Sarah Darer Littman: Hi, my name is Sarah Darer Littman and I am the author of Some Kind of Hate. I am fascinated by the intersection of teenagers and technology, probably because I grew up mostly without it, and I started reading about young people being radicalized to white nationalism and extremism through gaming platforms, and that fascinated me. And combined with my own experience of rising antisemitism, I knew this was a book that I wanted to write. It took me a while to figure out how I wanted to tell this story and I realized that I wanted to tell it from the point of view of the young person who was radicalized, but also from a Jewish character because I am Jewish, and experienced antisemitism as a kid, and have experienced it as an adult, and I knew I wanted to show this experience from both points of view.

One of the most important things I learned from researching and writing this book was that one of the things that helped people leave extremism was receiving kindness from people from whom they deserved it the least, and that has changed the way I think and the way I act, and I think it's so important for us as a country to be able to learn that lesson.

And now, I'd like to read aloud from Some Kind of Hate. This is from Declan's point of view. Declan is the young man who ends up becoming radicalized to white nationalism, and he has had an accident that has possibly put an end to his baseball career, and he's just woken up in the middle of the night.

Pulling a pillow over my face to blot out the memory, I try to go back to sleep, but end up logging into Imperialist Empires. It feels good to be back as my noble, strong alter-ego. It feels good to be someone besides me.

"Yo Lionheart, how goes?" FenrirLupus says.

"What brings you here at this hour, my brother?" OdalRune88 asks. "Isn't it zero dark 30 where you are?"

"Yeah, but I can't sleep," I tell them.

"Something on your mind?" OdalRune88 asks. "Maybe we can help."

I hesitate. Imperialist Empires is the place I can escape from my miserable reality, I don't want to ruin that. Still these guys are offering to listen. Jake and Cody haven't been coming by much, they're too busy living the summer that was supposed to be mine. Here, they only know me by my screen name, which makes it easier to be honest.

"I told FenrirLupus this, but I had a bad accident a few weeks ago."

"Yeah, what happened?" OdalRune88 says. "Only if you want to share, that is."

The fact that he gives me the option not to, that he's not pressing me to "express my feelings" makes me want to do it. So I told him about going to Seward Park and how things went down.

"And then I climbed up this rock face to impress Megan."

"Love it. Warrior mindset." OdalRune88 says.

"Yeah, except then one of my holes crumbled and I fell. Let's just say I didn't get the girl and I wrecked my arm."

"Women, they're always at the root of our troubles, right?" Says FenrirLupus.

"Women and Jews," says this guy IOKTBW.

Wait, where did that come from?

"Trust me, when trouble happens for white guys like us, Jews are usually at the heart of it," he continues.

Jake's Jewish and he's one of my best friends. This guy seems kind of out there.