Behind Connor’s Drumbeats: Dusti Bowling on Portraying Tourette’s in ‘The Beat I Drum’

A podcast interview with Dusti Bowling discussing The Beat I Drum on The Growing Readers Podcast, a production of The Children’s Book Review.

Award-winning author Dusti Bowling joins us to discuss her powerful new novel The Beat I Drum, which spotlights Connor Bradley’s experience with Tourette syndrome.

Drawing from her family’s personal connection to Tourette’s, Dusti shares her thoughtful approach to authentic representation, the therapeutic power of music, and balancing serious themes with humor in middle-grade fiction. She reveals how her own childhood struggles influenced her mission to create engaging books for underserved middle schoolers. This insightful conversation explores how Dusti crafts characters with disabilities as fully realized individuals and offers a glimpse into her exciting plans for young adult fiction that bridges critical gaps in children’s literature.

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Listen to the Episode

Read the Transcript

Bianca Schulze: Hi Dusti, welcome to the Growing Readers podcast.

Dusti Bowling: Thank you for having me.

Bianca Schulze: Such a pleasure. I thought it would be fun if we warmed up with some rapid fire questions. Does that sound fun? Okay, perfect. So pretty simple. Coffee or tea?

Dusti Bowling: Yes.

Dusti Bowling: Coffee.

Bianca Schulze: First book you ever wrote.

Dusti Bowling: Ruthie Sleuthie, preschool private investigator, never got published.

Bianca Schulze: I love it. Favorite writing snack.

Dusti Bowling: Popcorn.

Bianca Schulze: Writing soundtrack music or silence.

Dusti Bowling: Music but lyricless music while I’m writing.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah. Favorite bookstore.

Dusti Bowling: Oooo.

Bianca Schulze: Current book you’re reading.

Dusti Bowling: I’m reading My Fallen Brothers, which is about the Granite Mountain firefighters who died in Yarnell here because I’m writing a fire story.

Bianca Schulze: Exciting. All right, if you know this answer, most used word in your writing?

Dusti Bowling: Ugh, just.

Bianca Schulze: Me too. Dream Author Collaboration.

Dusti Bowling: My goodness, so many. So there’s a few. Lindsay Curry is one that we have, I’ve talked to a lot about that. So maybe Lindsay, because we’re already talking about it.

Bianca Schulze: Best writing advice you’ve ever received.

Dusti Bowling: Just when you’re drafting, don’t worry about making it perfect. Don’t stress. Don’t worry about it.

Bianca Schulze: Arizona summers, are they inspiration to you or a distraction?

Dusti Bowling: Arizona summers, an inspiration.

Bianca Schulze: Drums or guitar?

Dusti Bowling: Hmm. Well, I don’t play either actually, but I would have to go with guitar even though, you know, I wrote a book that has a lot of drums in it.

Bianca Schulze: Your writing superpower that you wish you had.

Dusti Bowling: I wish I didn’t use all my overused words so many times because I have a list of about 50 of them.

Bianca Schulze: All right. And then of any topic you’ve had to research for your writing, which topic has been the most challenging?

Dusti Bowling: Writing Aven was really challenging from the Cactus books because I did years of research on that, meeting people, interviewing, studying everything I could, and I really felt the pressure of making sure I represented her as well as I could. So that was probably the most challenging.

Bianca Schulze: All right, well, let’s go into some longer answers now. One of my favorite questions to ask a first time guest on the show is to be a writer, they say you need to be a reader first. So was there a pivotal moment in which you considered yourself a reader?

Dusti Bowling: Yes, actually it was third grade. So I didn’t actually even really know how to read almost at all up until third grade. And that is because I had a bit of a troubled childhood. We moved constantly. My parents got divorced when I was young. And so I was always starting at new schools. There were even years, like in second grade, that I went to three different schools. So everywhere I went, I was really behind.

And so it was like, and I was not the best behaved child either. So, because there was just so much turmoil going on in my life. And so I don’t think my teachers knew what to do with me. I was very difficult. And then in third grade, I finally did get to go to the same school the whole year. It was a new school and I had a wonderful, wonderful, incredible teacher and he was so kind and patient and he taught me how to read. And that year I made so much progress. I ended up reading Little House on the Prairie by the end of the year. And that is always the book, the big book I remember reading first and feeling like, I am a reader. And then it was just like, it was on like Donkey Kong. Like all I did was read after that because I found reading to be such an escape from everything that was going on in my life. And I mean, my family will say like from third grade on Dusti always had her nose in a book. She never didn’t have a book. I would bring flashlights with me when we went places to make sure I could read in case it got dark in the car or something like that. And so definitely third grade was that pivotal moment. And from that point on, I have always been a reader and yeah, just a huge reader. So, but not a writer necessarily.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah, I love that. And I love the just sort of safety and escape that reading brought to you because I know it brings that to so many people. And let’s not go there yet, but I just want to say like things that you were describing then about yourself. They say like writers, you can often find pieces of them in their stories. And I feel like the story we’re diving into today, I feel like I see pieces of you in that story.

Dusti Bowling: Absolutely. We writers always put pieces of ourselves into our stories and our characters. Kids constantly ask me, would you ever write an autobiography or memoir? And I just say no, because it’s kind of like all my stories, if you take pieces of all of them, that is my memoir. But also, when I take pieces of myself and my childhood and things I experienced, I inject them into a more exciting story. So like in Across the Desert, Jolene basically is me, but I never tried to rescue a downed pilot in the middle of the desert. You know, I take the things from my life and I make them more exciting because if I just wrote a straight up autobiography, it’d be kind of boring.

Bianca Schulze: Love it. Well, are you someone who likes to write every day? And when you are writing, what does your typical writing day look like?

Dusti Bowling: So I do not write every day, nor do I think you have to write every day to be a writer. I take long breaks. Right now I’m on three deadlines. So I am writing mostly every day, but there are days I just have to take a break and I have to go do something else. So what does my writing day look like when I write? Well, for example, yesterday was a pretty typical writing day for me. I got up at about six, have coffee with my husband, answer emails while he kind of does his work that he has to get caught up on. So I do have a lot of kind of administrative things I have to do that I never realized would come with being a writer, a lot of email answering, scheduling school visits, things like that. And then I do that till about eight or nine o’clock.

And then I will leave the house and go to a coffee shop or to the library because if I stay home, I have two kids and a husband who are constantly bothering me. I will be in my room trying to write. He’ll be on the other side of the house with them in the kitchen and they will come all the way across the house and come to me and say, can I have a snack? I’m like, your dad is literally in the kitchen with you. Ask him. I leave, I like to leave the house. Have a favorite coffee shop where I live that I go to that I went to yesterday. It’s super cute called Junk and Java. And I’ll be there for a couple of hours, two to three hours max. And my goal is usually to get about 2000 words down in that time. I mean, those are not good words. Those are like, I’m getting this story out words while I’m drafting, not great stuff. And then I’ll come home and in the afternoon I will help my kids with their schoolwork because we homeschool at the moment and we have so much work to do around the house, things like that. The weather’s been unusually very, very warm so I’ve been outside doing a lot of work out there. But even on the days when I write, I can’t usually write more than two to three hours. I just can’t sit for that long. It hurts my back. My brain starts to just turn to mush. So that’s about all I have in me.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah, I love it. I love it. I really also like about the idea of just getting the story out, right? Because I feel like that’s usually the hardest part. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Katherine Applegate, The One and Only Ivan author. Yeah, exactly. And then she says her favorite part is the editing and going back and finessing and just really going in. So do you like that part? Is that your favorite part or?

Dusti Bowling: Absolutely, one of my favorites.

Dusti Bowling: Yeah, I would say after I get that really ugly first draft out, I do like going back in and when I’m still kind of on my own, before I’ve gotten all of the massive amount of feedback and criticism from my agent and editors, I like to go in and yeah, take every line, try to make it better. I really struggle with, I love writing dialogue, but I could have just line after line after line of dialogue. So making sure that I’m breaking that up with some actions and things and having get placing my characters in the scene properly, bringing the action scenes better to life because I’m really bad at that in drafting. I mean, I’ll write, like I’m working on a fire story right now and I’m like, they ran toward the fire embers flying everywhere. And it’s just like, it’s very bad. It’s not very exciting.

So yeah, so I do like that part a lot, probably better than drafting even because drafting can be really, really hard. But honestly, my favorite part of writing is just sitting out on my porch and staring at the mountains and thinking of through the story, letting my mind sort of go through it because before I even draft, I know the story in my mind and then I’ve written a synopsis for it as well for my publisher. But that’s my favorite thing, listening to music. Music’s very inspiring for me and just thinking through the scenes and the story. And of course, when you go to draft them, the scenes don’t look anything like they did in your mind. But then that’s what the later editing is for, trying to make it look more like what you pictured in your mind.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah, I love that. Love that. Well, let’s talk about your main character from your latest book. So, Connor Bradley was the beloved side character in your Life of a Cactus series. So, what made you decide it was time to tell his story from his own perspective in The Beat I Drum?

Dusti Bowling: So it started actually a very long time ago. I want to say it was 2019 when I had the sequel coming out, Momentous Events in the Life of a Cactus, and kids would constantly ask me, I do a lot of school visits, and during Q&A they’d always ask me, would you ever write a book about Connor or from Connor’s perspective?

I got asked that so often that I couldn’t help but start thinking of a story for Connor. Like, well, what if I did? What would the story be about? And so the way I normally work is it takes me, well, sometimes years, but with this one, I wanted to maybe come up with it a little sooner. So probably six months to a year, I kept thinking, thinking, thinking about Connor, thinking about when I would place the story, what the storyline would be. And after, you know, I think it was by like, early 2020, I think the pandemic was just hitting. I came up with the idea and I wrote it out and I wrote like the first 10,000 words of the story and I sent it to my publisher and they said, no, actually, they said, no, we don’t want to do a story about Connor. How about you try to come up with a third story from Aven’s perspective? And I said, well, I don’t really have a third story in me right now about Aven because she’s in high school now and she’s getting older and I want to keep her story strictly middle grade. It was actually kind of controversial that I put her in high school for a middle grade book and people were like, librarians were like, I don’t know where to shelve this. I was like, it’s middle grade. It’s not young adult. So anyway, so I was like, well, I don’t really have a story about Aven a third story about Aven in me, but I think that, you know, I have some chapter books in me about her from when she was littler and so I did write those and then I guess it was I don’t know it was again it was a few years later I came back to them and I said I thought of a third story about Aven remember when you like years ago asked me if I had one I think I have one in me and I told them what it was and they said no Dusti we don’t want this remember that story about Connor why don’t you write that one instead and I was like what.

Bianca Schulze: So funny.

Dusti Bowling: So a lot of, I don’t even understand what happened there, but I was like, okay. So it took me some time though to get my head back into that story because I had accepted that I was not gonna write it and I put it out of my mind. So I was really shocked when they came back to me and said, no, let’s go back to that story about Connor. How about you write that one instead? I was not expecting that at all. So I was so happy though that they did because it was really nice to get back into it and then be able to write that story that I had thought about so much.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah, that’s so fun. Well, I think it’s such a great, great story. I love, mean, There seems to be more realistic fiction stories with female or girl protagonists. And so it’s really nice to have such a quality, enjoyable, you know, story that has a lead boy protagonist. So I’m glad they went with it. Well, let’s dissect the title a little bit. So the The Beat I Drum has multiple layers of meaning. So could you talk about how you arrived at the title and what it represents in Connor’s story?

Dusti Bowling: Yeah, so this is a little bit funny, I guess, the way it came about because so frequently my publishers change my titles that I have decided not to put much thought into my titles anymore because I don’t want to be really disappointed when they change them. I had called this story, A Turn of Events in the Life of a Cactus. And then I was going to write a line into the story to bring that to life. And they came back and they said, well, we really associate the cactus theme with Aven. So why don’t you come up with a different one? And my agent said, how about something drum related, Dusti? And I was like, well, I don’t know. The Beat I Drum, okay, there, there you go. It was just completely, it’s completely off the cuff. Like it was like no thought at all. But then I was like, as I was working on the story, I was like, you know what? I can work this in actually. And it works really well because of the number of beats, you know, and all this stuff. And so it actually ended up working out really well.

And then they kept it. So it’s really funny because there have been titles in the past that I put so much thought into and so much care. And then they changed them. And then this one, I was like, I don’t know, The Beat I Drum. And they’re like, great, perfect. Let’s keep that. So, but I did, I did love that it was four beats, The Beat I Drum. And I could work it in, in that way. And then it did come to have much deeper meaning. So sometimes, you know, just things you think of off the top of your head, you can take that and run with it. And so that’s what I did.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah, brilliant. Well, the book explores music and particularly drumming. So as a form of self-expression as well. So what drew you to incorporate this specific artistic outlet for Connor? Like what was it? Because it could have been, you know, any instrument when you were coming up with the idea. So what drew you to the drumming part?

Dusti Bowling: So obviously Connor has Tourette syndrome and it did just end up being, felt like a good outlet for him and his, the pressure. He talks a lot about pressure. It was way more in earlier drafts and they were like, enough with the pressure, Dusti. That building pressure. I just felt like my husband and daughters all have tic disorders and they do when they have a really destructive tic, like my 13 year old right now, she has a really destructive tic where she picks her arms. And it’s getting really bad. Like her arms are so scarred that to the point that I make her wear tight, long sleeve shirts, things like that. But she, she’s so antsy about it because she can’t now pick, she needs an outlet for that pressure from the need to do the tic. And so I thought hitting the drums is just like a really good relief. Hitting something can be a really good relief for children who have tics like that.

My kids also play a lot of instruments. None of them play the drums though, which is kind of funny, but instruments are a good outlet for them and help them a lot with their ticking. So anyway, part of it was also again, just really kind of random, but at the end of Momentous Events, know, Aven has been trying to teach Connor and Zion how to play the guitar. And toward the end, when she says that something like Connor’s a big slacker and he won’t practice the guitar, says, I think I’m more of a drum guy. And that was just a line I didn’t think a lot about or put a ton of future thought into. It just felt right for Connor, for some reason, to say that. And I’m so glad I did write that because I do think he’s much more suitable for the drums because I do think they’re just a really good outlet for him and all the anger that he’s experiencing from all the things, the changes going on in his life. He has a lot of anger toward his dad. And so, like Rory says in the book, you just seem like you’d like to hit things. So, and it’s always good to hit the drums instead of something else. So.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love it. Well, so let’s go into the Tourette’s a little bit. So The Beat I Drum explores Connors experience with Tourette syndrome in high school. So how did you and you’ve kind of touched on this a little bit, but how did you approach researching and portraying a teen’s daily challenges and experiences with Tourette’s and how has your family’s experiences shaped the narrative of the story?

Dusti Bowling: Yeah, so my husband grew up with undiagnosed Tourette syndrome. And so I have a ton of information just from his life experiences. And a lot of kids are like him where they go undiagnosed and they’re labeled just a really fidgety kid. They can’t sit in their seats. ADHD frequently goes hand in hand with Tourette syndrome, obsessive compulsive disorder. They are all very closely tied together. And so he had all of that.

And he struggled in school a lot. He also came from a very troubled home. And so he never got the support or help he needed and didn’t even realize he had Tourette’s syndrome until he was an adult, which is not uncommon. And so with my kids, my kids have also all developed tics. My 21 year old right now, she was diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome when she was about 12 by a neurologist. And so I’ve gone through the whole gamut with her from beginning to end. And that’s actually why I put Connor into the first book was because she was 11 at the time when I started writing it and she was just starting to have tics and her motor tics were really severe. And so just from my own children, I’ve learned so much about Tourette’s syndrome. You know a lot of people think of it as the stereotypical people shouting bad words. And I talk about that a lot with kids about the harm of stereotypes and why it’s so important to research and be thorough when you’re representing a certain group because stereotyping them can lead to a lot of harm. For example, my 21 year old, when she would tell people she really wanted to be in the theater, but she had a lot of facial tics, so she’d be up on stage. And of course, when you get nervous, they can act up and she’d be doing a lot of facial tics and people would be like, Bronte, stop it. Why are you doing that? And they’d always ask her, like, why do you do that with your face?

And she would try to tell them, you know, it’s a tic. I have Tourette syndrome. And we’ve had people just flat out tell her even close family friends say Bronte does not have Tourette syndrome. That is when people shout bad words and it’s so harmful because they feel so misunderstood. They feel like they’re doing something wrong. So anyway, I’ve learned so much just from my husband and daughter’s experiences because they’re all different. They’re all completely different. All their tics are completely different.

And that is usually the case, Tourette’s can manifest itself in just limitless number of ways from person to person. And so in addition to, you know, just my experience with my family, I watched a ton of documentaries about other children like teenage Tourette’s camp. And read as many books as I could find, which there aren’t very many. And I think that has contributed to the lack of understanding and information, obviously, about Tourette’s syndrome. So I try to read as many books as I could, fiction and nonfiction, very few children’s fiction books that address it. But one really good one, for example, is this. Actually I have it right here. Is this one, Ellie Terry’s Forget Me Not. And so trying to read as much as I can by authors who have Tourette syndrome and trying to avoid all the stereotypical representations of it as well. So yeah, it’s been a full decade long learning experience for me, even longer than that with my husband, and really trying to understand this completely misunderstood syndrome that people have and wanting to shine a light on what it really is.

And that’s part of why I put the support group meeting into the first book is because I really just wanted to highlight how Tourette syndrome does manifest itself in so many different ways from child to child to child, but also put a child in that one large group, one, just one who has what we call coprolalia, which is when people shout words. It does exist. It’s true. It does exist. It’s not completely made up. But it’s rare and it only occurs in about 5% of people with Tourette’s syndrome. So I was worried when I wrote Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus because what Connor, how Connor behaves with his Tourette’s syndrome is so contrary to what so many people think it is. I was worried that they would be confused and think, well, maybe he has something else. Maybe I’m thinking of something else. So I really wanted to address the coprolalia. And so I put Dexter in the support group so that they could talk about it. That yes, it does exist, but it’s rare and it’s not even always cuss words. It can be any word. And so that gave me an opportunity to explore that. But in a more fun way and the kids do constantly ask me about that scene and especially the things that Dexter says and stuff. So always bringing humor as well is I think a great way for kids for them to remember what they’ve learned and also to have fun learning it and then feel a connection with the characters. And then, you know, I think humor, when done not in a making fun of people kind of way, can help people feel that connection as well.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah, well, the story touches on like a few different themes like the complex family dynamics that Connor has, particularly his relationship with his father who’s been absent. And your books often deal with themes of sort of isolation and wanting to belong. So how does Connor’s story, in your opinion, contribute to your ongoing exploration of these themes in all of your books?

Dusti Bowling: Yeah, and people do probably notice that I love to write about the outcast. I love to write about the kid who’s on the outside looking in, wishing they could belong, longing for more friends, longing to be, you know, kind of part of the crowd. But they’re not, and they never probably will be because they’re just too unique for that. And part of that is because, you know, when I was growing up, I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up. Again, I changed schools a lot. I had a lot going on at home that just made me kind of a very quiet, withdrawn child. I was very introverted growing up, extremely so, almost debilitatingly so. I struggled really, really badly in social situations. I struggled really badly with making friends. And so I was a very quiet child who spent tons of time alone reading and that, you know, books were so important to me during that time period in my life. They really helped get me through that some of the toughest times in my life. So definitely from character to character, I’m very drawn to writing children who are a lot like me, feel isolated in a lot of ways. And a big part of that, what Connor, I think Connor’s experience is so relevant to what so many kids are experiencing. I’ve written other characters like Nora in The Canyon’s Edge, who not as many kids can connect with that experience of having a parent get murdered, for example, that, but Connor, with his parents’ divorce and feeling angry and feeling like his dad has not been there for him, and so now he doesn’t want his dad to even be a part of his life, I think that is an experience that a ton of kids can connect to with, you know, half of marriages ending in divorce. Of course, that means there are just loads of kids out there who have divorced parents. I had divorced parents. Multiple times.

Definitely Conor’s experience is super relevant and it’s relevant to my life and everything I went through and that’s why I wanted to write about him. I feel like I keep, I start going down on these tangents and I can’t even remember what your original question was.

Bianca Schulze: No, I feel like you nailed it. Like that was a great response. So like you captivated me. I love that. Well, you know, it was a little bit of an essay type question anyway. So you did great, right? Well, you know, And maybe this goes back to the question before the last question, but Connor makes friends with another student who has Tourette’s.

Dusti Bowling: I get to a point and I’m like, wait, what did she ask me? Where am I going?

Bianca Schulze: So what made you decide to include this particular peer relationship? And do you want to talk about how making this friendship with another student that has Tourette’s impacts Connor’s journey of like accepting himself?

Dusti Bowling: Yes. So I actually included Amanda because at the end of again, at the end of Momentous Events, because this book takes place concurrently with Momentous Events. So I was really restricted in how I told it because I couldn’t just tell whatever I wanted. I had to keep it in line with what had happened in Momentous Events. And I even had like a calendar and a chart and was like about this time, this is what’s happening and this time. So toward the end, Well, actually, no, it was toward the beginning. He mentions that another child in his class, one of his classes has Tourette’s syndrome. And then of course, the more Aven learns about Amanda, she gets a little jealous, as I think kids can be prone to do when their friends are developing other new friendships, especially with another girl who has Tourette’s syndrome. And so by the end, Connor brings Amanda to meet Aven. And of course, she likes her because Aven likes everybody.

And so I had to include Amanda because I mentioned her multiple times in, Momentous Events, but I think it was really good for Connor to connect with another child with Tourette syndrome. I just think that it helps Connor certainly feels instantly less alone at school because there’s someone there who’s like him, who understands Amanda’s tics aren’t like Connor’s. She doesn’t call as much attention to herself. But just the fact that there’s someone there who can understand what it’s like and the challenges, the difficulties, and also the fact that Amanda uses music as a therapy or she, you know, it helps her, which is really frequently the case with kids with Tourette’s Syndrome. Music can be really, really helpful, a helpful form of therapy. My kids all play the piano and the violin and all, you know, they’re very, very musical because it’s just a really wonderful therapy for children with tic disorders. So she introduces, kind of introduces him to that concept. I guess Aven did a little bit in the first book, but Amanda really, really continues with it and shows him that music can be a good therapy. And then having Ms. Chen at school who also understands that it can be a great therapy for children with tic disorders helps a lot. So, Amanda having that other person there that he identifies with who can be a good support is really helpful to him and yeah.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah, I love the character of Miss Chen, by the way. Like, I, you know, I feel like, I don’t know, she’s just such a quality, like, teacher that you hope that every, every child gets to experience Miss Chen in their life, right?

Dusti Bowling: Yes, she’s a dream teacher and I’ve had some dream teachers in my life. I don’t think that that’s far-fetched at all. Think there are a lot of just absolutely superhero, wonderful, caring teachers who really do care about each child just deeply. And that’s how Ms. Chen is with Connor. She really cares about him. She wants to help him and she wants to help him grow more than anything.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah. You know, Connor isn’t a new character to readers that love your books, and there’s so many kids that love your books. But, you know, when they’re done reading this book, like which parts of Connor that they’ll have explored now do you think are going to resonate the most with readers? Like, what do you think it is that readers are going to connect over with Connor?

Dusti Bowling: I think so many things. Again, going back to the divorce, a lot of readers are going to connect with his life experiences and then his feelings about it. There’s the difficulty coping with that. A divorce for a child, it’s like world ending sometimes, it feels like. I know that the way it feels, you know, from experiencing it growing up, it feels like your whole world is over. And then having a parent kind of disappear on you for a period of time, those feelings of abandonment are so, so difficult to work through. I think a lot of kids can connect with that. And then the anger toward the parent and working toward that. Think kids are, a lot of kids are going to connect with his feelings of anger and that built up pressure, or even when they don’t have tics and just the need to like scream or hit something to let it all out. And then I hope though also by reading through all of it, because because Connor does have a lot of anger, a lot of difficulties he’s working through. I hope kids can also kind of work through their own anger, whatever it is directed toward with him, if it’s at a parent or whatever. But also in the story, Connor’s dad is trying really hard to reconnect with him. He’s trying to make up for lost time. He’s very regretful about so many things that have happened. Each child’s experience is going to be different with their parent. I would hope that all parents would be like that, but obviously that’s not going to be the case. But just finding that forgiveness in your heart so that you can be at peace, like Connor is at the end. He’s more at peace, of course, even when a parent doesn’t deserve it or want it. That doesn’t mean you can’t have boundaries. Connor’s boundaries are really severe with his father and certainly children can have boundaries with their parents who have hurt them really badly. I had a parent who just severely hurt me all throughout my life and I had to have really, really strict boundaries with him all the way up to the end of his life. So having those boundaries, but also finding that forgiveness toward them for anything they’ve done to you just so you can be at peace.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah, yeah. Well, Connor does face like all these different challenges, like he shows up at a new school, you know, and helping other students understand his Tourette’s as part of the concept and obviously these family dynamics that you just talked about. So do you want to tell us like what it takes to balance these kinds of themes with moments of hope and humor? Because you mentioned before, the best way to talk about these topics is adding this humor in. And we talk about these. And I would not say that this is a heavy book. Some of the themes are heavy, right? But it doesn’t feel heavy because you balance it with these beautiful moments of hope and humor. So talk to me about how you manage that.

Dusti Bowling: Yeah, I don’t know how I can describe like there’s no process for it or anything. I like my books definitely to be really, really balanced even when I’m talking about really serious issues. Now some of my books have definitely leaned more toward the darker, heavier side like The Canyon’s Edge. It’s not very well balanced with any humor. It just didn’t feel like I could include any in that book. I wish I could, but so the cactus books have always had some serious themes, heavy themes, but full of humor. So how do you balance that? I guess, I don’t know. I don’t know how to answer that question. Just knowing that you can’t go too hard on all this serious stuff, just pounding your readers over the head with it, because they’ll just be exhausted by the end of your books. So even when there is something really serious happening, really heavy, just putting in a little lighthearted moment or joke, I think, can help bring some levity to a really difficult time in the character’s life. And Across the Desert for example, I have moments where it’s so serious, where readers told me they were crying, it was so serious. And then a moment later I put in something ridiculous and they were laughing. I think if you just have it all heavy through the whole book, it can just feel really draining by the end. So I… Yeah, but some, like I said, I don’t know. I’m not the best to even answer this question because I’ve had some stories like the Canyon’s Edge that I think people just, they need to go take a nap after they read it. So, but yeah, the characters definitely, they allowed for more humor in these books because they haven’t had anything so horrible and dark and serious as those other books I’ve written. But yeah, I don’t know. That’s a really hard question to answer.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, then let’s move on to the next one. So a lot of your books have dealt with various forms of disability and differences. And you do write it with such, think, you described your research and knowing that there isn’t just one way for a person to be, even if they have the same difference or disability.

So I think you write with such great sensitivity. I’m curious from when you started writing the stories about Aven to now, has your approach changed at all? Has it evolved at all about how you tackle the stories or think about the topics that you write? Has anything evolved or changed for you personally?

Dusti Bowling: Not much in the way I approached them, just because from the very, very beginning, when I realized I wanted to write a story about a child with no arms, I knew I was going to have to be as absolutely thorough as possible in my research because of my experience in watching what happens with people who have Tourette’s syndrome and how the stereotyping and bad representation hurts them. So I just kind of understood that if I’m going to write about somebody who’s living a different life experience than I have, then I’m going, I have a responsibility to this whole group of people to be as sensitive and respectful and thorough as possible, or I have no business writing this. And so I also knew, and I still feel this way with The Beat I Drum and later books I’ve written that I want, I wanted like with Aven, her disability not to be the focus of the story. I read a lot of books back then. So I started writing her story finally after a long time of thinking about it in 2014. It would not get published till 2017. And I was picking up every children’s book that I could that featured characters with disabilities. And there just were not a lot back then. There, was pretty limited. I mean, books have come so far in the last decade and having more diverse characters. But back in 2014, it was pretty limited. And so I picked up every single one that I could. And I found that every story I read that had a character with a disability, that was usually the focus of the story. And they were very, very somber and serious. And it just got me thinking a lot about people with disabilities, interviewing them, talking to them. Of course, I have people with disabilities in my family. And just their feelings about that sort of thing. I realized characters with disabilities have all different life experiences, of course. It’s not the focus of their lives always. And they have, they can have a lot of humor and silliness too. And romance, love stories and all these things that I just, back then it was like, why don’t they have more stories that are just silly and fun and full of romance and mystery?

And so I knew when I started writing Aven’s story, I had to be super thorough with my research. And then also I did not want her story to be somber and serious and totally focused on how hard it is to live with out arms. I wanted that to be, that’s a important part of her life, but it’s just one part of her life. It’s just one part of who she is out of a thousand other things. And so I knew I wanted her life to be full of humor and silliness and mystery and friendship and all these things that those are the things that define her, her personality, the people she loves, the friendships she makes, her life goals, her motivations. Those are the things that make Aven who she is not her disability. That’s just a part of how she lives. And so that worldview, I guess, or view of how I create my characters has not changed at all.

I want my characters to be really well-rounded always, no matter what they’re dealing with. Their lives are full of all different things. But the research also has not changed. I’ve always really thoroughly researched. And one thing that was really important back then was that I shared the manuscript with multiple people who inspired the character of Aven. And so there were three very, there have been three very important women who have been a part of the process of creating Aven from the very beginning. And one is Barbie Thomas, and she is a bodybuilder who lives here in Arizona and she doesn’t have arms. And I connected with her really early on, way back when I wrote the story. And then another one was LaTisha Wexton, who I discovered online. And she has a series online called Tisha Unarmed in which she shows you how she does all these things without arms. So of course I was watching all her videos and managed to connect with her.

And then Jessica Cox was the last one that I connected with. And Jessica, she also lives here in Arizona and she’s pretty well known actually. She has a documentary called Right Footed and she’s written some books and she’s really well known because she has her pilot’s license and can fly a plane with her feet. And so sometimes when people early on with the cactus books, people would say like, this book seems unrealistic. You know, I don’t think Aven could do all those things with her, with her feet.

Bianca Schulze: Wow.

Dusti Bowling: And I would just love to say, it’s not like, sorry, it’s not like I have her flying a plane like Jessica Cox does. And so I think again, that was the importance of me researching as much as I could, because if I was just relying on what I thought to be true or, you know, what a person might be able to do without arms, I would have probably had Aven doing way, you know, way fewer things and being way less capable. But I knew from my research, just how capable people without arms are because they have been practicing using their feet their whole lives 24 hours a day. And that’s another thing kids say to me like, how does Aven do that? I tried and I couldn’t do that with my feet. And I asked them like, well, how good do you think you would be at something if you practiced it 24 hours a day your entire life? And they were like, right. She has much more practice than you have. So just knowing.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Dusti Bowling: Knowing what she was capable of and it helped me to create a much more balanced character. Just also connecting with all these people, the women and their feelings. Just that was something else that was important to me was capturing their feelings about their disability and what it means for their lives and all of that. And so I wanted to give Aven a similar sort of attitude and outlook, which is just, yeah, it’s just a part of my life. It’s no big deal. It’s how I live. It’s how I do things.

I just do them differently. So yeah, I mean, research, being thorough, being sensitive is always super important. But also, you know, with the own voices movement, that’s why I’ve kind of moved, I moved away from writing characters like that, because I want to leave those stories to the people who have lived the experiences. And so I’ve become much more focused on writing about topics that are really closely tied to my own childhood and things I’ve experienced. And so and that. So kids will ask me, will you write more stories about kids with disabilities? I’m like, well, I don’t know. I can’t say what I will or won’t. But I’m going to focus right now on more things that are important to me that I have experience with.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah, yeah.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah, and maybe that takes us full circle to the rapid fire question on dream collaborations, right? Because maybe there’s some collaborative stories, right? Where it’s you and somebody with the lived experience. Yeah, I just want to say I feel like one of my, I just loved Conner’s heart and soul. It kind of, when you were just talking, it reminded me of one of my favorite parts.

Dusti Bowling: Yeah.

Bianca Schulze: I don’t have it highlighted, so I’m not going to say it verbatim, so you can correct me if I’m telling it wrong. But it’s when, you know, Conner’s dad meets Aven for the first time, and he says to Conner, you didn’t tell me that Aven doesn’t have arms. And Conner says along the lines of, well, that’s because it’s like the least important part about her, right? Like Connor sees her for who she is and her personality and the things that she loves. And I loved the way he communicated that to his dad. And that happened at least twice in the story. And so I loved that specialness and that quality of Connor’s heart and soul.

Dusti Bowling: Thank you. Yeah, that was really important to me to convey from Connor because she is his best friend and he loves her and he sees her for all the wonderful things that she is. And just like she sees herself, her not having arms is just like it’s like someone else having like a scar or something. It’s just a part. It doesn’t define who they are as a person. It’s just a part of how she does things. And so I definitely wanted to convey that he sees her really sees Aven for all the wonderful things that she is. And that’s just, it’s an afterthought to him.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah, well, I do want to go the full full circle and kind of finish up with some more rapid fire questions just for some extra fun. So, you know, I don’t maybe some of these might be hard for a short answer, but see how you go. Favorite scene in Connor’s story.

Dusti Bowling: Okay.

Dusti Bowling: But I don’t want to spoil anything.

Bianca Schulze: You can say pass.

Dusti Bowling: It is at the end when he tells his dad something when they’re in the dressing room together and it’s one of their last scenes together. And he says something to his dad that I think is really important to a voice sometimes to another human being. That’s my favorite, I think.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Love you. You did that beautifully. No spoilers. That’s great. All right. Character that you most relate to from any of your stories. Any.

Dusti Bowling: In any of my stories, okay, Jolene and Across the Desert.

Bianca Schulze: The character who surprised you most while writing.

Dusti Bowling: Maybe Gus in 24 Hours in Nowhere. He does a huge turn around and he is a pretty surprising character I think in the end. Maybe. I don’t know.

Bianca Schulze: Alright, specific to The Beat I Drum, what was the hardest scene to write?

Dusti Bowling: Oh wow, the drumming scenes, honestly, because I didn’t know much at all about drumming. So I had to learn a lot about drumming.

Bianca Schulze: Now, assuming you can answer this question because maybe you’re not allowed to yet, but the next book idea that excites you the most?

Dusti Bowling: So I, so I’m writing the fire story, but I, there’s been a lot of wildfire stories that have come out lately. Mine has a time travel angle in it. So I’m super excited about that because I always wanted to write a time travel story, but I am starting to write young adult books. And so my first debut young adult book I am super excited about. It’s like, if you took my middle grade and injected a little, a little murder and kidnapping into it.

Bianca Schulze: Huh!

Dusti Bowling: That’s kind of what it would be.

Bianca Schulze: I love it. I love it. Well, you know, like, and now I’m going to just tangent for a second. I feel as though when you said librarians don’t always know where to shelf the stories and you’re like, no, no, this is middle grade. And I wonder if, you know, the librarians were having some, you know, like woo woo sensory moment that they knew that maybe you needed to write some YA novels.

Dusti Bowling: Maybe. A big part of why I’m writing, starting to write YA novels is because I’ve been visiting a ton of middle schools. So when I first started, it was mostly elementary schools. And that has shifted with my books, The Canyon’s Edge, Across the Desert and Dust, because those definitely skew older. And so what I’m hearing from middle school librarians everywhere I go is we need young adult that is good for middle schoolers because what we have is we have this young middle grade, which is more for elementary school. And then we have this super edgy young adult, which we cannot bring into our middle school library. So they want to read about older characters doing older, mature things, you know, murder mysteries, romances, things like that. But we need it to be age appropriate for our middle schoolers. And I have been listening. Also, they want them to be a little shorter because a lot of young adult is really long. It’s as long as adult novels and the middle schoolers just they’re struggling to pick up those really thick books with their attention spans. And so I’ve been really listening. And so I already was writing what a lot of us in middle grade are trying to do is upper middle grade. So because for the longest time, was like middle grade is 12 and under strictly and young adult is 15 and older strictly. And they would even say like 13, 14 year olds, that is no man’s land. You, we don’t know where to shelve those books. And we were like, wait a minute, wait a minute.

Those kids exist. They’re 14. They’re in middle school. Like we have to have books for those kids. So a lot of us have been pushing for slightly more mature, older themes in middle grade, you know, the drug addiction, alcoholism, things like that, that kids are dealing with in their families, abuse, things like that, because we need those books for those kids. And so now rather than write the upper middle grade, I decided, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to move into some young adult with some older characters doing things I can’t put into middle grade, even with the more mature stuff, like a little murder and stuff like that, but not have it be graphic and still try to keep it as age appropriate for middle school as I can. So that’s really my goal with these books. My new young adult books is to write, because I love thrillers and mysteries. I mostly read a lot of adult thrillers and mysteries. I love them. And so to write things like that, that middle schoolers can really enjoy and then they have that touch of romance and all of that. But in a middle school age, appropriate way.

And so I am so excited about that stuff and I really hope that middle schoolers gobble up what I’m about to read. I mean, I hope high schoolers obviously do too, but I’m really thinking about the middle schoolers like I kind of always have.

Bianca Schulze: I have a middle schooler and so I’m going to try something for the first time and listeners won’t be able to see this, but I was thinking about how spot on everything you said and these books are so needed for our middle schoolers. And so I was thinking, gosh, if we were texting right now on an iPhone, I would have added like the fireworks that were going off because I felt so excited about what you’re saying. So I like, have this like button that always shows up. Do you want to show reactions? So here, I’m going to try the firework button. I did it. We’ve got fireworks here. So yeah.

Dusti Bowling: I love that. That’s awesome. And that is the reaction I get from so many middle school librarians like, yes, please, please. That’s so exciting. We need those books for our kids. Middle schoolers are getting lost in publishing and their reading levels are showing that too. They just drop off a cliff in middle school. And so I’m always like, I want that reluctant reader. I want to turn those kids into readers. So we cannot lose them in middle school, right? We have to have books for those kids.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, I have to ask you if there was the one most important point of everything we talked about today, what do you want listeners to take away from our chat today?

Dusti Bowling: Oh, wow. Well, it depends. Are you a reader? Are you a writer? Are you a kid? I would want each different person to take something different away for the children out there. Just keep reading. Hold on. You’re going to have to cut this out. My husband just brought me food. Thank you.

Bianca Schulze: Hi!

Dusti Bowling: All right, so definitely want the kids to take away, you know, We writers, we’re trying really hard to produce the books that they want to read and we love to hear from them. You know, what do you want to, what holds your interest? You know, Reach out to your favorite author and send them an email. I always respond to my readers. Tell me what you like, what you don’t like. So for the readers out there, just keep reading. Don’t stop reading as you get older. Look for those books. Maybe it’s graphic novels that holds your interest.

For the writers out there who are listening to this, hoping to gain some insight into the writing process, I would just say, just keep at it. Keep practicing, doing your research, reading lots of books. Don’t give up. My first book got 116 rejections. That was Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus. And for the educators out there listening to this, for their kids or for themselves, just thank you so much for everything.

In The Beat I Drum, I do have a really special teacher and that’s because I just think there are so many special teachers out there. I appreciate you all so much. Thank you for all you’re doing. Thank you for trying so hard to bring literature into your children’s lives and, you know, hook them. We’re all working together, I feel like, and so all of us, we’re working together to try to keep these kids readers, keep them reading, produce stories that I hope they love, that excite them.

And I love to hear from the educators as well. I’m always open. I listen, like I was once on a panel with like four other authors and I am not going to name any names, but I was so surprised by this question. And the question from the moderator was, do you think of the reluctant reader when you’re writing your stories? And I was the only writer who said yes. And I was so shocked.

I do think of the reluctant reader. Of course I want to tell the stories that I love, that I want to tell, that are from my heart. But what point is there in doing that if kids aren’t interested in them? If I just am telling them for myself and kids are like, that sounds boring. I don’t want to pick that up. And that’s why I always try to make my stories as appealing as possible for them and make them more exciting. I don’t know what. And I listen. I want to know what’s hooking these kids. What are they picking up?

What do they need? And I’m hearing a lot of the same things and I’m listening slimmer books. I’m trying so hard to write shorter stories. That can be really hard sometimes. And then the thing with the young adult and needing books for middle schoolers. So reach out anytime. Let me know. I listen. I’m taking it to heart.

Bianca Schulze: Yeah. Well, Dusti, I always love to wrap up with sharing with authors, like what their books mean to me or what the, like, you know, what the author is. But you just, I think, summarized it. The thing I want to say is thank you for writing the books that kids both want and need. I mean, it’s such a special gift that you have. And I know that the elementary school that my third and final kiddo is at, they read your books every year, the fourth grade is do. You have just found this way to touch them and speak to them with characters that they know and understand. And they may be different to those characters, but they feel connected to those characters. And that’s such a special gift that you have.

Thank you for writing your stories. Thank you for wanting to continue to writing stories. Thank you for wanting to fill the gap that is missing for the middle schoolers and even the ninth graders, right? I mean, I’m just, grateful for you. And I know so many readers are and just thanks for coming on the show.

Dusti Bowling: Thank you so much. I really enjoyed my time talking to you.

Bianca Schulze: Me too!

Show Notes

Publisher’s Book Summary: Connor, beloved best friend of Aven Green from Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus, tells his own story in this poignant and heartwarming tale about overcoming the challenges of life with Tourette’s.
 
Connor Bradley is dreading the first day of high school. Not just because he is new, or because he misses his best friends, but because he knows the other kids won’t understand his barking and tics. Connor has Tourette Syndrome, and every day has been a challenge—from the mimicking to the laughing, the questions, and the stares. It turns out school isn’t quite as bad as he expected. Connor forms a fast friendship with a girl who also has Tourette’s and is welcomed into her accepting circle of friends. He also meets a special music teacher who encourages him to take up the drums to manage his stress, and maybe get a break from his tics.
 
But Connor’s world is turned upside down when his absent father reappears and a bully starts to escalate at school. All these problems—with family, with friends, and even with himself—build and build until Connor feels ready to explode. Will a surprising revelation save him and help him find his beat again?
 
Endearing and authentic, The Beat I Drum offers an empathetic look at a misunderstood syndrome, the therapeutic value of music, and the power of forgiveness.

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