In 2013, when the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black came out, the world met the character Sophia Burset — a Black trans woman serving as the resident hairstylist in prison. 

For much of the audience, it was also the first time they met actress Laverne Cox — who landed the role of Sophia at the age 40, just when she was thinking of quitting acting altogether.  

In her new memoir Transcendent, Cox talks about the challenges she faced long before Netflix came knocking: a mother who withheld love, a father who was never around and the brutal denigration she encountered growing up Black and trans in the deep South.  

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Judy Blume is the legendary writer of books for young adults including Are You There God It’s Me Margaret, Deenie, Tiger Eyes, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Blubber.

Her last book, 2015’s In The Unlikely Event, was published more than a decade ago. Blume now spends her time reading children’s books behind the counter at her bookstore in Key West, Florida. Though she says she is done writing, her books remain beloved; her readers numerous and devoted.

Judy Blume spoke with NPR’s Scott Simon at the Santa Fe International Literary Festival in May. Here are excerpts from that conversation, edited in parts for clarity and length.

Scott Simon: How did you begin to write? What do you think made you a writer?

Judy Blume: I was a reader. And, you know, I meet so many kids and they say, “I want to be a writer when I grow up, but I don’t like to read.” And I say, “You know what? Forget being a writer.” Because I think every writer — that I know anyway — grew up a reader. And certainly that was true for me.

Simon: What was the spark that set it in motion from reading to writing, do you think?

Blume: I was married young. I had two kids young. And I was desperate for a creative outlet. I loved taking care of babies, but I needed something else and it could have been anything.

Simon: I have read that at one point in your life you made felt art pieces?

Scott Simon with Judy Blume in Santa Fe in May.

Tira Howard Photography/Courtesy Santa Fe International Literary Festival

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Tira Howard Photography/Courtesy Santa Fe International Literary Festival

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Blume: Oh God, my first career. You know, I stopped because the Elmer’s glue — I’m an allergic person — started to give me funny things on the tips of my fingers. I made $300 selling those. And I bought myself a small electric typewriter. And the rest is history.

But I always had stories inside my head — when I was 9 years old. I bounced a rubber ball against the side of my house for hours. But really what was going on were stories. Fabulous stories, very melodramatic. I never told anybody. I never asked a friend, “Hey, do you have stories inside your head all the time?” Because I thought they’d think I was weird, which I might have been. So the stories were always there.