April 29, 2025 • 35 mins
George is joined this week by writer and cartoonist Maia Kobabe, whose illustrated memoir Gender Queer was the most challenged book of 2021, 2022 and 2023. Maia talks about what it's like to have your labor of love attacked and misconstrued, other writers who inspired the book, and why e're so excited for the next generation of Queer storytellers to come of age.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
When Gender Queer hit number one, like Alex Chino came
up to me in a signing line and gave me
like this big hug and was like, Yeah, I wore
this mantle for a couple of years, and now it's
your turn, and it'll be somebody else after you. And
it's like this shitty cape that you have to wear
for a while that you didn't want and you didn't
ask for. But so many other authors see that and
(00:20):
acknowledge it and really have reached out to me to
be like, we've got your back.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
That's Mayakobabe, an illustrator and author air twenty nineteen graphic
novel Gender Queer, is a memoir about growing up outside
the gender binary.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
It is a heartfelt book.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
It is a book that has meant a lot to
young readers who don't always see themselves reflected in graphic novels,
and it was also the most challenged book in America
for twenty twenty one, twenty two, and twenty three.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yeah, I'm so curious because American Libery Association will be
releasing its data in April, which was the month we
were recording in to see if it's number one for
four years, Baby or if which is possible, it slips
down into who knows, second, third, fourth, fifth, et cetera,
and some other perhaps newer book gets the top spot.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Well, since we recorded this, it was announced and now
it's official. My book All Boys Aren't Blue was named
the most challenged book of twenty twenty four, which means
that Maya and I have a lot in common and
a lot to talk about.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Singing in them heavy handy tip of the world. Take
a sip of brandy spoken guy, you know what the
plan is overcame a Latin? You know when to see
the stand me. My name is George M. Johnson.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
I am the New York Times bestselling author of the
book All Boys Aren't Blue, which is the number one
most challenged.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Book in the United States. This is Fighting Words.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
A show where we take you to the front lines
of the culture wars with the people who are using
their words to make change and who are a few
to be silentd Today's guests, Maya Coba is Maya Cobab.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Yeah you got it? Oh all right, and how are
you doing today?
Speaker 1 (02:12):
I'm pretty good. It's really nice to see you and
talk to you.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Yes, it has been a long time coming.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I feel like, especially with the both of us, media
has portrayed us in a way that is not our
likeness or who we are as people. So I always
like to ask my guests first, like who they are?
Speaker 3 (02:30):
So who is Maya Cobad?
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Thank you for asking. A lot of people do make assumptions.
I am a full time author, illustrator, cartoonist. Specifically, I
live in the Bay Area, California. I'm trans, I'm non binary.
I love reading. I have a background in libraries. I'm
very passionate about books and about education. And I wrote
(02:52):
a book that's about my life and my truth and
my experiences. And the book is in many ways a
love letter to my family, into my parents. And this
book has been portrayed unbelievably negatively in the media and
attacked by many people who I don't think even read it.
So that's something that's really been impacting my life specifically
for the past like three to four years, and has
(03:14):
really changed the direction of my career in a way
that I did not expect when I set out to
be like a cartoonist. It's such a weird you and
I have had this parallel experience of this, right like
your book I feel like your book it depending on
the metrics, like sometimes yours is first and sometimes mine.
It depends on whether they're saying challenged as in a
challenge was submitted or banned as in it was actually
(03:35):
the challenge stood and it was removed from the shelf.
Like those are slightly two different metrics, and so how
you count shuffles the numbers a little bit. But regardless,
we've both been going through it.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yes, Ama Dumate, Dumate, Ama Dumate, I did.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Not, but I love that.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
It's like we're fighting against society but on the other
side of the spectrum. Your book is a love letter,
just as my book All Boys on Bluees I always
say it was a love letter to my family, like
it was actually built out of love.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
It wasn't built out of anything else.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
But that So for those who are listening who may
not know what gender queer is or what the book encapsulates,
it's just important that we say what our books are
versus what they are trying to tell the world.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Our books are. So what is your book, Ginger Queer about?
Speaker 1 (04:22):
It is a selection of memories from my life from
about age three to twenty eight, all of which focus
on gender, sexuality, identity, and then once I get a
little older, finding the language to come out to friends, family, community.
And I wrote this book in many ways because I
(04:45):
so I come from a very loving, supportive family that
we can relate to this. I came out as queer
in high school to parents being like, yeah, we suspected
that's chill, a very low key response. But even though
I felt comfortable coming out as queer as a team
and actually had out gay and lesbian members of my
family who came up before I was even born, I
(05:05):
still really struggled with gender. I really struggled to explain it,
to come up with language around it. And again, my
very accepting parents hadn't really considered their gender at any
point until I started bringing it up a bunch in
the family. So I sat down to write this to
be like, how do I bridge this understanding gap that
(05:26):
I am running into in my family and my community
where when I talk about gender, people say we love
you and we support you, and we have no idea
what you're talking about. And because I think I grew
up in this very beautiful natural environment. I grew up
quite rurally in California, in the Cowfields and Sonoma County.
I came to a lot of nature metaphors, so I
(05:46):
end up using metaphors of growing plants and of traveling
through landscapes to try to explain gender concepts. And so
a lot of this was me sitting in front of
my sketchbook being like, how do I explain into my
kind of hippie, vegetarian elementary school teacher mom what gender
means to me and why pronouns are just like the
(06:08):
tip of the iceberg of a lot more gender stuff
that's going on under the surface.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Yeah, no, that's so real.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
And I felt the same way, and writing all Boys
Aren't Blue, it was like a declaration for me of
this is what I actually feel or felt during these years.
And I think the most interesting responses I got was
from people I went to high school with who read
the book and.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
They were like, we would have never known you were going.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Through this because you just had such Your personality was big,
you were funny and all of these things. And they
were like it helped them a lot though, like to
think just a little bit deeper about the person sitting
next to you.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Now they have kids, and some of their kids are career.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Yes, and so that's been a very interesting through line,
not just with those who I went to high school with,
but also with my fraternity brothers who now have queer children,
and they're like, I don't necessarily say they're regretful, but
I think the ways in which they treated me is
now directly in their household at times like, oh wow,
I'm raising someone like George. And this was something that
(07:13):
I struggled with when I first met George, and now
it's directly here.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
And I have figured this.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Out quickly because I love my child and so it's
just being full circle.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Has it felt full circle in any way to you?
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Yeah, I definitely. I'm sure Like you showed drafts of
my book to my family as I was working on it,
because I didn't want to shock anyone. I think both
of us would relate like, yeah, my book. I was like,
this is a book meant to build bridges, not burn them.
I don't want anyone to be surprised or upset about
the way that I portrayed them, so I gave everyone.
And also, it's memoir, so it's based on memory, and
(07:46):
memory is imperfect, and especially the inserted childhood. You're like,
that was a long time ago. I didn't start keeping
a journal until I was about twelve, so anything before then,
it's just there's no primary source documents. So I let
you know. Especially my parents read multiple drafts, and one
of my mom's first responses was, I had no idea
you'd been thinking about this for so long. Yeah, and
again it didn't show. It didn't show sort of on
(08:06):
the surface that I was wrestling with this. But yes,
now the book's been out for like almost six years.
I'll have young people come up to me and say like, oh,
I read this in like fifth grade, and now they're
in like high school, and I'm like, ah, so there's
that kind of thing. And I also have people read
it and say, oh, my gosh, I wish I'd had
this as a teenager. But it's still so impactful and
(08:27):
meaningful to me in my thirties or in my forties,
or in my fifties, in my sixties. And I have
people saying, I'm sharing this with my gender don't confirming child,
or my kid's a little young for it. But I,
as the parent, read this, and now I have this
window into some of what they might be experiencing or
some of the things they may run into later in life,
and I feel better prepared to support and love them
(08:47):
because I have this window into their experience.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Yeah, it's been a beautiful journey, despite the attacks, despite
And my book was read by Senator Kennedy at a
Sina Judici.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Yeah. Wow, we've both been read on the Congress flore.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
On the Congress floor.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
So our books are also within the Federal archives and
records keeping with the government.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Okay. I get so much like hope and excitement too,
though when somebody tells me like they're reading all Boys
Aren't Blue and they're reading gender queer, Yeah, between the
ages of say twelve and eighteen, And I'm like, what
kind of thoughts does that open up for you to have?
Or if you're able to then figure out some things
about your gender and your identity and sexuality, like before
you're even in college, what kind of like new and
(09:31):
more interesting and exciting like problems and questions can do
that move on to? Or like what books are those
kids going to write who read our books when they
were kids, right? And I'm like so excited because I
feel like the generation of like young people who read
our books are going to be writing their own books
pretty soon, and I cannot wait to see what they
are going to have to say.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
And now back to my conversation with Maya Covid, what
are some books that you think may reach number one
or what are some books that you think may hit
the list?
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Oh, my gosh, give.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Me a good question.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
I do feel like often books circulate through the list
in five issuer cycles. For example, the book that was
the most challenged book before Gender Queer was Melissa by
Alex Gino. So that's another middle grade book about a
trans character by a non binary author. So we're all
in good company here. And from what I remember, Melissa
(10:51):
spent five years in the top five, and it was
like three of those it was number one, and then
it was like number three, and then it was number five.
And I remember reading that statistick when Gender Queer in
the first year of doing this with Gender Queer and
being like, oh, this is a marathon, not a sprint,
Like this may define the next half decade of my life.
(11:12):
And it has, so I'm not quite sure. Honestly, it
might be a book that's like fresh, kind of freshly out,
especially if it's one like yours or mind that has
a very queer cover and a pretty obviously queer title.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Other industries have unions, Yes, other industries like the Writer's
Guild and the screen Actors Guild and the Producer's Guild,
and there's so many unions that support them. And I
think one of the things that this made me think
about was what does an author's union look like? What
does it look like when we come together to say, Okay,
if the standards of how we have to live and
(11:49):
navigate our lives are changing, then the standards of publishing
and the protections that we need, Like God bless the librarians,
they're superheroes. I always want to make sure I put
that out there. The religions are starting, but what does
that actually look like from this standpoint?
Speaker 1 (12:04):
I completely agree with you, and I think about this
a lot as well, especially I live in California. So
many friends are done in Los Angeles in entertainment industries
such as costuming or makeup, or storyboarding or animation design,
all of which have unions, and as freelance book writers,
we don't but ye. Over the past two years, I
(12:25):
have seen the founding and I'm a member of the
Cartoonist co Op, which is trying to be a union
like structure for a cartoonists, including like a lot of
information for newbies, a lot of warning about bad publishing practices,
help looking over contracts, connecting people to like resources such
as like how to query and how to pitch, and
list of agents who are interested in cartoonists, which is
(12:46):
really cool. And then also authors against book Bands. I
think we're both members ABD, which has been like this
group has been such a source of strength and encouragement
to me over the past couple of years or I
guess just the past one year, I think, and being
able to be part of that attend the meeting, see
the names of hundreds of authors that I admire and
(13:06):
I've been reading for years, like all coming together. And
my hope is that this really shows anyone who thought
that being a writer was in any way a competitive industry,
like against other writers, that is not true. Like we
are all in this together and we need to support
each other, and like we only thrive when we're boosting
each other's books and joining each other's panels and speaking
(13:27):
to each other's podcasts and also defending each other's legal rights.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Frankly, yeah, yeah, and realistically it's like you said, it's
not a competition against one another, it's a competition against
the societal standards. Yes, and in many ways that's what the
job of a writer and an author for many of
us is. And I was listening to a Tony Morris
and clips, because there's always a Tony Morrise c inclip
who apply to pretty much any facet of your life.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Another band author.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Who's been banned, oh yes, for now going on almost
fifty years, I think was from her first book band
and she's still on the list. She's still on the list.
I do think Beloved is Beloved on the list.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
No, it's usual the bluest eye, but it feels like
they'd hit any occur to Yeah, And I'm sure you
probably felt this too. When I first saw my book
on a list with Tony Morris and I was like,
oh my god, I'm on the list with Tony, you know,
it was like you get like these weird chills.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
You do And I say it all the time. I'm like,
this maybe the only list I ever make with Tony Morris.
And I'm proud of that. That's a badge of honor.
Anyone who knows me knows I have been running my
mouth fighting the Mosha Liberty.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
I've been very loud, very vocal, part of lawsuit.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
I when I saw the librarians were being attacked, I
guess that was almost four years three and a half
years ago, when it really was starting. Yes, I was
talking privately to a librarian and I said, Okay, I'm
going to start speaking publicly a lot about this to
try and become a lightning rod for you all, because
you all shouldn't I be taking the brunt of the
protection of this work. And I was like, some and
I know some of the other authors, this is just
(15:05):
not what we signed up for. But I've always been
an activist, so it was like, I'm going to take
this on. But it didn't change my approach to work.
I think it has only made me want to put
more queer stories out in chronicle, more queerness. Has it
changed your approach to your current projects or any future projects,
or just how you approach your work now?
Speaker 1 (15:23):
I think I feel pretty similar to you where it
just made me want to dig in. I'm like, well,
after this, I certainly won't be writing a single book
that doesn't have queer trands and non binary characters. Probably
for the rest of my life, like why would I write?
Those are the stories that I love, and those are
the stories that I want to tell, and those are
the stories I feel like I have the capacity to
tell that I want to spend all of my time in.
(15:45):
I too, didn't necessarily think that when I published a
debut memoir it would lead to a public figure role. Definitely,
most people, I think become authors in part because they
want to work from home in their pajamas all day.
That was definitely me. But when the challenge has started happening,
I was like, I'm not going to back away from this.
I'm not going to stay silent. People are saying absolutely
(16:05):
horrendous things about my work, and I'm going to use
the voice that I have to set the record straight
as much as I can. And I feel similar to you,
whereas like authors are being attacked, but maybe even equally
or more so, teachers and librarians are being attacked. And
for those folks, the attacks are coming within their community,
(16:25):
into their workplace and threatening their jobs and their livelihoods,
sometimes their physical safety in a way that so far
knock Wood I haven't like for me. Again, I'm living California,
I work from home. The attacks suck, but they're not
in my house, they're not in my workplace, they're not
in my family. And also they're not gonna stop me
(16:47):
from doing my job, which is writing gay books. So
I feel yeah, so much, Oh my god, just so
much sympathy and frustration and anger and desire to come
to the defense of teachers and librarians who are having
this threaten their livelihoods and destroy relationships in their community
because of bigotry and hatred and ignorance. I too, was like,
(17:09):
I'm going to step up. I'm going to allocate a
certain amount of my time to public speaking, to joining
author coalitions, anything I can do. But I don't think
it's changed my relationship to like writing and storytelling. I
actually feel quite fortunate that I had written the first
draft of both of my follow up books to Gender
Queer before the attacks really started. I actually wrote like
(17:31):
the first draft of both of them. So my follow
up book was Breathe Journeys to Healthy Binding, which is
a nonfiction book about chess, binding and trans healthcare, specifically
in the sort of non binary trans mask side of things,
of maximizing the mental health benefits of binding and minimizing
any potential physical health risks through like conscientious binding, I
would say. And then I'm working on a middle grade
(17:54):
comic with Scholastic, and I'd actually written the first draft
of both of them in twenty twenty, and then the
challenges really started in twenty twenty one. So those two
projects were born in the freedom of before the bands.
And I do know that whatever book I write next
will be the first one that I'm writing post book
challenge experience. But I think it will just be like
me once again saying I want to write about gendered
(18:16):
on conforming experiences and living as a queer person in
this world, and about friendship and family relationships. I really
love writing about siblings. I'm really close with my siblings.
Almost all of my books have a very strong sibling relationship,
and like, these are the themes that I care about,
and nobody's going to stop me from writing about those.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Now, back to my conversation with Maya Cobab, So what
did your love of illustration and cartooning begin.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
I have also been drawing since I was a little kid,
and actually I feel like for many years I was
much stronger as a visual artist and as a writer
in part because I am quite dyslexic. I did not
learn to read until I was eleven years old, so
I was like fully illiterate through fifth grade, which was
not easy. But I went to Waldorf schools that are
very focused on arts and crafts, and a lot of
(19:24):
the teaching is done like oral storytelling and then students
interpreting like the lessons that I've heard orally through drawing
or through crafting. And I'm super super grateful that I
was never hold out of the main class. I was
just kept with the rest of the students, even though
I was really struggling with like math and reading. Then
I took after school reading lessons for a couple of years,
(19:45):
and then it finally clicked and unlocked for me around
the time I turned eleven, And I think my brain
just needed to grow into the place that it was
ready to process language. And then I went from being
a kid who was struggling to read picture books to
a kid who was reading like full length chapter books
like one a week, in like like very quickly, like
over one summer. I left fifth grade unable to read,
(20:05):
and I started sixth grade like chomping through Narnia books
and Red wall, and so I really feel like I
used drawing during those years I couldn't read was my
main way to express myself, and I really invested in it.
And at the age where some kids stopped drawing in
part because their drawing skills are not matching their sort
of desired outcome, It's like their imagination is more vivid
(20:28):
than their skill set, and so some kids at that
point set drawing down because they aren't satisfied with the results. Instead,
I was like, no, I'm going to keep drawing until
I can draw exactly what I can see in my mind.
And I actually then went to school for illustration, and
my initial career idea was to be a children's picture
book illustrator, and I wasn't even thinking I would write
the books that I would be illustrating other people's words.
(20:50):
I was also like drawing these little comics about what
like I was. Basically I drew all of my friends
as like little animals and would write the silly or
stupid things that they did, and drawing these little character
comics of classmates. And then it was only later that
I was like, wait, I've been doing these comics is
like a laugh. I could do this more seriously, maybe yeah, yeah,
and then if all the pieces hand together. But I
(21:12):
really feel like my drawing skills developed first and my
writing skills had to catch up to them later on.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
I also did want to ask, like, when it comes
to illustrating, especially like with this new boom in AI,
I figured you would be perfect to even talk to
about the ramifications that this may have when your industry,
Like how is that starting to affect the work that
you do?
Speaker 1 (21:39):
It's so frustrating and there is a lot of fear,
and i'd say, specifically the illustrator community, that companies may
start producing AI works instead of hiring humans to do it.
Right now, the AI programs that we have can generate
like a very medium level product. It's not amazing, it's
(22:02):
not creative, it's not bringing anything new to the table
because it is just creating an average of everything that
it's been fed. But in some places people would rather
have mid work than pay human to make something great
or something beautiful or something original, something surprising, something funny,
something spiteful, something horny, something with emotions, but that a
program could never feel. And there've been a couple of
(22:23):
cases of publishers, including tour dot Com using an AI
generated image for a book cover. They did get called
out on it, and they did apologize, but it felt
like the beginning of a really stressful wave. I personally
feel a little bit less worried, even though I did
when you know, Atlantic Magazine just released the search engine
so authors could search to see if their works had
(22:44):
been stolen by a whole slew of AI programs, And
there's already a class action lawsuit that's based out of
California that's like fighting this. Both of my books had
been scraped. They were in there, even though they are comics,
and part of me doesn't even understand how that works
because gender greer is hand lettered. I don't understand how
they even can scrape a book that has no typed,
no typography, but they did. I do think that it
(23:06):
is very unlikely that AI could ever produce comics that
are like, actually good, because the kind of skill set
that is needed to actually pair images and text together
in a way that it actually has meaning and value
is very high. And I think it can produce again
(23:27):
mid visual images and mid textual writing, but I don't
even know if it can produce mid version of a
comic that pairs both of them together. Maybe it'll prove
me wrong, but also I think probably you and any
of your listeners will know it is like environmentally devastating.
It is using so much water and so much energy
in a time which we should be thinking about conserving water,
conserving energy and green energy solutions. It is just wasting
(23:50):
and just throwing like resources that we're going to need
to support human life down the toilet, which is infuriating.
And also it's trying to remove the ability of humans
to do what is perhaps the most human of all acts,
which is making creative work, and make that like an
an unviable, unsustainable career. Like I am not against algorithms
(24:14):
and machine intelligence doing things like examining medical scans looking
for cancer cells. There are uses to it, almost all
of which that I've read about that sound promising fall
in the stem and medical fields, and I'm not against those,
But why on earth do we need machines to do
this beautiful human creative act of bringing stories and art
(24:38):
into the world. And as a consumer, I have no
interest in reading a story if a human didn't take
the time to write it because and this is part
of why I love memoir and why I enjoyed your
book so much. It's like I go to memoir and
I go to stories because I want to learn more
about what it is like to be human and what
(24:59):
it is like to live in different types of human
bodies and have different lives. And I read people who
are different ages, races, genders, sexualities, lived experiences, time periods
than I do, because I want to know what was
it like to live in that time? What is it
like to live in your body? What is it like
to live in your family? I want to know what
(25:20):
is being human like to you? And a machine can
never tell me that.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Who were some of.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
The people who actually inspired you? I don't think I
haven't asked you that, but I'm sure ye. Who are
some of the inspirations for like your work?
Speaker 1 (25:40):
I definitely Alison Bechdel is huge the cartoonist and author
of Fun Home, which was turned into a Tony Award
winning musical. I started reading Bechdel's work when I was
actually a teenager. The Dykes to Watch Out for a
series ran in a local newspaper and I just had
the opportunity to read an advanced copy of her next book, Spent,
which brings the Dicks watch out for characters back and
(26:01):
has like a fictional version of Alison like interacting with
them in our contemporary post COVID times, post lockdown times,
which was fully a delight, so definitely fun home.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
It was a big one.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
There are a lot of other cartoonists though, have impacted me.
Lucy Nizzley is another memoirist whose work I read in
college and that I really love. And I also read
a lot of fantasy and science fiction. I haven't yet
written in those genres, but I really want to. Ursula
kay Lea Gwynn, Octavia Butler Tolkien. Tamora Pierce is a
writer of a lot of fantasy for younger readers middle
(26:34):
grade teen and she wrote a book series called The
Song of the Lioness Quartet. The first book is a
Lana where there's a set of twins, a girl and
a boy, and they both don't like the future their
parents have laid out for them, so they switch places
and Alana pretends to be a boy and takes her
brother's place and goes to train to be a knight.
And I read this when I was like just when
I was learning how to read, so I'm like eleven
(26:55):
years old, and I was like, Ah, this like short, little, fiery,
stubborn girl who's dressing up as a boy and learning
sword fighting and horseback writing and being brave and having adventures.
And I was like the character that I maybe related
to more than any other as a child. And the
author to more Pears has said that where she writing
the books today, she would likely write a lot as
a non binary character. But they were written in the
(27:17):
mid eighties, so that kind of language just doesn't exist yet.
But I think that is very much there in the character,
and I, as a young person, really saw that and
related to it all. So many authors I read a lot.
I read between one hundred and one hundred and fifty
books a year, many as audiobooks while I'm drawing, and
I've been doing that for about two decades, so I've
so many authors feed my imagination and have fed my
(27:40):
love of stories and my desire for stories my whole life.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
I used to have a column. It was called George's Tired,
and I'm bringing it back. I decided I'm about to
start a substack and bring it back because there are
a lot of things to be tired about, and I
knew and about them. Every week, and so I always
like to ask my guests what they are tired of.
I know what I am tired of. I am tired of,
and it could be funny or it could be serious.
I'm gonna go a little bit funny, but it is
actually a serious issue that I think is coming down
(28:13):
a pipeline, and we need to pay attention to full
body deodorant. And I am tired of these companies with
this full body deodorant situation because what it is actually
signaling is a water shortage. And what they're saying is
we will not be able to take as many showers
or bathe as much. And this is why I love
being a writer, because your imagination runs wild.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
With no earth.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
What we need full body deodorant, and oh we're not
able to bathe as much, then we would need full
body deodorant at certain times if there is a water shortage.
So cut it with the full body deodorant. I like
to be able to take my showers, I be able
to wash up when I want to wash up.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Let's just not have a water shortage.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Yeah, let's just not have a water shortage. Yeah, you
reference it super briefly. So I'm going to say this
is one of my petty hills. I'm tired of Substack.
Subsec is actually a terrible is a terrible website. I
realize no Internet site is pure, but I would highly
encourage anyone who either is thinking about starting a substeck
or supports people on substeck to Google an article called
(29:15):
substack has a Nazi Problem, which was published by the
Atlantic about three years ago about how they platform white supremacists, transphobia,
and COVID misinformation. And many of my queer artist friends
have been leaving Instagram and metasites in protests over their
terrible policies of allowing basically bigotry and hate speech against
queer people, and they're going to substack as the more
ethical home on the Internet. I'm like, please do not
(29:37):
do that. Luckily, there are ex several excellent alternatives, and
I promise I'm like, not a paid supporter. I'm just
a person who hates the website enough that I did
a lot of research. So if you do want to
start a newsletter, which you should and I absolutely would
love to read a newsletter from you, Beehive, button down,
and ghost are three different alternatives, all of which you
can hurt it up. Yeah, they're really popular. A lot
(29:58):
of people who left subse Act for ethical reasons have
switched to these sites instead, and all of them take
a lower percentage of your earning than substack because they're
trying to be direct substack competitors, And so I would
highly encourage you to check out these ones instead and
keep more of your dollars because I want to read
about George is tired, and I am tired specifically of
(30:19):
queer people using substack as their platform, and I really
wish people would do a few googles about how many
people have left substack in protests over their horrible policies.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
So thank you. So I will be using be high
look for George coming soon.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
The final thing I always say is it's always important
to leave people. I think quotes help help shape us,
help guide us. Like every year, I just choose like
a mantra or a quote twenty twenty five for me,
I decided it was going to be scorched the earth
because that's just where we're at. And so what would
be your mantra for twenty twenty five or some word
you want to leave people with to push them as
(30:57):
as the economy into the abyss.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Want to pull a quote that I think many people
have said it, but I've been reading Robin Wallkimerer, the
author of writing Sweet Grass and the Service Berry this week,
and she repeats over and over in her work this
concept of all thriving is mutual, and it is a
concept that comes from both her background as a botanist
and a plant scientist, but also as an indigenous person,
(31:22):
and the sense that in order for all of us
to live and thrive and grow and have the space
to be joyful community members, like we have to support
each other and we have to be there for each other.
And again it is not a competition, like we are
each other's best hope and best support and best life rafts,
and that sense of the rising tide rising all boats.
(31:44):
And I try to think of this in many facets
of like myself as a friend, myself as a family member,
myself as a creative person, myself as an engaged citizen
of this world, that like anything that I can do
that will improve life for another person has ripple benefits
back to me. And then things that I can do
in my life to like be healthier, or be more
(32:04):
mindful or be more compassionate will ripple effect out to
other people. And just thought like, we are all so
in this together, and we have to support each other
and we have to be there for each other. And
I think that, especially as I feel more and more
abandoned by sort of high level politics, I'm like, we
just got to be each other's support systems.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Yes, mutual, a collective movement is the way that we
have to go.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
I'll say it like COVID was.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Really what taught me is like our health is tethered,
but oh it is so many other ways we are tethered. Yes,
the ways in which we have to survive is tethered
to one another. And that's whether you like it or not.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
I think individuality is a myth that is breaking down
more and more for me.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Yes, yes, like absolutely, Maya. I want to thank you
for coming here today. It's been years like that.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
I know, I am such a fan of your work
and I so appreciate like the way you speak out
and also like the incredible fashion that you post on
your Instagram that just gives me like energy. I was
just oh my god, it's out there like killing it
every day. Oh my god, I like I need to
step up. It's so ugh, it's you're really I just
posted some.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Just I know.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
I literally saw it right before the call, and I
was just like, wow, amazing.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
So was so cool.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Ough, Yes, you're really a wonderful person and I appreciate
so are you your work? And I'm glad that we
are again like in this together.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
Yes, so am. I.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom,
and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear,
with delight. That's a quote from Ursa Look Look When,
one of Maya's literary godmothers, who passed away in twenty eighteen.
(34:00):
At the beginning of her career, Legwin's work was often
rejected from mainstream publishers who were not interested in fantasy,
but she found a niche audience in science fiction and
started publishing her first novels like The Left Hand of
Darkness and The Dispossessed. For La Gwynn, science fiction was
a way to explore moral, ethical, and political topics and
(34:22):
question concepts we take for granted, like gender, the family,
or patriotism. Blending fantasy and realism, she created alternative worlds,
opening our imagination and helping us see beyond our current reality.
Thanks for listening to Fighting Words, and I hope you'll
join us for another round next week. Fighting Words is
(34:48):
a production of iHeart Podcasts in partnership with Best's Case Studios.
I'm Georgian Johnson. This episode was produced by Charlotte Morley.
Executive producers are Myself and tweaty fa Ar Song with
Adam Pinkers and Brick Cats for Best Case Studios. The
theme song was written and composed by kole Vas, Bambianna
and Myself. Original music by Kolevas. This episode was edited
(35:13):
and scored by Max Michael Miller. Our iHeart team is
Ali Perry and Carl Ketel. Following Rape, Fighting Words, Wherever
you get your Podcast
When Gender Queer hit number one, like Alex Chino came
up to me in a signing line and gave me
like this big hug and was like, Yeah, I wore
this mantle for a couple of years, and now it's
your turn, and it'll be somebody else after you. And
it's like this shitty cape that you have to wear
for a while that you didn't want and you didn't
ask for. But so many other authors see that and
(00:20):
acknowledge it and really have reached out to me to
be like, we've got your back.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
That's Mayakobabe, an illustrator and author air twenty nineteen graphic
novel Gender Queer, is a memoir about growing up outside
the gender binary.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
It is a heartfelt book.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
It is a book that has meant a lot to
young readers who don't always see themselves reflected in graphic novels,
and it was also the most challenged book in America
for twenty twenty one, twenty two, and twenty three.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yeah, I'm so curious because American Libery Association will be
releasing its data in April, which was the month we
were recording in to see if it's number one for
four years, Baby or if which is possible, it slips
down into who knows, second, third, fourth, fifth, et cetera,
and some other perhaps newer book gets the top spot.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Well, since we recorded this, it was announced and now
it's official. My book All Boys Aren't Blue was named
the most challenged book of twenty twenty four, which means
that Maya and I have a lot in common and
a lot to talk about.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Singing in them heavy handy tip of the world. Take
a sip of brandy spoken guy, you know what the
plan is overcame a Latin? You know when to see
the stand me. My name is George M. Johnson.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
I am the New York Times bestselling author of the
book All Boys Aren't Blue, which is the number one
most challenged.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Book in the United States. This is Fighting Words.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
A show where we take you to the front lines
of the culture wars with the people who are using
their words to make change and who are a few
to be silentd Today's guests, Maya Coba is Maya Cobab.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Yeah you got it? Oh all right, and how are
you doing today?
Speaker 1 (02:12):
I'm pretty good. It's really nice to see you and
talk to you.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Yes, it has been a long time coming.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I feel like, especially with the both of us, media
has portrayed us in a way that is not our
likeness or who we are as people. So I always
like to ask my guests first, like who they are?
Speaker 3 (02:30):
So who is Maya Cobad?
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Thank you for asking. A lot of people do make assumptions.
I am a full time author, illustrator, cartoonist. Specifically, I
live in the Bay Area, California. I'm trans, I'm non binary.
I love reading. I have a background in libraries. I'm
very passionate about books and about education. And I wrote
(02:52):
a book that's about my life and my truth and
my experiences. And the book is in many ways a
love letter to my family, into my parents. And this
book has been portrayed unbelievably negatively in the media and
attacked by many people who I don't think even read it.
So that's something that's really been impacting my life specifically
for the past like three to four years, and has
(03:14):
really changed the direction of my career in a way
that I did not expect when I set out to
be like a cartoonist. It's such a weird you and
I have had this parallel experience of this, right like
your book I feel like your book it depending on
the metrics, like sometimes yours is first and sometimes mine.
It depends on whether they're saying challenged as in a
challenge was submitted or banned as in it was actually
(03:35):
the challenge stood and it was removed from the shelf.
Like those are slightly two different metrics, and so how
you count shuffles the numbers a little bit. But regardless,
we've both been going through it.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yes, Ama Dumate, Dumate, Ama Dumate, I did.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Not, but I love that.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
It's like we're fighting against society but on the other
side of the spectrum. Your book is a love letter,
just as my book All Boys on Bluees I always
say it was a love letter to my family, like
it was actually built out of love.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
It wasn't built out of anything else.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
But that So for those who are listening who may
not know what gender queer is or what the book encapsulates,
it's just important that we say what our books are
versus what they are trying to tell the world.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Our books are. So what is your book, Ginger Queer about?
Speaker 1 (04:22):
It is a selection of memories from my life from
about age three to twenty eight, all of which focus
on gender, sexuality, identity, and then once I get a
little older, finding the language to come out to friends, family, community.
And I wrote this book in many ways because I
(04:45):
so I come from a very loving, supportive family that
we can relate to this. I came out as queer
in high school to parents being like, yeah, we suspected
that's chill, a very low key response. But even though
I felt comfortable coming out as queer as a team
and actually had out gay and lesbian members of my
family who came up before I was even born, I
(05:05):
still really struggled with gender. I really struggled to explain it,
to come up with language around it. And again, my
very accepting parents hadn't really considered their gender at any
point until I started bringing it up a bunch in
the family. So I sat down to write this to
be like, how do I bridge this understanding gap that
(05:26):
I am running into in my family and my community
where when I talk about gender, people say we love
you and we support you, and we have no idea
what you're talking about. And because I think I grew
up in this very beautiful natural environment. I grew up
quite rurally in California, in the Cowfields and Sonoma County.
I came to a lot of nature metaphors, so I
(05:46):
end up using metaphors of growing plants and of traveling
through landscapes to try to explain gender concepts. And so
a lot of this was me sitting in front of
my sketchbook being like, how do I explain into my
kind of hippie, vegetarian elementary school teacher mom what gender
means to me and why pronouns are just like the
(06:08):
tip of the iceberg of a lot more gender stuff
that's going on under the surface.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Yeah, no, that's so real.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
And I felt the same way, and writing all Boys
Aren't Blue, it was like a declaration for me of
this is what I actually feel or felt during these years.
And I think the most interesting responses I got was
from people I went to high school with who read
the book and.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
They were like, we would have never known you were going.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Through this because you just had such Your personality was big,
you were funny and all of these things. And they
were like it helped them a lot though, like to
think just a little bit deeper about the person sitting
next to you.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Now they have kids, and some of their kids are career.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Yes, and so that's been a very interesting through line,
not just with those who I went to high school with,
but also with my fraternity brothers who now have queer children,
and they're like, I don't necessarily say they're regretful, but
I think the ways in which they treated me is
now directly in their household at times like, oh wow,
I'm raising someone like George. And this was something that
(07:13):
I struggled with when I first met George, and now
it's directly here.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
And I have figured this.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Out quickly because I love my child and so it's
just being full circle.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Has it felt full circle in any way to you?
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Yeah, I definitely. I'm sure Like you showed drafts of
my book to my family as I was working on it,
because I didn't want to shock anyone. I think both
of us would relate like, yeah, my book. I was like,
this is a book meant to build bridges, not burn them.
I don't want anyone to be surprised or upset about
the way that I portrayed them, so I gave everyone.
And also, it's memoir, so it's based on memory, and
(07:46):
memory is imperfect, and especially the inserted childhood. You're like,
that was a long time ago. I didn't start keeping
a journal until I was about twelve, so anything before then,
it's just there's no primary source documents. So I let
you know. Especially my parents read multiple drafts, and one
of my mom's first responses was, I had no idea
you'd been thinking about this for so long. Yeah, and
again it didn't show. It didn't show sort of on
(08:06):
the surface that I was wrestling with this. But yes,
now the book's been out for like almost six years.
I'll have young people come up to me and say like, oh,
I read this in like fifth grade, and now they're
in like high school, and I'm like, ah, so there's
that kind of thing. And I also have people read
it and say, oh, my gosh, I wish I'd had
this as a teenager. But it's still so impactful and
(08:27):
meaningful to me in my thirties or in my forties,
or in my fifties, in my sixties. And I have
people saying, I'm sharing this with my gender don't confirming child,
or my kid's a little young for it. But I,
as the parent, read this, and now I have this
window into some of what they might be experiencing or
some of the things they may run into later in life,
and I feel better prepared to support and love them
(08:47):
because I have this window into their experience.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Yeah, it's been a beautiful journey, despite the attacks, despite
And my book was read by Senator Kennedy at a
Sina Judici.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Yeah. Wow, we've both been read on the Congress flore.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
On the Congress floor.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
So our books are also within the Federal archives and
records keeping with the government.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Okay. I get so much like hope and excitement too,
though when somebody tells me like they're reading all Boys
Aren't Blue and they're reading gender queer, Yeah, between the
ages of say twelve and eighteen, And I'm like, what
kind of thoughts does that open up for you to have?
Or if you're able to then figure out some things
about your gender and your identity and sexuality, like before
you're even in college, what kind of like new and
(09:31):
more interesting and exciting like problems and questions can do
that move on to? Or like what books are those
kids going to write who read our books when they
were kids, right? And I'm like so excited because I
feel like the generation of like young people who read
our books are going to be writing their own books
pretty soon, and I cannot wait to see what they
are going to have to say.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
And now back to my conversation with Maya Covid, what
are some books that you think may reach number one
or what are some books that you think may hit
the list?
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Oh, my gosh, give.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Me a good question.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
I do feel like often books circulate through the list
in five issuer cycles. For example, the book that was
the most challenged book before Gender Queer was Melissa by
Alex Gino. So that's another middle grade book about a
trans character by a non binary author. So we're all
in good company here. And from what I remember, Melissa
(10:51):
spent five years in the top five, and it was
like three of those it was number one, and then
it was like number three, and then it was number five.
And I remember reading that statistick when Gender Queer in
the first year of doing this with Gender Queer and
being like, oh, this is a marathon, not a sprint,
Like this may define the next half decade of my life.
(11:12):
And it has, so I'm not quite sure. Honestly, it
might be a book that's like fresh, kind of freshly out,
especially if it's one like yours or mind that has
a very queer cover and a pretty obviously queer title.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Other industries have unions, Yes, other industries like the Writer's
Guild and the screen Actors Guild and the Producer's Guild,
and there's so many unions that support them. And I
think one of the things that this made me think
about was what does an author's union look like? What
does it look like when we come together to say, Okay,
if the standards of how we have to live and
(11:49):
navigate our lives are changing, then the standards of publishing
and the protections that we need, Like God bless the librarians,
they're superheroes. I always want to make sure I put
that out there. The religions are starting, but what does
that actually look like from this standpoint?
Speaker 1 (12:04):
I completely agree with you, and I think about this
a lot as well, especially I live in California. So
many friends are done in Los Angeles in entertainment industries
such as costuming or makeup, or storyboarding or animation design,
all of which have unions, and as freelance book writers,
we don't but ye. Over the past two years, I
(12:25):
have seen the founding and I'm a member of the
Cartoonist co Op, which is trying to be a union
like structure for a cartoonists, including like a lot of
information for newbies, a lot of warning about bad publishing practices,
help looking over contracts, connecting people to like resources such
as like how to query and how to pitch, and
list of agents who are interested in cartoonists, which is
(12:46):
really cool. And then also authors against book Bands. I
think we're both members ABD, which has been like this
group has been such a source of strength and encouragement
to me over the past couple of years or I
guess just the past one year, I think, and being
able to be part of that attend the meeting, see
the names of hundreds of authors that I admire and
(13:06):
I've been reading for years, like all coming together. And
my hope is that this really shows anyone who thought
that being a writer was in any way a competitive industry,
like against other writers, that is not true. Like we
are all in this together and we need to support
each other, and like we only thrive when we're boosting
each other's books and joining each other's panels and speaking
(13:27):
to each other's podcasts and also defending each other's legal rights.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Frankly, yeah, yeah, and realistically it's like you said, it's
not a competition against one another, it's a competition against
the societal standards. Yes, and in many ways that's what the
job of a writer and an author for many of
us is. And I was listening to a Tony Morris
and clips, because there's always a Tony Morrise c inclip
who apply to pretty much any facet of your life.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Another band author.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Who's been banned, oh yes, for now going on almost
fifty years, I think was from her first book band
and she's still on the list. She's still on the list.
I do think Beloved is Beloved on the list.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
No, it's usual the bluest eye, but it feels like
they'd hit any occur to Yeah, And I'm sure you
probably felt this too. When I first saw my book
on a list with Tony Morris and I was like,
oh my god, I'm on the list with Tony, you know,
it was like you get like these weird chills.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
You do And I say it all the time. I'm like,
this maybe the only list I ever make with Tony Morris.
And I'm proud of that. That's a badge of honor.
Anyone who knows me knows I have been running my
mouth fighting the Mosha Liberty.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
I've been very loud, very vocal, part of lawsuit.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
I when I saw the librarians were being attacked, I
guess that was almost four years three and a half
years ago, when it really was starting. Yes, I was
talking privately to a librarian and I said, Okay, I'm
going to start speaking publicly a lot about this to
try and become a lightning rod for you all, because
you all shouldn't I be taking the brunt of the
protection of this work. And I was like, some and
I know some of the other authors, this is just
(15:05):
not what we signed up for. But I've always been
an activist, so it was like, I'm going to take
this on. But it didn't change my approach to work.
I think it has only made me want to put
more queer stories out in chronicle, more queerness. Has it
changed your approach to your current projects or any future projects,
or just how you approach your work now?
Speaker 1 (15:23):
I think I feel pretty similar to you where it
just made me want to dig in. I'm like, well,
after this, I certainly won't be writing a single book
that doesn't have queer trands and non binary characters. Probably
for the rest of my life, like why would I write?
Those are the stories that I love, and those are
the stories that I want to tell, and those are
the stories I feel like I have the capacity to
tell that I want to spend all of my time in.
(15:45):
I too, didn't necessarily think that when I published a
debut memoir it would lead to a public figure role. Definitely,
most people, I think become authors in part because they
want to work from home in their pajamas all day.
That was definitely me. But when the challenge has started happening,
I was like, I'm not going to back away from this.
I'm not going to stay silent. People are saying absolutely
(16:05):
horrendous things about my work, and I'm going to use
the voice that I have to set the record straight
as much as I can. And I feel similar to you,
whereas like authors are being attacked, but maybe even equally
or more so, teachers and librarians are being attacked. And
for those folks, the attacks are coming within their community,
(16:25):
into their workplace and threatening their jobs and their livelihoods,
sometimes their physical safety in a way that so far
knock Wood I haven't like for me. Again, I'm living California,
I work from home. The attacks suck, but they're not
in my house, they're not in my workplace, they're not
in my family. And also they're not gonna stop me
(16:47):
from doing my job, which is writing gay books. So
I feel yeah, so much, Oh my god, just so
much sympathy and frustration and anger and desire to come
to the defense of teachers and librarians who are having
this threaten their livelihoods and destroy relationships in their community
because of bigotry and hatred and ignorance. I too, was like,
(17:09):
I'm going to step up. I'm going to allocate a
certain amount of my time to public speaking, to joining
author coalitions, anything I can do. But I don't think
it's changed my relationship to like writing and storytelling. I
actually feel quite fortunate that I had written the first
draft of both of my follow up books to Gender
Queer before the attacks really started. I actually wrote like
(17:31):
the first draft of both of them. So my follow
up book was Breathe Journeys to Healthy Binding, which is
a nonfiction book about chess, binding and trans healthcare, specifically
in the sort of non binary trans mask side of things,
of maximizing the mental health benefits of binding and minimizing
any potential physical health risks through like conscientious binding, I
would say. And then I'm working on a middle grade
(17:54):
comic with Scholastic, and I'd actually written the first draft
of both of them in twenty twenty, and then the
challenges really started in twenty twenty one. So those two
projects were born in the freedom of before the bands.
And I do know that whatever book I write next
will be the first one that I'm writing post book
challenge experience. But I think it will just be like
me once again saying I want to write about gendered
(18:16):
on conforming experiences and living as a queer person in
this world, and about friendship and family relationships. I really
love writing about siblings. I'm really close with my siblings.
Almost all of my books have a very strong sibling relationship,
and like, these are the themes that I care about,
and nobody's going to stop me from writing about those.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Now, back to my conversation with Maya Cobab, So what
did your love of illustration and cartooning begin.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
I have also been drawing since I was a little kid,
and actually I feel like for many years I was
much stronger as a visual artist and as a writer
in part because I am quite dyslexic. I did not
learn to read until I was eleven years old, so
I was like fully illiterate through fifth grade, which was
not easy. But I went to Waldorf schools that are
very focused on arts and crafts, and a lot of
(19:24):
the teaching is done like oral storytelling and then students
interpreting like the lessons that I've heard orally through drawing
or through crafting. And I'm super super grateful that I
was never hold out of the main class. I was
just kept with the rest of the students, even though
I was really struggling with like math and reading. Then
I took after school reading lessons for a couple of years,
(19:45):
and then it finally clicked and unlocked for me around
the time I turned eleven, And I think my brain
just needed to grow into the place that it was
ready to process language. And then I went from being
a kid who was struggling to read picture books to
a kid who was reading like full length chapter books
like one a week, in like like very quickly, like
over one summer. I left fifth grade unable to read,
(20:05):
and I started sixth grade like chomping through Narnia books
and Red wall, and so I really feel like I
used drawing during those years I couldn't read was my
main way to express myself, and I really invested in it.
And at the age where some kids stopped drawing in
part because their drawing skills are not matching their sort
of desired outcome, It's like their imagination is more vivid
(20:28):
than their skill set, and so some kids at that
point set drawing down because they aren't satisfied with the results. Instead,
I was like, no, I'm going to keep drawing until
I can draw exactly what I can see in my mind.
And I actually then went to school for illustration, and
my initial career idea was to be a children's picture
book illustrator, and I wasn't even thinking I would write
the books that I would be illustrating other people's words.
(20:50):
I was also like drawing these little comics about what
like I was. Basically I drew all of my friends
as like little animals and would write the silly or
stupid things that they did, and drawing these little character
comics of classmates. And then it was only later that
I was like, wait, I've been doing these comics is
like a laugh. I could do this more seriously, maybe yeah, yeah,
and then if all the pieces hand together. But I
(21:12):
really feel like my drawing skills developed first and my
writing skills had to catch up to them later on.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
I also did want to ask, like, when it comes
to illustrating, especially like with this new boom in AI,
I figured you would be perfect to even talk to
about the ramifications that this may have when your industry,
Like how is that starting to affect the work that
you do?
Speaker 1 (21:39):
It's so frustrating and there is a lot of fear,
and i'd say, specifically the illustrator community, that companies may
start producing AI works instead of hiring humans to do it.
Right now, the AI programs that we have can generate
like a very medium level product. It's not amazing, it's
(22:02):
not creative, it's not bringing anything new to the table
because it is just creating an average of everything that
it's been fed. But in some places people would rather
have mid work than pay human to make something great
or something beautiful or something original, something surprising, something funny,
something spiteful, something horny, something with emotions, but that a
program could never feel. And there've been a couple of
(22:23):
cases of publishers, including tour dot Com using an AI
generated image for a book cover. They did get called
out on it, and they did apologize, but it felt
like the beginning of a really stressful wave. I personally
feel a little bit less worried, even though I did
when you know, Atlantic Magazine just released the search engine
so authors could search to see if their works had
(22:44):
been stolen by a whole slew of AI programs, And
there's already a class action lawsuit that's based out of
California that's like fighting this. Both of my books had
been scraped. They were in there, even though they are comics,
and part of me doesn't even understand how that works
because gender greer is hand lettered. I don't understand how
they even can scrape a book that has no typed,
no typography, but they did. I do think that it
(23:06):
is very unlikely that AI could ever produce comics that
are like, actually good, because the kind of skill set
that is needed to actually pair images and text together
in a way that it actually has meaning and value
is very high. And I think it can produce again
(23:27):
mid visual images and mid textual writing, but I don't
even know if it can produce mid version of a
comic that pairs both of them together. Maybe it'll prove
me wrong, but also I think probably you and any
of your listeners will know it is like environmentally devastating.
It is using so much water and so much energy
in a time which we should be thinking about conserving water,
conserving energy and green energy solutions. It is just wasting
(23:50):
and just throwing like resources that we're going to need
to support human life down the toilet, which is infuriating.
And also it's trying to remove the ability of humans
to do what is perhaps the most human of all acts,
which is making creative work, and make that like an
an unviable, unsustainable career. Like I am not against algorithms
(24:14):
and machine intelligence doing things like examining medical scans looking
for cancer cells. There are uses to it, almost all
of which that I've read about that sound promising fall
in the stem and medical fields, and I'm not against those,
But why on earth do we need machines to do
this beautiful human creative act of bringing stories and art
(24:38):
into the world. And as a consumer, I have no
interest in reading a story if a human didn't take
the time to write it because and this is part
of why I love memoir and why I enjoyed your
book so much. It's like I go to memoir and
I go to stories because I want to learn more
about what it is like to be human and what
(24:59):
it is like to live in different types of human
bodies and have different lives. And I read people who
are different ages, races, genders, sexualities, lived experiences, time periods
than I do, because I want to know what was
it like to live in that time? What is it
like to live in your body? What is it like
to live in your family? I want to know what
(25:20):
is being human like to you? And a machine can
never tell me that.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Who were some of.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
The people who actually inspired you? I don't think I
haven't asked you that, but I'm sure ye. Who are
some of the inspirations for like your work?
Speaker 1 (25:40):
I definitely Alison Bechdel is huge the cartoonist and author
of Fun Home, which was turned into a Tony Award
winning musical. I started reading Bechdel's work when I was
actually a teenager. The Dykes to Watch Out for a
series ran in a local newspaper and I just had
the opportunity to read an advanced copy of her next book, Spent,
which brings the Dicks watch out for characters back and
(26:01):
has like a fictional version of Alison like interacting with
them in our contemporary post COVID times, post lockdown times,
which was fully a delight, so definitely fun home.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
It was a big one.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
There are a lot of other cartoonists though, have impacted me.
Lucy Nizzley is another memoirist whose work I read in
college and that I really love. And I also read
a lot of fantasy and science fiction. I haven't yet
written in those genres, but I really want to. Ursula
kay Lea Gwynn, Octavia Butler Tolkien. Tamora Pierce is a
writer of a lot of fantasy for younger readers middle
(26:34):
grade teen and she wrote a book series called The
Song of the Lioness Quartet. The first book is a
Lana where there's a set of twins, a girl and
a boy, and they both don't like the future their
parents have laid out for them, so they switch places
and Alana pretends to be a boy and takes her
brother's place and goes to train to be a knight.
And I read this when I was like just when
I was learning how to read, so I'm like eleven
(26:55):
years old, and I was like, Ah, this like short, little, fiery,
stubborn girl who's dressing up as a boy and learning
sword fighting and horseback writing and being brave and having adventures.
And I was like the character that I maybe related
to more than any other as a child. And the
author to more Pears has said that where she writing
the books today, she would likely write a lot as
a non binary character. But they were written in the
(27:17):
mid eighties, so that kind of language just doesn't exist yet.
But I think that is very much there in the character,
and I, as a young person, really saw that and
related to it all. So many authors I read a lot.
I read between one hundred and one hundred and fifty
books a year, many as audiobooks while I'm drawing, and
I've been doing that for about two decades, so I've
so many authors feed my imagination and have fed my
(27:40):
love of stories and my desire for stories my whole life.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
I used to have a column. It was called George's Tired,
and I'm bringing it back. I decided I'm about to
start a substack and bring it back because there are
a lot of things to be tired about, and I
knew and about them. Every week, and so I always
like to ask my guests what they are tired of.
I know what I am tired of. I am tired of,
and it could be funny or it could be serious.
I'm gonna go a little bit funny, but it is
actually a serious issue that I think is coming down
(28:13):
a pipeline, and we need to pay attention to full
body deodorant. And I am tired of these companies with
this full body deodorant situation because what it is actually
signaling is a water shortage. And what they're saying is
we will not be able to take as many showers
or bathe as much. And this is why I love
being a writer, because your imagination runs wild.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
With no earth.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
What we need full body deodorant, and oh we're not
able to bathe as much, then we would need full
body deodorant at certain times if there is a water shortage.
So cut it with the full body deodorant. I like
to be able to take my showers, I be able
to wash up when I want to wash up.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Let's just not have a water shortage.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Yeah, let's just not have a water shortage. Yeah, you
reference it super briefly. So I'm going to say this
is one of my petty hills. I'm tired of Substack.
Subsec is actually a terrible is a terrible website. I
realize no Internet site is pure, but I would highly
encourage anyone who either is thinking about starting a substeck
or supports people on substeck to Google an article called
(29:15):
substack has a Nazi Problem, which was published by the
Atlantic about three years ago about how they platform white supremacists, transphobia,
and COVID misinformation. And many of my queer artist friends
have been leaving Instagram and metasites in protests over their
terrible policies of allowing basically bigotry and hate speech against
queer people, and they're going to substack as the more
ethical home on the Internet. I'm like, please do not
(29:37):
do that. Luckily, there are ex several excellent alternatives, and
I promise I'm like, not a paid supporter. I'm just
a person who hates the website enough that I did
a lot of research. So if you do want to
start a newsletter, which you should and I absolutely would
love to read a newsletter from you, Beehive, button down,
and ghost are three different alternatives, all of which you
can hurt it up. Yeah, they're really popular. A lot
(29:58):
of people who left subse Act for ethical reasons have
switched to these sites instead, and all of them take
a lower percentage of your earning than substack because they're
trying to be direct substack competitors, And so I would
highly encourage you to check out these ones instead and
keep more of your dollars because I want to read
about George is tired, and I am tired specifically of
(30:19):
queer people using substack as their platform, and I really
wish people would do a few googles about how many
people have left substack in protests over their horrible policies.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
So thank you. So I will be using be high
look for George coming soon.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
The final thing I always say is it's always important
to leave people. I think quotes help help shape us,
help guide us. Like every year, I just choose like
a mantra or a quote twenty twenty five for me,
I decided it was going to be scorched the earth
because that's just where we're at. And so what would
be your mantra for twenty twenty five or some word
you want to leave people with to push them as
(30:57):
as the economy into the abyss.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Want to pull a quote that I think many people
have said it, but I've been reading Robin Wallkimerer, the
author of writing Sweet Grass and the Service Berry this week,
and she repeats over and over in her work this
concept of all thriving is mutual, and it is a
concept that comes from both her background as a botanist
and a plant scientist, but also as an indigenous person,
(31:22):
and the sense that in order for all of us
to live and thrive and grow and have the space
to be joyful community members, like we have to support
each other and we have to be there for each other.
And again it is not a competition, like we are
each other's best hope and best support and best life rafts,
and that sense of the rising tide rising all boats.
(31:44):
And I try to think of this in many facets
of like myself as a friend, myself as a family member,
myself as a creative person, myself as an engaged citizen
of this world, that like anything that I can do
that will improve life for another person has ripple benefits
back to me. And then things that I can do
in my life to like be healthier, or be more
(32:04):
mindful or be more compassionate will ripple effect out to
other people. And just thought like, we are all so
in this together, and we have to support each other
and we have to be there for each other. And
I think that, especially as I feel more and more
abandoned by sort of high level politics, I'm like, we
just got to be each other's support systems.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Yes, mutual, a collective movement is the way that we
have to go.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
I'll say it like COVID was.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Really what taught me is like our health is tethered,
but oh it is so many other ways we are tethered. Yes,
the ways in which we have to survive is tethered
to one another. And that's whether you like it or not.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
I think individuality is a myth that is breaking down
more and more for me.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Yes, yes, like absolutely, Maya. I want to thank you
for coming here today. It's been years like that.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
I know, I am such a fan of your work
and I so appreciate like the way you speak out
and also like the incredible fashion that you post on
your Instagram that just gives me like energy. I was
just oh my god, it's out there like killing it
every day. Oh my god, I like I need to
step up. It's so ugh, it's you're really I just
posted some.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Just I know.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
I literally saw it right before the call, and I
was just like, wow, amazing.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
So was so cool.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Ough, Yes, you're really a wonderful person and I appreciate
so are you your work? And I'm glad that we
are again like in this together.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
Yes, so am. I.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom,
and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear,
with delight. That's a quote from Ursa Look Look When,
one of Maya's literary godmothers, who passed away in twenty eighteen.
(34:00):
At the beginning of her career, Legwin's work was often
rejected from mainstream publishers who were not interested in fantasy,
but she found a niche audience in science fiction and
started publishing her first novels like The Left Hand of
Darkness and The Dispossessed. For La Gwynn, science fiction was
a way to explore moral, ethical, and political topics and
(34:22):
question concepts we take for granted, like gender, the family,
or patriotism. Blending fantasy and realism, she created alternative worlds,
opening our imagination and helping us see beyond our current reality.
Thanks for listening to Fighting Words, and I hope you'll
join us for another round next week. Fighting Words is
(34:48):
a production of iHeart Podcasts in partnership with Best's Case Studios.
I'm Georgian Johnson. This episode was produced by Charlotte Morley.
Executive producers are Myself and tweaty fa Ar Song with
Adam Pinkers and Brick Cats for Best Case Studios. The
theme song was written and composed by kole Vas, Bambianna
and Myself. Original music by Kolevas. This episode was edited
(35:13):
and scored by Max Michael Miller. Our iHeart team is
Ali Perry and Carl Ketel. Following Rape, Fighting Words, Wherever
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