Chime In We Create Rich Characters, While Defying Publishing Norms Stories You May Like Hold Those Banners High! Celebrating the Seamstress Whose Talents Enhance Commencement Campus Initiative Trains Future Video Game Designers ‘Built by Alumni, Sustained by Community, Driven by Purpose’ My co-author and I have a successful partnership—belying cultural critics’ insistence that novelists stick to their own racial lanes “Chime In” comprises brief first-person essays by Cornellians. Do you have a topic in mind? Email us at cornellians@cornell.edu! By Alli Frank ’92 “How do two people write one book?” It’s the question that my co-author, Asha Youmans, and I are asked most often. When it arises, we understand that within this one inquiry is actually two. First, readers want to know the logistics of how we perform what most assume is a solitary act. Second is the unspoken question people want to ask, but shy away from for fear of judgement: Who writes which characters? They ask because five novels in, Asha and I are the longest-standing Black and white co-authorship in publishing. Our partnership is especially notable given that the industry has sided with the cultural critics—more so than the creative community—in response to a handful of racially based literary controversies over the past decade. While authors are allowed to write characters of different genders, sexual orientations, and religions from their own, race and ethnicity are now seen as proprietary: white fiction writers don’t have the creative right to attempt the narrative of someone nonwhite. Given this current reality, Asha and I know that when we’re asked how we write a book together, what people ultimately want to know is if we follow these publishing norms: that Asha writes the characters of color, and I the white narratives. While authors are allowed to write characters of different genders, sexual orientations, and religions from their own, race and ethnicity are now seen as proprietary. Asha and I met when I was the assistant head of an independent school in Seattle, and she was the pre-K teacher. In 2017, a story idea came to me about three generations of Black women working in a private school in San Francisco. Doing my research, I learned this was not a book I would be allowed to write on my own—that my recently acquired literary agent would never be willing to shop it, because no one would consider buying it. What I also knew, from years of reading Asha’s report cards, was that she had a gift for writing about children and families. I invited her to coffee and asked if she’d like to explore my story idea with me. Luckily, she was intrigued—and we set about learning how to write a first novel. Together. Youmans (left) and Frank have been a cowriting team for nearly a decade. In January 2019, we sold Tiny Imperfections to Penguin Random House. Our writing mission solidified in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in May 2020—when readers seeking to understand the racial unrest across America were turning to books like White Fragility, Caste, and How to be an Anti-Racist. Stories You May Like Hold Those Banners High! Celebrating the Seamstress Whose Talents Enhance Commencement Campus Initiative Trains Future Video Game Designers Asha and I wanted to offer a complement to these heavy, thought-provoking works of nonfiction—to use humor and joy to explore the challenging topics of race, religion, education, privilege, and parenting. We loftily decided that we were going to strive to become the book world’s “Will & Grace” of race. Asha and I know that when we’re asked how we write a book together, what people ultimately want to know is if we follow these publishing norms: that Asha writes the characters of color, and I the white narratives. So to return to the first part of the question: “How do two people write one book?” I am the story keeper—creating the hero’s journey, the twists and turns, the elements of surprise. I take the first pass at a couple of chapters, then send them to Asha with a slew of questions; she gets busy tinkering with sentence structure and dialogue while I start the next set of chapters. We go back and forth like this—what we refer to as “literary leapfrog”—until a rough 95,000-word book is down. What happens next is our secret sauce. We read our manuscript aloud to one another six, seven, eight times. Slowly. We analyze, debate, hand-wring, and ultimately agree on every last sentence, word, and strategically placed comma. The novelists on a live edition of the podcast Totally Booked with Zibby in March 2026. When you have charged yourselves with threading a humorous needle on highly emotional topics, there can be no room for disagreement; we must be fully aligned. Now, to answer the second question that most are more bashful to ask. No, Asha does not solely write, nor have the final say on, our characters of color because she is a Black woman. Nor do I get to play the Jewish or rural American card just because I am both those things. We analyze, debate, hand-wring, and ultimately agree on every last sentence, word, and strategically placed comma. This is contrary to current publishing best practices, but we both believe that we first and foremost write the human experience, and behind our characters’ humanness lie the distinguishing characteristics that make them unique. Over five novels and two film/TV options, have we become better at writing multicultural casts of characters? You bet we have, just as anyone improves at their craft the more years they toil towards mastery. Most importantly, we have given ourselves the grace and permission to write whoever we want, however we want. Because we believe that is the beauty of fiction: having the creative freedom to develop people and worlds that we know will touch someone, but not everyone. Also a graduate alum of Stanford, Alli Frank ’92 lives in Sun Valley, ID, with her husband and two daughters. She is the co-author of Tiny Imperfections, Never Meant to Meet You, The Better Half, Boss Lady, and Run for Your Life, Callie Kingman, as well as a USA Today-bestselling essayist. (All images provided.) Published April 13, 2026 Leave a Comment Cancel replyOnce your comment is approved, your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *Comment * Name * Class Year Email * Save my name, email, and class year in this browser for the next time I comment. Δ Other stories You may like Campus & Beyond Look Back: How Two Cornellians Cracked the ‘Small World’ Problem Storytime with Corey What’s the Most Iconic Cornell Tradition? Cast Your Vote! 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