In THE JUMP (2/27 release) by Brittney Morris, Jax, Yas, Spider, and Han make up Team Jericho, the best scavenger hunting team in Seattle. Each member has their own specialty – Jax does the puzzles, Yas does parkour, Spider is the hacker, and Han is the team cartographer. But with an oil refinery being built in their neighborhood, they’re all having their own problems as their families are at risk for losing their jobs, communities, and homes.
When The Order, a mysterious vigilante organization, takes over the scavenger hunting forum and puts forth their own puzzle with its reward being a promise of influence, Team Jericho jumps at the opportunity. But Team Jericho isn’t the only one competing, and it won’t be easy to beat their rivals.
I had a chance to interview the author to learn more.
Where do you find the ideas for your stories?
My story ideas can come from anywhere! Sometimes they start as a question, like SLAY did. “What would happen if a teenager created a Wakanda-inspired all-Black virtual reality gaming space?” which naturally led to the question, “Who would have a problem with that?” And it turns out those kinds of questions can have 50,000-word answers. Other times, my stories come from half an idea or an image or character I can’t get out of my head. THE COST OF KNOWING started with the idea of a Black teenager who worked in, of all places, a toothpaste factory, and every cap he hand-screwed onto tubes of toothpaste would give him premonitions of the journey that tube of toothpaste would make through warehouses, stores, and into people’s homes. It evolved into my character Alex Rufus seeing the future of every object he touches, including one of his little brother dying soon after touching a photograph of him. The toothpaste factory was nixed early on, but it’s a fun origin story!
What drew you to a career as an author?
The minute I realized at 9 years old that someone had to actually CREATE all the magical books I was seeing on shelves, and that I could put my natural skill of embellishing real-life stories to good use, I was laser-focused on a career as a writer. Writing feels to me like creating whole worlds from absolutely nothing, with an unlimited cinematic budget. It feels like wizardry, and the electric buzz I feel when staring at the blank page with a finished outline in my head is something I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of. And I love getting to write the stories that I needed as a kid. Stories about sad Black kids just doing their best, and unlikely heroes thrown into peril before they’re ready and crafting a parachute on the way down.
How do you keep book ideas fresh and original?
I make sure to keep trying fresh and original things! Reading new books in genres I might not ordinarily pick up, watching movies I might hate, seeing new places, meeting new people, traveling, exploring as much as I can, and keeping a general sense of curiosity about the world. Fresh questions naturally come up, and fresh questions turn into fresh books.
How can people use Black History Month as a springboard to discover great Black authors?
Lots of companies feature books from prominent Black authors, especially during Black History Month! Be on the lookout for promotional materials with book roundups. Black History Month is also a great time to support local Black-owned bookstores in your area! Oprah has a compendium of them here: https://www.oprahdaily.
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