Author Interview – A.J. Sass

Every year, the Sydney Taylor Book Awards celebrates books that authentically portray the Jewish experience for children and teens. For the past few years they have also run a blog tour, helping readers get to know the authors of the selected books. BookishlyJewish was honored to participate last year and even more excited to be invited back again!

This year, we have been given the opportunity to interview A.J. Sass, author of middle grade honor book Ellen Outside the Lines. Our review of the book will be posting next week so read on and get to know the author with us!

Bookishly Jewish: Huge congratulations! How does it feel for Ellen Outside the Lines to be a Sydney Taylor Honor Book?

A.J. Sass: Thank you! It’s honestly still a bit surreal. That might be because I got up pretty early to watch the Youth Media Awards livestream (I live on the West Coast and am answering this particular question less than 24 hours after the Awards), but it’s also because I’ve discovered so many fantastic books as a result of looking through the list of past award winners, honors, and notables. Now I can also imagine people looking through this year’s list and discovering my book. It’s an incredible feeling that this honor may introduce more readers to my novel, and I’m so grateful to the STBA selection committee for their work in evaluating so many books over the past year.

BookishlyJewish: This is your second book, and the first also features a Jewish protagonist. Can you tell us a little about where your inspiration for stories comes from?

A.J. Sass: I usually have a scenario that I want to explore when I sit down to write, a question I want to answer over the course of each story (in some cases, several questions). For Ana on the Edge, the question was, ‘how might a competitive figure skater who’s just realized she’s nonbinary come out while navigating the very gendered aspects of her sport?’ For Ellen Outside the Lines, the scenario I was exploring involved an autistic teenager who is hoping a school trip to Barcelona will help her reconnect with her best friend, only to end up assigned to a group of classmates that does not include this friend. After I’ve established the heart of the story, I build out the world and how a character might react to various situations that are thrown at them. Both Ana and Ellen are Jewish and queer—and Ellen, of course, is also neurodivergent—so they approach the situations they encounter from those lenses. 

But queer and neurodivergent and Jewish people are not, as a whole, a monolith. They’re shaped by factors like where they grew up and how they were raised, among other things. Ana lives in a large city and her best friend is Jewish, but Ana and her mom often don’t consistently attend their temple (this ebbs and flows depending on Ana’s training schedule and how busy her mom is working two jobs to support her athletic career). Ellen lives in a small town in Georgia and attends a school where none of the other kids are Jewish, but her mom is a cantor at their temple that the family regularly attends and her abba is an Israeli immigrant and often converses with Ellen in Hebrew. Their family also keeps kosher (at least usually, in the case of Ellen’s abba). I’m grateful I get to write stories with characters who on their face share similar identities but in reality practice and approach their faith in very different ways. I discover a lot of my inspiration comes from exploring how identities intersect and how experiences vary from person to person, something I hope to continue doing in my future projects. 

BookihslyJewish: Who is the target audience for Ellen Outside the Lines? Is there something in particular you hope readers take away from the book?

A.J. Sass: Whenever I start developing a story, my hope is that a wide spectrum of readers will find it entertaining. At the time Ellen sold to my publisher, the pandemic had just started, and I was sheltering in place at home with my partner. Every evening once we were both done working, we would have dinner and watch a few episodes of The Amazing Race, a reality show that sends contestants on a race around the world. The contestants would complete challenges to move on to the next legs of the race, and during these challenges, they learn about other cultures and often must step out of their comfort zone to be successful. It wasn’t lost on me that I was writing a story that also took my characters someplace new, on a trip that would challenge many of them while they navigated an unfamiliar setting. So, in that sense, my target audience is also readers who want to transport themselves someplace different and perhaps learn something new in the process. And because Ellen is Jewish, and neurodivergent, and queer, I hope this story will resonate with readers who share some or all of Ellen’s heritage and identities. 

At its heart, Ellen Outside the Lines is a story about how friendships shift during middle school. I hope readers take away that it’s natural for friendships to change or even end throughout your life, and that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s anyone’s fault. Sometimes people simply grow apart as their interests diverge, but these changes can open the door to making friends with people who fit you even better. And because we are all different, and that’s a good thing, meeting new people also gives us the opportunity to learn how others’ needs might differ from our own and allow us to better empathize with and advocate for one another. I hope readers of Ellen’s story are inspired to do both.

BookishlyJewish: What has been the response to the book now that it is out in the world?

A.J. Sass: Overwhelmingly positive! I’m so grateful to have readers reach out to me, sharing how aspects of Ellen’s story resonated with them. Many are younger readers who see themselves in Ellen or other characters like Isa, Andy, and Gibs. Some have recently come out or been diagnosed as autistic and are eager to share in what ways their experiences are similar to Ellen’s (or even ways in which they differ). There have been readers who’ve expressed appreciation over getting to see a Jewish family like Ellen’s portrayed in a story that isn’t solely focused on religion and others who were happy with the acknowledgement of Catalan culture depicted once Ellen and her classmates arrive in Barcelona. It’s been so wonderful to hear from readers, and I hope they continue to reach out.

BookishlyJewish: One particularly tricky theme in the book is Ellen’s learning that people might observe Judaism differently, even within a single family. It was very impressive to see this in a MG book. Can you talk about your decision to include this concept?

A.J. Sass: I spent a lot of time exploring different streams of Judaism after graduating from college, trying to find a temple that felt right for me. What I learned is that practices and observance levels can vary, even within the same temple communities. This was initially hard for me to accept. Like Ellen, I’m autistic, and often have a very black-and-white way of viewing things. I think I was ultimately searching for the “right” way to practice, for the “correct” way to be Jewish. 

What I learned is that there really is no one way to observe your faith, no absolute correct way to be Jewish, even within the same family. Since Ellen and her abba are traveling to Spain, this mostly comes up in the way Ellen’s abba chooses not to keep strictly kosher on their trip, which causes Ellen anxiety until they have a moment to discuss the different ways they both practice their faith. This isn’t a large part of the plot, but it felt important for me to include. Seeing this depicted in a story would have been a comfort to my younger self, and I hope it provides food for thought and discussion among readers now.

BookishlyJewish: The book contains a forced outing, which our reviewer was extremely grateful that you kept largely off page. How did you decide to handle that issue in this particular way?

A.J. Sass: I touched on my sometimes rigid, black-and-white way of thinking in an earlier question. I also tend to think in a way that may make perfect sense to me but may be confusing to other people. I tend to call this my ‘autistic logic’. Ellen displays a form of this logic when it comes to her best friend, Laurel, and Laurel takes advantage of this in one scene (whether or not Laurel knowingly did so is left up to the reader to decide), with disastrous results. 

Ellen is at first unwilling to share with Laurel that one of her classmates is queer because this classmate asked her to keep the information to herself. But Laurel tells Ellen that they’re best friends and best friends tell each other everything so Ellen telling her a secret technically doesn’t count as breaking her promise to keep quiet. After thinking this through, Ellen ultimately agrees with this logic and shares her classmate’s secret with Laurel—only to learn Laurel revealed it to another student who, although supportive, effectively outs the classmate in question (off the page, as your reviewer noted). The outed classmate is understandably hurt and upset with Ellen.

My goal when writing stories is to portray character experiences as authentically as I am able to, and the unfortunate reality of queer experience is that sometimes you aren’t able to come out on your own terms. That said, I wanted to minimize any trauma for readers that a forced outing might cause as much as possible, while still acknowledging that it happens. In this case, it was an unintended consequence of Ellen’s internal logic, but I also wanted to acknowledge that characters like Ellen can make mistakes, and that being neurodivergent doesn’t excuse you from responsibility when you do something wrong. Forgiveness from the party that’s been hurt also isn’t automatic. This is something that Ellen must learn during the course of the story, and I hope my portrayal felt realistic and fosters discussions among readers.

BookishlyJewish: Ellen represents a strong neurodivergent character for MG readers. Have you found publishing has opened more to this type of representation?

A.J. Sass: I like to think so. Over the past few years, I’ve seen a lot more representation of neurodivergent characters in the middle-grade space, often written by authors who are neurodivergent themselves or by authors who have done a great deal of research to ensure sensitive, nuanced portrayals of these characters. To just name a few of the books I’ve recently read and loved, there’s Planet Earth Is Blue by Nicole Panteleakos (autism rep), How To Become A Planet by Nicole Melleby (depression and anxiety), and Jude Saves The World by Ronnie Riley (ADHD – this one releases on April 18, 2023). Both of Sarah Kapit’s books, Get A Grip, Vivy Cohen! and The Many Mysteries of the Finkel Family, also contain autistic (and Jewish!) characters. My next book, Camp QUILTBAG, has a secondary character who is autistic, as well.

So, I certainly think there have been strides made and more books being published with this type of representation in the middle grade space. My hope is that this will continue and that there will be opportunities for more perspectives on neurodiversity to be shared, particularly those from queer and BIPOC authors.

BookishlyJewish: The book’s setting is almost a character in and of itself! Have you been to Spain, and did that help inspire the book?

A.J. Sass: I have been to Spain! I used to work for a company that was headquartered in Barcelona. Over the course of two years, I traveled there five times for work, spending nearly a month there on each trip. Ellen’s owl that sits on top of the hotel she and her classmates are staying at (which was beautifully depicted on the cover by illustrator Ana Hinojosa) really does exist near the Verdaguer metro station in Barcelona (although the building upon which it is perched is not a hotel, to my knowledge). I used to say a quick hello to the owl as I walked past it every day on my way to work. 

Ellen’s introduction to Catalan as a culture and language was also inspired by my work trips. I studied French when I was in school, not Spanish, and I found that I was often understanding what my coworkers and the people around me were saying in some instances far better than others. In fact, sometimes it sounded like I was hearing an entirely different language from Spanish. My coworkers introduced me to Catalan, and it surprised me that I’d never learned about the language in school. It surprises Ellen, too. 

So many little details like these and beyond come from my own experiences as a visitor to Barcelona. Even the idea for a study abroad trip derives from my own childhood. My Georgia middle school offered students a chance to go on a month-long trip to France and Spain during the summer between seventh and eighth grade. I didn’t end up going as a kid, but now that I’ve written Ellen’s story, it feels like I finally got the opportunity to imagine what that trip might have been like if I had.

BookishlyJewish:  Isa often comes up as a fan favorite character. Why do you think readers gravitate towards them?

A.J. Sass: I like to think readers may be drawn to Isa for similar reasons as I am. Isa is a favorite of mine because they are confident in who they are and don’t mind educating others who might be unfamiliar with aspects of their identity. Marginalized people should never feel obligated to educate anyone about their identities, for the record; that involves a lot of emotional labor that no one should be expected to undertake if they don’t want to. But since Isa doesn’t mind doing this, their explanations often challenge Ellen’s very binary beliefs and help her expand her predefined categories. Additionally, Isa often approaches their explanations in a kind but gently sarcastic way when their classmates overstep (like Gibs saying that ‘they’ is a pronoun only used for groups of people or assuming Isa speaks Spanish because their last name is Martinez). I wish I’d had a friend like Isa in middle school, and perhaps readers feel the same way!

BookishlyJewish: What’s next from you? Any plans for the future you would like to share?

A.J. Sass: More stories! I have a book called Camp QUILTBAG coming out on March 21, 2023 with Algonquin Young Readers. This novel is unique for me in that I co-wrote it with another author, Nicole Melleby. It’s a dual perspective story that follows Abigail (she/her/hers) and Kai (e/em/eir) who meet at a summer camp in Minnesota for queer youth and form a pact to help each other adjust to life at camp. It’s special in that virtually every character in the story is queer and also because Kai, the character I took point on, comes from an interfaith family. Eir mom is Reform and eir dad is Lutheran, and e has never really thought about this until e meets another camper, Oren, who’s an observant Jew. It was fun to develop two characters with very different relationships to Judaism and also to lightly touch on the challenges of coming out while honoring the faith tradition in which you grew up.

Then next year, I have another middle grade novel releasing from Little, Brown Books for Young readers called Just Shy Of Ordinary, which follows academically gifted homeschooler Shai (they/them/their pronouns) who is trying to create a new normal for themself as a way to manage their anxiety by starting public school for the first time. Except, Shai immediately gets thrown for a loop when they get placed in ninth grade instead of eighth like they were expecting, which complicates their new-normal plan. The story is set in a small town in the Wisconsin North Woods and not everyone is as receptive to Shai’s genderfluid identity as Shai would like. This probably comes as no surprise, but there’s also an exploration of Judaism in this book. While Shai wasn’t raised Jewish, their mom was, and they decide to reach out to their grandparents for help researching their Jewish heritage as part of a school project. Since the book takes place at the start of the school year, I had the opportunity to introduce Shai to the High Holidays, as well as Sukkot, all of which was a joy to write. I also have a short story appearing in On All Other Nights, an anthology of Passover stories edited by Chris Baron, Joshua S. Levy, and Naomi Milliner that’s out from Abrams next year.

BookishlyJewish: We always end by asking if you have a favorite Jewish book or author you would like to recommend.

A.J. Sass: Oh, this is so hard. So many authors and books have been inspirations to me, but there are two authors in particular who I really look up to: Katherine Locke and Dahlia Adler.

I read Katherine’s book, The Girl with the Red Balloon, a few years back and was completely awestruck by it. So often, Jewish historical stories focus on the Holocaust, and those stories are absolutely important. But Katherine’s was the first novel I read that focused on Europe during a different period in history, where the ramifications of the Holocaust were still felt but it wasn’t the primary focus. More recently, their novel, This Rebel Heart, also held me spellbound. It’s set in Hungary during the 1950s and has these wonderful moments of fabulism while telling the story of a student-led revolution, told primarily from the perspective of Csilla, a teenager who survived the Holocaust years earlier. Katherine’s prose is beautiful, and they are an auto-buy author for me. I can’t wait to see what they write next.

Then Dahlia Adler’s stories have my entire heart in the contemporary space with Cool for the Summer and Home Field Advantage (I also really love her story, “Two Truths And An Oy,” in It’s A Whole Spiel: Love, Latkes, and Other Jewish Stories, an anthology of Jewish Stories which was co-edited by Katherine Locke and Laura Silverman). Dahlia has a great contemporary voice and I love how her stories blend both queer and Jewish elements. I’m excited for her next YA novel, Going Bicoastal, and I’d be remiss not to mention she’s the founder of LGBTQReads.com, a site that highlights books that have queer representation in the middle grade, YA, and adult spaces. 

I cannot recommend Katherine’s and Dahlia’s books enough.

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