The Westchester LGBTQ+ History Project

James Howe is a prolific, award-winning children’s book author, best known for the Bunnicula series and his middle-grade novel The Misfits. He has penned more than 90 works for children and teens.

The Misfits, which focuses on themes of bullying and name-calling, inspired GLSEN’s annual No Name-Calling Week. The book was published in 2001, not long after Howe himself came out as gay at the age of 51, and featured a 12-year-old gay character—a rarity, if not entirely unique, in middle-grade fiction at the time.

In this interview with Allee Manning, recorded at the Hastings-on-Hudson Public Library on August 4, 2023, Howe discusses his coming-out story; his writing career, including the experience of having his book challenged; and his life today as a father, husband and musician.

To read the full transcript of this interview, click here.

I think, for good reason, it’s the book that I’m most proud of having written. It spawned this national movement and awareness. Really, it’s very, very rewarding, especially for someone who suffered from name-calling and bullying and was very closeted and in denial for most of his life because of the harm that was done as a kid. So to be able to turn that around was pretty great.

James Howe

I realize that the fundamental message I have always tried to get through in my books, but also very much in talking with kids, especially in middle school age, is to try to really help them as best I can open their mind to what it is to be someone else. To really think about that and to think about who they are, also. So I’ll say, ‘At the end of the day, when you’re alone in your room and you’re not … on your phone, are you the person you wanna be? Who you were that day. How you were with other people. Is that who you want to be? And really think about that.’

James Howe