Writing for Escape, Resilience, and Queer Joy

Author TJ Klune comes to the opera house near the almost-frozen bay

TJ Klune has written books about robots, aliens, werewolves, and wizards. He’s written about ordinary people, about parents and children, about superheroes and villains, about friends and lovers. But no matter what genre he’s exploring or which characters he’s bringing to life, there’s one goal at the center of it all.

“First and foremost, I think about my queer audience,” Klune says, “because all I have to do is remember me being a kid in the ’80s and ’90s, and if queer people were in books written by queer people at the time, it was HIV and AIDS … which was absolutely necessary, because we had to tell the stories of what our community was going through.”

But Klune wanted to share a brighter side to the queer experience. “I told myself when I was a kid that if I grew up being a writer like I wanted to be, I was going to tell stories about queer people where they got to have the same sort of hope and joy and success that their straight counterparts got to have.”

A Blob of Sunshine

Klune is best known for his New York Times bestselling and award-winning novel The House in the Cerulean Sea, which follows a lonely, rule-abiding caseworker who goes to an island to inspect an orphanage for magical children and instead, finds a true family.

That family includes the eccentric orphanage caretaker and six children: a wyvern, a gnome, a were-Pomeranian, a sprite, the Antichrist (aka Lucy), and a green blob of unknown origin named Chauncey who, above all else, dreams of being a bellhop.

When asked which character—from any of his books—Klune would choose to be, he answers quickly.

“Chauncey is one of my favorite characters I’ve ever written. Chauncey is sunshine—a blob of sunshine,” Klune says, smiling. “He understands the bigotry and the negativity towards him, but he’s also one of those people who says, ‘Well, if you don’t like me, then that’s not my fault. That’s your thing. So work on that.’”

That same resilience comes into play in Klune’s life as an author. For example, the paperback edition of The House in the Cerulean Sea has a glowing blurb from bestselling author V. E. Schwab: “I loved it. It’s like being wrapped up in a big gay blanket. Simply perfect.”

“I’ve gotten messages from people who say, ‘Don’t you think it’ll diminish who wants to pick up the book, because if they see the word gay on the cover, they won’t want to pick it up?’” Klune tells us.

“And I thought to myself … ‘What if somebody refuses to pick it up because they see the word gay?’ But then I thought, ‘Do I want somebody like that reading my book?’ Because if they’re going to be prejudiced and make a snap decision because of a single word that’s on the cover, then what are they going to get from a book like mine?”

As it turns out, even the most unlikely readers can get a lot.

“I’ve had dads come to me in my signing lines with copies of my book, saying their kids gave them those books to help them understand their sexuality better, and they would come and get the book signed and say thank you to me for helping me and helping them understand their kids better,” Klune says.

Platform Over Stories

Centering queerness is not a simple or sometimes even safe goal these days. In 2025, the American Civil Liberties Union tracked 616 anti-LGBTQ+ bills in the United States, up from 533 in 2024. (They’re currently watching 345 active bills already this year.)

“I use my platform … to speak up for my community,” Klune says. “If I use my platform to just tell stories, I’d be doing it wrong. Because it is so important for people to hear from the queer community itself that, hey, we’re in trouble here, especially our trans brothers and sisters and nonbinary pals that are that are being told [by the government] that they don’t know their bodies, that they don’t know their minds.”

He points to another rising form of homophobia, found in book bans that target LGBTQ+ books and authors. The American Library Association reports on the Top 10 Most Challenged Books each year (the latest year with complete data is 2024), and of those 10 books, four were challenged for their LGBTQ+ content.

“It makes you wonder, why? What is in these books—what is in books like mine—that is so harmful that they need to be banned?” Klune asks.

New Books Ahead

In 2026 and 2027, Klune has two new novels on the horizon. Neither will be out before he visits Traverse City on Feb. 4 for a National Writers Series appearance, but he did give us a sneak peek.

First up is We Burned So Bright, which releases April 28.

“It is about the end of the world,” Klune says, “and it’s the shortest novel I’ve ever written,” done so purposefully to challenge and elevate his craft. But Klune fans will still find many of the hallmarks of his longer works.

“It’s a story about two men in their 70s. They’ve been together for 40 years, and then they, like the rest of the world, gets the news that in a month’s time, the world will be gone because of a black hole that is coming for our galaxy. Their final task is to travel from one side of the country [to the other] to fulfill a promise.”

Klune says he uses the book to “explore the aspects of humanity,” and that each chapter includes “a different type of story with a different type of meaning with different types of people.” He also warns that the book “is going to make everyone cry.”

But he’s going to make up for it with his January 12, 2027, novel The Stars Look Like Home. Klune frames this book—which has a dog main character based on Klune’s own pup—as an homage to the stories of his childhood, like Homeward Bound. (Never fear: He promises the dog lives.)

The plot of The Stars Look Like Home was predicated on the question of what a dog would say if he could speak, and is billed as “a funny and moving adventure about finding one’s place in the universe, told from the perspective of a dog.”

Meanwhile, the title comes from lyrics of the Britney Spears song “Alien,” which happened to be playing when the muse struck.

“So the book is dedicated to my dog and to Britney Spears,” Klune jokes.

Lightning Round with TJ Klune

Express: What’s the last great book that you read?
Klune: “The God of the Woods by Liz Moore. Good writing makes me smile. Great writing gives me goosebumps. And through that entire book, I had goosebumps.”

Express: Which of your books are you the proudest of?
Klune: “How to Be a Normal Person [which] is getting re-released by my publisher now at some point in the future. And the reason this book is so important to me is because I wrote that book when I was figuring out my asexuality, and that book is an asexual romance. I wanted to be able to put that out into the world, because I’ve learned that the older you get, you still have to figure yourself out. You still have to learn about yourself.”

Express: What’s giving you hope these days?
Klune: “I’ve been able to talk to so many kids all over the world, and I have learned very quickly that kids today are smarter, more worldly, more empathetic than we ever were at their age. … Young people today are going to change the world for the better.”

Express: What do you hope to share with the NWS audience this week?
Klune: “We live in 2026, but you don’t know if there’s somebody that comes to one of these events who has never spoken a word out loud about their queerness, or they’re scared to or they would lose friends, or their family would disown them. … I get to speak directly to them and tell them, I see you, I hear you, and I love you more than you could possibly know. The world is a better place because you exist.”

About the Event

An Evening with TJ Klune is presented in partnership between the National Writers Series, Interlochen Center for the Arts, and City Opera House on Feb. 4 at 7pm. Tickets range from $12 for students and teachers to $27 for premium seating. Books are not included with the ticket but can be purchased through Cedar bookstore The Folded Leaf. Brittany Cavallaro, bestselling author of the Charlotte Holmes series (among other titles), poet, and Interlochen alum and instructor, will guest host the event. Learn more and purchase tickets at nationalwritersseries.org/author-event/tj-klune.

Photo: A compilation of Klune's books from his website, tjklunebooks.com.

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