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Aida, how are you doing today? I am so excited because the sun

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has come up. Well, you're
like me, because that's when I write

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is when the sun is rising.
I do my journal every single morning when

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the sun is rising. How beautiful. Wow, that's inspiring. Well,

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you know that your brain waves are
at like the FATA stage, which is

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like the most creative that you can
be at that time when you wake up.

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I'm so glad that you brought that
up, because I'm blessed with the

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opportunity to talk with a lot of
authors who say, no, my writing

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time is ten pm until two am, and I'm going, oh my god,

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what is up with you? No, it's actually a magical time.

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That's actually when my best ideas come. Yep, yep, absolutely yep.

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Yeah, And it comes to as
a single thought. And the question is

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is how are you going to connect
that? In fact? That takes me

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to your book. The way that
it is printed. You've got to explain

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to me. To me, it
looks like a book of poetry, is

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it it is, it's a book
of poems. But but it's a story.

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It's it's it's it's a novel,
a traditional story that in three hundred

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pages, but you have to read
them sequentially. The poems start from beginning

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to end, and that's how you
understand the story. It's not like a

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typical book of poetry you can flip
to end page and just read the poem

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by itself. But these are all
sequentials, so it's important that you read

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from beginning to and and and though
it's it's National Poetry Month, so we're

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celebrating that, of course, and
our pub date today is the first day

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that Ultra Violet is available in stories, but poetry. It allows us this

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really beautiful entry into the human heart. And that's what our former poet Laureate

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Billy Collins says, Poetry is the
history of the human heart. And the

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story about a little boy who falls
in love the very first time and get

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heartbroken is really a story of the
interior, right, It's a story of

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the inside of this little voice feelings, and so it just made a natural,

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a very natural way to express this
story. The way that I was

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able to identify with the poetry was
the fact that my last book was fifty

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three pieces of poetry that happened to
tell a story about John Lennon. And

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so that's why when I first opened
this book, I went, oh my

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god, wow, that sounds fascinating. I got to read that. You

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know, it's going to take a
poet to understand it, though, because

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it's not written in what I call
street speak. I mean, it's written

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because the way when I had the
story, and I thought John Lennon would

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just sit there and write a book
like this, John Lennon would do it

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through his poetry, yes, yes, and songwriting. Right, there's such

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a relationship between between a book,
I'm sorry, a book and verse and

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poetry and music. Absolutely, yeah. I mean, you know, like

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the word verse, verse is you
know, you hear you know, you

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ask what the verse is in a
song, and it's the same thing.

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So true, so true. There's
a very relatable scene in here and and

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and I think that every young boy
goes through this. It's Pops always telling

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Elio to man up, man up, and I just I could so hear

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my father's voice when when those things
were taking place. Oh, I know,

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it's it's one of them all.
I mean, although it's it's a

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very common thing, it's also really
one of more painful things, right,

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because because boys in our patriarchal system
have not been given the opportunity to feel

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the expansive range of feelings that we
have as humans, and so they have

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to suck it up. They can't
cry, they can't express your emotions.

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And the only expression expression of emotion
that is acceptable is violence. Right,

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we expect violence from boys and so, but we see it in our homes,

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we see it on the streets,
on the world stage, and the

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wars and genocides we're seeing that's all
unexpressed, unhealed wounds, playing themselves out.

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And so while it's it's very typical, it's also very hard and sad

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to know that that's what we keep
doing to our boys. There's victims inasmuch

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as girls and women are victims of
patriarchy. Yeah. Another thing that you

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cover here that that I didn't have
growing up when I would go to the

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library is that you cover puberty for
a young man. And the thing is

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is that we don't have books like
this, and it was one of those

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subjects we didn't talk about, and
yet the girls had are you there,

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God, it's me Margaret. It
was always one of those well where's my

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book where I can understand what I'm
going through? And so this book,

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right, here is so unbelievable.
In sharing that journey, she says,

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actually, you know what, Judy
Bloom did write a book called Then Again,

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Maybe I Won't, and it was
the kind of puberty. Yeah,

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and she talks about all of the
taboo subjects, the you know, the

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woodies, the nocturnal emissions, these
things. But it didn't get as much

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a claim. I would say,
as as are you there guarded to me,

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Margaret, But both were had were
banned my books Someone Within has been

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banned. You know, it's very
interesting to me how speaking about puberty is

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something that is shameful, right when
it's the most natural thing and the thing

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that all of us have to experience. And I tried to approach this with

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a lot of humor because because puberty
is hilarious and in fact, you know

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that that question that you said,
when is there going to be a book

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about me? Right, That's exactly
what my son asked me and his best

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friend. But after I'd written The
Moon Within, they said, you know,

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I like this book a lot,
so like, when are you going

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to write the Sun Within? And
I was like, oh, my goodness,

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and you're right. When I did
research, I went to look for

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books that reflected this reality for boys, it was only are you then again

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maybe I won't by Judy Bloom and
maybe another. But other than that,

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there were hardly meaning and that's a
shame and we're just trying to read write

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that we hope for Violet. Well, the book cover. I know we're

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not supposed to judge a book by
its book cover, but I'll tell you

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what, I love this one because
it looks like everybody. In other words,

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anybody can look at this phot this
is this front cover and go,

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that's me, or that's my son, that's my grandson. I mean,

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I just I just see so much
innocent in this child's eyes. Oh I

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know that that cover was created by
Zeke Pena, and absolutely it just there's

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this innocence and this like curiousness,
an awkwardness. It's all mixed in that

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that little boy in this curly top
head like all the kids are like super

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working right now, you know the
girls on the head and that little dimple,

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Yeah, it's great and sweet chubby
cheeks right like right in that in

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between space. Wow. Wow,
Well, you've got to come back to

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this show anytime in the future.
The door is always going to be open

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for you. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure to be here.

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You'd be brilliant today. Okay,
okay, I will thank you.