Kasey LeBlanc

Kasey LeBlanc (he / him) is a queer, trans, Jewish and neurodivergent author who writes stories for young people. His debut young adult novel Flyboy tells the story of a closeted trans boy, his Catholic high school, and the magical dream circus where he can finally be seen for his true self.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

One of the things I love so much about my title is that Flyboy, I think, really captures the essence of who the main character is and wants to be, and it's a title that takes on multiple layers of meaning as the story unfolds.

For instance, the opening line of chapter one begins: "There's a fly buzzing near my ear at the edge of my peripheral vision, and if looks could kill, this fly would already be dead". By the end of the scene that fly is (spoiler alert!) quite dead -- smashed against the very same church pew where Asher, our closeted trans protagonist, has just traced his real name with his finger. At the end of the chapter, Asher wonders why God would "give wings to such a useless creature", because if he could fly, he "certainly wouldn't stick around here".

So right from the start I think we have these dual desires -- of Asher wanting to be a boy, and not being seen as one, and of Asher wanting escape, which he envisions attaining through flight. Then we get into chapter two and Asher arrives at this magical dream circus where he is finally seen for the boy he truly is, only to once again have his dreams of flight crushed as he's assigned to perform as a clown, rather than on the trapeze rig. So much of Asher's journey is one of fighting to beseen and fighting to live the way he wants to live, and I think Flyboy as a title really encapsulates his experiences.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

Not at all surprised to see that we published a novel (though teenage me would probably wonder why it took so long!), but I do think my younger self would be quite surprised to learn that we are trans! Pleasantly surprised, I think, especially once teenage me learns about the joys of testosterone and top surgery. Being a guy wasn't something I realized was a possibility for myself when I was younger, and it's part of why it's so important for me to write stories like Asher's for young people today.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Great question! I think that beginnings often change the most as I write because it's so hard to start in the right place from draft one, but I also enjoy the process of testing out new starting points as I go along. For endings, once I can really see a story's ending in my mind, it tends to stay pretty similar between drafts, at least in terms of the big picture and characters' emotional journeys and resolutions.

When I have a new idea and I feel like I can see where my characters' journeys begin and end, that's when I feel confident I can turn the story into a book. Unfortunately that tends to be the easy part -- where I truly struggle is everything that comes between, which is probably why so many writers refer to it as the 'murky middle'!

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

Both! I think people are naturally going to be most curious about how similar I am to Asher, the protagonist in this story, given my own identity as a trans guy. And it's really hard to say, in part because Asher's circumstances are so different than my own. I figured out that I was trans in my mid-twenties, and began coming out to people in my life not long after, all of whom were wonderfully supportive.

Asher doesn't have that luxury. He knows he's trans from a young age, and he is terrified of his conservative grandparents finding out, particularly given the financial leverage they hold over him and his mother. So much of Asher's personality is influenced by circumstances he doesn't have the power to control, and as a result he is very different than me.

At the same time however, there are very much moments in the story, particularly relating to Asher's experiences of gender dysphoria, or gender euphoria, where I feel very much like I'm baring a part of my own soul to the world because the only way I knew to convey the depth of his relationship to his body was through my own lived experiences.

Visit Kasey LeBlanc's website.

--Marshal Zeringue