The black stallion

Yes, please.

And why that was something that was important to me? Because I, I grew up not around horses, and, uh, I love dogs, and I read all the dog books in the library that was close to us, and I ran out of dog books, and I picked up Walter Farley's Black Stallion, and I read it all in one night, and I was hooked.

I was 12 years old, and I was like, "Wow, a horse on an island that only, like, this boy can ride and train." And I read it, and then there was more horse books, and I was horse book person after that.

And I read everything, and I decided I was going to be a horse trainer from reading books, which was-

Yeah, it's not, you know, I don't...

My reading experience started with The Black Stallion and The Hardy Boys and, you know, my high-lit version was The Sherlock Holmes Stories.

Yeah.

Those were formative reading experiences, formative kind of... introductions to narrative art and narrative, uh, understanding.

Certain stories became catalysts for my own make-believe adventures, not as one-off flights of fancy, but in a way that felt central to my existence.

By the time I discovered American author Walter Farley and his Black Stallion novels, I'd already worked my way through all the pony books that the library had to offer.

And there were a lot of them, mostly featuring peppy girls in pristine jodhpurs and high jinks at the Gymkhana.

The Black Stallion was a different beast.

There was a wild beauty and a spirit of daring at its heart.

And the stakes weren't just high, they were life and death.

I get it.

You know? It's hard to, it's hard to convince, and I'll be, you know, I'll be real honest with you, I have editors that are reading my young adult romance that is, uh, based on, like, uh, uh, the Black Stallion, and some editors have said, "Well, it doesn't seem like the boy is as important as the horse."

Yeah.

And I'm like, "Yeah, that's how it works." Like, you try being 17 and acquiring a horse, and then see how important boys are.