Hi everyone, it's Omna. Welcome to another episode of Settle In. My guest today is best-selling author,

Soman Chenani. And even if you don't know him by name, you definitely know his hit series,

The School for Good and Evil, which was also turned into a hit Netflix movie. We talked to him

today about his new book, though, which is a bit of a departure from the fantasy world he wrote

about previously.

It's called Young World. It imagines a world right here in which a teenage boy suddenly gets swept into power and becomes president of the United States. There's a great story behind that.

We talked about how that teenager manages the presidency. We talked about why Soman has always found

female villains to be way more interesting than the men. And. We talked about why SOMON has always found female villains to be way more

interesting than the men. And we also talked about the challenges he faces now as an author, talking

to teenagers, trying to get them interested in reading and young boys in particular. What he has to

say is fascinating. So settle in and enjoy my conversation with Soman Channani. Soam and Channani, welcome to Settle in. Thanks for being here. Thank you so much for having me. I mean, this is a real pleasure. It's a real pleasure to have you here. I'm such a fan of the book. I tore through it in just a couple of days. I know I'm not your intended audience. Everybody's the intended audience for this one. The whole country is the intended audience. Okay, before we get into the books, we always like to hear a little bit about the person we're going to hear from. I want to know about you, about how you got to be you. So let's start with that. You grew up in Florida, right? Outside of Miami. Tell me about your family.

Tell me about growing up there and what a young someone was like. It was a fascinating sort of

upbringing there because my grandparents were the first Indians in Florida. Like there had been

no other Indians. Literally the first. There are streets named after them in Ocala and Daytona.

Like no one had ever seen,

you know, Indian people before. And so my family lived there ever since. But when I grew up,

you know, I grew up in Miami went to school there. I was, I felt like I was pretty, ironically,

one of the only Indian kids around. Really? Even in your generation.

Even in my generation. You know, Miami now is such a hotbed for Indians. It was not when I was

younger. So what was that like? Did you feel like you stood out? Was that hard in any way?

Yes. I felt very different. I went to a prep school where there weren't many, you know,

people of color. And I think I just always felt different.

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