Interview with Will Kostakis, We Could Be Something

1. To begin, what inspired you to start writing and when did you start?

One of my earliest memories is of my grandfather waiting outside the newsagency before it opened to buy exercise books. He would sit at the table opposite my brothers and me, open the books and say, “Write.” He was a Greek immigrant who couldn’t read or write, and he wanted more for his grandchildren. I kept writing and writing and was encouraged by teachers to keep writing and writing. It’s always made me happy, but I can’t separate my passion for it from the encouragement I received growing up.

2. Can you tell us a little bit about your first ever book, and what inspired it, and when it was published?

Ah. Loathing Lola. I wrote it through high school and it was released when I was nineteen in 2008, so it captures who I was, my interests and my sense of humour. I cringe when I look back at it, but I’m kinda grateful I have that version of myself preserved in amber, typos and all.

3. Your bio says you were first published when you were seventeen – what was this experience like, and do you think it helped you understand how the publishing industry worked to get to where you are today?

It was an exhilarating, scarring experience that gave me writers block for the first time in my life. It was a baptism by fire. The industry is inherently cruel (hi, you’re going to work with this one person, your editor, intimately for years, then one day, your book is released and they have no reason to email you, they have September’s new release, and October’s, and November’s…). No one prepared me for that as a teenager. Add in the fact that as an author, your value is determined by your sales, and you’re constantly told your value is not determined by your sales? It’s a minefield for someone with their head screwed on, and at nineteen, my head was not screwed on. But it made me who I am today, and it meant that when I returned years later, I was hardened and more realistic about what publication involved.

4. What were your favourite books or series when you were growing up? Were they mostly Australian, or a mix of Australian and books from overseas?

My favourites were a mix of anything by Terry Pratchett and local YA (Barry Jonsberg, Melina Marchetta, Simmone Howell).

5. What is the premise – without giving spoilers – about We Could Be Something?

How the stories of two seventeen year olds – an aspiring high school dropout with divorcing gay dads, and a high school overachiever and published author – converge on a street in Darlinghurst.

6. How did you decide on the structure of the book, and how the storylines would eventually converge?

I love bouncing between voices after a substantial time. In my novel The Sidekicks, I stuck with each character for 20,000 words, no chapter breaks, and that annoyed people, so this felt like a perfect middle ground, bouncing between two characters, with their stories broken in sections (and those sections into chapters). It gave me a handle on the story and kept me from meandering or waffling. Doing that allowed me to make sure the two characters’ stories were always in conversation with each other. I had Sotiris’s arc locked in early, so it was about making sure there was always a reason to cut back to Harvey, and make sure his story echoed or responded to Sotiris’s.

7. I loved that you wrote about your experience through fiction, especially knowing a little bit about it prior to reading the book – how much of We Could Be Something do you feel is based on your own experiences, and what made you decide to write about it this way?

I’m eight books in, some more autobiographical than others. Engaging with my life through fiction is where I’m happiest. Sotiris says something in the book – he calls his writing semiautobiographical, it’s real life but the explosions are bigger and he’s three-to- four times sexier. That’s a line that’s lifted from a story I wrote in Year Twelve, so I guess I’ve always been aware of it. The truth is the launching pad, and while I’d say the percent of the novel is stuff that’s happened to me, my truth still courses through the rest.

8. Sotiris and Harvey are living in the same area at around the same age in their storylines and I loved exploring an area of Sydney I haven’t physically been to – is Darlinghurst an area of Sydney that is familiar to you, and did this inform how you wrote about it?

This is part of the percentage. Mum used to run a cafe in Darlinghurst, so for a few years of my childhood, I became very familiar with it. As an adult, I’m often in the area, my gym is now around the corner from that cafe … So when I could leave the gym, my mind would wander, and the story would build itself on my way home.

9. I loved exploring Greek culture and food through your characters and learning about it as well – do you have a favourite Greek dish that you would recommend to anyone?

Moussaka. It’s one of my favourite dishes, and it was a huge part of my previous “big fat Greek” novel, The First Third.

10. Proyiayia was awesome – she felt like she could be anyone’s grandmother, which I think is special. Was this your intent, or what you hope people will get out of this book?

My intent with Proyiayia was to capture what my grandmother means to me, and the love and care she shows others. It makes sense you’d then read her as an every-grandmother, but there’s a specificity to her too. Her generation, the ninety-somethings in their twilight years, they are who our idea of what a Greek grandmother can be is based on, and we’re saying our slow goodbye to them. I wanted to commit that to the page before people like her are lost to time.

11. Where did the character of Jem come from?

Ah, that ten percent… A bookseller did sass me for buying my own book, and it did launch a torrid love affair turned friendship. So that situation was a catalyst, but Jem as a person is a work of fiction.

12. One of my favourite things was that you explored families, friendships, and romance, and the different kinds of love – familial, platonic, and romantic. Is this an important thing for you to write about for teens and readers in general?

Of course it is, it’s at the core of what it means to be human, and something I’m deeply interested in. I wanted to capture the complexity of families, and love, in all its forms, is in the centre of that.

13. This is an important book for representation and diversity in Australia – what is the big take away that you hope readers get from your work?

That I’m their new favourite author.

Honestly though, I hope readers step away from the book with a deeper perspective of the world and their own lives. The representation and diversity of the book is just … the world as it is.

14. You really think about your audience and care about them – and I got that from the start of this book – what does it mean to you when readers tell you that your book means so much to them, for whatever reason it may be that they connect with it?

It means the world, because the process of writing books, especially books this personal, can be tough, tough work. I always set out to write stories that linger, and leave a reader changed, like the best stories change me when I read them. It’s up to others whether I’m successful in that regard.

15. One character is encouraged to change his name at one stage – what do you think it means to someone’s identity when they have to hide something or change something about themselves to be more acceptable to others?

It’s horrible. I lived through the days when books were de-queered in editorial for fear of censorship and “not getting into schools”. That character’s name struggle, that loss of self, it mirrors the other experiences in the book where people are forced to hide and change to appease others. And I think the book makes it pretty clear how I feel about that.

16. Your strong LGBTQIA themes are eloquently put – but you also let every character have their identity and you give them lots of substance – is it important to you to let your characters be who they are without being stereotypes?

Hell yes. I also let the stereotypical ones be stereotypical too, because all representation is important haha.

17. How did your identity and your experiences inform the plot and the characters?

Oh, we’d run out of internet if I answered this in depth. I’m a gay guy who grew up in a small but potent Greek family. That’s all on the page. And I’m glad it is, because I’m grateful for all that I am and the life my family has given me.

18. Who are your favourite contemporary authors or genres, and why?

Okay, short list: John Corey Whaley (Where Things Come Back and Noggin are sensational, Ellie Marney, Lili Wilkinson, Helena Fox, Amie Kaufman, Melina Marchetta, Gabrielle Tozer … I’m in awe of what they can do.

The new wave of queer storytellers in Australia are also so impressive: Alison Evans, Gary Lonesborough, Tobias Madden, Erin Gough … The list keeps growing and growing and I’m thrilled for the YA readers of today.

19. Do your cats like to help you write, or is Meowdle on Twitter a way to distract them?

They distract me!

20. Finally, what’s next for Will Kostakis, and have you ever thought about exploring fantasy or historical fiction with your LGBTQIA characters?

Monuments and Rebel Gods were my queer urban fantasies, which were so much fun to write (and they definitely made the pandemic years more tolerable). As for what’s next? No spoilers, sorry. 😉