The NAACP Image Award-nominated author opens up about her novel In Between Days, out this May
Not every family secret gets to stay a secret. Camryn Garrett, NAACP Image Award-nominated author, built her upcoming YA novel In Between Days around exactly that tension. Out this May, the book follows a teenager who discovers that the stranger at her father’s funeral knew her dad better than she ever did.
What led you to write In Between Days?
I was inspired by the idea of forming different types of family and finding family in places where you didn’t expect to look for them. I started writing it when I was in college and I was away from home, so I was thinking about not just finding friends your own age, but finding community in people who are older than you.
What is the book about?
The book is about a girl named Mira whose father passes away, and there’s a mysterious man who comes to the funeral and she doesn’t know who he is. It’s revealed that he was her father’s boyfriend, and she never knew about him. She’s spending the summer with this man, learning a lot more about her father and this side of him that she didn’t know.
There’s a moment where Mira asks Richard to teach her how to be queer. Why did you include that?
I think that’s something I experienced, and a lot of people experience, not just how to be queer, but just how to be. As a young person, I’m always looking at older people, like, what am I supposed to do? Mira has never really dated. She knows she has this identity but she’s the only queer person in her family, so she’s looking to Richard and saying, “how am I supposed to do this?” The answer is there’s no one path, and that’s sort of what he tells her.
The story is told through diary entries, text messages and book reviews. Why did you choose that format?
The story is about death and grieving. I wanted there to be elements that you could engage with that would not make you feel depressed the whole time. One of my favorite series is the Princess Diaries series by Meg Cabot. There are heavy things happening in that book and it’s just so funny because it feels like a real teenager wrote it. Writing it this way would make Mira feel way more like a real teenager.
Grief and queerness are both things people are often told to keep quiet about. How do you want people to feel when reading the book?
In Black communities, a lot of times you don’t talk about these things, or your family says this is our business. Mira’s mother says that in the book. I think that can be so isolating. I hope anyone who has felt grief, or who has been isolated because of something in their family, is able to feel like a safe space when reading it and able to feel cathartic when they’re reading the story.
You’re writing queer stories for young people at a time when those stories are under attack. What keeps you going?
I work with a program in New York called Lambda Literary that sends authors into schools. We go to GSA meetings, Gay Straight Alliance. A lot of times it’ll be students who are queer, and that gives me energy. Even when there are book bannings and legislation that makes it difficult, seeing the actual people who the stories are for engage with it gives me the energy to keep going.
When is In Between Days out and where can people find it?
In Between Days is coming out this May. It’ll be available anywhere you buy books. You can follow me @camryngwrites on Instagram or @dancingofpens on Twitter.
