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Debut You 2023: Erika Turner: And Other Mistakes

Debut You is an interview feature on Our Stories Matter blog. Debut authors, who have released or have upcoming releases in 2023, are given six questions to answer about themselves and their book. Currently, the questions are the same for all authors. We hope you enjoy getting to know Erika Turner and can offer your support. Go here for past Debut You features.

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Describe yourself in five words, then expound on one of them.

Nerdy, direct, curious, introverted, and expressive.

Curious: I think this has always been true because I love learning about history and various cultures. But I’ve recently discovered a love of language learning. I’ve got a lower-intermediate proficiency in Japanese from my college years that I’ve only recently begun brushing up on. However, I have also spent the last year studying Spanish for work and family purposes. That’s been incredibly fun. I’m relatively conversational now and will finish a translation course this spring. Once I feel proficient enough in both languages, I’m excited to take on Cantonese and Mandarin to better communicate with my loved ones!

Explain your book’s journey—how long did it take—from idea to publication?

Oof! This answer is a long one. I started to think about ideas for the book one day on the train about six years ago. I just started jotting notes down. It took me six months to write, and then I sent the draft to friends and family for feedback. It took about six more months to edit the draft. Then I sent the book to agents; Quressa and one other agent offered me representation within about a week. Then we went through another round of edits—about another three months. Then submission.

The submission process was a heartbreaking time for me. I got positive rejection after positive rejection—a lot of “we like your voice and your writing, but….” Then, crickets. Nothing, for another year or so. At this point, the book had “existed” for maybe three years. I moved on, started focusing on other projects, and then out of the blue, a full year later, we got a message from an editor at Feiwel & Friends: another editor had sent my book to her, thinking she might like it, and she did! Wow!

From there, it was about a year for the publication process: initial edits through to the final manuscript, copyediting, proofreading, creating the cover, etc. And now here we are! I almost can’t believe it.

Belief in oneself is important; besides you, who has been your cheerleader(s) throughout this process?

Without a doubt, my spouse. My #1 biggest cheerleader! Aside from them, my friends and family have been incredibly supportive and enthusiastic, especially when I was almost certain the book would never see the light of day.

Understanding your audience is essential. What do you know for sure about the audience you are writing for?

I am absolutely sure that the audience I’m writing for are teenagers and young adults who have and will make a lot of mistakes in their life, will hurt from them, and learn from them, and learn to love themselves all the better.

Tell us about your book.

Is it a cliche to say that this book is partially a love letter to a city? Maybe so, but Las Vegas doesn’t get a lot of love outside of the casino scene, so I’ll start there: the book is a love letter to a place that a lot of people have heard of but not a lot of people know about. The same can be true of being a messy teenager: we’ve all been through it, but it can be hard to remember the actual raw reality of figuring yourself out for the first of many times throughout your life.

So, it’s about not having a roadmap, figuring out your own path, and realizing that no matter what anyone thinks about you—who you are, who you’re expected to be, or what you’ve done—the only person who knows your journey is you.

I think that’s especially true of young Black kids in America, certainly Black girls, especially if they’re queer. These are kids who are often treated like adults and, therefore, not given the respect, care, and space to be messy, confused, and scared and figure out how to turn missteps into a positive direction. I try to give the teens in my book that space, and thus readers as well.

YOU did it, congratulations! Your story is going to be read by children or teens, educators, parents, librarians, book bloggers, etc. How do you feel, and are there any other projects in the works—that you can discuss?

Yes, I’ve got a few! There’s a fantastic horror anthology in the works at Versify with a great cast of Black female and nonbinary writers, which I’m very excited about. I’ve also got an adult contemporary coming up, which is new for me but something I’ve wanted to explore for a while—I love writing for all kinds of audiences, so it’s exciting to expand my skills. Finally, my next YA is coming up from Feiwel & Friends, which will be another contemporary, this time set in the pandemic, exploring coming-of-age during the summer of 2020.

For projects not yet at a publisher, I’ll say: I’m really excited to explore an adult mystery-detective series I’ve got in mind and a middle-grade story about dog training.


And Other Mistakes

Erika Turner | Feiwel and Friends | February 14, 2023 | YA | Amazon | Bookshop

Erika Turner is a writer, poet, and the daughter of storytellers. Sometimes, she writes songs she may share one day. Once, in a Brooklyn community center, she read James Baldwin’s quote, “You can’t tell the children there’s no hope,” and she carries those words from the city to the desert and beyond. She lives in California with her family and a dog who is suspicious of stationary street objects.

Connect with Erika Turner: Website


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