[ Music ] >> Sasha Dowdy: Hello and welcome to the National Book Festival. My name is Sasha Dowdy and I work at the Library of Congress. I'm here with Gene Luen Yang whose featured books at festival this year are "Dragon Hoops" as well as "Superman Smashes the Klan." If you would like to see Gene's presentation at the festival, you can log on to National Book Festival.com and you will find it on the Teens Stage. Welcome Gene. It's great to have you here. >> Gene Luen Yang: Thank you. Thank you Sasha. It's great to-- great to be here. This is actually I think this is my fourth National Book Festival that I've ever done and this is-- it's really different, right? It's very, very different, but it's still great to gather as a book-loving community. >> Sasha Dowdy: Yeah, absolutely. It's great to have you so many years together and I know this presentation is going to be different, but also really fun. I know we're in a bit of a delay, so we can get started with a question that I have while we wait for some others to trickle in. So, can you talk about the fact that this is your first non-fiction graphic novel and what inspired you to write it? >> Gene Luen Yang: Oh, yeah-yeah. So, I had two books come out during quarantine. I didn't mean for that to happen. It was because, you know, I was running really late on the deadlines for one of the books and they ended up coinciding, but the first book that came out was "Dragon Hoops", this came out in March of this year right as lockdown was about to begin. I was supposed to go on this two week book tour for this book and it all got canceled. But, but it was a lot of fun to do. The book, it took me five years to write and draw. As you said, it is my first non-fiction graphic novel, and it's about a high school basketball team. I used to teach at Bishop O'Dowd High School, Catholic school in Oakland, California. We had a great basketball program, but I was a computer science teacher, so I really had nothing to do with this basketball program, right? The last year that I was there, the 2014-2015 school year, I became friends with the coach of that team and I got to know him. I also got to him. I also got to know his team and I really discovered this amazing story and I feel like it was kind of a story fractal, you know? It was this big story about this team of coaches and players all chasing after the California State Championship, and it was also all these little stories about each of the individual coaches and players' lives. So, that's what "Dragon Hoops" is all about. It's about basketball and it's also about-- I highlight six of the players and a few of the coaches. It's about their own lives and how it intersects with the sport as well. >> Sasha Dowdy: That's fantastic. Yeah, we are such great fans of your work and can't wait to read it if the folks haven't read it yet. So, we have a question from Phoenix, Smith "Representation is very important, how often do you write with the intent to represent or showcase different people of all races, cultures, genders, and sexualities? I know it's hard to capture the full perspective of different people who you don't identify with, but do you try?" >> Gene Luen Yang: Yeah, I agree. I think representation is incredibly important and the older I get and the more I reflect on my own childhood, the more this becomes apparent to me. I remember as an Asian-American kid growing up in the 80s, there was just very few characters in the books that I was reading and in the shows that I was watching who looked like me, who lived like me, who ate the same kinds of foods that my family ate. It was such an intense thing that I remember being in front of the television with my brother, and if we saw somebody who looked vaguely Chinese come up on the screen, we would actually call our parents over to come look. You know, usually it was like somebody in the background of like a toothpaste commercial or something, but that's how-- I think that's how thirsty we were to see ourselves represented in the media and the stories that surrounded us. Nowadays, I generally try to write from my own life. So, a lot of my stories are about Asian-Americans and have Asian-American protagonists, because I live in an Asian-American life, but at the same time, I am from the Bay area which is an incredibly diverse place. So, I will often have characters who don't look or live like me. I think "Dragon Hoops" is a perfect example. The basketball team that I was following, the coach, his name is Coach Lou, he's African-American, most of the players on that team are African-American and then there's also a Sikh player, there was one Sikh player, there was one White player, and there was one exchange student from China who would join the team. So, for each of those players, you know, I didn't look for overlap between my experience and theirs, but in a lot of ways I felt like I had to approach their stories with a certain amount of humility and a certain amount of willingness to do homework, right, to research into the backgrounds. >> Sasha Dowdy: Thank you so much for that answer. That's very thoughtful. We have a follow-up question about "Dragon Hoops" from Morgan K. "Hi, Gene I'd like to know if you're still following basketball as much as it's available post writing Dragon Hoops?" >> Gene Luen Yang: Yeah. I was not a basketball fan at all before I started that book. In fact, when I was a kid I was kind of anti-basketball. You know, I was terrible at all sports. I was-- especially sports that had you know throwing and catching, I was just terrible at it. And anytime I stepped out onto the basketball court it was always an opportunity to get humiliated, like I'd get hurt, I get a ball to the head or would get my fingers jammed or the other players would make fun of me, you know? So, I tried to avoid basketball as much as possible, but when I, you know, got to know Coach Lou I found his story and the story of his team so amazing that I felt like I had to put it down on paper, and in the process of doing that, I also read a lot about the sport. I specifically read about basketball history and I felt like all of that reading gave me a real understanding of basketball's place in American history and that-- that really is part of how I became a fan. So, since then I have been following basketball. Right now I think the most exciting storyline to me in the NBA is the Denver Nuggets. So, I'm super excited to see how that goes, but I do follow it. I mean, I often don't have enough time to watch an entire game, but I do follow highlights and news on social media out of the NBA. >> Sasha Dowdy: Thank you. You're a lifelong fan. Sue Cher [assume spelling]. >> Gene Luen Yang: Hopefully. >> Sasha Dowdy: Yeah. Sue Cher wants to know, "Does the pandemic make it easier or harder to do your work as a writer and artist?" >> Gene Luen Yang: The pandemic has definitely made it harder, it has definitely made it-- I think that's true for most of us regardless of what our work is, right? The pandemic has definitely made it harder. I used to work out of a Workspace; I'm in the Bay area, so it's sort of like a WeWork and I was the only cartoonist there, everybody else around me was like they were like coders or marketing people. But since pandemic started, that Workspace shut down. I've had to work at home. My wife and I we have four kids. We're very lucky that we have a good amount of space in our home. Even so, I am kind of a nomad in my own house, like I don't really have a dedicated workspace. I have to wonder from one spot to the other. You know, I'll have to go and ask one of my kids, "Are you using your bedroom right now?" If they're not, then I'll use it. So, it's been difficult. I think, at the same time though I do feel like I'm lucky. I'm lucky in that I can do my job from home, and like so far at least, my family has been pretty healthy. >> Sasha Dowdy: Yeah, I think a lot of people can relate to that, yeah. >> Gene Luen Yang: Yeah. >> Sasha Dowdy: Ellen Rushell [assumed spelling] would like to know; I hope I pronounced your name right, "Was the Superman graphic novel that came out this year, the one that you questioned making in Dragon Hoop's?" >> Gene Luen Yang: Oh. Wow! Well, first thank you for reading "Dragon Hoops." The Superman graphic novel that came out this year is "Superman Smashes the Klan" this is what it looks like. "Dragon Hoops" I both wrote and drew. So, some of my books I handle both the writing and the art. "Dragon Hoops" is colored by a good friend of mine named Lark Pien, but "Superman Smashes the Klan", this was drawn by somebody else. This was actually drawn by Gurihiru, they are an art team out of Japan. They don't speak English. So, when I write a script for them it has to get translated into Japanese, but they're-- they're phenomenal. I really consider them among the best working in the worldwide comic book industry today. This is actually a retelling of one of the most famous stories from the Superman Mythos. Way back in 1946, Superman had the most popular radio show in America, and in a 16-episode storyline that aired in 1946, he actually defended a Chinese-American family against a group of hooded and a robe with racists, DC Comics' stand-in for the real-life Ku Klux Klan. You know, this intrigued me for all sorts of different reasons. One reason was, there was a Chinese-American family in the middle of the story from 1946. Like I said, I did not grow up seeing a lot of people who look like me in the comics that I was reading and the books that I was reading or the shows that I was watching, so to find out there was this family that was a lot like mine, dating back to almost the beginning of Superman, that was completely fascinating to me. The other thing that intrigued me about this was that that storyline in 1946 actually had a real-life consequence. Supposedly, after it aired, the real like KKK saw a huge dip in membership. Nobody wanted to join this group that Superman had called out on his and defeated on his radio show, right? So, it kind of shows that nerd culture could have real-life effects. Now, in terms of your question, that is actually not the book that I was talking about in "Dragon Hoops." So, in "Dragon Hoops" I am, you know, it's a-- it's non-fiction, but it is also in-part autobiography. I do talk about my family and my work life, and that was the last year that I was a high school teacher. I loved being a high school teacher, so leaving that job was incredibly difficult for me, but I left because DC Comics offered me this chance to write Superman. The Superman that I was struggling with there was actually a 10-issue run on the monthly Superman title. It was a lot to write, but it was also really, really difficult, because I was writing in-universe. So, for those of you who are not comic book fans, being in-universe means that the Superman stories that you are writing or the Batman stories that you are writing, they have to fit in with everything else that's happening in the DC universe. So, it was a challenge. But working on those 10 issues did eventually lead to me writing "Superman Smashes the Klan", and I feel like "Superman Smashes the Klan", the Superman that I write in this book, is much closer to the Superman that's, you know, attached to, like my heart is attached to. >> Sasha Dowdy: That's wonderful. Thank you. Lisa Finke has a great question for you. "I know that your texts often Facebook challenges are banned, can you talk to us about your views on intellectual freedom?" >> Gene Luen Yang: Yeah. I think out of all of the books that I've done so far, "American-Born Chinese" is probably the one that I'm known best for. It's a book that came out in 2006 from First Second Books who's been-- they're my primary publisher, and it's about the Asian-American experience. That's also the book that has faced the most challenges, because it's used in classrooms. You know, I'm really lucky that I often get to be a part of teacher's curricula. The reason why it faces bans, usually it's because I have a character in there named Cousin Chin-Kee who is the amalgamation of all of the negative Chinese, Chinese-American Asian and Asian-American stereotypes that I could think of. He's sort of the embodiment of all of these images in popular media that had haunted me since I was a kid, you know? And I'm writing, I'm using him as satire, I'm using him as satire. I have to tell you, some of the folks that want to ban "American-Born Chinese", I feel like I can really sympathize with, you know? But a lot of times the reason why they want to ban it is because those images are incredibly painful and they want to forget about them, and I get that, I totally get that. You know, I mean one of the things that I wanted to do in "American-Born Chinese" is talk about that pain, but well, but I do think that when you start doing that, and also I think satire is sometimes difficult to parse right in a classroom setting, but I feel like if despite-- if like despite the fact that I feel a certain amount of empathy for the reasoning behind them wanting to have a ban, I think if you start going down that direction, what ends up happening for satire specifically, is it ends up becoming only a literary took that's reserved for the majority, right? The only people who get to use satire are the majority, because you can't use satire to talk about the minority experience, because of the difficulty in parsing and I just think that that ends up weakening the very voices that need to be heard most. I think that's-- I think that's my stance. I think I don't know like free speech has gotten really, really weird as a topic. When I was a kid when I was even in my early adulthood, I think I was free speech felt more clear to me, but with the admit of social media, it's gotten a lot murkier. At the same time, I still think that it's an ideal worth holding, you know? It's worth struggling through the murkiness around the issue of free speech in order to uphold it. >> Sasha Dowdy: Absolutely. Thank you. We have another question a little bit about your different work, in it Hart Graves says, "Hi Mr, Yang. I read your bio and I was wondering what work you did on "The Last Airbender?" >> Gene Luen Yang: Oh, I'm glad-- I'm glad you asked. Actually, this I mean I actually had 3 books come out during pandemic, the third one is this, but I-- it's a reprint. This is actually a reprint of a book I did several years ago. And this is a continuation of the Nickelodeon show "Avatar: The Last Airbender." So, "Avatar: The Last Airbender" aired from 2005 to 2208 on Nickelodeon. It is, in my opinion, the greatest American animated series ever produced. It's about this young boy who is the Avatar of this fantasy world which means he's sort of like the designated savior of this-- of this fantasy world. And the way it was written, it's a kid's show, but they dealt with really adult topics in very gentle and genuine ways. After the show ended, the creators of the show decided to continue the series as a graphic novel series and I was invited to write the first 5 volumes, so this is the first volume. It was amazing to work on that. You know, these are in-kayman [assumed spelling] stories, that means something to nerds, and that gig allowed me to get to know Bryan Konietzko and Mike DiMartino the two creators of the show. So, every single one of the storylines that we did started with a conversation between me and Mike and Bryan, and then we would continue and make into comics. It was great because we got to answer a lot of the questions that were left open by that original series, right? We got to tell you what happens to Zuko's mom for instance. Avatar has recently seen a resurgence, because it got onto Netflix a couple of months ago and it's just been super fun to be a part of that in a small way. >> Sasha Dowdy: I'm glad you get to contribute to such a good world. >> Gene Luen Yang: Are you a fan? Can I ask? Sasha, are you a fan of Avatar? >> Sasha Dowdy: Me? I am. My husband and my daughter and I have been watching all summer a little bit at a time. >> Gene Luen Yang: Yeah. >> Sasha Dowdy: It's fantastic. >> Gene Luen Yang: We've been doing that too. My kids have it on repeat on Netflix. >> Sasha Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah, it's really beautiful and helps us deal with a lot of things. >> Gene Luen Yang: Yeah. >> Sasha Dowdy: That come up even in kid's lives, yeah. So, we have a question from Josephine Cowel [assumed spelling], "How is writing a non-fiction graphic novel different from writing your other graphic novels?" >> Gene Luen Yang: With non-fiction, I did not have control over the story, you know, but I'll give you an example; the biggest example in the book right? So, this book was about a run for the California State Championship. The coach of the team, his name Coach Lou, he is actually an alum of that same school, you know, and when he was a junior he was actually on the basketball team, he was the backup point guard, they made it all the way to the California State Championship. They were down by 1 with 7 seconds left and Lou, 17 years old, he gets the ball in his hands, he puts it up at the buzzer, it goes through the hoop, so the team wins, they're all cheering, they're jumping up and down, and then over the intercom, the ref was-- the ref whistles comes and the ref actually invalidates that shot. The shot that was the winning shot, the biggest shot of young Lou's life. He invalidates that shot because supposedly the center of his team had his hand on the rim as that ball was falling through the hoop, so it was offensive goal tending. They end up losing that game and that shot haunts Lou, you know, for into his adult life. He eventually comes back to Bishop O'Dowd as an assistant coach and then as a head coach. As an assistant coach and as a head coach, he led 5 different teams to the California State Championship and they lost all 5 times, so he gets 5 chances to redeem this old hurt from when he was a teenager, and he missed them all. So, when I was following him during the 2014-1015 season, Lou had assembled the most talented team that Bishop O-Dowd had seen in maybe a generation. So, it was his best chance at finally possibly winning and I wanted to see if he could do it, so with that entire season, I knew the ending that I wanted. If this were fiction, I knew the ending that I would have given that team, but because it was non-fiction I didn't have any control over it. So, I just had to follow the team and bite my nails through every game. >> Sasha Dowdy: It's an exciting way to write, [brief laughter] unpredictable. >> Gene Luen Yang: Yeah, it's super unpredictable. I like during that whole process, during that whole season, I constantly was coming up with different plans in my head, "Okay, if they lose you know during the semifinals how am going to spin it? If they lose that final game how am I going to spin it? If somebody gets injured how am I going to spin it?" You know? >> Sasha Dowdy: Yeah. And life has other plans for us doesn't it? >> Gene Luen Yang: Yeah. Yeah. >> Sasha Dowdy: So, kind of zooming out to look at a bigger picture of work, Stephanie would like to know, "What are some highlights from your time as National Ambassador for Young People's Literature?" >> Gene Luen Yang: Yeah. It's been a while now. You know, so I was the 5th National Ambassador and right now, Jason Reynolds is the current National Ambassador who's the 7th. It was a kind of a whirlwind 2 years. So, during those 2 years, I visited communities all over America to talk about the importance of reading and the importance of books. The platform that I was promoting, every National Ambassador kind of picks a platform, the platform that I was promoting was called Reading Without Walls which encouraged kids, everybody really to read out of our comfort zone. So, read books that we wouldn't normally gravitate towards. So, I asked people to read books with characters that didn't look like them, about topics that I might not know anything about, and then formats that they don't normally read. So, for avid comic book and graphic novel fans, I asked them to read books without pictures, and for people who had never [audio issues] read a comic book in the lives before, I asked them to give comics a try. I think that the highlight really was just meeting young readers all over America, and especially meeting young creators, you know, people who wanted to write or to make comic books and graphic novels. I remember being at this one book festival and a young woman had come, actually I think she was in 7th or 8th grade, she came and she showed me some graphic novel pages that she was working on and she was really talented, they looked great. And she was very shy, but at the end, you know, after I gave her my critique, it was awesome. I basically told her her book was awesome. She whispers to me, she goes "Someday I look forward to working side-by-side with you in the industry that we love." And I just thought that was super sweet. >> Sasha Dowdy: That's beautiful. >> Gene Luen Yang: Yeah. Yeah. >> Sasha Dowdy: Can you tell us what your own wall was Reading Without Walls? >> Gene Luen Yang: Yeah. You know, I have to say like being in-- in, being in books, it lets like you get a lot of free books. So, I do think that just being an author allowed me to start reading without walls. So, when I was a kid I would say that I had a wall even against people that looked like me. You know, like the vast majority of the books that I read were-- were books with White, young White male protagonists. Since becoming an author, I got a bunch more books. I got like I'm a huge fan of Jackie Woodson who was the National Ambassador after me. And I had been reading a lot of books about people who didn't look like me already, but the one wall that was still there for me while I was National Ambassador was the wall against sports, right? And I kind of had to push through that wall to create "Dragon Hoops" which I had begun working on during my time as National Ambassador, and I feel like I feel like I was incredibly rewarded by going through that wall. I feel like sports is, especially basketball, is another narrative form, it's another source of stories and I feel like my life has been incredibly enriched by the stories that came out of basketball. >> Sasha Dowdy: That's wonderful. You mentioned young [audio issues] creators that you met during your Ambassadorship, Olivia Doherty is actually looking for advice, "I'm a teacher and having students write their own graphic mini novels, any ideas on how to inspire students to write their stories and put them out into the world?" >> Gene Luen Yang: Yeah, that's-- that's great. I-- when I was a high school teacher I taught a class called computer art and we did have a unit on comics. So, from my experience teaching kids to make comics, first I would say keep the project relatively short especially if it's the first time you're asking your students to make comics. Maybe anywhere from 2 to 6 cages I would day. And second, is this, in the beginning, you know, when we first started teaching that that unit, we would just let students write whatever kind of story they wanted, and what we found was, we got better results when we asked them to focus on an incident in their lives. If they could talk about something that meant, that happened to them, that meant something to them usually the comics came out better. The other really practical stuff is we often had them use software to add-in the work balloons and the lettering. So, there's a program called Comic Life that we used at the time. I think they're still around, but it's been a while since I've taught that class, but I think they're still around. So, what the software allows you do, a beginner of comics, like a cartoonist's mistake is you draw the work balloon first and then you try to work with it the words in, and you never leave enough space for yourself. By doing it with software you just kind of circumvent that problem. >> Sasha Dowdy: Oh, that some great modern advice. Another question about creativity is from Angela, "How much input do you have in who's chosen to draw or color your stories? Is there any one you would like to partner with?" >> Gene Luen Yang: So, in terms of the artist partners, it depends on the project. So, if it's something that I'm doing with First Second Books, usually I get to choose who I work with and it's usually just its friends. I'm pretty good friends with a guy named Sonny Liew who is an amazing cartoonist. He did a book called "Charlie Chan Hock Chye" about the history of Singapore. But he and I teamed up together to do a book called "The Shadow Hero" for First Second Books. So, that began with as a friendship, right? I was friends with Sonny and we decided to work together. But on working for DC, usually if it's a month series I don't get a ton of say in who draws my stories, but I've been lucky. I feel like the vast majority of artists that I've worked on, worked with on those books have been amazing. For "Superman Smashes the Klan", Gurihiru they were first choice. You know, they-- they actually, I did mention this, but they [audio issues] drew these Avatar comics as well. So, I had had years of working with them and I knew they were just stellar, so I'm really thankful that they said yes. >> Sasha Dowdy: A realist. We have a question from Samodi Scott [assumed spelling] who would like to know, if you could talk about "Secret Coders?" >> Gene Luen Yang: Oh, great. Well, thank you for asking about "Secret Coders." "Secret Coders" is a series that I did with another friend of mine named Mike Holmes, so I did the writing and he did the art, and it really comes out of my time as a computer science teacher. So, I used to teach is this really visual way, I would do a lot of drawing on the board, and I thought a lot of these lessons might work well in graphic novel format. So, that's what "Secret Coders" did, is it's a story about these kids in middle school who discover a mystery at their school and it's also a graphic novel that teaches the basics of computer science. So, it's like half education and half mystery stories. >> Sasha Dowdy: So, what is that you've been reading recently? We have some questions, Emily would like to know that? Do you have any book recommendations, comics, or otherwise? Another related question from Stacy, on must have graphic novels in high school libraries? >> Gene Luen Yang: Wow. Okay, that's a great-- those are great questions. So, for what I'm reading right now like what's on my nightstand right now is a book called "Once and Future." It's basically like a zombie story that the zombies are all like, it's like King Arthur and his Court. Those are the zombies that the heroes are fighting and it's a lot of fun. Before that I read a book by Kevin Huizenga who is an amazing cartoonist called, it's called "The River at Night." And it's really like a very formalist's graphic novel. So, it's a lot of play with the format itself. The story is just about a person trying to fall asleep, and it's like hundreds of pages, right, it's like 200 pages of this person trying to fall asleep, but in telling that story he plays with the format of comics. I'm a huge fan of Mariko Tamaki. She is doing a series that's a "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" spinoff called "Willow." She also recently did a graphic novel that won a bunch of awards called "Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me." It's amazing. It's a beautiful graphic novel. She did with the artist's name is, oh geez I'm so terrible with names, Valarie. I need to look that up. But the artist is awesome. Forgive me for forgetting her name, but she's one of the best. And then what else am I reading? There's another book called "Bitter Root" that's a monthly series that's fabulous. It's set in the Harlem Renaissance and it's about a group of herbalists, African-American herbalists that create herbs to save clansmen from their own hate. So, in this story, hate actually turns you into a monster, and the only remedy for it, are these potions that this herbalist family creates. It's a beautiful book. >> Sasha Dowdy: Do you have some must haves story high school library or just [multiple speakers]. >> Gene Luen Yang: Well, I yeah I mean I think a-- I think-- I think Maus and Persepolis are definitely must haves I would say "This One Summer" is as well for a high school library, right? We're talking about high school? >> Sasha Dowdy: Uh-hum. >> Gene Luen Yang: Yeah. And "New Kid" by Jerry Craft, Kroscoczka runs a little bit younger, but I think it would sit very well in a high school library. I also think "Bitter Root" Bitter Root is a monthly comic series, but they are releasing it in trade paperback format which is like a graphic novel format. I think that belongs in a high school library as well. >> Sasha Dowdy: And just speaking of "New Kid", we do have Jerry Craft here at the festival, so you can tune in to his Q and A too on Sunday. >> Gene Luen Yang: Oh. You know, I messed that up. Okay, so "New Kid" New Kid by Jerry Craft and "Hey, Kiddo" by Jerrett Kroscoczka, both of those belong in the library. >> Sasha Dowdy: Absolutely. So, we do have to-- we are running out of time somehow, we do have to wind it down. We have a follow-up question if you could answer real quick from Stephanie, if you could repeat the name of the software for creating graphic novels? >> Gene Luen Yang: It's called Comic Life. So, like I said, it's been several years since I taught my class. I'm pretty sure that's still around; Comic Life. >> Sasha Dowdy: Great. And just one last question so we can leave on a really wonderful note, Joe [inaudible] would like to know, "How do you get your inspiration when you start writing a new comic book?" >> Gene Luen Yang: Yeah, that's-- that's the scariest thing is facing a blank page or a blank screen, right? And often I will pull inspiration from my own life. The very first comic that I ever did as an adult was called "Gordon Yamamoto And The King Of The Geeks." It's about a young man who gets a spaceship stuck in his nose. That was actually inspired by my own lifelong struggle with sinus issues. So, I think the things that bother us in life, you know, the things that annoy us or even make us angry are often great fodder for stories. >> Sasha Dowdy: Well, thank you so much Gene. We're unfortunately completely out of time. It has been so great to have you here at the Virtual National Book Festival and for sharing your time with us so generously. Everyone, we've been speaking with Gene Luen Yang whose latest books are "Dragon Hoops" and "Superman Smashes the Klan." You can find his presentation on the Teen Stage of the National Book Festival at nationalbookfestival.com. [ Music ]