We recently connected with Rex Ogle and have shared our conversation below.

Rex, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

Success is a funny thing. It’s elusive and hard to define if you really think about it. Is success a monetary goal, or one in which you find happiness? For me, I’ve always wanted to write books, and I’ve pursued that my entire life. It drove me to graduate high school, go to college for English Lit and Comparative Religion degrees, pushed me to apply to the top 12 MFA Creative Writing Programs in the country (all of which rejected me), and then moved me to NYC to pursue a job in publishing where I could learn from the pros.

I worked at Marvel and DC Comics, and then Scholastic and Little Brown Young Readers, working on titles for X-Men, Batman, Superman, Teen Titans, LEGO, Star Wars, Pokemon, Despicable Me, Transformers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and a dozen other brands that I loved as a kid. And even though I scored these dream jobs, I still didn’t feel successful. I was helping others write, but I wanted to be the one in the driver’s seat.

Now, I’m finally a published author, and I’m loving life. But along the way, I also went to therapy, started eating right and exercising, meditated, learned to better communicate with others, and so on. My happiness isn’t just about money, but about living a full life. And I’m doing that. So yeah, it feels like I’m successful, and I hope other folks are finding their own success in finding joy.

Rex, 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?

My early life was a rough start. Poverty, domestic violence, growing up a closeted queer in rural and homophobic Texas in the 80’s and 90’s. It wasn’t great. So I escaped into books, and fell in love with the written word–so much so that I started writing to emulate my heroes: Stephen King, Anne Rice, Mary Shelley, Louisa May Alcott, and so on.

Now I’m writing books for tweens and teens, and it’s so more rewarding than I could have imagined. For 15 years, I was writing sci-fi and fantasy novels, but wasn’t able to sell them. Then five years ago, I took a detour and wrote a memoir about 6th grade called FREE LUNCH. Again, it didn’t sell… until a publisher found me. After the book came out, librarians discovered my work and then suddenly everything was moving. For the last 5 years, I’ve had book after book after book come out.

Most writers stick to one lane, but I’ve been wanting this for so long, and I’ve stockpiled so many ideas, I just can’t stop. I write memoirs, prose, verse, comics, graphic novels, fiction, fantasy, superhero, and even re-imaginings of classic stories (under one of my pen names REY TERCIERO).

Writing books for young readers has been so amazing. I do school visits (both in person and virtually), attend big books festivals, and go to bookseller and librarian conferences. And all these people love books as much as I do. But what I didn’t realize–or even really think about–is that writing books for youth is giving stories to the next generations. They are reading my words and taking away life lessons, some of which I intended, and some that they find themselves. It’s an incredible feeling to know that I might help those still growing to be more tolerant, have more compassion, and be kind–not just to others but to themselves.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

When I started life, I thought everything had to be perfect. I would watch TV or flip through magazines, and those beautiful people would stare back at me with chiseled bodies and not a hair on their head out of place. I even developed some minor OCD in order to better control my environment. So when I started writing, everything has to be flawless. The title, the summary, every chapter, every paragraph, every sentence.

I would agonize for hours or even days over the smallest minutia. It was ridiculous. I simply couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that nothing–nothing–in life is ever truly perfect. There is no true model of perfection. It’s just an idea. An illusion really.

Upon realizing that, suddenly writer’s block completely vanished. It was less about second-guessing every line, and more about just getting the story out. I didn’t need to accurately spell every single word in a 70,000 word book. That’s what copyeditors are there to do. My plot and character arcs didn’t have to be 100% idealized. That’s where editors come in and make writer’s look smarter than they are. And I didn’t have to harshly judge the themes and underlying messages. Those were for the reader to decide if they were good or not.

A book is raised by a village, but ultimately the only one who can decide whether all the pain and work is finished is you.

And I’ll be honest, I do readings at events now, and I’m like, “Why did I say it like that when I could have said it like this?” Then I remind myself, “Whatever. It’s done. What story am I telling next?”

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

My biggest priority as an author for tweens and teens is to write the books and stories that I wanted–and needed–as a kid. For hundreds of years, books were written by the affluent and the privileged. Sure, there were some authors with rough starts like me, but for the most part, these people were mostly white and straight. And when it came to children’s books? Oooof. Even worse.

In middle school, all I wanted was to write X-Men comics. Then I sought after being the next Anne Rice or Stephen King. Then in college, I tried to be the next Chuck Palahniuk. But it wasn’t until I started working on middle grade and young adult novels that things started to click into place.

After all, I am a total child. I still play video games, build LEGO ships, and geek out over old cartoons. But as an adult, I realized, I had a shit childhood, and now I had the opportunity to fix that, to give love and hugs and presents to the little boy inside me who only knew hurt.

So when I write, I write for youth who are like me, who are living through hard stuff. I want to write diverse stories to reflect our changing culture–not just for impoverished and abused Latinx queer kids like myself–but for every kid, regardless of skin-color or gender or sexual identity or cultural beliefs. I want to write books that lets every young reader see themselves and find their happy endings.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.rexogle.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thirdrex/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rexthethird
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thirdrex/
• Other: https://substack.com/@thirdrex