A picture of Adib next to the cover of his first book, Darius the Great is Not Okay.
Acclaimed young adult author Adib Khorram recently visited one of our partner classrooms at San Ysidro High School to share his story and chat with students! Thanks to a Words Alive volunteer who donated through last year’s Author’s Auction, high school students who have been reading Adib’s first book, Darius the Great is Not Okay, were able to meet him and ask questions. With humor and honesty, Adib shared insights about his path to becoming an author, struggles with mental health, the importance of representation and diversity in books, and of course, the power of reading and writing with our students.
When he was a student himself, Adib said, "All the books we read were really boring books about rich, straight, White people finding ways to have problems." When he first started writing, this pattern appeared in his own work, too.
"I didn't realize that you were allowed to write about other people," he said.
It wasn't until the We Need Diverse Books movement started in 2014 that he began to ask himself, "What's a book that only I could write?"
Darius the Great is Not Okay grew out of Adib’s own experiences growing up in diaspora as an Iranian-American, being a queer boy who didn’t line up with other people’s expectations of masculinity, and living with depression. He wanted to write a story that was authentic to his own lived experience.
As he shared these experiences, Adib was candid about the struggles he's faced and the nonlinear journey he took to becoming an author. He assured students that it's okay to not have everything together.
"My life has basically been a long series of 'This seems like a good idea...on second thought, maybe not,'" he said, laughing. "I'm a disaster, but I'm also still a functioning member of society, and I feel like people need to know that you can be both!"
Though the experiences themselves may have been difficult, telling these stories has been a powerful path to healing.
"Writing's a lot cheaper than therapy," he joked. "Writing about the things that hurt me, that made me afraid, that made me nervous, and finding out that other people felt the same way and that it resonated with them, makes me feel a lot less lonely."
Ultimately, his hope is that reflecting on the difficult experiences he’s had through writing helps his readers with the challenges they face in their own lives.
"Part of my job as a writer of young adult books is to make the world better for young adults," he said simply.
Students had lots of questions after hearing Adib share. They asked everything from “Why does Darius go into so much detail about things like tea and Star Trek?” to “How has the pandemic affected you?” to “How are you able to be so open about vulnerable parts of yourself?”
When one student asked how to overcome the uncertainty that comes with writing a story for the first time, Adib had this to say:
"Sometimes you're afraid to start a story because it's getting at something that you don't want to share. My advice is to be brave and take it a little at a time. Sometimes we don't want to start a story because we're not ready, and then it's important to be gentle with yourself until you're ready. Sometimes it's hard because starting is hard and a blank page is scary. I'm a big fan of just writing something, letting it be crappy, and then it's something that you can fix instead of start."
And if all else fails?
"Laying down on the ground bemoaning existence is good too," he said with a smile.
We're so thankful for this opportunity to partner with San Ysidro High School and grateful to Adib for stopping by for a visit! If you’d like to make more partnerships like this one possible, click here to learn more.