Freedom Boulevard follows two people looking for reinvention but instead find a city that tests their insecurities and vulnerabilities at every turn. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

I’ve been a creative seeking the right avenues—and at times, reinvention—for much of my life. Andy and Sakeenah’s stories are a culmination of firsthand and secondhand experiences. They represent those moments when a creative type bets big on a metropolitan area as their new base, only to be completely consumed by the local culture, poverty, and politics.

Andy and Sakeenah have very different inner lives but parallel struggles—what made you decide to structure the novel in alternating first-person voices?

In the literary realm, I’d be daft not to credit the Urban Fiction writers who mastered the dual-perspective novel decades ago—people like K’Wan and Sister Souljah. I wanted to bring that fast-paced, modern structural style to a narrative that otherwise might have existed in the eras of Jack Kerouac or Charles Bukowski—assuming they stayed sober enough to actually go outside.

The book engages heavily with themes of exploitation, intimacy, and transactional relationships. What conversations were you hoping to open about those dynamics?

Exploitation, intimacy, and transaction are much bigger parts of the modern LGBT experience than most within the community would publicly admit. Grids on location apps dominate the hookup scene, making monogamous dating look more like a corporate PR stunt or a suburban rarity than the norm. The book forces the reader to confront these harsh realities. For example, Andy’s foray into escorting is what ultimately keeps him fed and sheltered, even if his surroundings are rapidly dilapidating. On the flip side, Sakeenah’s Islam keeps her head on straight, but it also births a world of hypocrisy and unrealistic expectations that she has to grapple with daily until she nearly loses her mind. Glimpses of characters like Tony Vee, Clyde, or Janice aren’t just setups for future installments; they’re raw slices of life pulled straight from those environments.

What do you hope readers carry with them after leaving the world of Freedom Boulevard?

Ultimately, I hope readers walk away with an authentic literary experience. This is not the type of “LGBT Fiction” designed to make you feel cozy or encourage you to buy a rainbow “Ally” pin. This is a cold glimpse of real-life problems hitting a real-life community in real-life cities. The series only expands from here, highlighting a myriad of characters across this diaspora.

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