Author Renée Watson on first love and her new young adult novel "Everything New Again"
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Love and loss are at the heart of a new book by award-winning author Renée Watson. Mary Calvi talked to Watson about her new young adult novel, "Everything New Again." It's is about two teenagers and first love. You can listen to Mary's entire conversation with Watson on the Club Calvi podcast.
Watson has had 20 books published, with more than one million books sold.
"It feels incredible," Watson told Mary. "I just feel very much blessed and I'm reminded of how hard I've worked to get to this point. I'm just honored that people are reading my books across the world and that there's been that kind of reach."
One of characters in "Everything New Again" is Bliss, a teenager who lives with her parents above the family's funeral home.
"I love Bliss," Watson said. "She taught me so much about being proud of where you come from and not letting people call your normal weird. Her friends are like, you're creepy. You live at a funeral home. And she kind of takes that on as like, yeah, I live around death, so it makes me think of how I want to live. And I think that once I figured out what her kind of motivation was."
Mary remarked that at the beginning of the story, Bliss feels like she's going nowhere. But then she has a chance encounter and things change for her.
"I love a good meet-cute, and it's a weird one," Watson answered. "[Bliss] is working at the funeral home and Solomon shows up with flower delivery because he's working in his mom's flower shop. He's completely terrified to step into the home because he is like there's a casket there, here are the flowers. And she's like, are you, you know, afraid to come in? They start talking and develop a relationship. Over two weeks, just winter break, they fall in love."
Mary said that Bliss and Solomon are both young adults trying to figure out not just who they want to be when they grow up, but who they are.
"There's that moment they have a conversation where Bliss goes on her soap box about adults are always asking young people, what do you want to when you grow up?" Watson says. "And she's like, why don't they ever ask us who we are right now? Maybe I can do great things now. Why do I have to wait until I'm older?"
You can read an excerpt from "Everything New Again" below.
Club Calvi books may contain adult themes.
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"Everything New Again" by Renée Watson
From the publisher:
Bliss knows there's more to life than what she's experienced in her small town. She's ready to be the girl who isn't just waiting anymore, who can make something happen. Working in her family's funeral home, she can't help but ponder what it means to truly live and what it takes to leave a lasting legacy. Her existential questions have labeled her the weird "funeral home girl" to most of her peers, except for her best friend, Alex, and the new boy visiting from Portland for winter break.
Solomon isn't put off by Bliss's musings. He has questions of his own, like why his mother abandoned him and if she ever did--or ever will--love him. He has come to visit for answers, and to work at his mom's flower shop, where he meets Bliss on a delivery to the funeral home.
Their chance meeting changes everything. As they open up to each other, share their hearts and experience something real, something new, they find that even if a relationship has an end, love can last forever.
Renée Watson lives in New York City
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Excerpt: "Everything New Again" by Renée Watson
BLISS
I am not afraid of death.
I'm actually very comfortable with it. It's a return to the earth where we come from. It's an ending, but maybe a beginning too.
If I'm honest, one of my favorite places to be is the coffin display room in a funeral home. There's something about looking at all those cocoons waiting to hold a body. Waiting to protect it, keep it from harm, keep it warm and safe.
This is what makes my classmates think I'm weird.
I'm Bliss, the girl whose family owns the only funeral home in Larch Heights, a smaller than small town in Eastern Oregon. The funeral home is also our house. So, not only am I the girl who works at a funeral home, but I am the girl who lives on top of one. I am Bliss, the girl who almost always wears black— but not because I am depressed or creepy like they assume. Black is my favorite color. It's also our uniform for viewings, wakes, memorials, and funerals. Sometimes, but rarely, my parents wear navy blue or charcoal gray. Always a somber color. Never any shade that evokes fantasies of island vacations or spring festivals.
We are a winter family. But not in the way that winter is cold and gloomy. We are winter in the way that we make death look beautiful, serene. Like the bare trees, the solemn-skied mornings. The hummingbirds and golden-crowned sparrows have all migrated south, and many plants are dormant. Here in this tiny Oregon town, winter is the season of dead things.
But Mom always says there can be beauty even in death, and I know she is right.
The funeral home is on the first floor of our house, with its chapel, parlors, and office. The crematory and preparation rooms are in the basement. Unofficially, I've helped out in some capacity since I was old enough to sweep or fold programs or stand at the door and say, Welcome to Mitchell's Family Funeral Home." Officially, I've been working as an apprentice since freshman year. When I'm not working at the funeral home, I am just home.
Our living space upstairs isn't anything grand, just a simple house with three bedrooms. Mom keeps saying one day she'll do a big home makeover, update everything like one of those TV home improvement shows because our house "has good bones and just needs a little cosmetic TLC." Mom and Dad have the biggest room, next to the bathroom. I have the room down the hall across from the third room, which is used as extra office space when Mom and Dad don't feel like going downstairs to get work done.
Like I said, nothing grand, but it's my home and it isn't creepy at all. My classmates don't understand that. But for the next two weeks I don't have to worry about them because today is the last day of school and then we'll be on winter break, and I'll have a whole fourteen days without snarky jokes and lingering stares.
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When the bell rings, we all rush from our classrooms. The narrow hallway is crowded and loud. I head to my locker to meet my best friend, Alex, the only other girl in this school with brown skin. There aren't that many of us. And by not that many, I mean I can count us on one hand and not even use all my fingers: me, the only Black girl in this whole entire town and Alexandria, who we all call Alex. She is Mexican and lives across the street from me with her brother, Fernando. There's also Mateo, whose family just moved here from Idaho because his dad got a job at Union Pacific Railroad.
Alex is all smiles when she says, "Freedom! Two weeks of sleeping in and having absolutely nothing to do."
"Speak for yourself," I tell her. "You're spending Christmas in Mexico City with your family. I'll be working. You know my mom doesn't believe in free days." I open my locker, take out my puffy coat and put it on.
"True, true," Alex says. But at least you won't have to come to school." Just as she says this, Natalie walks up to her locker, which is right next to mine. She opens it, puts her books inside, takes out her wool coat, and slams her locker shut. She does her best not to look at Alex or me, but I know she sees us. "And at least we'll both get a break from her." Alex rolls her eyes and mumbles something under her breath in Spanish.
The three of us used to be best friends in elementary and middle school, but things changed. Natalie's dad became the leading real estate agent in the area, selling houses and ranches with several acres of land and million-dollar views of the mountains and valleys. It could be a coincidence that the more money her family got, the more distant she became, and started to hang around the girls who could also wear designer clothes and whose families vacationed at Oregon's finest ski resorts. It could be a coincidence that the more she started hanging around these new friends, the less she started hanging out with us.
I don't know if the three of us will ever be friends again. I don't know if I want to. Some friendships might not be worth holding on to. Some people were never real friends to begin with.
Alex and I walk down the hall, looking for Fernando, so we can walk home together. We pass Natalie and her new crew. "There goes Death's Daughter," one of them says.
The girl with dark brown hair says, "I bet her Christmas tree is decorated with leftover toe tags—"
"You're right," I yell. "And I use formaldehyde as my perfume."
They all look shocked as if they didn't expect me to say anything.
Alex too. She grabs my arm, walks faster, and heads outside. We see Fernando waiting at the bottom of the steps. He says hello and we make our way through the crowd. Fernando walks behind me and Alex, who are in full debrief mode. Alex laughs. "I've never seen that side of you. The look on their faces was priceless. I mean, they were actually speechless. And those girls always have something to say."
Fernando chimes in, "What happened?"
Alex and I keep talking. "They think they can just say whatever, whenever, and that I'm not going to respond. Sometimes I want to do what I want to do, say what I want to say— not what people think I should do."
Alex smiles. Big. "I like this side of you, Bliss. Maybe this should be your New Year's resolution. To do the things you want to do, not what people expect you to do."
"Maybe."
Copyright © 2026 from "Everything New Again" by Renée Watson. Excerpt by permission of Bloomsbury Publishers .