Q&A: Nick Thomas & Meghan Maria McCullough

Nick Thomas (Senior Editor) and Meghan Maria McCullough (Assistant Editor) discuss some of their favorite lines from the Fall 2020 list, bond over their past as booksellers, and talk about what makes a book an “LQ book.”

Meghan Maria McCullough: How do you draw upon your bookselling experience as an editor?

Nick Thomas: Great question, my wonderful colleague! I miss bookselling a lot actually. I miss that moment where you have a few seconds to convince a reader to buy a book that you believe in, that you believe they will love. I feel like so much of what we're doing here at LQ is taking these voices and stories we love and communicating our passion about them to the world in the same way. So I guess what I draw upon is knowing how wonderful our readers are out there, and knowing how valuable their time and attention and money is, and thinking about that every day.

MMM: I completely agree. There's something really special about having that moment happen in real time, face-to-face. 

NT: You were a bookseller too, right? I wanted to ask YOU the same question.

MMM: That I was! I worked as a part-time bookseller for a brief stint at Books of Wonder, where handselling was everything. I completely lived for those moments where a customer would come in and have a whole set of criteria, and I'd be able to recommend just the thing. I feel like in some ways what we're doing at LQ is just like that, but on a larger scale.

NT: Lol I remember the criteria.  What was your favorite handsell?

MMM: Well--and this one sticks out because it was multiple books at once!--but a woman came in desperate to find something new for her 12 year old nephew, a voracious reader and lover of fantasy. I recommended Artemis Fowl and she purchased the whole series on the spot! What about you?

NT: I loved handselling The Secret History, I think because I loved giving teasers of that particular plot lol. And it would probably be good to mention where I worked, as you did! The amazing Books, Bytes, and Beyond in Glen Rock, NJ, and Little City Books in Hoboken, NJ.

MMM: What LQ character embodies you most? What LQ character do you think embodies ME most?

NT: Oh man. I would say I'm a combo of Old Dog (from This Old Dog) and Chrysanthemum (from Ginger & Chrysanthemum).

MMM: I was ABSOLUTELY going to tell you that you're Old Dog if you didn't say so yourself!! 

NT: I like to take things slow and steady and orderly lol. And I like doing things the way I like doing things. So we have a winner! Who would you be?

MMM: This is hard. I also love things to be orderly, and just so, so I think I might have a little bit of Chrysanthemum in me too. And I think maybe a little bit of Lupe Wong (from Lupe Wong Won’t Dance), because I can also get completely hung up on a cause that no one else cares about!! 

NT: I think those are both spot on. I also think you're like the boat in The Wanderer. You have this wonderful ability to just keep plugging away, one little wave at a time.

MMM: Oh my god. You're going to make me cry! 

NT: That is so something the boat would say. What is your favorite spread from the LQ launch list? Kinda an embarrassment of riches to pick from, tbh. Our illustrators did such an amazing job.

MMM: Exactly!! That is SO tough because our launch list is AWASH in gorgeous artwork. I am really partial to this spread in This Old Dog, where Old Dog and the girl are asleep in her room, and a warm slat of golden light peeks out across them. I feel like I'm IN that room with them, right on the edge of dreaming. What about you?? Do you have a favorite spread? 

NT: I SWEAR I was going to pick that one too! With the purple shading around it, right?

MMM: !!! Yes!!

NT: I also really love the spread in Ginger & Chrysanthemum where they're walking with Grandma to her birthday party in her restaurant, New Asian Kitchen. You can see the party going on inside, so there's this lovely moment of anticipation, and you can see how much these two cousins love their Grandma (and each other). 

MMM: AW yes, I absolutely love that one too! 

NT: Also, literally any spread in The Wanderer. Like the one with all the deep sea "fish" looking at the boat? *mwah*

MMM: Oh yes, I'd take a print of literally any spread in The Wanderer for my bedroom, please! 

MMM: Do you have a favorite line from the LQ list? (I know, this is the same problem--so many gems to pick from!) 

NT: Damn, OK. Well I love the opening line of Lupe Wong Won't Dance:

"My gym shorts burrow into my butt crack like a frightened groundhog."

I mean, how could you not? I also love the last line of Elatsoe. It doesn't give away any spoilers, so here it is:

“There were no broken hearts.”

And similar to what we were saying about The Wanderer above, I think you could throw a dart at Eric Gansworth's Apple (Skin to the Core) and find yourself with any number of INCREDIBLE lines. Talk about a masterpiece. Here's one that I just found with my dart:

“Lucky my last day of work is Friday and I don’t/have to go back to school until Monday and by/then, the wild, earthy smell of grapevines waking/up is finally fading from the way it’s ground itself/into my fingers and memory and I can be a school/kid again, paying closer attention to mastering/the lines of one- and two-point perspective/drawings to accurately map the world from/the landscape places I have seen and felt/it, stretching almost endlessly/out on the horizon, to an end point I can’t/ever know as it keeps pace, its mysteries/always just out of reach, no matter my desires.”

Well, that’s a whole poem, but you get my point.

MMM: You're totally cheating!! Haha, but YES, I concur. 

NT: Perhaps I have a little Ginger in me after all? How about you, treasured colleague?

MMM: There's this one paragraph (if you get to cheat, then I do too!) in Everything Sad Is Untrue that makes me cry every time I read it, because here you have Daniel the character perhaps at his most vulnerable, saying aloud some of the scariest things I can imagine saying, and it both inspires me and guts me to my very core:

"I am ugly and I speak funny. I am poor. My clothes are used and my food smells bad. I pick my nose. I don’t know the jokes and stories you like, or the rules to the games. I don’t know what anybody wants from me.

But like you, I was made carefully, by a God who loved what He saw.

Like you, I want a friend."

NT: That is really special. OK, I would also like to say that I love the entire book of Elatsoe. It goes: "Chapter 1..."

NT: As an acquiring editor at LQ (what what!) what are you looking for?

MMM: Somebody pinch me! My taste is still developing as I continue to grow and learn under the fantastic mentorship of both Arthur and yourself, but I would say that my number one priority is upholding the tenets of LQ--that is, seeking out work and art that reflects the diversity of the world around us. And I'm looking for stories with voice, and heart. For me, it doesn't necessarily matter what the book is about, but rather how it makes me feel, because as a young reader, that was always my biggest takeaway from my favorite books on my shelf. And that's what makes diverse, incredibly specific stories absolutely universal, I think.

MMM: LQ's mission is a serious one--uplifting diverse voices via excellent writing and artistry--but that doesn't mean we don't have a sense of humor! What are some of your favorite humorous LQ titles launching this fall?  

NT: Definitely the first two that spring to mind are The Boys in the Back Row and Lupe Wong Won't Dance. They're both extraordinary in the way they can make you laugh on literally every page, but there's genuine pathos in the characterization and journeys of their protagonists, and really thoughtful engagement with stuff like toxic masculinity (Mike's book) or creating social change (Donna's book). I think weaving together really funny writing with other strong elements is perhaps the hardest thing to do as a writer. They both crush it.

NT: Why do you think representation is important behind the scenes?

MMM: I think it's so important (and central to our mission here at LQ!) to not only ensure that we are publishing diverse voices, but also to staff ourselves with them. I'm so proud to work for a company where we practice what we preach. On a practical end, having representation behind the scenes means that we reap the benefits of the enriching discourse that arises when your staff doesn't all come from the same culture, upbringing, or background. It also means that we are better equipped to realize our mission. Plus, it's just the right thing to do. 

NT: I think you hit the nail on the head. It's part and parcel with everything. 

MMM: What makes a book an "LQ book?"

NT: I've been thinking a lot about that question. In many ways you don't WANT there to be too obvious of a common thread on a list, right? You don't want them to all feel the same--you want a diversity of books, in all sense of the word, on your list. I mean, we've got a 96 page wordless picture book / graphic novel hybrid (The Wanderer) about a boat traveling across strange seas, and a nonfiction Big Questions Book of Sex & Consent from Donna Freitas. Not much commonality there. But I DO think there is something that makes an LQ book an LQ book. I hope there is:

We hope when you pick up an LQ book, you feel how much love was put into it. First, and most importantly, from our authors and illustrators. They're creating books of the heart and pouring their love into their characters, for their readers. But after that, we hope that love and care comes through in the jacket design, the typography, the paper, how we market the book, everything.

Does that make sense? What would you say? 

MMM: I 100% agree. The books on our debut list could not be more different—and I think that remains true for the lists to come!! But you're right; there's an underlying ethos of passion and care that does connect all of them, and I think that will come through not only when they are read but also when they are held and considered as objects.