Show Your S(h)elf is a series at Diversify Your Shelves that was created to amplify marginalized voices in the book community and to give authors, readers, and creators, who promote diversity, a space to show themselves. There is nothing we love more than sharing our favorite books – and learning more about the ones who wrote them!
We’re thrilled to welcome Charlene Thomas, the debut author of Seton Girls, to Diversify Your Shelves. She wrote about gray magic and messy girls in an even messier world!
Gray Magic
a guest post by Charlene Thomas
I’m a big believer in grayness. The kinds of decisions that seem perfect on certain days and dreadful on others. The kind of feelings that aren’t exactly happy or sad, or angry or mad. The complicated in-between of “a bad person” and “a person who did a bad thing.”
My debut novel SETON GIRLS talks a lot about those in-betweens. How we navigate the paths in life that feel like they have too many roads to choose from. Which are most paths, I think. Things are barely ever as simple as “go right for a perfect life or left if you want to be miserable”—even though I hope I’m not the only one who often wishes it was that easy.
But over years of working to accept life for all of its complexities, I’ve also learned to see all the beauty that those complexities have to offer. Fear, maybe. But also hope. Stress, yes. But also anticipation. I like to think of it as “gray magic.”
It’s a term I use a few times in SETON GIRLS.
In that story—similar to real life—I don’t think that any of the characters are all the way “good.” But that also doesn’t mean that everyone is all the way “bad.” They’re floating instead somewhere on this spectrum of In-Between—of grayness—and doing their best to be alright, anyway. Maybe the choices they’re making aren’t right or wrong, but they’re brave. And hopeful. An effort to change things for the better, one step at a time, until the gray gets a little less murky.
I think there’s something magical in that. In refusing to freeze in the face of such an unclear path and choosing to march on, anyway. Even if it seems too dark to see, and you’re tripping, and stumbling, and running into trees—there’s beauty in those scars. And maybe you’ll end up somewhere that feels worse than before, or maybe you won’t.
Maybe you’ll end up somewhere incredible.
Maybe it’ll all make sense.
That’s the magic in the grayness.
I adore my messy, gray Seton girls. Their determination to keep moving even though they don’t know exactly where they’re going. Their willingness to do whatever it takes to love and protect each other. They inspire me and I hope they’ll inspire more people, too. To be as brave as we can be, and spark a little of our own gray magic.
About the Author
I started writing when I was really little because I have a tendency to love telling stories just as much as (more than?) I love living them. I was sixteen when I wrote a manuscript that won the National Novel Silver Award from Scholastic Books (yay! maybe my stories are *decent*), and went on to minor in creative writing at North Carolina State University. I write books about the world we live in, inspired by my experiences (and yes, my friends – sorry friends) growing up in Montgomery County, MD. I believe a lot in people and what all of us are capable of, and maybe that’s why I love creating big characters who are steadfastly determined to change their own little parts of the world.
When I’m not writing, I’m a marketer – which means I can justify long Twitter-scrolling sessions as “research.” And I’m kind of obsessed with traveling. And funny people and food that tastes really, really good. Also Target and West Elm, for now – because I have a new house! And reality TV forever – because it’s amazing. I also have my MBA from Emory University and a digital marketing certificate from Cornell. But none of these educational endeavors taught me how to effectively write a biography and so, for that reason, I’m gonna stop now.
About the Book
A smart and twisty debut YA that starts off like Friday Night Lights and ends with the power and insight of Dear White People.
Seton Academic High is a prep school obsessed with its football team and their thirteen-year conference win streak, a record that players always say they’d never have without Seton’s girls. What exactly Seton girls do to make them so valuable, though, no one ever really says. They’re just the best. But the team’s quarterback, the younger brother of the Seton star who started the streak, wants more than regular season glory. He wants a state championship before his successor, Seton’s first Black QB, has a chance to overshadow him. Bigger rewards require bigger risks, and soon the actual secrets to the team’s enduring success leak to a small group of girls who suddenly have the power to change their world forever.
But Show Your S(h)elf series didn’t only get its name for all the wonderful guests sharing their favorites – we also quite literally ask them to share a picture of their bookshelves, tbr carts, ebook/audiobook libraries or the random stack of books on their bedside table that we all have.
Charlene shared a picture of some books that are on her current TBR!
Thank you so much for joining us at Diversify Your Shelves, Charlene, it was an absolute honor! And congratulations on your wonderful debut – don’t miss Seton Girls, out NOW!
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