Marisa Kanter is a young adult author, amateur baker, and reality television enthusiast. She is the author of What I Like About You, As If on Cue, and Finally Fitz. Born and raised in the suburbs of Boston, her obsession with books led her to New York City, where she worked in the publishing industry to help books find their perfect readers. She currently lives in Los Angeles, writing love stories by day and crocheting her wardrobe by night. Follow her at MarisaKanter.com.

1. What draws you to realistic fiction?

The quiet moments, the banter, the vulnerability that is required to love and be loved. As a consumer and writer of stories, I am most drawn to character driven ones. I love examining why people are the way they are and choices made while navigating a difficult, complicated world. 

2. You’ve covered book blogging in What I Like About You, and fashion upcycling in Finally Fitz. How has social media impacted coming of age narratives?

Social media is not real life, but it is a part of life that I have found myself (clearly!) drawn to exploring in YA. Being so online, to a certain degree, can and will impact our sense of sense. In What I Like About You, Halle is able to forge meaningful connections online that she isn’t able to in person due to her social anxiety.

In Finally Fitz, Fitz uses social media to build a brand and craft a narrative that she feels in control of, believing that people only like the ‘filtered’ version of herself. My character’s relationships to social media evolve throughout the book, as have my own over the years. But I do think that for better or worse, social media is here to stay and we’re not honestly delving into the experience of being a young person today if we shy away from it. 

3. What is your favorite social media? If you had to convert your platform to one brand, what would it be?

At the moment, my favorite social media is no social media! My favorite use of social media has always been as a tool to build community and forge friendships and it’s becoming more and more difficult to do as our feeds become increasingly algorithm driven.

Right now, I am primarily on Instagram and I try to keep that space professional while still being me. (As in, gushing about the content I am loving and sharing my crochet creations alongside book content). 

4. Jewish representation, especially modern ones outside of Holocaust narratives, are surprisingly sparse. You’ve mentioned you didn’t write a Jewish protagonist until What I Like About You. What made you realize you could insert Jewish characters into your work? How did it add to the characters?

Growing up, I was a voracious reader of YA. I consumed so many stories, but it never occurred to me when I first started writing them that a Jewish girl could be at the center of a love story, that Jewish kids could have representation that isn’t traumatic. Because I never saw it. Then, 2016 happened. In the wake of the election and the rise of antisemitism as one of the (many!) horrifying results, I wrote What I Like About You with Jewish characters as a form of protest.

While I was drafting, The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli came out and that was the first time I had ever read a Jewish YA romcom. Reader, And I wept.

That representation was so meaningful to me and felt like a tiny nod from the universe to keep going with my story. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this book, my fourth manuscript, was the one that got me an agent and my first book deal. Publishing stories that center Jewish love is so meaningful to me because they’re stories I wish I had when I was a teen. It’s an incredible honor to be just one of the many voices contributing to Jewish representation in YA.  

5. Why do you find it important to show diversity of the Jewish experience especially in your subsequent novels like Finally Fitz?

There are so many ways to be Jewish, we are not a monolith. I write from the POV of white Ashkenazi Jews that all feel connected to the cultural aspects of Judaism because that’s true to my experience. And still, every character I write has their own unique, personal relationship to Judaism because no two Jewish experiences are the same. Some of my characters are more observant than others. Some have a built-in Jewish community, others feel isolated by their Judaism.

My hope is that, by writing a diversity of experiences, the collective take away is that wherever you fall on the spectrum of Jewishness, you are Jewish. Period. 

Also, I can only bring so much to this conversation as a white Ashkenazi Jew. Ultimately, we need more Jewish stories. Orthodox! Sephardic! Mizrahi! Stories by and about Jews of Color! In order to show the diversity of the Jewish experience, the industry needs to publish more diverse Jewish stories. 

6. Bisexuality in the queer community can be a difficult topic as there’s a myth they can opt out of the community through straight passing relationships. How did you navigate the nuances around that?

Oof, this question hits. Similar to the Jewish rep, with the bi rep I led with writing what felt true to my experience and writing the representation I wish I had as a teenager. Biphobia and bi-erasure is still pervasive within and outside of queer community, so I’m not going to pretend that it wasn’t a little bit terrifying to weave this piece of me into the story.

But I did my best to craft complex bi characters, to write a world where identities were character details that didn’t drive plot, where Fitz gets to be anxious and messy and bi and human. Who you are isn’t dependent on who you love and that is something I certainly needed to hear when I was grappling with my own identity. 

7. Finally Fitz takes advantage of the NY location till it becomes a supporting character in itself. What is it about the city that shapes your characters and stories?

Ahh, I love that New York feels like a supporting character. I had so much fun writing the city of my heart through the eyes of a teenage girl discovering its magic for the first time. What is it about the city?

All of my answers are cliché but true. The energy, the people, the inspiration on literally every block. I lived in New York from the ages of eighteen to twenty-four, and many of the locations in the story are some of my personal favorite spots. So many stories are set in New York and I tried to be super intentional with the locations to showcase my New York that I miss every day. 

8. What did you enjoy most about writing the fake dating trope with Fitz and Levi?

Fake dating is already fun . . . but when the two characters have a shared history? It was so much fun writing these childhood best friends getting reacquainted with each other through the various “not-dates.”

I think there is something so safe about being around the person who knew you as a child, back when you were arguably the most authentic version of yourself before being shaped by your experiences, societal expectations, life. That shared history allowed Fitz to slowly open up and be vulnerable with Levi and vice versa. 

9. What do you most want readers to take away or enjoy from this book?

Stop being so hard on yourself.

As a teen, I put so much pressure on myself. Applied the word perfectionist to myself like a badge of honor. Didn’t understand the difference between being ambitious and having unreasonable expectations. Believed the worst thing I could do was fail. Unlearning perfectionism, reckoning with the truth that it is so often a symptom of anxiety, has been an ongoing process.

If this resonates with any readers, I hope that Fitz’s story gives them permission to be nicer to themselves, to reassess their relationship with the word perfectionist, to seek help. And if you see Fitz maybe not in yourself, but in someone you know, check in on them.

10. Anything you’d like to share about Finally Fitz or other upcoming books?

If you loved childhood friends to lovers in Finally Fitz . . . I cannot wait to share more about my next book with you!