Fish, Deborah Diesen
The Fellowship of the Rings (Lord of the Rings trilogy), J. R. R. Tolkien
“Diggin’ on You,” TLC
Model Home, Rivers Solomon
House of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
Resources Mentioned
We Here Community School
We Here: Community Study
Borders (RIP)
Walden Books (RIP)
Public Libraries (shoutout to the Louisville Public Library, Los Angeles Public Library, Brooklyn Public Library)
Credits
Hosts: Sofia Leung, nicholae cline, and Jen Brown
Producer: Imani Spence
Copyright: Copyright © 2025 We Reads Podcast. All rights reserved.This podcast and its contents are the property of We Here LLC and its hosts, and may not be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, except for brief quotations used in reviews or promotional content.
Note: As a Bookshop.org affiliate, we earn a small commission if you purchase books from our Bookshop. Revenue goes to scholarships for We Here’s Community Study participants.