Hey, it's Anna. We've been doing a series of live Zoom conversations with the authors of new books that we love this summer.

Last week, I sat down with writer and artist Aquakey imazi, and it was a fantastic conversation.

Aquakey has recently been a very prolific writer. They've published three books in three years.

Their debut novel, Freshwater, came out in 2018, and was met with celebratory critical acclaim. Then came a young adult novel called Pet. And this month, their novel, The Death of Vivek Oji, came out and became a New York Times bestseller. All this at age 33. And after Aquakee took a pretty winding path through school,

which I asked them about. I also want to give you a heads up. We talk about mental health,

including suicidal ideation. We talked over Zoom while Aquakee was in New Orleans, in the home

they bought last fall, and have been settling into since.

You know, I came to the States when I was 16, so 17 years ago. And in that time, I never really

had a home here. Like, I moved to the States before my mom did, and my father still was back

in Nigeria. So when I moved, I just like stayed on

college dorms in college dorms and I stayed with family friends over the holidays. And then my mom

moved a year later and my sister was living with her, but I never lived with her. I would just visit

for a couple of weeks. And so for more than a decade, I've just been bouncing from apartment to

apartments, sometimes without apartments in between, sublets. I've never lived in one place for longer

than two years. So to buy a house was a really, really big deal for me because it felt like I was

getting a home for the first time since I was 16 and this one

was mine. You know, it didn't belong to either of my parents. It was just mine and I could do whatever

I want with it. And it's it's a little terrifying at first like this idea of you don't have to leave.

Like I had to tell myself that the first year, a lot, I'm like, you never have to leave.

You can put stuff in the house and you don't have to pack it up.

You don't have to, you can put books on a shelf.

I was just using e-books because there was no point in having books.

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