First Draft Episode #222: Ryan La Sala
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Ryan La Sala, debut author of fantasy YA novel Reverie. If you enjoy this conversation with Ryan, hear more from him over at the What Book Hooked You? podcast!
Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode
Some of the animation that inspired young Ryan came from seminal video game Final Fantasy, and epic superhero series Sailor Moon
Glee (TV show)
Ryan found Alex London’s book Proxy (listen to Alex’s First Draft interviews here and here) and books written by David Levithan, New York Times bestselling author of Every Day, Boy Meets Boy, and Two Boys Kissing, and that inspired Ryan to write his own gay YA story. Ryan also found A. R. Kahler and Adam Silvera’s episodes of First Draft!
Jeffree Starr, famous makeup artist, with whom Ryan got into a MySpace fight
The epigraph of Reverie is a quote from Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit
Ryan’s short pitch for Reverie was: Inception meets RuPaul’s Drag Race
Ryan had a situation in high school that was not unlike what was portrayed in the Love, Simon movie, based on Simon Versus the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertali (listen to her First Draft episode here)
The Netflix TV show Sex Education
Marsha P. Johnson, trans activist
Ryan talked about his #DVPit experience on the Write or Die podcast
In the cartoon of Beauty and the Beast, the wardrobe commits manslaughter - Ryan’s Halloween costume as the Wardrobe is everything
Kirsten Hubbard, author of Like Mandarin, Wanderlove, and Watch the Sky and Race the Night, and more (listen to her First Draft episode here) talks on voice memos on her phone to break story
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