Honor Book in Young Adult Category: Going Bicoastal by Dahlia Adler (Wednesday Books/St. Martin’s Press, 2023, 336 pp.)
The Whole Megillah (TWM): Mazel tov on your award! I’m so delighted to get to know you better. What motivated you to tell a “Sliding Doors” story?
Dahlia Adler (DA): I’d read a “Sliding Doors” story a number of years back, specifically about a main character who has two different summer options, and I really loved that concept. At the time I read it, I was writing my first LGBTQ YA Romance, and I was really interested in developing new stories through that lens, so essentially, the idea for the story kicked off as “What if Two Summers by Aimee Friedman was bi?”
TWM: What were the challenges? Satisfactions?
DA: There are so many challenges in writing this kind of narrative – how does the character stay the same in both timelines? How does she differ? What do you show in each? How do you keep it from feeling repetitive? (Or really, how do you keep it the right amount of repetitive?) How do you show similar growth in different ways? And of course you’re working in two different settings with two different friend groups and home lives, so keeping everything realistic-feeling but not overwhelming for the reader is a big one. For example, sure, it might be easier to show Natalya having just one good friend in each timeline – easier for a reader to parse, and easier to write – but that didn’t feel realistic to who she is.
Dahlia Adler, photo courtesy of Maggie Hall
TWM: How did the form of the story help you develop Natalya’s sexuality?
DA: Truly what I loved about writing this book is that I didn’t really have to develop her sexuality at all; she’s my first main character in YA to be completely, comfortably, truly set in who she is in that regard, right down to integrating it into her Jewish identity. But the format did give me an excellent opportunity to show that being bisexual isn’t dependent on the identity of your partner, which was, aside from discussing how it doesn’t clash with observing Judaism, the most important thing I wanted to do with her sexuality in this book.
TWM: What do you want readers to take away from this novel?
DA: I really wanted this book to illustrate that just because a huge option lies in front of you doesn’t mean that there’s a right choice and a wrong choice. I feel like teens are rarely given the combination of “You have a voice and what you choose matters” and “Your choice will not make or break you,” and given all they have to deal with already, especially in the pandemic era, I really wanted this book to give them a moment to breathe. And if it works for adults too, that’s just the icing on the cake.
TWM: Which authors inspire you?
DA: So many authors truly do inspire me, but I’d say top of the list are probably Becky Albertalli, who goes out of her way every single day to make sure both readers and authors feel supported and cared for; Courtney Summers, who is not only the author who truly tapped the nail into my wanting to write YA professionally, and is not only incredibly kind and supportive, but stands so ferociously for girls who’ve been silenced; all the authors who’ve written Orthodox representation into their YA books and remind me there’s a space for it, including Leah Scheier, Aden Polydoros, and Isaac Blum; obviously Aimee Friedman, who first inspired Going Bicoastal with Two Summers; and Tess Sharpe, who I think truly paved the way for bi girls in YA fiction with Far From You.
TWM: What’s next for you?
DA: I just released a new anthology co-edited with the wonderful Jennifer Iacopelli titled Out of Our League, which is a collection of stories about girls in sports. My story is a throwback to my own days as a Modern Orthodox Jewish sleepaway camp lifer, about a girl who teaches volleyball on sports staff and is having a hard time knowing the days are coming to an end. After that, my f/f sports romance Home Field Advantage comes out in paperback in June, and then 2025 brings both a new anthology and a new novel from me. The anthology is (currently) titled For the Rest of Us, and it’s a collection of all different holiday stories; my story wraps up all the Tishrei holidays in one, so encompasses Rosh HaShana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and Simchat Torah. And then the novel, (currently, but definitely not staying) title My Name is Everett is about a girl named Evie who goes to boarding school for a fresh start after her heart is broken, and promptly finds herself put in a boys’ dorm, ultimately inspiring her to make a pact with one of her new dormmates that she’ll teach him how to be a “good” boy if he teaches her how to be a “bad” girl. Shenanigans ensue. (So does romance.)
For more information about Dahlia Adler, please visit her website.
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