A Conversation With Allie Millington on Once For Yes!

Does the title Olivetti happen to ring any bells for you?

If you said yes, then you are already aware of Allie Millington and her typewriter-centric middle grade from 2024 that won a great many hearts and minds all over this nation of ours. And when she reached out to me saying that she had two books coming out in the future… well, I countered with my standard, “Hey! Wanna do a Q&A with me?” Which she generously acquiesced to. Ain’t she swell?

Once For Yes hits shelves everywhere on March 25th, and concerns yet another inanimate object with dreams and aspirations.

The plot is:

“The Odenburgh, an old apartment building made of brick and blunt opinions, is the last of its kind in a swiftly changing neighborhood. After years of putting up with people and their many problems, the Odenburgh knows there’s no point in getting attached. They all just leave eventually. A truth that comes all too soon when the building is sold and slated for demolition, giving tenants a month to move out.

No one is more troubled by the news than eleven-year-old Prue, who refuses to leave her family’s apartment. Not when it was the last place she lived with her sister Lina, before she lost Lina forever. When Prue launches a plan to save their home, the Odenburgh joins in—flickering lights, jamming elevators, triggering fire alarms—all to try and bring a building full of bickering residents together. In the process, Prue meets Lewis, an eccentric boy who lives across the street—and the only one who can help her discover the missing elements of her sister’s story.

Heartfelt and bursting with a community of unique characters, Once For Yes is a testament to the endurance of love and the people we carry with us, wherever we go.”

I have questions upon questions then…

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Betsy Bird: Hi Allie! Thanks so much for talking with me today. And congrats on all the wonderful attention OLIVETTI has gotten (including, and I’ve literally never said this before, a Tom Hanks blurb!). ONCE FOR YES has already garnered at least a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard appellation so let’s talk about it. First and foremost, what’s the origin story for the book? Where did it come from?

Allie Millington: This book started where all of mine do, with an interesting character that I’d like to get to know better. Like with typewriters, I was drawn to an apartment building as a narrator because it’s something that so many people have a connection with. Also similar to typewriters, an apartment building would naturally be full of stories, as it’s held the lives of residents, seen the ins and outs of humankind. The actual plot came to me from countless news articles I’d read about old apartments being demolished and tenants being forced to find a new home with only a month’s notice. The fact that history and homes are often wiped out just so something new can take its place is really upsetting. Thinking of all the lives and communities and buildings that are affected by these decisions fueled much of this story. The book’s themes of grief and saying goodbye, healing and holding onto hope, were drawn from personal experiences and experiences of people close to me.

BB: I’m beginning to sense a distinct theme in your work. Forgotten typewriters. Forgotten buildings. You seem to have a natural affinity for human creations once loved, now tossed aside in favor of the new and shiny. Is this something you yourself have noticed in your writing? Would you agree that it’s an integral part of your work? And were you the kind of kid, when you were younger, who ascribed personalities to the inanimate on a regular basis?

Allie: I would absolutely agree that telling a story from unique, inanimate perspectives is an integral part of my work. I’m endlessly interested by the things in our lives which hold so many of our stories and memories and history, but never have the chance to share them. My favorite part of writing is getting inside the head (or keys or bricks) of a character that is vastly different than me, and exercising empathy to understand how they might feel, how they might view the world. I’ve always had a curious attachment to objects, and seen them as more than what they are. In fact—in third grade, I entered a school writing contest which had the prompt of ‘A Hero’…and I wrote about a pencil. I thought nothing could be more heroic than the very thing that helps people write stories. Little did I know that many years later I’d have a published novel about a heroic typewriter.

BB: The apartment building in the book is a bit snarkier than your previous inanimate objects. When you write characters with a bit of oomph and personality, are you conjuring them out of the ether or do they have any real world counterparts that have inspired them? 

Allie: My characters often show up as fully themselves and it feels more like I’m just there listening to what they have to say. I do think about the sort of personality that kind of object might have based on the object itself—for example, it makes sense to me that a typewriter would be wise and nostalgic at times, where a brick building in the city might be a bit more jaded and rough around the edges. While writing OLIVETTI, I did keep my typewriter on my desk as a reference to examine and touch (and sometimes talk to). With The Odenburgh, I had a few pictures of old buildings as inspiration, and whenever I’d visit a city I’d seek out a building that looked similar to how I imagined him. (Which of course also resulted in some conversation between us).

BB: Your first two published works so far are middle grade novels for older readers (though I know you have the picture books WHEN YOU FIND A HOPE and WHEN YOU FIND A QUESTION releasing Spring of 25’ and 26’). What is it about this particular age range that speaks to you so distinctly? Why write for them in particular? 

Allie: This will forever be my favorite age of humans. I love this age group and writing for them partially because I still feel like I’m one of them—I never stopped being ten years old. And partially because this was the age where I first realized what books could do for readers, how they make people feel understood and seen and like they belong. I realized I wanted to write those kinds of books for people, too. The middle grade genre is so important because that stage of life is full of questions and figuring out who you are and how you feel, and books can be both a place of discovery and a safe place to land.

BB: I’m a process junkie myself. I love knowing about the ins and outs of how a title comes to be. When you initially conceived ONCE FOR YES, did it end up identical to your original vision or did you make key changes along the way? And if you made changes, what were they?

Allie: This was a rare case of me knowing exactly how the book would end before I started it. What surprised me, however, was how the story ended up wanting to be told. At first it was just going to be told from The Odenburgh’s POV and one of the tenants—eleven-year-old Prue—both in first person. But I quickly realized there were quite a few other tenants in the building who had something to say…and the result was six different points of view. I had to switch everyone over to third person (besides The Odenburgh) to try and keep the story more cohesive now that it was being told from multiple characters. I’d never written in third person before, and ensuring that each character felt distinct and also had their own sort of arc was a learning curve. But I also had a complete blast getting to write from such a wide variety of voices, so it was absolutely worth it to me.

BB: That sounds horrendously complicated! I’m glad you made it work. Finally, what can you tell us about the two picture books you have coming out in the future?

Allie: Thank you for asking! These picture books hold a very special meaning for me, so I’m grateful I’ll be able to share them with readers soon. WHEN YOU FIND A HOPE (May 13^th, 2025) is an allegorical, emotional story about a tree that grows Hope from its branches, and a curious girl who climbs to the top to grab the highest Hope she can reach.

It explores themes of losing your Hope, being afraid to have a Hope again, and the power of perseverance. The second book in this series is called WHEN YOU FIND A QUESTION (May 2026), which personifies another abstract concept—a Question—and follows a boy as he discovers just how important a Question can be.

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All right! Huge thanks to Allie for answering my questions today. You can find Once For Yes fairly soon in bookstores and libraries on March 25th, so be sure to look for it then!

Filed under: Interviews