Debut You is an interview feature on Our Stories Matter blog. Debut authors, who have released or have upcoming releases in 2021, are given five questions to answer about themselves and their book. Currently, the questions are the same for all authors. We hope you enjoy getting to know Kwame Ivery and can offer your support. Go here for more “Debut You” features
Describe yourself in five words, then expound on one of them.
Disciplined, ambitious, creative, empathic, and curious.“Curious” is probably just a nice way of saying “nosy” (curiosity is basically nosiness dressed in a suit & tie); for me, the only thing better than When is Where, and the only thing better than Where is What, and the only thing better than What is Who, and the only thing better than Who is Why.
Explain your book’s journey—how long did it take—from idea to publication?
My book’s idea came to me in August 2016. I started writing it nearly a year later, in July 2017; I finished writing it two months later, in September 2017. I found an agent for it four months later, in January 2018. That agent sent my book through the first round of submissions to publishers two months later, in March 2018. That agent quit being an agent three months later (June 2018), and I was transferred to another agent, who dropped me five months later (November 2018) because she needed to reduce her client list. I found a new agent two months later (January 2019), and she sent my book through the second round of submissions to publishers, and four months later (May 2019), my book was sold to Soho Press. Initially, my book was scheduled to be released in February 2021, but the pandemic caused a domino effect of postponements, which led to my book’s current release date—September 7, 2021. So, my book’s journey from idea to publication took about five years.
Balance is the key to successful living. How do you balance the act of writing with other priorities, such as your job, family or fun activities, and self-care?
It’s been an easy balancing act for me, maybe because I don’t have a spouse or children. That said, the other things you list—job, fun activities, self-care—are also important to me, and that’s why I don’t allow my book writing to take up more time than three hours a day, six days a week. At that pace, I’m able to still have fun (whether it’s going to the movies or a show, or leisurely reading, or binge-watching something on Netflix), take care of my health, and do the job that gives me a steady paycheck.
Understanding your audience is essential. What do you know for sure about the audience you are writing for?
My target audience is primarily teenagers—especially the ones who like realistic/contemporary fiction and stories about romantic relationships between two culturally/racially different people. I also think my audience can include adults who have a soft spot for that type of fiction and those types of stories.
Tell us about your book.
A blossoming interracial romance between two New Jersey 10th graders gets disrupted by their older sisters’ increasingly combative, racially charged election campaign against each other for school president.
The Problem with the Other Side
Soho Teen | September 07, 2021 | YA | 336 Pages | Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound
Kwame Ivery was born in Bronx, New York and raised in East Orange, New Jersey. He received a B.A. in psychology from Princeton University and an M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. He’s had a screenplay optioned by Hollywood storyboard artist Karl Shefelman (“The Silence of the Lambs”, “American Gangster,” “Confessions of a Shopaholic”, etc.) He’s a proud high school English teacher with 100-plus teenage students who, on a daily basis, teach him just as many things as he teaches them. He loves lasagna and hates musicals; he thinks contrasts are underrated and symmetry overrated.
Connect with Kwame Ivery
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