Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Episode Transcript

Transcript edited by Miri Newman

Show Introduction

Kylo: You are listening to Let’s Talk!. Let’s Talk!, is a digital space for students at PCC experiencing disabilities to share their perspectives, ideas, and worldviews in an inclusive and accessible environment. The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of Portland Community College PCC Foundation, or our community partners. We broadcast on our home website, pcc.edu/DCA, on Spotify, on XRAY 91.1 FM and 107.1 FM, and KBOO Community Radio, 90.7 FM.

 [Intro Music]

Introducing the Guest

Miri: Thank you for tuning in to Let’s Talk! Today I have with me the author of The Loudest Silence, and their newest book, Someone to Daydream About. Go ahead and introduce yourself, your history with creation and art.

Sydney: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to be chatting with you today. So my name is Sydney, I use they/them pronouns, and I am a young adult author who is originally from Seattle and currently living in Portland, Oregon. 

Miri: Thank you. So, how long have you wanted to be a writer, and what were your main goals as an artist when you were, you know, up and coming?

Sydney: Yeah, so my mom loves to tell the story of before I could read when I was like two or three, I would take picture books and make up stories just based on the illustrations. And so I’ve always been a storyteller of sorts, but I didn’t really want to become a writer until I was about 16. Between the ages of like, 12 and 16, I was writing fan fiction a lot and having a lot of fun with that creativity. But after I became disabled at about 14 and then COVID hit shortly after, I started reading a lot to pass the time. And I wasn’t really seeing myself represented in terms of disability rep in books until I read a novel called This Is Kind Of An Epic Love Story, by Kacen Callender that has a Deaf love interest. And that was one of the first times I felt represented on page, and that sort of sparked the inspiration for me to share some of my own stories and experiences through novels. 

How Disabilities Influence Creation

Miri: How has your experiences with your disabilities influenced your art?

Sydney: It has influenced my art in so many ways. It’s, it’s really hard for me to separate my art from my disabled identities because they’re so closely connected. I think one of the biggest things is I have learned to advocate for myself a lot more. A lot of the time in publishing there are very tight deadlines, and sometimes I’m just not able to meet those. I used to have a lot of anxiety around speaking up, or asking for more time, or accommodations, and I’ve really learned to be more confident in that. I think also a lot of the time, the advice when I was first starting to get into writing heavy duty, a lot of people would say, “Try to write every day, whether it’s one word or a thousand.” And unfortunately, that didn’t work for me personally due to fluctuating energy levels and disabilities. So really sort of carving my own path and finding out what works the best for me is still an ongoing process because every book is different. Every day is a little different for me, but those are probably the main things that influence my creation. 

Miri: Yeah, so you mentioned the – in the publishing process, the signing process, all that stuff – that it is very fast-paced and very impatient. How, how does being disabled affect your ability to meet deadlines and even just how you approach a new project when it comes to deadlines?

Sydney: I have very open communication with my editor and also my agent. Sometimes I’ll have my agent jump in to express something, or help me set a certain boundary, but in general, it is been kind of a recent development that I have sort of become okay with my projects potentially getting out into the world and on shelves later if I can’t meet certain deadlines. But sort of accepting that because I want to be able to enjoy the process and not negatively impact my own health and mental wellbeing to meet a deadline. So I still obviously try to hit all my deadlines, but have sort of learned that I won’t be able to hit every deadline every time, and however that affects the process, I’m kind of okay with at this point.

Miri: Yeah, I think that’s something that comes up in a lot of our conversations with people. Um, just in any sort of work, you know. Work takes energy, work takes deadlines. There’s usually a lot of pressure to do the thing or get fired. And for people with disabilities that could be particularly difficult. So what was it like when you were first getting signed, knowing that this would be something that most other authors wouldn’t have to face? Like did you go into it with that at the front of your approach, or did you have to like kind of back off and pretend that you were less disabled? 

Sydney: A little bit of both. I think when I signed with my first agent, I had no idea what I was in for. 

Miri: And you were, you were how old when you signed with your first book? 

Sydney: 18. So I was, yeah, 

Miri: That’s so young!

Sydney: Still very young and learning about the industry and I ended up not staying with that agent for very long, ’cause we had some accessibility issues and whatnot. But my second agent, I felt a lot more prepared and I sort of understood the industry a little bit more. And when it came to getting publishing contracts, nothing can really prepare you for when you actually are with a publisher. It gets very hectic, very fast. 

Miri: Yeah. 

Sydney: But again, just sort of setting boundaries, and really learning to advocate for myself. With my first book, I didn’t do that as much because again, I was still learning the process and learning certain things that were expected of me as an author. But along the way, I have gotten a lot more confident and a lot… a lot more comfortable approaching my publisher with, “Hey, I need more time,” or whatever the situation is. And they have been great about accommodation so far, which I’ve been very lucky. 

Miri: I’m very glad to hear that. I know that this is not an industry that’s easy for anybody, so 

Sydney: No. 

Miri: Having people who are willing to provide accommodation is good to hear. 

Sydney: Yes. 

Miri: All of your books involve a protagonist living with some form of disability. Why is that important for you to include? You mentioned not seeing yourself until, Kind Of An Epic Love Story represented in fiction. So why is that important for you and to, to include, and how does that affect your outlining and plotting process? 

Sydney: Specifically, I write books for teenagers and those formative years are so important to see yourself represented and see a diverse world and experiences. For me, that feeling when I read this Deaf love interest, I’m always sort of chasing that and trying to recreate it in my own books. Because I would just love for people to have that same sort of sensation of, “Okay, I’m not alone. I’m not the only one who experiences X, Y, Z.” It’s also important for able-bodied or non marginalized readers to learn a little bit more about a perspective they might not have considered before. I’ve had so many people reach out to me and say, “I am hearing,” or “I’m not disabled, but I really want to learn sign language now,” or, “I have learned so much about, you know, what hard of hearing people experience, thank you for writing this.” And those kind of messages are so important to me because it feels like my work is making even the tiniest little bit of a difference in, you know, making the world more accessible. And 

Miri: Or a lot of a difference, it seems like, to a lot of people. 

Sydney: Hopefully. Yeah, hopefully. And sort of on the flip side of that, the outlining and process. 

Miri: Yeah, when you’re planning a new book, will you go in with a character already in mind and write it around the character and their ability?

Sydney: Sometimes, yeah, it, it definitely is a little different for every book. Sometimes the story comes first and then the characters come. With my first two books, right off the bat, I knew that they were gonna have Deaf rep, and that was sort of one of the main areas of representation in those books. For my third book, which I’m currently editing, the story concept came first, and once I had the characters and the sort of plot and setting in mind, I looked at it and I said, okay, what disabilities can I slot in here? Which ones make sense for the story and the characters? And I’m exploring different aspects of my own disabled identity in this third book that I’m very excited about. But it’s always a fine line of making sure the disability rep is always there in the book and it’s not sort of dropping off and then a hundred pages later you’re like, oh yeah, the character’s Deaf, or whatever the situation is. But also not going too overboard with it and sort of beating readers over the head with disability rep. I want it to feel very organic. I want it to feel like you’re just reading this person’s story, and you’re not necessarily, you know, sitting down and reading a textbook, but you’re still sort of getting educational values in there. 

Miri: Tell us a little bit about your first book. The Loudest Silence, which came out two years ago. 

Sydney: Yes. Yeah. So The Loudest Silence is a dual-POV, Young Adult Contemporary. It is a platonic love story, which is always so fun to explore other facets of love that aren’t romantic. It features a character who had just recently lost her hearing, and she is a musician, and so the loss of sound is huge to her, and she’s not sure how she can go forward and pursue being a musician. And then another character who is a soccer captain with generalized anxiety disorder, who actually hates soccer. He doesn’t want to play soccer. He really wants to be on Broadway. And so they both have these connections to music that they’re trying to figure out how they can pursue it, and they end up forming this sort of unlikely songwriting partnership slash friendship. And that was very largely based on my own experience losing a significant amount of my hearing when I was 14. At the time I wanted to become a musician in the future, and reconnecting to music and sound was really tricky, but it was also really fun and interesting in certain ways. Getting to share some of that experience in The Loudest Silence was really fun. 

Miri: So, something that readers of your book might notice is on the cover, your protagonist is singing into a microphone, but with her other hand it is up against her, her throat. Tell us about that. Because that’s, I don’t think something that anyone would be familiar with outside of, outside of having seen it before. 

Sydney: Yeah, that is one of my favorite details of the cover. When I was taking vocal lessons after I lost my hearing, I went through several vocal coaches who felt like they couldn’t work with me because I was hard of hearing. And I finally found this vocal coach who was absolutely incredible, and we came up with so many tools for me to be able to learn pieces and sing again. That was mostly based off vibration, so a lot of it would be, I would have my hands on the vocal coach’s throat to learn what the pitch is supposed to feel like, and then I would mimic that on my own throat, and sort of match the vibrations instead of matching the sound, because I couldn’t necessarily hear all of the actual pitches. I incorporated that into the main character in The Loudest Silence because I had never heard of that technique before. My vocal coach and I kind of made it up. I don’t know if that’s a real thing out there somewhere, but it was so interesting for me to learn to reconnect to music in that way, that I really wanted to incorporate that representation into the book. 

Miri: Yeah, absolutely. I come from a music background of my own. Never a singer. I’m a horrible singer, uh, mostly from the musical side. But, uh, you know, I came into audio from the accessibility perspective and had also never seen something like that. And I just think that’s a super cool thing to have exist out in the world that a lot of people wouldn’t know about. Your sophomore book just released last month, as of recording. Tell us about that. What is that about, and what was the process behind the creation of that story? 

Sydney: Yeah, so my sophomore novel is called Someone to Daydream About, and it follows a Deaf and demi-romantic teenager who dreams of renovating her family’s rundown Deaf center and making a positive impact on her beloved Deaf community. But, unfortunately, they don’t have the resources to do that until she gets a job offer from the older brother of one of her students who’s in the process of losing her hearing. And the older brother of this student is a world famous pop star. And he offers to take the main character on tour with him so he can learn sign language for his little sister, and she can also earn the money needed to save her Deaf center. So it’s this really sort of unlikely love story between a Deaf girl and a boy whose entire world and career revolves around sound and music, and that juxtaposition was really, really fun for me to explore. It actually started as a fan fiction back, like I said, when I was like 12 or 13. And I stumbled across my old AO3 account one day, like randomly.

Miri: Oh, that’s always an exciting feeling. I do that every once in a while. I’ll see. I’m like, who? Whoops, forget about this. Yeah. For those who don’t know, that’s Archive of Our Own, which is a fan fanfiction hosting website. 

Sydney: Yes. 

Miri: No longer in beta. 

Sydney: I know, right? I’m like, wow. It’s some exciting news.

Miri: They’re like, “April Fools, were not in beta, but also were actually not in beta.”

Sydney: Um, and at that point I had already written my first book and I was looking for another spark of inspiration for writing my second book, and came across as old fan fiction and completely reinvented it and made it into someone to daydream about. 

Miri: Nice. So along with the themes of disabilities in your writing, there’s also a heavy emphasis on the theme of collaboration and cooperation and learning from other people’s experiences. Why is that something that you emphasize putting into your books, and where did that come from? 

Sydney: I think that my own experiences of making so many incredible friends who have disabilities, or are queer in ways that I am not, and learning about their experiences, I felt has made me a better ally to other disabled experiences. And sharing those themes in my book is really important. I think that even if you don’t necessarily identify with a disability or a queer identity in one of my books, I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from people who say that, “I’m not Deaf, but I have epilepsy,” or whatever it is. And they can sort of relate to the overarching theme of sometimes feeling kind of othered, or like you are existing in a world that is not made for you. And so exploring those themes and showing that even if you are disabled yourself, you can still learn about other people’s disabilities and become a better ally in general. I, myself, have learned that in so many ways. By reading and making friends, and even members of my own family, I’ve learned a lot. And so incorporating that is really important to me. 

Miri: Yeah, I was interviewing someone a couple days ago and one of the things that they said in their interview is, “When you meet one disabled person, you’ve met one disabled person.”

Sydney: Yes, exactly. 

Miri: So that theme echoes in your, in your writing. So what is the writing process for you? Like just you sit down at your computer, your typewriter, and then…?

Sydney: I’m not that cool. I wish! I wish I was a typewriter author. I think they’re so fun. Um, yeah, my process shifts a little bit for every book. For my first one, I just sat down and I wrote it. And what was originally written versus what got published was vastly different. That went through so many big changes. For Someone To Daydream Dream About, I actually sat down and I plotted chapter by chapter. I was like, okay, I need to know where this is going so I don’t rewrite the full thing later, like I did with my debut, but it really does shift. For me, when I’m first conceptualizing an idea, what is sort of an indicator for me that it’s going to pan out is if I have the beginning and the end. That’s where I usually start for every one of my novels, is I know where it starts, where the character starts, emotionally, physically, mentally, where the plot starts, and then the end, and then I fill everything in through the plotting process. And sometimes it’s more difficult than other times to figure out moving parts or side characters, or incorporating the disability rep. But I always have my sort of goalposts of the beginning and the end. And I oftentimes will have brainstorming sessions with my author friends, or my editor, or my agent. If I’m stuck on, I don’t know what the middle is, I know what the end is. I don’t know how to get to the end, or 

Miri: Yeah, right? 

Sydney: A certain plot device that is giving me trouble and just trying to be very collaborative with it. In the beginning, I felt like I had to be perfect all the time, and everything I wrote had to be polished like right away. And that has changed so much. Now I will send something to my editor and be like, girl, I don’t know how to fix this. Help me. And so I think you learn to be less guarded through the process. 

Miri: Yeah. So how long from sitting down day one and doing the plotting to a finished book do you have, and then how long between sitting down with the finished first draft and actually, you know, sitting at the debut signing at the bookstore.

Sydney: Yeah, so it depends. I feel like all my answers are “it depends.” 

Miri: I mean, everything is “it depends.” The world is, you know, full of shades of gray. 

Sydney: Yes. I mean, my debut I wrote in a month, but like I said.

Miri: Had to completely rewrite it? 

Sydney: Yes. Um, my second book, it, I think I wrote it in about three months and it didn’t change a whole lot, and I had a very thorough outline for that book. With my third book, I have been working on it for about a year now, and we are still chipping away at it. The process really does shift depending on what book, and if you are already under contract or you’re just writing for the fun of it, there’s so many factors. But in general, when you sell a book to a publisher, it takes at least two years until it is on shelves. And that is because you’re editing it with your editor, the marketing team is figuring out how can we market this? They’re designing the cover. There’s so much behind the scenes that I didn’t even know about until, I bought a publishing contract, and then I was like, “What do you mean it’s gonna be two years”

Miri: The book is done, just print it! 

Sydney: Yeah. I’m like, can we just publish it now?

Miri: What do you mean there’s more work we have to do? I already did all the work! Uh, You mentioned getting under contract. How did that first happen for you? How did you go about getting yourself noticed, getting yourself out there? 

Sydney: When I first started writing during the initial COVID lockdown in 2020, I just started posting on Twitter about it. Back when Twitter was not a terrible place to be. And I ended up just kind of stumbling across the writing community. I didn’t actively search for them, but I made so many friends that I’m still friends with to this day. And back in the day there were a lot of like book pitch events on Twitter, where there’s a certain hashtag you would use, and then you could use however many Twitter characters you had to sort of pitch your book to agents. 

Miri: Hmm. 

Sydney: They would comment on your post if they wanted you to send them the book. So I actually ended up finding my first agent through one of those pitch events. My second agent, I actually also connected with on Twitter initially. So: Twitter. Yeah. But then my agent took my book. We edited it together. There’s so much editing. The book, it’s endless. And she created a list of, “I think these editors at these publishers would really like this book,” and then she sent it to them. So she – the agent – kind of controls that after you sign with them. There are some publishing houses that you can submit to if you’re un-agented, but most of them you have to have an agent to do that process for you. 

Miri: Just through Twitter and having a good pitch, and having a good agent, and then boom, here you are on book number two!

Sydney: Yes, essentially there are also, there are websites like, I think it’s called Manuscript Wishlist, where a lot of agents and also editors will put on,” Here’s the kind of client I’m looking for.” So that it’s kind of a directory where un-agented authors can look up their genre and their age range and try and find agents to submit to, and those resources are very helpful as well. But for me it was mostly Twitter. Yeah. 

Miri: Hey, sometimes the internet can be a force for good. 

Sydney: Yes. 

Miri: Very, very occasionally, but, but sometimes it is true. So this is something I’ve been wondering about as you’ve been talking about this: What is the environment of young adult fiction like right now? Like, is it, is it doing good? What are the current trends? Have people been reading less or more? 

Sydney: Yeah, so… With publishing and books, it always goes in waves, where you’ll hear; X, Y, Z genre is dying, and then the next year everyone’s like, “We want this genre again. Where are, where are all the writers who write these genres?” And so it’s always very tricky. I think most authors’ least favorite word is The Market, because you see that so often, of “The Market doesn’t want that right now. “

Miri: Well, and especially if a book takes two years between being basically finished and then on shelves, like 

Sydney: Exactly. 

Miri: Anything can happen in that time.

Sydney: Yeah. So right now, fantasy is having a really big moment. When our current president got reelected – I don’t even want to curse this interview by saying his name – but you saw a big resurgence in book bans, which is so fun. Um, and so a lot. 

Miri: We love it. 

Sydney: Yes. Unfortunately now it’s even harder to get marginalized books put through publishers. And we’re seeing more people gravitate towards like fantasy, sci-fi, something that isn’t of this world. Or, it’s this world but, it’s like magical because they sort of want an escape route from our current reality. Um, but yeah, the trends are always going up or down. It’s very much a rollercoaster and nobody can really predict anything.

Miri: Yeah. ’cause I mean, I imagine what is talked about the most, what stirs up the most, you know, online discourse – which is how I think a lot of people would hear about books that they wouldn’t necessarily pick up themselves – isn’t a good reflection of what is actually popular and being read, but just not talked about a lot. And you know, most of what I see talked about is books that do feature marginalized representation and some sort of thematic thing in line with that, just because there’s more to talk about in that than a book that is less about that. Especially right now. ’cause you’ll, you’ll see things heralded from both sides of, “Oh yay, this book is an amazing Deaf/Hard of Hearing representation.” And then you’ll be like, “Oh, those snowflakes with their throat singing.”

Sydney: Yes. It’s, it’s a hundred percent like that. You get a lot of mixed opinions. And disability rep, there’s still so many stories that haven’t been told. And you hear a lot of “this trope is dead,” or “everyone’s tired of seeing this trope.” My opinion is no trope is dead until we have not just one, but several types of marginalization with that kind of story, so. Disability rep, BIPOC rep, queer rep. And a lot of the time publishing falls into, oh, “We have one Deaf book, so we don’t wanna publish yours because we’ve already published one.” It’s kind of like, okay, it’s great you published one, but we need more than that. 

Miri: You mentioned having things come in waves, and publishers not wanting X book because they already have Y book about the same thing. What are some representations that you have seen that are especially good or especially bad? 

Sydney: So especially good, I’ve already mentioned, but This Is Kind Of An Epic Love Story, and I really think that’s a testament to authors not being afraid to include a marginalization in their book that they don’t necessarily share. I am pretty sure the author of that book is not Deaf or hard of hearing in any way, and so I loved seeing that too because it was very unexpected, but it was so masterfully done. And there are so many incredible authors who are sharing own voices stories right now. Anna Sortino is one of my good friends and writes Deaf rep as well as other disability rep in her books. My friend Aiden Thomas is incredible. He writes disability rep as well, and like Latinx fantasy, which is so fun. 

Miri: And they were the one at your first book signing, right? 

Sydney: And my second, yes. Aiden, I love him too because he uplifts younger authors in the space. He really walks the walk, of supporting marginalized authors, which is incredible. I think in terms of bad representation, you often see in books, movies, shows, whatever, that this sort of two sides of a negative stereotype coin. One is a sort of pitiable miserable, disabled character, where being miserable is their only personality trait, and the only reason that they’re miserable is because they’re disabled. That is very ableist. It’s like, okay, let’s unpack that. And then the other side of that is the sort of inspiration porn disabled character, of someone who is so successful In Spite of their disability, and they almost don’t want that associated with them, or able-bodied characters. Or like, “See, we don’t have an excuse because this person doesn’t let their disability get them down.” And, you know, that’s not saying that sometimes it, it does suck to be disabled. Absolutely does. A hundred percent. I think that that showing the sort of heavier side of being disabled is a hundred percent valid. And I, you know, I show that in my books as well. But then also, you know, not having someone just be sort of a hundred percent happy all the time. Like go, go, go, this sort of inspirational figure, because there’s so much nuance to disability rep and I myself, I have a beautiful community that I’ve made because I am disabled, that I wouldn’t have made, probably, if I wasn’t. But that also doesn’t mean that life isn’t hard because of my disabilities. And striking that sort of balance, I think that a lot of people who create film and television, as well as authors, can utilize the help of authenticity readers, or actually getting disabled people in there when you’re working on a project. It’s kind of one of those Yeah. Mind blowing concept. But I’ve even used authenticity readers in my books, even though I am hard of hearing, because, I want that extra layer of outside opinion and fresh eyes. And so I think that that is sort of something that’s underutilized right now. I think that more people should be bringing disabled people into their projects as sort of an added layer of authenticity if they are not disabled, and sometimes even if they are.

Miri: Yeah, that’s a good answer. At all of your public events, you have an interpreter, which is awesome. Love having interpreters accessible. Has there ever been pushback against getting someone like that some of your accessibility needs met, or,

Sydney: Yeah, so almost every time it’s a little tricky. In interviews or events, a lot of the time there’s this sort of monetary barrier with interpreters, because if you go through an interpretation company, they usually have much higher rates than freelance interpreters, but freelance interpreters, sometimes they don’t have all of the right qualifications, and so it can be hard to just find an interpreter in the first place. But. Yeah, it is, it is difficult when you’re working specifically, like with indie bookstores – who I love to support over, you know, a big conglomerate of any kind – oftentimes they don’t have the budget to do that. Sometimes I don’t have the budget to pay for my own interpreter, and so sometimes it’s just this situation of weighing the pros and cons of doing an event or a certain interview. I’ve been very fortunate that with this promotional round for Someone To Daydream About, my publisher has paid for an interpretation team to be at my events because we’re also catering to the Deaf community, and so we want events to be accessible for them. And I’ve also been very lucky to have some interpreters donate their time to me, for like television interviews or something along those lines where I’m not able to afford it. The company or whoever is doing the interview doesn’t have. Not necessarily the funds, but you know, there’s all sorts of approvals and, and 

Miri: Oh, yeah. So for this interview, we’re using a live transcription. 

Sydney: Yes. 

Miri: Um, and PCC has a fantastic team of interpreters that I used for an interview a couple weeks ago. and they were able to, because we have just so many different interpreter teams, we can get people very last-minute on very short notice. But that is something that is specifically PCC’s strength, while most services you know, a bookstore is not gonna have an interpreter on staff and you know, a local news station probably won’t even have someone that they can get to without like, multiple days – if not weeks – notice, so. 

Sydney: Yeah, so it can definitely be tricky trying to sort of strike that balance. It is always something when I’m invited to a festival or for an interview that I immediately shoot back to them saying I need an interpreter. Oftentimes, you just don’t get a response. They kind of ghost you after that is very unfortunate.

Miri: Very cool of them. Very cool. 

Sydney: Yeah, and they say, “We can’t provide that, but you can bring your own,” or whatever the situation is. It can be very difficult to navigate. Of course I always want the interpreters to be paid for their time because they’re doing such great work, but sometimes nobody has, you know, the ability to, to do that. And I’ve been very lucky, like I said, to have some interpreters donate their time. One of the interpreters I’ve been working with recently actually works at PCC, and it’s been awesome to have that. 

Miri: Shout out to them. 

Sydney: Yes. That sort of connection as well. And PCCs interpreting programs are always really awesome. So I’m, I’m excited to be here doing the interview with PCC in general, but I, I love what yay y’all have going on in terms of the ASL. 

Miri: Yeah, we are very fortunate to have, to have people who are willing to put in the resources to making interpretation accessible, which it is not even at other universities, 

Sydney: Right.

Miri: with, you know, similar or greater student body needs. So you mentioned right at the start of this that you are also a musician and singer. What is that like, being hard of hearing?

Sydney: So I have not been in the sort of musical world for a while. After I really started pursuing the writing full-time, I’ve devoted all my energy to this. But music still has a huge influence, obviously in my first two books and my life now. Yeah, relearning that sort of connection to sound and the vibrations has been one of the most informative experiences just of my life, sort of in general, and one of the first moments where I sort of learned my own way of doing something because of my disability. Which, I do that so often now, where I’ll do something slightly different than is typically normal, or whatever it is, however it works for me and my needs at that time. But I still heavily use vibration equipment. I have a speaker that has a lot of vibration on it, if I’m listening to music or, I use bone conduction headphones when I’m listening to music or audio books even, because it sort of bypasses your ears, which it’s a really weird sensation when you’re getting used to it. But now I have those on like 24/7 pretty much. Yeah, I’m always listening to music. Like when I’m writing my ADHD brain needs something to latch onto that’s not just staring at my screen. Yeah, music’s definitely a big part of my life still, but my writing has now shifted from writing songs to writing books, and that is now my main creative outlet, for sure. 

Miri: So what is your, like, go-to writing playlist if you have one? Or d’you have different playlists based on the mood of the scene you’re writing?

Sydney: Yeah. So I always make specific playlists for whatever book I’m working on at that time, but I will definitely switch the mood depending on if I’m writing a sad scene, I’m not gonna be listening to a really like happy song. Um, but I typically listen to songs in foreign languages when I’m writing, because when I’m listening to songs in English, my brain tries to latch onto the lyrics. 

Miri: You just think of those words. 

Sydney: Yeah. And then I just think of those words and I can’t remember what I was typing, or I’ll straight up type the lyric into my book.

Um, that or English songs that I know the words a hundred percent so my brain’s just kind of ignoring them at that point. So like a lot of interesting Five Seconds of Summer songs, One Direction, Disney Channel original songs from my childhood movies. I’m not gonna focus on the lyrics ’cause I know them so well. 

Miri: Has there been a time when you’ve been writing a scene that a particular song came on and you’re like, “Yeah, that fits.”

Sydney: Yes, one hundred percent. There are specific songs that I will like forever associate with scenes or chapters in some of my books. Yes. 

Miri: Nice. Yeah, I, uh, my writing playlist is seven songs and they’re all, they’re all, uh, ’90s gangsta rap, plus one bbno$ song. Because in, you know, in music I don’t really listen to the lyrics. I’m very much like a metal, half of the music I listen to is just incomprehensible screaming, right? Um, which is also how I feel on the inside. So it fits. But I also have to not be listening to something that is, like, effortless to understand when writing something, like, you know, questions for an interview or something. 

Sydney: Yes. 

Miri: Thank you for talking to me today. Was there anything that you want to tell the listeners about? 

Sydney: Well, sort of on the topic of disability rep: my latest release, Someone to Daydream About, has an audiobook edition that is out now. You can get it from your local library, you can listen to it on Spotify, lots of other streaming platforms. And it is actually narrated by Erin Rosenfeld, who is a Deaf Broadway actress.

Miri: Nice! 

Sydney: And having that representation layered into the audio production was even more incredible for me as a Deaf author writing a Deaf book and having a Deaf actress narrate it. So if anyone is an audio book fan, I would definitely recommend checking that out. 

Miri: That’s a good point. So were you involved at all in the process of an audio book being created or was that full – is that something that an author is usually involved in, or is that usually just on the publishing side? 

Sydney: It depends. For me, pretty early on with my publisher for the hardcover said if there’s an audio book, I have opinions, I need to be involved. They ended up selling the audio book rights to a different publisher, which is pretty common, and thankfully in that contract they still put in all of that stuff about consultation. And so there were lots of conversations about how the ASL is gonna be represented, and different narrators and I actually got to go in and record the author’s note and the acknowledgements, so my voice is also in the audiobook. So yeah, I was really lucky to be very involved in the process, which is not true for a lot of authors, so I was very lucky. 

Miri: So how do you handle the ASL? 

Sydney: Yeah, so in the front of the book, there is a note about the ASL for how it appears in the hardcover, where pure ASL is in italics, and simcom – which is simultaneous communication when someone is speaking and signing at the same time – is not italicized. So that’s just sort of treated as like regular speech. And in the audio book, there were a lot of conversations surrounding that, because you’re taking a visual language that was put on paper and now making it audio.

Miri: Yes. 

Sydney: So it’s very tricky. So the narrator, who is a very talented ASL performer as well, she recorded all of the ASL lines speaking, and then afterwards would do the sound of the signs, and then they laid that underneath the speech. And so when it’s pure ASL in the audiobook, you’ll sort of hear the sounds of the signing happening underneath that as a way to differentiate it from other regular spoken speech in the book.

Miri: Let’s Talk is an almost exclusively audio production as well, so when we interview Deaf students or teachers or whoever, it’s always a conversation of like how to do that most respectfully. 

Sydney: Yes. 

Miri: …and also comprehensibly. Because the thing that is the most artistically gratifying, or culturally gratifying, might not be the best experience for a listener and vice versa. Um, like we, we had an interview last year with a, a Deaf student who, the room was unfortunately very loud, so the interpreter was hard to hear, in a relatively unrecoverable way. So we had some conversations about how we were going to do this. Like how are we going to do the voiceover of an interpreter who is interpreting someone else? 

Sydney: Yes. 

Miri: Um, so it’s, it’s an interesting thing to think about ’cause it’s fundamentally inaccessible in a way that needs to be made accessible because it’s about accessibility and equality, so. 

Sydney: A hundred percent, those conversations are always kind of tricky, but also very important. ’cause I think getting on sort of the same page and everyone has different preferences and all of that stuff. So yeah, I was, I was really excited that they were taking my opinions into account. 

Miri: Yeah, absolutely. 

Sydney: Really listening to what I had to say about the audio book.

Miri: Yeah. Sweet! Thank you so much for coming in, talking to me this morning. 

Sydney: Thank you for having me. 

Outro

Miri: Thank you for listening to Let’s Talk!, Portland Community College’s broadcast about disability culture. Find more information and resources concerning this episode and others at pcc.edu/dca. This episode was produced by the Let’s Talk! Podcast Collective as a collaborative effort between students, the Accessible Education and Disability Resources department, and the PCC Multimedia department. We air new episodes on our home website, our Spotify channel, XRAY, 91.1 FM and 107.1 FM, and KBOO Radio 90.7 FM.