“Whenever someone tells me they feel seen, that this is an experience they never saw in a book or movie before, that they saw themselves? I think that, to me, tells me I did something right.”

“The Poet X,” Elizabeth Acevedo‘s experimental debut novel, tells the story of sophomore Xiomara, the daughter of Dominican immigrants, making her voice heard in a world that doesn’t want to hear her– in prose. Acevedo weaves poetry and her own memories of being a teenager into this loud and human book, which quickly made its way to the New York Times Young Adults Best Sellers list. VOX ATL sat down with Acevedo after a reading she hosted at Charis Books & More in Atlanta. Watch the video above to she what she has about the journey of writing the book and who she hopes it inspires.

Produced by Maya Martin, 17 and Kaylynn Parks, 17