Kyle Lukoff: Hi, my name is Kyle Lukoff, and I'm here to talk to you today about my middle grade novel Too Bright to See. So I was inspired to write Too Bright to See by two different things. The first was the first sentence of a short story that my dad wrote when he was a kid, that I always thought was so smart. And that first sentence was, "It was strange living in the old house, now that Uncle Roderick was dead." And I also wanted to write a middle grade novel about a trans boy, because at the time I didn't know of any, or at least I think I knew of one, and I didn't like it. And I couldn't figure out which project to start first. And then I suddenly realized that I could write a ghost story about a trans kid, using that first sentence from my dad. And the whole story just popped into my head from there.

I started writing this book way back in 2015, and I was having a really hard time with it. I kept beating my head against the story, feeling like it just wasn't working, so I gave up on it for a long time, for about two years. And I think the most fun part was when I finally decided to go back to that draft and to reread the first five chapters that I had written. And I realized that it actually wasn't as bad as I thought it was, and I would potentially give a book like this to my students to read. And I decided to force myself to finish it and see what happened next.

I was an elementary school librarian for long enough that I know that whatever people are going to get from reading my book won't necessarily be what I try to put into it, because at this point, I know that books are as much about what the reader is bringing to it as what I'm putting in it. I mean, I hope that people like it, of course, but beyond that, I think that what anyone gets out of it says more about them than about me. For me, one of the most important parts of the book is the author's note. So I think I would encourage people to not skip the author's note, because that feels really important to me, but also, only to read the author's note last. So don't read it first, read it last, but don't skip it. So I'm going to read you the prologue, which is the very first chapter of Too Bright to See.

It's strange living in our old house, now that Uncle Roderick is dead. I already know my house is haunted. It's always been haunted. That hasn't changed. We avoid the freezing cold spot in the corner of the living room, because someone probably died there. Windows slammed themselves open or shut on the stillest days. So do doors, and these doors are heavy. For a long time, I thought it was normal to sense someone standing behind you or next to you and not be able to see them. For invisible hands to brush past your hair, your clothes. And it looks haunted, wooden, unpainted, weathered with time. There's an elaborately carved front door, peaked roof jutting out in all directions, tall windows with shapes flickering behind them. The porch wraps around front to back with rocking chairs that sometimes rock on their own. We're out in the middle of nowhere, and at nighttime there's moonlight and starlight and nothing else.

When I was in kindergarten, I checked a book out of the library because the house on the front cover looked like a photograph of my home. Uncle Roderick tried reading it to me that night, my head resting on his chest, his arm tucked beneath my shoulders. We always read together before bed. He had to stop after the first chapter, because it was a collection of scary stories; he believed that dreams were important and he didn't want to give me bad ones. But now this old house seems haunted in a different way. A way that's both more boring and more frightening. There's a half-empty jar of okra Uncle Roderick picked and pickled that he'll never finish eating, and Mom and I both hate okra. His winter boots are jammed in the closet. He always put off wearing them for as long as possible, saying they made him look like a lumberjack, but now he'll never need them again. He subscribed to magazines, the New Yorker, National Geographic, and they'll keep being addressed to him until we tell them to stop. Until they take his name off the list. Forever. I prefer the ghosts.