Still Out Here with Lil Miss Hot Mess

Lil Miss Hot Mess, author of Make Your Own Rainbow: A Drag Queen's Guide to Color (Running Press Kids), illustrated by Olga De Dios, joins Matthew to talk about bickering about the things we fundamentally agree on.

Listen along:

About the book: Make Your Own Rainbow: A Drag Queen's Guide to Color by Lil Miss Hot Mess; Illustrated by Olga De Dios. Published by Running Press Kids.

IExplore a kaleidoscope of colors beyond the rainbow in this celebratory and empowering book by Drag Story Hour storyteller Lil Miss Hot Mess!

Drag queens love to dance to their own beat, speak their minds, and let their best selves shine. They love all the colors of the rainbow--as well as all the colors beyond!

From scarlet, marigold, lemon, and emerald, to azure, periwinkle, Byzantium, and onyx, the world's diverse range of colors allows drag queens and kings to be authentic and creative. And you, too, can use any color or hue to express yourself and your fierce imagination! Travel through a colorful, playful, and uplifting world with Drag Story Hour superstar Lil Miss Hot Mess and whimsical illustrator Olga De Dios in their latest inclusive picture book.

More:

Visit Lil Miss Hot Mess online at www.lilmisshotmess.com 

Learn more about Boyds Mills and their upcoming programs by visiting www.boydsmills.org. 

Transcript:

NOTE: Transcript created by Descript. I've attempted to clean up any typos, grammatical errors, and formatting errors where possible.

Ellen:    I think drag offers such a great pathway to do that because we are already coloring outside the lines. We are mixing all the colors and creating our own colors, and we use all these different kinds of tools, color just being one of many to express our most creative imaginations. So it really felt like a kind of natural pairing.

Matthew: That is the voice of Lil Miss Hot Mess, author of If You’re A Drag Queen and You Know It, The Hips of the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish, and co-founder of Drag Story Hour. Lil Miss Hot Mess is back with Make Your Own Rainbow: A Drag Queen's Guide to Color (Running Press Kids), illustrated by Olga De Dios, a brand new book about self expression.

Welcome back to the Children’s Book Podcast, where we celebrate the books and creators who help young readers feel seen, supported, and understood. This episode is brought to you in partnership with Boyds Mills, positively impacting kids by amplifying the voices of storytellers who inspire children to become their best selves.

I’m your host, Matthew Winner—teacher, librarian, writer, and a fan of kids.

Oh my goodness it is such a pleasure to welcome back Lil Miss Hot Mess to the show. She’s always such great company and I love that she stands at the intersection of LGBTQ representation and protecting the rights of children everywhere. 

Here are a few of the things I learned in this conversation: 

NUMBER ONE: Lil Miss Hot Mess is all about giving kids the tools and expressive language to be able to communicate all they see in their world. 

NUMBER TWO: She loves books that are messy because that’s what best reflects our world. There’s no one way to learn or experience the world. Why share anything different within the pages of a story?

And NUMBER THREE: Lil Miss Hot Mess has her eye on the future and on what stories LGBTQ folx have yet the opportunity to share with readers.

So, a little about Make Your Own Rainbow: A Drag Queen's Guide to Color (Running Press Kids) from the publisher:

“Explore a kaleidoscope of colors beyond the rainbow in this celebratory and empowering book by Drag Story Hour storyteller Lil Miss Hot Mess!

Drag queens love to dance to their own beat, speak their minds, and let their best selves shine. They love all the colors of the rainbow--as well as all the colors beyond!

From scarlet, marigold, lemon, and emerald, to azure, periwinkle, Byzantium, and onyx, the world's diverse range of colors allows drag queens and kings to be authentic and creative. And you, too, can use any color or hue to express yourself and your fierce imagination! Travel through a colorful, playful, and uplifting world with Drag Story Hour superstar Lil Miss Hot Mess and whimsical illustrator Olga De Dios in their latest inclusive picture book.”

Time for some reading and twirling and reading and twirling.

Please welcome Lil Miss Hot Mess to the podcast.

Lil Miss Hot Mess: Excuse me. I'm Little Miss Hot Mess, and I am a drag queen and picture book author. I have written three picture books. The most recent is Make Your Own Rainbow: A Drag Queen's Guide to Color.

I also wrote If You're a Drag Queen and You Know It, and The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish. 

Matthew: Welcome back. Welcome back. 

Lil Miss Hot Mess: Thank you for having me back. We- Wonderful ... 

Matthew: we didn't even say Miss Hot Mess, that you have also built a world with Olga de Dios. Yes. Because that cast [00:01:00] of queens and kings has just grown, and it's, for me, a really cool thing to have a series of books on the shelves that talk to each other through their characters-

And through the cast that grows and changes. It's really a special thing. 

Lil Miss Hot Mess: I agree. It's... Yeah, it's really a delight to get to build this kind of universe or this multiverse of all these different- Yeah. ... performers and, And yeah, to think up different names and styles and looks for all of them together.

I love it. Yeah. 

Matthew: We have been talking ever since your debut book, and usually I feel like when we've talked in the past, we kinda talk when the book is coming out. It's a really cool thing for me to be asking you. I'm about to ask you about sharing a book talk of Make Your Own Rainbow. But why I think it's really cool is that this book has existed out in the wild for a little bit.

Yes. And often I find talking to folks, when it's still in the stage of it hasn't met readers yet, it means something different, but you've now had [00:02:00] the opportunity for readers to interact with it and for you to be in front of readers. If you don't mind, I'd love for you to share a brief book talk of Make Your Own Rainbow really for folks that haven't encountered it yet.

Lil Miss Hot Mess: Make Your Own Rainbow, it is a book that is all about colors in the rainbow and beyond the rainbow, and it really came out of, my own experience as a kid wanting the biggest box of crayons I could find, and taking so much pleasure in, studying their names and feeling a sense of pride when I could identify these more sophisticated names of [00:03:00] different colors.

And, when a teacher or an adult would ask me what my favorite color is and I could say emerald or marigold, and feel just a little bit I don't know, smarter and more sophisticated in the world. And so I wanted to give kids today that, those tools and that experience of being able to look beyond the, ROYGBIV of the rainbow, which no shade to those primary and secondary colors, but to think, yeah, about the kind of complexities that exist in between and beyond them.

And I think drag offers such a great pathway to do that because we are already coloring outside the lines. We are mixing all the colors and creating our own colors, and we use all these different kinds of tools, color just being one of many to express our most creative imaginations.

So it really felt like a kind of natural pairing. 

Matthew: There's so much that I project onto this book. That's probably normal, right? But there's so much that I project- Sure ... onto it. I l- I [00:04:00] love the feeling of A person trying to express themselves and not being able to find qui- quite the right word. And so to be able to look through the lens of we don't just say blue or purple.

We could say ultramarine and we could say turquoise or sapphire. To be able to say it's okay if that word doesn't quite feel right. There's other words. And we can explore them and try out this word doesn't feel right for the things I like, but this one feels really right for the things I like or adjacent to the things I like.

I, I just found maybe I just, as a person that spends their time in literature with children, I like playing with language that way, and this book feels like- ... you're both playing with expression and language. It just feels really nice 

Lil Miss Hot Mess: Yeah, and, it's funny. It's making me think that one of my favorite things in the world is to bicker but about things that we fundamentally agree on.

I was raised Jewish, and I... There's the joke that if you're in a room of [00:05:00] 10 Jews, there's gonna be 15 opinions, right? And so- ... I feel like color is a really great example of that, where it- there's... and it's not necessarily always bickering. Sometimes it is kind of discussion, but when you are with a group of people and you're looking at something and you get to say, "Oh, I love that green over there," and someone says, "Oh, that's not green.

That's olive," and someone says, "Actually, I think it's more of a, a sage." And there, there is so much yeah, fun in that back and forth of kind of collectively figuring out what it is and what it means and how it makes you feel that yeah, again it's a delight to get to share that with other people.

Matthew: Yeah, and the way that your book functions, or the way the illustrations in

the book function, is that we see a queen s- drag queens idolize that iconic hue indigo, and they're also inspired by, but on... I say that to say we see a queen standing there with these words and then we see a page of options, of accessories- of just... I'm almost looking through a chest of things we can put on or try out. And it- Yes ... again, that, just that parallel of playing with what we wear, playing [00:06:00] with how we express ourselves just feels beautiful and I think in that way opens up as we read it. I've read it now too. W- you know that I've had this book in my library for a little while.

Yep. I've read it to a lot of different classes, and it's so fun that it opens up conversations to how we play even as simple as how... I was reading it to first grade, and at the end of the year in first grade, we did this last year too, we make games. We talk about sequencing, and our storytelling is about sequencing and keeping things in a particular order will make them turn out the way that somebody else wants to play them.

But by changing the sequence you change the game, and that- ... in that way, this is what your book ends up being about too. It just is... It's neat the way that it can be so malleable that it can just connect and connect in all these different spaces. 

Lil Miss Hot Mess: Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate that. And, when I think about drag in general too, I think about how it is both this, queer and trans art form that has a very specific set of histories [00:07:00] and a cultural context, but also- Drag can be kind of anything, right?

It's any example in which we dress up or put something on to signify who we are in the world. And yeah, anything can be drag. It can be, the feathers and the sequins, but it could also be the curtains and the rubber ducky that you safety pin onto your wig or, the toys that you turn into a dress or whatever.

And so yeah, I think giving kids that sense that that we can make... construct an identity for ourselves but also make over the world around us with the things that we already have at hand is, yeah, part of what I like to do with drag. 

Matthew: I love that not only do you love that about drag, but also that you and that great handful of others have turned that attention toward children, toward readers with Drag Story Hour.

Over 10 years of Drag Story Hour. Oh my gosh. Yes. Yes. What in the... What happened? Wow. Congratulations. Thank you. 10, 10 years ago, I feel like, oh, I'm old. That time has come and gone. Same. [00:08:00] Same. How... As a member of the Drag Story Hour community how's it going? I see you're all over the world now, which is amazing.

How is it going? How are the readers... H- How are things still going? 

Lil Miss Hot Mess: We're still out here reading and twirling. I, Awesome. Yeah it's wild that it's been 10 years. It feels like it was... it started off as this, this big little idea that was audacious that it just might work.

And yeah, it's been a real treat to see it blossom. I I came in early on in the process, but it had been started by, a bunch of queens and authors and artists in San Francisco in 2015. And yeah, I kinda jumped on the bag- bandwagon myself not long after that. But since then, yeah, like you said, it's really it's taken off all over the country, all over the world.

And it was really nice in December of this last year, we got to celebrate that 10-year anniversary in San Francisco with Persia, who is [00:09:00] now the Drag Laureate of San Francisco, and was the first queen to read as part of the program. They have a Drag 

Matthew: Laureate? 

Lil Miss Hot Mess: Yes. San Francisco- That's awesome

and West Hollywood also has a Drag Laureate. And yeah- Oh ... it's a really special way of honoring this art form, and it's- Yeah ... yeah, ties to the community and civic life. 

Matthew: Wow. Oh- Yeah ... just knowing that too. But you've also seen then... You've seen kids grow up. You've seen kids grow up- ... and become incredible humans.

Yeah. In 10 years, you've seen a- Yeah ... six-year-old become a driver, and you've seen- ... the big siblings go off to college and beyond. That's incredible that you've been able to have, like we do in teaching, you've been able to see some of those ripples happen. Yeah. That's such a 

Lil Miss Hot Mess: cool privilege. Yeah.

Although, it's interesting. I haven't seen it all directly, 'cause I think, by the time they are driving they're probably not coming to Story Hour anymore. But it's a really good point where, yeah, I'm... Now I'm gonna eagerly wait for the day [00:10:00] where someone comes up to me, and I...

They're, and they're like, "I went to a Story Hour when I was five years old," and I'll have that double-take moment about that. Yeah. It- It's- we're 

Matthew: In that timeline. We, Yeah. No, you're totally right ... i, being in the elementary school- We often hear people talk about how the, their high school teacher was so influential in them making decisions, whatever.

We know- ... in the elementary school that we've got our fingerprints all over those kids. We're helping them with- Yes ... how to show up in the world, and how to get along with one another, and how to express themselves, and do all those things. But we, maybe I in my experience, don't often get a lot of people coming back and checking in in- Right

elementary school either. But every once in a while you do, and it's pretty cool. I have colleagues that say, "Oh, yeah the most bizarre thing, wait till y- wait till it happens, Matthew, is when somebody you taught has a kid that goes to your school." 

Lil Miss Hot Mess: It's can't wait. Totally. Totally. So you just never 

Matthew: know, but you have to [00:11:00] believe that the good work begets good people.

Lil Miss Hot Mess: Oh I know it does. And I wanna say actually that I've been able to reconnect with some of my own teachers from elementary and high school, not directly through Drag Story Hour, but but in some ways actually through it. So with this most recent book, I got to do a mini tour of the East Coast last summer.

And it was my first time getting to do drag in the place where I grew up, in Upstate New York. And a number of my teachers from high school showed up to one of my readings, which was very sweet. And I've connected with my she was my third and fifth grade teacher on Facebook. Oh. And she now follows me as Little Miss Hot Mess, and kinda cheers me on in that way.

So yeah, it's been really sweet to get to reconnect and also in some ways see quite literally the ways that these educators influenced me. I do feel like especially when I'm donning my drag to read to children, I'm, I am kinda bringing in parts of the teachers and librarians that I looked up to when I was a kid.

Matthew: Oh, God, that's so cool. That's cool to hear. Yeah. 

Lil Miss Hot Mess: Yeah. 

Matthew: [00:12:00] When, how long... I'm not trying to out your age. I'm trying to be as gentle as I can. You went, you respond- I- ... however you want. But how long have you been doing drag? And in that timeline, when did Little Miss Hot Mess appear? 

Lil Miss Hot Mess: Great question. And yeah, I'm not afraid or ashamed to share my age I have been doing drag almost for 20 years, and it depends on when you start the clock.

But, Yeah ... yeah, I started in the Bay Area, I think, in 2007. My first experience doing drag ironically was also pseudo-literary in that it was a drag retelling of Harry Potter before we knew some of the Oh. ... challenges of working with that particular- 

Matthew: Interesting ... 

Lil Miss Hot Mess: universe. And in that I wasn't necessarily doing Little Miss Hot Mess fem drag as I am now.

That happened maybe a year or two into it. But, Okay ... yeah, it's been close to 20 years, and yeah, it was all part of the [00:13:00] kind of San Francisco Bay Area drag scene at the time. 

Matthew: What drew you... yeah, I might have asked you this before, but what drew you to working with kids and teens? Was it...

you're telling me about the influence that those- the third and fifth grade teacher and other people have had in your life. I know that we remember those things, so maybe it was there all along. But d- w- when you saw Drag Story Hour becoming this force that you wanted to join with, what compelled you to work with children?

Lil Miss Hot Mess: It's such a good question, and in some ways, I guess it was a no-brainer 'cause I had already had opportunities to work with children in other contexts, just not in drag. So even, even when I was arguably a youth myself, like in high school- ... I was, like, a teacher's aide in Hebrew school.

I worked at various summer camps and yeah, afterschool programs for kids and teens of all different ages. And when I was in college I had the opportunity to work at a camp that was [00:14:00] for LGBTQ-identified children or children with queer and trans parents or family members. So I think, yeah, I was always in some ways working in that space.

But yeah, so it, so that's why I feel like Drag Story Hour, it was, like, such a, an obvious idea, but also one that was waiting for its time to come to truly be realized. But I had a few experiences prior to Drag Story Hour getting to perform for children. My friend Fonique in San Francisco once as part of this artist residency at a museum curated this night this kind of family-friendly drag night at a time when those words never would've been put together- where kids got to come and create outfits for drag performers. And we then modeled them and, yeah, it was kind of- ... this collective craft night- Good idea ... that was really fun. Yeah. And and even, again, like living in San Francisco every now and then when I'd do daytime drag, I'd be on the bus, and a kid would see me, and you'd just see their eyes light up [00:15:00] and...

or, like true wonder on their faces of who is this person, and what is she doing on the bus next to me? Is she a queen? Is she a princess? Is she a cartoon character come to life? I just imagine the kid being like, "I don't know, but I wanna know more." And, just those sm- small moments of sometimes a kid asking you a question or sometimes just a little bit of a wave or a wink or something just felt like this really special opportunity for connection.

So seeing it really get formalized into this program of Drag Story Hour was, yeah, a no-brainer for me to hop on board. 

Matthew: I don't know, Hot Mess, that sounds to me like your love and connection with kids was just there all along, for you to be on a bus and be able to see that as- ... they're connecting with me.

They are delighted by my presence. They're trying to figure out, but not in a threatening way or a a way that pushes away, but rather one that is curious and has wonder. I think that. I hate to g- not I hate to keep making the connection with teaching. [00:16:00] It's the only way I know how to connect.

Yeah. But it i- it is what keeps me going as well, being able to see, I see you making connections here. I see that you just wanna connect with me, students, and I'm here to connect with you as well. ... How great to know that ever since you also were a youth, it just felt good- ... to connect with kids that way.

That's great. Yeah. I'm glad to hear that. I wanted to ask you with someone with that unique vantage point, having done so many Drag Story Hours, if y- and also being a writer yourself, if you've seen publishing change in the past 10 years, the life of Drag Story Hour, a- as far as LGBTQ representation goes.

On my side as a podcaster and as a librarian, I feel like we have more books out, but I don't know. Are you feeling that, too? 

Lil Miss Hot Mess: I am feeling that [00:17:00] way. I do think back to, yeah, like those first couple years of Drag Story Hour, and it felt like, I guess at the time there was a, there were a handful of LGBTQ picture books, but it was just a handful, right?

Like every time- A handful ... a librarian handed us a list, it was all the same titles. And and there was something nice about that to have this I don't know, mini canon or something of books for ourselves. But yeah, I do think that it's exploded a lot in that decade. I wonder in recent years how much it's maybe starting to siphon off a little bit.

I don't have, specific data on that. But it does feel like with all the attacks on LGBTQ books and people and especially the intensification of book bans that- Yeah ... i'm, I wouldn't be surprised if publishers are pulling back just a little bit. I think I live in LA and I don't work in Hollywood, but, it's all around me and people are talking about it.

And I think some of those kind of bigger cultural industries certainly have very [00:18:00] blatantly pared back a lot of their, quote unquote diverse content. And so I, I think that literature and children's literature especially is a space where we do still see, I think, more of the diversity of the world reflected compared to, yeah, movies and television and other things.

But I don't know. I'm also like, I s- I still want more, still want more. And I'm afraid that, we may continue to shrink for a while here. 

Matthew: I know... i'm not so naive to not think about the fact that it's a business like anything else, and businesses require sales to keep going and to communicate a need.

It can't just be- ... we're altruistically publishing all these books. I wouldn't want to be on the other end and see these books don't sell, so they pulp them or something. That'd be terrible. But I also think that seeing larger publishers publishing these books feels like a really great thing.

I wonder even maybe I could reach out to some of the folks at the Stonewall Award Committee and just ask "Do you feel like your books that are being nominated," 'cause anyone can nominate a book to them, [00:19:00] if that feels like there, there's more choice or if it's siphoning off at all.

Are you... In the beginning, you had mentioned this wonder-- I love the use of the word canon. There was this canon of- Yes ... of that representative literature, so to speak. Are you feeling at all like we're still missing this representation though? That's a good question I don't know the answer to that.

I'm just q- asking. 

Lil Miss Hot Mess: Yeah, there's nothing... i'm sure there's plenty of kind of specific experiences that we don't have either a core text or enough texts about. Sure ... for me, and I walk a line here, but I... For me it's like I still want more books that are messy in a way.

I still- ... I think that a lot of times when, like you said, under capitalism in this industry a lot of the books that we get are trying to do some version of a 101 [00:20:00] or, you know- ... are trying to really define terms or define identities. And obviously I understand the educational and cultural value of that, but it's like I'm still looking for the 2.0 and the 3.0 and the narratives or the formats that allow for kind of deeper complexity of diverse queer and trans experiences and, yeah, that allow us to just be or to, to in some ways look past the kind of basic definitions.

And that's something that I think when I started I didn't f- I wasn't fully conscious of this, but as I've continued on writing books, it's something that I do think about, is I'm not trying to say, drag is X, Y, Z. I'm trying to create this world and this environment. And in my first two books, where kids can literally jump into them and sing and dance along and- Yeah

and feel what it feels like. And that's what I wanna see more of, right? To me, yes, drag is about, challenging gender norms and whatnot, but it really is about [00:21:00] imagination and play and activating all of your senses and, being wild and bold and having courage.

And I think those are the things that we need to find more of. And maybe, Nothing against a rainbow, but may- you know, it doesn't always have to be a rainbow. And I wrote a book about rainbows, so I don't know. But again I want it to go beyond the rainbow, so yeah. 

Matthew: Yeah, I love that you're calling it the 2.0 of it.

Yeah. That's, that makes a lot of sense to me. I think much Afrofuturism- Yeah ... communicating a future where we exist and we're thriving and where the impact of our presence is seen and it's changing things is something that is- Yeah ... is interesting to me. But also I'm not- I know that some of these kids growing up, the same ones we were talking about that have grown up going to story hours, might very well be the ones that are gonna author this future, and that is exciting to [00:22:00] me. Yes. 

Lil Miss Hot Mess: That is exciting. That's beautiful. 

Matthew: Listen, Lomas Ramirez, I'm so glad we got to reconnect. It's always a pleasure. I, Likewise ... I'll be watching. I do look forward to what comes out and what way you're engaging with kids.

It really matters to me to get to see you out there. I hope you- Thank you ... know and feel that. I 

Lil Miss Hot Mess: do. I appreciate that. 

Matthew: I'm gonna leave you with a question I've asked before, that I'll see a library full of children tomorrow morning. Is there a message I can bring to them from you?

Lil Miss Hot Mess: I would just say keep twirling, keep being your boldest and baddest selves. I think, I maybe wouldn't say it exactly this way to the kids, but I think that they're probably feeling it however we say it to them. It's really, we're in a moment where we need to be even braver, and I think we need to practice and rehearse all the kinds of tools that we have in our drag bag or art supply kit or [00:23:00] whatever to, yeah, to stand up for ourselves and to kinda stand up for the world that we wanna live in.

And for me, obviously, a lot of that is drag, and a lot of that comes with the, the armor and the weaponry of sequins and glamour, but there's many different ways to do that. But I think yeah, one thing that drag has really taught me is just that that we need to often stand up and say no.

We- sometimes we need to stand up and say yes or advocate for what it is that we want but that is a practice, right? It's like a thing that we do every day, whether that's I don't know, standing up for someone, when we hear someone being called a name or whether that means, standing up to the president.

And so I think just continuing to practice those in all the small and big ways is important

Matthew: Thank you to Lil Miss Hot Mess for joining me on the Children’s Book Podcast. 

You can pick up your own copy of Make Your Own Rainbow: A Drag Queen's Guide to Color (Running Press Kids) wherever books are found. Consider supporting independent bookstores by shopping through Bookshop.org.

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And on that note…

Be well. And read on.