>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made one year ago, January 2025, in Geneva, Switzerland.

Michael Solis was looking for an apartment.

He had bought a new bike to explore the city of Geneva.

He didn't know how long he might live in Switzerland, but it felt like a great fit.

He had lived in a number of places around the world.

In Honduras, he had spent two years working on grassroots youth empowerment, which sounds like a great way to go broke.

But it was also very fulfilling.

He even found time to teach yoga there.

Then Michael spent three years at an international nonprofit in Nicaragua.

Then he moved into a leadership role and moved to Sierra Leone, then Kenya.

In Switzerland, he was going to have a hand in reshaping a $2 billion budget.

Felt good about the work he was doing.

And then one year ago, within just days, it was gone.

As Michael wrote on his Substack, the humanitarian sector collapsed when the new Trump administration withdrew funding for foreign aid.

He wrote, quote, losing a job is hard enough.

But when the entire sector you've built your career around collapses, it feels like a part of you collapses with it.

End quote.

Michael's next career move was not obvious right away, so he temporarily bunked back home with his parents.

And then Rochester called Writers & Books needed a new executive director.

Michael had published his debut novel in 2023, a work of young adult science fiction called deficient.

He had tangled with the publishing industry.

He knew the struggles that writers are going through, at least somewhat.

And more importantly, he had managed large agencies and small.

He could learn Rochester and he could do the job.

And so at the end of summer, Michael Solis took a job far away from where his year began in Europe.

And now he has the task of leading an organization with a great deal of local history.

This is our first chance to sit down one on one with the new executive.

Still new.

I mean, it's 2026 now.

The executive director of Writers & Books is Michael Solis, and it's great to have you one on one to get to know you better.

Thank you for making time for the program today.

>> Hi, Evan, it's great to be here.

Thank you for inviting me.

>> did I miss anything in the introduction there?

>> That was very thorough.

I'm really.

You did your homework.

>> It's been a wild year for you, hasn't it?

>> Yeah.

>> So a year ago, before the official inauguration.

Because obviously, the USAID stuff and the foreign aid and everything tied to it happened very quickly.

But a year ago, that hadn't happened yet.

So what did you think you were about to be doing?

What were you doing a year ago?

>> Yeah.

So a year ago, I had just concluded a secondment.

So I was part of the government of Ireland.

Has this rapid humanitarian response roster, and I form part of that roster.

And through that roster, I was seconded to the International Organization for Migration in Switzerland at their headquarters, which is called IOM.

They're the UN agency that leads on all issues relating to migrants.

so I was there for about nine months.

I worked with them and supported them on an advocacy issue.

and they wanted to keep me for longer.

So they basically turned that secondment into a longer term role.

I applied I came out, you know, as the winning candidate.

They were doing the reference checks, and as they were checking my references the Trump administration pulled lots of funding from the humanitarian sector.

And I think overnight, about 40 to 50% of the funding to that specific organization was cut, including the projects that I was working on.

so unfortunately, that all kind of the carpet got pulled out from, from underneath me.

I was able to continue supporting the organization more as a consultant, but I had to work from the country where I had work authorization to work.

I couldn't stay in Switzerland.

so hence coming back to the U.S.

during a tumultuous time.

>> In the first Trump administration, there was talk about doing this kind of change to foreign policy, to soft power, to funding different humanitarian efforts, USAID, but they didn't pull that funding or didn't pull in the way that they did with the speed that they did in the second version.

So I imagine a year ago, you were thinking it was possible, but were you and your colleagues surprised at how fast it happened?

>> I think so, I think this was something that should have been planned as a contingency.

during the first administration, we saw that certain agencies were specifically targeted, like the World Health Organization, for instance.

but I didn't think everyone thought of what would happen, the repercussions that there would be for various agencies, including the International Organization for migration, UNHCR and the impact that that would then have, not only for these big agencies, but then all of the organizations that partner with them.

So a lot of my work was working with local grassroots organizations that received funding that was channeled through them through other entities, and the big challenges that they faced that they no longer, from one day to the next, their contracts were basically null and void.

They couldn't do the work in the communities anymore.

an organization in South Sudan Anastasia, who runs the a women's, a women led organization, mentioned to me that the communities were angry.

They didn't understand why the funding stopped.

They thought the local actors and organizations were being corrupt and withholding the money and the resources, when really it was this decision that happened in Washington, D.C.

that was out of their control and trying to explain that to the community level, to people who were needing these resources and supports, particularly for health.

we're just confused.

Right.

And that happened across a variety of different contexts and countries.

and it's really quite sad.

>> So it sounds like you don't think it is hyperbole to say that those funding changes cost lives.

>> Definitely.

Yeah.

And there's been some studies.

people died.

Yeah.

>> Or maybe are still dying.

>> Yeah.

And I think there's been some pullback also of trying to fund some of those initiatives through the State Department.

but when you've cut funding from one day to the next and those projects are terminated I think we're still grappling with and trying to count, you know, what has the impact been?

But if people are not getting the life saving support that they were getting before and no one was able to fill the gap, then of course people have died.

>> And I think there is probably something crass about putting this in the lens of soft power when it's really just issues of living and dying and and sometimes clean water, medicine, et cetera.

but certainly when there is a presence of a powerful nation, in this case, the United States, doing this kind of work, that must leave some kind of imprint in places around the world, it's.

China has made no secret that they seek to try to fill the voids where the United States has left.

Do you think these places where we have left in the last year, how much damage to our relationships are happening, do you think?

>> I think it remains to be seen.

The U.S.

occupied such a strategic role in so many different countries with that soft policy and the ability to influence in different ways.

Right.

we talk a lot about regime change now, but I think that with aid, you're able to support a country.

But then behind the scenes also influence some of their policies and action without the abruptness of regime change.

Right.

so I think on issues relating to human rights governance, democracy the United States has always historically been traditionally a champion of that.

in the countries where I've lived, you see the role of China, and China has a bit of a different stance and approach to how they approach development.

And a lot of it is infrastructural.

in Sierra Leone, while I was there China created several toll booths.

Right.

But because for many of the infrastructural projects Sierra Leone was in debt to China, the money from the tolls are all goes to support the Chinese government.

Right.

so there's always that issue of of extracting what are we giving?

Are we really supporting and I think each model has question marks and the, the whole sector itself around how development works.

A lot of money is channeled through foreign governments.

And those governments are you know, it's not necessarily out of charity or out of the goodness of their hearts.

There's there's an agenda behind the scenes.

>> Talking to Michael Solis, who is the executive director of Writers & Books since the end of summer.

And we're going to get to Writers & Books coming up here.

But, I mean, he's just got such an impressive and interesting resume and frankly, life story you've written on your Substack that we'll link to in our show notes.

If people want to check out some of your work there that, you know, if not for the prospect of a couple hundred thousand dollars in debt, you might have gone into law school.

There was a lot that you were thinking about when you were younger.

I know you there's 22-year-old Michael would not have said, I'm going to be the executive director of Writers & Books in Rochester, New York.

I get that.

What did you really think when you were in your early 20s, you were going to be doing?

>> Yeah, in college I studied abroad.

I did a summer in Spain and then a semester in Argentina, and I absolutely fell in love with living abroad.

I studied international relations and public policy.

I focused on Latin American studies, Spanish and Portuguese, and I knew I wanted to spend a good amount of time outside of the U.S.

and applying that degree in any way that I felt made sense.

I didn't know exactly what I would be doing, but I had done a lot of work, you know, for nonprofits, and I was looking forward to building that work over time.

I did a year on a fellowship in South Korea, working for the Human Rights Commission there.

I did a year working with Human Rights Watch in Santiago, Chile.

and then eventually I lived in Honduras working for a youth empowerment organization.

And that was the first time I had a real hands on role as an employee with with a local grassroots nonprofit.

I lived in Honduras for about two years, and I knew after that that I wanted to keep doing that.

but I was a bit torn of, do I, do I go to law school?

Do I study law?

Do I have more of a domestic life?

Do I keep living?

You know, what will that look like?

And it just kind of kind of went with the wind.

Each one opportunity led to another opportunity, and I kind of hopped from country to country for quite a while.

>> How many languages do you speak?

>> well, I speak English, Spanish, Portuguese some French.

And then in Sierra Leone, I learned Creole to an extent, which is yeah, the language there.

>> Didn't pick up any Korean.

>> I did pick up some some Korean at the time to study over the summer.

I mean, now I can go out and order food in Korean, right?

You can.

yeah, and you can.

You can read.

Once you learn the Korean alphabet, you can read it.

You can read anything.

>> It's beautiful.

It's so difficult.

Korean next door neighbors growing up.

and I wish I had studied it more.

>> It was extremely challenging, though.

Really, really difficult language.

But beautiful.

So had I lived there longer, I would have hopefully have gotten better.

but yeah, I did enjoy that, but I can't.

I can't do what I used to do in 2007.

>> And you and you even taught some yoga when you were in Honduras.

Your colleagues tell me you are very serious and very good.

Okay.

Like you're a serious Yogi.

>> I am.

I feel like I am serious.

>> Are you teaching in Rochester?

>> I haven't started teaching yet.

I'm taking classes, I go to the gym and I take a lot of classes there.

My first three months in Rochester were really Writers & Books heavy as as they should be, right?

Yeah.

And moving to a new place and wrapping my head around it.

But I've met a lot of yoga teachers in town, which is wonderful.

I would love to be able to teach down the line writers and books.

We have Retreat Center Gel in Naples, and we'd love to host more yoga retreats and meditation retreats there for anyone who's interested, because it's so beautiful.

but yeah, I'd, I been doing yoga for a while.

Back in college, I did martial arts, so I did.

I got a black belt in taekwondo, but I wasn't very good at sparring.

I wasn't very good at a lot of things.

With Typekit.

Do you get a.

>> Black belt if you're not good.

>> At sparring?

I don't like I could do the poomsae, which are the forms, like, you know, the little choreographed things that you do, but actually fighting in the sparring matches, I just was like, I was not into it.

>> You're not a fighter at heart.

>> No.

Which is strange because my my dad is, but.

Yeah.

And then I eventually I went to do my certification in yoga in India.

I did a master's in human rights in Ireland.

I handed that in, and then I basically hopped on a flight with a backpack, very little money and just, you know, on a shoestring, traveled India and then and then studied yoga.

And then when I moved to Honduras, I wasn't planning on teaching yoga.

but I lived in a town called El Progreso where there was no yoga.

People found out that I could teach it.

I started teaching classes, and I got some really interesting students.

there was one woman who lost her husband to gang violence, and so she was coming to my class, and I had I didn't know her backstory, but she was looking for something that would help her get through that trauma.

my dentist who became my dentist in Honduras, she also ran a local television show.

So she she would come to my classes, and then she would invite me on to Hunter and television to to demystify yoga, because a lot of people in Honduras thought that yoga was black magic.

or the churches, you know, would say that yoga was something that it wasn't.

and I loved her because she was like, okay, let's kind of break that myth and let's explain to the people what it actually is.

A lot of people thought yoga meant teleporting, like teleporting from one part of a room to to the other.

I would get that a lot for some reason back then, and I was like, I wish I could teleport from one part of the room to the other through yoga.

I can't, but I can stretch and breathe and let you know what that is, right?

>> Yeah, I can't let Michaels reference to his dad go.

I mean, look, look, we're not going to spend the whole hour talking about professional wrestling, but I asked some of your colleagues, you know, like, give me something surprising or really interesting about Michael Solis.

And they said, oh, yeah, well, I mean, his dad was a very, very well-known professional wrestler, especially in the 80s into the 90s.

And I'm going like, who?

And they said, well, he was Tito Santana.

He was a face.

And I said, I saw Tito Santana at the Richfield Coliseum outside Cleveland when I was in middle school.

I know exactly who he is.

he was I think he was like a tag team champion.

At some point, you'll probably know more than I, but the last thing I expected to hear about you, having read about your background, is that your dad was a professional wrestler named Tito Santana and still doing well.

In fact, you wrote a really, really beautiful.

I thought piece, a post Substack piece about his career, post wrestling and what he's been doing and some of the discrimination that maybe he faces, et cetera.

but anyway, I think people might be surprised to hear that you're the son of a pretty famous professional wrestler.

>> Yeah.

So.

And Tito is still around Tito Santana, his his real name is Merced Solis.

So?

So his surname is Solis, but he was kind of like the Mexican wrestler for the WWE.

Now the WWE.

>> WWF and the 80s.

>> For that time.

And you're right, he was a tag team champion Strike force with Rick Martel, who was a Canadian wrestler.

and then he became an Intercontinental Champion.

I think he won a Royal Rumble.

He has a whole bunch of wrestling, you know, achievements.

>> No, he was like the real deal, man.

I mean, like, I don't know if he ever, like, went against Hulk Hogan or.

he did Andre the Giant.

>> Yes.

He was good friends with Andre the Giant.

Is that right?

Yeah, yeah.

and so he has lots of wonderful stories to tell from from back in the day.

and he still does appearances.

And he's come to Rochester twice.

He loves Rochester, so I'm sure he'll be back when the weather gets a little bit warmer.

and yeah, he travels quite a lot doing appearances all over the place.

So knock on wood, he's still healthy.

he's from that generation of wrestlers during the golden age of wrestling, and there are not too many of them around.

And, you know, Hulk Hogan passed away recently, right.

And a lot of the wrestlers have passed on.

So you know, I'm just happy that he's healthy.

He's doing well.

after his wrestling star fell, he went into teaching.

Yeah.

It was a bumpy ride, a bumpy road for him because he he did substitute teaching first.

the principal of the school gave him a lot of trouble.

Did not particularly like Mexican people.

My father is Tex-Mex.

He was born on the border of Texas and Mexico.

and then he eventually got a full time teaching job over time in my hometown, which people in my hometown love my dad.

Right?

So I just loved that he was able to find that.

But it was not an easy path.

he, with my mother opened up a hair salon in town in New Jersey.

They ran that for 25 years.

Well, my mother ran it for 25 years, but he helped.

and so they both pivoted at a time that was really challenging for them when it kind of felt like their world was collapsing as well.

>> In the last year, when you were before Rochester kind of came calling and this all fell into place.

you decided to just bunk back with them, just kind of get your, your wits about you.

You know, the Trump administration had pulled all this funding, this big opportunity, and Switzerland was gone.

And you at least got to be there.

You said for your mom's 70th birthday.

and that seemed really lovely.

What else did you learn about being back with them, even in that brief time?

>> Yeah, I had a month in Switzerland to basically be like, okay, you gotta leave.

And my visa was expiring as well.

So I had to get out of there, and I just had no idea where to go.

So I chatted with my parents and they were like, there's space for you here, Michael.

You're more than welcome to come back.

And I had been out for 18 years.

It'd been a long time.

I'd made periodic visits back.

But a week, two weeks max, you know?

so this idea of permanence I found really scary of, like, where do I go?

Where do I settle?

It's a big world, a big country.

and then the more I thought about it well, New Jersey made sense, so I went back and spent time with my parents, got to, you know, be there for my mother's 70th birthday.

I missed so many birthdays.

Right?

I've missed weddings, birthdays, celebrations, holidays, so many things over the years.

being back home was also strange.

It was winter, and I had.

I lived in Sierra Leone, Kenya, Latin America for so long.

I hadn't actually experienced winter for a very long time, and the winter in Switzerland was lovely, but different from the northeast winter here.

so I remember getting back and the driveway was covered in ice and snow, and my parents are older now, and so I shoveled and I helped out.

I didn't even know that.

Like those that salt that exists, that melts the ice, I didn't even know that existed.

And so my dad had these big bags of that.

So I was there, you know, pouring those out on the driveway trying to be useful and earn my keep.

but I think they were just so happy to have me back, and we could chat.

We could talk, we could spend time with each other.

And I think I just realized how precious that time is, that it's fleeting.

It's not here forever, right?

>> No.

I mean, it's really interesting to have that opportunity with your parents at their age.

And I really appreciated reading some of your insights from that experience.

But then how did Rochester get on your radar?

I mean, what happened to open Writers & Books as a possibility for you?

>> Yeah.

So, I mean, I've been balancing work in the nonprofit sector for a really long time, and lots of different countries running country programs, running offices administering programs.

so I built up that those skills, I suppose.

And then the question was, okay, how do I translate and transfer those skills to the sector in the U.S.?

so looking for nonprofit jobs or opportunities became on my radar.

I actually worked with a friend who was a professional coach who used to work for the organization that I worked for, the Irish organization.

She had transitioned to life in the U.S.

with her husband, and she was running a coaching practice.

So I did six sessions with her.

And one of the big things from that was, okay, writing is your passion.

You know, creativity is your passion.

How can you center that in a way that it becomes the focus of your work and your life, as opposed to maybe something that feels on the side?

And for me, I was like, oh, I can't with my writing, it's been great.

But I can't just do that alone and and survive and pay the rent.

how do I bring that to a focus and descend to the center of my life?

And then I started looking for opportunities within the nonprofit world that linked creative writing, literature, and one of the first ones that popped up was this executive director job with writers.

and it looked fantastic.

The organization had been around since, I think, 1981, founded by Joe Flaherty.

Incredible adult programing, incredible youth programing, the the residency and the retreat center in the Finger Lakes.

It just felt like a dream organization.

I was kind of like, what's wrong?

Like what's going on here behind the scenes?

Why is this?

Why does this job exist?

But I applied and I was applying for a lot of things, but some of the things I was applying for were things that weren't really speaking to me or exciting me.

But the job, when I remember when I submitted that application, I was like, I really hope this works out.

And I think three days later, the the president of the board called me and she was like, you do realize that this job is in Rochester, right?

And I was living at Brooklyn at the time.

So I moved from New Jersey to Brooklyn.

And and I said, yeah, you know, I wouldn't have applied for it otherwise.

and went through the interview process.

I came to Rochester in April.

It was beautiful, sunny, glorious spring weather.

and then I think in May got the job offer and Alison, who was the previous executive director, didn't retire until September.

So I had the whole summer left in Brooklyn.

Also, you know, with family in New Jersey as well with friends.

And I could prepare for the move to Rochester.

So it gave me plenty of time to do that.

>> If I were on the board, I would have asked you, given how you have worked around the world, literally around the world, for two decades, can we expect you to stay in Rochester for a while if you get this job?

>> I think the board did ask that.

Okay.

>> Yeah.

And what did you.

>> Tell him?

and, well, I guess 18 years living internationally from different countries.

I think the longest country that I lived in was Sierra Leone.

So I spent six years in West Africa.

but other than that, it was, you know, two years here, three years here, six years there, nine months here.

and eventually you kind of get a little tired of that.

Right?

So in my 20s and 30s, there was a sense of adventure.

I still view life as an adventure.

Right.

But I think what I hadn't done in my life was actually settle somewhere, establish roots.

And I've kind of, you know, I'm 41 now, so I kind of felt like, okay, maybe it's time to buy couches and buy furniture and like, you know, find a place here that to call my own.

and it felt very overwhelming and scary at first to start doing that.

But Rochester has been extremely welcoming, very warm, not warm because it's freezing, but the people are very warm.

and Writers & Books has been a wonderful organization to get to know, to be part of.

Wonderful team, wonderful board, wonderful community.

And I think that's kind of what I was looking for.

I'd found communities in all the places where I've lived, but then it's like, okay, where is my community?

Where are my people?

Right?

>> So you can stay, you can see yourself here for a while.

>> Yeah.

And it's, you know, knock on wood, it's been great so far.

It's been I'm on my fourth month, so it's still feels very new.

but I really am loving it.

So hopefully it will stay much longer.

>> And you're 41.

What is your moisturizing regime if you're watching on YouTube?

Michael and I are five years apart.

We look like we're 20 years apart.

>> No, we do not.

>> Anyway.

no, I mean, look, you're you're out of central casting.

I'm sure they were surprised to get your resume and excited about it.

was there anything about this process that made you think maybe I don't want to come to Rochester?

Did anything happen?

That was a red flag.

>> I don't think so.

I think the the recruitment process was really thorough.

I got to meet staff members.

I got to meet board members.

there were several rounds of interviews.

So I remember by the end of it, I was I was exhausted.

but it was extremely thorough.

got to do a tour of the facility.

I didn't get to see the facility in Naples.

The retreat center.

and I came away from it.

You know, I guess that that fear kicked in again of.

Okay, is this going to be something that becomes real if I get the offer, you know, will I say yes?

Will I uplift again?

Will I leave New York?

and I loved New York City.

I loved living in Brooklyn.

but then again, I also love being out in the open a little bit closer to nature.

more breathing space, quality of life.

so those things also become important as you, as you get older, too.

so, yeah, I didn't have any, like, major red flags that popped up that said, okay, is this the right thing or right not.

I do have some friends in the area, some friends over the border in Canada who I visit as well.

so there was also that sense of connecting with people who I've, you know.

>> So you did know some people regionally?

>> Yeah, exactly.

Not too many people in Rochester, actually, but I've got put in touch with a lot of people and have been building, you know, community while here.

And people have been extremely gracious with their time and their Connections.

>> When you talk to colleagues who've never been to Rochester, how do you describe the city?

>> I describe the city as very progressive very artsy.

there's something happening, whether it's theater, museums, art, expression, performances, music all the time.

and so there's always something to do.

Back in New York, people were kind of like, why are you going to Rochester?

Why are you going to upstate?

They they described it as if it was Winterfell.

Right?

Gray and gloomy.

but I think it's just there's so much close to do.

nature just around the corner.

You can go to national parks or state parks.

there's no shortage of of things to do if you're looking to connect to nature, community or the creative world.

>> And you had a pretty outstanding September and October weather wise before things got really ugly.

>> I know it was glorious.

>> It was.

>> Pretty cool.

Yeah.

>> Because you got here what, end of August or September?

>> I arrived end of September.

>> End of September?

>> Yeah.

And it was.

Yeah, it was just wonderful.

It was the perfect autumn.

And I would just go to state parks, take pictures, go hiking, explore.

I'm a little more inward in the winter.

And as a writer, I think that's fine because it's, you know, the cold keeps me inside, but it also makes me more productive.

So working on writing and doing those types of things now, which I think is great for anyone who's doing their own writing or their poetry or whatnot or screenplays.

>> Now, when we come back from early break of the hour, we're going to talk a little bit about Michael's writing.

miss debut novel came out in 2023.

Yep.

And we're going to talk about that and some of what he has learned in the publishing world.

And and maybe that applies to some of the work that they're trying to support at Writers & Books.

And I want to talk about where he sees the organization going.

This is, as he mentioned, a historic organization.

Joe Flaherty, and goes back decades.

you know, we miss talking to Joe.

And but they've had such wonderful leadership over the years.

So Michael Solis is the executive director of writers and Books since the end of September, and we'll come right back with him on Connections.

>> I'm Evan Dawson Tuesday on the next Connections.

We're spending both hours on the subject of Venezuela.

You've known by.

>> Now that President Trump and his administration have decided to move forward with action against Venezuela, detaining the president and his wife and saying that the United States is going to run Venezuela.

For many Venezuelans who felt oppressed.

This is a moment of celebration.

But it's also a complicated moment, and we're going to talk about it both hours.

>> Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Mary Cariola, center, proud supporter of Connections with Evan Dawson.

Believing an informed and engaged community is a connected one.

Mary Cariola.

>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson really enjoying the conversation with Michael Solis, the Executive Director of Writers and Books.

And so you've gotten to hear about his own career and how it was upended by the new Trump administration a year ago, as were so many people who work in the nonprofit sector in international aid.

But here he is now, started at the end of September, and Michael is a writer.

Michael's debut novel, deficient, came out in 2023.

A young adult science fiction novel, and I have not had a chance to read it.

I don't even know if I can get it.

Can I get it?

Can anybody get this book yet?

>> So I think you can access it within the library system here in town.

so a few people have reached out.

I sold my last copies at the Children and Teens Book Festival.

That was back in November.

That was incredible.

but the publisher that published the book closed over the summer.

So the book is now no longer in distribution.

So I'm part of personally engaged and invested in trying to get it back out into the world.

Who owns.

the rights?

I own the rights.

You own the rights back.

>> You got your rights.

Was that clear?

Right away when the publisher was closing?

>> yeah.

So all the authors who published through that publisher I believe, have gotten their rights back.

>> I think we have an answer here.

Producer Megan Mack says the Arnett Branch Library and the Webster Library have Michael's book.

Yes.

That's right.

There you go.

So two different.

Oh, it's checked out.

It's checked out at Webster.

It's available at Arnett.

Okay.

>> I know one person who has it checked out because they didn't read it the first round.

If you're listening on the radio, return that book, get it done.

>> Okay.

I did not think you know, we're airing the grievances.

That's good.

>> That's great that it's checked out.

So.

>> Yeah.

take me back a little bit and tell us, first of all, what the book is about.

it's called deficient.

What's the what's the story?

>> Yeah.

So I actually first started writing it back when I lived in Honduras, when I was working for the Youth empowerment organization.

so it's a futuristic tale.

It takes place many years into the future.

Humans have evolved collectively.

We've evolved to acquire supernatural abilities of different types.

So some people have super strength, some people can fly, some people have super speed.

so really 99% of the population has changed over time, but there's a very small segment of the population that has remained normal.

They don't have any supernatural abilities, and they are called deficient.

so one of the key questions I was grappling with was if humans were to change fundamentally, if we were to get over all the things that divide us now in terms of race, sexual orientation, gender, ethnicity, et cetera., religion how would we how would we react in the future if we were to fundamentally change on the biological level?

And I think my my answer to that was we would not respond very well.

We'd do the same thing that we've always done, always done.

We divide, we'd conquer, we'd create discriminatory practices, caste systems.

So within this new caste system, the deficients are the lowest of the low on that system.

The main character is a 15 year old boy named Alejandro, who's the only deficient in his school.

He has one best friend who's like, the only person who really supports him.

She ends up disappearing in a hate crime against her ability type, and he basically gets blamed.

Has to figure out why what's happened before it's too late, and unravel the mystery.

>> Oh I, I guess I want to ask you, as a writer, what?

What?

Was there something in your life or something that was in your interest that pushed you to create these kind of themes?

>> Yeah, I think the book is an allegory for anyone who has experienced difference in their lives.

So I grew up, I'm gay, I'm queer.

I grew up not in the greatest atmosphere for that.

I grew up in New Jersey.

it it's a quite conservative town.

There was a lot of homophobia and of course, transphobia growing up.

and I think it felt in many ways my, you know, even my home life, school life, societally, politically it wasn't a safe world for, for a young gay person.

And it felt there was a lot of discrimination, a lot of masking, a lot of veiling, a lot of hiding.

so I think that experience of feeling different influenced what I wanted to create in this world.

And part of me, you know, there's been a lot of social change over the past years.

And I think that's been exciting to see.

we've taken many steps back in other ways.

And I just thought, you know, several hundred years into the future, hopefully we won't be talking about the things that are dividing us now.

So what have we got to that point where we've overcome those challenges?

But we were to change in some other way.

So creating Alejandro, I wanted to create him in that, in that realm of being different, in a world where people were superpowered, what would that look like and what type of violence, what type of discrimination, what type of hatred would he encounter and face, and how would he overcome that?

>> In the book is part of what's going to be a series of four.

Is that right?

>> Yes.

So I've actually written, which was the frustrating thing, because I was intending to publish the sequels with the previous publisher, but I have completed the second book, the third book, and I'm currently wrapping up, hopefully this month.

The fourth book the first draft of it.

Anyway, so the the four books will be, will be more or less done and ready to go.

So it's really finding a new home for them, whether I publish it myself or find another publisher who wants to take it on.

>> Finding maybe the movie rights.

>> Oh my God, that'd be great.

I view the whole story very cinematically.

So I think and a lot of readers who have read the book have asked that question.

>> Of like, who's going to play Alejandro?

>> Oh, I don't know who would, but I guess it depends, because you want the right age.

Yeah, yeah, but that would be I mean, yeah, I'm not thinking that far into the future, but it would be wonderful to see it on the screen one day.

>> now, anybody who has published a book knows you do not know if anyone's going to read it.

You don't know if it's going to land with people.

And it's so hard.

It's so hard in the publishing world.

but when you get to do these events, like the book fair and I hope connect with some readers, I hope you've heard from people who've had a chance, not like the person who picked up the book and didn't read it and needs to pick it back up here, but people who have absorbed it.

Have you heard from some readers on it?

>> Yeah, readers have reached out.

They've contacted me on my website.

They'll send email.

Anyone who emails me, I'll email them back.

sometimes it's social media, sometimes it's a review on Goodreads or whatnot.

But actually at the Rochester Children's and Teens Book Festival one of the parents who bought the book messaged me after, you know, on Instagram, actually, and they said, you know, I've got the book at the festival for my child.

She read it.

She couldn't get her nose out of it.

She was so invested in it.

when's the sequel coming out?

Right.

So those things for a writer are wonderful because I think anyone who writes there's a lot of rejection.

There's a lot of, you know, you put your work out there and it doesn't always find a home.

there's a lot of critiquing and criticism.

And then eventually you do get something out and you start getting, you know, hopefully positive feedback.

So every little bit of positive feedback kind of counters that history of all the rejection that we as we face as writers leading up to that point.

>> It was probably 2008 when I was first poking around trying to get into the publishing world, and at the time, you know, I'm talking to people like my uncle had been published, or people who I know who had been published and was like, well, you need to get an agent now.

And I'm just not in that world.

Are there still agents for like, you know, the, the, the non Gilded Age writers?

Can you get an agent?

I mean, does the process work the same way or is it different.

>> Yeah.

We actually have an upcoming workshop with a local author, Angelique Stephens, who's going to be doing, I think, four classes for workshop on breaking into the publishing industry.

So if anyone is interested and wants to sign up for that, it's available on the Writers & Books website.

You can find out more information.

And I think we'll be learning firsthand from Angelique on how to break in.

But agents are still very much a thing.

If you want to get published by one of the big traditional publishers, you really usually have to go through a literary agent who does that.

I had an agent years ago.

and sometimes agents will pitch their work to publishers and it will get accepted, and it won't.

Right.

and I think that's part of the journey of finding the right agent, finding one who can speak to your work, who can represent you.

Well, some agencies are better than others.

Some agents are better than others.

but then there are other venues.

If you don't want to go through the traditional path or that path isn't working out.

So you can go through small or medium sized presses, independent publishers and people can also publish on their own.

>> I remember talking to Allison Larkin years ago, who was a Rochester based writer who now lives in California.

everyone should be reading Allie's books.

They're so good.

And there was a time when she mentioned that you know, there was a tangle over what an agent wants you to do.

It's almost sounded to me like a music studio or a label saying, we like your music, but we need a hit.

We need an easy hook.

Why don't we just throw a little A.I.

into this?

Why don't we figure out how to simplify this?

And, you know, writers like Allison Larkin know what they want, what they want to do with their characters, and they believe in it.

and that's not to say people shouldn't take criticism, but her instincts are great.

Her books are great.

and I wonder if you feel like you have more autonomy now that the publisher.

I mean, now that you're sort of on your own a little bit here, do you have more autonomy, and do you feel that it's good to have that autonomy?

Or do you want someone who's kind of helping steer where your books are going?

>> Yeah, I think autonomy is really important.

And what I realized with my previous publishing relationship is that you do lose a bit of that autonomy around how your product, where your product goes, what you can do with it.

you know, contracts and those types of things.

You have to think about earlier on, I mean, I think I'd written seven books before I published deficient.

Whoa.

So there's seven other books out there that have never seen the light of day.

>> They're just like, like in a stack somewhere.

>> They're a stack somewhere.

They're hidden, you know, and they may never see the light of day.

Right.

But I learned a lot of lessons from that, from that process of the mistakes I made leading up to finally creating deficient and a big thing.

Even now, I like to think of big series and those types of things, and it's really hard to break into the publishing world with the series if you're not a recognized name because of the risk, right?

>> Yeah, exactly.

>> And there's a trickle off effect of you've published your first book.

The second book usually trickles off, then by third or fourth, if you've done more.

so of course there are huge series that will be very successful, but publishers aren't as willing to take on these big series if there's not a guarantee of making money off of them and profiting from them.

So even in my own conversations for for where my book goes next, I have met with some of the big publishers at different events, and I've gotten some feedback around, oh yeah, if you just change the main character, if you level up the age, if you change the location, if you change the place, if you change this, if you change that, it's a lot of change.

So part of my question mark is, okay, how much change do I have to make to this product until it feels like something that doesn't feel like what is mine anymore?

just to get it out in the world in a certain way, and there's no guarantee that it even will get out if I make all those changes.

>> It's like you're giving up part of your soul.

And for what?

Here?

no.

I mean, look, every artist gets pushed and pulled that way.

I'm.

I'm amazed here.

You had seven books written before deficient here.

Are they all good?

>> I don't know.

>> Are any of them, like, terrible?

>> So one of them is actually one I want to revisit and I am revisiting now, which is more so I did like a series of fantasy books, and I think the first book was like 300,000 words.

It was like one of those gigantic books.

>> That, for a little reference, if I'm remembering correctly, 80,000 to 85,000 is like a typical 240 page book that people are used to.

Yeah, so 300,000 words.

>> It's ridiculous.

Yeah.

So it was too much.

>> It's like a thousand plus page book.

>> So I started carrying it to these literary agents and I think it was like maybe like the 50th agent who wrote back was like, you do realize that your book is way over the word limit, right?

And like they gave me a blog that I to read.

And I was like, okay, yeah, I was making all these mistakes.

I didn't realize that I was making.

I eventually cut it in half and tried to figure out, and then I was like, okay, everyone wants something that can be standalone on the first go, right?

So what I was creating didn't fit that mold, that I couldn't find a way to make it fit that mold.

and then I changed to non creative nonfiction.

So I wrote something that I think is probably one of the best pieces that I've, I've written, which is called Thataboy, and it's coming of age.

I think it's called coming of Age in the heteropatriarchy.

but it's basically my, my, my experience of being the queer child of, a very masculine, heteronormative professional wrestler.

And what was that experience like growing up?

coming of age as a young boy, gender non-conforming in many ways, going through the high school experience and college first love, the destruction of that.

and figuring out our place in the world.

So that is a story that in terms of memoir, creative nonfiction, what I write online and my Substack is of that genre.

Right.

So I'd love to revisit that story hone it down a little bit.

Again, it was quite long.

Not not 300,000 words.

and then try to find a home for it.

But when I first started trying to get it out there, people were saying, oh, you know, well, you're not famous, so and you don't have a platform.

And what was the other thing one person actually wrote?

They were like, well, if the story was about incest, it would be, you know, more, more attractive to us, right?

I was like, well, I can't I can't make that up.

Right.

So, you know, and there's no incest involved in the story, right?

that was several years ago.

so I think it's something that I want to take, you know, take on again, because it was much more personal.

Personal to me.

and also, I love kind of blending the sci fi and the fantasy that I write with the creative nonfiction.

Right, as well.

>> Just brief aside, because people heard the story of your father earlier, you have a really loving relationship with your dad, don't you?

>> Yes.

It was it was not always.

It was quite tumultuous growing up because we didn't see eye to eye in a lot of issues.

And I think the child that I was was not the child that he was necessarily expecting to ever have.

Right?

And didn't necessarily know what to do with or how to raise.

Right.

and I think the, the biggest thing that I've seen from my father is the ability to learn, the ability to question, the ability to question those old beliefs.

even when I came out, I think the first reaction from him was, you know, I'm never going to tell my family in Texas because.

>> How old were you when you came out.

>> Right after college?

Yeah.

So it was a while.

Yeah.

Old ancient.

>> Well, I mean, I presume that you knew this about yourself well, before you came out.

>> Yeah, I discovered it in college, but I ended up getting into a relationship with someone in college who was also closeted.

And when I wanted to come out in college to friends, I did come out to friends in college.

Very close friends.

but when I expressed coming out to my family my partner then said, you know, if if you do that, you know, end of this relationship thing, you know, so it kind of became a catch 22 where I was like wanting to do it, but couldn't because I'd lose the one thing that I wanted.

I ended up losing it, you know that.

Anyway so I think coming out of college was really kind of reconciling that.

And there was time, because I moved to Korea immediately after that.

And it was there was time required to kind of like remind my parents that I had come out, that I hadn't changed.

And I remember my dad being like, you know, this could be a phase.

It could just be a phase, a phase.

And he had said, you know, you know, I knew people in the wrestling industry who, you know, slept with each other and did their thing, but they, you know, they got married and had children and whatnot and had their quote, unquote, normal lives.

And I said, well, I don't think it really works that way for me.

and it hasn't.

Right.

It wasn't just a phase.

but I think he's gotten over that mentality of, you know, could it just be a phase?

Could it be different to actually full on acceptance and celebration?

Right.

and I think that we have to give sometimes it's easy to shut people off and shut them down and cancel them.

We do a lot of canceling in our lives, and we disagree with how people think.

But I think giving people time to sit with information, time to sit with the way that their own worldviews, to question those worldviews and give them time to change.

for me, that's been one of the most beautiful experiences of my relationship with him.

>> Michael Solis is the executive director of Writers & Books.

He's the author of one published book, deficient.

He is the author of at least 11 books and three more in the series with deficient.

What's the next one going to be called, by the way?

Do you know?

Do we know this?

>> The next one is called Feral Rising.

>> Feral rising.

Yeah.

Publication date that you you hope to be when.

>> Oh, gosh, I don't even maybe.

I mean, I want to republish deficient hopefully in the spring.

So I'm thinking may June.

So relaunching that book.

Right.

if I do it on my own.

Right.

And then in the fall, Feral rising.

Okay.

yeah.

So later in the year.

>> Come back to us in the fall when both those are out, okay.

And we can have a little Connections.

Book club.

>> That'd be lovely.

>> And then our remaining time with Michael, let's talk about his vision for the organization that he leads now, because you've been hearing about his his life, his career, his work as a writer, the struggles that a lot of writers face right now.

It is hard.

It is really hard.

It's hard to get published.

It's hard to make a living, of course, but it's hard to get published.

It's hard to get seen.

And Writers & Books for decades has been supporting writers in so many important ways, supporting poets and all forms of art.

So you have this great history of this organization.

I know you've had a lot to learn.

and I know that you have a lot of affection for it.

How much of the work do you see now is keep that ship pretty steady?

And how much do you say, hey, I've got these new ideas.

I can't wait to bring to Writers & Books.

>> Yeah, it's a bit of a blend.

and I think for an organization being around since 1981 with Joe Flaherty's spark and connection to community a big piece of what I would like to do is tap into that original spark.

and really make writers and books building off of the legacy of everyone who has led it since I've come on board.

and what the current team and what the current board are doing and really bring it into the future in a way that's more sustainable.

and that really taps into that original spark, as I mentioned.

So it's an organization that tries to promote reading and writing in the long term as lifelong activities for people of all ages and backgrounds.

One of the things that we keep hearing from our community is do more workshops, do more workshops, do more writing experiences.

And I think we've all been impacted by COVID in the post-Covid world.

A lot of the in-house writing workshops at Writers & Books was doing during COVID had to come to a complete abrupt stop.

During that period, and then slowly kind of trickled back in and have been reintroduced to the organization.

There was a lot of virtual workshopping happening, but now there's a real push from our community to say, hey, bring back those workshops, right?

So we have to start looking at things of how are we structured, what is our schedule looking like?

How many days a week are we offering workshops?

what is our community of teaching artists able to do?

what are people asking for?

What are the topics?

So we have around 20 writing workshops organized for 2026 for the first quarter.

And the first, I would say the first six months of 2026. we have incredible artistic director Tyler Barton who has been on the show before and who is helping to organize all of those.

so I think that's something that we are really hoping to bring back in fuller force and more consistently within writers and books over time.

>> can I read a few emails?

Do you mind here?

>> Yeah, sure.

>> Gary wants to know if if your guest thinks, does A.I.

have a place in literature?

>> No.

>> No, that was fast.

>> So.

But unfortunately, we recently had the author, Tracy Battista who's a writer of sci fi, science fiction, children's books.

and she was a guest speaker at the RAC, which is the Rochester area Children's Writers and Illustrators Group, and they meet monthly at Writers and Books.

And she took on this topic, and I really liked what she said.

A.I.

is here to stay, right?

So we cannot influence or backtrack on that.

but we also have to be recognizing what it can and cannot do.

The, the fraudulent nature of it, in terms of it stealing writers works, copyrighted.

>> Works, which is what it's doing.

>> Yes.

And then being able to spit out imitations of those works if they're prompted in certain ways.

Right.

So I think what we have to constantly question is the authenticity of what is being created, honoring the creative, creative process that people do.

And I, I know how long it takes to create books.

It takes forever.

Right?

And to create the book, to publish the book, to get it out in the world.

It's a long process.

The scary thing is that the publishing world operates.

It's a capitalist industry, right?

So the more books that we churn out, the more copies that we sell.

So there is that risk of will it become dominated by A.I.

generated works because those generate profit, possibly.

I really hope that and what Writers and Books hopes is that we can preserve the art of human creativity, human creation, and really promote that over time.

>> I agree, I think two things.

I think, I think we need some kind of it's like a warning label for art that is synthetic.

And I don't know why we don't have it already.

>> Yeah.

And it's, it's even you know, a lot of writers have been busted because they've discovered that their even their cover art has been produced by A.I.

Right.

And so there's all kinds of things happening.

Editors, cover artists.

so these things that we are creating as humans that we don't want to replace, and there's an ecosystem there, right?

And A.I.

does threaten that.

>> And I also think, I think about a book like deficient.

You're clearly you have a story to tell.

And but it's not just a story of Alejandro.

It's a story of an experience with bigotry, with being othered.

That is a futuristic sci fi tale, but it's a story of of human experience.

And if you were two thirds of the way done with that book, but you just couldn't finish it, I would not want you to say, you know what?

It's been a year.

I've had writer's block.

I just can't get it over the finish line.

I'm going to put this into A.I.

It'll finish it for me.

I don't want you to do that as a writer.

>> Neither do I, and I don't.

Maybe I don't know enough, but I don't.

I don't trust that A.I.

is good enough to actually pull off a great ending for the story.

>> I mean, I don't know, because to your point, it's drawing on existing material and there's a lot of great material that it's drawing, but we don't know.

We'll never be able to black box exactly how it does it or where it's drawing from.

So it's stealing from somebody, stealing from a lot of people.

Yeah.

We don't know how or what, but it's also it's not yours at that point.

>> It is not.

>> I want I want writers.

I've been there myself to push through the writer's block or to take, to take a break and to re sort of formulate but not give up and outsource that.

>> Yeah.

>> But I think there's a real temptation to do it.

>> And even now that I'm on the fourth book of the series, right.

It's like I wrote the first books in the age.

The first drafts were in the age of non A.I., right?

So books one, books two and three and now book four, I'm writing in that age of A.I.

and it's been a long slog.

It's like this book has not come out as quickly as the other ones.

And it's because of all this movement in my life and all the crazy things that I've been doing, but it's been finding those times of those intense periods to write and get it out.

And what I whatever I could have imagined, what I've been able to produce, is something that has been truly surprising, authentic to me.

and I'm struggling through it, trying to break my way and get it to the very, very end and wrap up a four book series.

Right.

but then there's a pride in that of being able to do that as a human.

And I would not want to hand that over to, to A.I.

to do that for me on my behalf.

>> Dallas says your guest is fun to listen to so you can come back now.

Michael.

but he says he says, why does he think lit RPG is more popular as audiobooks versus printed?

Is that role playing games?

Is that RPG?

>> Yeah, lit RPG is kind of like and to be honest, I loved playing RPGs like I did video games growing up.

Yeah.

I personally haven't gotten into lit RPG as much.

so I think the listeners probably will view and have much more to comment on it, but it's this idea of like role playing in literature form.

so the question was, why has it become more popular.

>> As audiobooks.

as opposed to printed?

>> Oh, interesting.

my best guess for that is like, I think about things that I listened to on audio and what I like, and maybe the nature of storytelling.

like, I enjoyed playing those video game role playing games growing up.

And if I listened to something that I feel should be an audio experience or an audio visual experience, perhaps an audio telling of that makes the most sense, especially if you can get different voices for the casts.

even RPG games growing up, like, you know, it was all your reading everything.

But now you get the voices, you get the full animations, you get the full that experience.

And I think to connect through storytelling in that form is still quite exciting.

And I always think back to, you know, that's how we started telling stories to each other.

We listened to them.

We told them it was the oral tradition.

It wasn't this having to be in a book and having to read that to count as reading.

so yeah, if anyone else, you know, on air has has something to say about lit RPG, I'd be I'd love to hear and learn more about it.

>> Down to our last 30s or so.

What's your favorite place to go in Rochester at this point?

>> Oh, I love the public market.

I love buying stuff there.

I love going there for coffee.

yeah.

It's just a place that's always bustling, especially on Saturdays.

there's a lot happening there.

So that's been my my go to place so far.

>> What does Rochester not have that it needs?

>> Oh, I don't know if Rochester does.

Not having something.

I think Rochester is what it is right.

It has a lot going for it.

So I try not to think about it.

Cup half full.

I try to think about everything that it does have going for it in terms of nature, artwork.

extraordinary public radio.

yeah.

>> How's the food scene?

>> I love the food scene.

The food is fabulous.

Okay.

Yeah, it's been great.

Are you still exploring it?

>> You're a coffee person.

>> I love coffee.

>> It's a good coffee city.

>> Coffee is my go to place right now, but.

And mellow at near Writers & Books.

But I'm still exploring more of the coffee scene.

>> It's a serious coffee city.

it's been really fun talking to you.

Michael and I. I just want you to know we're going to talk a lot over the years, because I know that you all have a lot going on, and you and the team are always welcome.

Thank you for the work that you're doing.

Welcome to Rochester, officially.

And it's just lovely to hear your story.

Thanks for coming on here.

>> Thank you for having me.

>> Michael Solis, executive director of Writers & Books.

He's an author himself.

His first book is called deficient.

Some of the public libraries have it already, and we'll put a link to his Substack so you can find it in our show notes from all of us at Connections.

Thanks for watching.

Thanks for listening.

We're back with you tomorrow on member supported public media.

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