Hi everyone! Today I want to share with you a wonderful guest post written by Andrea Phillips, one of the amazing co-authors of the new YA serial ReMade from Serial Box Publishing. Andrea Phillips wrote the second episode called Hungry, and it’s about a girl who is trying to cope with food allergies in a dystopian setting. This is such an amazing and rarely seen topic in YA, so it was such a great experience to read (check out my review!) about it and she is here today to talk about just that! Exciting, right?
But before you head over to read her awesome post, here’s more info about ReMade (in case this is your first time hearing about its exciting format) and about Andrea Phillips’ first episode in ReMade:
You live. You love. You die. Now RUN.
The first episode is FREE if you want to check it out, but trust me, you’ll be dying to read the following episodes (they are only $1.99 or $21.99 for a season pass that’ll get you all 15 episodes as they get released in both ebook & audio formats!)
You live. You love. You die. Now RUN. ReMade.Every minute, 108 people die.
On October 14th, 2016, from 9:31-9:32 p.m. EDT, 23 of those deaths will be teenagers.
Now they are humanity’s last hope for survival.Awakened in a post-apocalyptic world and hunted by mechanical horrors, these teens search for answers amidst the ruins of civilization. Fate, love, and loyalty face off in this adrenaline -pumping YA adventure.
ReMade will unfold across 15 episodes. “Hungry” is the second episode.
May likes being in control: with an obsessive drive to succeed and her aim set on Harvard, she knows how to keep her life on course. Plucked from her whirlwind of tests and achievement charts, and dropped into a world where civilization itself has crumbled, she wants more than just answers. But living with deadly allergies means you’re always on the razor edge – one peanut, one bee sting, one toe out of line could be your downfall, and nobody wants to die twice.
This episode written by Andrea Phillips.
……….
Imagine you wake up in a dystopia. There are ruined skyscrapers. Murderous robots. Strange animals. And oh yeah, no people. That’s the premise of the new YA serial ReMade, from Serial Box.
Now let’s make this even more complicated. Imagine you have a food allergy and you’re not even sure you can eat the generic food bars you’ve been given without actually dying. …Maybe for the second time.
That’s May, the narrator of ReMade’s second episode: Hungry.
In retrospect, it’s a little surprising that YA isn’t riddled with protagonists with food allergies. They’re so common now that just about every school in America has a peanut-free classroom, and some schools have gone peanut-free entirely. And while peanuts get all the limelight, there are a lot of other allergies that can be just as serious, even though they don’t get as much attention: milk, eggs, shellfish, corn.
I think lot about how it’s our responsibility as YA authors to address the real and meaningful problems that teens today face. How can you speak to an audience when you’re ignoring what their lives are really like? It turns out kids and adults live in exactly the same world, with a lot of the same issues and injustices. And there are as many kinds of teens as there are… well… teens.
So it’s worth branching out and exploring all of those different experiences. Like having a food allergy in a dystopia, for example.
This is a really personal topic for me; one of my own kids has a serious peanut allergy. Yep, she carries an Epi-Pen everywhere she goes. In my experience, there’s a particular character trait that emerges with a food allergy: incredible diligence. Spontaneity is the enemy. You can’t just pop into the cute restaurant without calling ahead and asking if they’re safe. You can’t eat the cupcakes brought in for the class party without asking a lot of questions. You can’t let your guard down, not for one minute, not for one bite.
There’s really no such thing as too careful. Sometimes, even the things you trust turn on you. Just this year, the Keebler sandwich crackers we’d been buying for over a decade changed their recipe to include peanut flour.
If our family wasn’t diligent, constantly checking labels and on the alert for food safety warnings, that could’ve ended badly for us. Benadryl if we were lucky; an Epi-Pen and a hospital visit if not. And there’s always that worst case hanging over your head. Going to the hospital isn’t the worst thing. Not as long as you still come out of it alive.
May is that diligence taken to its furthest extreme, in all areas of her life. She’s always on her guard. No detail is too small to check and double-check: labels, menus, plans. The murderbots may be new, and the world she’s woken up in may be completely alien, but May? She’s used to fighting for her life. She’s been fighting to survive since she was a toddler.
About Andrea Phillips
Andrea Phillips is a transmedia writer, game designer and author. She is on the writing team for season 2 of the urban fantasy serial Bookburners as well as ReMade. Her debut novel is Revision, an SF thriller about a wiki where your edits come true. She has also worked on iOS fitness games Zombies, Run! and The Walk; The Maester’s Path for HBO’s Game of Thrones; human rights game America 2049; and the independent commercial ARG Perplex City. She also writes an ongoing column about video games called Metagames for Strange Horizons. Her nonfiction book A Creator’s Guide to Transmedia Storytelling is used to teach digital storytelling at universities around the world.
I won't lie the concept sounds kind of crazy, but it's kind of intriguing. Thanks for sharing!