Compelling, emotionally honest storytelling

[00:00:00] REAGAN JACKSON: I keep thinking I'm going to get a Kindle and then I never do. So I have the weight of books in my backpack.

ANNE BOGEL: If it's not broken.

REAGAN: Exactly, right?

ANNE: Hey readers, I'm Anne Bogel and this is What Should I Read Next?. Welcome to the show that's dedicated to answering the question that plagues every reader, what should I read next? We don't get bossy on this show. What we will do here is give you the information you need to choose your next read. Every week we'll talk all things books and reading and do a little literary matchmaking with one guest.

[00:00:47] Today's guest is passionate about stories and the people who tell them. And she is here today to get my help in finding compelling reads for the year ahead. Reagan Jackson calls Seattle home. Although she's been on a sabbatical lately that has taken her to Central and South America, as you will hear.

When she's not on the road, she works as the co-executive director of Young Women Empowered. She's also the author of the forthcoming book Still True: The Evolution of an Unexpected Journalist, which tell stories of Seattle's Black and intersectional community.

Today, Reagan and I talk about her search for emotionally honest romance, the popular classic she hates, and the memoirs she can't put down. Reagan's also recently been introduced to graphic novels, and this is a reading experience you would like more of in 2024. I'm excited to give Reagan fresh suggestions for the genre she loves, and the types of stories she's eager to explore right now. Let's get to it.

Reagan, welcome to the show.

REAGAN: Thank you.

ANNE: I'm so excited to talk books and more with you today. Thanks for coming on.

[00:01:47] REAGAN: I'm excited to be here. I appreciate the invitation.

ANNE: Reagan, tell us a little bit about yourself. We want to give our readers a glimpse of who you are.

REAGAN: Well, in this now moment, I am just coming back to Seattle after a two-month sabbatical. I'm entering month three of a sabbatical, and I've just been to... Oh, where did I go? Costa Rica, Panama and Chile. I love being warm. I love speaking in Spanish. I love to write and read.

I'm currently the co-executive director of a fantastic organization called Young Women Empowered. In March, I'm going to be launching a book called Still True: The Evolution of an Unexpected Journalist. And that's on Hinton Press. I'm like the very first person that they're publishing. I'm really feeling honored about that.

I live in Seattle, Washington, in a beautiful turquoise house with no pets and no kids. Mostly I'm kind of a seeker. I want to understand what makes the world work, and how people are living their lives, and the ways in which they want to live their lives to make things better for other people.

[00:03:00] ANNE: Did you have the good fortune to be able to articulate that essential thing about your nature, which I imagine impacts so many different areas of your life, when you were young, or did it take you a long time to come to that realization that that may be a unifying thread for you?

REAGAN: You know, I think both and. Maybe it's an iterative realization or kind of a spiral where I come to it in different places in my life at different times. But definitely as a kid, I was someone really curious. I was also always a writer, like a person who had a... I still have a notebook in my purse at all times just in case an idea comes to me or something that I need to write about. So I was deeply curious about people and wanting to get to know them and understand them. And that's been a big motivation in my life.

ANNE: Well, I hope we get to hear more about what that means in your reading life and your writing life.

REAGAN: Yeah.

ANNE: It sounds like we're catching you at a really interesting time. I'd love to hear more about that sabbatical.

[00:04:00] REAGAN: So, again, I work for Young Women Empowered, or YWE as we like to call it. We're a youth-serving nonprofit based in Seattle. I have the great privilege of working with teenagers ages 13 to 19 and trying to support them, really meet them where they are, give them tools that help them to feel more confident in their lives, and to take creative risk, and give them opportunities to practice being who they want to be in the world.

It's year eight for me now with YWE. After the fifth year, you're eligible for a three-month paid sabbatical. And of course, my year five fell right into the pandemic, so that was not the best time for me to do it. But yeah, we're at the place now where I could go.

The thing that's been really coming up for me is wanting to have an experience that really resourced me, that made me come back feeling enlivened and excited about life in the world. So when I was planning it out, I met with this woman, Katrina Gig, who's a sabbatical coach.

ANNE: What a fascinating job.

[00:05:08] REAGAN: Yeah. I had never heard that there was such a thing. But yeah, she's a sabbatical coach, a life coach. She helps with transitions. So we sat down and came up with a plan for what I could do to feel liberated, to feel expansive, to enjoy my time, to not feel pressured to work at all.

So the first part of my sabbatical was going on a road trip with my dad. We drove, or I should say, I drove from Seattle to Wisconsin and we went and saw some friends and hung out. And then when we got back, I decided to go on my personal trip.

So I went to a little tiny place called Collis in Costa Rica. It's right on the coast of the Caribbean Sea, and it's just gorgeous, lush. I caught it at the rainy season, just the tail end of the rainy season, so every day there was a bit of an intense, crazy storm. But then the storm would clear up and the beach would dry off. I just found it to be an incredibly beautiful, lush, delightful place to be.

[00:06:11] ANNE: That sounds incredible. And I believe from reading your work that you have a history with Costa Rica.

REAGAN: Yeah. So I went last year, actually with my mom. She recently retired and was looking into what it might be like to be an expat and where we're good places. So she came up with a list of five different countries. Costa Rica was on there and she said, "Hey, well, do you want to go on this relocation tour with me?" And I thought, "Oh, sure, why not?"

So I got there and she had made all the arrangements. There is a woman named Davia who that's her job is she's a relocation specialist, and she host tours especially for what she calls melanated people, so Black folks looking to escape the United States, and find freedom elsewhere.

ANNE: That chapter in your book was fascinating to me. I did not know.

[00:07:06] REAGAN: The whole experience was really fascinating for me and funny because of course my mom got there and took one look at the roads and was like, "I can't live here. This is not an elder friendly." But I got there and thought, "Oh, you can't maybe live here, but there might be something here for me." So it was really interesting to like go back.

So I met up with Davia, and I met up actually with all of the people that I interviewed for that first piece that I wrote in the book, and it was so interesting to see what their lives are like a year later.

ANNE: I imagine. Well, I'm so glad that you got to go back in person to hear those stories. Reagan, you said in your submission that you recently went surfing in the Caribbean and that you learned a whole lot from the experience. I'm so curious.

REAGAN: Yeah. So years ago I had this dream about surfing and I woke up and I was all inspired, and I was like, "Oh, I'm going to go surfing," you know? So it's been this kind of long-time idea in my head. And then last year I tried to surf for the first time, and it was cool, but it definitely didn't work. Like, you know, I was mostly just in the ocean getting battered.

[00:08:17] So this time when I went back, I thought, "No, I've been working out, I've been working on my core strength, working on my balance, fixing my knees, I think I can do this thing." So I met up with Herschel, who's the surf instructor, and we went to Playa Grande. And we get out there and for two hours the ocean just beats me up, pummels me. I'm just sucking down ocean water, like falling every single time I attempted. It was really hard.

I fell one time and scraped my knees up against the boards and then I actually literally scraped the skin off my knees. And yet there was something in me that was like, "I'm so close. I couldn't do it this time, but I know if I were to come back, like my body understands how to do this, I just want to try it one more time."

[00:09:07] So I went back a second day and spent another I'd say about 45 minutes to an hour getting beaten up by the ocean. And then at a certain point, I was just getting really tired. So I was kind of resting on the board and he's like, "Yeah, we can't rest in the ocean. That's dangerous. You're going to drown. Go to the sand, do what you need to do, come back out."

So go to the sand, I sit on the board and I start to meditate and just ground myself. And I start visualizing what it's going to feel like when I'm actually standing up and riding the wave and not, you know, being ridden, by the wave basically. So I meditate for five minutes, I went in.

Herschel's a great teacher, and he's been trying to explain everything like the best he can. And I get it. Intellectually, I get it. But there's just this barrier between what my mind knows and what my body's going to do. So we're there and he's like, "Are you ready?" And I'm like, "Okay, I'm ready, I'm ready. I'm going to do this." And right before he sends me off, he's like, "It's now or never."

[00:10:12] He had another surf instructor, [Garabiel?], who is a champion surfer from Costa Rica. And he says, "Lift your eyes up." "Levanta tu vista" is what he said actually. Like, lift your vision up? So with both of them in my head as the wave came, that's exactly what I did. And everything came together. I lifted my vision up. That pulled my leg into alignment. All of me like lifts up. And I have this incredible moment where I'm standing on the board and surfing is happening, and everybody on the beach who's just literally just watching me eat sand for like the last hour starts jumping up and down and screaming and cheering, and it's this really awesome moment.

ANNE: That's like a movie or a book.

REAGAN: It felt like it. It felt like a movie moment.

ANNE: Wow.

REAGAN: But in terms of what I learned, part of it was getting out of my own way, finding alignment, allowing positive self-talk. Because definitely it would have been easy to be like, "Okay, I'm not getting it. I'm not going to do it."

[00:11:14] But everyone around me also was really positive, so that allowed me to kind of maintain. And I was like, "No, actually, I can do this. I absolutely can." And then I did. And then once you do something, you can just do it. Right? I'm not saying it's easy every time, but I definitely was able to do it like four more times before my session ended.

ANNE: And it started with a dream.

REAGAN: And it started with this dream. The other thing that really came up for me is I have this idea of balance as being standing still, and it's just not. Balance is motion. Balance is movement. And I think oftentimes in my life when I want to find balance, I just want the world to stop moving. But that's not how it works. There's ways that you can find balance while you're in motion. And you can kind of slow time down in a way, too.

ANNE: That's an incredible takeaway to have from a sabbatical where you are spending so much time moving in order to resource yourself.

[00:12:16] REAGAN: Yeah. It was a really cool experience. I intentionally went to Costa Rica by myself for 22 days just to ground and let go and move forward. And then after that, I went to Panama because I'd never been there. It's always good to do something you've never done. And then after that I went to Chile where I lived 21 years ago with a homestay family in Santiago.

ANNE: Whoa. What was it like to be back after such a gap?

REAGAN: You know, it was really weird. It was super weird. But also really great. Great in that the family and I had kept in contact. So when I was there, I was early 20s, had a little host brother who was 6. He turned 7 while I was there. So now he's 28.

ANNE: Oh, my gosh.

REAGAN: A total adult. Has a job.

ANNE: So you could pat him on the head and now he can drive you around.

REAGAN: Yeah, basically.

ANNE: And then some.

[00:13:14] REAGAN: Yeah, so that was kind of trippy. And then also when I was there, they lived in this place in Kilikura called Valle de Campino and their housing development was kind of the end of what was there. And then so you walk outside of that and it's just campo. It's like horses and nature. And now it's a suburb. Like it's just all these houses and women doing Zumba in the park, and there's a grocery store and a roast chicken place. So it was interesting to see how much it had grown.

But also when I lived in Chile, I was the only Black person ever anywhere. Like there just weren't any. And now I guess there's been an influx of like Haitian immigrants. So I'm looking around and there's like Black people everywhere and it's just normal. Whereas when I lived there, everybody would stare at me all the time.

So this family ended up... we kept in contact. And at a certain point, like maybe two or three years ago, Nacho, my host brother, reached out to see if he could come and stay with me in the States. So he and his girlfriend lived with me for three months here in Seattle.

ANNE: Really?

REAGAN: Yeah.

[00:14:21] ANNE: Oh, that's amazing that you could reverse your roles. What did he think of Seattle?

REAGAN: Oh, he loved it.

ANNE: Not an unlucky city for him?

REAGAN: No. They had a great time. They were into the big Pokémon Go thing. So they were like catching Pokémon in every park.

ANNE: I'm glad you could host them. Thank you so much for sharing those stories from your sabbatical. And I'm excited for you. You have one more month to see what the universe has for you.

Reagan, I imagine that it's not poor timing to have this sabbatical not long before your new book heads out into the world. Would you tell us a little bit about Still True?

REAGAN: Yeah. So Still True it's part memoir for a 10-year period of time during which I was a freelance journalist based in South Seattle. It's part collection of essays and articles. Some of the articles are previously published and some are new.

[00:15:19] But yeah, all of them really they tell a story about this city, they tell a story about our positionality in the world, also, of course, about just the ways in which particularly people of color are positioned in media. And for me, I never had dreams of being a journalist, even though I respect the news and I definitely grew up in a household where NPR was on all the time, or we were watching 2020, or both my parents are news junkies.

I never really saw a place for myself in journalism because everything I saw in the news felt really biased, I guess, is one way to put it. Or like they're telling the story without the full context or the truth. And especially all of the things that I read about South Seattle, none of those things really rang true when I moved here and began to live here.

[00:16:18] Because, you know, if you let White media tell it, South Seattle is a terrible place to live, where, you know, there's just crime everywhere and people are getting shot in the street all the time. Nobody talks about the ways in which communities really come together, especially during the pandemic, how a lot of the restaurant owners took turns giving away free meals and hot meals to make sure that folks who are food insecure had food. Or the ways in which every year there's a Rainier Beach bash, a back-to-school bash, where kids can get school supplies and backpacks, and where we just come together as a community to celebrate art. Or about the farm. These are all the stories that exist simultaneous to the other stories, but people seem to ignore them.

ANNE: Could you say more about the importance of community members telling their own stories, ones that they actually know and recognize themselves in?

REAGAN: Yeah. Well, I mean, to me, that's the whole point of journalism and something that I feel like we've kind of gotten away from is for people to be able to express the truth of what's happening in our lives.

[00:17:24] What I found is that people from outside of the community tell incomplete stories, whereas people from inside of the community can give you that additional balanced insight. It doesn't mean that it's like, oh, everything is good. If people in the community tell it, then everything is perfect. No. I think you still see the rough edges, but you see a more complete, more humane version of events.

ANNE: That's so interesting, the concept of completeness.

REAGAN: Well, it's something I spend a lot of time thinking about, or maybe lots of writers do. You know, like, when is the story complete? When does it feel right? I think, you know, as a writer, you kind of develop a felt sense of that. But yeah, in terms of journalism, so often what I would read would just ring untrue and incomplete.

ANNE: I'm thinking about journalism, nonfiction, and novels, that even if we can't quite put our finger on what's missing, even a reader who is not intimately familiar with the material, you know, who couldn't tell that story themselves, still can recognize when it is not complete.

[00:18:28] REAGAN: Yeah. So the question becomes, what do you do about it? Do you just let that go? Does that just become the standard? Or do you make a different choice? Do you insert yourself in your voice to hopefully find that completion, to find that point of balance?

ANNE: Well, Reagan, I'm glad that you chose to answer the question the way you did. And I'm really excited for readers to pick this up. Do you have a favorite in the collection?

REAGAN: Ooh.

ANNE: Is that just an impossible question?

REAGAN: I'm like, I don't know. I don't think about it in those terms. But what I will say is some of this writing to me felt very expensive, in that it cost me a lot to go through the experiences to get to the other side. So one piece I would say that is a good read is why I decided to start a study abroad program. And another piece is the tea on our Juneteenth experience.

[00:19:23] ANNE: That's such a good metaphor, that the writing was expensive. I've not heard that before.

REAGAN: When I talk with youth, well, about a lot of different things, anything, we talk about energetic exchange, and that nothing is free in this life. If there's something that you want, if there's something you want to learn, something you want to experience, it's not so much that you have to pay money for it necessarily, but you have to pay some way. Maybe it's your time. Maybe it's your attention. Maybe some part of that is your purpose or your gift, but you still have to be in it or cultivate it in a way so that you can receive the gifts of any given experience.

ANNE: Yeah, I like the way you put that. Reagan, I so enjoyed hearing some of your story and especially what you've been up to this year. You're an avid reader as well, and you mentioned how that deep curiosity factors into your reading life. But I'd love to hear about what reading does mean to you in this season.

[00:20:20] REAGAN: Yes, I absolutely love to read. It's been something that actually was really cultivated in my family. Both my parents are avid readers. And I feel like every season there's different things that kind of draw my attention. Having just been traveling, one of the things that I did was I packed several books. I keep thinking I'm going to get a Kindle, and then I never do, so I have the weight of books in my backpack.

ANNE: If it's not broken.

REAGAN: Exactly, right? But yeah, I think some of the things that I've been really drawn to in this moment about reading or in my reading life have been just a counterbalance to the insanity that is now. It's kind of depressing and bleak and intense, so I want to read fiction and romance and happy endings and things that make me laugh out loud.

ANNE: That is so relatable to so many readers. Is there anything else you'd like to say about reading in general?

[00:21:18] REAGAN: Recently one of my best friends from middle school and high school reached out to me because, again, I'm somebody who was always reading. I always had a book. And she was someone who was definitely not reading and was always like, "I don't understand what it is that you're getting out of that. What are you doing?"

And then recently, she discovered Audibles. And for her learning style, that's been a thing to really unlock reading for her. And so now she's just as obsessed with reading as I ever was.

ANNE: Oh, that is such a gift to you.

REAGAN: It is. I'm like, oh, we can finally share about this. And she's like, I just didn't understand. She's like, "It's hard for me to get into the page, but when it's read to me like this," she's like, "Oh, God, I could spend hours doing this."

ANNE: Oh, that's amazing. I'm so glad that now you have the gift of a great friend that you can now talk about books with as well.

REAGAN: Exactly. Because it's a way also to just see into another world.

[00:22:13] ANNE: Yeah. Well, I'm glad she found that, and I'm happy for you as well. Reagan, we are going to get into more specifics about what you have read and loved in your life so that we can hopefully send you on your way with some great books that will feel right for what you're looking for right now. And I'd love to hear how you chose these that we're going to talk about today.

REAGAN: Ooh, just off the cuff.

ANNE: That's a great answer. That's a great answer. Reagan, you know how this works. You're going to share three books you love, one book you don't, and what you've been reading lately, and we will talk about what you may enjoy reading next. What is the first book you love?

REAGAN: It's a book I read a little while ago, Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan. They are two authors that go back and forth. So each chapter is the story of one Will Grayson versus the other Will Grayson. So there are two kids living in Chicago, both named Will Grayson, who unexpectedly collide. It's a comedy. It's romantic. It's ridiculous. There's a character in there called Tiny Cooper, who's like one of my favorite literary characters ever. Love this book.

[00:23:22] ANNE: I love how just thinking about this book has you laughing.

REAGAN: Yeah. I mean, it's that kind of book. What I like about it too, though, and always actually with anything with John Green and David Levithan, like there's always poignant moments as well. So yeah, it's funny and it's ridiculous, but it's also... shares kind of universal truths in a way that feel really relatable.

ANNE: So it has the poignancy and the humor and the universal takeaways.

REAGAN: Absolutely.

ANNE: Maybe takeaways makes it sound like homework. You know I don't mean that.

REAGAN: Hmm. Well, but there's something about... like I don't want to read a book that I can just walk away from and never think of again.

ANNE: You want something that sticks with you.

REAGAN: Yeah, there should be a takeaway.

ANNE: I know that you said in your submission that you have a... I don't want to put words in your mouth, but that this is a YA novel and that is not a coincidence.

[00:24:15] REAGAN: So in grad school, I got my master's in international education with a focus on social justice and taking youth abroad. And during that time, I had to read all these really dry, long textbooks, and it was taking a lot of time. And a friend of mine introduced me actually to Tamora Pierce and the Lioness Quartet. So like Alanna the Lioness and like all those books, which are great.

But what I found about young adult fiction, it was a faster read, and it was just easier to get into in that specific moment in my life. During a time when I had all this other reading I had to do, I needed something that I could kind of fit in between. But then I just kind of fell in love with the genre as well and I just never stopped reading it.

ANNE: I love that. I'm glad you found a genre that could work for you. Reagan, what's the second book you love?

REAGAN: Oh, this one's by Talia Hibbert, and it's a romance. It's Dani Brown, Takes a Hint. It's actually the second book of a three-book kind of series of the Brown sisters. So there's Chloe Brown, Dani Brown, and Eve Brown. They are all a delight.

[00:25:26] But what I love specifically about this book is that Dani is not a character I've ever seen represented in any literary fiction. Dani is somebody I feel like I would know in real life. She's a witch. She's bisexual. She's Black. She is a scholar working on her PhD in Black feminism, in Black feminist studies. So definitely super relatable, like somebody I would know.

She ends up kind of in this romance with a guy named Zaf, who is a Pakistani rugby player, who has suffered a great loss that has kind of caused his career to stall. So, yeah, like, one of the things I liked was that these were people I've never read anything about before. And that's something I'm seeing more and more, better representation in romance novels.

Because previously, like, I feel like any time you pick up a romance novel, it's, you know, some willowy white woman in the 1800s in England, in like some, you know, gigantic dress, trying to get married basically, so that she has something to do with her life. And that's not super relatable.

[00:26:38] ANNE: No, I don't even know a lot of people who wear big dresses. Like, you know, forget the rest of it.

REAGAN: I mean, maybe the ball gown is the most relatable part for me.

ANNE: That's how you know it's a problem.

REAGAN: Yeah, yes, definitely.

ANNE: Reagan, what's the third book you love?

REAGAN: A Wrinkle in Time. That's a throwback book for me. That was one of, I would say, kind of my childhood foundational books of when I was like, oh, one, I love this book, and two, I want to be a writer. And from that moment of reading Meg's story, I became obsessed with Madeleine L'Engle and basically tried to read everything she'd ever written. So just really went down.

ANNE: Which is no small task.

[00:27:24] REAGAN: Oh, yeah, she was prolific. You know, I've got like 60 books. Generally what I love about Madeleine L'Engle is she writes these kind of quirky books about good and evil. Where, yeah, again, you see these characters that are flawed and complex, but they can take their flaws and use them as strengths.

That was one of the biggest kind of takeaways I got from A Wrinkle in Time is when the witches are giving Meg advice about how to move through this really difficult journey she's on, one of them gives her the gift of her flaws. And she, of course, doesn't like that as a gift because, you know, who's like, Oh, great, the gift of my imperfection. But that is actually, you know, spoiler alert, what really saves her.

ANNE: I've read this book. You can't spoil it for me. And yet, I completely forgot about that gift.

REAGAN: Yeah, no, that was one of those things that just always really stuck with me because I thought, okay, well, what if somebody were to give me the gift of my flaws? Like, what could I do with that? I feel like a lot of my work has been an answer to that. It's no accident that I work with teenage girls, particularly girls, non-binary and trans youth, because I had pretty rough, rocky teen years.

[00:28:45] And those experiences, I think, are often what make me relatable and what make me someone who can earn the trust of our youth to support them through their challenges. Because I embrace my own flaws. And through that they can see a pathway through to their own journey of self-love.

ANNE: And it's the thing that actually lets you do your work.

REAGAN: Absolutely.

ANNE: What would Madeleine say? She'd love it. What's the name of the protagonist that I loved and adored and now I'm blinking on her name?

REAGAN: Oh, Meg.

ANNE: Meg. Meg. Meg would love that.

REAGAN: It was Meg and Calvin and Charles Wallace.

ANNE: Oh my gosh, Charles Wallace. I need to read that again. I found a copy in the Little Free Library recently and I have it. It's on my shelf. I brought it home with me. I'm like, I read this book, but I need to read it again. This is a sign from the universe. And now you're telling me about it.

[00:29:34] REAGAN: You know, it still holds up. It's interesting. As I've evolved as a writer, there's definitely different things I might have chosen to do, and yet, that's inspiring to me as well. Because it's not that long of a book. It's a pretty simple plot, pretty simple story. But yet, that a book like that that is imperfect could make such an impact on me as a person. It gives me hope as a writer that, you know, maybe I don't have to be perfect. Maybe this doesn't have to be the best book you've ever read to still mean something to you.

ANNE: That is a remarkable insight. I should put that in my refrigerator, Reagan.

REAGAN: I mean, it helps me to keep going because definitely I think...

ANNE: I see. I see how it can.

REAGAN: As writers, you know, you hit those moments where you're like, this is total crap.

ANNE: Well, and we were talking about how work needs to feel complete. So there's a difference between complete and perfect, perhaps.

REAGAN: Absolutely.

ANNE: Yeah. You don't want to send it out before it's ready but also... oh, there's so much to think about there.

REAGAN: Yeah.

[00:30:33] ANNE: Reagan, tell us about a book that was not right for you.

REAGAN: There's so many, but I'll go with...

ANNE: I just want to say your submission had me nodding.

REAGAN: Well, okay, just backing up, something that my mom made me do was as a kid... she's funny. I think she had this curriculum of how to raise me. And I've never gotten to see a written document or anything but there's these specific things that she made choices about. So one was that if I was going to read Sweet Valley Twins, for every two Sweet Valley Twin books, I had to read a classic.

ANNE: Oh, I would have read so many classics if my mom made me strike that bargain.

REAGAN: Oh, yeah. And I did.

ANNE: Wow, Reagan's mom. Wow.

REAGAN: Yeah. So it was a whole thing. But one of the books that I absolutely loathed and despised was Little Women.

ANNE: I didn't read that till I was an adult.

[00:31:28] REAGAN: Hated it with the passion of a thousand suns. The only character that I really loved and related to, of course, was Jo, who was the writer. And then when her sister takes her book and threw it in the fire, I was going to take Little Women and throw it in the fire. I was like, Nope, I hate this. I hate all of this. Like, why?

ANNE: Not to your taste or you just do not understand why people love it?

REAGAN: I thought that their lives were not interesting or compelling or relatable. The only character that I really liked, everybody in the books was always down on her or blocking her from being a better or the best version of herself in ways where I thought, Oh, God, like, why?

ANNE: Reagan, in your submission, you also mentioned that you were not into The Rainbow Fish or The Giving Tree or Of Mice and Men. And I just thought...

[00:32:28] REAGAN: Yes, I hate all of those. They can be wonderfully done, but they did not sit well with me. None of them.

REAGAN: Well, okay, so part of it is like timing, too. So when I read The Rainbow Fish, I was an adult and I was living in Japan. I was the only Black person anywhere in my little rural town in Japan. So to a point where people would stop me on the street to take pictures or to get my autograph.

ANNE: Oh, wow.

REAGAN: Yeah, it was really intense. I had one woman who she touched my hand and she had tears in her eyes and she's like, "Why did your mother leave you out in the sun?" And I was like, "That's not how Black people are made."

So I was at a place where I was feeling really isolated and really different. One of the things that I like to do is I go to Kobe, to the Kinokuniya, which was like the English-speaking bookstore. So that's like a two-hour train ride to get there. And I would just buy books and binge books.

[00:33:26] I was reading this book about this little rainbow fish and everybody hated on this fish until she conformed and basically gave away her scales. Then everybody was happy because each of them could have a special scale and they could all be special together. And I was like, "What the hell?" No. Zero respect for that. Like, No.

So that actually was the inspiration to writing the poem that then became my first children's book, which is called Coco Laswish: A Fish from a Different Rainbow.

ANNE: Oh, I'm glad you mentioned that.

REAGAN: Yeah. I was teaching fourth and fifth grade at Meridian School, fourth and fifth grade Spanish. And we had school assemblies on every Friday, and I was noticing these kids were having these kind of rainbow fish tendencies of really wanting all the other children around them to conform.

So, yeah, I wrote a poem about a fish from a different rainbow to remind them to just be who they are and to shine as they are. One of the parents liked it so much, she was like, "You have to turn this into a book." It's one of those things where it took me like two hours to write a poem and five years to make it into a book.

[00:34:34] ANNE: That parent didn't know what they were doing to you.

REAGAN: Yeah. And it was really sweet. She was super supportive. It was super supportive and super encouraging. Like I just really didn't know how to do that.

ANNE: And we will link that book and all the books we discussed today in our show notes. Reagan, what have you been reading lately?

REAGAN: Ooh, I just had the great privilege of being on a panel with Aiden Thomas. And to that end, I wanted to read his first book, which is called Cemetery Boys, and it was so good. It was so good.

ANNE: That's how people talk about this book.

REAGAN: Right? Again, like I value two things. One is, to read books I just haven't read before. I think that's a hard thing to do because... you know, what is it Shakespeare said something about nothing new under the sun?

ANNE: Mm-hmm.

REAGAN: You know, like we're all kind of working with the same material. So when I read something that I haven't read before, it really sparks my imagination, my creativity, my excitement.

[00:35:33] But yeah, this book is about a trans Brujo who comes from this magical family of witches who tend to the dead. And there's been a death in his community and everybody's going out and trying to find this person and find out what happened.

It's a story of family and magic, and also that hero's journey of this trans youth wanting to be accepted as a full member of their community, as a full Brujo with a family that doesn't really have language that incorporates their gender identity. You know, as things happen, he ends up with his cousin accidentally kind of attached to the spirit of this kid who they'd never met before. And it becomes kind of like this murder mystery-solving thing of like, who killed this kid?

I don't want to spoil it more than that. I just will say the characters were compelling, the story was fascinating and it definitely didn't go where I thought it was going.

[00:36:40] ANNE: And there's so much here that sounds really hard, but we can hear the tone in your voice. Also, I mean, there's a cat named Purrcasso. It definitely has a lot of sweetness and a strong sense of humor.

REAGAN: Absolutely.

ANNE: That's so fun you got to be on that panel together. Reagan, what else have you been reading lately? Because I was on that panel with Aiden and he lives in Portland where my dad lives, we ended up meeting up at Powell's. So a lot of what I'm reading are like things that Aiden Thomas recommended. Kind of a hilarious moment, you know, that kind of we go to the bookstore and there's that little tab underneath the book. Like, if you like this book, you might like this.

ANNE: Oh, I love this.

REAGAN: So we did kind of in real life hangout at Powell's where he's like, Oh, well, tell me about what you like. And I did. And then he was like, "Well, then you might like Wings of Ebony," which I did. It was great. Or Fat Chance, Charlie. That was also delightful.

Aiden gave me some recommendations for craft books as well since he knew I was working on a young adult fiction novel. One of them was Save the Cat! Writes a Young Adult Novel. It's useful. It's actually really great.

[00:37:50] ANNE: I have a different version of that book on my shelf right here in my line of sight.

REAGAN: Oh, very cool.

ANNE: I'm glad that's working for you. Thank you for those Aiden Thomas recs. Delivered right to us via Powell's and you. Reagan, what are you looking for in your reading life right now? As we think about what you've enjoyed and maybe you've run out of Aiden Thomas recs, what sorts of books or stories are you hoping to get to enjoy in your near horizon?

REAGAN: I'm interested in some quest books right now, like kind of in the style of Alchemist, you know, Hero's Journey type things. I would really like some recommendations for romance as well. I loved Talia Hibbert and Rebekah Weatherspoon and Helen Wong and just some of these folks that I've been getting into. But I'd love to see what else is out there. I feel like that's a genre in some ways that for me is harder to parse out.

[00:38:50] ANNE: Do you have any theories on why that is?

REAGAN: I think, again, because like my entry point into romance was reading my mom's like Daniel Steel or like Lisa Kleypas books. I do love Lisa Kleypas. I have to give her props. But yeah, I feel like I kind of accidentally stumbled upon these other more inclusive books. So I'm not exactly sure who should I be reading next.

ANNE: So you're interested perhaps in quest books in romances that may be in your wheelhouse. Anything else that you're interested in exploring?

REAGAN: I'm interested in more recommendations for graphic novels. So when I was in Chile, I was in Santiago. But then after that, I went to visit some friends in a little town called Pucón and my friend's daughter... And I did kind of a book exchange, which was really cute. And one of the things that she showed me was this book called Lumberjanes. It's a graphic novel.

ANNE: Oh, my gosh, that series is so great.

REAGAN: Yeah. I had never seen it before. I thought it was delightful and hilarious and just reminded me of camp. And I thought, like, what other graphic novels are out there that I just have no idea about?

[00:39:59] ANNE: That could be fun to explore. And I know in your submission that you said that you also love memoir. Now, we're accumulating quite a list, but is that something you're interested in? Or have you mentally moved on?

REAGAN: No, I don't think I ever really move on. But memoir I feel like it's a little harder for me. I love it and I teach it but there's like... I need the first five pages of the memoir to really grab me in order for me to really get into it. So, like, for example, Heart Berries by Terese Mailhot.

ANNE: I don't know that one.

REAGAN: Oh, it was so good, and hard and brutal. But definitely it's one of those things, like, you pick it up and how do you put it down? Or Hunger by Roxane Gay. That was really good, too.

[00:40:46] ANNE: Okay, you've given us so much good stuff to work with. The books you loved, to recap real quick, were Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan, Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert, and A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. Not for you, among other titles, was The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister. And recently, you've been reading Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas and a really fun selection of books that he hand-sold you, basically, at Powell's Bookstore.

And you are on the hunt for quest stories, books like The Alchemist, romance, which you're finding harder to parse out, graphic novels, and you always love a good memoir.

REAGAN: Mm-hmm.

ANNE: All right, Reagan, I'm going to ponder the quest stories. Right now we're going to focus on the romance, the graphic novel, and the memoir. And I want to start with a book or two that I think you may enjoy. The first one I have in mind is from the author Kennedy Ryan. Do you know her works?

[00:41:51] REAGAN: Ooh, yes. What did I read by her? Something about the president.

ANNE: Oh, I haven't read that one. Okay. But the one I was thinking would be a good place to start... and she has written quite a few. If you enjoy her and you want to go through the catalog, I would start you with the Skyland series. I hope you'll find this book feels like people you could know, even though I know Atlanta is not your town.

But this is a romance... Well, it's often described as a romance. You could also, I think, describe it as a family drama with a really strong, very steamy love story component. So however you want to categorize it, I think it has a lot in common with the books you love. Tell your friend it's good on audio, too. There's a dual narration, the man and the woman. That's how I listened to this book. It sucked me right in.

[00:42:37] But this is about a couple, their names are Yasmin and Josiah, and they met and they married young. And their friends have always thought that they are just like the golden couple, like they'll be together forever, like total couple goals. But at the point we meet them, they are a few years after suffering two terrible losses. A beloved family member died, they lost a pregnancy, and the grief broke them, like individually and as a couple, and they divorce.

We meet them a couple years later when they found some measure of stability. And this book actually portrays therapy in a really positive light. Like the wife especially had a terrible time after suffering those two losses so close together. And she has really done the work to become whole again. And you see that.

And now that she is that way, she's realizing, "Oh wait, did I do the right thing?" So they start wondering and then they start exploring and then they take a trip together and there's only one bed. You know the tropes. So they have to tease out with the help of their friends who are rooting for them hard but also don't want to see either get hurt. Like can they put this together again?

[00:43:46] REAGAN: That sounds juicy.

ANNE: It's juicy. So this is definitely a break your heart and put it together sort of book. Like they've been through hard things. But you really like them and you want to see good things happen for them. You may enjoy this after Talia Hibbert. Like there's a lot of discussion about the aesthetic elements that draw them to each other. Those are discussed especially by the girlfriends at length. It's just fun.

And for a story, I know that you said in your submission that you really wanted to read stories that show Black characters getting happy, happy endings.

REAGAN: Yes, Lord.

ANNE: You can count on that here. And it's the first in a series if you like this and you want more.

REAGAN: Oh, I love that too. Because yes, I'm definitely a follow-the-series person.

ANNE: I hear you. I just finished the second book about one of the friends and it was also... it was a lot of fun.

REAGAN: Oh, I love that.

[00:44:42] ANNE: And there's a third one coming and I'd really like to read it immediately. I'm not a series person. Just because of my work, it often is more productive to read multiple books instead of ones that are in a series. But this I wanted to read the whole series because it was just such a nice escape. Which I always feel like is a good sign. But this is about your taste, not about mine. So I think that would be a fun romance pick for you. And I know, Reagan, you read a lot of YA. Have you read any Leah Johnson?

REAGAN: No, actually I haven't.

ANNE: She's not going to maybe take you shopping and hand recommend books to you but you could come see her in Indianapolis where she just opened a bookstore in 2023. But this is a YA romance but it's just so sweet and happy that I want to make sure it's on your radar. And it's called You Should See Me in a Crown.

It's about an orchestra geek in rural Indiana who would describe herself as a total wallflower. Like she just wants to stay out of the picture and do her thing and it's fine. And she's going to go off to college and become a doctor and attend her dream school, and like she can just forget Indiana ever happened.

[00:45:50] But she doesn't get the financial aid package she wants to. So the only way she can foresee to make up the difference is to enter the prom queen competition because the winner gets a big juicy scholarship that she can use to go to college and get out of there for forever. So she does.

During the process, a new girl comes to school who is smart and funny and Liz is smitten. And they start feeling things out. But this girl is also vying for the prom queen title. So there's that tension obviously. Because you can't have feelings for your competition. It gets complicated.

Meanwhile, Liz's brother is living with sickle cell anemia and has been for some time. And the realities of living with that chronic illness and what it means for Liz and for her family are very much present in the plot. But this is a book that you should go into knowing it's just so jubilant and has just like a big, soaring, festive, like, ah, ending. I think you'll really enjoy this.

REAGAN: That sounds great.

[00:46:52] ANNE: I hope so. I'm glad. Okay, I want to take a memoir detour. I'm not sure if this is going to be perfect for you or not the right fit. But I feel like you need to know about it.

REAGAN: Okay.

ANNE: This is a midlife crisis memoir by a White, middle-aged writer in Colorado. I think that's how he would describe himself. His name's Peter Heller. I love all his novels. You probably not picked them up. But his midlife crisis took the form of deciding that he absolutely, positively needed to become a surfer in Mexico.

So he and his, at the time, girlfriend, now wife, Kim Yan, pack up. Well, first they have to buy a VW bus because it's a midlife crisis. Like, you buy the VW bus. They kind of put their lives on hold, and they go to Mexico for a few months and become kooks, which is what they call beginner surfers, and decide they're going to learn how to do this.

So I've never surfed. I've never even dreamt about surfing, if I'm remembering correctly but I really enjoyed hearing him first, like, why surfing? And he talks about how this took a hold of him and how he persuaded his girlfriend, now wife, to do this with him. It was such an interesting, almost slice of life, almost adventure, definitely midlife crisis.

[00:48:11] There's some nature writing in here. It's like a campground memoir in a lot of ways. Because a lot of people do what they did, and they drive down to the strip in Mexico to camp out and eat tin beans in their van so they can spend their days surfing.

So, I don't know, I want you to know about it. You could pick it up, read the first five pages, and decide if this is for you or if it isn't. But the subtitle, I don't know, there's some metaphors here. I think that you might enjoy: What Surfing Taught Me About Love, Life, and Catching the Perfect Wave.

REAGAN: I mean, that feels really on time given my recent experience.

ANNE: Well, only you can know, but I wanted to make sure you knew about it. There are a lot of good surfing books, this is the only one I've read.

REAGAN: Appreciate it.

ANNE: And then finally on that graphic novel idea, I love Lumberjanes. I am glad that you found your way to those books. There are many of them. I want to make sure you know.

[00:49:07] But there's a book, a small series I think would be the right way to describe it, that you can perhaps find it bound in one volume. It's called Bingo Love by Tee Franklin. So, it's heartwarming, heartbreaking, laugh and cry, sometimes on the same page, clutch the book to your chest after you read it, just like, oh, kind of graphic novel.

So, the story takes place in 1963. The graphic novel itself is to nobody's surprise. It's not actually that old. But there are two women. Their names are Hazel and Mary, and they meet and fall in love while they are young and coming of age. But society doesn't think they should be together. You can't have two Black women fall in love with each other. That's just not allowed. And their families also force them apart.

But after marrying men and having families of their own, and then those children have children, so they have grandchildren and lots of responsibilities, then decades later, they're both in their 60s, and they unexpectedly meet at a bingo hall. But a lot has changed in the intervening years, but a lot hasn't. And they find themselves just feeling comfortable and hitting it off, and deciding to take a risk to find happiness and love when they get their second chance.

[00:50:24] The illustrations are really beautiful. It's not a read-alike to Lumberjanes, but I just think it clusters really nicely with the books that you have found to your taste.

REAGAN: This sounds so cool. Oh, I really appreciate the recommendation. Thank you.

ANNE: Okay, Reagan, let's recap. We talked about Kennedy Ryan, starting with Before I Let Go in her Skyland series, the YA prom queen novel, You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson, Kook, the surfing memoir by Peter Heller, and Bingo Love, the graphic novel by Tee Franklin. Reagan, of those books, what do you think you might pick up next?

REAGAN: I'm definitely going to pick up You Should See Me in a Crown, for sure. But actually, I might just pick them all up. So this is a thing I do, though. Once a month, I go to Powell's Books in Portland, and I just fill my cart. I have about a $100 to $150 book budget. So I think they'll all fit.

ANNE: Okay, I'm inspired. That sounds amazing. I need an airplane and then I need to ship my books home. But that sounds like an amazing tradition, and I think I could maybe... I think many listeners could replicate that closer to home.

[00:51:32] REAGAN: So Powell's is like a whole city block.

ANNE: I've never been.

REAGAN: Okay, multiple floors, whole city block. They have to name different rooms. So there's the rose room, the gold room, the purple room, based on genre. And somewhere in there, there's a cafe, which I didn't even realize because there's certain sections I like to go to, and then you just get kind of lost. But yeah, since my dad lives in Portland, I'm there once a month anyway, that's one of my favorite things to do, is just get lost in Powell's.

ANNE: Oh, that sounds amazing. I hope you find plenty of good books. And I hope you really enjoy the ones you pick up from our conversation.

REAGAN: Yeah, and thanks for the recommendation.

ANNE: It's my pleasure. Thanks so much for talking books with me today.

REAGAN: It was awesome.

[00:52:14] ANNE: Hey, readers, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Reagan, and I'd love to hear what you think she should read next. Find Reagan online at reaganjackson.com, and find the full list of titles we talked about today on our website at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.

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Thanks to the people who make this show happen. What Should I Read Next? is created each week by Will Bogel, Holly Wielkoszewski, and Studio D Podcast Production. Our What Should I Read Next? community manager is Sara Aeder. Readers, that's it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And as Rainer Maria Rilke said, "Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading." Happy reading, everyone.