Interview with Award-winning Author Alex Sanchez

YA Kidlit Alert

Interview with Award-Winning Author

        Alex Sanchez

Hello Readers & Writers, and welcome to Teazurs Blog,

I am glowing and super happy to introduce you all to one of my all-time favorite teachers. Some teachers can make you become a better writer. While others might help you become braver about what you are willing to put on the page. Alex Sanchez did both for me. 

I had the privilege of working with Alex as my advisor at Vermont College of Fine Arts (VCFA), where we often discussed emotional truth. I was hesitant to write about certain events in my life. I asked questions like, "Where is the line between emotional honesty and emotional overwhelm?" and  "How much of myself is safe for me to bring into my fiction?" and "How will this affect the children I respect and write for?" Alex understands these concerns from both sides. Before he became an author, he worked as a counselor with young people and their families. He carried that compassion into his fiction and, later, into the way he mentors writers. And I am forever grateful for being a recipient of his guidance. 

It's been twenty-five years since Alex's debut novel, Rainbow Boys, was gifted to the world. This book gave queer teens hope and something they had been missing—the chance to see their own story in print. 

Now, as Simon & Schuster prepares to release the novel's 25th-anniversary edition, I wanted to talk with Alex. I wanted to ask about what he has learned from a lifetime of listening to young people, writing difficult emotions, and guiding readers and writers to feel less alone in this world. 

Thank you for being here, Alex. After spending a semester learning from you, I'm so happy to have the chance to celebrate and support your work. 

So let's get right to it.

 
You came to writing through counseling. How did listening to young people's fears, hurts, and secrets change the way you tell stories on the page?

 Working as a counselor taught me so much about being compassionate and understanding of other people, especially their fears, hurts, and secrets. As a writer, I now get to practice that compassion with characters so that readers can better understand and connect with them.

 
You were an amazing mentor and advisor to me in my second semester. I was nervous because at VCFA you are known as the advisor who helps writers with emotional truth. What do you advise first when talking with a student on this subject?

Thanks so much; you were an amazing student with a remarkable willingness to receive and incorporate feedback. In terms of exploring emotional truth, what I advise students is to be willing to gently push themselves to the edge of their emotional comfort zone, but not so far that they teeter over the edge!

It’s a question of balance.

 
Many of your books grew from real adolescent pain, yet they are not memoirs. How do you teach writers to utilize their past hurts in a fiction story?

In order to capture emotion on the page, honestly and authentically, we need to be willing to remember and reexperience our pain. It’s by no means easy to sit with challenging emotions, but as the poet Robert Frost famously said:

“No tears for the writer,

no tears for the reader.”

 
Rainbow Boys was a book that really stuck with me during our semester together. It's been said that this book changed the YA landscape. What do you think that book understood about teens that adults were missing?

Rainbow Boys showed adults that queer teens have similar growing-up struggles and joys as other teens, but with one big, very real difference:

They face a society and culture

that often judges them as bad and wrong

and fails to accept them

for who they are.

That experience can be so hurtful.

 
You've written for middle grade, YA, and graphic novel readers. What stays the same across these age groups for you, and what must always change to write them authentically?

What stays the same no matter what story I write is my need to connect emotionally with the characters I’m creating. What changes are the specifics of each individual multidimensional character.

 
Your works help open people's eyes and change lives. What do you wish readers – especially adults – truly understood about LGBTQ+ teens?

That being queer isn’t the problem; the problem is a society and culture with deeply ingrained homophobia, transphobia, and biphobia that hurts young people.

 
Some people think their "real" lives aren't good enough to write about, that the small stuff isn't big enough. What makes a realistic story powerful rather than not enough? 

Regardless of whether a story is about big stuff or small stuff, its power comes from the emotions its author is able to convey.

 
For writers mining childhood memories: what's the most important – accuracy of the experience or something else?

Regardless of how well we claim to remember things, memories solely exist in our minds. So, they can never be fully accurate, no matter how convinced we are. While I strive to be as accurate as I can be, the emotions are what readers will connect with. That’s what I focus on.

 
When a young reader feels seen from one of your books, what do you hope they carry with them in their hearts and into the larger world?

 You are not alone.

 
For readers who may be discovering you for the first time, which book is the one you recommend to start with?

Read the one that calls out to you. Trust your intuition.

 
You've spent a lifetime supporting teens and those who feel like outsiders. What can my readers do now to support you?

I’m ecstatic that Simon & Schuster is releasing a 25th anniversary edition of Rainbow Boys this September, 2026. It’s now available for pre-order wherever books are sold. Share a copy with a teen!

Do you have any upcoming book signings, conferences, or anything where my readers might be able to meet and connect with you?

The anniversary edition’s official launch will be at Writers & Books literary center in Rochester, New York on September 30th.

You can sign up here:

https://writersandbooks.org/tribe_events/rainbowboys/

I’ll be ‘in conversation’ with Newbery Award-winning author Linda Sue Park, and we’d love for you to join us, in person or virtually.

Hope to see you there.

And you can always keep up with me at https://www.alexsanchez.com/

Thanks so much!

________________

No, thank you, Alex!

I love this interview, and your beautiful answer for what you hope young readers carry with them after reading your book is:

You are not alone.

That's it. Three words that convey trust and compassion. 

Maybe this is the thread running through all of Alex's work. 

I've come to learn that stories cannot erase the difficult parts of our pasts or make the world and those who love us immediately understand us. But they can reach across time and space to say:

I see you. 

I've been there.

I've hurt, too.

And I made it through.

It's been 25 years since Rainbow Boys first touched young readers, and that's something to celebrate!!!

Thank you, Alex.

If you would like to support Alex in his endeavor to spread love and compassion around the world... check out these links.

25th Anniversary Chat RAINBOW BOYS with Linda Sue Park: https://writersandbooks.org/tribe_events/rainbowboys/

Alex Sanchez Website: https://www.alexsanchez.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authoralexsanchez/

Other Books by Alex Sanchez on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/53974.Alex_Sanchez

_________________

Write~on,

Angie

If you would like to be on Teazurs Blog - reach out. I'm always cheering authors on.

angazur @ gmail 

 

From Prose to Verse: An Interview with Bobbie Pyron

    

MG KidLit ALERT!

From Prose to Verse: An Interview with Bobbie Pyron

Welcome, Readers and Creatives,

Today I have a special guest on Teazurs Blog. Please join me in welcoming Bobbie Pyron, a beloved middle-grade author with seven books and counting, who is here to chat about her debut novel in verse, Octopus Moon. Since its publication, it has earned numerous honors, including the ALA Schneider Family Award.

Before I began my MFA journey, I was lucky enough to share a critique group with Bobbie. She was generous with her insights, open about her process, and always willing to help fellow writers find their way.

I'm delighted to welcome her back to Teazurs. (read her other inteview here: Bobbie Pyron)

Bobbie's newest novel, Octopus Moon, is a heartfelt middle-grade novel in verse that explores childhood depression with honesty, compassion, and hope. As I read Pearl's story, I found myself returning to my own childhood. When I was little, there were many times when I felt anxious, and I didn't know who to turn to, how to move through those big feelings, or whether I was going to be okay.

Through Pearl, Bobbie allowed me to revisit my younger self and acknowledge needs that went unseen for far too long. Not only that, but as I continue to navigate anxiety as an adult, I've found myself using some of the tools woven into this story—and they work.

I won't spoil them for you.

You'll have to discover those golden nuggets for yourself.

Please join me in welcoming Bobbie back to Teazurs.

Hello, Bobbie!

Great to have you on Teazurs again…I'm so lucky-strike (wink-wink). I am so grateful for Ocotpus Moon.

 

You've shared that this story was for your younger self—what did your ten-year-old self need most then, and how did that shape Pearl's story today?

When I was ten, no one talked about mental illness, and certainly not in children! If a child’s depression/anxiety was acknowledged at all, it was labeled the child being moody, overly sensitive, and a worry wort—all things the child would “grow out of.”

What I needed at the age of ten

was for someone to see me!

For someone to say,

“How are you feeling inside?”

But no one did. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I got the help I needed. So, needless to say, I wanted Pearl to have the things I didn’t have as a child: a supportive family, understanding friends, and a good therapist. I did have a wonderful beagle, though, who was my closest confidant.

 

The main character in Octopus Moon is Pearl, and she feels everything. How did you move depression beyond the stereotypes and show it in such a truthful way for children?

It was very important for me to move beyond the stereotype of what depression looks like. To me, the stereotypical image of depression is Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh: sad-sack face, hangdog look, negative and moaning about everything. But depression manifests in many different ways in different people. In some people, it comes out as anger. In others, like Pearl and myself, we feel everything, whereas other people go emotionally numb. Kids need to know all the different ways they or someone close to them may express depression.

 

I've been studying verse novels and worldbuilding at VCFA for my MFA — and so, I have questions: How did you build Pearl's world with minimal words? When building a world in prose, what literary tools do you use most, and when building one in verse, what were your go-to tools?

You ask that as if I have tools! It was very hard writing an entire novel in verse! I had to think about every word in the first draft, which is something completely opposite of my usual vomit-on-the-page pantser process! Fortunately, there are a ton of WONDERFUL novels in verse out there to study. They were my “tools.” I studied how they conveyed so much with so little.

What do you suggest for other authors if they are curious about trying a different format, like verse for a novel?

Do it! Try all different kinds of formats, genres, tenses, points of view. Stretch yourself as an artist. I promise no planes will fall out of the sky if you try different things!

 

In Octopus Moon, how did you approach writing therapy and mental health support in a way that feels safe and accessible for MG readers? What do you hope they feel after finishing the book?

Because I didn’t have therapy as a kid, I wasn’t sure how it worked! Luckily, a very kind child and family therapist was willing to meet with me and talk to me about how she approaches therapy with kids Pearl’s age and their families. That was hugely helpful! She even read early drafts of the book and gave me feedback. That was invaluable.

What do I hope MG readers feel after finishing the book?

I hope kids who do struggle

with depression

(or any kind of mental illness)

feel hopeful.

Feel seen.

And those kids who don’t struggle with depression? I hope Pearl’s story will serve as a window into what it’s like living with this insidious illness. That it’s not just a “bad mood,” but something much different. My goal with most of my books, Octopus Moon especially, is to open readers’ minds and hearts. It’s what I hope to do.

 

Writers often hear "Write what you know," and in this case, you've said that this book is your most autobiographical. What felt different for you when you were writing it? What felt most important to keep true to your own experience, and what did you shape for the story?

I will be honest and say I felt very vulnerable writing a story and a character so close to me. All my main characters have bits of me in them—longing for a stable home, love of dogs, love of the ocean and the outdoors—but this was different.

It was my “soft underbelly.”

I’ve worked very hard my adult life to understand, accept, and manage my depression. But going back to my ten-year-old self, who didn’t have those things, was very hard. I leaned into what depression felt like when I was a child—the fear, the hopelessness. I wanted to keep that true to my experience, so kids who live with depression recognize it for what it is.

What I “shaped” for the story was a very different family environment and a great therapist. Things I didn’t have.

Many people struggle with talking about depression, and you tackled it straight on—what conversations are you hoping this book opens for others?

I hope, hope, hope, that Octopus Moon will take some of the stigma away from mental illness so that we can have open and honest conversations about mental illness rather than treating it as something shameful. We’ve come a long way since I was a kid in the late 1960s, but we still have a ways to go.

 

 ______________________________

Thank You, Bobbie!!

Thank you for joining us on Teazurs and for writing Octopus Moon. As both a reader and a writer, I resonated so deeply with your willingness to bring vulnerability to the page. So many children grow up with fears, worries, sadness, depression, and anxiety that they don't have the words to understand or the tools to help themselves. Stories like Pearl's stand next to them, reminding them that they are not alone.

Your honesty in this book is one of the things I admire most. Mental illness is often hidden in the shadows, but when we hide our struggles, we also hide opportunities for those who love us to show understanding and compassion. By bringing our truth into the light, we create space to heal and hold one another more gently.

I am so very grateful for brave authors like you, Bobbie! Those who are willing to share their "soft underbellies" so that young people (and adults like me) can feel seen and become hopeful.

Octopus Moon is out in stores and libraries now. I hugged this book when I finished reading it... and hope that you, like me, will find pieces of your younger self in it, pieces that needed some extra care, and will receive it from this amazing author, too.

To learn more about Bobbie and her amazing middle-grade books click: Bobbie Pyron Website

Thank you again, Bobbie, for sharing yourself with us.

One final thought - what you needed at ten, we need at any age. We need someone to ask, "How are you feeling inside?" And to stay and listen.

Thank you for the reminder!

____________________________

And as always, if you would like to share your book, your writing journey, or your illustrations with us, please reach out to me. I love supporting authors, illustrators, and other creatives who are guiding our kids and young adults.

Write~on

Angie

ang azur @ gmail.com

or find me on Instagram