PRIDE MONTH GUEST POST: Ethan Aldridge, author/illustrator of ESTRANGED

PUTTING A NAME TO THE FEELING

Everyone says that books are a door, an entryway into another life, another world, another point of view. For me, they were an escape hatch.

I grew up in a very small farming community in the center of Utah. To give you an idea of just how small, I vividly remember attending a ribbon-cutting ceremony when the town nearest to us (a twenty minute drive) had their first stop-light installed. My own town wasn’t big enough to justify a stoplight. There were wonderful parts about growing up in a place like that— the wide-openness of it all, the fact that everyone knew everyone. Or at least, thought they knew everyone. The truth was, I had a secret: I’m gay.

I didn’t know any out gay people growing up. Queerness was at best a myth, and more often a horror story. I kept my secret so close and so deep that even I didn’t fully understand what I was feeling. How could I? I had no frame of reference, nothing I could compare it to. All I knew was a vague ache, a sense that I wasn’t what everyone around me thought I was. The only thing that dulled the ache was stories.

I escaped into fantasy. I adored the tales of Lewis Barnavelt, written by John Bellairs, stories about a lonely boy who moves in with his eccentric uncle (who is secretly a warlock) and his kind neighbor (who is secretly a witch). I loved the adventure and sense of destiny in Brian Jacques’ Redwall books. I tore through The Edge Chronicles, through Narnia, through Avalon. I could run from my secret and hide from my unspoken fears. I could exist in a world where people found where and who they were supposed to be.

There weren’t a lot of resources in my tiny community, especially for children like I was. What we did have were excellent librarians.

There weren’t many libraries in that small valley, but the ones that were there were staffed by passionate librarians, ones who loved stories and believed with all their hearts in what those stories could do for people. When my mother had to run errands, she would drop me and my siblings off at the library in the next town over (the one with the coveted stoplight) and let us check out as many books as we liked. The librarians there learned our interests and obsessions, and they recommended books accordingly.

Perhaps one can’t help but learn hidden things about people when one learns what stories that person loves. Or maybe my secret wasn’t buried as deep as I thought it was. In any case, when I was older and starting college, one of those wise librarians smiled at me and told me that a new book had just come in that she thought I would love. It certainly had an excellent cover; intricate designs scrawled across a starry sky over a lone red truck. It was titled Aristotle And Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, by Benjamin Alire Sáenz. The librarian didn’t mention the contents of the book, before or after I returned it. I read through the story of the two friends and their fierce loyalty for each other, loyalty that built into an ache, an ache that I recognized. I was captivated and read the rest of the story, hoping it would explain the mystery of my own feelings to me. And, like all good books, it did. As the protagonists’ loyalty to each other bloomed into love, I finally began to put a name to my feelings.

A couple of years later, I’d moved to New York City to pursue a career as a writer and illustrator. I made close friendships with other gay people and met the man who would one day become my husband. Aided by the stories that had filled my life, I finally understood myself better. As my life became more open, I began to write the story that would eventually become the Estranged series. It’s a story about a changeling boy who knows he isn’t what everyone around him thinks he is, and a human boy who would do anything to become himself, whoever that may be. It was a love letter to families: the one I’d been born into and the one I had found. I wrote for the child that I was, knowing there are more like me. I wrote the story to explain my past to myself.

It’s nice that I got to draw a lot of goblins and trolls and dragons, too.

About the Author

Ethan M. Aldridge is a New York Times bestselling illustrator and author. He studied art at Snow College, where he learned how to better draw things both real and imaginary. Ethan lives in New York and Florida with his husband, Matthew, and some kind of small wolf. You can visit him online at www.estrangedstory.tumblr.com.