Drawing on their own experience as a Baldwin-Emerson Fellow and award-winning novelist, Caro De Robertis was perfectly suited to compile this first-of-its-kind oral history. So Many Stars not only celebrates accomplishments and experiences of an entire generation of queer folks of color, but also captures the power and beauty of listening.

Though this is your first solo work of nonfiction, it’s also a community project, weaving over a dozen interviewee’s words and experiences into a cohesive oral history. Was there a lot that you learned or discovered over the course of these interviews that really surprised you?

During my interviews with these queer and trans elders of color, I was constantly amazed and blown away. I knew the elders of our communities had stories to tell, and had not only witnessed history but taken part in shaping it—but even so, I was not prepared for the depth and beauty of their stories. There is a shimmering intimacy to oral history; it’s less rushed, and more layered, than other modes of interview. As a result, the anecdotes and insights you gather not only surprise you, the listener, but can startle the speaker themself. The discoveries and lessons were so copious that I felt I had no choice but to write this book.

Aside from its scope and community input from trans, nonbinary, genderqueer, and two-spirit people of color, how did your approach and research differ from some of your previous work and novels?

I’m incredibly lucky that, as a Baldwin-Emerson Fellow, I received state-of-the-art training on the art of gathering oral history. This prepared me to approach the interviews that comprise this book with significant tools at the ready.

Nevertheless, as I entered the kitchens, living rooms, and offices of these elders and bore witness to their stories, I was surprised to discover the extent to which I was also drawing on skills I’d been practicing for 20 years, as a novelist. My novels are deeply researched, in both bookish and oral ways; for example, for Cantoras, I spent 15 years intermittently listening to queer Uruguayan women describe their lives during that country’s dictatorship. With them, I did so informally, around a fire or table, without recording devices. What that process had in common with the work of creating So Many Stars was the dedication to listening, to bearing witness, and to seeing the endless value in personal stories.

It’s been a difficult time for queer folks, and especially queer people of color. Was there a particular event or moment in time where you realized you needed to share these stories and experiences?

Indeed, these are brutal times for so many marginalized communities, including queer and trans people of color. Launching this book in the spring of 2025, I feel the book’s urgency in a keen way, as an antidote to all the hatred and attacks coming from so many directions. That said, the original urgency to write this book wasn’t because of the hate; it was because of the love, the vision, and the extraordinary beauty and power that these narrators had to share with the world.

You’re a longtime performer of your audiobooks. What is it about performing your own work that interests you? Have you gotten to a point where you’re thinking about how the audiobook will sound as you’re writing?

I love recording my own audiobooks; there’s something about the living nature of language that gets ignited when we read books aloud. I’ve heard that some authors are exhausted by the required hours in the studio, but for some strange reason I find myself energized by the work and slip into a flow state. It might be because of my background in music, or just my sense that literary language is inherently musical, rich with cadence and valences of tone. Whatever it is, I just find myself at home in the work.

I also know that, as an enthusiastic listener to audiobooks, I enjoy hearing a writer perform their own work, so I hope my time in the studio offers listeners something as well. In the case of this book, composed as it is of 20 different voices, it was a challenge and an honor to bring them to life for the audiobook. Because I conducted all the original interviews, I’m lucky enough to know all the narrators personally, so I got to occasionally inflect their words with some of their unique personality—their mood or tone, verve or passion, salty humor or thoughtful calm.

If there was only one thing you could guarantee that listeners would take away from So Many Stars, what would it be?

The narrators of this book have delightful, riveting, eye-opening stories to tell, but beyond that, they’re also excellent company. These are smart, resourceful, witty, generous, insightful people who have come through fire to be their whole selves and in the process helped transform the very culture in which we live. This means that they’re amazing people to hang out with. You can think of this book as an epic tale of personal and social transformation, but you can also think of it as an opportunity to spend time with people who have so much to offer you. Listen to this book and you’ll come away feeling like you’ve made new friends.

Though this audiobook is a first of its kind in many ways, you’re building on a storied past of queer history and voices. Are there any personal favorites that you’d recommend for listeners once they finish So Many Stars?

My goodness—the queer literary canon is vast and dazzling, I scarcely know where to begin! Some of the more canonical queer and trans books that have meant a lot to me include Manuel Puig’s Kiss of the Spider Woman, Leslie Feinberg’s Stone Butch Blues, and Qiu Miaojin’s Notes of a Crocodile, while some of the contemporary works that have blown my mind include Camila Sosa Villada’s Bad Girls, Stênio Gardel’s The Words that Remain, Trifonia Melibea Obono’s La Bastarda, Jordy Rosenberg’s Confessions of the Fox, Julián Delgado Lopera’s Fiebre Tropical, and Andrea Lawlor’s Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl.