This is the first in what I hope will be a series of interviews with authors who have written about intersex characters in their novels. Today I’m interviewing Leah Bobet about her book, ABOVE.

Thank you so much for being here, Leah.

Thanks for having me!

How long have you been writing?

I’ve been writing for publication for ten years — since I was 19.  There’s a whole trail of short fiction out there, in both print and online magazines going back to 2002, that’s pretty much the story of me figuring out what I wanted to say and how I could best say it.

What do you like the most and least about writing?

The most?  The way it feels when you’re about half an hour into writing a scene when it’s working, really working, and your body almost ceases to exist.  There’s nothing in the world but you and the words, and this little tingle in your fingers to connect them.

The least?  This may sound precious, but…not writing.  My process is fairly finicky and I will get months-long dead spots, where I just don’t have anything to say and can’t put pen to paper (or hands to keyboard, as the case may be).  The only real solution’s to wait.  I, as a general rule, hate waiting.

What genre do you write?

Several, actually — and then some things that live at the intersections of a few genres.  ABOVE’s been described as an urban fantasy, a dystopian, a paranormal; my own description’s usually that it’s a literary novel if you squint one way and a fantasy novel if you squint the other way. I’ve also recently published short fiction that was the-bastard-child-of-CanLit-and-Stephen-King-horror-with-bonus!-political-commentary, and serious-relationship-fiction-but-oh-hey-there’s-witches, and ridiculous-gonzo-religious-humour-with-puns.

So to give a perfectly complicated answer to a perfectly simple question: genre’s one of the places I tend to play. There’s usually elements of two or more of them in anything I write.

Tell me about ABOVE. What’s your hook? Where can I find a copy?

ABOVE is about Matthew, who’s loved Ariel from the moment he found her in the tunnels, her bee’s wings falling away. They live in Safe, an underground refuge for those fleeing the city Above—like Whisper, who speaks to ghosts, and Jack Flash, who can shoot lightning from his fingers. 

But one terrifying night, an old enemy invades Safe with an army of shadows, and only Matthew, Ariel, and a few friends escape Above. As Matthew unravels the mystery of Safe’s history and the shadows’ attack, he realizes he must find a way to remake his home—not just for himself, but for Ariel, who needs him more than ever before.

The book comes out March 1st in Canada, April 1st in the US, and it’ll be available pretty much everywhere you find your books: online, in chain bookstores, and in independents.

One of the main characters in ABOVE is intersex. Would you tell us a bit about the character, the condition, and the research you did?

It’s about half of a major plot point, so I’d rather not reveal too much about the character hirself.

A lot of the foundational research came from discussions with a friend who’s a paediatrician, who deals with gender assignment choices for intersex children in a very real, hands-on, everyday way.  Talking to her about it was what first highlighted the topic for me, and general online reading covered most of what I needed for what is essentially a character background, filtered through the perspective of a narrator who doesn’t know much about the condition himself.

Does the character’s condition play a pivotal role in their character arc?

It’s both entirely central to why events play out as they do, and entirely peripheral: the character in question’s motives and emotional reflexes were entirely made by how people — first at home, and then in the world, and then in Safe where sie found hirself — reacted to hir being intersex.  It’s the entire reason sie reacts in certain ways to other people’s choices, and those reactions drive the plot.

But in another sense, it’s a character background like any other; the kinds of fears and hopes that spring out of it could spring out of other places (and do, in some of the other characters in Safe!), and the ultimate choices sie makes, as well as the consequences for them, have to do with a whole other condition that character has, and a whole other relationship dynamic.

What will the reader conclude learn about intersex from your character?

While that’s up to the reader entirely, I doubt they’ll learn much in depth specifically about intersex.  What I’m hoping they’ll learn, though?  That it’s just a thing, like many other things, and that treating people according to their parts or conditions or diagnoses in general is less good than treating them as people.  Which sounds like it should be a simple thing to learn, but we do tend to have trouble with it.

What are you working on?

An odd little book about a sixteen-year-old girl on a post-apocalyptic farm, whose brother-in-law hasn’t come back from the war, the mysterious veteran they hire on to help run the land through the winter, and all the trouble that brings down on their heads.

What do you do for fun and relaxation when not writing?

A terrible lot of things!  I am sort of a halfway house for hobbies: I knit, watch silent movies, go on adventures with my friends, run scavenger hunts, bellydance, bake bread, and I’m ridiculously into urban agriculture, indie music, and Toronto municipal politics.  A friend’s talked me into picking my guitar back up too, so…

Which authors do you like to read?

Oh, I’m a total omnivore.  I will read nearly anything, and after working in a bookstore for four years (where reading new authors was my job!) I have a habit of aggressively hunting down first novels and authors I’ve never read before.

I will always read a new Nalo Hopkinson novel, or a new David Mitchell, or a new China Mieville.  There are a bunch of local-to-me authors I will always read: Peter Watts, Caitlin Sweet, David Nickle, Zoe Whittall, Catherine Bush, and most of what Coach House Books puts out.  But the rest is variable: I’m always more interested in the author I haven’t discovered yet.

Do you have any tips for aspiring authors?

I heard a wonderful piece of writing advice the other day, from author Charles Coleman Finlay, which seems to sum up all the other writing advice in one sentence: “Find your own way forward with joy and discipline.”

Deep down, everyone has a sense of what might work for them and what might not.  Learning to write is less a driving test than an exploration.  Explore, find your own process with diligence, and enjoy it. It’s no good if you’re not having some fun.

Is there anything else you’d like us to know about you?

Just that I hope you like the book!

Thanks!