The Southern Festival of Books Speech for A World Without You

Introduction

This is not a typical Wattpad story, but that's okay, because A World Without You is not a typical novel, at least not the typical one I would write. Most of my published books are science fiction and involve varying levels of explosions and kissing, but not A World Without You. (Although I did include a fire...I seem unable to not write destruction.)

A World Without You is technically a contemporary novel. It's about a boy who believes he can travel through time, but the school for superheroes that he thinks he's attending is actually a school for mentally disturbed youth. It's very twisty--Booklist compared it to Shutter Island--and not everything is as it seems. I like movies like Memento and Triangle and Cabin in the Woods and other things where what you think is real isn't. And I also like Doctor Who, and I've always wanted to write a time travel novel. 

But again, the book's not really about time travel. It's about Bo. 

And it's about me. 

In many ways, A World Without You was the hardest book I've ever written because it was so personal to me. I don't like personal. Personal is hard. Writing this book forced me to dredge up memories I'd long since let fall into the mist. It forced me to examine not just my own past, but the past of someone I loved, someone who died. 

I thought writing the book would be hard, but then I discovered that talking about writing the book was even harder. I can hide behind text, not so much when the words have to fall from my own lips. 

But when the Southern Festival of Books offered me an hour to talk about my book, I knew I had to talk about the truth. I steeled myself to give this speech. I practiced for hours, working to keep the emotion out of my voice (it didn't work). I tried every cliche trick to not look at the audience, to pretend it was only me, alone, in that room (it also didn't work). 

In the end, the speech is something I'm very proud of, if only because I was able to get out something close to truth. I present it here for you to read as several members of the audience have requested that I publish it--and have continued to request it in the months that followed. I hope you find some truth in it.