We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Alex Bos. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Alex below.
Hi Alex, thanks for joining us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?
I’ve been writing since I was very young. In fact, the first time I was published was through a Scholastic poetry contest when I was in seventh or eighth grade. I wrote a poem called “Brown” and I won my first computer, which I got to have in my bedroom. You have to understand that this was a big deal in the early 2000s.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?
I moved around a lot as a child. We also spent a lot of time on the road. As a result, I listened to hours on hours of audiobooks. Remember that this was during a time when you had to check-out said audiobooks from a library, and you could only get like four at a time. So you kind of had to hard-commit to the experience. I believe that listening to audiobooks really taught me how to write. I could hear the author’s voice inside my head. Listening to well-constructed sentences for hours on end is how I learned to write them myself. To this day, reading my work out loud in the privacy of my own home is how I edit it.
I also had an English teacher (Ms. Richards) that had us record a few conversations verbatim. This is how I learned to write dialogue. If you really listen to how people talk, you’ll see how fragmented it is. People repeat themselves a lot, and depending on the conversation, they might have entirely different things on their minds. Writing authentic dialogue has always been important to me. Fun fact: popular author Emily Henry and I took this class together. Coincidence? You tell me.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
I’m always honored when someone reads my work, but I find it especially rewarding when they enjoy it. I’ve always said that I want to make art that is a pleasure to consume. We’ve all had the experience of being completely drawn into a good novel or movie or show. The other day, a friend who got an ARC copy of Alters texted me that “it got her out of her reading slump.” I love hearing that.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
Please keep reading. In a world of short-form content, people are less and less willing to commit to new _______. I know that it requires an element of trust to choose a book over TikTok content, but please keep reading. Please keep enjoying art. Read with other people. Go on a long drive and listen to my book in your car. Pause it. Make fun of the characters. Cry together. Talk about it. Enjoy art in community.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/alex.bos.author
- Instagram: alexandra_bos
