First Draft Episode #203: Simon Curtis

Simon Curtis, pop star, actor, and author of Boy Robot and its forthcoming sequel. Listen to his brand-new singles, “Graduate” and “Rainbow” now!

Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode

• Simon’s first big gig was as a part of the children’s choir for a national touring production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

• Simon’s “It Gets Better” video for The Trevor Project is beautiful and heartbreaking and very worth a watch.

• Early on when he got to LA, Simon was able to audition for Johnny Wright, manager for acts like New Kids on the Block, the Backstreet Boys, N*SYNC, Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears and more.

• Simon starred in Spectacular! a Nickelodeon TV movie

• Simon made his first album, curtis.com/eightbitheart/">8 Bit Heart, after challenges in his acting career threw him into a depression

• LeVar Burton from Reading Rainbow and Michael Scott, author of The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series, were two of the earliest voices encouraging Simon to write a novel

• Michael Strother, who became Simon’s editor at Simon Pulse, first reached out to Simon as a supportive fan of his music online as @CupcakeAndy

• I reference Sabaa Tahir’s author journey, where she spent six years writing her first novel, Ember in the Ashes, and then had to turn around and write the sequel in waaaaaay less time. Sabaa talks about this (and so much more!) in her episode of First Draft.

• Simon recorded and released R∆ while he was writing Boy Robot (the book)

• Ariana Grande’s “Thank U Next” is on the level with Simon’s purposeful cultivation of gratitude

• Simon’s song “Love” was a song that hit him like a lightning bolt

• Janet Jackson’s The Velvet Rope album is a full ALBUM, not a collection of singles

• Simon was obsessed with Swedish pop groups A Teens and Play

• Five years ago Simon discovered Fleetwood Mac, iconic band featuring Stevie Nicks, check our Rumours and be forever changed

• Kacey Musgraves’ album Golden Hour was so freaking rad and reshaped Simon’s taste in music

• Victoria Aveyard (author of the Red Queen series; listen to her First Draft interviews here and here) had a conversation about not asking people to read their books — Simon takes an opposite approach: “Bitch, read my book!”

• I will never stop crying watching the part of Netflix documentary, Knock Down the House, when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) gives herself the most badass pep-talk

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Every Tuesday, I speak to storytellers like Veronica Roth, author of Divergent; Linda Holmes, author and host of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast; Jonny Sun, internet superstar, illustrator of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Gmorning, Gnight! and author and illustrator of Everyone’s an Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too;  Michael Dante  DiMartino, co-creator of Avatar: The Last Airbender; John August, screenwriter of Big Fish, Charlie’s Angels, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; or Rhett Miller, musician and frontman for The Old 97s. Together, we take deep dives on their careers and creative works.

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