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In the '90s, Forrest Gump famously opined "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get."

Now that musing is getting a much nerdier update with Arvin Armadi's new novel Down and Across: life is like constructing a crossword puzzle.

Down and Across follows Scott Ferdowsi, a lost and aimless 16 year old living in Philadelphia. Determined to find his passion, Scott runs away to D.C. in an attempt to talk to Professor Mallard, a psychologist who claims to know the secret to success: grit. But after meeting Fiora, a tenacious college student obsessed with crossword puzzles, what Scott planned to be a quick two-day trip turns into a summer long adventure of discovering his passions, discovering himself, and getting gritty.

"You hear sometimes, and this is a cliché, that life is like a crossword puzzle. But Fiora’s perspective is a bit different," explains Ahmadi. "[She believes] that life is like constructinga crossword puzzle — where you’re given the grid, you’re given the constraints of your life, but it’s up to you to actually fill in the squares."

This week on the MashReads Podcast, we chat with Arvin Ahmadi about Down and Across.Join us in the episode below as we talk about grit, crossword puzzles, writing diverse characters, and more.

Interview highlights:

What inspired this book?

The first inspiration was grit. Before there was the Iranian-American angle, the mental health angle, even the D.C. adventure runaway stuff, I was a senior in college, and I myself was feeling very lost. It felt so ironic because I had otherwise done pretty well in school. And people were like "Oh yeah, Arvin. He’s got his shit together." But I didn’t feel like I had my shit together. So I stumbled on this TED talk by Angela Duckworth. And I know that TED Talks are supposed to inspire you, but I had this sinking feeling in my chest, where I was like "I’m not gritty." Maybe it was imposter syndrome, maybe not. But I didn’t feel like I had that thing that [Duckworth] said was so important to succeed. That’s really where Scott came from — it was this place feeling lost and inadequate, and wanting to prove that I wasn’t those things.

This is a young adult novel and you’re talking about themes that I think a lot of young readers will be able to relate to: grit, finding your passion, etc. As an author, what drew you to YA and why write this story as a YA novel?

I don’t think I realized I was writing YA at the time. I think I knew a little bit — in high school I read some YA and then I jumped really quickly into adult literature. I wasn’t a bit fan of the slower pace and patience needed for adult books, so I veered into nonfiction and journalism for about 7 or 8 years. But then junior or senior year of college, my little sister was obsessed with all of YA. She started handing me YA books, and I loved those. Around that time is when I saw [the Angela Duckworth] TED Talk and decided I wanted to write about 16-year-old Scott running away. So I was writing this voice-driven runaway story about a teenager, so that’s why I didn’t totally realize [I was writing YA]. But once I did, I started going to YA events in the city, meeting other YA authors, and reading even more YA, and at that point I was hooked. Because between the literature out there and the community and just the ability to write with so much voice, it’s perfect.

In an NPR interview you said, "It was important for me to represent not just a diversity of skin color and culture, but also a diversity of interests and backgrounds." Can you say more about that?

Scott is diverse, he looks diverse, he looks different. Within 30 pages, he meets Trent, this southern dude that’s like "I was never around a lot of diversity growing up." And Scott’s like "Ugh, that word diversity." The thing is: Trent is diverse too. And Fiora is diverse too. And that was really important to me. That’s it’s not just a diversity of skin color, but a diversity of interests, mental health, of sexuality, of all of these things that you might not necessarily see.

And I thought about this since I said that on the NPR interview, and I think the reason is that growing up, I never once saw a Middle Eastern kid. I never once saw an Iranian-American boy at the front and center of a book or story that I read, and I read a lot. So I was looking for other kinds of diversity. Honestly, I would attach myself to characters that were different, and it didn’t matter to me how they were different — if they were the weird outcast, whether they were gay, or this or that. I wanted characters who felt like outsiders to the world and those were the people who mattered to me growing up.

So yes, I love that now there is this movement for diversity of skin color and culture on the page, and that we’re seeing brown and black boys and girls on book covers, featured front a center. But it was also important for me to get those other forms of diversity, because that’s what I latched onto growing up and made me feel understood, even if it wasn’t my exact experience.

Then, as always, we close the show with recommendations.

• Arvin recommends two books: Dark Matterby Blake Crouch. "It’s crazy, it’s this multi-universe story but at the same time, it’s a story full of heart and interpersonal relations." And The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banksby E. Lockhart. He also recommends Jordan Peele's Get Out. "You watch it and you think about it every day." (MJ piggybacked off of that and also recommends reading Wesley Morris’ profile of Jordan Peele for the New York Times Magazine.)

• Arvin also shouts out Abstract, a design series on Netflix that talks to artists and designers in a variety of creative industries.

• MJ recommends the New York Times'copy edit quiz called "Copy Edit This." "It is by far the most complicated relationship I have in my life because you will feel highs and lows of your own competence. It’s hard but it’s fun, and you always learn something new." He also recommends "Why city flags may be the worst-designed thing you’ve never noticed" a TED talk by Roman Mars, host of the design podcast 99% Invisible.

Next on the podcast, we will be talking about The Immortalists with Chloe Benjamin herself. We hope you'll join us.

And if you're looking for even more book news, don't forget to follow MashReads on Facebookand Twitter.

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