From Solitaire to Heartstopper: Alice Oseman on asexuality, authentic story telling and book banning

EPISODE 1467: In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Alice Oseman, the author of SOLITAIRE and the HEARTSTOPPER series, about asexuality, the importance of authentic story telling and the dangers of book banning

Alice Oseman is an award-winning author, illustrator, and screenwriter, and was born in 1994 in Kent, England. She has written four YA contemporary novels about teenage disasters: Solitaire, Radio Silence, I Was Born for This, and Loveless. She is the creator of LGBTQ+ YA romance webcomic Heartstopper, which is now published in physical form by Hachette Children’s Group, and she is the writer, creator, and executive producer for the television adaptation of Heartstopper, which is set to be released on Netflix. Alice’s first novel Solitaire was published when she was nineteen. Her YA novels have been nominated for the YA Book Prize, the Inky Awards, the Carnegie Medal, and the Goodreads Choice Awards.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.