Indiegogo preview: https://www.indiegogo.com/en/projects/the-monster-and-the-child/youth-monsterology-book-club-and-mentorship

Hello and welcome to The Monster & The Child, where childhood studies and monster studies collide! I am Dr. Kathleen Kellett, and this video is about what it’s like to actually work within that collision of monster studies and childhood studies. I’m going to be sharing my dissertation study experience with you – with input from some exciting guests! – and talking about my upcoming book clubs and mentorship services. I’m also going to give all of you an opportunity to help make those plans happen! That’s right, we are doing some fundraising over here on The Monster & The Child, but don’t worry, I’m going to make sure there are lots of perks for all of you.

            First, though, let’s back up. So, I use that term “childhood studies” at the beginning of all of my videos. Unless you’re a regular viewer, however, you might not be completely familiar with what that means. Childhood studies is the academic discipline that I got my PhD in, but it is not particularly well-known outside of academic circles – or, frankly, within a lot of academic circles – in the United States. It’s considerably more established elsewhere in the Anglophone world, like the U.K., Canada, and Australia. But where I am, when I say that I have my degree in childhood studies, most people’s first guesses are that I’m in developmental psychology or like early childhood education. Nope! I know fairly little about either of those things. Now, there are childhood studies scholars whose work does overlap with those fields, but I’m not one of them, and the reason for that is that childhood studies is a really, really big umbrella. It is a social scientific field that also includes many humanitarian scholars and theories. So we’ve got sociologists, anthropologists, historians, literary scholars, digital humanitarians, gender and women’s studies scholars, etc., etc., etc. Sorry if I left yours out, but honestly, I could just basically list literally everything within the social sciences and the humanities, and you’ll find someone whose work connects to childhood studies. What makes us an actual identifiable field, despite our diversity of methodology and thought, is that childhood studies centers around the study of a) the ways in which “children” and “childhood” are socially constructed in cultures across time and space, and b) the ways in which those social constructions impact the material realities of actual kids. In other words, what do societies collectively believe about childhood, and how do those beliefs organize the lives of the children within those societies?

            Unsurprisingly, having chosen this field, I think those questions are both really interesting and incredibly important. I came to childhood studies from children’s literature, which is what my MA is in. Fictional narratives for and/or about children – so, children’s lit, but also anything that has child characters in it – are literally cultural texts that can reveal many of those social constructions of childhood by the ways that child characters are written by adults, since they’re written by adults almost all of the time. We also learn about those social constructions from the values and themes that embedded within literature. It’s not only that, though, because these cultural texts are co-constructive of our cultural realities, which means that they both reflect and reinforce the way that our societies operate. To be clear, making this claim is NOT me saying, like, violent videogames will make people murder each other. The relationship between media and reality is not a light switch of simple cause and effect. And, importantly, fiction can and often does challenge certain social constructions; it doesn’t just blindly support every status quo. So that co-constructive relationship is complex, which makes it all the more worth studying.

I obviously am most interested in what happens when we smoosh childhood together with monstrosity in our stories, and that’s what this whole channel exists to explore. While I was getting my childhood studies degree, though, it was really important to me to not investigate that intersection of childhood and monstrosity all by myself. One of the hallmarks of a lot of childhood studies research is that we find it really important to actually include and involve young people’s own accounts of their experiences within our scholarship – and then in whatever comes from that scholarship, up to and including for some scholars, actual policy. Now, my work doesn’t really extend to policy, generally – other scholars’ does! – but for me, I wanted to make sure that scholarly conversations about children’s literature – or more specifically, young adult literature, which is my research focus – would actually include theories and responses from the intended audience of that body of literature: that is, teenagers.

So my dissertation study was a digital ethnography of an online book club that I facilitated with a dozen teen participants from all over the United States. Over six months, we read eleven young adult speculative fiction novels – fantasy, sci-fi, and horror – that prominently featured “monsters” – defined fairly broadly – and that used monstrosity as a metaphorical means of delivering political thematic material. I’ve included the titles of these books in the description for anyone interested. Monstrosity, in a Western context, at least, is all about that which is rejected from humanity. So that’s obviously inherently political, whether you want it to be or not. Lots of YA authors do, in fact, want it to be political, and they choose to use fictional monsters as their way of exploring what they think is important to their contemporary intended audience of young people. So we read books that used monstrosity to explore adolescent experiences of immigrants and refugees, of queer youth, of racialized youth and the systemic violence attached to it, of ideological fractures within families and communities, of the ways in which adults can manipulate or use power over young people, and plenty of other topical issues for teens. What I wanted to know was how well these metaphors actually work. Are adults writing YA books using monsters in ways that actually resonate with the experiences of their intended audiences? After all, almost all authors are no longer adolescents, and while obviously they have memories of their own adolescence, those experiences change rapidly. Like, I didn’t have my first cell phone until I was fourteen, and that was basically just to call my mom to pick me up after extracurriculars. And then I didn’t get my first smartphone until I was twenty-two and already out of college. So those facts alone make my remembered adolescence materially different from the vast majority of American adolescences taking place today.

I also wanted to see what new ideas and connections about monstrosity young readers would come up with. If you think childhood studies is a big field, monster studies is arguably even bigger. It’s hard to think of any social science or humanities field in which the multifaceted metaphor that is monstrosity is not relevant. Your friend and mine Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, in his seminal “Monster Culture (Seven Theses),” explains that “the monster’s body is pure culture.” What we fear, what we reject, what we classify as Other, what we perhaps assign the roles that we don’t want to take on ourselves – all of these aspects of monstrosity are absolutely stuffed with cultural meaning about our values and desires and the social institutions that we create to try to achieve those values and desires. Monsters are often (though not always) our stories about what happens when those things go wrong. In academia, we sort of divvy up the study of all of that along disciplinary lines, but high school students who haven’t entered higher ed yet are less likely to be so siloed in their thinking. I personally love to draw from really disparate academic traditions to inform my ideas – which is another reason I love childhood studies – and so I was excited to see how quote-unquote “non-academics” like teenagers would theorize monstrosity. I wanted to learn from those theories that are grounded in present-day adolescent experiences.

And that is exactly what I did over those six months in 2022. I absolutely got everything I wanted – and more. I knew that I was the main beneficiary of this project – because it was giving me my PhD – but I wanted to provide a space of free thought and exchange of ideas and fun community for young readers. I’d hoped that I’d be able to do that, at least. And according to the feedback I received from the participants, Monster Book Club was an even more positive and even meaningful experience than I could have hoped. That’s the impetus for me to want to create new book clubs, this time with even more mentorship benefits for students. I think that now, more than ever, it’s crucial for young people to have positive, low-pressure social and educational opportunities driven by their own interests and desires to learn. I want creating those opportunities to be a major part of my career and life’s work going forward.

This time, however, I won’t be conducting research, so some things will be different. On top of reading and discussing monster stories with their peers, teenagers who participate in the book clubs with mentorship services will receive … well, mentorship. Specifically, they will each devise and complete an independent project over the course of the five-month period of the club, with the majority of that work taking place in the second half. This is so that they can use the themes from the club’s discussions to inspire what they want to do, whether it’s a creative, academic, or activist project, or some combination thereof. Possible examples include writing a short story, short film, or collection of poetry and holding a public reading or a viewing; creating a visual art exhibit with artist statements; developing a school assembly or public presentation on an academic research topic; organizing a public library event; organizing a local community action, such as a volunteer drive or campaigning around a political issue and meeting with an elected official, or a direct action like an environmental clean-up, and then a written account of that process. The mentorship will come in as I work with each student one-on-one to develop, write, revise, and create the public event around their project. You’ll notice that all of these examples involve bringing the young people’s ideas out into their communities. Not only is this the kind of thing that might look unique and a little splashy perhaps on a college application or something like that, but also it gives young people the chance to create something based on their own interests and things they care about. High schoolers don’t always or even often get to be in the driver’s seat when it comes to extracurricular activities, let alone the classes that they take in school, and I think the experience of seeing your own project through from conception to completion can be really valuable.

In order for this project to not be an added stressor in young people’s lives, it will take place in an ungraded environment, with plenty of personal, one-on-one work to get the projects where the students want them to be. I am, if I may say so myself, very qualified to provide that kind of mentorship. I have taught first-year writing and composition at the college level, including as a full-time lecturer, I’ve worked as a tutor for middle-school and high-school students, and I conducted my own independent project as a grad student to unite writing pedagogy techniques according to research-based best practices within my department. Based on all of that, there will be no penalties for messy drafts, missteps, or starting over. I’ll help students tailor the projects so they’re not overwhelming within the timeframe of the program, and they will, of course, have their peers, as well, in the group cheering them on and helping them out. In other words: while participants will be doing stuff in this program, it won’t be like “more school.” It is an additional form of education, yes, but one that I really believe I can make meet young people’s wants and needs.

However, the other thing that makes this different from my dissertation project is that I do now need to get paid. I am no longer a funded PhD candidate anymore, so participation is not going to be able to be free – but I also really, really don’t want it to be expensive. Providing accessible youth services is profoundly important to me.

So here’s where the fundraising comes in.

And here is also where we get footage from a different day, because I am designing this all as I go here! So, a little behind the scenes insight, I have now officially established The Monster & The Child LLC for these future enterprises. I have started a campaign on Indiegogo that is now available to preview, comment on, and (please!) follow, so that you can be immediately notified when it goes live in a week. The link is in the description, and as you’ll be able to see, there will be plenty of perks for anyone who chooses to contribute. Anyone who contributes any money at all will get shout-outs in my upcoming videos. If you contribute $10, I will do a YouTube short on a monster and/or child topic of your choice, within, you know, the reasonable parameters of I know literally anything about it. At $25, you have a choice. I will either do two shorts on topics of your choosing, or, if you have up to five pages of written work that you would like another pair of eyes on – any type of fiction or nonfiction writing, excluding, again, like, technical writing that I wouldn’t understand, so use your best judgment – then I will provide thorough written feedback on that. As I said, I have plenty of experience of providing writing feedback, and I’ve gotten good reviews from both students and friends for doing so. And if anyone’s moved to contribute $45, I will provide either written feedback or a 20-minute Zoom conversation about up to ten pages of writing, or three shorts on topics of your choice.

Literally any money you contribute will make participation for teenagers less expensive. That is directly what this is funding: scholarship money essentially for Monster Book Club participants. Before the Indiegogo campaign even goes live, I would really appreciate it if you could share the campaign as well as my channel to get some more eyes on it – because that, apparently, is the key to successful crowdfunding. I’m doing this all for the first time out here, and I am learning as I go! Thank you so much in advance for your engagement, and I will be excited to bring this campaign live very soon.

Contributing to the Indiegogo once it’s live is not your only option to support this project. I have my Patreon link down below, which has its own perks attached to it, and I also have super thanks enabled on here. Also, if you are an adult who’s interested in participating in a Monster Book Club of your own – or a teen who’s just interested in the book club part, and not the mentorship and independent projects – then let me know in the comments, because if I get enough interest, I can run those, too. These will also be paid, but would be very inexpensive, because that would be a lot less labor on my end. But, again, literally any money I make through any of what I just said will support my book club and mentorship programs for young people who believe that they can benefit from them. Everything I do here does, too, so liking the videos, sharing them, commenting on them, subscribing – every red cent that I can eke out of The Algorithm lowers the price and therefore the threshold of accessibility for the programs that I have planned for the future. I’m hoping to get the pilot club going within the next several months, as long as I’m able to get some funding in, so thank you, thank you, thank you for watching this video, for watching any of my videos, and for engaging with this work in whatever ways you can.

Okay, that is enough from me. Luckily, you don’t have to take my word for it that Monster Book Club is a good time. It is my absolute pleasure to share with you some conversations with original members of my dissertation study to explain their experiences reading and learning with their peers. I hope you will find these really wonderful young people as inspiring as I do, and I am excited to introduce people who I really enjoyed working with to my audience over here.

KATHLEEN: Okay. So, first off, if you want to just sort of introduce yourself to the viewer – so specifically how old you were and what grade you were in during the study itself, and then what you’re doing now and what you’re studying in college.

KELEIGH: Okay. When Monster Book Club started, I think I was 17 and I turned 18. Um, I was a senior in high school. Um, and now I’m 21, a junior in college, and I’m studying biology. And I’m Keleigh, by the way. I didn’t say my name.

KATHLEEN: Perfect. Thank you.

KELEIGH: You’re welcome.

KATHLEEN: God, I can’t believe you’re 21. That’s crazy.

KELEIGH: I know, right? So crazy. I can’t either. It’s insane.

KATHLEEN: I mean, I remember – yeah, everyone was – I don’t think anyone was 18 when they signed up, but a bunch of you turned 18 during the study.

KELEIGH: Yeah.

KATHLEEN: Because I had to get parental permission from everyone because everyone was underage.

KELEIGH: Yeah. We had to get on Zoom with our parents. I forgot about that.

KATHLEEN: Yeah. Which was for the most part fine, but I was really annoyed about because I didn’t think that teenagers should need parental permission to sign up for a book club.

KELEIGH: Yeah.

KATHLEEN: But it worked out fine.

KELEIGH: Yeah.

KATHLEEN: All right. Um, so what made you respond to the ad for Monster Book Club?

KELEIGH: Um, I think back then, I was like really, really into like fantasy and, you know, there’s always like a kind of monster/villain aspect in that, and I saw the ad on Instagram, and I was like, perfect. And I feel like – I was a senior in high school, but my high school was online. Like it’s made as like online academy. So I was like it would be good to talk to people who had like the same interests, because I know reading is like a big hobby now, but back then, a lot of people didn’t like talk about reading. So I thought it would be cool to talk to different people and kind of get like another view on how they think about the books and the villains and everything in it. Yeah.

KATHLEEN: Yeah. That was one of the main responses I got at the time, was like, I just want to talk to people about books and no one talks to me about books.

KELEIGH: Yeah. I still want to talk to people about books. Like it hasn’t changed.

KATHLEEN: On a similar topic, um, how did talking about books in Monster Book Club compare to like English class at school?

KELEIGH: I feel like English class is obviously like structured specifically for a specific type of book and a specific type of curriculum. I feel like in comparison to Monster Book Club, I – Monster Book Club was more free, and I felt more open to talk about my actual thoughts. And, of course, I could – I mean I could talk about my thoughts in English class, but it was kind of more like enclosed, if that makes sense. Yeah. And we talked about, you know, typical books, To Kill a Mockingbird, Romeo and Juliet, books that I wasn’t necessarily interested in. They were fun to read, of course, but they weren’t books that I would choose personally. So, I feel like it was – I could talk freely about my thoughts about these books and get other people’s opinions, and, you know, they could change my thought process about the book, too.

KATHLEEN: And you’re sort of segueing naturally into all my of my next questions. Uh, the next one is, what was your experience of the peer community of Monster Book Club?

KELEIGH: It was pretty cool. I feel like at first, I was definitely nervous to start talking to different people, of course, but we all ended up, you know, having the same kind of thought processes, which was very interesting. I think all of us being interested in that same type of genre or just, you know, books in general made us kind of have that same thought process – thought processes, and it was just kind of a comfortable experience talking about books and not having to feel judged for it, if that makes sense.

KATHLEEN: Yeah.

KELEIGH: Everybody was really nice. It was just fun. Yeah.

KATHLEEN: Yay! Um, do you have a favorite part of the experience that you would like to share?

KELEIGH: Um, it’s hard to remember. I don’t know why it’s like hard to remember, but –

KATHLEEN: It was a while ago now.

KELEIGH: Yeah, it was a while ago, right? Um, I think – this is going to sound basic. I think just talking to each other and bouncing off ideas, specifically. I can’t think of like a specific moment. I don’t know if it was when we read – I forgot the name of the book, but when he kind of turned into like a zombie, I think. Something like that. Us just bouncing our ideas off of each other. And it even – segueing into like current events and us then starting to talk about that stuff in comparison to the books, like how one thing will happen in the book, and then compare it to the things that were happening within that timeframe. And I think everybody being able to kind of connect it to something within their lives was really cool, too. Yeah. Even if we have so many different lives and so many different interests, we were all able to find one specific thing from one of the books at least and how it related to us, and we could talk to each other about that.

KATHLEEN: Yeah. I mean, obviously, that was what my dissertation was on. But the way that played out in the club was really exciting to me, because like I could just sort of sit back, and you would all talk about your different experiences, and that’s where like having people from all over the country was really interesting.

KELEIGH: Yeah.

KATHLEEN: Like talking about, you know, large schools versus small schools versus like a couple people were doing online schools, and then just like comparing sort of educational experiences, and then, of course, comparing sort of the ways in which you all were impacted by the current events of 2022, which have only gotten wilder since then, I feel like.

KELEIGH: And even like the different age ranges was kind of cool. I know somebody was like 15 during the time, too, and their perspective was cool, too, because it was it was a little different, of course ,but it was cool to see how like different ages kind of had a different perspective on things and they didn’t know about certain things, you know. Yeah.

KATHLEEN: I really liked that, too. Like the age range was 14 to 18 and, yeah, we had one person who started 14 then turned 15 in the club. And, first of all, I just think that’s always like nice to get, like because oftentimes, we’re so like siloed within our own grade, where it’s like we only are hanging out and talking to people who are like within a year of us.

KELEIGH: We can’t interact with other people that are kind of younger or even older than you.

KATHLEEN: Yeah. And I think it’s – I think it’s valuable.

KELEIGH: Definitely. Definitely. Because I still think about some of the stuff – like obviously, I can’t think of the specific things that we discussed, but like I remember the experience of talking to everybody, and it was really cool.

KATHLEEN: If it has how has the experience stayed with you as a college student or in your life outside of school?

KELEIGH: Um, I think it pushed – it pushed me to start finding experiences with different people with things that I like, like –  what’s something? Like my science club at school. We’re all interested in science and we’re all like bio majors and everything. It pushed me to kind of find like a club, or like find an online community about the books that I’m reading, or just to kind of push myself out there, because that was kind of one of the first moments where I kind of put myself out there to start talking to different people. Definitely. And that – I feel like that prepared me for college, too, because there’s so many different types of personalities within college, and it kind of got me used to talking to people that might have a different perspective than me in any situation, whether it be class or like in the library or just talking randomly. Yeah, it kind of prepared me for that in a way.

KATHLEEN: That’s nice to know.

KELEIGH: Yeah, because even into my adulthood, like that’s – it makes me want to search – reach out for more experiences like that, like a book club at the library or, I don’t know, anything really. Yeah.

KATHLEEN: Great. Awesome.

KATHLEEN: So, can you please introduce yourself to the viewers? Um, and specifically how old you were and what grade you were in during the study and then what you’re doing now, like your major and everything, or anything else you feel like sharing?

SOPHIE: For sure. Hi, viewers! I’m Sophie. I just say like I’m a fourth year in college and I’m graduating this year, but I was – I think I was a senior in high school.

KATHLEEN: I think you were, too.

SOPHIE: Yeah. I was like – I know how old I was. I was like 17 and then I turned 18. So I was probably a senior in high school during the study, and it was awesome. And I’m about to go into my graduate program with an undergrad in social work.

KATHLEEN: Social work?

SOPHIE: Yeah.

KATHLEEN: Okay. My next question is, what made you respond to the ad for Monster Book Club on Instagram?

SOPHIE: Um, I really like reading. I just got a special edition of three of my favorite monster books.

KATHLEEN: Yay!

SOPHIE: They showed up here after I left, and I finally got – I finally came back, so I have them now. Um, but I like books about monsters, and at the time, I was very like focused on monsters and like what they represented and authors using them as like – like I know everyone hates JK Rowling, as they should, but like Remus being a metaphor for HIV and AIDS – like I was very into that. I was very into that. Yeah. Um, and I was like, this seems like a great place to talk about that, so I can have people who actually want to listen to me talk about it, and I’m not just yelling into the void.

KATHLEEN: Listen, that was – so a little – this gets into a little lore for me for viewers of my channel, too. Um, that was my first like favorite like monster in a political way. I think I was already definitely like into the idea of monsters, but when I was like 12, 13, I got really into Remus Lupin and like werewolf rights and all of that. So yeah, everything that happened with JK Rowling is such a – such a like generational bummer for me as a millennial. But, yeah, that was also how I got into things.

SOPHIE: Fun fact for the viewers, when I was in the study, my name was Harry Potter themed.

KATHLEEN: Yep. Everyone had pseudonyms, so they could be anonymous when I wrote it up. And yours was a Harry Potter reference. Okay. But my next question is, how did talking about books in Monster Book Club compare to like English class in school?

SOPHIE: It was a lot better than English class, because throughout all of high school and still now, I was like a very socially anxious teenager and was terrified of saying the wrong thing, and that if I said the wrong thing, everyone in class would hate me, and they would all think that like I didn’t know what I was talking about. So I never talked in class, even though I loved English class and English was my favorite class. We also like didn’t really get to read monster stories in English class like I wanted to. We were always reading To Kill a Mockingbird and Lord of the Flies, but –

KATHLEEN: That’s almost exactly what Keleigh said.

SOPHIE: It was smaller and – (laughs) and I could like spend time talking to the other participants outside of the actual meeting. So I was – felt like I was talking to people who I knew, and not just like a group of 30 teenagers who I was terrified of judging me. So like when we would have our group, I would be able to like speak my opinion and be more – like when we were talking about hurt people hurting people.

KATHLEEN: Yes.

SOPHIE: And I go back and read your dissertation all the time, by the way.

KATHLEEN: Oh my god. You are almost certainly the only person.

SOPHIE: Sometimes I will go back and reread it, just to be like, “Wow, I was part of this.”

KATHLEEN: That’s very gratifying, thank you.

SOPHIE: Um, but when we had that and I said little – and I said like my little piece about hurt people hurting people, I never would have said that in class. Like I never would have been that vulnerable in class. And it – I think it just gave me a space to be able to be that open, versus I’m in a room of people who I barely know. There was just like less fear of judgment in the book club.

KATHLEEN: I’m so glad.

SOPHIE: So yeah, it was definitely – it took a minute for me to be like, it’s okay. You can – you can say this and no one will judge you.

KATHLEEN: Yeah. It was a good group.

SOPHIE: You can talk about your lived experience.

KATHLEEN: Yeah, absolutely. And that’s – that’s what sort of – that’s, first of all, exactly what I wanted to research, and also like exactly what I kind of wanted to foster and want to continue to foster, like making new book clubs for people, um, is that sort of less – less pressure-filled environment, where you can actually talk about what you actually believe. Um, okay, so my next question was what was your experience of the peer community of Monster Book Club? So you already talked a little bit about this, but if you could expand on that.

SOPHIE: It was so good. It was so awesome. Um, we – we don’t really talk anymore, which kind of sucks. Um, but we talked – we stayed in contact for a while after it ended, in like another little Discord server that we made. So, even though we don’t really talk anymore, um, we did for a while, and it was good, and it was fun, and I really liked everybody there. I mean, like I said before, it was kind of just like a place I felt comfortable, and I didn’t have the like pressure of other people judging me all the time like I did at school where I could – I was like –  I felt like I could say something wrong and no one would get mad at me about it. They would just be like, “Hey, maybe don’t say that again.” Like this is – like, “Hey, that was wrong. Here’s why. It’s not a problem. Just you live and learn.” Instead of like at school, you say something wrong, and then everyone’s like, “Wow, you’re in an honors English class and you didn’t know?”

KATHLEEN: Yeah.

SOPHIE: Like, yeah, I didn’t have that. So, it was a lot easier for me to actually be open about how I was feeling about things and about what I thought about the books. Um, it also – I think I also – it was a lot less formal. So if we wanted to just dog on a book, like we did with, um, the weird like –

KATHLEEN: The vampire one.

SOPHIE: It was a high school story, but it was also like a political intrigue story, and there were zombies.

KATHLEEN: Yeah. Um, okay. Um, so you’ve already, again, named a few of these, but do you have a favorite part of the experience or a memory from it that you’d like to share?

SOPHIE: Um, I really liked – outside – like the meetings were super fun, but I also liked, outside of it, just being – like talking with the other members in the Discord about just like random stuff we found interesting. Just like, hey, I found this cool thing. What does everybody else think? And then we would just talk about it. Even if we – and even if we weren’t talking about the books we were reading, it was still a space where I could be like, “I found this cool thing that nobody else cares about. Please care about it.” And they’d be like, “Wow, we care about this!”

KATHLEEN: Yeah. I remember I woke up once, and I would always check the Discord every morning, and it was like, “There are 400 unread.” And I was like, “What happened?” But it was just you and two others who’d like stayed up half the night just chatting.

SOPHIE: And I guess like a favorite memory for me overall would be when I talked – circling back to our conversation we had about hurt people hurting people, that everybody was so like okay with that – with they were like okay with me saying that and opening up about that, and nobody was like, oh, you’re a terrible person because of this thing. Um, they were like, “Oh, wow. That’s crazy, but okay.” Like, because I remember like someone had very like jokingly, I think, been like, then just like kill yourself or something, and that’s when I was like, hey, guys, actually this is a thing –

KATHLEEN: Yeah, I’m trying to remember the context –

SOPHIE: It wasn’t – they weren’t like –

KATHLEEN: To be clear to viewers, they were talking about a fictional character.

SOPHIE: Yeah, we were talking about a fictional character. We were not talking to a real person.

KATHLEEN: Yeah. Yeah, and then you were reacting, like sort of like to that rhetoric of like you don’t necessarily know what’s going on when someone has done something like that. Like I don’t remember what book we were talking, but someone had done something wrong, done something to hurt someone.

SOPHIE: Yeah. I think it was – I don’t know, I think it was someone like the ghost bully or something.

KATHLEEN: Oh, okay. Yeah, that would make sense. That was The Taking of Jake Livingston.

SOPHIE: I think it might have been that one. Yes, The Taking of Jake Livingston. Um, but being able to be like, hey, it isn’t always as easy as don’t hurt people. It isn’t like, don’t do that. That’s bad. Sometimes you do feel like that is the only way, or sometimes it just happens, and like you don’t realize that it’s happening. And being able to say that and not have everybody jump to the conclusion that I’m just a terrible person.

KATHLEEN: Yeah.

SOPHIE: And then we moved on and nobody made it a big deal was – that was a very like strong positive memory for me.

KATHLEEN: Well, I’m glad. Um, okay. And then my last question is how has this experience stayed with you as a college student or in your life outside of school?

SOPHIE: Um, it definitely – well, I’m an English lit minor, so I do a lot of like close reading. And anyone who tells me a humanities degree is easy, I want them to sit down and close read Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, because that’s not an easy book.

KATHLEEN: Mm-hmm.

SOPHIE: But, um, just the ability to like actually look deep, because I was not very good at “what’s the symbolism” and the “how does this relate to the outside world” before going into the book club. And those are skills you need if you’re going to get a degree in English lit. Um, so that was very helpful there. Um, but also, it did show me that like you can be open with people and they’re not going to hate you, so I kind of took that with me. Like when I went into – when I started college, my mom told me – she was like, “You can be – like you’re going to college and nobody knows who you are.”

KATHLEEN: Mm-hmm.

SOPHIE: Like no one – which was untrue because I was going to college with one of my friends from middle school. So one person knew who I was.

KATHLEEN: Okay.

SOPHIE: But she’s like, “Nobody is going to know who you are. You can be whoever you want to be.” And I was like, “This is my chance.” This like – this book club showed me that I’m – like people don’t hate me for existing. So what if I was just my authentic self in college? And now I have lots of friends.

KATHLEEN: Yay!

SOPHIE: And a boyfriend. So, you know –

KATHLEEN: Aw, nice.

SOPHIE: We’re doing great!

KATHLEEN: That – ah, I’m going to get emosh again about book club, but that makes me very happy to hear.

So that brings us to the end of interview weekend, which I hope you enjoyed. Next week, you’ll get some more chapters from my YA werewolf manuscript Our Sharp Forsaken Teeth – playlist up above if you’d like to start that – and then in two weeks, my next video essay will be an analysis of stories about child sociopaths. I have a lot of thoughts and opinions on that one! And of course, the Indiegogo will have a launch video next week, as well.

I am really going for it all this year: working with young people, sharing my scholarship, and sharing my creative works. Thank you so much for being along for the ride. And also thank you again so much to Keleigh and Sophie. It was really wonderful to speak with them again, and I hope that I will be able to build another little monster-y community like the one that we had in 2022. To all of you, take care, and I will see you soon for more monstrous food for thought.