Sorry to hit you with the big one up top. That makes me want to ask-what do you perceive to be young adult fiction? In the acknowledgments, you say editor Andrew Karre inspired you to “think outside the boundaries of what perceive to be young adult fiction” for Last Night at the Telegraph Club.
The conversation has been edited for length and clarity. “Beautifully written historical fiction about giddy, queer first love.” “Finally, the intersectional, lesbian, historical teen novel so many readers have been waiting for,” Kirkus wrote in a starred review.
Lo’s sixth novel is the marvelous expansion of a short story she wrote about a young lesbian in 1950s San Francisco: Last Night at the Telegraph Club (Dutton, Jan.19) stars 17-year-old Lily Hu, whose interest in an advertisement for a male impersonator leads her to a lesbian bar where she begins to see herself in a new light. “Of course, it’s wonderful to be recognized for that. “I’ve been engaged in that kind of honesty about publishing for a long time,” Lo tells Kirkus by phone. She’s also known for leveling with readers and writers about craft, the publishing industry, and LGBTQ+ representation in her popular blog, Lo and Behold. Since Ash, a lesbian retelling of “Cinderella,” debuted in 2009, Lo has become well known for kick-ass YA fiction featuring complex queer characters and compelling storylines. “You’ve been doing kickass work for a good while.” And one fan’s words captured a prevalent sentiment: “ Ash was the first book I ever read that made liking women seem like an option,” they wrote. Many of her followers then took the time to congratulate Lo. When Malinda Lo received the happy news-she’d won the 2021 Alice B Readers Award, a once-in-a-career honor given annually to authors for literary excellence and contributions to lesbian culture- she took to Twitter to thank the committee and congratulate her fellow honorees.
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