Who Would Have Thoughts?

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NBC’s Simone Boyce Talks Authenticity, Taking Risks & the Importance of Finding Your Niche

Photo Courtesy: Angel Alvarado

About a year ago, I cold emailed Simone Boyce for career advice. I’d followed her work and was really captivated by her storytelling. Whether she was reporting on cultural pieces in New York City or interviewing celebrities in Los Angeles, each of her stories always had an unique angle that made for such a compelling perspective. She kindly responded and ended up giving me some of the most helpful advice I’ve received in my career:

 “Risk taking is a HUGE ingredient for success in this industry.” 

Simone followed her own advice, and it’s really paid off. After making the switch from entertainment to news, she was recently hired as a new host on NBC’s streaming network. It was a move that almost seemed like fate, and if you follow her on Instagram, she posted a pretty neat photo of her and her dad in front of the 30 Rock building years ago (her new work home). Talk about a full circle moment!

  Being authentic isn’t always easy, but trying to do so while working in the public eye is even harder. Simone has managed to balance both feats in a warm and inviting manner that really welcomes in her audience while maintaining her strong sense of self. 

Photo Courtesy: Tiffany Lo

Recently I chatted with the Emmy-nominated journalist about her journey in this industry, why taking chances and trusting your gut is so important and the intersection of culture when it comes to covering the news. Also, bonus for all you travelers and/or East Coast vs. West Coast people – Simone also dishes on some of her top spots and favorite things to do in both Los Angeles and NYC.

Make sure to subscribe to the “Who Would Have Thoughts?” Podcast on both iTunes and Soundcloud (and leave a rating and review) to stay in the loop for more great conversations like this one.

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MTV News’ Gaby Wilson Talks Interviewing Kanye West, VMAs Red Carpet Coverage & Summer Bops You Need To Hear

Photo Courtesy: Emma McIntyre/Getty Images

In the past, MTV News correspondents and VJs have become pretty big names. Who can forget people like Kurt Loder, Ananda Lewis, Vanessa (Minnillo) Lachey and SuChin Pak? They became a part of the music TV landscape. 

Gaby Wilson, too, has now cemented herself as part of that MTV News legacy.

Gaby with A$AP Rocky & A$AP Ferg. Photo Courtesy: James McCain

Gaby has been with MTV for the past seven years, working her way up from an editorial assistant to the person you see hosting red carpet coverage at the VMAs or chopping it up with some of music’s biggest names like Kendrick Lamar, SZA, Ariana Grande and Cardi B.

Gaby has also worked on more serious stories for MTV News. Recently she covered the March for Our Lives rally in Washington, D.C., and as a correspondent, she’s hosted special presidential election coverage for the network. Previously, Gaby also moderated a MTV Town Hall discussion surrounding climate change that featured former Vice President Al Gore.

Gaby interviewing Kanye West. Photo Courtesy: Colin Douglas Gray

Recently I chatted with Gaby about being a self-described “music nerd," how she prepares for her interviews with major artists, what it’s like to chat with Kanye West and what the VMAs red carpet is really like. 

Gaby interviewing Halsey. Photo Courtesy: Gavin Alaoen

Also, bonus! Gaby gave me her perfect curated #Summer2018 Playlist: 

No Tears Left To Cry - Ariana Grande 

Roll (Burbank Funk) - The Internet 

Nervous - Shawn Mendes 

Sangria Wine - Pharrell Williams & Camila Cabello 

I Like It - Cardi B feat. Bad Bunny & J Balvin 

Icey - Melii 

Make sure to subscribe to the "Who Would Have Thoughts?" Podcast on iTunes & Soundcloud (and leave a rating and review) to stay in the loop for more great conversations like this one.

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ESPN’s Jemele Hill Talks Life After SportsCenter, Obama’s Personal Message to Her & Johnny Manziel vs. Colin Kaepernick

Jemele and I and years ago at the NABJ Convention in Orlando

I met Jemele Hill years ago when I was an intern at ESPN in Bristol. She graciously let me have lunch with her one day, and I proceeded to (probably) embarrass myself by asking too many questions while also looking for some  guidance and advice on how to navigate the media industry. Years later, Jemele is still someone I’ve been able to reach out to, and even with her success, she remains a true champion in giving back and helping out the next generation of journalists.  

You can also download this podcast episode on iTunes

This podcast episode was a year in the making because I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Jemele is an incredibly busy and highly in-demand person (this is breaking news to no one). Her platform has pretty much exploded in the last year for a few reasons (we’ll get to the more obvious one in a second). The first reason featured a seat at ESPN’s biggest table: the network’s legacy show, SportsCenter. Jemele co-hosted the 6pm edition (better known as ‘SC6’) with Michael Smith. The duo tapped into something we’d never really seen from the show in the past; they played dominoes with Ice Cube and recreated skits from iconic films and TV shows like “Boyz n the Hood” and “A Different World.” They blended entertainment with sports in a lively manner and helped give representation and content to audiences that had been overlooked in the past.

SC6 nailed this recreation of “A Different World” with some star-studded cameos. 

Outside of SC6, Jemele has become a must-follow on social media. Never shy from voicing her humor and opinions, she brings that same authenticity from TV to the internet, and it’s helped her capture the eyeballs of more than one million Twitter followers. That same platform, though, landed her in some hot water in 2017. In September, her tweets about the president drew attention from the White House, and another series of tweets regarding boycotts and the NFL’s national anthem protests led ESPN to suspend her for two weeks for violating the company’s social media policy.  

Suddenly Jemele Hill was a household name in a conversation much larger than the sports’ space.  

Since that controversy, Jemele’s every media move is under a microscope, and in February she decided to leave SC6. She has since moved over to the Undefeated, ESPN’s vertical that focuses on everything from race to culture under a sport’s lens. With the Undefeated, Jemele has taken part in important town hall discussions and interviewed huge sports names, like Kobe Bryant, for the site’s “Dear Black Athlete” series. Outside of ESPN, Jemele has also appeared on shows like ABC’s “The View” and most recently Kevin Garnett’s “Area 21.”  

Jemele and Kobe Bryant in conversation for the Undefeated’s “Dear Black Athlete” series

Recently, I chatted with Jemele about her decision to leave SportsCenter, the message former President Barack Obama gave her during her controversy, whether or not the NFL will ever accept Johnny Manziel or Colin Kaepernick again and which “Black Panther” character she’d like to be. 

Make sure to subscribe to the “Who Would Have Thoughts?” podcast on iTunes and Soundcloud to stay in the loop for more great conversations like this one.

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‘Brown Girls’ Creators Fatimah Asghar & Sam Bailey Talk Championing Diversity on TV

Photo Courtesy: Brown Girls Web Series

It's impossible not to binge-watch Brown Girls in one sitting. 

The show centers around Leila, a Pakistani-American writer, and Patricia, a black musician, as they navigate the messy what-ifs of their early 20s (i.e. dead-end jobs vs. pursuing passions, sexual orientation and relationship commitment). 

Patricia (played by actress Sonia Denis) and Leila (played by actress Nabila Hossain)

It’s a simple enough premise, but if I could pick a song to describe this series, it would be Solange’s “F.U.B.U.” It’s still extremely rare to see all black and brown faces (in front and behind the camera) in a single show, and Brown Girls portrays certain underrepresented groups still fighting for mainstream TV airtime.  

Fatimah and Sam’s work really moved me. From the writing to the production value, this show connected in a way that just felt so authentic and relatable. As well, this web series was a refreshing depiction of life outside of NYC or LA and a reminder that great media and art exists in other vibrant cities, like Chicago.

Recently I chatted with the two creators about the response Brown Girls has received, the importance of diversity in television and film and what it's like to receive recognition from HBO and the Emmy Awards. The duo was also recently named to Forbes’ “30 Under 30″ Hollywood and Entertainment List.

Make sure to subscribe to the “Who Would Have Thoughts?” Podcast on Soundcloud to stay in the loop for more great conversations like this one.

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When Activism Meets Creativity: Master of None’s Lena Waithe Talks “Protest Art” at Teen Vogue Meetup

CHICAGO -- In October, I decided to spend a beautiful fall Friday evening among a group of Gen Zers. 

Before heading to Teen Vogue’s meetup event in Chicago, I imbibed in a frothy egg-based cocktail and during the actual event switched out the alcohol for one of the grapefruit mocktails being served to the crowd. It was a stark reminder that I wasn’t exactly the target audience member for this event. 

These tote bags were given to attendees at Teen Vogue’s Chicago meetup.

Not that this was a problem. In fact, Teen Vogue has seen a bump in its profile over the last year, thanks in part to its political coverage that went viral under the direction and influence of Editor-in-Chief Elaine Welteroth and her right hand guru/digital editorial director Phillip Picardi (who holds the same title with Allure and helped launch Conde Nast’s new LGBTQ vertical, them). Welteroth was a big reason why I decided to buy my ticket for the Teen Vogue event, and her celebrity status seemed confirmed at the conclusion of it. Fans (of all ages) waited around a half hour to grab a coveted selfie with Welteroth, and as people tried to push through to the front, one girl deadpanned, “Bitch, if I could grow wings, I’d be flying up there to meet her.” 

Teen Vogue Editor-in-Chief Elaine Welteroth greets the crowd.

Outside of Vogue’s legendary leader, Anna Wintour, no other EIC has ridden more of a wave of accelerated star status than Welteroth has these past few years. The 30-year-old made history as Conde Nast’s youngest and second African-American Editor-in-Chief ever and has become a must-follow on social media – an avenue that has helped her capture the fascination and adoration of her nearly 190,000 combined followers on Twitter and Instagram. 

In partnership with TOMS, Teen Vogue hosted an evening that felt like a mixer of sorts. Upon arrival, we attendees were encouraged to slap on a badge that featured our names and the causes that lit our activism fire. There were glass bowls filled with pins that had phrases like “Woke AF” or “I may take naps, but I’m still WOKE” at our disposal. Tables had recent issues of Teen Vogue on display artfully (those magazines now seem like collector’s items considering Conde Nast’s recent announcement that Teen Vogue will cease its print issues).

Teen Vogue issues on full display. Conde Nast recently announced the magazine will end its print run.

Even with the brand’s now complete shift to digital, launching a conference-type event has been the bubbling brainchild of Welteroth’s for the past five years. In an interview with WWD in September, she explained what went into the decision to finally launch Teen Vogue’s first-ever Summit (taking place in December in Los Angeles with major star power like director Ava DuVernay) and a series of meetups in five select cities. 

“It’s the right moment for this. We have this incredible, civic-minded, motivated community,” she told WWD. 

“They are hungry to connect with the brand.” 

That message, paired with Welteroth’s charisma, were the main reasons why everyone’s phones became locked in position once she entered the room at the Chicago event. We were all ready to snap, click and capture a piece of physical evidence to help induce FOMO among our social circles. Clad in a sporty black and white Opening Ceremony minidress, her beloved Laurence Dacade white boots (she raves about them frequently on Instagram) and gold-framed aviator glasses, Welteroth’s look was, of course, sealed by her signature honey-colored afro. As she stared out into the crowd, Welteroth seemed in awe that her vision was finally a reality, and she opened the event by exclaiming excitedly, “This is happening!”

The theme of the night was activism through creativity, and with Welteroth serving as the host, she told attendees that she hoped the night would serve as a “cross-generational” conversation. The speakers on the roster certainly exemplified that; Welteroth handpicked New York Times bestselling author and hilarious internet wordsmith Luvvie Ajayi of Awesomely Luvvie fame, Chicago activist Eva Lewis and Emmy-Award winning producer and Master of None actress Lena Waithe.

Luvvie casually dropped in the fact that she had brunch with Oprah. NBD.

While Luvvie set the tone early after sharing nuggets of wisdom (and revealing that it took her nearly a decade to finally call herself a writer), WITNESS’ program coordinator Pali Makam taught attendees how to safely and properly document protests. Waithe and Lewis then rounded out the evening with an intimate discussion about their art and its intersection with politics and activism.

Lena Waithe (left) and Eva Lewis discuss activism through art.

“I think however anyone chooses to be an activist is valid,” Waithe said. “In terms of artistically, I’m not afraid to write about my experiences. I like to make protest art. I want to write about black love stories – that’s revolutionary. I want to write about same-sex black love stories – that’s even more so [revolutionary] because you don’t see it,” she said. 

“I like to make protest art. I want to write about black love stories – that’s revolutionary.” - Lena Waithe

Waithe says she also uses her writing as a way to connect audiences that, on paper, may never seem similar. “[My] ‘Thanksgiving’ [Master of None episode] is a form of activism because a white straight person in Tappahannock, [Virginia] will watch and see themselves in me and go, ‘Oh, we’re more alike than we are different.’” 

Marginalized groups in Hollywood still face a variety of struggles, especially when it comes to controlling their art and their message. Waithe says the first change must come from the top. 

“I’m happy to have a show that’s about to be on Showtime, and I’m happy Issa [Rae]’s got Insecure on HBO and Justin [Simien] is on Netflix, but it’s like, who owns the networks? I don’t know a black person who owns a network,” she said. 

“I’m not going to stop making art, but I’m also not going to be naïve to who benefits financially off of that art. I benefit a little bit, but there are people above me that benefit more. And I can’t change that tomorrow, but I’m in the process of just working really freaking hard so that I’m eventually in a position to galvanize people from the industry that look like me, that are like-minded, so we can go, ‘When are we going to unite and come together and put a fund together?’” 

Waithe says that while those conversations happen all the time, black unity in black Hollywood is hard. “There’s no reason why Insecure, Blackish, Dear White People, Atlanta, the Chi shouldn’t all be on BET,” she said. 

“We’re working, but we got a lot of work to do.”

 This year’s Emmy Awards was a major step forward in that fight. Waithe became the first black woman to win an Emmy for Comedy Writing, and at the end of the night took a photo with Atlanta’s Donald Glover (the first black person to win the comedy-directing award) and The Night Of actor Riz Ahmed (the first Muslim and South-Asian actor to win an Emmy). The photo became instantly iconic, and Waithe explained the meaning behind the now-famous picture. 

Photo Courtesy: Riz Ahmed (Instagram)

“Riz was like, ‘We need to document this moment,’ because he was like, ‘This is the kind of thing that represents the future,’ but the great thing about that moment was we are all woke,” Waithe said. “We’re not just doing this to make money. We are about the community. I’m of the community, and I want to still be a part of it.” 

This idea of fighting for your community – whether it be through peaceful protests, creative methods or conversations – sits at the root of the discussions Welteroth hopes Teen Vogue can continue to facilitate and help its audience engage in. For the young people at these events, their future is still moldable, and the way they see the world may change, but the main takeaway Welteroth wants them to have? 

It’s yours for the taking. 

Also, taking some selfies and Boomerangs along the way doesn’t hurt either.

[whowouldhavethoughts]

BuzzFeed’s Scaachi Koul Talks Humor, Canadian vs. American Politics & Why Twitter Isn’t Necessary

Photo Courtesy: Picador USA

I took Scaachi Koul’s collection of essays, One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter, with me to Las Vegas during my bachelorette party a few months ago. I knew that Koul was extremely funny and thought the book would provide some light reading while poolside at a cabana. 

Koul’s opening essay came out of the gate hot, and I could not put the book down. 

Her writing is extremely honest and open, and for me it was relatable. When she talked about being the only brown girl around her white classmates in Canada, I was transported back to my entire childhood existence feeling that same isolation. Her essay about a mortifying mishap in a Toronto dressing room had me simultaneously laughing while also cringing in sympathy. Each chapter plays out like a scene from a TV show, so it’s no surprise that recently Koul announced her essays will be turned into a scripted series by First Generation Films.

Koul also works as a senior writer for BuzzFeed and wrote a brilliant piece called “A User’s Guide to My Stupid Name” that should be required reading for anyone with a “culturally different” (aka foreign) name (I’ve lost track of how many times my name has been mispronounced in my life). 

A few weeks ago, I chatted with Scaachi over the phone about her debut collection of essays, why Americans shouldn’t threaten to move to Canada after an election year and whether or not you need to be on Twitter to get hired. 

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length. 

Photo Courtesy: Barbora Simkova

Ngozi: What was it like writing this collection of essays and then seeing it come to completion and being published? 

Scaachi: I mean, it’s weird. It feels like an out of body experience, but I feel some detachment to it at this point. It’s been a few months, but I’m happy with the result. I feel like people really like it, so that’s always good. 

What has touring been like? What’s been the response you’ve gotten after talking to people who have read [O.D.W.A.B.D.A.N.O.T.W.M]? 

Scaachi: I don’t mind touring. I find it kind of taxing because I don’t like traveling. It’s tricky especially if you don’t like being on a plane and then being on a lot of planes is not exactly an ideal situation. It’s been nice to go to different cities and talk to different people and hear about different perspectives outside of Canada and in the States. It’s been fun. 

You’ve talked about just how personal you were able to get with this book, and you even open with an essay on anxiety. You talk about a lot of serious things. Did you ever feel like there was a sense of ‘Someone’s reading my journal without my permission’? Did writing these essays ever feel like that to you?

Scaachi: I guess so, but I don’t experience shame that often so it doesn’t really bother me. I think my general policy is if you write a personal essay and it feels too raw, then maybe it’s just not the time to write it. I have lots of stories like that where they just don’t feel ready and maybe they don’t feel funny and it’s not comfortable to get them up yet, and those are stories that I don’t [put out].

Humor is a big part of all of your work – not just in these essays but also in your work for BuzzFeed. Where does your humor come from and did it almost feel like it was developed as a defense mechanism over the years? I know for me, that’s how I developed mine. Do you think it’s your most powerful trait?

Scaachi: I feel like I was born with it. It’s certainly something I’ve honed, but I think it’s something I had at first. I think a lot about being funny is just sort of inherent – you either kind of have it when you were born or you don’t, and then from there you decide how important it is and how much you’re going to use it. I think it’s pretty clear for me in the book that I get a lot of my sense of humor from my dad because he’s insane. I think I realized pretty early on that being funny creates a social capital for yourself, but at 10-years-old if I could have traded being funny for being popular, I probably would have. But it was sort of like a thing that I had, so that’s what I used. 

In this book, you use your humor and you’re funny, and then you cut to something that’s more serious or sad. 

Scaachi: Well I do think that with the book, I can’t give you ten essays about the inescapable tragedy of human existence and not give you a joke. So there is something to be said about luring the audience in to talk about something that’s kind of serious and weighty, but I don’t feel like it’s disingenuous. I think the book is presented the way I would present myself in any social situation. 

In your book, the essays that really resonated with me focused on race and identity and seeing oneself as a first-generation adult. In your essay, “Fair & Lovely,” you talked about pushing away your brownness for a long time, and I think most of us experience that feeling of otherness and go through that period of time. Was writing that essay cathartic, in a sense, knowing where you are now with your identity and how you see yourself? 

Scaachi: Yeah, I mean sure. [All the essays] are kind of cathartic. 

What was the process like writing that particular essay? 

Scaachi: I mean I feel like it came quite naturally, so I don’t know if I’ve got a clean answer for how cathartic it felt because I feel like I came back from that wedding and just sort of had that in my head. Everything just kind of came together. That was the fourth or fifth trip I’d made to India in my life, and so I had all of these old memories, and I didn’t really know what to make of them. That was the first trip I’d made to India as an adult, and it was the first time we’d gone with my niece [Raisin] who’s biracial. I’d never had that point of reference, so I think it just kind of came together quite simply. I wasn’t really ruminating on it for very long because I think while I was there it was like, ‘Oh okay. Now I understand,’ and so all these pieces that were sort of missing came together simply. 

You’ve talked about growing up Indian-Canadian, and you’ve mentioned how sometimes Americans think there are no racial issues [in Canada] and that it’s this “mythical” land. How do you explain to people here in the States why that isn’t true? I’m also curious because so many people here after an election year say, ‘I’m going to move to Canada’ after their candidate loses. What do you think when you hear people say that? 

Scaachi: I think it’s laziness. I understand the instinct, but I think it’s sort of lazy. I mean in terms of the comparison point between the two countries, it’s hard to compare the two. You guys are 350 million, and we’re 35 million [people], so just by scale our issues are going to seem a lot less severe. The other part of it is in your recent election, the US has elected what is quite seriously the worst possible candidate they could have elected for president. So then by comparison, everything we do [in Canada] will not seem that bad. 

I am troubled over the international fawning over Trudeau. I think for the first few months it made sense and it was fine, and now it kind of bothers me because he’s been in office for almost two years, and he hasn’t done anything. I have not seen him do anything, and I am more irritated by progressives who lie to you and lie to the base and say that they’re going to do something, and then they do nothing. That bothers me on an intellectual level and on an emotional level. It seems dangerous to dismiss what can and is happening in Canada because there are a lot of people here who are suffering, and it’s difficult to say, ‘Oh racism doesn’t exist.’ Well it’s really hard for me to listen to that when I know that there are swaths of communities – largely poor indigenous communities, poor people of color – who don’t have access to clean water in the country. If you look at what’s happening in Flint, it’s the same thing. 

In terms of moving to Canada, I get it, and certainly there are things that Canadians have that Americans don’t, and I’m very thankful for those things. I can understand people who say they need to move because they need healthcare. That’s a reasonable thing. But this idea that ‘I’m going to move to Canada and everything is going to be fine’ – I can’t tell you how many times I do events in the US, and someone comes up to me and is like, ‘So if you go to school in Canada it’s free, right?’ No it’s not free. It’s cheaper, but by that token, our schools are not considered as prestigious [laughs]. There’s this set of lies that I feel like people told themselves about how things work up here, and then people think that they’re just going to show up. I don’t get it. I feel like they’re just going to be woefully disappointed. 

Yeah, and it’s like obviously if you visit as a tourist you’re going to see or experience, a lot of times, the best parts of a country because you’re on a vacation and naturally you’ll be like, ‘Oh this place is great.’ 

Scaachi: Sure, and I mean there’s this thought that fundamentally Americans aren’t taught anything about Canada when you guys go to school. I mean you literally know nothing about us and then you become of voting age, and you think this is a bastion of socialism and I can go there and live there. I don’t know. I remember thinking that about Europe when I was younger. I thought that Europe was where you go if you want to live in a really liberal, hippie-dippy place and you can drink at sixteen, school’s covered and blah blah blah. That’s a really adorable way to think, but considering how many shootings have been happening there and the level and the tone of the racism – even just looking at what’s happened to London in the last few months – how can you continue to believe that? So I mean it just strikes me as lazy ideology. Nowhere is good. I hate to phrase it like that, but I don’t’ know where the good, safe place is. I’m really not too sure. 

Also the solution to your country being fucked up isn’t leaving. It’s not, especially when people who are often saying, ‘I’m going to move to Canada,’ they more often tend to be white, and they tend to have enough money to pick up and go. It’s never poor people of color who say I’m going to move to Canada. I’ve never seen that. It’s always these white people who have some capital and some control in changing how the world is working and changing how their country is working. After Trump won, he won in part because of white women voted for him and then there were all these white women who said they were going to move to Canada, and I was like, ‘You know what, this is kind of your fault.’ So don’t fuck it up and then pack your bags and say you’re going to come here and probably ruin the few things we have here [laughs]. It’s just sort of shirking a lot of responsibility, and it’s often the people who are responsible for those problems. 

Photo Courtesy: Barbora Simkova

I know everyone always talks about Twitter with you, but I wanted to talk to you in a different context in terms of your essay that you wrote speaking out against it. You quit the platform for a while and then you came back to it. Do you ever feel like being in media that we’ll ever go back to a point where your boss says, ‘You know what? You don’t need to be on this for me to hire you.’ Do you think that we should? I know that you edit for people too, and it’s a great way to even the playing field finding writers on social media. 

Scaachi: I think right now you can get hired without having a Twitter account if your work is good. I don’t think it’s necessary. I think in some places my Twitter account is a detriment to my hireability. I don’t think that everybody likes it, so I’m not sure if that is even necessary. I think it’s just something that people have told themselves like, ‘Oh I need to do this.’ You don’t need to do this. I get a lot of young women who come up to me at my events and they ask me, ‘How do I make my Twitter account good so I get hired?’ You don’t need to. If you’re fighting with the platform and the platform sucks – and it does suck because it doesn’t give a shit about anybody – and it doesn’t feel good to be on it and you’re not having fun and you can’t see an upside? Don’t use it. Do the work instead. Do the work quietly. I get that it’s maybe less sexy because you don’t get to count how many retweets or whatever, and that’s obviously frustrating, but if you don’t want to do it, don’t do it. 

I think right now younger people going into the industry are just born of that internet phase, and I certainly was. I was raised on social media and accessible YouTube and torrenting. I lived in that world so I’m very comfortable with it, but I don’t know if you need it. I mean my partner isn’t really using it that extensibly because it sucks [laughs]. 

Frankly, I think all of us who are using it right now are waiting for something better to show up because the company has made it so clear that they don’t care about us.

In one of your essays, you talk about your family meeting your partner. There’s the age difference and the fact that you’re in an interracial couple that made the reaction not what you guys would have preferred at first. In the context of what we’ve been talking about, did you ever feel like you had to be different in public around him or worry how people perceived you guys in a certain space?

Scaachi: I mean not particularly. I don’t think the racial aspect [was an issue]. Because we had a large age difference, there were more growing pains because I felt pretty young, and I think he felt quite old [laughs]. We didn’t spend time with my family, and that was where I would have felt like I needed to adjust my behavior. 

Your family is good now with you two? 

Scaachi: Yeah. The ending is like, ‘Yeah, everything’s okay.’ Like all things, it just took a minute, and now we’re fine, and I’m sure my parents will present some other sort of conflict for me. But everything’s okay right now. 

Earlier you mentioned your dad, and he’s a big part of your essays. We see his humor throughout the book through the email excerpts at the end of each chapter, but there are a lot of complicated layers in you guys’ relationship that you talk about. Did you feel any type of guilt complex when writing about your parents? 

Scaachi: In addition to not experiencing shame, I do not experience guilt. They are taxing and lovely people, so I feel like I have an inherent right to write about them. [My dad] is a highly emotional, easily irritated funny person, but he has sort of a set of standards – like a lot of parents – that seem impossible to meet, so that causes a lot of conflict. In the book in the initial drafts of him, he sort of came out a little cartoonish, and so we made an effort to make him an actual person and not just a cartoon. In the book, he’s presented through the lens of writing about where he grew up versus where I grew up or about the things that he wanted and then the things that I wanted that disappointed him. Between every chapter there’s an objectively insane email from him that makes no sense. Just to give you a taste. 

Is there a particular essay from the book that you’ve received the most response from readers about? Or the one that was your favorite to write that you definitely wanted the world to read? 

Scaachi: I don’t really have a favorite, and I think people respond to different chapters differently. I don’t know if I could pick one. I mean there’s only ten. I don’t know if there’s one that sort of sticks out the most. 

Is there anything you’ve read lately that you would recommend to your readers?

Scaachi: I finished Omar El Akkad’s American War, which was really good. It’s fiction, but it’s excellent. Then I actually just read an oral history of The Daily Show. It’s this massive 420-page book, and I loved it. I would imagine it’s only appealing if you really love The Daily Show, but I really loved that. I have in front of me Theft By Finding by David Sedaris, which I haven’t opened yet. Then I also read Sam Irby’s We Are Never Meeting in Real Life which is very, very funny. That one is so good. It’s nonfiction essays, and it’s so hilarious and so brutal.

[whowouldhavethoughts]

Caroline Kitchener Talks Life After College, Dealing With Mental Health and Advice For New Grads

Photo Courtesy: Caroline Kitchener

When I graduated from college, no one really told me how hard that first year out of school would be. 

After four years of constant interaction among friends, suddenly I was eating dinner alone in front of the TV most nights. I was broke, in a long-distance relationship and thousands of miles away from home in a completely new place. I felt myself questioning my career a lot.

The adjustment to my new independence and “adulthood” was daunting and challenging, and Caroline Kitchener’s debut novel, Post Grad, examines this same beginning glimpse of life after college. 

Photo Courtesy: Caroline Kitchener

In Post Grad, Kitchener follows five Princeton grads – including herself – during their first year after college, and it's a pretty diverse group. We meet Olivia, a documentarian; Denise, an aspiring doctor; Michelle, a jazz singer and Alex, a programmer.

These women faced some of the same challenges most of us dealt with immediately following graduation; struggles with mental health, trying to making friends or making sense of a relationship – be it romantic or with family – were common among the group. On top of that, they grappled with figuring out what it meant to build a career or even a new self after college. 

That first year post graduation was not always easy, but Kitchener does a wonderful job making it all seem relatable in her novel. It was a real pleasure getting to chat with Caroline for the “Who Would Have Thoughts?” podcast, and she even shared some helpful advice for this year's graduates.

Make sure to subscribe to the “Who Would Have Thoughts?” Podcast on Soundcloud to stay in the loop for more great conversations like this one.

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Jessamyn Stanley Talks Body Positivity, Breaking Barriers and Encouragement in the Yoga Community

Jessamyn Stanley is shattering stereotypes in the yoga community. 

The self-proclaimed “fat femme” has broken barriers in the yoga world with her encouraging teaching style that illustrates the importance of self-love and body positivity. Stanley is a proponent that larger bodies should not be seen as abnormal in the yoga space, and in her book, Every Body Yoga, she advocates that “all yoga bodies deserve to be represented in print” because “Yoga is for everybody and EVERY BODY.” 

Stanley has been interviewed by media outlets like Good Morning America, The New York Times and People among others, and so it was a real honor to get to chat with her in-studio about her book, her journey and her message. 

Make sure to subscribe to the “Who Would Have Thoughts?” Podcast on Soundcloud to stay in the loop for more great conversations like this one.

[whowouldhavethoughts]

Option B: Sheryl Sandberg Shares Her Advice on Grieving & Building Resilience as a Muscle

Photo Courtesy: Knopf

After the unexpected death of her husband in 2015, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg found herself in the devastating throes of grief. The Lean In creator and author suddenly had to cope with being a widow, while also trying to comfort her children who lost their father, Dave Goldberg, way too soon.

Sandberg turned to her friend Adam Grant, a Wharton professor and psychologist, to help her through the dark time, and together they wrote Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy. The book is very personal, as Sandberg shares intimate details and her experience in the aftermath of her spouse’s death, but it also serves as a self-help book for others going through adversity. 

In a satellite interview with Sandberg, we discussed how she’s coped, what this book taught her and how she hopes to help others dealing with grief. 

The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity. 

Ngozi Ekeledo: You’ve gone through so much over the last two years with the sudden passing of your husband. You talked about the aftermath in a beautiful Facebook post in 2015, and in that post, you discussed the idea of “Option B” – which is the title of your new book. What made you want to open up and share these personal details, and were you scared to do so with this book? Was it cathartic? 

Sheryl Sandberg: Well, I was definitely scared to do this. When I lost my husband suddenly two years ago, it’s the unimaginable. I thought I would never get through another day, let alone another week. My biggest fear was that my kids wouldn’t get through it [and] that their happiness would be destroyed in the instant we lost Dave. So I turned to my friend Adam Grant, a psychologist, and said, “What do I do? How do I get my kids through this? How do I get myself through this?” 

 What I learned is that we’re not born with a fixed amount of resilience. It’s a muscle. 

We build it, and we can build it on ourselves and in each other. Option B is my attempt to share what we learned. My husband Dave was an amazing man. He was so generous and gave so much to so many people, and so if Option B can help anyone recover and move on, I think it honors the life he led, and that’s why I wanted to do this. 

Ekeledo: Similar to your Lean In organization, with Option B you’ve also created a nonprofit initiative by the same name. What made you decide to start this system of support groups? What’s the biggest thing you hope someone can take away from Adam and your message or what you guys are trying to present? 

Sandberg: Well I’m hoping that this book and this community, OptionB.org, can kick a lot of elephants out of rooms because when the hardest things happen, we don’t know what to say – so we often say nothing at all. Someone gets cancer, someone goes to prison, someone loses a job, someone loses a child – we don’t want to say the wrong thing, so often we let them suffer in silence. Acknowledging pain, saying, “I know you’re suffering, I’m here with you, and we’re going to go through this together” – that’s not going to take away all of the hardship, but it will [help]. In some ways it already is in the OptionB.org community helping bring people together to support each other. 

I can’t get Dave back. I can’t go back and live as I would live if I could have one more day with him. But I can try to help other people see what I didn’t see in the beginning, which is that it gets better. These are very universal experiences, and that means that we can help each other through them. 

Photo Courtesy: Elizabeth Maisel/Lean In

Ekeledo: With Adam’s portion of the book, he talks about the research behind grieving. Were there any findings from him that surprised you? What were some of the biggest things you learned from him? 

Sandberg: I learned so much. One of the most surprising things was the role gratitude plays. Adam’s one of the most brilliant people I know, but one day he looked at me and said, “You should think about how things could be worse.” I looked at him like he was crazy. Worse? I just lost my husband. Then he said, “Dave could have had that same cardiac arrhythmia driving your children.” You say that, and I say, “Okay, I’m good. My kids are alive.” 

Ironically, I came out of the worst tragedy of my life with more gratitude because it never occurred to me that Dave would not grow old or that I would not grow old. My cousin Laura turned 50 years old two months ago. I called and said, “I wanna call and say happy birthday, but I also want to call you because in case you woke up with that whole ‘Oh my god I’m fifty’ thing – we’ve all done that, I’ve done that – don’t do that. Because this is the year Dave won’t turn 50, and I’m so grateful that you’ve lived till this year.” I’ll never make another joke about growing older because I’m grateful for every day, and I’m hoping that through Option B, more people can find that. 

Ekeledo: You mentioned in that Facebook post how hard it can be to find the right thing to say to someone who is grieving. From what you’ve experienced and learned, what advice do you have for a friend or family member who wants to support a loved one going through a tough time?

Sandberg: The most important thing is to acknowledge the pain, and I got this wrong before. When I saw someone who was going through something hard, maybe I’d say something the first time, but then I wouldn’t say anything because I thought I was reminding them. You can’t remind me that Dave died. I know that. I know that every minute of every day, and so when people didn’t say anything, it was really hard for me. So rather than saying nothing at all, say, “I acknowledge your pain. I know you’re suffering, and I’m here to go through it with you if I can.” 

Photo Courtesy: Elizabeth Maisel/Lean In

Ekeledo: You’ve said that tragedy presents a choice, and that you can either give in or choose meaning. You said when you were ready, you wanted to choose the latter. Do you feel like you’ve been able to do that? What steps have helped you along the way? 

Sandberg: Well I don’t choose meaning and joy every day but much more than I did in the beginning. I now know that it’s not just getting back to recovery, but it’s finding joy. My amazing brother-in-law Rob called me a couple of months in, and he said, “All Dave ever wanted was for you and your kids to be happy. Don’t take that away from him in death.” 

I had to find ways to find joy and not waiting for the big stuff because the big stuff wasn’t going to get better. Joy can be found in the little things – a cup of coffee, my daughter giving me a hug without my begging her for it – and I started noticing those. Adam suggested I write down three moments of joy every day, and I realized most of my life I went to bed worried about what went wrong, but [now] I was going to go to bed thinking about the things that went right. I’m hoping that Option B can help people not just recover but rebound and find the joy, the laughter and the happiness.

[whowouldhavethoughts]

Mary HK Choi Talks Rihanna Stanning, LA Feeling Like Rehab, and Why DJ Khaled Really Does Have The Keys To Your Best Life

Mary HK Choi has done about everything in the world of media. 

From creating her own magazine (RIP Missbehave) to writing coming books for Marvel and DC, she is a chameleon whose written words always cure me of my writer’s block. She’s also someone who just seems cool – her style is effortless (the red lipstick game is always on point), and her perception of what’s in is always spot on. 

All of that makes her a perfect fit for her current role as the culture correspondent for VICE News Tonight on HBO. She’s covered a variety of issues for the show, from examining the hygge movement in Denmark to interviewing St. Vincent on her line of custom guitars. After watching her work, you always come away with a new tidbit that you can drop in conversation with your friends while subsequently boosting your cool factor. 

Over the course of her career, Mary’s byline has appeared in many major publications, including The New York Times, GQ, Complex, The Fader and WIRED. She’s published a collection of short essays called Oh, Nevermind, and in 2016, she helped write DJ Khaled’s book, The Keys, which landed on The New York Times’ bestseller list. Mary has interviewed some of the biggest celebrities in the world from Rihanna to Jordan Peele, and she also has her own podcast called, “Hey Cool Job!” where she chats with different guests in occupations ranging from a Japanese porn publisher to a youth librarian for the Brooklyn Public Library. 

You can’t put Mary HK Choi in a box, and that’s what makes her so fascinating. It was a real honor getting to chat with her for the “Who Would Have Thoughts?” podcast, and I think you’ll enjoy our conversation.

Make sure to subscribe to the “Who Would Have Thoughts?”Podcast on Soundcloud to stay in the loop for more great conversations like this one.

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Issa Rae Opens Up About Insecure’s Success, Relatable Black Characters and Why You Should Spam Your College Listserv

The last few years of Issa Rae’s life have seemingly been filled with success and recognition. 

The HBO show she co-created and stars in, Insecure, debuted to glowing reviews and earned her a Golden Globe nomination. She followed that up with Essence magazine’s 2017 Vanguard Award, and Rae already had a book on The New York Times best-selling list.

But when I recently asked Rae whether or not she still feels like an awkward black girl, she responded:

 “How can I not? Yes absolutely.”

Before the accolades and recognition, Issa Rae was the internet’s prime heiress of awkwardness, and she put it on full-display in her hilarious web series, The Mis-Adventures of Awkward Black Girl. The show gained big-name fans like Pharrell Williams and Gabrielle Union but resonated even more with its regular viewers. When I discovered the show in 2011, I finally felt like I saw myself represented through a black character who was normal. Rae upended Hollywood’s lazy tropes and stereotypes and helped validate the fact that, yes, black people are weird and awkward too. 

Rae’s comedic wit also grabbed the attention of Rolling Stone magazine, who named her one of the “23 funniest people in America,” and her creative savvy earned her a spot on Forbes magazine’s “30 under 30” list.  

So yes, the 32-year-old has made quite the name for herself, but through it all, she’s still made it a point to give back. Her media initiative, Color Creative TV, was created as a chance to give underrepresented voices in media a seat at the table when others had automatically closed the door in the past. 

With this in mind, Rae recently spoke at NC Central University as part of the school’s Lyceum Series and graciously made time to chat with me in a brief interview before the event. The following interview has been edited for clarity.    

Ngozi: First of all, thanks for being here. Basic question for you – you’ve gone from being a Youtube content creator with your Shorty award-winning web series, The Mis-Adventures of Awkward Black Girl, to now a Golden Globe nominated actress for your HBO show Insecure. What’s this entire process been like? Did you ever imagine it would get to this point for you? 

Issa: I definitely didn’t imagine that. You know, you hope and you work hard, and you hope that people see your work and they like it. For me, it started off just putting work online and wanting to put out images that I was not seeing out there, because I was constantly talking mess about, like, what I was not seeing. Like, “Why aren’t there any — why aren’t these types of characters that are black on-screen? Why don’t people portray alternative representations of black people?” There’s always the same specific types and the same type of comedy that’s put out there and relegated to us, and I was talking so much mess, like on a blog. Somebody was like, “You talk a lot of mess. Why don’t you just do it?” And I was like, “Well I can. I guess I can do it.” 

So I produced Awkward Black Girl just so that I could continue to talk mess, and then people really took to it, and I realized that I had a built-in audience online. From that point forward, it was just about continuing to try to be authentic and create work that I wanted to see, and people started to take notice. 

The process of transitioning from the internet to television has been a learning experience, but I’m so happy with who I’ve been able to work with today and thrilled that the show is resonating with people. 

Ngozi: Going off of that, that it’s resonating with people – I know that in an interview you did, I think it was with The Hollywood Reporter, you said [with] Insecure you wanted to make a show that made black people “relatable.” From the responses you’ve gotten, do you feel like you’ve been able to achieve that, and how do you hope to do that in work that you’re doing in the future? 

Issa: Yes. I mean, I feel like the way that people are responding and the different types of people who come up to me of all ages to say that they watch the show always astonishes me. I remember being in Chicago and screening it for an older audience, and I was sitting behind these older black women who were like in their 70s and 80s, and I was already like, “Oh dang, they about to go in on me.” I’m right behind them, the language is terrible – you know, we say the P-word multiple times in the episode. So I was just waiting, and I watched them crack up, especially with the use of the P-word, and I was like, “What they been through where they relate?” It was just so refreshing. 

People of all backgrounds have come up to me to say that they might not have gone through those specific experiences, but they understand it, and they get it, and they know these characters, and that’s all you can ask for. 

Ngozi: [What] do you tell people who I’m sure ask you: Is this character based on you, and is this character you? Because seeing the show, there’s a lot of things that – I don’t want to give away storylines if people haven’t seen it – but there’s a lot of things where I’m sure you’re like, “No, that’s not actually me.”

Issa: Yeah, I mean, I say that the character is me if I didn’t know what I wanted to do and if I made different choices in life. I feel like the essence of her is a younger past version of me, but it’s definitely not autobiographical by any means. It’s based off of a lot of people I know and friendships, and even in the writer’s room, just a lot of the stories that our room tells. I say that every writer in the room has a chunk or morsel or piece of their lives in this show, and I think that’s what makes it relatable. That’s what makes it like a human experience at the end of the day. 

Ngozi: For you, too, you’re also a New York Times best-selling author, and I know in your book you talked a lot about growing up where you’ve lived in different places – like Maryland, be it in LA or Senegal. How has living in those different places and those different experiences influenced your storytelling or maybe some of the characters that you’ve wanted to create? 

Issa: I mean, I think just as much as anybody is defined by their experiences, I think I’ve always been in a state of transition just in terms of, you know, switching cities and moving every two years and switching schools every two years. I’ve always had to adjust and kind of ask myself who I wanted to be at this new school – how I wanted to make friends, how I would approach it, how I was going to fit in. I think in a kind of out of body way, you’re always observing how other people observe you, and that’s the nature of a lot of my work. That’s also, coincidentally, the nature of being black, and I’m sure the two have informed a lot of my experiences and a lot of the stories that I want to tell. So those experiences, I always refer to whenever I’m writing something new.

Ngozi: For things that you’re doing like this [speech] where you go and speak to students or other people of color [or] young creators, you’ve always been about giving back. What’s some of the advice that you would give to some of the people in the audience who are coming to hear you speak? 

Issa: I’m speaking on a college campus, and a college campus is where I got started. You know, it’s where I met most of the people that I work with currently. It’s where I was able to experiment the most, just in terms of taking advantage of the school’s resources. This is the only time where you’re going to have kind of a forced audience. Like I talk about how there were listservs at my college where you could literally just submit your project to an email list. You’d be that person who was spamming, like spamming the black people like, “Hey I have this web series, watch it,” and you’d get some guaranteed eyeballs. 

So really take advantage of the community that you have here and the people that you meet here who are gonna rise with you, alongside you, next to you, and make sure that you incorporate them in whatever you wanna do. 

 Season 2 of Issa Rae’s HBO series, Insecure, premieres July 23rd.

[whowouldhavethoughts]

Story of My Life

Book Review: The Animators by Kayla Rae Whitaker

Creating art can be an extremely emotional and personal act. 

It can be lonely, empty and frustrating, with little to no payoff in the end. However, it’s not always the solitude that pushes artists into the deep end. It is, instead, the act of actual sharing. Opening up yourself or those in your immediate orbit to the public as a reflection of your work or message. We’ve seen this drive some of the most talented artists into destruction.

Is there a right or wrong amount of how much flesh or fullness you share with your audience?

Kayla Rae Whitaker’s debut novel, The Animators, floats atop this concept, bobbing and dipping roughly along the electric current created by the novel’s two main characters, Mel Vaught and Sharon Kisses. The two women meet in New York as visual arts students in college, and the novel proceeds to chart and follow their intensely deep friendship and artistic partnership in the decade following graduation.

Mel is the volatile engine of the talented duo. She’s the brilliant, “trailer-trash” lesbian with a swagger and danger that draws in everyone in the room, and “Had Mel been born sixty years earlier, and a man, she would have been a star: a prewar, chain-smoking, dame-ogling cartoon auteur.” She greets people with a bellowed “motherfucker,” goes off the handle during interviews, coats long nights with drugs and alcohol and fiercely loves and respects Sharon. Her destructive behavior is born out of a childhood of toughness that was riddled with her mother’s drug use, prostitution and jail sentences.

Sharon, meanwhile, is the duo’s more responsible half, the proclaimed “steady guy.” She keeps things on the rails by cleaning up Mel’s messes but also understands her friend better than anyone else does. As the shy and gifted outcast of her rural Kentucky family, Sharon escapes to New York but can’t quite leave behind a disturbing secret from her former life.

Together, the two women are a force and watch their fame take off when their first full-length film becomes a breakout hit. Based on Mel’s dysfunctional upbringing in the swampland of Florida, the animated film garners a cult following, and as the praise rolls in, the women earn a prestigious grant that leads them on a publicity tour.

However, when a seismic medical event throws Sharon into a tailspin, it shocks the duo and finally forces them to visit where they came from, confront the issues they’ve buried, the secrets they’ve kept and the lives they’ve escaped, all while trying to create that next big autobiographical hit.

Turns out, it’s already alive in a battered Moleskine Sharon has kept throughout her adult life, titled the List: 

“A secret compendium of every man with whom I have ever fallen in love.”

Her notebook houses “some untouchable, hidden part of myself” and “the danger is part of the allure.” It’s a work that’s haunted her, “But I knew what the List was; or, at least, how it felt. In a word: predatory. Upending these men, placing them in a story that was not theirs but mine, and a murky troubling story at that. It has never been seen by anyone else; it is not meant to be seen.”

Mel catches hold of it, and the dynamic changes.

Suddenly the women find themselves embarking on a mission to Kentucky to confront Sharon’s family and the first man on the List, her childhood friend, Teddy Caudill.

Back in her home state, Sharon’s reunion with Teddy blossoms into a void she could never quite fill in her adult life: love. With it comes a creative spark, but similar to the aftermath Mel suffered from with the pair’s first film, Sharon struggles. She was a bystander then and could “feel the dark rushing at Mel’s center, the guilt that’s gnawing her raw. It rips me in half to see something she loves hurt her so badly.” Was she willing to risk relationships by suffering this same fate in order to receive some clarity from her own past? Sharon’s decision, again, highlights the novel’s overarching theme of ownership vs. permission and pertains to this central question: How much right does an artist have to a loved one’s story when trying to tell his or her own honestly?

“’I have to draw what I have to draw, and if it’s where I’m from, so be it.’” – Mel Vaught

As Sharon and Mel process this balance and the guilt, their decisions ultimately cost them in different ways. For Sharon, her relationship with Teddy shatters as her project flourishes. When he learns that her next film is based on their shared traumatic experience, he questions her lack of consent while scolding, “Maybe this practice of taking all your personal shit and publicly manipulating it until your life is explained sufficiently to your liking works for you. But I can’t do it. And I won’t.”

Sharon argues, “This is what I do and you know it. We don’t need your consent. Now or ever. This is not yours. It is not goddamned yours.” 

In the end, she tells Teddy, “We do not need your permission. That story in there is mine. It belongs to me. It’s not your story.”

It’s a sharp pivot from her position earlier in the novel, after she watched Mel suffer from the repercussions of making a personal work about her mother and her life. With that film, Sharon noted that “In her weird, exhibitionist’s way, Mel likes the intimacy of what we do, placing herself at the center of what we make. I love the work for the opposite reason: for the ability it gives me to abandon myself, to escape the husk of my body and fly off into the ether.”

As we follow Sharon and Mel deeper throughout their lives, we watch them precariously fall in and out of their protagonist and antagonist roles into what becomes an orbit that solely consists of each other.

Nothing in the Animators is soft, and it’s not supposed to be. With every “Robitussin milkshake” made, Parliament cigarette smoked, and vomit-inducing session of destruction, Whitaker demonstrates an impressive ability to transport the reader into experiencing the chaos playing out on the page. Her characters’ emotions are raw, and psychologically they’re a mess, but through it all Whitaker captures the pull of a layered, complex feminist friendship bordering on the closeness of a marriage.

While this book does take a bit of time to take off (the initial set-up does feel a bit like a train chugging along at very low mileage), once we arrive, we’re at full-speed. Like the flashy lights in a cartoon or whip-motion of a flip book, the second-half of the novel kablams and scoots in high-movement, similar to the parabola analogy the women use to describe their second project.

Whitaker is an extremely talented writer with the gift of creating authentic voices, multi-dimensional characters all while taking this book in a variety of unexpected directions, but in the end, you feel the personal strife that results from throwing yourself into your art.

Similar to Sharon and Mel, you really start to think about the true consequences when it comes to straddling “the line between memoir and fiction.”

[whowouldhavethoughts]

Michelle Miller - Author Interview

When I came across Michelle Miller’s novel, the Underwriting, I consumed it in less than 48 hours.

It’s that good.

ELLE described it as “Gossip Girl for the Silicon Valley crowd,” as the corporate thriller revolves around a group of dynamic characters from Wall Street and a San Francisco start-up as they prep for the IPO of a major dating app called Hook.

Part social satire, Miller’s debut novel gives you captivating glimpses at the intense stakes and power hungry nature of both atmospheres with an unsolved murder tangled at the heart of it all.

While Miller’s debut novel reads like a good drama, the book actually came to fruition through a very unconventional way, going against the grain of the traditional publishing model.

In the first episode of the “Who Would Have Thoughts?” podcast, I chat with Miller about the Underwriting’s transmedia serial origin, her writing process, her TedTalk surrounding feminine vs. masculine values, and why writing for TV is a lot harder than fiction writing.

I think you’ll enjoy our chat, and make sure to subscribe to the “Who Would Have Thoughts?” podcast on Soundcloud to stay in the loop for future conversations with cool guests.

Enjoy!

[whowouldhavethoughts]

Teenage Wasteland

Book Review: The Most Dangerous Place on Earth by Lindsey Lee Johnson

In my job as a sports reporter, I spend a lot of time interviewing high school athletes and subsequently feeling out of touch with anything they think is remotely cool (Snapchat? Not for me). 

I’m okay with that. I don’t take it as a sign of my expiration date or a lack of relatability (I’m still a Millennial, after all).  

I also leave those school visits with the same thought every single time:

Man, I do not miss high school.

I was an athletic nerd who tried to stay out of drama. I went to private school with the same classmates from age 4 until 18. The identity that I set early on stuck with me, whether I wanted it to or not.

So the age-old adolescent question is, how do you become your new self when everyone around you already knows who you were to start with?

Lindsey Lee Johnson’s debut novel, The Most Dangerous Place on Earth, struck a chord with me because it brought back in focus those emotional feelings from high school. At the time it felt like I was trapped in a suburban fog of boredom, and I constantly pondered the thought:

 “How do I escape this place and finally start living?”

Johnson’s novel centers around privileged teenagers in Marin County, California whose stories are weaved together through a personal tragedy that shakes their eighth grade class. She sets up this premise in the book’s first chapter through the eyes of 13-year-old Cally Broderick, “a restless girl, anxious to rewind her life or jump it forward.” 

Cally, like most teens, is self-critical and insecure about her looks, while also juggling the stress of coping with her mother’s illness. So how does she deal with it all? By pushing it away, dumbing herself down and “dating” Ryan Harbinger, the hottest guy in eighth grade (which automatically means he’s the douchiest guy). Cally also ignores her problems by drinking beer after school and wasting time on Facebook with her best friend, Abigail Cress.

Despite her issues, Cally fits in. 

The guy who has a crush on her, Tristan Bloch, does not. 

Tristan is “fat and pale with blond hair buzz-cut,” and “his white T-shirt was tucked into the oversized sweatpants he wore every day, in colors that seemed to assault the eyes.” 

When Cally discovers a love note from Tristan in her locker one day, the decision she makes to share it is a major one. Tristan becomes the subject of extreme cyberbullying from Cally’s classmates (imagine your worst teenage nightmare playing out as a million tiny, digital punches on Facebook), and his reaction to it serves as the pivotal moment in this book.

From that point on, the novel then follows these same classmates through their junior and senior years, and the ripple effect from this earlier event helps shape their outcomes in a variety of haunting ways. 

Cally complete transforms into Calista, a “Bo-Stin slacker” who spends every day of her junior year stoned as a way to deal with her guilt. Her former best friend, Abigail, becomes a type-A student involved in an inappropriate relationship with a predatory teacher. 

The other students at Valley High navigate their own moments of adolescent suffering. Dave Chu finds himself resorting to desperate measures as he tries to handle the enormous pressure of pleasing his parents. Elisabeth Avarine is the pretty girl with no friends, unfairly labeled a bitch and “hard to get” by her classmates. Nick Brickston is the captivating drug-dealer with SAT smarts while Damon Flintov is the disruptive screwup that even rehab can’t tame. 

Emma Fleed becomes the book’s second victim of Facebook-gone-wrong after a night of hard partying, while Ryan Harbinger, the pretty boy baseball star who escalated that fateful middle school event, seems to pay the biggest price of all.  In the end, Harbinger hides a secret that even his closest friends and family know nothing about. 

One of the book’s most compelling figures, though, is an adult. First-year teacher Molly Nicoll enters Mill Valley fresh out of college and eager to understand this crop of spoiled students. Her enthusiastic and overbearing attempts to connect with these teenagers, though, turns into an entangled mess that leaves the 23-year-old with a rude awakening by the end of the book. One teacher sums it up best by telling Molly: 

“’You can’t be their mother. You certainly aren’t their friend. You are the person who gives them grades. And if you go on caring for them in this way, you won’t survive.’” 

Surviving high school is hard enough, but the untamed waters of social media has made it even more brutal for many Millennials and Generation Zers. Johnson drives homes this strong point through Tristan’s story, paired with Emma Fleed’s social pariah moment illustrated through online slut shaming. 

As Fleed drinks herself into a blackout, her same partying classmates subsequently post play-by-play comments online like, “Who is this sloppy drunk bitch?” and “Emma Fleed is DTF whose ready??” 

After Fleed suffers severe injuries in a drunk driving accident, her same classmates then post empty, sympathetic posts on Facebook like, “omfg em r u ok I can’t beleive this happened!!” and “Yo ima try to get there to see you asap. hang in there girl.”  

While the natural reaction is to feel no sympathy for these spoiled, privileged students who act selfishly a majority of the time (some readers may come away with the notion that these teens deserve everything that happens to them in the end), Johnson pulls off the tough task of making even her most cruel characters seem sympathetic. She completely captures that vulnerable feeling of high school through her characters' language and mannerisms, and her ability to do so stems from her own experiences:

She has lived this.

Before finishing this book, Johnson served as a private tutor for high school students in Marin County and has talked about how that experience shaped her outlook on today’s teens. In a first person essay for Motto, Johnson said her first impression of the students she tutored was that they were “wealthy, entitled and loud.” It’s a natural reaction that anyone in her situation would be prone to, judging before speaking, similar to the Jim Stark quote from Rebel Without a Cause that she opens her book with: “Nobody talks to children.”

But Johnson noted that once she started to listen to her students, she found that, “These kids were so much more than what they seemed. They were three-dimensional, deeply feeling individuals just trying to find their place in the world.”

Maybe this is, in fact, the biggest point she wants us to come away with from her debut novel.