TAE KELLER ON JENNIFER CHAN IS NOT ALONE
The novel takes a hard look at bullying, through the eyes of the bully instead of the one being bullied. How did you decide that this was something that you wanted to write about?
When I was in middle school and I was being bullied, I gravitated towards books about bullying. What I found was a lot of books about kids who were being bullied, which was really helpful for me. But I also kept looking for books about other points of view. I was looking for a way to make sense of it, to try to understand what other people were thinking and how this happened.
When I was writing Jennifer Chan, I really wanted to be intentional. We’re not just one thing. It’s possible to make a mistake in a situation or to do something bad but not be a bad person. One mistake won’t define us forever. If you hurt someone, you’re not just a bully for life. And that really became clear when I reached out to the kids who had bullied me. I did that because I started to write from Mallory’s point of view, and I really struggled because I had a lot of those emotions from when I was in middle school. I was trying to open up and think about the broader context, but I realized that I didn’t have the broader context. Then I started reaching out to people and hearing from them. This idea formed that we all are struggling and we’re all trying our best and we’re all making mistakes and trying to fix them. That became clear when I started to talk to people as an adult.