Congratulations, first and foremost.
Two years ago today...
your book, The Hate U Give, was number one
on The New York Times Best Seller list,
and it is still bouncing between number one and number two.
-Congratulations. -Thank you. Thank you.
(cheering, applause)
I, um... I'm intrigued.
There's a question an audience member asked me
just before you came out about adversity in life.
You were an author,
an author that nobody would take seriously,
an author that nobody wanted, no one wanted your work,
-no one was gonna publish you, -Mm-hmm.
and you carried on writing,
you continued persevering, and you believed in yourself.
How did you work through all of that adversity?
How did you say to yourself,
"No, I do have something worth reading"?
You know, for me, it was about keeping my vision,
you know, um, and making sure that I always kept my dreams
and focused on them.
'Cause it's easy to look at everything else.
You know, and, then, having a black mama
-who will not let you give up. -Right.
Black moms have this talent. Like, "I know dang all well
"you are not considering giving up.
No, you got to keep going." So that really helped me a lot.
It was just, sometimes when you're
going through so much stuff, you hope for better,
and you can't help but keep going to try to get better.
-So I had to do that. -You definitely did it, though.
Because you have an interesting...
niche that you've now carved out for yourself.
You know, you had this book that was a story
really in and around Black Lives Matter,
and it was talking about a young child's experience
as a black person.
And many people were saying to you, "Oh, who would buy this?"
"This is not what we're looking for."
"We want vampires."
"This is not what we're looking for."
And, I mean, the story was crazy.
You-you got your first break from a tweet.
Yeah. Twitter's good for something.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. A literary agency
held a question-and-answer session on Twitter,
and I was considering sending the book out,
but I was afraid, and, once again...
I was working at a church at the time--
I wrote all of those curse words while working in a church.
Um... God forgive me.
Anyway, um, I was working in the church,
and I was at my desk, and I saw that they had
-that question-and-answer session, -Right.
and I called my mom-- once again, black mom's like,
"You better ask the question if you want to know."
So I asked if it was an appropriate topic
for a young adult novel.
Um, an agent, he responded, and he was like, "Yeah,
I'd love to read that, actually."
And I sent it to him. He signed me.
That is... that's such a phenomenal story.
-You just, like, you just did it. -(cheering)
Yeah.
You bring up... you bring up the curse words,
and what I really found interesting about your books
is that they are written
in such an authentic, fast-paced manner.
It's-it's... it's about young adults.
It's about... it's about kids who are growing into...
into adults.
It's about life.
And there are some schools that didn't want to take your book,
even though kids loved it, 'cause they were like,
"There's profanity that... that the kids are using in the book.
We don't want our children reading this."
-How did you respond to that? -Well, my first thought was,
"You must not be listening to those kids in the hallways."
Um, but at first, I was angry, I can't lie,
I was so angry, because I knew that was a cop-out.
-Right. -Like, you can say that, and I will tell you this,
there are exactly 89 instances
of the F-word in The Hate U Give.
I counted on my Kindle.
But, last year alone, over 800 people lost their lives
at the hands of police brutality,
that number is far scarier.
So when you're telling me it's the language,
-no, that's not what it is. -Right.
You don't want to talk about the topic.
And then, when you're saying that,
what you're telling these kids
is that your stories don't matter.
We don't want to hear your stories
because they make us uncomfortable.
And my job as a writer is to write the stories
that make adults uncomfortable,
because that's what the kids need.
(cheers and applause)
The Hate U Give was turned into a really successful film.
Um, I think it's boosted the popularity
of the book and vice versa.
And now you've come out with On the Come Up.
What I really love about this story is
it's the story of another young woman
-who is-- Her dream is to become a rapper. -Mm-hmm.
She grows up in basically the same neighborhood
as the character from The Hate U Give,
but they live very different lives, very different stories.
Did you do that on purpose to put them in the same world
but have them be completely different?
Yeah, absolutely.
They don't even know each other,
because not all black people know each other.
-Wha...? -I know, right?
Shocking.
Um, no, they don't know each other.
Their lives are different, their personalities are different.
Because I don't even want people to think
that two girls from the same neighborhood
will act alike, will behave the same way.
So it was really important for me to do that.
I thought it was really beautiful,
because it, it spoke to the idea
that, you know, black is homogenous.
People go, "Oh, it's black people." It's, like, no,
but there's no just black people as a whole.
All of these people are black,
but they're experiencing life differently.
She's living in a world where her aunt has a drug problem,
her dad has been shot,
and she's living in a very different world
to the other character that we came across.
Why was hip-hop such a big part of this book?
Why do you think that's one of the driving forces
that moves the book and your writing?
You know, hip-hop spoke for me when books didn't.
I loved reading as a kid, but as a teenager, I hated it.
You know, you kind of alluded to vampires.
You know, when I was a teen, Twilight was the big book,
and I have nothing against Twilight at all,
but my mom wouldn't have let me date a 300-year-old vampire,
-so I couldn't connect. -(laughs)
You know, and The Hunger Games, she would have been like,
"I volunteer as tribute" and they would have been called
"Mama won't let you go hungry games."
That's a whole different book.
So hip-hop spoke for me when books didn't.
I saw myself in rapper songs, you know.
When Tupac was saying, "Keep your head up,"
he was talking to me, you know.
When Nas said, "The world is mine," he was talking to me.
You know, and when TLC did what they did
they were speaking to me, so I wanted to pay homage to that
because, for so many young people,
that's where they get their voice from,
that's where they see themselves.
And it's a mirror for so many of them,
so why not pay homage to that?
It's one of the reasons that you've been so successful.
Um, your book, The Hate U Give was number one
on The New York Times Best Seller's list.
Unfortunately, it's been knocked off
the number one spot by your second book, On the Come Up.
Do you have a little beef with yourself sometimes?
-Like a moment... -You know, well, I did earlier today
because The Hate U Give took the number one spot back.
And I'm like, "star, please let your little sister shine."
I feel like she's like
-the over-achieving older child -Right. Right, right, right.
And she's like, "Nope, I got this. Let me get my spot back."
But it's-it's fun; it's interesting to know
-that I'm my biggest hurdle at times. -Yes.
You know, I don't mean to sound cocky by saying that,
but I just got to try to beat myself at this point.
That's an amazing thing to work towards.
It genuinely is.
Your books are amazing.
There's a reason you've sold millions of copies.
And, um, I'm excited to see what film this one turns into.
-Thank you so much for being on the show. -Thank you.
Wonderful reading your work.
On the Come Up is available now.
Trust me, you want to read it.
You want to get your kids reading it as well.
Angie Thomas, everyone.