Bill Konigsberg won the Lambda Literary Award for Young Adult fiction for OUT OF THE POCKET (Dutton, 2008). Before writing novels, he was a sportswriter for The Associated Press and ESPN.com. He won a GLAAD Media Award for a coming-out essay he wrote while working at ESPN.com. Bill lives in Chandler, Arizona, with his partner, Chuck.
Rafe is a normal teenager from Boulder, Colorado. He plays soccer. He’s won skiing prizes. He likes to write.
And, oh yeah, he’s gay. He’s been out since 8th grade, and he isn’t teased, and he goes to other high schools and talks about tolerance and stuff. And while that’s important, all Rafe really wants is to just be a regular guy. Not that GAY guy. To have it be a part of who he is, but not the headline, every single time.
So when he transfers to an all-boys’ boarding school in New England, he decides to keep his sexuality a secret — not so much going back in the closet as starting over with a clean slate. But then he sees a classmate breaking down. He meets a teacher who challenges him to write his story. And most of all, he falls in love with Ben . . . who doesn’t even know that love is possible.
YOUNG ADULT: What is your earliest memory involving writing?
Bill Konigsberg: I wrote my first book when I was four. It was called “My Monkey,” and it was written on round, colored paper. It was six pages, and it came complete with pictures. It was the haunting mystery about the whereabouts of my monkey. As it turns out, he was hiding under my bed. “Mostly I hug my monkey,” the second-to-last page explained. “Mostly I love my monkey,” explained the last. I may or may not have been read “Curious George” at bedtime the night before writing this tome.
YA: Tell us a little bit about your latest work. What is different about OPENLY STRAIGHT?
BK: Openly Straight takes the typical “Coming Out” story and reverses it. Rafe Goldberg, the main character, is already comfortably out at the start of the book. He has super-accepting parents and lives in Boulder, Colo., where gay is way okay. His mom didn’t just accept him coming out in 8th grade; she became president of the local chapter of PFLAG. The problem is that Rafe is tired of being known as “the gay kid.” He decides to spend his junior year at an all-boys boarding school across the country, where he’ll try to exist without the label “gay.” Hilarity, pain, heartbreak, awkwardness, and tenderness ensue, not necessarily in that order.
YA: How did the idea for this book arise?
BK: I myself was beginning to experience what I like to call “gay fatigue.” It’s exhausting being gay sometimes. I’m a middle-aged, partnered guy. It’s kind of unfair that I am mostly known for my sexuality, because it’s such a small part of who I really am. At the same time, it’s of my own doing, as I made a name for myself coming out while working at ESPN and then doing talks about being gay in the sports industry across the country. So I was like, I wonder if teens who come out in this day and age ever feel this way, too? I spoke to some, and it turns out a lot of them do. So I started writing to see what would come of it. In the end, a lot of interesting things came out of the exploration. The cool thing is that just about everyone who reads this book relates, on some level, with Rafe. Gay, straight or whatever, all people seem to know what it feels like to be labeled.
YA: Your protagonist Rafe is an out gay high school student who isn’t teased or bullied. Do you think we are approaching the next level of thinking in relation to ‘the gay thing’?
BK: I definitely do. I mean, it’s not all sweetness and light, being out and gay in high school. Not even close. But more and more, I hear stories like the one Rafe has. And I think that will continue to be more and more the case as time goes on. Most of the people who have major problems with gay people are old folks like myself, people who are 40 and up. Not always the case, but overwhelmingly young people seem to get that some folks are this, some folks are that, and it’s not a big deal.
YA: Besides the classic ‘never give up’, what advice would you give to aspiring young writers today?
BK: Do it because you have to. Seriously. I think I have the best job in the world, but it’s not a well-paying gig and it’s not an easy one. There is so much rejection, and so much heartache involved in the process. I strongly suggest if you can be a doctor, or a lawyer, or a programmer, or a teacher, be one of those things. Writing should be reserved for the crazy people who have a compulsion to do it and simply cannot seem to do anything else. You’ll know if that’s you or not. I was never happy in any other job, and I had some epic jobs along the way. I was always waiting to be an author, and even then it wasn’t clear (it still isn’t!) whether it will always pay the bills. Or ever pay them, really. Unrelatedly, consider marrying someone wealthy if you’re going to write. 🙂
YA: What’s next for you?
BK: My next novel is called “The Porcupine of Truth.” It’s a departure for me in a way, in that my protagonist is not a gay kid. His partner in crime is a lesbian, but for the most part the novel is about things like “how do you connect to other people in an increasingly snarky, disconnected world?” And, “How do you create for yourself a life when you’ve been disappointed almost every time you’ve put yourself out there?” You know, small issues like that.