Author Angie Thomas has practically become a household name. After the wild success of her award-winning debut novel, "The Hate U Give", Thomas became a New York Times bestseller and saw her book turned into a major motion picture. Her recently-released second book “On the Come Up” is currently moving up the charts as well.
Her story has quickly become one of international success, but it all began in Mississippi.
Thomas grew up in the Georgetown neighborhood of Jackson. “Georgetown is unfortunately known for all the wrong reasons,” says Thomas. “But for me, when I was growing up, Georgetown – it was home.” As a child, Angie had a sense that her neighborhood was dangerous – “I would hear gunshots at night,” she recalls – but she didn’t realize that drug dealers and gangs weren’t a normal part of any other neighborhood.
Then, Angie was given a window to worlds that weren’t her own.
Books were the key to Angie’s imagination – the catalyst for her journey as a storyteller. “Books played a huge role in, like I said earlier, unlocking my imagination and showing me the world… they gave me hope in a lot of ways. When I couldn’t travel, I could read a book,” she says.
As Thomas grew older, though, she began to lose touch with literature, as she couldn’t connect to the stories in popular young adult fiction books. She turned to a different storytelling outlet: hip hop. “They were telling the stories that I saw myself in,” she says of her hip hop influences. “They were giving me the representation I needed.”
Thomas fell in love with artists like Tupac and Biggie Smalls - two artists would go on to shape her approach to writing. “I often say I want to write how rappers rap – the good ones, at least,” she says. “The good ones can make you think, they can make you laugh, they can make you cry, they can make you angry. They can make you feel all of these things, and sometimes they can do it within one song, and that’s what I want my books to do.”
Thomas attended Belhaven University, where she studied creative writing and wrote for the school’s literary journal, the Brogue. One of the projects she took on while in the program was a collection of short stories, two of which were published in the 2011 edition. The publication can still be found on the school’s website. The stories are centered on a boy named Khalil, his best friend Starr, his younger brother David, and David’s best friend Imani; the young characters deal with the influence of drugs and gangs on their neighborhood, Garden Heights.
For those familiar with Thomas’s work, a couple of those names may ring a bell; that’s because those stories inspired Angie’s debut novel, now a worldwide phenomenon and New York Times #1 bestseller: "The Hate U Give".
"The Hate U Give" is about the journey of a teen girl, Starr Carter, as she copes with the death of her best friend Khalil after he is unjustly shot by a police officer. The book deals with grief, family, and inequality in a way that inspired audiences worldwide. "The Hate U Give" was wildly successful with critics and consumers alike, has spent over 125 weeks on the New York Times Best-Seller list, and yielded an equally acclaimed movie adaptation.
“It’s amazing to know that that many people have connected with the book,” Thomas says. “And also that that many people have been willing to give it a chance.”
"The Hate U Give" is a huge triumph for Angie Thomas, young readers and Mississippi, but the author’s road to success wasn’t always so triumphant. Before ever writing "The Hate U Give", Thomas wrote another book, which was never published. More precisely, it was rejected over 300 times.
“In fact, my literary agent rejected it twice,” Thomas recollects. “I remind him of that a lot.”
Angie carried on undeterred, motivated by a passion for writing and the affirmation of her friends, family, and fellow writers. “It really does only take one yes to change everything,” she says. “My biggest advice for writers is to keep going. It’s hard, but you have to keep going.”
Angie’s resilience isn’t just evident in her experience as a writer. As a college student, she found herself in a similar situation as "The Hate U Give"’s protagonist, Starr Carter: her home and her school were two different worlds. “I often changed who I was where I was in order to fit in,” Thomas recalls. “It showed me though, by the end, that the best thing I can do is to be myself, and I don’t have to change who I am in order to appease others.”
The revelation took some time, she admits, but it inspired the strong, distinct voices in her female protagonists. “That was definitely something I wanted to highlight,” she says. “So often, society makes girls in general feel as if it’s a problem if they speak, and I know specifically for black girls, they’re often made to feel like they’re either too much or not enough, and never perfect just as they are. And I want my books to tell them that – that they’re fine just the way they are … it’s okay to be loud, it’s okay for them to be passionate.”
This idea is embodied in Thomas’s second female protagonist, Bri, a fiercely individual young girl with dreams of making it as a teen rapper. Thomas created the character while she was still writing "The Hate U Give" and immediately knew the character was one she needed to explore.
So, soon after finishing “The Hate U Give,” Thomas got to work on her second: “On the Come Up.”
The plot for her sophomore novel centers on Bri as she suddenly finds herself in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. Released just this January, “On the Come Up” is already garnering rave reviews worldwide, and a movie adaptation is in the making. This time around, Thomas will have a producer credit.
For all she’s working on, though, Thomas still found time to come home to Mississippi this past summer. In July, she spoke at the Millsaps Young Writers’ Workshop, where 72 participating students got to hear lectures from Mississippi writers, the keynote speaker being Angie Thomas herself. Thomas also appeared as an official panelist at the Mississippi Book Festival in August.
“I think Mississippi is one of those places that people don’t realize just how creative we are here, how much we care about one another,” she says.
Thomas is undoubtedly one of the strongest, most prevalent authors in young adult fiction today, and a powerful literary voice in Mississippi. Just as her stories inspired millions of diverse readers, her journey inspires young writers to keep writing, to turn political matters into personal stories and to bring their ideas to life. Audiences can expect to see more of Angie’s work in the future, and whatever that work may be, Angie hopes it will continue to foster change, connection, and hope.
