An Interview with Matthew Dawkins,
Author of Until We Break

Courtesy of Wattpad Books, we bring you an exclusive author interview with author Matthew Dawkins! This interview was conducted by Gabriele Barrocas, a member of our Student Advisory Board.

Gabriele: Hi! So, I'm sure that you've been interviewed a lot with your book coming out soon. But I tried to be kind of unique with my questions, but some are kind of basic. So, the first one is what came first to you, the plot or the characters and their personal conflicts?

Matthew: Good question! Before I answer that, actually, I'd like to thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be doing this interview, reaching a wider audience, and getting to talk about my work, obviously. And I'm very excited to be part of your platform!

But for the question, I think a mix of the two. It's really hard to 100% trace back exactly which came first. But I will say maybe a little bit of the plot first, because I do think that with Until We Break, I was trying to get at some very important themes from myself and from my adolesence. Once I understood those themes deeply enough, and I knew the direction in which I wanted to take them and how I wanted to explore them, then the rest of the novel came together. So, I think maybe a little bit of the plot, and then the characters followed. But it was a very short distance between the two.

Gabriele: Yeah, I get that. The next question actually kind of relates to that. For the Teen Ink audience who will read this interview and will later read the book, do you think you can give a brief summary of the book?

Matthew: Absolutely! My book is about a young dancer who is called Naomi and unfortunately, her best friend passes away. But before she's able to come to terms and grieve with all of that, she has a life-changing, career-impacting dance competition coming up. So she pushes away resolving that trauma for her career. But then when she faces a really brutal injury that forces her to not dance anymore, she's then left with the question of who she is outside of her best friend. She's left with mourning, and grief, and sadness. But she's also having to discover whom she wants to be outside of dance, and she can break away from all the assumptions that she had about herself prior.

Gabriele: Yeah, I loved reading it! I'm not the biggest reader. So usually, it takes me a while to finish a book; but I finished it in like two days, I loved it. So, what does the title "Until We Break" mean? How'd you come up with that? 

Matthew: Oh my God! Thank you! Good, good, good question! So for a bit of history on the novel, it was originally on Wattpad with a completely different title. It was called Wicked, Wild, Wonderful. I loved alliteration when I was 18, as you can tell, but I ended up changing the title because with this new edition, I was taking a look and kind of fleshing out the characters. And the plot a bit more, I thought the title was a lot more fitting because there's this one scene early on in the book where Saint kind of asks Naomi how often she dances until, and she just says, "until." Like, there's no end for her. As the audience and as readers, we do get to see the end, and it's until she breaks when she gets injured. I think that's a theme for the entire novel, the idea of breaking and breaking away. And so that was really impactful for me. So, that's how I got the title Until We Break.

Gabriele: I love it. I like the alliteration, too. Yeah. So when I was building my questions, I kind of like actually Googled you. I noticed that you're actually from Jamaica, so I was wondering if your cultural upbringing and your background affected how you wrote the novel?

Matthew: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. In the prologue, like Naomi and Jessica are talking about food, which is Jamaican food because Naomi's mom is Jamaican. And Naomi's mom also briefly talks about her experience like migrating and her experience in Jamaica as well. So those are all drawn from my own personal experiences. But even beyond that, I think, a huge part of my culture that played a role and my upbringing was just the fact that in Jamaica, like all my English traditional classes, we were reading a lot of amazing Caribbean and African writers. And those writers, I think, really set the precedent in terms of tone and thematic concerns of how I wanted to address black specific issues. And that kind of, I want to say, transition, or maybe insight into our writing as what black authors looks like, is really inspirational for me, and I think that's what helped with the book, in it of itself.

Gabriele: It's really cool. Because, obviously, not like you're taking your own experiences into your book. That's really cool. My next question will be — what was the most difficult part, you think of your writing process, now or even in the past.

Matthew: The most difficult part, there are a lot of difficult parts, I think. But I love a challenge and I love what I do. If I had to pick one difficult part, it would have to be nearing the completion of the book, because obviously, this is my debut novel, and I take it take it very, very, very seriously. And I remember, like, deadlines were approaching and I was like, "wait, no, I'm not done," "is it good enough? Should I change things? Like should I go back? Well, I'm not ready yet." So, it wasn't necessarily like the work in itself, but kind of overcoming my own anxieties and imposter syndrome. Luckily, I had an amazing support system, and my publishers and my agent and my friends that helped me, and gave me the courage to believe in myself and motivated me to be like, "hey, we've all read it, it's great." Believing in myself, and the world is your oyster.

Gabriele: Yeah, it turned out for the better, too. But that must be so hard to just like, go and just submit. That's so hard. So obviously, you didn't really mention it in the ending, but I was wondering if she actually makes it to the New York City Ballet and if Naomi and Saint end up together?

Matthew: (laughing) Good question. ...Should I reveal? 

Gabriele: Is there gonna be a sequel!?

Matthew: Right now there are no plans for a sequel. But at the end, what I will say as a concern is Naomi and Saint, after the events that take place in the novel... they are happy and live very long, fulfilling lives. And also the friendship definitely, definitely, definitely continues. But that's all that I'll say!

Gabriele: Okay. So, what book is currently on your bedside table?

Matthew: Good question. I have a few. But I'm really into Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo right now. That's like the one I'm really flipping for sure.

Gabriele: I've never heard of that. What kind of book is it?

Matthew: It's like an adult-fiction book. Bernardine actually won the Man Booker Prize. I think it was in 2019. She tied with Margaret Atwood, who wrote the sequel to The Handmaid's Tale that year. And it's essentially a collection of stories about a number of women of color in Britain and within their separate lives. And it touches on like feminism and intersectionality and sexuality. It's such a well-crafted book and the coolest part is the whole thing is written in verse. So the whole book is like poetry.

Gabriele: That's awesome. I actually have one more question. How have other authors whose books you've read, impacted your own writing and who has been your greatest inspiration?

Matthew: I think the common denominator I'd say in terms of how other authors have impacted my writing is primarily giving me the concept, the idea, of what being a writer looks like. I think I've always valued and appreciated and taken from other authors' dedication to their craft, how they take their work seriously, and also they build careers off of their writing. I think it's easy, especially today in a hyper-capitalistic world to lose sight of passion and where we want to be in life. But other creatives and artists especially have taught me that the passion and the writing and what you love, can take you really far, and as long as you're doing that, then you're doing something right, and I think that's what I've taken from other authors that I love. My biggest inspiration... I have a few, I have a number of them, Lorna Goodison, Margaret Atwood, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Rudy Francisco, those are like the names that I'll stop at, but like those all of those wonderful, wonderful people.

Gabriele: Yeah, I think I've read a book by Margaret Atwood before! And thank you so much. That was really awesome. Again, I loved reading it. It was amazing. And I wish there was a sequel!

Matthew: Haha, there may be. I mean, never say never! 

Gabriele: Yeah, congratulations [on the book]! I'm sure that you're gonna have so much more great feedback and compliments when the book finally releases.