Gay writer Tim Federle knows that readers come in all ages. For his two young adult novels, Better Nate Than Ever and its sequel Five, Six, Seven, Nate (both from Simon & Schuster), Federle has created one of the more endearing fictional characters in recent memory. Title character Nate will keep you in stitches as he navigates his way out of his dead-end hometown, onto a Broadway stage, and towards his first kiss. Better Nate has been named a finalist in the LGBT Young Adult category for the Lambda Literary Award. For older readers, Federle serves up Tequila Mockingbird (Running Press), on cocktails with literary themes.
Gregg Shapiro: Why did you decide to work in the Y/A genre?
Tim Federle: I am a former Broadway dancer, and was on staff for Billy Elliott on Broadway, working with kids who were 9 to 14. I was inspired by how funny they were, but also how un-jaded they were. I had lived in New York since I was 19, and I was 30 when I started writing the book. I thought there'd be something really cool about revisiting that point of view, of being in New York when everything is possible and it isn't just gritting your teeth and walking down the street. The second reason was that kids still read more than adults do. So I thought it would be a practical way of getting published!
How much if any of Tim is in Nate?
Since I'm a former actor, I'm pretty good at trying on the mindset of somebody else. So all the characters are an outgrowth of my own imagination. I based the characters on the colorful people in my life, then changed their names so they wouldn't sue me. Nate is very much me. I was picked on and bullied, all the stuff that can happen to any boy who knows all the lyrics to Phantom. I have the knowledge that a lot of kids don't have, which is that there is a day and a place that you will get to where you don't have to change anything about yourself, and you are exactly what you should be. It might not be this minute. It's a little bit of "it gets better." The problem with "it gets better" is that it's hard to wait.
Is being yourself the ultimate message of your books?
The truth is that I did not go into writing them with a message. I wanted to write an aspirational tale about a kid who had a huge dream and just happened to possibly be gay. More than anything, I wanted his gayness to be the fifth most interesting thing about him. I wanted his resilience to be the defining element, which I think it is for a lot of gay people.
Were both books written at the same time?
No, I wish they were, because that would've been easier. The first book was written as a stand-alone. But then it did well enough to warrant a sequel. The second book was written months later. That process is a lot harder than the first book because of the kind of expectations that go along with it.
Both Better Nate Than Ever and Five, Six, Seven, Nate have clever titles. At what point in the writing process did you come up with them?
I came up with the title Better Nate Than Ever when I was hanging out with a best friend, talking about potential TV shows. That title just came to me. Five, Six, Seven, Nate was kind of a joke, because "five, six, seven, eight" is a theater term, it's the count-off. I wanted something that would stand out. The same holds true with my adult cocktail book, Tequila Mockingbird, which is obviously not for kids.
When coming up with a musical for the novel, how did you decide on E.T.?
Because I felt like an alien myself when I was growing up. Because having worked on the Broadway shows Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and The Little Mermaid, I knew that movies that are beloved are very difficult to get right on stage, and for that reason it's fun to poke fun of the process.
A recurring theme in both books is the subject of personal hygiene, specifically sweat and deodorant. Would you say that it's a Y/A author's responsibility to address these subjects?
The only responsibility I felt was to tell the truth. But I think there's a lot of truth to when kids are changing so rapidly that they're not catching up to their own bodies. They frequently need an adult to say, "Dude, you need a breath mint." I remember when asking my mom for deodorant for the first time, I was so embarrassed. This is a way for me to address it in a book and give kids out there a hint who don't have as considerate an older sibling or parent. I did want to address it.
Would it be fair to say that Five, Six, Seven, Nate is a cautionary tale for stage-struck kids?
No, I didn't intend it as a cautionary tale. I did intend to expose the truth behind the lack of glamour on Broadway. As a kid, often you need a big dream to get you to complete a project. It's hard to get things over the finish line. Often when you finally complete the project, the result is very different from what you dreamed. Yet the great thing about life is that you can end up with something even better. In the second book, Nate has his first kiss, which is arguably the most important thing in the book. He kissed a boy, and nobody died. He never would've gotten on a bus to go to New York thinking he was going to kiss a boy. Is it a cautionary tale? No, I think it's an aspirational tale that has this hopefully friendly warning that it doesn't always go OK in life, but you'll probably land on your feet, which I think is what life's about.