Briefly tell us about your book.
Hello, Better Reading readers! The Comedienne’s Guide to Pride tracks the month after a teen is named a finalist in a contest for marginalised writers, and suddenly has thirty days to come out as a lesbian to everyone she loves before the winner announcement outs her first.
What inspired the idea behind this book?
I was always interested in writing about Salem, Massachusetts for a moody young adult novel with darker themes. But once I visited Salem, I realised that I had another story on my hands altogether. Salem, like many New England towns, has such a special charm, and although Salem’s history is horrific, contemporary Salem has another voice altogether. I was so interested in writing a character who had a whole lot of snarky, sassy things to say about the witch kitsch that Salem has to offer, about the way the town blends the past and the present – and then came seventeen-year-old comedian Taylor. On Thanksgiving 2016, in my Salem AirBNB, a little pink hatter’s house from the 18th century, I watched Saturday Night Live… and everything came together like parts of a puzzle. Three months later and deep into the first draft of what would become The Comedienne’s Guide to Pride, winning tickets to Saturday Night Live all the way from Australia definitely felt like a sign from the writing gods!
Can you give us an outline of the story and characters?
Seventeen-year-old Taylor lives and breathes her admiration for funny women. Funny women have taught Taylor to run with a quick-wit, and although her sharp-tongue gets her into trouble in more ways than one, she’s deeply loved for her sense of humour. Pining over classmate Charlotte in Theatre, Taylor describes herself and Charlotte as “kindred spirits, like those creepy Greek masks hanging above the theater room curtains – I was comedy and she was tragedy.” While Charlotte is blunt, ambitious, and knows what she wants, Taylor is riddled with imposter syndrome as she hums and haws over submitting her finalist sketch to Saturday Night Live. It’s Charlotte’s self-confidence that drives Taylor to want more for herself – and they have chemistry for days.
What were your favourite books as a child?
I devoured all of Judy Blume’s books, and Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret particularly had such an impact on me. My school library bag always had a novel from the My Australian Story series – each book in the set was a fictional diary of a young person living through an important moment in our past, and I forever have those ‘diaries’ to thank for showing me that girls could make history.
What are you reading right now?
I’m rereading Clare Wright’s Stella Prize-winning The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka, which tells the truth about the role of women during the Stockade – that they were there, and that they played an enormous part. It’s my bible.
What’s some great advice you’ve received that has helped you as a writer?
This is great life advice: that everything will take three times as long and be three times as hard as you anticipate. This piece of advice really hits a certain way when there are three hours left until final submission of proofs!
What’s next? Do you have any new spectacular stories you’re working on/hope to work on?
I’ve just wrapped up revisions on my next queer YA comedy. It’s a summer camp story with a twist (I don’t think I can reveal that part just yet – sorry!), and I had so much fun turning taboos on their heads. I’m also working on a middle-grade horror series about an eleven-year-old who finds herself the heir to the ‘Royal Sydney Doll Hospital’. It has agentic mannequins, open-air museums and Australian Gothic, and writing this series is the most fun I’ve ever had.
Buy a copy of The Comedienne’s Guide to Pride here.
Hayli Thomson lives in Sydney, Australia, and writes novels about candid characters for anybody who ever watched Jo March leap a fence and longed to be her best friend. Bizarrely, during her teen years, Hayli was afflicted with a ‘headache’ every third Monday in September, when she was left with no option but to stay home from school and watch her favourite female comedians collect Emmys live on the other side of the world. The Comedienne’s Guide to Pride is her debut YA novel.
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