– Thank you for joining us here at YALC. We would love you to introduce yourself.
Thank you for having me! I’m Leon Egan, author of Lover Birds and Listen Closely, and creator of the audio drama Tell No Tales.
– Can you give our readers an overview of your YA novel ‘Listen Closely’
Tom, my editor, first pitched it around the office as ‘You’ve Got Mail in the world of teen podcasters’, which I love. Listen Closely follows Jude and Aiden, two trans kids with very different outlooks on life, who get to know each other during work experience at a radio station and bond over a shared love of audio fiction. Jude is so closed off to the world, preferring to retreat into the safety of stories, whereas Aiden is incredibly earnest and cheerful. But they’re both hiding parts of themselves, and they both need a little help from each other when it comes to opening up.
– And, if you had to do it in just 5 words or less, what would they be?
Not sure if this is a little too conceptual, but I’m going for: ‘vulnerability in all its forms’
– Have you always had an interest in radio and podcasts drama?
It was a relatively recent interest, as of about 2020, and purely accidental. I stumbled across an audiobook of Lauren Shippen’s The Infinite Noise without realising it was a spin-off from her audio drama The Bright Sessions and sort of fell into a rabbit hole from there. 2020 also saw this huge rise in indie audio drama, sparked by people no longer being able to work on collaborative theatrical projects, so it was a brilliant time to see the start of all these new and unique stories being told without any barrier to entry. It’s that lack of gatekeeping that makes it such a queer, trans and disabled medium, and people get to tell stories that we don’t see a lot of outside of indie creator spaces. It’s a big part of why I chose the medium as a premise for Listen Closely.
– If so, do you have a favourite podcast to listen to?
It’s so incredibly hard to pick just one, but the comfort show I keep coming back to is The Vesta Clinic by AMC. It follows a team of doctors on an asteroid belt, treating alien patients, but the only way I can describe it is very human. There’s so much tenderness and compassion in each episode, and the music is gorgeous. I’m always so excited to see a new episode up on my feed.
– Did you have to do much research on the running of radio stations?
I did as much as I could with limited resources, it turns out it’s really difficult information to find without knowing people who have worked in radio directly! I watched a lot of videos about people’s experiences interning at radio stations, and had to do a lot of piecing together to work out how this would be affected by the size/budget of the station. I’m relying quite heavily on the ‘this is a small local station where everybody wears a lot of hats’ card, as I know from my own experience in the publishing industry that standard practice can vary enormously when comparing small presses to big five publishers, and it seems radio might work similarly. Though if there’s anyone reading who has worked in radio, I apologise if there are any glaring gaps in my research!
– Do you enjoy writing your book as a dual narration?
I absolutely loved it, especially as the characters have such different outlooks on life, so exploring both perspectives of the same scene was really fun. With my first book, Lover Birds, a lot of the plot depended upon not being able to understand Isabel’s point of view, so I wasn’t able to play with that, but in Listen Closely it led to some great moments. I think rom coms lend themselves to that so well, like when one or both characters are convinced they’ve embarrassed themselves during a conversation, but we switch to the other character’s perspective and it’s just straight-up heart eyes.
– How important is it to include trans and non-binary young people in your work?
Representation in fiction has a huge part to play in young people understanding themselves. Books helped me figure out my own identity, Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas and Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender left such an impact on me before I even fully understood why. It’s more important now than ever, I think. This massive backlash we’ve seen to the existence of trans people is so clearly a response to increased representation and visibility, but the last thing we need now is to hide away again and let the transphobes think they’ve won. A lot of us feel very powerless at the moment, but if the only thing I have in my power to do is to show trans kids thriving and finding love and joy in spite of it all, then it’s important to me to do that.
– Where do you write?
Mostly at home, I need to have my desk near a window because I wilt like a sad houseplant if I don’t get enough natural light. If I’m really struggling to focus though, I’ll go to the library or a café. Libraries are especially great for writing with friends, because you still get the social element, but there’s only so much yapping you can get away with in a library before you have to buckle down and work.
– What is your favourite genre to read?
Rom coms have been my favourite for most of my life, though I do try to branch out. I’ve been really enjoying horror recently, which was unexpected. I’ve also been drawn a lot more to literary fiction lately, my TBR pile looks a bit eclectic at the minute, but it’s nice to be able to pick out my next read based on my mood.
– Have you read anything brilliant recently?
I just finished an advance copy of Sad Girl Hours by Anna Zoe Quirke, which is a gorgeous rom com that portrays seasonal depression in a very honest way. I absolutely loved it! It’s not a topic I see in a lot of books, and it hit a little hard at times with how incredibly relatable it was to my own experience of seasonal depression, but it’s so well balanced with sweetness and lightness when it needs to be – I highly recommend it.
– Where can our readers find you on social media?
I’m on Instagram at @leoneganauthor and Tiktok at @leon.egan
– Finally can you give us your favourite quote from a novel (it can be yours!)?
I’m going to have to go with the one I have framed on my wall, from Homebody by Theo Parish: “I wasn’t ready to see there was a way I could make my own choice… that I had the power hidden within to knight myself.” The quote’s about choosing a new name, and I read it just as I was agonising over my own decision to change my name. Very much one of those right book at the right time moments, it had a huge impact on me.