Tobias Madden | Bucketloads of Joy & Writing YA

The whole time I was drafting the manuscript, I was equal parts thrilled that I was writing it and terrified that no one would want to read it. But as soon as we announced my potentially niche gaming/theatre book online, I received a flood of messages and comments on social media, saying how excited people were to see this particular intersection of interests finally portrayed in a book. Apparently, I wasn’t the only gaming and theatre nerd out there!

_{Tobias Madden}

In my first novel, Anything But Fine, I drew heavily on my experiences growing up in Ballarat and my years dancing professionally on Australian stages. In Take a Bow, Noah Mitchell, I was able to fully explore and celebrate my love of theatre in the exact setting where my passion was ignited: the rehearsal room of an amateur musical. I will never forget the feeling of stepping on stage for my first performance of Oliver in Ballarat when I was fourteen. Or—like Noah—rehearsing for a local production of Chicago in a dusty old church hall in my late teens. For me, those productions were so much more than just shows. I’d found my people, my community. I’d finally found where I belonged.

Noah is, in many ways, a lot like me as a teenager. He’s skinny and awkward and sarcastic and sensitive. He doesn’t make friends easily, and when he falls in love, he falls hard and fast. On the surface, his story is a light, bright rom-com that will (hopefully) make you laugh and cringe and gasp and cheer, possibly all at once. But at its core, Take a Bow, Noah Mitchell is a story about the things people do—the lengths we all go to—to feel seen and loved.

I think there’s a little bit of Noah in all of us, and I can’t wait for everyone to meet him in September.