Kevin Christopher Snipes’ Debut Novel Provides Representation, Visibility for Queer Community
New York-based writer Kevin Christopher Snipes was born and raised in Florida and spent the early part of his career writing theater plays such as A Bitter Taste, The Chimes, and Ashes, Ashes. This summer, he released his debut novel, Milo and Marcos at the End of the World.
A queer young adult book that has received rave reviews, the story focuses on high school senior Milo Connolly, whose world is turned upside down once the dreamy and charismatic Marcos Price saunters back into his life after a three-year absence. Suddenly, Milo is forced to confront long-buried feelings that he’s kept hidden not only from himself but also from his deeply religious parents and community.
To make matters worse, strange occurrences have been happening around his sleepy Florida town ever since Marcos’s return—sinkholes, blackouts, hailstorms. Mother Nature is out of control, and the closer Milo and Marcos get, the more disasters seem to befall them. Is there a larger, unseen force at play trying to keep them apart? If so, is their love worth risking the end of the world?
OFM caught up with the newly published author to talk more about the book, his passion for storytelling, and queer representation.
Let me begin by asking, how exciting is it that you finally released your debut novel out into the world?
It’s very exciting! I started working on this book in 2018, so five years ago, and I wasn’t sure where it was going to go. I kept working on it, and here we are!
Can you talk more about the inspiration behind Milo and Marcos at the End of the World?
The book is set in Florida in the Daytona Beach/Port Orange area, which is where I grew up as a kid. The book isn’t autobiographical, but I certainly did draw on my experiences growing up as a closeted queer teen in Florida, which is a very republican and conservative-leaning state. I mean, my high school didn’t even have a GSA or any sort of queer organization at the time. I don’t even know if it has one today, but anyways, I was sort of thinking about the kind of book that I wish I could have read when I was a queer teen growing up in Florida.
So, I thought I would write a story about what it was like to grow up in a city and a state where you were constantly questioning yourself and your value. Then to layer on top of that; this phenomenon of natural disasters keeps striking whenever the two boys in the story start to get close to each other. That, of course, is inspired by all the lovely evangelical preachers who like to blame hurricanes, tornados, and earthquakes on gay people. I heard a lot of that going up in the South, so I was like, “That’s an interesting idea.”
I don’t think science works that way, but let’s play that out. If that’s true, if there’s a God out there, and he’s smiting people with hurricanes and tornadoes, how would that play out over a romantic comedy/high school drama?
Ultimately, what do you hope readers take away from the book?
I hope that my queer readers will feel seen in this book. I think queer representation is so important right now, especially with all the anti-gay, anti-queer, and anti-trans bills that are being passed not only in Florida, but in several other conservative-leaning states. The insidious point of those laws, in addition to barring queer people from human rights, is to make them feel invisible, unwanted, and unloved.
So, in addition to obviously fighting these laws by voting for progressive, liberal candidates who will reverse these laws, I also think it’s important that queer people, queer teens especially, receive sort of an antidote to this negative messaging through positive queer representation, which isn’t to say that every queer story has to be a happy story.
I think it’s certainly important to acknowledge the pain that the queer community and queer kids go through, but I think it’s very important to write books, movies, TV shows, and plays that show queer people deserving a seat at the table as much as anyone else—that you belong and you’re valid. What you may think sets you apart, makes you different, makes you strange, or makes you unique is ultimately the thing that’s going to save you, help you find your place in the world, and help you find your community.
I know, that’s a lot to put on a book (laughs). I think my book is just a very small piece of that puzzle in terms of positive reinforcement, representation, and visibility for the queer community. It’s a very small puzzle piece, but that’s its goal. Be one book in the world where queer people can feel seen and safe.
Do you feel like there is a greater urgency nowadays for queer stories to be told?
I think there’s always been a need. I mean, the queer community has never been in a great place. After we had marriage equality passed a few years ago, I think we all thought, “OK, good. We’re done. We solved all the problems in the community. Life’s hunky dory.” I think we all, including myself, got very complacent and comfortable. We thought, “OK, that was the last hurdle to overcome,” but it has certainly proven not to be. There’s been a lot of backsliding; our former president’s election really allowed for people to revel in their bigotry.
It suddenly became socially acceptable to hate queer people, minorities, and immigrants. Hate suddenly became very much OK in our country, and I think in the last four years, we’ve definitely seen this concentrated effort by the republican party to make life as miserable for as many people as possible who are not straight, white men. Whether things are worse now than they were 20 years ago or 50 years ago? It’s all relative. There have absolutely been gains in the queer community, so it feels disingenuous to say this is the worst possible time to be gay, because it’s certainly not.
However, I do think with all the concentrated negative messaging that’s happening in the country, it’s very important to combat that with politicians who are going to fight for queer rights and positive queer messaging in our media, pop culture, and society.
Do you plan for Milo and Marcos to be a standalone, or can we expect a sequel?
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Oh, I think when your book is called Milo and Marcos at the End of the World, it’s hard to do a sequel (laughs). But who knows?
You spent the early part of your career writing theatrical plays. What made you take the leap and finally start a book?
It was a very specific thing. I live in New York, and I moved here to work in theater and focus on playwriting, and I did that for about 10 years. About five to seven years ago, a friend randomly gave me a YA novel called Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith, which I read, and it blew my mind. Like, I’ve never read a book like this before. It’s about a teenage boy who’s bisexual, and he’s having trouble deciding whether he wants to be with his girlfriend or his male best friend. So, there’s sort of this love triangle, and then on top of that, giant killer grasshoppers invade the world and start killing everybody.
It’s queer; it’s sci-fi; it’s action-adventure; it’s apocalyptic; it’s all these genres smashed into one book, and it was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever read. I just thought, “Well, I want to do that!” To me, that’s the most amazing thing you could do as a writer: tell a story that combines so many genres and breaks all the rules of what you thought you could and couldn’t do in a story. That’s the book that introduced me to YA. I didn’t read YA when I was a teenager in high school. I was very pretentious. I read Amy Tan, E.M. Forster, Lewis Carroll, Jane Austen—I was a huge anglophile.
So, my introduction to YA really was when I was in my 30s and being handed Grasshopper Jungle. That opened a door, and I started to read as much YA as I could pick up. I just got really excited about that genre. At some point, I just thought, “I love reading these books so much, so why not take a stab at it?” I had an idea in my head for something that didn’t seem like a play or movie. It felt like an extended monologue about this teenage boy who was sort of freaking out about his sexuality at the end of the world. I thought, “This is the narrator of a novel.” So, that’s how it came about.
Is there anything you learned about yourself throughout the writing process?
I write way more than I need to! (Laughs.) I’m an over-writer. Every tangent becomes its own subplot, then somebody reels you in and is like, “Hmm, I don’t know if we need this. Maybe use less words,” which is a note I’ve gotten a lot throughout my career—both in playwriting and the podcast I do, The Two Princes.
Have you always had a passion for writing?
Yeah, ever since I was a kid. My mother recently told me that I used to walk around the house carrying a dictionary. I have no memory of this, but she swears it. Then I told her—She didn’t remember this; she said to me once, “We only get so many words in our lifetime, and I think you’re using all of yours right now.” What a polite way to say, “Shut up; you’re talking too much!” She swears that never happened. Come on, that’s too good of a memory. I didn’t make that up.
But yes, I loved telling stories ever since I was little. My parents would read to me before bed, and they would tell me stories on car trips. We were a storytelling household, and that was just so natural to me. I think I just took that one step further. Like, I’m going to base my entire life around storytelling. I wrote plays in high school, and I did Star Trek and Doctor Who fan fiction back before you could even share it on the internet!
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A moment ago, you mentioned your queer fantasy podcast, The Two Princes. How is that going?
Right now, there’s nothing definite. We’re always hopeful that it’ll go on to have a continued life somewhere else, maybe in a different form. I would love to see it adapted into a TV series or film; that would be wonderful, but as of right now, there are no current plans for that.
Before we wrap up, are there any other upcoming projects or anything else you’d like to mention or plug?
I am working on a second book for HarperTeen, which is completely unrelated to Milo and Marcos. That will also be a queer YA, but unfortunately, I can’t say too much about it just yet.
Stay up-to-date and connect with Snipes by following him on Instagram @kevinchristophersnipes, or visit his official website, kevinchristophersnipes.com. Milo and Marcos at the End of the World is now available at all book retailers.
Photos courtesy of Maggie Marguerite Photography and Kevin Christopher Snipes
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