An Interview with Sara Phoebe Miller

In the summer of 2012, I interned for DC Comics in their editorial department. Specifically, I worked for the DCU editorial team that oversaw the mainline of in-continuity superhero books. One floor above us was the Vertigo editorial team who had their intern that summer, Sara Phoebe Miller. I was a sophomore about to become a junior, and Sara was a junior about to become a senior. We had lunch a few times that summer, and we both had aspirations to be writers. It’s what we were in school for and what we wanted.

When I started temping at DC roughly two years later Sara had become a full-time assistant editor for Vertigo, we talked more, ate more lunches, and just became friends. It’s one of those friendships where I don’t remember the moment I was like “Oh this person is my friend.” But twelve years later I can’t imagine having not been Sara’s friend. We were part of the group that made the move to DC Burbank together and even though we never worked in the same department together, we spoke most days, always made time to have lunch, and supported each other’s creative endeavors outside of our full-time jobs—reminding each other that our mutual goal was to be published writers.

You’ve read this newsletter, you know that I became a published writer in the mainstream comic space. Sara? She put her head down, worked on an amazing script for a YA book, and got it published through First Second Books, one of the best graphic publishers in the country if not the world, and she collaborated on said book with the brilliant artist Morgan Beem.

That graphic novel is called You Belong Here, available now where all books are sold, and I wanted to interview my old friend Sara about writing a graphic novel, working with Morgan, working at your dream in your free time, and the catharsis of making a dream come true while thinking about what’s next. I was fortunate enough to read You Belong Here as a manuscript and then again as the final graphic novel and its tremendous work. Something you should go read, and a book I think we’ll be hearing a lot about this year.

Here’s my interview with Sara.

DAVE: Hi, Sara!

SARA: Hi, Dave!

DAVE: I gave the readers a bit of a preamble that you and I have been colleagues and friends for twelve years, which is a big number. On top of that, I described us as writer friends. And that in our twenties, while we were both performing other jobs in comic book publishing, and proudly might I add, we were supporting each other’s writing dreams. So…to start, as I have said to you privately many times, I am so proud of you. You Belong Here, drawn by the brilliant Morgan Beem, is an outstanding piece of work. Congratulations!

SARA: We started as interns eating Chinese food in Central Park, and now look at us! I’m so grateful for our friendship over the years. We had many lunch breaks talking about our writing ambitions and sharing our work with each other. I’m proud of US, and I’m so happy to be chatting with you about my debut book! 

DAVE: Right back at you! All right, let’s dive in and talk about the book. When was You Belong Here born in your mind? When did the journey of putting the story together, and maybe telling it to yourself for the first time, begin?

SARA: Oh, jeez. In a lot of ways, this is the story I’ve always wanted to tell. I started working on it when I first moved out to LA from New York in 2015. It’s such a love letter to my hometown, which is on Long Island, and so being that far away from home for the first time really had me reflecting on where I’d been, and I was chewing on this story since then in one way or another.

DAVE: The love and affection for where you came from really rings through the graphic novel in a big way.

I’m a huge fan of your publisher, First Second. They produce some of the best Young Adult comics in the world and collaborate with truly impressive creators. How did you connect with them and start this relationship? 

SARA: I’ve been a fan of First Second since I started working in comics back in 2012. I absolutely love their graphic novels, and everything they do is just so beautiful. I feel very lucky to have worked with them! So, I basically stalked the Editorial Director, Calista Brill. I remember going to some First Second panels at NYCC and just going up to her afterwards and introducing myself. We were both in NYC at the time, so we stayed connected. Sometime around 2018, I was back in NYC having lunch with her. At the time I was writing this graphic novel in my MFA program, so I was sharing with Calista what I was working on. She expressed interest and invited me to pitch it to her when I was ready! About two years later, in 2020, I brought Morgan on board as the artist, and we officially pitched it to Calista. She acquired it shortly after, and the rest is history.

DAVE: Two years before it happens feels like an eternity, two years once the book has been published is nothing. That’s a good thing for our readers to know, the development process takes as long as it takes! All that matters is that you get an awesome final product like you did.

The book itself follows Esther--Essie to her friends and the reader--Rosen’s senior year of high school, and how essentially…nothing goes the way she would hope it to or expect it to, and I found that so relatable and refreshing.

Traditionally in teenage narratives or high school narratives, we either follow the characters for four (sometimes five years if a TV show is cheating and wants to keep the program on the air a little bit longer) years and, by the time Senior year comes around, we’re ready to leave the characters behind. OR if it’s a movie, we just see the last two weeks or so of senior year, and we don’t dive in too deep.

I think you strike the perfect balance here of giving us a year of Essie’s life, we get to know her, her friends, her family, and her situation very well. How did you decide on this amount of time for the story?

SARA: Thank you! I really wanted to explore senior year from beginning to end because it’s such an interesting, pivotal time, and so much can change throughout the school year. The time period also makes a perfect arc, especially because Essie starts the story with a very specific idea of what senior year will be like, but nothing goes according to her plan. It’s extremely painful for her, but it also opens up new opportunities she could never have imagined, which is an important lesson for anyone, but especially at that time in your life. There are also so many expectations on senior year and a lot of pressure to live up to them, so it was fun to set those expectations up and quickly have reality catch up to Essie and force her to really examine the way she’s been moving through life. 

DAVE: Also on the Senior Year front…have you had younger readers come up to you yet saying “This is what this year has felt like for me,” OR adults like myself who are about to tell you “My senior year was a disappointment in multiple ways, like Essie’s is”?

SARA: I’ve mostly had adults and a couple of college students tell me something along those lines. It’s been particularly fun when adults talk to me about it because they open up about their traumatic senior years and get so nostalgic about it. I really love hearing everyone’s life stories! I think high school students are probably still too close to the material to be open about it, but I really hope it’s resonating with them too!

DAVE: Well I think you’re going to be hearing a lot more people’s Senior Year stories as the book continues to find readers and touch their hearts.

In the book, Essie is constantly dealing with the fact that things aren’t going her way, which is something we all have to deal with, not just at that age but throughout our lives. The book is realistic and potent in that way. While Essie herself has dreams of being an actor and having this theatrical career, the narrative she exists in is grounded, especially emotionally.

You go through a lot of things with Essie that are real, painful, and honest, and are given the exploration they deserve in the book, but don’t ever feel overwrought. Was that an intentional choice on your part to have this character who has these big theatrical dreams, but the dramas of her life are much more understated and nuanced?

SARA: Oh wow, that’s such a perfect juxtaposition, but no, I don’t think I was doing that intentionally. I mostly wanted to depict Essie as someone who’s ambitious, who has big dreams that sometimes feel too big for her small town, but in so many ways, she’s also a product of that town, even if she doesn’t want to admit it. So, she has this very clear vision of what she wants her future to look like, and it includes being a Broadway star and living in New York City while also marrying her high school sweetheart. So, there’s a juxtaposition there too that’s like, you can’t have it all, girl. Sometimes you have to let go of your hometown and your high school sweetheart to discover what the world really has to offer you. That’s almost impossible to contend with at that age, so the stakes feel extremely high, and the emotions are just through the roof. Especially if you grow up in a small town, or one place your whole life, everything that’s ever happened to you is all that’s ever happened to you, so it’s really scary to confront the future beyond high school, even when you have big dreams and goals.

DAVE: I want to talk about Morgan Beem, your wonderful collaborator, for a couple of questions. First and foremost, how did she become attached to the project?

SARA: Morgan is the best! I met her at a convention back in 2016, maybe? And we became friends. I always loved her work. Once I started writing this graphic novel, her art was immediately in my head, and I was basically writing it for her. She even has a really beautiful slice-of-life illustration that was my initial inspiration that I used in the pitch to show this is what I imagine the art and color to look like. When I was ready to pitch the project, I told Morgan she was always the artist I pictured for it, and, luckily, she was open to joining the project. I was so thrilled! She created character designs and a couple of pages of sequential art for the pitch, and we submitted it as a team. I’m so lucky. I never got tired of the art, and even though I’ve looked at it a million times, I always found something new to admire.

DAVE: Her art is unreal. That senior year age is an awkward one for all of us, and there’s often a temptation in movies, TV shows, and even comics to age up the characters a little bit and have them be more adult-presenting. But I felt like these characters were exactly the age you were writing them to be, which is a huge credit to both you and Morgan.

These kids were doing some adult things, but I never lost sight that they were kids. I had a ton of empathy for them, and my heart broke for them many times in the story. I don’t know if you were ever a fan of the cartoon As Told By Ginger, but Morgan’s art gave me some of those vibes where the kids are real, they’re awkward at times, they’re triumphant at times, but they are always the age they are supposed to be.

What are some of your favorite things she brought to the project? While we don’t want to spoil, are there moments where you got the pages back and a certain moment was executed even better than you could have imagined?

SARA: As Told By Ginger is such a good comparison! I loved that show. I think part of the reason I had Morgan in my head is because her linework has an organic quality to it, which isn’t surprising since she works traditionally instead of digitally. She also uses watercolor, so the pages are so moody and dream-like at times. That look complemented this story perfectly. My favorite thing she brought to the project were the quiet beats. Morgan’s art is so expressive and, as we talked about, there are so many big emotions. So, the way Morgan drew the characters, just feeling things, always blew me away. There’s also so much crying. I think almost every character sheds a tear at least once. I didn’t really notice that until after the book was published, but that heightened emotion is so important to the story, and Morgan truly nailed it. It honestly felt like she was reading my mind, which is the coolest feeling in the world. I loved working with her and everything she brought to the book. 

DAVE: A lot of great things happen when you are a teenager. Also, a lot of really harrowing things that follow you around do, too. Did you find yourself feeling extra vulnerable when writing this story? Like I said earlier, it’s very honest. It feels like the work of someone who was in touch with those years but also had a strong adult perspective on them.

SARA: God, yes. A lot of people are confusing it as a memoir, which it is not, but also a few of my high school friends have even been like, “I had no idea that happened to you.” And that’s because it didn’t! I find that so rewarding, though, because that means I made it all realistic, which is a big accomplishment. But people who know me know how close this book is to my soul. My senior year was emotionally tumultuous in some of the ways Essie’s was, so I really wanted to capture that experience in this story while crafting it into a compelling piece of fiction. I was absolutely tapping into my emotions from that time in my life. And, like I said, I started this when I had moved away from home for the first time, so I had the space and distance to reflect on all those things and mold it into what I’m told is a relatable, raw, Coming-of-Angst graphic novel.

DAVE: I love Coming-of-Angst and I really hope you’re the first person to coin that phrase. And that interests me so much…you can tell the truth in an emotional way without sharing your exact history, I think that’s definitely something you learn after putting in thousands of hours writing fiction of any kind whether it be in prose, scripts, comics, or anything else.

 I have to ask…the book is smartly framed by a journal that Essie’s teacher makes the students keep for their senior year. How did you come up with this? And thank you for not making the frame her college essay. I have seen that move a few times, and I deeply appreciated the journal angle.

SARA: Ha! You’re so welcome. I was struggling at one point to figure out how much of her college application needs to go into the story, but ended up just making it implied so the readers don’t have to sit through all of that.

But when it comes to the journal, gosh I’ve just always loved books told through journal entries, and I thought it’d be an interesting mixed media approach to have the sequential art with journal entries. I also remember having a journal as an assignment in English class and taking it SO seriously. I’m pretty sure I poured my heart out in it and then submitted it to my teacher for grading, which feels insane now, but when you’re a teenager and you’re given an outlet like that, I think a lot of raw emotion can come pouring out. I’ve always used journaling to sort through my own emotions, so giving that to Essie and seeing what would happen was really fun to play with. Sometimes I’d sit down and handwrite in a journal from Essie’s POV. It really helped me sort out some story beats. And then the journal sort of became a gun that has to go off at some point. She’s writing through her complicated feelings and so someone’s bound to read it, right?

DAVE: You have a very impressive resume, and one that I think made this book all the stronger. You have been an editor of mature readers’ comics, you have trained creators to prosper in the mainstream superhero comic space, you have edited YA and middle-grade comics, and you have an MFA in screenwriting and writing for young adults. I have two questions based on that resume.

First, what are some things you learned working in those three different areas of comics that you brought to your writing and this graphic novel? And then, what did studying screenwriting bring to your comic book writing?

SARA: Oh my gosh, I’ve learned so much, are you kidding? It will take me pages and pages to talk about what I’ve learned. But I’ll say this, for the longest time, I wanted to keep church and state separate and edit comics, but write prose. I wrote this graphic novel as a prose novel first, and it wasn’t until a writing workshop during my MFA that a peer commented that I write very visually and wondered if I ever thought about writing this as a graphic novel. I nearly flipped the table! I was like, how dare you suggest such a thing! But then I went home and started revising a scene in a comic book script format, and it just clicked. After all these years and experiences, writing in that format came so easily, and the story really fell into place. I had put this self-imposed guardrail on myself, and it wasn’t until someone gave me permission to break that I was able to relinquish control—ha! Sounds a lot like Essie!

In terms of screenwriting, the formats are so different and so similar. I think it mostly expanded my ability to think visually and to depict that on the page. Since comics are static, it’s such a different rhythm. I actually think my comics experience has informed more of my screenwriting than the other way around. But it’s really fun to do both.

DAVE: I love that someone gently nudged you towards your destiny of writing a graphic novel, that in and of itself is a great story. I don’t know that we had ever talked about that before. I would have happily read this as a prose book, but I am so glad it turned out to be a graphic novel, and you found that place of expression.

As I mentioned above, we both kept our dreams of writing alive while working day jobs. I count you as someone who helped keep my dream of writing and my belief in myself alive. What advice do you have for people who were like us ten years ago? They have nights and weekends to dedicate to their writing, but they want it badly. What type of things can they do to keep the dream alive in the time they have?

SARA: We really did it, didn’t we? It’s so difficult to balance both! But I think A) working in a field that’s somewhat similar is a big benefit. My work as an editor has informed my writing tremendously. And as I stated above, I’ve learned so much throughout my career that has only strengthened my writing abilities. The connections don’t hurt either, but the knowledge of how a comic gets made from beginning to end made me a more professional and confident writer. B) Surround yourself with a support system, like we did! I was always taking various writing workshops or participating in writing groups, too. Those things helped me stay committed to my work and gave me a community! When those workshops and groups weren’t getting me far enough in my story or craft, I realized it was time to do an MFA. I loved my program at Antioch University LA so much, but also made sure to pick a program that worked with my schedule and lifestyle. It wasn’t easy! But I just couldn’t not do it. Which leads me to C) Keep chipping away at it. I’ve never been good about a fixed routine. I’ve always just worked on my writing whenever I could. Sometimes it would be in the morning before work, sometimes it would be on my lunch break, sometimes it would be in the evening or weekends, or while traveling! It’s not always pretty, but a whenever, wherever mentality enabled me to slowly but surely develop a body of work.

DAVE: Sara, I’m so thrilled that we could finally do this. You Belong Here is on sale now, and readers should absolutely seek that out. Is there anywhere else readers can find you, get to know more about you, or somewhere where they can be on the lookout for your next project?

SARA: Thanks, Dave! It means so much to share this with you! Folks can find me on Instagram and TikTok @saraphoebee. I’m currently working on a middle-grade graphic novel, but I can’t say much about it at the moment, so keep an eye out for more soon.

DAVE: Thanks, Sara!

SARA: Thanks for such thoughtful questions! I really enjoyed answering them.

That was one of my favorite interviews that we have done yet here on the Weekly Up-Dave. As I said at the top, Sara is a very dear friend of mine, and I could not be more happy for her success and proud of her. Maybe you instagram last week that DC Publisher and Comic Book Legend JIM LEE read her graphic novel? It was pretty sick. Sara has been going to so many book stores, book festivals, and events promoting this You Belong Here and I appreciate her doing an interview here, it was great getting to talk to my friend in-depth like that.

That’s it for this week’s installment of the Weekly Up-Dave, we will be back next week with a lettered preview of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Nation #6 Back-Up story I did with the extraordinary artist Vitor Cafaggi, you are not going to want to miss it! I may also have another announcement I can share next week, I’m 65% sure I will be able to.

And please, share this newsletter with your friends who are deeply into comics and the process of creativity. We are still actively hoping to hit a subscriber goal of 100 readers by the end of the year. I know we can do it.

Stay safe!

—Dave Wielgosz