Surya feels like a bad queer. When an ice cream man misgenders them, they stay silent.
"I pray for a sharper tongue," they think when a classmate harasses them for not looking like either a boy or a girl.
Surya is the protagonist of Bad Queer, a young adult novel-in-verse written by London-based Gayathiri Kamalakanthan and illustrated by Chicago artist Chi Nwosu.
Coming into their final year at school, Surya has come out to their parents, who are queer and non-binary, and their close friend Maha, but not to everyone.
They're also yet to have their first romantic relationship.
"I would really like to like someone.
But I know I can't force it," they reflect.
'Poetry and illustration are a beautiful match'
Throughout Bad Queer, Nwosu's line drawings help develop Surya's journey of self-acceptance.
Sometimes the illustrations capture a detail from the text, like Surya's hands writing in their journal or the tiles in a family game of Scrabble.
Elsewhere, they take us into Surya's internal emotions, like a flurry of stars and swirls that surround the text as Surya practices deep breathing in a bathroom stall.
"I think poetry and illustration are a beautiful match because they're both asking the reader to interpret and really be part of co-creating the story," Kamalakanthan says of the book's unusual format.
Nwosu, a Black, non-binary, queer Nigerian American artist and designer, relates to how Surya feels connected to their ancestors and how they're searching for representation of their queer and non-binary self in Tamil culture.
"I find myself looking towards Igbo history in a similar way," Nwosu says.
"I want to know where are the others? Where are the outliers? How did folks treat people who were different or had a different orientation towards the world?
One aspect of the project Nwosu particularly enjoyed was learning about Tamil symbolism and incorporating it respectfully into their work.
"A lot of my own art incorporates cultural and spiritual symbols as a way to learn, remember and honour my Igbo culture and the histories of global solidarity and queer solidarity," they say.
Finding themselves on stage
Surya's life changes when, on a whim, they audition for their school's youth theatre.
"It's as if this one audition is a mini protest
against all the times I've said nothing" they think.
The group, led by the enthusiastic Mr Ali, proves a safe space for Surya to explore and embrace their identity.
In this new environment, Surya soon befriends Akhil, who proudly wears a "GAY AF" badge and Sade, who gives Surya a worry stone to soothe their pre-audition anxiety.
Then there's Blessing, a newcomer with a "perfectly crooked" smile. Surya is soon smitten.
Kamalakanthan says their own experiences working in the theatre, including writing a play, Period Parrrty, were "foundational" for them.
"There's something about theatre being a communal act. You're not just writing in a room by yourself. You're in rehearsal rooms, trading mood boards, figuring out a shared vision with a director and cast, and that collective imagining really opened up my confidence."
'I wanted him to get things wrong and keep trying'
As Surya's relationship with Blessing develops, they gain the confidence to live as their true self.
While Blessing is kind and empathetic, it's also a journey for him to embrace being in a queer relationship.
"Because of the binary world we live in, [Blessing] has a difficult time understanding Surya's transness," Kamalakanthan says.
"I wanted him to get things wrong and keep trying and not shy away from doing his own thinking and research about what he doesn't understand yet."
Kamalakanthan says the arc of the relationship was inspired by their previous work as a sex and relationships educator.
"I noticed students were often more fluent in naming sexual harm than articulating consent and the type of touch they might be comfortable with," they say.
"There's so much in books and TV about sexual violence, which is of course an important topic to understand.
"But I also wanted to write consensual, caring relationships. We need templates for those conversations too."
'Stories that I really longed for as a young person'
Kamalakanthan and Nwosu hope Bad Queer strikes a chord with young people coming to terms with their gender identity and sexual orientation.
"As a young person, I felt like I didn't quite have the words to describe the feeling of queerness that I had inside," Nwosu says.
"To understand what it means to find dignity for yourself as a queer and genderqueer person and to learn to accept the parts of yourself that maybe make other people uncomfortable was one of the profound takeaways from the book for me.
Kamalakanthan says they want to present a different kind of narrative around queer and trans youth, who often don't get support or understanding from their parents.
"I wanted to write a family where being trans is incidental alongside the usual messiness and tenderness of any family," they say,.
"Surya's parents won't always have all the answers, but they're people who Surya knows are safe enough to express worries and anxieties to, including if anything unsafe or harmful is going on.
"For a lot of queer people I know, our teenage years were spent hiding, feeling unsafe and managing how we were perceived, rather than discovering the fullness of who we could be.
"I want the characters in my stories to have the teenage adolescence a lot of us didn't get to have, that I hope young people get to have now."
