Visiting with Jaramy Conners
by Claire Guyton
What inspired “Steve”?
When I was seventeen, my best friend admitted he had a crush on me. The moment itself was not particularly memorable. He told me he was gay. I said okay. We moved on. But for a long time after I couldn’t get that confession out of my head. It haunted me. I kept thinking, I really like this guy. He’s the best friend I’ve ever had. And I thought, if I was gay we could be incredibly happy together. Only, that wasn’t possible. You can’t make yourself gay any more than you can make yourself straight. That’s the story I wanted to tell, this idea that none of us can choose who we’re attracted to or who we can love.
Tell us about your writing process—either generally or specifically with regard to the birth and development of “Steve.”
I tend to draw heavily from my own life when creating fiction, though not so much that I’m constrained by actual events. Instead I begin with a real moment, a real character, or a real emotion; and then I add characters and create story lines that never existed to make the story less personal and more universally interesting. In telling this story, the first thing I realized is that I needed to remove myself. As I mentioned earlier, the night my friend came out to me wasn’t particularly interesting. I grew up in a liberal family. I wrote poetry. I studied theater. I was the wrong type of guy for this story. Andrew, someone who up until this point has been entirely defined by being a jock, has a lot more at stake. After I created Andrew, I had to populate the story with his jock friends. Once they were there, Steve needed friends too. At that point, the world looked very different from what I remembered, and the story become completely open to wherever I needed to take it.
Is there something you would love to write about but you can’t? Or something you did write about but you wish you hadn’t?
I’m not sure love is quite the right word, but for many years I have been trying to tell the story of my mother’s death, which happened unexpectedly when I was 19. Our relationship had been strained for some time before, so there were a lot of unresolved issues and a great deal of guilt involved. I know there’s a story there, but I haven’t found that necessary distance yet to create the story it needs to be.
Do you have any guilty reading pleasures?
I’m a slow reader, so I’m usually very picky about the books I choose. I read a lot of middle-grade and young adult fiction, usually selecting books I can learn from, award winners like Louis Sachar, David Almond, or Katherine Paterson. But if you find a book that’s funny and has either aliens or superheroes (or even better, both!) let me know.
