Using Humor to Tackle Race, Religion, and Privilege | Asha Youmans & Alli Frank

What happens when a white Jewish woman asks a black Christian woman to “get together and talk about race”? For authors Asha Youmans and Alli Frank, it was the beginning of a bestselling writing partnership. In this episode of Every Soul Has a Story, host Dara Levan sits down with this dynamic duo to discuss their fifth book, Run for Your Life, Callie Kingman, and their mission to tackle hard topics—like race, religion, and privilege—through humor and joy. They reveal the surprising pushback they’ve faced from publishers who feared their partnership was “exploitative,” the hilarious rejection of a controversial book title, and how their decades in education gave them the thick skin needed to navigate the publishing industry. Listeners will learn about their unique writing process, how they navigate disagreements, and why they believe everyone is just trying to do their best.

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Intro
0:53 - How they decide what’s funny
2:30 - David Sedaris quote: “Everything is funny eventually”
4:09 - How Asha and Alli first met
6:43 - The coffee date to “talk about race”
8:45 - The mission: using humor and joy
13:45 - Learning through laughter
15:50 - The one-star review about veganism
17:30 - Dealing with feedback from cultural readers
20:14 - How they handle disagreements
21:26 - Parsing out personal reactions from the scene
24:08 - The common thread: everyone is doing their best
28:59 - Who gets to write which characters?
34:55 - The truth about trigger warnings in publishing
39:40 - Publishers’ concerns about exploitation
44:08 - Their tight editing process
52:09 - Their creative process: Ally Lane and the green light


RESOURCES:

https://alliandasha.com/
Dara Levan / Every Soul Has a Story:
• https://www.instagram.com/dara.levan/
• Website: daralevan.com