We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Cody Sisco. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Cody below.

Cody, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

I thought the pandemic would ruin me. The disruption came after years of slowly building BookSwell, my literary events and media company, and I had just produced my first in-person event as part of Lambda Literary’s LitFest in late 2019. The reading and discussion, “Amplifying Queer Voices of Color,” was held at The Armory in Pasadena. It was well attended and got tons of positive feedback. At the start of 2020, I secured my first sponsor, a small press in LA called Running Wild. Then the pandemic hit, bookstores, libraries, and arts venues closed their doors, and everything was contentious and topsy turvy. That’s when I pivoted to online events. Instead of taping a podcast episode at a local library, I did it online. This was very early days when most people were trying to figure out how to get Zoom to work. Every few weeks, I organized another online literary event, culminating in a Juneteenth celebration that got some very positive TV media coverage for Bridgette Bianca, one of the amazingly talented performing writers. When the City of West Hollywood put out a request for proposals to produce their WeHo Reads series online, I decided that what I wanted to see was writers in conversation with each other about creating joy in the midst of sorrow. The proposal was accepted, and it started a three-year odyssey of producing literary events, both online and in-person, that brought me closer to the diverse and amazing literary community in Southern California and beyond. We’ve explored mindful journeys toward a better future and creative inspirations and intersections, and I couldn’t be more grateful for the opportunity to collaboratively create literary culture in a world that so badly needs it.

Cody, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

After a ten-year career in corporate responsibility consulting, I switched lanes to focus on writing. I love telling stories about characters who struggle to fit in. My first novel, Broken Mirror, focuses on a pansexual character with a mental illness who believes his grandfather was murdered. It takes place in a cyberpunk alternate history world that has elements of both utopia and dystopia. While I was working on Broken Mirror, I participated in writing and critique groups, eventually running one, and several of our members are now published authors. I found that I loved critiquing and editing other writers, and so I began to hone my editing skills, develop my approach to freelance editing, and build up my client base. At the same time, I formed an indie author co-operative with a few other talented local authors called Made in L.A. Writers. Although initially we focused on sharing our own stories, we quickly pivoted to becoming a platform for other emerging authors, and we now publish a fiction anthology series. Our fifth volume came out in 2023, and we’re working on the sixth volume now. For many contributors, we are their first publication credit, and we’re proud to be introducing them to the world through our books. These experiences led me to realize that the key to a successful writing career was finding and creating supportive literary communities. I started looking around at all the amazing literary events happening every day at libraries, bookstores, and cultural centers, and it seemed to me that this amazing aspect of our culture was being ignored and it was hard to navigate. I started BookSwell to help introduce readers to new writing and access all the events going on. My lens was always on the poets and authors from historically excluded communities, including BIPOC, LGBTQ+, female and nonbinary, and indie writers. Not only were we excluded from traditional publishing pathways, but we also had to create spaces where our words would be heard and appreciated. My work on the BookSwell podcast and through the WeHo Reads series are culminations of this journey, and I feel privileged and honored to be in conversation with talented writers and to be part of their literary conversations.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My stories are for people who look around at our society, our culture, our economy, and our politics and wish things were different. The battles being fought over land and power in our century have roots in our past, and the choices we make collectively bear fruit in the future. I hope my writing expands thinking and opens up pathways toward better futures that build from respect for human dignity and ecological sustainability. That’s why I write about, for example, how stigma against people with mental health challenges and addiction affects them, or for another example, the ways that society punishes international migrants; I want to show the resilience of these characters and communities while pointing toward ways we could achieve peace, prosperity, and mutual understanding. I write in an alternate history cyberpunk setting to highlight choices in how our society evolves and the ways those choices are shaped by politics, technology, and cultural values.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

The best way to support artists and creatives is to invite them into our lives. I mean that figuratively, in terms of reading their books, experiencing their art, and supporting them economically, but also in the way of asserting the importance of art in its various forms to our worldviews, our thinking, our daily lives. We live in an era of lies, disinformation, and manipulation. Artists can refute the lies, declaw disinformation, and inoculate citizens against manipulation. If books were given the prominence and media coverage that television and movies are given, I believe our culture would shift. I don’t think this is a small shift in an age when social media is fragmenting our attention spans. Making the time to really lose yourself in a book is how we create paths to a better future.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.codysisco.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/codysiscowrites/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/codysiscowrites/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/codysisco/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@CodySiscoWrites
• Other: https://www.madeinlawriters.com
  https://www.bookswell.club

Image Credits

All images credit to Cody Sisco.