Bill Konigsberg's Blog

Dear readers of the first printing,

Like you, I was dismayed to find that there had been a printing error with several pages of THE BRIDGE. In particular, the error relates to any handwritten words by any character, and those errors exist on pages 14, 35, 42, 48, 49, 65, 66, 67, and 102. If you squint really hard you may be able to make them out, or if you photograph them and enlarge the photograph, that too might work.

This PDF includes each of those pages as they were sent to the printer. I am so sorry that this happened, and please know the error is being corrected in a second printing.

 

 

The post Lyrics appeared first on Author Bill Konigsberg.

Two teenagers, strangers to each other, have decided to jump from the same bridge at the same time. But what results is far from straightforward in this absorbing, honest lifesaver from acclaimed author Bill Konigsberg.

Aaron and Tillie don’t know each other, but they are both feeling suicidal, and arrive at the George Washington Bridge at the same time, intending to jump. Aaron is a gay misfit struggling with depression and loneliness. Tillie isn’t sure what her problem is — only that she will never be good enough.

On the bridge, there are four things that could happen:

Aaron jumps and Tillie doesn’t.

Tillie jumps and Aaron doesn’t.

They both jump.

Neither of them jumps.

Or maybe all four things happen, in this astonishing and insightful novel from Bill Konigsberg.

 

So there it is! THE BRIDGE! My sixth novel, which will be released on September 1, 2020 by Scholastic Books. It is available for pre-order at Amazon and Indiebound.

[image error]This book… it’s a lot. You can read about it in an interview I did with The Huffington Post. Suffice it to say it is deeply personal, and it is a book I’ve written in the hope of spurring on more conversation about the epidemic of suicide that is currently devastating our country. Suicide rates for teens and adults are currently at the highest they’ve ever been in the U.S.

My strong belief is that we need to talk more about suicide. And that the conversation must be complete. No conversation about suicide should happen without talk about resources for those who are contemplating it, and no conversation should occur without talk about the impacts of suicide and the alternatives.

I know a lot about this because I was nearly a statistic.

In 1998, I nearly ended my life. I took pills. I was depressed and hopeless, and I felt I was a screw-up with no future. I wound up in the hospital, where I had my stomach pumped. Had I not made an eleventh-hour decision to phone a friend after taking the pills, I’m convinced I would not be here now.

That’s the thing about depression: it makes our brains lie to us. Had you told me back then where I’d be 20-plus years later, I would have told you there was no chance. I was certain I knew that the future only held more misery for me.

The truth is that one way or another, we have to find a way to stay another day. And that’s the reason I wrote THE BRIDGE the way I did. So readers can see what happens in each circumstance, based on the decisions up on that bridge. And they can see just how much impact we all have, even those of us who are sure no one would care if we were gone. The world has a way of proving us wrong.

Also, I wanted to explore the importance of connection. These two characters, Tillie and Aaron, connect in deep and meaningful ways in the final storyline, where they both decide not to jump. It doesn’t mean the pain goes away, or that life suddenly becomes easier; dealing with depression and suicidal ideation is as hard as it gets. But once Aaron and Tillie feel connected to each other, the sense of utter isolation falls away, and that changes everything.

So this is all to say that I am excited to get this conversation started, and for you all to read this book, which is a departure in some ways but in others not at all. To me, my books are all about young people searching for the answer to the question, “Who am I?” This book delves deep into that question for these two flawed and lovable characters.

I’ve been writing novels for young LGBTQIA folk for more than a decade now. I started when I was 32, which may sound old to some of you but is MUCH closer to 17 than I am now, more than a decade later.

One thing I’ve learned is that some things are universal, and some things aren’t. Some parts of the teenage experience come very naturally to me, because, yes, I was one once. In case you don’t believe me, here I am with my best friend from high school on graduation day. In, um, 1989.

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So yes, I was your age once. Which sounds pretty Captain Obvious, but in some ways it isn’t. I just read a novel in which a character explains that people who meet you later in life will never REALLY be able to imagine you before that age. It’s just not possible with our brains. So I guess you imagining me as a teen would be a little bit like me imagining Judy Blume as a teen. Only I’m much, much, MUCH less famous.

I don’t know if I’m the WORST in the world at blog upkeep, but I’m certainly in the top 5%. I apologize. Life comes so fast these days and I’m so busy.

Which is why I never posted about The Bill Konigsberg Award, even though it was established five months ago. Mea Culpa.

The Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of the National Council of Teachers of English (ALAN) has established the Bill Konigsberg Award for Acts and Activism for Equity and Inclusion through Young Adult Literature.

The award will be presented each year to “an individual who has acted in selfless advocacy of marginalized youth through the creation, teaching, funding or other form of promotion of young adult literature.”

This all happened because of something that occurred last November at the NCTE Conference in Houston, Texas. I was on a panel about banned books and another panelist began making racist and homophobic remarks. The other panelists countered these remarks, and two days later, in a keynote address, I spoke about it. The text of the speech can be read here. Here’s a photo from moments after that speech.

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During the speech, I called myself a “fierce papa bear.” That moniker has stuck. I’m not sure it fits, a hundred percent; after all I’M VERY YOUNG. (silence. crickets.)

Thank you for not saying anything.

I guess one reason I didn’t blog about this is because I don’t know what to say about it other than I was blown away by the reception, by the kindness of the anonymous donor who asked for the award to be set up, and by all those who have since donated to make sure the award remains in place for years to come.

Kids, especially those who have been marginalized, matter deeply to me. I will go to bat to make sure young people are heard, and that teens who are struggling know that they’re not alone.

I’m not sure I see myself as so much of an activist at this point in my life, but I am coming to understand that activism comes in many forms. My writing doesn’t feel to me like activism, but I guess anything that helps marginalized kids, especially LGBTQ kids, see themselves in a positive light is a form of activism.

So that’s all I have! I’m very appreciative and grateful for this award. It’s been a long, interesting journey, this life of mine. I don’t know what comes next, but I’m excited to live it and see what’s around the corner!

In Chapter 17 of my newest novel, THE MUSIC OF WHAT HAPPENS, Max, my dude bro character, draws his new friend and food truck-mate, Jordan.

The thing is, I don’t draw. Unlike Max, who is a closet artist, I am notably deficient when it comes to visual art. I am not a visual learner. My hearing is my super power; I hear everything. But drawing? I’m a stick-figure guy at best.

So when it came time for Max to draw, I enlisted the help of an artist friend, Staci Edwards. When I was artist-in-residence years ago at the Mesa Library, I helped Staci with her (extremely impressive) writing. She was more than happy to help me in return.

So Staci read the scene and came over with her art supplies. She then verbally walked me through her process as she did what Max was doing, which was to draw Jordan’s poem, in which he talks about being underground and trying to dig his way out, with the oxygen running out.

This is what Staci drew:

[image error]And how she did this was loosely translated into Ch. 17, although of course I had to take into account Max’s voice and situation.

The coolest thing about this was that she wound up drawing a boy under the earth, trying to scratch his way out, and then another boy on the earth, trying to help. This wasn’t in the poem; it was just where Staci went as an artist. The result is so compelling to me, and as these things tend to do, it impacted my writing AND the story.

Staci noticed that the boy on top looks more like Jordan than the boy underground. And Max is amazed to notice that unwittingly, he’s put himself under ground, with Jordan trying to help him. Which leads to the last line:

“Am I actually the boy on the bottom? Am I digging up and out of oxygen? Is Jordan digging down to save me?”

That, to me, is the sort of insight that can happen when I open up to the writing process and stop trying to control the story. I didn’t see this at the time, but Max, who is in his own mind a super-hero and thinks he’s saving Jordan, is also being saved, in a way. And later, when the two exhausted boys lie together on the gym carpet, “waiting for the next thing to happen,” the image recurs.

This time Max is on top of Jordan, which makes sense at this point in the novel. When my husband read it, he said the mirror of that earlier image was a really smart touch.

And here’s the thing: I DIDN’T DO THAT!

I had no intention of a recurring image or motif. And that’s how writing works for me. By stepping into the book, giving up control, and seeing what can happen, these kinds of cool things come to life.

Just so you see it, Staci later painted the boy underground and gave it to me as a present. I love it so much! Thank you, Staci, for sharing your genius with me and letting it change my book for the better!

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The release date for  THE MUSIC OF WHAT HAPPENS is less than two weeks away!

That’s right: my fifth novel will be introduced to the world on Tuesday, Feb. 26, and I’m so, so excited. I’m dying to talk to readers about Max and Jordan and their relationship, and about Jordan’s poems, and what happened to Max the night before the book, and about cloud eggs, and organic, locally sourced frozen lemonade. and what it feels like to be in a hot food truck on a 120-degree day in Mesa, Arizona.

For now, I want to share a couple things with you. The first are the reviews! So far, THE MUSIC OF WHAT HAPPENS has received two starred reviews, from Booklist and School Library Journal. And some of my absolute favorite authors have sounded off on the book, too!

Advance Praise for The Music of What Happens:

* “Konigsberg demonstrates once again why he is one of the major voices in LGBTQ literature.” — Booklist, starred review

* “Give to fans of Benjamin Alire Saenz’s Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe and Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak. A first purchase for public and high school libraries.” — School Library Journal, starred review

“The result is a story with imperfect characters who are, refreshingly, called out on problematic behaviors and aim to do better. A fresh addition to the menu of queer teenage love stories.” — Kirkus

“Readers seeking an unusually thoughtful gay-positive romance will find this moving.” — BCCB

“This book offers an interesting perspective on growing up and coming-of-age by crafting two main characters who offer unique points of view for an often underserved audience. This is a much-needed book in every high school library.” — School Library Connection

“Bill Konigsberg has a way of creating characters that could be your next door neighbor, your best friend, or that cute boy who once helped you change a flat tire. Max and Jordan will find their way into your heart, and after the last page, you’ll regret that they aren’t real. Once you start reading The Music of What Happens, you won’t be able to stop.” — Brigid Kemmerer, author of Letters to the Lost

“With The Music of What Happens, Bill Konigsberg serves up a profound examination of masculinity, consent, and relationships through the eyes of two of the most endearing narrators I’ve ever read. Jordan and Max are vulnerable, sweet, funny, and flawed. Teens, whether they identify as LGBTQIA+ or not, are lucky to have this book in their lives.” — Shaun David Hutchinson, author of We Are the Ants

“The Music of What Happens is a compelling, laugh-out-loud story, as swoon-worthy as it is deeply affecting. Max and Jordan grabbed hold of my heart from the moment I met them and I don’t see them letting go any time soon. Konigsberg has a way of making me see the world–and food trucks!–a little differently.” — David Arnold, New York Times bestselling author of Mosquitoland and The Strange Fascinations of Noah Hypnotik.

The second is the first chapter of the book, which you can now read online for free!

You can pre-order the book online now from your local indie bookstore, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble, or, if you’re in the Phoenix area, come to the launch party the night before the book’s release! It’s at Changing Hands in Tempe at 7pm on Monday, Feb. 25.

The end of 2018 is here. It’s been a good year for me. My important relationships are all stronger at the end of this year than they were at the beginning, and I’m as happy as I’ve ever been.

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Much gratitude for my friends and family. For my career. For those who help me in my mission to make this world a better place for at-risk kids. My hope for 2019 is to give more than I get in all those arenas.

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I’m thrilled for the world to see THE MUSIC OF WHAT HAPPENS in February, and I’m excited to finalize THE BRIDGE, to be published in 2020. The hope is to start a new project this spring, a novel set in New York City in the 1980s, called DESTINATION UNKNOWN (yes, that’s a Missing Persons allusion). And also to finish my first adult literary novel, SCRAMBLED (yes, that’s an egg phobia allusion).

To be improved in 2019: my diet. I want to find a healthy, moderate way to eat and stick with it. Exercise was good in 2018, and I plan to continue that in 2019.

And for this world of ours: I pray for the planet’s health. I hope for more kindness and interconnection on a global level. For those who suffer to be comforted, and for those who create suffering to find better outlets for their pain.

Happy New Year!

Here’s the second half of my speech at NCTE in Houston on Monday, November 19. This part deals with my upcoming book and the messages we give boys in our society and how those messages mess up our world. Thank you for all your love and support. I am overwhelmed by it!

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So.. um. Enough of that. The Music of What Happens. Okay.

Interestingly, this is NOT a book about homophobia. It’s a love story between two boys who are openly gay, who are comfortably out. That’s a modern tale, and despite all the people like that panelist out there, it’s not an incorrect one. It’s just … complicated. We live in multiple worlds at the same time, it seems, these days.

This is a book that couldn’t have been written 10 years ago, because it wouldn’t have made sense to have kids NOT dealing with coming out. But now, thank god, we can have some books that are just about the lives of LGBTQ kids.

The Music of What Happens is the story of Max and Jordan, two 17-year-old boys from Mesa, Arizona, who fall in love one summer while working on Jordan’s family food truck. They are very different boys.

Max, who is half Mexican, half Irish, is a dude bro who plays baseball and loves video games.

Jordan is a more delicate white boy who writes poetry.

Both boys have secrets. Max had an unwanted sexual experience the night before the book starts, but he’s been taught by his father that men don’t get upset. He believes he’s a superhero, and that his smile is his superpower. He smiles through adversity, and always has. Jordan’s mother has just told him that if the family is about to lose their home if they can’t pay three months of back mortgage. Jordan, however, has inherited his mother’s belief that he is powerless and worthless.

This book is about the music of what happens when our desire for the thing we need most–love, in this case–butts up against the agreements we’ve made about who we are supposed to be.

It’s about the cultural messages we give boys about who they have to be. How they have to be. And in particular, how those messages fall on gay and bisexual boys.

I got a lot of interesting messages growing up. From my stepfather, who was my hero and the man I considered to be the ideal man, I learned to hide my pain. When I was 11, we were playing this game we used to play where he spun me around by my feet. It was fun until my head thwacked against an armoir in our living room. It hurt so much, and I started crying, but when I looked up at him for love and support, he said, “Pain doesn’t mean that much to me. Buck up.”

I got other messages, too, once I came out. I was told—and this one is interesting—that it was okay to be gay, so long as I was masculine. I was also told that men don’t take things into their bodies. This may have been meant physically, but it has an emotional corollary, doesn’t it?

The message I got there was about making sure I wasn’t vulnerable.

This book is about the search for wholeness in a world where we’ve internalized messages that keep us from being whole.  Because I wasn’t whole, due to these messages. I could not allow myself to be open, because I had been taught to fear my own feelings. To fear anything that my stepfather deemed as not masculine.

This is the basis for what we’ve come to understand as “toxic masculinity”. It’s the basis for every school shooting that happens. It’s the basis for most of society’s ills.

I wrote this book in 2017, right after we elected the worst possible role model for boys and put him in the white house.

The election elevated to the highest office in this country a man who is utterly unwilling to look at himself and see his own shadows. A man who is entirely unaccountable, unwilling to take responsibility, unable to be authentic, who dives into anger as it is the only emotion he allows himself. Because he’s a “real man.” He denies the existence of all other emotions.

But a new kind of masculinity is emerging.

One that is balanced. Based on being accountable, emotionally intelligent, connected to others, authentic.

One that understands that there’s power in vulnerability, and that there are things to learn about how and when to put up our shield and brandish our sword, and when to take it down.

In fact, the definitions I just implicitly made about what true masculinity is, are also the definitions for true femininity, in my opinion. The men’s movement and the women’s movement are full allies. The vision is the creation of a world in which men and women and all people honor each other, work in harmony.

And I hope this book, The Music of What Happens, can be a small part of that.

Thank you.

Following is the speech of the first half of my talk at ALAN on Nov 19, 2018. It touches on an event that happened at a panel at NCTE on Saturday. Video is likely to follow, but I wanted this to get out there. I will post the text of the second half of the talk, which is more about toxic masculinity and my forthcoming novel, THE MUSIC OF WHAT HAPPENS, tomorrow.

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Thank you. I am honored to be here with you today.

I feel a strong need to start off by talking about an experience I had just this weekend at NCTE. Since we’re talking about acting up and speaking out in YA literature, I would be remiss to not start by talking about an experience in which I had to act up and speak out at a major YA literature conference.

As some of you may know and some of you may not, I I had a challenging experience on Saturday at a panel that was supposed to be about disproportionately banned and challenged books. Most of the panelists came to talk about that topic, but one of the panelists did not.

I’m not going to name this panelist. I don’t care enough about her to elevate her by doing so. If you want or need to know, you can probably look it up. Later. It was section L.06, and she wasn’t me, she wasn’t Michael Cart, she wasn’t Sabina Kahn, she wasn’t Joan Kaywell, and she wasn’t Tillie Walden.

She was allegedly there to talk about challenges to Latino texts for young adults, but when asked she passed on that, claiming that Latinos were not disproportionately challenged at all, that in fact the major concerns she had were for the marginalized groups in this country: straight people, Catholics, and the police.

Her comments included the following:

-LGBTQ people make up only 3 to 4 percent of the population, so why do we need all these books for so few kids?

-Books like THE HATE U GIVE paint cops in a bad light, and are dangerous. She’s a cop.

-Parents have a moral responsibility to protect kids from LGBTQ texts.

-Gays are mentally ill and that the average gay man only lives to 39.

By the way, on that last fact: I pushed back and said that sounded wrong and if not wrong, probably taken from the middle of the AIDS epidemic. She assured me it was modern. Someone from the audience fact checked her. It came from The Family Research Council, considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, from 1994, the height of the epidemic, and had long since been debunked as a myth.

She did this all, she brayed about the tragic, horrible deaths of so many young gay men, with a confident smile on her face.

So: Homophobia is not new to me; I’ve been dealing with it all my life. But I definitely didn’t expect to encounter it here. At NCTE. In a panel discussion. By a panelist. My shield was down, and I got, as they say, triggered.

I was the first to counter her. First nicely, trying to engage her in dialogue, and then, when it became clear that she wasn’t there for a conversation, not as nicely. I was angry. My hands were shaking up there on the stage.

I was not alone in my anger. The other panelists were also angry. So was, it seemed, just about the entire audience, who had come to hear about strategies to overcome the disproportionate challenges to these books.

I’ll tell you: I’ve spent a lot of the last couple years looking for ways to connect with people who feel differently than me. Because a part of me still believes that we are all the same. That we are all connected.

Saturday I found my edge. I found the place where I will not–cannot–equivocate.

When it comes to young people who are marginalized, whether for reasons of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, ability… there is no conversation to be had about whether their lives have as much value as the lives of other kids. I won’t engage in that conversation. I will not give credence to an “other side” of this argument, because there is none.

I know first-hand what these books mean to LGBTQ kids. I’ve received so many messages—emails, tweets, Facebook messages—from young people who wanted me to know what my books did for them. That they ingested them, they clung to them, that these novels carried them in difficult times. I assume all LGBTQ YA authors have similar stories. The fact is that books are powerfully different than movies or TV shows. They feel more personal, and the connection is quite powerful. So yes, these books save lives.

And those who wish to restrict young people’s access to those books? They put young lives at risk.

This is a health and safety issue. According to the CDC, LGB youth are five times as likely to have attempted suicide compared to heterosexual youth. For trans youth, the number is far higher. More than half of transgender male teens who participated in a study by the American Society of Pediatrics reported attempting suicide, as did nearly 30 percent of transgender female teens. Among non-binary youth, the number was over 40 percent.

When this idea was brought up, this panelist inferred it was because LGBTQ people are mentally ill.

She is wrong. The reason the numbers are so high are because of the bigotry of people like this panelist, of people who tell LGBTQ youth that their lives are less important than the lives of straight kids.

I know this too well. My life almost ended at 27. And it was a lifetime of being called a fag and hearing that I was dirty and sinful and wrong and perverted that led me to that place. And when I woke up in the hospital after my stomach was pumped, I knew that I could not spend the rest of my life running away from the pain. That I had to face it head on. Which I try to do but even at 48, believe me. The urge to not feel is so great, because sometimes that rib crush is unbearable.

Words like hers are powerful and destructive and harmful. There were no high school kids in attendance, but there were some young (college aged) people, and I saw the looks on their faces. The hurt. The dismay. I wanted to hug each of them and say, No. This is not about you. This is about this woman and her stuff. Not about you and yours.

 Another panelist, debut author Sabina Kahn, is the parent of a bisexual child, and she spoke powerfully from that capacity. I thought about how I don’t have kids, and then, quickly, I realized that I most certainly do.

LGBTQ youth are my kids. And I’m a fierce papa bear and you do not come after LGBTQ youth. Let’s widen that. You do not come after marginalized kids. They, too, are my children. We’re adults, and this panelist is free to believe whatever bullshit she wants to about me. Where I draw the line is when she advocates against my children.

I get questions. Sometimes they appear on Goodreads, where I am definitely NOT supposed to go, and I try not to go there almost ever, as it almost always hurts my feelings when I go there.

But I get a notification via email and I do try to answer those questions when I have the time.

Here’s one that I thought was a smart and important questions about OPENLY STRAIGHT and HONESTLY BEN. My answer follows.

Hello Bill, I have just finished ‘Honestly Ben’ and there is something that I cannot figure out. In this sequel to ‘Openly Straight’, why was Rafe insisting that much on having Ben assigned a gay (or bi, for that matter) label, although in the first book, it was quite his pride to try living without a label of any sort ? Thanks in advance for your reply ! -Andy (who is looking forward to reading your next book … )

Hi Andy, good question! My take on this is that it’s a flaw on Rafe’s part. Yes, it’s totally ironic that Rafe felt a great deal of agency in his own battle to life without a label, yet he quickly foists many labels upon Ben, and feels totally i the right to do so. For me as an author, there are lots of places where that inconsistency exists in my life, where I feel self-righteous about something I’m dealing with, but can without thinking be careless about something similar a friend is going through, just because what they are going through doesn’t match my experience.

Does that make sense?