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| Frederick Joseph (photo: Natiah Jones) |
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Social justice activist, philanthropist, DEI consultant, poet, and essayist Frederick Joseph is arguably best known for his anti-racist, bestselling treatise, The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person. Joseph adds debut novelist to his growing achievements list with This Thing of Ours (Candlewick Press, May 6, 2025), about Ossie Brown, a Black basketball star at an elite, predominantly white private high school. Sidelined by injury in his senior year, he suddenly needs to learn who he is off the court. Here Joseph reveals a few of the facts that have made it into his fiction, as well as what moves him to write.
Many of your previous titles have been nonfiction. How did you decide to write a YA novel?
I've always focused primarily on poetry and fiction in my personal writing, and never imagined I'd be best known as a nonfiction writer or essayist. So working on a YA novel was sort of like coming home. I'm most comfortable storytelling and building my own little worlds.
In The Black Friend, you write: "I like to think of the high school version of myself as the original Black Power Ranger: well-meaning but extremely problematic." That might describe Ossie as well. How much of your own experiences are integrated into Ossie's story?
That might describe Ossie for sure. He is just trying his best with what he knows. He's less based on my own experiences and more on the experiences I saw some of my friends have as men and boys, and the gaps in their actions at times. Although, his relationships in the book--namely with his mother and grandmother--largely parallel mine.
Part of Ossie's "well-meaning but extremely problematic" actions involve attempting to engage his followers on social media. That doesn't go so well. What might be three things you could advise teen/youth social media moguls on how to best leverage influence for change?
Oh, that's such a good question. That experience of his came largely from me thinking about my own experiences, albeit not having millions of followers but having hundreds of thousands, and the ways in which I've needed to be considerate about using said platform. The first thing I would say is to build up a trusted group of people who you can talk things through with when you plan on posting, especially if they are about important issues. The second thing I would advise is to consider other people's agency, and by that, I mean think about how they're going to experience this, especially if you're talking about someone you're trying to support. The last thing is to imagine all the people who follow you in a room and the sort of power that holds, to have access to reach the minds and hearts of potentially three million people or 300 people, and whether you are accessing those hearts and minds in the best way possible.
Might you consider continuing Ossie's--and Naima's and Luis's--stories on the page?
I've considered writing a book specifically about Naima in college but the book that's really on my heart to write at some point is about Ossie's parents' love story back in the early 2000s. I have a second YA novel that publishes in 2027 that doesn't have to do with these characters, but it takes place in the same universe and Ossie makes a bit of a cameo.
Did you have a teacher/mentor like Ms. Hunt?
I had a few teachers who were stellar, but a specific Black teacher who comes to mind is Ms. Stephens. She was one of my high school English teachers and was the first person to introduce me to Alice Walker. A huge moment in my love for Black literature.
Now I gotta ask... Grandma Alice as in Walker?
Ahh! Yup! That's a little Fred Joseph Easter egg. I try to be very connective and intentional in my writing, so that was my way of honoring Alice Walker while also writing a character that reflected my grandmother. Also, one of the books Ms. Hunt's students read, Robert Jones Jr.'s The Prophets, is by one of my closest friends. A lot of connections.
You said that Ossie's relationship with Grandma Alice parallels your own, and that your maternal grandmother, Thelma Ford, was a writer. She remained unpublished because she was a Black woman growing up in the 1930s and 1940s--might you consider enabling a posthumous publication of her work?
Yes, my grandmother was a writer, but sadly I don't have much of her work other than a few short children's books. What I may do is help finish a few of them as somewhat of a collaboration. In reality, I see most of my work as a collaboration with her, as she is the person who taught me how to write.
Who's your ideal audience for Ours?
I forgot who I was speaking to recently--it might've been Jacqueline Woodson--and the conversation was basically that whether a book is YA or not, a book is still a book, so I think my audience is anyone who enjoys what I hope is a lovely story that helps activate people and remind them of the importance of books and community. I mean, personally, I read a ton of YA. In fact, after rereading Toni Morrison's Beloved last week, I reread Jenny Han's To All the Boys I've Loved Before series.
BIPOC and white readers will likely have different reactions to This Thing of Ours. What might you like to tell them before they start reading? What might you want to share after they've finished?
I think for BIPOC readers, I hope that they feel seen and loved. For white readers, I hope that they feel called to be their best selves, as is the case in most of my books. I'll say that before they read. Now, as far as after they read, I hope that everyone has a better sense of what we can all accomplish together through books and community.
You're a writer, activist, consultant, philanthropist, and more. How do you balance your multiple selves?
I choose who I am depending on the day. For the last few weeks, I've more so been wearing my philanthropist hat. I'll be working on a third YA novel, starting the end of January, so I'll have my writer hat on for a few months.
New novel number two, as mentioned above, continues in Ossie's universe (with just his cameo). Could you share a bit more about these upcoming novels?
YA novel number two, titled You Got Me, is about two teenage girls who are bipolar and navigating their lives as such. One of them is a Black girl from Harlem named Ella, and the other is a Vietnamese girl from Queens, named Binh. That book will be published by Viking Children's Books. YA number three doesn't have a home yet as I've not given it to an agent, but my outline is finished. The title is When the Sun Spoke Our Names. It's a YA romance that harkens back to the film Before Sunrise.
And then, will you write Ossie's parents' love story?
I already have a high-level idea of that story, but I want to see how people respond to this universe before I dive too deep into it. --Terry Hong