The Paper Plane Awards- Backstage (2018)

Spandex is Mandatory [Action | Adventure]

"For most religious people, the word Hell is reserved for a place that somewhat resembled the emotional trauma of high school plus some fire thrown in there; for me, Hell was defined by the four walls of my home and the boundaries of a soccer field."

-_ ✳︎ _- ⌘ -_ ✳︎ _- 

[Italics are me (the interviewer), and bold is Lia/LightentheShadows (the interviewee)]

I N T E R V I E W    T O O K    P L A C E :  A P R I L    2 0 1 8

Haha, I think we may be in completely different timezones so I may have to message you all my questions. Is that alright? xx

That is fine! (I think that might be happening too) 😄

Haha, alright then. Take your time xx

What inspired you to write your story? xx

I was inspired to write "Spandex is Mandatory" (SIM) because I love superheroes - comic books and superhero movies were basically how I learned English aside from Harry Potter - and when I signed up to Wattpad, I was thrilled to see that there were so many superhero books available! But, as I read on, I was sad to find that most characters - even if they promised otherwise - were often very stereotypical and none of the stories shed light on hard subjects - which is a critical factor I had always loved in superhero stories. So, I set off to try and write a superhero book that kind of stood on its own beside other superhero books on here. Now, I don't know if I achieved my goal, but at least some people have enjoyed the story anyway 😄

(I love superheroes and Harry Potter too! I've watched all the Marvel movies that have been released so far and watched Harry Potter more times than I can remember. What I love most about these is that there's still  a "real" factor to them, so it makes sense to want to have that in your stories as well ❤️)

What do you want readers to get out of your book? xx

I like to represent a lot of disabilities and diversity in my writing without having those character's defining factor BE the fact that they're disabled or diverse. I really want people to see those disabilities are not labels stuck on people's foreheads and that they're still - obviously - PEOPLE. I also wanted to bring to light a few real issues (forms of abuse, true poverty, depression, PTSD) that I often feel are glorified and horribly misrepresented in books, and have them portrayed as close to the truth that I could get.