102: ROWANA MILLER: Secret societies, teen thrillers, and why kids make interesting writers

This week on LiteraryHype Podcast, we have a whole bunch of firsts! This is Rowana Miller's first interview! We're talking about her debut novel, Secrets of the Blue Hand Girls, which is being compared to Mona Awad's Bunny, but for teens. It's also Rowana's first time at New York Comic Con, so join us for some fun.

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Transcript

00:00:03:14 - 00:00:10:04
Unknown
Hi, and welcome to Literary Hype. I am Stephanie, your literary hype woman, and today's podcast is a fun one because it's got a lot of firsts involved.

00:00:10:08 - 00:00:16:23
Unknown
This is the author's first interview for her first book at her first Comic-Con,

00:00:17:02 - 00:00:32:11
Unknown
And there's a first for me, so I'll leave that for you to find out in this conversation. But the book is secrets of the Blue Hand Girls by Ronan Miller. This is a y, a mystery with some secret societies, dark academia vibes, and a little bit of romance.

00:00:32:16 - 00:00:53:02
Unknown
It's being compared to Bunny. It's like, why? Why a bunny is what some people are calling it, which is really cool for someone on their first published novel to get that kind of cop. Like, that's a really big deal. So without any further ado, here's my conversation with Rosanna miller from New York Comic-Con.

00:00:53:04 - 00:01:04:00
Unknown
Welcome to Literary Hub, which I have just learned. We were filming at your first Comic-Con. Yes. What is your first? Where do you work? What is your first Comic-Con experience been like so far?

00:01:04:02 - 00:01:09:06
Unknown
I it is. There's a lot of it and I am really enjoying it.

00:01:09:08 - 00:01:29:21
Unknown
It's it's a completely new space for me. And I am learning about parts of culture that I just didn't know about before. So I haven't full disclosure, I have not been around completely yet. I was just starting to have a new exhibit called and I'm very excited to visit the artists. I would like to do more of literary stuff.

00:01:29:23 - 00:01:39:17
Unknown
And this has been on my bucket list for a while. I grew up in New York, so this is just something that I figured I get around to eventually. Very exciting. That eventually it was here.

00:01:39:22 - 00:01:46:17
Unknown
And you're doing it with your debut book? Yes. How special is that that you get to debut your book on such a big stage?

00:01:46:19 - 00:01:51:16
Unknown
Oh, it's so special. I mean, what else is the answer to?

00:01:51:18 - 00:02:10:00
Unknown
So this is your first time and your first author interview, which is super cool. Welcome to literary. Hi. Welcome to but you also had a first for me, which was very interesting, which I posted about your book in my, my TBR video, and you comment to.

00:02:10:01 - 00:02:19:19
Unknown
So I think you're the first author who's ever found their own book in my video. I love to go on it. Really? So how did you find my video?

00:02:19:20 - 00:02:45:21
Unknown
I just had a Google search for secrecy medals and your video. Thank you. You were one of the first, I think you were the first YouTuber to talk about that, which is great. Thank you. Who knew? And it's one of my videos from your first went through your list because they did a scavenger hunt. Yeah. And I found the card and then they're like, the books didn't arrive.

00:02:45:23 - 00:03:02:20
Unknown
You have to give us the card. I just send you the link and they follow through. And so it was very exciting to see you on the New York list. I was like, oh, I can get my books out. And now here we are. This is what happens. What community is so special? Oh, that's really lovely. I'm so glad that

00:03:02:22 - 00:03:10:05
Unknown
So we got to talk about book. Your book is The Secrets of the and girls. So for anybody who hasn't seen this around you, I know

00:03:10:09 - 00:03:21:04
Unknown
it is about, an elite high school on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in which a 16 year old gets a letter in her locker, an anonymous letter ordering her to die.

00:03:21:04 - 00:03:38:01
Unknown
Her. And. She follows the instructions, and she starts to discover all sorts of secrets that she really wishes to know about the school, about her peers, and most unfortunately of all, about the cute redhead in her calculus class where she finds herself on

00:03:38:03 - 00:03:44:18
Unknown
tenterhooks. So you got the mystery, you got the bromance. A little bit of fun. And all this on her is like that.

00:03:44:20 - 00:03:58:11
Unknown
But this starts out with a really fun first sentence. And I know you're very involved in writing craft, which we'll get to in a little later. So what do you what is a good person to do? What makes a person a good?

00:03:58:13 - 00:04:24:01
Unknown
Thank you so much for asking. I think there's been a really interesting trend in how we think about inciting incidents over the past ten, 15 years, 10 or 15 years ago. It was okay to have your ads and not have your inciting incident three or so chapters into the book, and now you want to grab reader's attention on the first page in that first case.

00:04:24:03 - 00:05:02:11
Unknown
So you're inciting. I think you should still, I think, have something around track the end of chapter three that drags your your main character irrevocably into the main plot. But even before that, you have to have something that is very different from the first moment. So I would say that having either your real inciting incident, even in sentence number one, and then leading to a large, a continuation of that at the end of chapter three, or having any inciting incident in sentence one and chapter one then leading to your real one at the end of chapter three.

00:05:02:11 - 00:05:13:22
Unknown
I would say that either of those formats works really well, but I think for no matter what, you need to have something that is changing for the character, that is significant for the character from the first, where you have one.

00:05:14:00 - 00:05:23:00
Unknown
That's a really interesting point. And I hadn't thought about it that way. And then we have kind of changed in the literary space to jumping in there, and I feel like I kind of got along with our tensions.

00:05:23:02 - 00:05:26:12
Unknown
Oh, totally. This is definitely the Netflix indication.

00:05:26:14 - 00:05:31:04
Unknown
That's absolutely. Okay. Now I'm going to be thinking about this for like it.

00:05:31:06 - 00:05:40:04
Unknown
And one other thing that I want to point out. The large picture for this book is that it's been compared to Bunny and called Bunny for a while. That book is huge.

00:05:40:04 - 00:05:48:15
Unknown
Like, you know, all of us. Please. As a bunny. What's it mean to you to get. I think it's a comparison on your first try or your first book.

00:05:48:17 - 00:05:58:06
Unknown
Oh, I mean, it's just more. And right now, especially when we're having the bunny resurgence coming out. I think it's a very good moment in my book to be transparent.

00:05:58:08 - 00:06:22:11
Unknown
It's really it's really an honor that people are putting my book in the same category as this film, and I get to do books. That's what I want. I want my readers to be able to have a foot in that in high school. And I think there's there's a point where you can in a dark academia for adults, and you've got some for, yeah.

00:06:22:13 - 00:06:42:13
Unknown
The case is made, I think is a really good example of a book that's made this reference while I'm writing. But I think there's still a lot we can do to keep the dark energy. Okay. For us. So I'm very excited that this is.

00:06:42:15 - 00:06:45:11
Unknown
So what is the initial spark for this?

00:06:45:13 - 00:07:12:18
Unknown
On Halloween of my freshman year of college. I got a letter under my dorm room door with a QR code that said skin. Mr.. I scanned it because, of course I did. And I wound up spending my first semester of freshman year solving riddles and doing scavenger hunts and participating in activities.

00:07:12:20 - 00:07:46:14
Unknown
Oh, that's cool, right? And at the end, a secret that what's really seemed like a very, a very solid, initiation into a secret society or not really an initiation, more of an application process, because there were fewer and fewer of us all using codenames. And this method. But then eventually we got to the aforementioned moon, and we learned that there was not this was not actually past the centuries old secret society.

00:07:46:16 - 00:08:14:04
Unknown
This was for sophomores who wanted to, quote, make meaningful mystery. So it kind of fell apart at the end of the induction, because the point was about the adoption process rather than something waiting on the other side. However, the four sophomores who organized them became my best friends. And and this story is something that I mean, it's been part of my college experience.

00:08:14:06 - 00:08:34:09
Unknown
It's a big part of who I am is definitely the most exciting thing that happened to me at that point. And then the following year, that was when I started working on secrets, the book. I wanted to take that excitement of the initiation and write about it in a story that was in a way I would write, at least for a while.

00:08:34:09 - 00:08:59:22
Unknown
At that point. But I had never written the thriller before, and I had also not really done a good job writing what you know. I know that's something that everybody has to do, and I did not do it. And isn't it isn't it crazy how when you start at a point that is reflective of your experiences and then it becomes your book that is good enough to publish, unlike the others that I had written that were not

00:09:00:00 - 00:09:00:10
Unknown
publishing.

00:09:00:10 - 00:09:09:07
Unknown
It's such a weird, weird journey. Did you have to dye your hand blue for any of those ceremonies involved in your addiction? No, that was just me.

00:09:09:09 - 00:09:10:21
Unknown
Would you date your hand? Blue?

00:09:10:23 - 00:09:14:10
Unknown
I would, but I would be pretty resentful. It's just so messy.

00:09:14:12 - 00:09:17:08
Unknown
I feel a lot of effort. She does. For a lot of us. She does.

00:09:17:08 - 00:09:38:23
Unknown
She really does. And I did. I didn't really dwell on that. But every time I wrote a scene. Minor spoiler about the process of dying okay is hand blue and refreshing the ink. A little part of my brain said, oh, I would hate this so much. This is what I buy and sticky all the time. And I would be leaving blue ink everywhere.

00:09:39:01 - 00:09:53:10
Unknown
I wouldn't be able to deal with that personally. So I would follow the instruction because anonymous letters and lockers are cool and I would like to see what would come of it, but I would be really resentful of the dying, and blue was the requirement

00:09:53:12 - 00:10:00:17
Unknown
I saw online that you're obsessed with secret society. So is that where it all came from with a black college experience? I don't know.

00:10:00:19 - 00:10:13:17
Unknown
I think that my Instagram bio says secret society enthusiast. I think I am enthusiastic rather than fully obsessed. I think the obsession did not help, but certainly I, you know who doesn't love the secret society?

00:10:13:19 - 00:10:32:18
Unknown
Not only do we have the secret society side of things, but we also get this real insight into okay, and there's like this one too, where she's like, I have to get the good so I can keep my scholarship so I can go to professors. And that was just so real. Like, you know, especially I'm, I'm a little bit about getting into.

00:10:32:20 - 00:11:04:23
Unknown
she was a not, not super poor, but certainly far below average income came in a very, very wealthy and and she that that makes her feel like no matter what happens to her, she's always going to have to prove herself, particularly when it comes to grades. She feels that the only thing that she really has going for her is that she's.

00:11:05:01 - 00:11:30:15
Unknown
So when she gets the invitation to dinner in blue, that's the first time that she's really questioned whether there's anything that's more important than keeping her head down, getting good grades and going to a college that will somehow make this horrible high school experience worth it. What if it is possible to not have a horrible high school experience in this moment?

00:11:30:17 - 00:12:04:08
Unknown
So that's really what's motivating her. And she goes back and forth over the course that I feel about whether this is worth it. I wish that when I was in high school that I had been more willing to take risks. And in a lot of ways, I think that I think that probably a lot of the readers who pick this up are also over two high school kids, and I don't know if this is necessarily inspiration to make big choices other than focusing on the school, because it doesn't always turn out so great.

00:12:04:10 - 00:12:23:12
Unknown
Okay. But I do think that it's a it's a nice reminder that there are things that are important to outside of very single mindedly focusing on getting into a specific college. And if you don't do everything to recapture that, then then nothing else matters. You are nothing else besides the desire to get to that competition. It's awkward for kids.

00:12:23:12 - 00:12:37:13
Unknown
It's like lesson in fiction. It's such a great way for people to learn my lessons without actually having to do the work. Oh, totally. Just a little bit about how it looks like these kind of builds empathy and understanding.

00:12:37:15 - 00:13:11:01
Unknown
being able to participate in a world other than your own. I think are really good for stretching your brain a bit, as well as for helping you to be more compassionate about what you're seeing outside the pages. There is some really, really good scholarship out there talking about the benefits of both reading and writing on, for for building empathy skills, social and emotional skills really come from the process of being able to see the world through others eyes.

00:13:11:03 - 00:13:22:00
Unknown
So whether those are the eyes that you are reading from your eyes that you are creating, it's good for your development to become as a person as well as your development and becoming somebody. That's

00:13:22:02 - 00:13:33:06
Unknown
one thing. I thought it was interesting is how it's basically like information is currency for this. This for me. Yeah. And I feel like that's kind of true in our society a little bit.

00:13:33:10 - 00:13:41:15
Unknown
Yes. Especially like people in power trading secrets. So, so talk a little bit on that dynamic, you know, in high school setting.

00:13:41:17 - 00:14:06:10
Unknown
Teenagers have no there. It really sucks to be a teenager. People are telling you what to do all the time. You have to be in this very regimented school environment. You are starting to get a really clear sense of who you are, but you just don't have the freedom to be able to make all the choices that are reflective of your values and where you want your what you want your life to look like.

00:14:06:12 - 00:14:21:08
Unknown
But one of the things that you do have access to is information. I think that that's a big reason why so many kids and teenagers are excited about being the influencers, because it's one of the few ways that you can really access power and agency as a manager.

00:14:21:09 - 00:14:41:07
Unknown
in the context of this book, the information that they have access to is about to going on, going on to school and about each other and about moments in their own lives that they have regretted and that may or may not have had far reaching consequences.

00:14:41:09 - 00:14:50:18
Unknown
And even though those are really high stakes things to share, it's worth it, because that's the only thing that you have. Very often when you're in that situation.

00:14:50:20 - 00:15:00:12
Unknown
You have a lot of experience with the kids in the teens because that is part of it. But so talk to me a little bit about what I heard yourself. Thank you so much for asking.

00:15:00:16 - 00:15:11:23
Unknown
Cosmic writers is a creative writing education nonprofit. The goal is to use storytelling as a vehicle for cultivating kids reading writing skills.

00:15:12:01 - 00:15:33:00
Unknown
Going back to the kids have no agency thing. One thing that kids can do in order to make real change in the world is, is writing. And that's something that so many people of any age, or particularly kids, don't realize they have as an option for them, as a way of being able to develop their values as a creator.

00:15:33:02 - 00:15:56:09
Unknown
So the goal of cosmic writers is to be able to work with kids, to both develop the core skills that will allow you to use writing in order to change your world, and to become empowered to use writing to the full extent of what it can do. Storytelling is our primary focus. We have a lot of emphasis on trauma.

00:15:56:11 - 00:16:11:14
Unknown
We do a lot of dark fiction, a lot of mystery and horror thriller. It's not just because I think it's cool, but because that's what kids really want to write. And that's what makes what makes them self-motivated, to keep writing and to become stronger.

00:16:11:16 - 00:16:21:18
Unknown
So working with kids and you're also an adjunct professor, what is helping others learn to write and improve their writing helps you with your own.

00:16:21:20 - 00:16:56:00
Unknown
Kids are really here in a cool. They're totally unencumbered or not totally unencumbered, but definitely largely unencumbered by a lot of the norms that adults have internalized as common sense. So they will write and write structures that are totally unexpected or they will focus on really funny details that adults just want things to emphasize. So getting to read the writing, especially people at different stages of development, is really great for reminding me about all the different things that I do.

00:16:56:00 - 00:16:58:11
Unknown
You take, and I think that that's a very good influence.

00:16:58:16 - 00:17:02:07
Unknown
Are you working on any books for the future that you can talk about?

00:17:02:09 - 00:17:19:04
Unknown
I am working on another book for the future, and I can't talk about it. I one thing I will say is there is definitely a book to coming, but the contract was for two books, so I know I will have to say that my picture book two was approved last week, but that's all I'm going to say for now.

00:17:19:06 - 00:17:23:07
Unknown
last question we always ask because this is literary hype. What books are you hyped about?

00:17:23:09 - 00:17:37:11
Unknown
I'm so late to the bandwagon on this, but I just read a few words. It was so good. I read it in one day. Two cities, had a great time and I'm very excited to read. Know and

00:17:37:11 - 00:17:45:22
Unknown
I haven't gotten. So we were really clear about that. I have a hard enough time to make that don't. We'll

00:17:46:00 - 00:17:49:10
Unknown
talking about books, reading books, writing books all the time.

00:17:49:11 - 00:17:53:02
Unknown
But yes, you going to can't hunt for books. They're all very separate topics

00:17:53:02 - 00:18:03:22
Unknown
But God's good to you. Take time for all of you. Thanks so much for coming up. Literary I was talking about your brand new book, The Secret for the weekend. Harold. Thank you again for having me. I really, really appreciate it.

00:18:04:00 - 00:18:06:22
Unknown
Go on

00:18:07:00 - 00:18:18:12
Unknown
Thanks again to Rosanna for hanging out with me at New York Comic-Con to talk all about the secrets of the Blue Hand Girls. If you'd like to check out this book, which you shared the links to do so are in the description for you, as well as where to find her on social media.

00:18:18:16 - 00:18:28:21
Unknown
If you enjoyed this conversation, don't forget to subscribe to the Literary Hype Podcast. Give us some stars, leave a comment and share it with your friends. Thanks so much for listening to the Literary Hype podcast.