It's like being able to vicariously live through characters that.

'We're both people who didn't come out until college. While some of their ideas for the graphic novel come from Casalino and Arlow's real-life experiences, other things, like being in an openly Queer high school friend group, are more fictionalized. Living vicariously through their characters 'That's sort of setting the scene, but more generally, it's about a group of friends in a fictionalized Eastside suburb of Seattle, just following them through a year in their life, and specifically about a girl who moves from out of town into the suburb, who gets into a relationship with a girl who already lives here.'

'We thought about a lot of Washington teenage-specific things that we want them to do, what I remember from growing up,' Casalino said. Some of the scenes Casalino and Arlow have begun to write are pulled right from Casalino's PNW childhood. 'I can contribute more to the who moves from away, but hearing more about what it was like being a teenager in Seattle sounds so cool, and so far from my own experience.' 'It's fun, because I've heard from Daniela all these things, and I'm like, oh, I wish I had gone on an outdoor trip with my high school! That is so far from my high school experience,' Arlow said, laughing. 'I lived in New York for most of my life until January of 2021, when I moved to live with Daniela here in Seattle,' she explained.Ĭultivating inspiration from their real lives, the early drafts for their graphic novel center on two girls, one from Seattle and one from out of town, who fall in love.

Unlike Casalino, Arlow did not grow up in the Pacific Northwest or even on the West Coast. While they have decided to set their novel in Seattle, the pair have very different histories with the city. 'We moved quite a bit growing up, but we would come back to Seattle fairly often, and ever since graduating college in 2019, I've lived here full-time.' 'I have lived in Seattle since I was about two and a half,' Casalino said in an interview with the SGN. If the luckiest people are those who love their work, Seattle couple Daniela Casalino and Jake Maia Arlow have hit the jackpot - they love their work and the person they get to do it with.Ĭasalino and Arlow are using their professional and creative talents in art and writing to develop a new young adult graphic novel together, set in Seattle and loosely based on Casalino's experiences growing up in the region.

Almost Flying by Jake Maia Arlow