Mahogany L. Browne’s debut novel-in-verse is going to be big.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY:What is the first thing you remember writing?
MAHOGANY L. BROWNE:I remember writing a story in fourth grade.
Credit: Crown Books for Young Readers (2)
I don’t remember what it was about, only that we were tasked with bookmaking as well.
I remember the cardboard hardcover was pink with a stick-figure white girl in a blue dress on the front.
What is the last book that made you cry?
Jesmyn Ward’sSalvage the Bones.Still to this day it can send me spiraling.
Where do you write?
In the living room.
I bought a new chair for my bedroom and that’s become a lovely creation space.
I write wherever my body lands.
Sometimes when I am walking down the parkway in Brooklyn, I am writing.
Sometimes when I am dreaming, I am writing, too.
Which book made you a forever reader?
The Bluest Eyeby Toni Morrison made me a forever fan of books.
I read the majority of that book in the stacks of my local library.
I owed dues and wasn’t allowed to check out books for a while.
It was the best read of my life.
What is a snack you couldn’t write without?
That’s a good one.
It’s a tie between jalapeno chips and sunflower seeds!
If you could change one thing about any of your books, what would it be?
I would change the effect the stories have on me after I’ve written them.
While my books are fiction, it is real-life memories that make them possible.
What is your favorite part ofChlorine Sky?
The beginning is my favorite.
You don’t know what you’re walking into.
What was the hardest plot point or character to write?
Lay Li was difficult to write because I didn’t want to present a one-sided idea of her.
It’s easy to think, “She’s mean.
Let’s root against her.”
But life isn’t one way of looking at people.
We contain so many versions of ourselves.
The self-centered and the self-destructive.
I hope I gave her enough room to be reveredandannoying.
Write a movie poster tagline forChlorine Sky:
Friendship shouldn’t be sink or swim.
