We’re celebrating the book birthday of We Mostly Come Out At Night: 15 Queer Tales of Monsters, Angels & Other Creatures. This YA anthology is finally out in the world! Social Media Manager Cat Galeano talks with contributing editor Rob Costello and two of the many talented writers featured: Alexandra Villasante and Jonathan Lenore Kastin.

Watch the conversation or read the full transcript below. (Please note: closed captions are being added to the video below. When they are finished, you can see them by hovering over the bottom of the video and choosing the “CC” icon.)

FULL Transcript:

Cat:
A big hello to our Highlights Foundation family. We’re so happy to have you here with us. Thank you for dealing with the small technical hiccups, this is the first for us having four people in one time. So thank you. Thank you so much. For those that may not know me, I am Cat Galeano, my pronouns are she/her; I am the social media manager here at the Highlights Foundation, also known as the person re-sharing your posts and probably liking your posts with blue and green hearts. That’s me.

I’m joining you from Westchester, NY on the traditional lands of the Seewanoy people. And apart from all the fun things I get to do at the Highlights Foundation, one of my greatest joys is celebrating the book birthdays of our community members, faculty and friends. Because all of your wins are our wins here at the Highlights Foundation!

And today I have the immense honor of celebrating We Mostly Come Out At Night: 15 Queer Tales of Monsters, Angels and Other Creatures. This YA anthology is finally out in the world and available for purchase and with us tonight is contributing editor Rob Costello and two of the many talented writers featured: Alexandra Villasante and Jonathan Lenore Kastin.

We are so excited to have you here with us today and to celebrate all of you and your wonderful stories. But before we dive in, I want to remind our viewers that joining in on any Highlights Foundation sessions, to do so with no hate, no harm and no harassment of any kind.

Now let’s get started. So my first question, which is open to all of you: how are you feeling today? It is publication day. It is book birthday day. It is “the baby is out in the universe” day. Tell me how you’re feeling!

Rob:
I’m feeling overwhelmed. I’ve been on social media all day posting like mad. It’s a lot! It’s exciting, though.

Alex:
It’s exciting! My favorite part of reading the anthology is reading everybody else’s story. I’ve spent way too much time on my own story, no thank you, I want to ready everybody else’s story. so I just got this ARC like a week ago and I’m like plowing through it…that’s the fun, seeing everybody else’s work.

Rob:
Yeah. I agree.

Cat:
Jonathan?

Jonathan:
I feel the same way. I’m I’m excited to read everyone else’s stories. I haven’t gotten a copy yet, still waiting but hopefully…

Rob:
Well, mine came today, so I don’t know when your mail comes…

Jonathan:
OK, maybe tomorrow.

Rob:
Or maybe tomorrow.

Cat:
Also, Rob, I would love to just say thank you for your honesty. Because I feel like not a lot of people say that they’re overwhelmed on publication day. So thank you, yeah. Or people are just like, living, and not telling how how actually nervous they are simply sharing that.

Rob:
Yeah, yeah. They’re just more, more together than I am.

Alex:
No, no, Rob, they’re lying. Everybody’s in a flop sweat on pub day…

Rob:
Pretty much.

Cat:
So let’s talk a little bit about how the idea of this book came to you and what the process was to get it on the page. So I guess we want to start with Rob and then we’ll kind of circle around.

Rob:
I think the idea came to me years ago. I’ve always loved monsters since I was a kid and I’ve always felt like monsters were inherently queer. Because they’re kind of the other, they’re outsiders. They’re, they’re always sort of treated as the outsiders by society and so. I don’t know…there’s something queer about that, and I wanted, I wanted to, to do something to, to have a book exist in the world about monsters. About queerness. And about how empowering I think that can, that combination can be.

And so I was in an anthology that a friend of all of ours, Nora Shalaway Carpenter put together a few years ago called Rural Voices. And I worked with Nora a little bit on that as a contributor. And it was so much fun and I thought “I really want to do an anthology of my own.” I, you know, called up Nora. “How do I do this?” And and she gave me basically the checklist of everything I had to do and how to get started. I just talked to my agent and said “this is what I want to do” and we went from there. And, yeah, that is…

Alex:
And you did it, yeah.

Cat:
And here it is.

Rob:
And here it is. 8 years later, here it is.

Alex:
I’m full of ideas. I don’t have the wherewithall to keep going. It’s not easy, but you did it, Rob. Thank you very much.

Rob:
Thank you, too. Thank you both for contributing such wonderful stories. So that was, that was the most fun for me, was asking people? You know, like, oh, I really want, really want Alex to like contribute a story. Would YOU like to be in my anthology that I’m putting together? Jonathan, would YOU like to be…

Alex:
And how fast did I say yes?

Rob:
Oh, yeah! You both said yes, fast.

Rob:
And without any…

Alex:
What a wonderful idea!

Rob:
Without any, without any guarantee that it would happen. That was before you know, before we had the deal or anything. I was just the idea putting, putting together the idea. So thank you both for that. For that vote of confidence.

Alex:
It was such a great idea, Rob. That, I mean, that’s really what fascinated me. One, you were like, pick your monster, which is like oooh. So like you were saying about having that idea of queerness being other or a hidden part of yourself or part of you don’t want to acknowledge or other people don’t want to acknowledge. That was really fascinating to me and and really, I was like, I immediately saw it.

Like it had a different name when you first pitched it to us. But I was like, I see. I can see the queer monster. And I’ve been saying on my social media, I’m not on a lot. But like I wanted, you know, I want to be the the queer monster I want to see in the world. Like I want to be representative of like, that, that like those monstrous parts. What does that mean when somebody was deems you monstrous? So I love it. I’ll just fangirl all night…

Rob:
And you knew, and you knew right away what you were gonna write about. I mean like on that first conversation, you were like I, I think I want to write about a seawitch. I’m like: OK, that’s really cool.

Alex:
Yeah, because in my parents/my family’s…life, we stop a sea goddess–not really, but there is a sea goodess that is part of some religious practice in South America. And I was like, oh, this is like an instant…I got this. And I want to put this together. And it just went from there, so, super fun.

Rob:
Yeah. And how about you, Jonathan? Like you didn’t have an idea right away when, when I asked.

Jonathan:
No. I didn’t. I think originally I thought maybe I’d write something about a werewolf. But then that didn’t end up happening. And then when you brought it up again, I, I’d been working on a bunch of different fairy tale retellings. And The Beauty and the Beast one that I was doing was like the most finished. Not completely finished, but so I thought like OK, that’s that’s a monster, that works.

Rob:
Yeah, it was perfect.

Cat:
Just to let you know, as someone who loves Beauty and the Beast the way I audibly gasped when I turned like from the contributors list to like the first story it was like ahhhh! The illustration!

Alex:
Oh my gosh, the illustration!

Rob:
It’s my favorite in the whole book.

Jonathan:
The illustration is very cool.

Cat:
I, like, the audible gasp that left my body! When I was like, ahhh, yes. Already I knew, I knew I was going to love it, because as someone who is kind of scared of scary things. I, I love the concept of this, so I was like, I’m excited to explore monsters in this sense. So when I opened that first page, saw that brilliant illustration about the Beast and I was like “ohh I am hooked. I’m in. I’m ready for this ride, for all these stories to come to me.”

It was just such a wonderful, wonderful read so: people, go get the book! So my third question for all three of you is: can you talk about your journey and how the Highlights Foundation has played a part in it?

Alex:
A short story is about a moment. It’s all the things that lead up to the moment and all the things that happened as a result of that moment. But it’s just a moment. But a book is a lot of moments and a lot of moving through time, but short story’s about a moment and that really helped me…of how I got the confidence to write short stories.

Cat:
And now there’s so many short stories out there, Alex. So, yay!

Rob:
You’ve been in so many anthologies. This is like, what?
4 or 5 for you?

Cat:
Lucky #5! Whoo hoo!

Rob:
That’s awesome! Jonathan, do you want to?

Jonathan:
I can go. So I obviously am friends with Rob, also friends with Nora and Nicole. So I, I’ve seen them talking about Highlights for years and all the different workshops and stuff. And I always thought I wanted to go. But I’m originally from the West Coast, so before it would have been more difficult to get, you know, to actually get there. I’m in Massachusetts now, so it’s easier. And I also wanted to do the Whole Novel Workshop. I hadn’t finished my novel, so. Finished last year and then went in November for the first time and had a great time. We really felt like a very supportive community. And very encouraged to keep going with what I’m working on and finish it.

Rob:
Yeah, your novel’s…

Jonathan:
Thank you.

Cat:
I mean, if the Beauty and the Beast retelling was any sampling, I cannot wait for a novel from you. People are saying that the audio is going in and out…I’m OK on my end. I don’t know about any of you? Hopefully it’s OK now…

Jonathan:
Alex’s was cutting in and out for me.

Cat:
Yeah, Alex I do hear cutting in and out. But I hear Jonathan and Rob perfectly fine. OK, OK.

Rob:
And, and so I’ll just jump in with my background with the Highlights Foundation. I’ve been part of Whole Novel since 2014. And I credit…and so, I credit the Highlights Foundation with so much of the good stuff that’s happened like in my career. Met my agent at the Highlights Foundation.

Cat:
Oh, wow.

Rob:
Yeah, I, I the, the people that I, you know, my cohort of faculty have all sort of helped me along. Taught me how to write. Taught me everything I know and care about writing. And when this book came about, you know, Alex, I I met through the highlights foundation. She was one of the first people that I asked to be a part of it. And then another contributor, S. Maxwell, who writes under Sarah Maxwell, was a student in Whole Novel in 2022, I think. And we had a a slot open up in the book and she had read a story for her reading our last night of Whole Novel and t was so good. I thought: “Oh, she would be perfect for this.” And so I dropped her and email and just sure enough, she she wanted to do it. So I don’t know, so much, so much good stuff that’s come my way, thanks to the Highlights Soundation.

Cat:
Wow, thank you for sharing that, because I also met Rob at the Highlights Foundation. And I met Alex at the Highlights Foundation. Jonathan, we’re just gonna have to coincide on one of these trips and find each other on campus. But that is so cool. I did not realize how instrumental almost all these meetings at Highlights has been to your career. Thank you for sharing that.

Everyone is saying that the audio is now better. So that’s great. It might have just been Alex that was having some tech issues on her side and was interrupting the feed. Hopefully Alex will pop back in. But in the meantime, I would love to move on to our next question, which is: as somebody who loves reading anthologies and would one day love to be in a collection of anthologies… Tell us a little bit about how an anthology takes place and how does the list of contributors take shape?

Rob:
So you know it’s different for every book. But especially in children’s literature, most anthologies are primarily invitation, by invitation. So in, in different fields like in science fiction and horror and other, other genres, ometimes an editor will put out a call and invite people to contribute store, you know, to submit stories and then they’ll pick the the ones they like the best for the book.

But in kids’ lit, because of the way publishing works in kids’ lit, you really need to to have the book pretty much put together before an editor will buy it. And so I you know, I described briefly how I came up with the idea and my agent and I worked on assembling a proposal. And then, which basically was a description like a page or two pitch for the, for the concept of the book. And then a list of distributors that I either asked or that I wanted to ask and then a sort of a market analysis of other books that, you know, that similarly, similar kinds of anthologies, but that has already been published in how successful they’ve been.

And then various other marketing information, and sample stories. And those are the hardest to get, because you’re really asking somebody to write on spec. Something that may or may not, you know, ever, they may never sell it. They may, nothing may happen. But I was really fortunate in that I, I wrote a story myself and then. Merc Fenn Wolfmoor, who is, is one of the contributors had published a story that I really, really, loved. And they let me use that as one of the sample stories. And then another person, another writer who I dearly love, let me use one of their stories as a sample and they ended up not being in the book after all.

But with those three samples and the, the proposal put together, we sent it out to a bunch of different editors and and Britny Perilli at Running Press said yes. And she was really, she’s been absolutely wonderful. Everybody at Running Press is absolutely wonderful to work with. I couldn’t have asked for a, a better publisher, better team of people to work with. They’ve been so enthusiastic and committed to this project and said yes to everything we wanted to do. Got us the most amazing illustrator for, for the book, James Fenner. I mean it’s just, the book is just absolutely gorgeous, illustrated with all these amazing illustrations. But you can’t really see but…

Cat:
You’ll just have to buy it, people, because…

Rob:
You’ll just have to buy it.

Cat:
I agree–that illustration on the cover is phenomenal and like I said, you have to buy it to see all the mini illustrations that start every new story because like I said, whenever I turned that page and saw the piece I was like, oh, I am ready for whatever is to come. Every time I finished a story, there wass an illustration and I was like: Woo, I am in! I loved it so much. Thank you for this amazing opportunity, Rob. Thank you for this idea that you had that came to fruition for the team at Running Press, that was like we’re all in. For all the contributors, for all the stories, for all the things I learned, for all the things I saw, like Alexe’s Seawitch story, then your story that took place on the bus. Which I won’t say any more because again, you have to be there to read it.

It was like: what a joyous read! I can’t tell you how much fun I had reading this. And it also, I think my favorite thing about anthologies and this, this goes back to like when I was much younger, exploring anthologies for the first time. It really gives you like a sampling of,of a writer’s style. Perhaps you, or a writer you haven’t even known, or didn’t hear of or don’t know anything about or are curious about and it just gives you a small sampling and it’s just like it’s honestly–this is going to sound silly, but it’s kind of like the best buffet. Like you just like grab at a lot of things, and you’re just like, oh, this is so good. Oh, that’s so good. Oh, I want to read more of that and grab a big handful of Rob’s next book. Or Jonathan’s next book, or go back to Alex’s book. So I think anthologies these are so important, and of course sometimes they’re difficult to get off the ground, but I think they are incredibly important to readers for this exact reason.

So thank you, Rob. Thank you, Jonathan. And my next question is what do you hope kids will take away from this book?

Rob:
Jonathan,why don’t you go first?

Jonathan:
OK. I guess, for me, particularly for trans kids, I hope that they will take away the knowledge that they’re beautiful and deserving of love. That’s so much the theme of my story. And for the rest of the anthology, like even though I haven’t read it yet, like I imagine you know, just finding a reflection of yourself in the other stories.

Rob:
Yeah. I would echo all of that and just add that I think, for me, I want queer kids everywhere to feel strong and feel empowered and and feel like they have a right to be in this world and not to let anyone tell them anything different. So I think if there was one message that I hope this book carries forth, it’s that.

Cat:
Well, congratulations to both of you, to Alex, on this phenomenal new addition to the YA world/YA anthology world. I absolutely loved it. I thank everyone at Running Press also for getting me a copy ahead of time before talking to all of you.

Rob:
Before we got them!

Cat:
Before they got them, sorry.

And for those that may want to order a copy, which please: you must go and get your own copy, please. You can purchase at our virtual, at our virtual bookshop powered by bookshop.org. And please, if you’d like to add anything else, I don’t see any questions in the comments section. So if you have any questions, please go ahead and type them. But in the meantime, I’m going to talk to Rob and Jonathan if there’s anything else you’d like to add?

Rob:
Just thank you everyone for coming and thank you Cat for organizing this. I really appreciate it. It’s been a lot of fun to talk to you and it’s great to see Jonathan and I wish Alex was still here.

Jonathan:
Yeah.

Cat:
Thank you both.

Rob:
So that’s the the worst thing about an anthology is you don’t actually get to see people. It’s all over email and so this is, this is fun.

Cat:
Well, everyone, like I mentioned…Oh, we got a question. Oh, look at that. Thank you, Flora. It says: what age range do you feel this is best suited for?

Rob:
I would say probably 14 and up, 16 and up? In that age range. 14 to 16.

Cat:
Perfect. There’s any last questions, please type them in right now before we wrap up. Flora really snuck that in right before my outros. And thank you, I really appreciate that and again, sorry for the technical difficulties, something must have happened with Alex. Alex dropped off. But I’m sure we’re just happy that Alex was able to spend a little bit of time with us. That’s the most important… And I think that must be it. And again, thank you from everyone who tuned in from all parts of the globe.

Rob:
The world, yeah!

Jonathan:
Thanks for coming.

Cat:
That is so cool! That’s the best part about hosting these online is that it reaches everyone. And please do yourself a favor: go and buy this book. It is beautiful and gift it to everyone you know.

Rob:
Thank you.

Cat:
Thank you, Rob. Thank you, Jonathan. Thank you, Alex.
Thank you everyone for joining us. Have a great rest of your night. Bye.