You name it! But you can't change your looks and you can only go TWO years in the future.I'm 14 now, but the article is set in December 2008 and I'm 15 then. You can use fake names. But don't do any other stuff like making yourself tall when you're petite, making your eye color black if it's really green, etc. It has to be YOU!
Okay, here's mine. I was interviewed by GQ!
I’m in a corner Starbucks on Mercer Island adjacent to a QFC and a pizza place, right across a table from Calix Hart. And we are discussing romance novels. Yes, romance novels with a 15-year-old. I’m talking about if Hart should move in that genre or stick to the stuff that’s made him shoot straight to the “prize of getting a New York Times-bestseller every time I put out a new word of print,” That’s how the deaf celebrity wryly puts it.
Oops, sorry. Not celebrity. The Pulitzer Prize-winning writer insists he’s not one, just a guy who had luck and determination. “I don’t like to label myself with that term,” says Hart as he takes a sip of his hot chocolate. “I’d feel really full of myself if I did that. Like, you know, in a bad way.”
Anyways, back to the romance. “I’ve always wondered about attraction both physically”—here he cracks a mischievous smile—“and emotionally. I’m trying to create some stuff that might become the norm. You know, deaf literature. Like black literature and Chinese folk tales and all that jazz.” Here he breaks into a chuckle: “I say ‘all that jazz’ a lot. I need to stop watching Chicago.”
We take a laugh break and Calix Hart runs slim, manicured fingers through his shaggy, blonde hair, straighten the tortoiseshell glasses that frame his green eyes. A brown waffle-weave shirt hangs off his frame, along with boot-cut jeans and Converse sneakers. “I have three henna tattoos!” he divulges, rolling up his sleeve to reveal the Chinese symbol for ‘courage.’ The other arm has an Egyptian eye and one that has no name. “They’re so freaking cool. The stuff stays on for a week, two weeks. Pretty cool, huh?” Here, he grins crookedly.
Yes, there’s no use denying that boyish, sweet charm that Hart has. And he pays special attention to his deaf friends, saying “we haven’t gotten much attention from the media. No freaky stories, but the culture can be freaky to a hearing person.” And he has been paying them homage with Highest Degree, the acclaimed To Use The Weak, and Soundless Walls to name a few. And he cranks out two books a year or sometimes higher. “My friends bite my butt if I don’t give them a new chapter the next time I see them. Some of my friends looooove to read!”
“There’s always been a deaf theme, a deaf character, a deaf subplot, et cetera, et cetera…” Calix explains about the special attention to deaf culture. “In The Next Stalked, the son was deaf. In Highest Degree…well, heck! The whole book is about deaf stuff!”
He excuses himself for a second, pulls out his iPhone and groans at a message that he just received. His fingers are a blur and then he’s tucking the phone away. “My friend, Rogan. He wants to know when I’m gonna hang with him and Jion and Wo.”
My quizzical repeating of the last name gets a cocked eyebrow and a sassy: “You never met a Dutch person before? Wo Meijer is one of my best friends. He loves Star Wars! And the movies he owns, God…so many!”
He might be tight now with people, but he wasn’t like that in middle school. The friends he mentioned were only mutual and people he met in eighth grade. “I was a loner in sixth and seventh. It was so chaotic, this automatic rearrangement of groups and friends. I wasn’t sporty enough, smart enough and all that jazz. And also I was bitter that my friends were moving away so I became hostile a bit. A bit loopy.” Another chuckle.
“I had a very strong family environment. My parents really wanted the best for me, but they thought that I would be isolated a lot if I didn’t take speech lessons.” Hart points at his lips. “This was the result. I quit when I became a freshman. And they encouraged me to use hearing aids even though they hurt like hell! And the price…” he shakes his head. “I’m a-going to have a talk with them about that. My sister—I got the craziness from her! She’s a one-woman circus.”
“I absolutely loved writing. But I didn’t have the goal of finishing a story until the winter of last year. I finished this gay romance story and put it on the net.” People went crazy over it, which prompted him to keep writing. And he wrote another gay romance story. And then a horror novel. And then the Weak book. And the list goes on…
“And look where I ended up!” Hart booms. “To Use The Weak is made in a movie. And there’s Oscar nominations. And Cate Blanchett is in it! There's so much going on…!”
And what if he runs out of luck? If his novels start to fizzle instead of sizzle? Then what?
“I’m a-go to beauty school or massage school and do my thing.” Hart smiles. “I don’t know really. I’m just flying by the seat of my pants.”
You inspired now? Good, then write and post here!
No full names divulged here please, and if that's your real name you're using up there, I suggest you edit it. Nice topic idea though, I might do this when I have time!