Cassie Miller is the author of Meet Me Under the Lights, a Winter/Spring 2026 Indies Introduce selection. 
Andrea Iriarte of Molly's Bookstore in Melrose, Massachusetts, served on the panel that selected Miller's book for Indies Introduce.
“You have a middle grade reader who is aging out of middle grade? Do you need an introduction to YA that is clean fun? A love story that will stay with you? This is the PERFECT book for it. It all takes place in the baseball world in a small town, and it’s an enemies-to-lovers story. Plus, it's so incredibly cute. Loved it,” said Iriarte.
Miller sat down with Iriarte to discuss her debut title. This is a transcript of their discussion. You can listen to the interview on the ABA podcast, BookED.
Andrea Iriarte: Hi. This is Andrea from Molly’s Bookstore in Melrose, Massachusetts. Today, I'm here to interview Cassie Miller, who is the author of Meet Me Under the Lights.
Cassie Miller is a former high school English teacher turned elementary librarian. She has two superhero qualities to her. She has a teaching degree from Radford University and library endorsement from the University of Virginia. She wears many hats, but finds her favorites are “stage and lighting director,” “eccentric storyteller,” and “boy mom.” Cassie currently resides in southwest Virginia with her family in and an ever-growing number of cardigans and nerdy, bookish shirts.
The book we're going to talk about is Meet Me Under the Lights. Why do I love this book? There are so many reasons. The first time I read it, I read it with my 13-year-old daughter, and she's exactly at that age when middle grade books are a little bit too young for her, but YA is too old.
I talked with my daughter about it for so long, because we loved every single part of it. We loved how the characters are active in their community, they are active in school, they are active in sports, they have family separation, because there’s a military family in it. You can pick any topic of conversation, and this book has it.
So Cassie, welcome and thank you for doing this. I was so excited for this opportunity.
Cassie Miller: Thank you. Thank you for that. I appreciate that.
AI: Now I have to really confess that I'm not a baseball person.
CM: That's okay. No one's perfect. We'll forgive you for that. I’m a Yankees fan. I've grown up with it my whole life.
AI: You talk badly about the Red Sox in there, and I'm like, “Oh no, that's not gonna fly in Boston.”
So, tell me, what is your baseball story? How did you come to love it so much that you wrote about baseball?
CM: I love this question. Baseball has been a part of my life, literally, for as long as I can remember.
I grew up watching the Yankees, because I was born and raised in New York. You were not allowed in my grandmother’s house unless you were a Yankees fan, so anytime we were over there, especially during baseball season (which is most of the year), there was usually a Yankees game on. Everyone in my family just loved baseball. They were always talking about it. My father loved the sport, and he would show me and my brother his cards. When my brother was old enough, he started playing baseball and my dad was coaching.
My childhood truly was spent in one of two places, watching plays and being in my grandparents’ costume shop or watching my brother play baseball and my father coach. That's really where that inspiration for both sides of the story came from. I love baseball. I loved watching my brother play. And as an adult, I'm very blessed because I live in a college town so I can watch college ball. I get to surround myself with a sport that is such a beautiful part of our country's history and that I've always loved and respected. So, I had to write a baseball story. I had to write a theater story. It's part of my core.
AI: I love that. Do you think it would be very different if you had written about basketball?
CM: For sure! I don't know a lot about basketball, so I think the readers would have called me on that like, “Oh, Cassie clearly doesn't know her stuff.” It's funny, someone had posted a review, and she had said, “Either Cassie is really good at research, or she knows her stuff.” It's just that's the stuff that I was always interested in. And I love to dabble in a lot of stuff, so when I have a hobby or an obsession, I go all in, and it just kind of consumes me.
AI: Why is Reed a pitcher? Do you think it would change a lot if he — here's where I show my ignorance — if he were a catcher?
CM: Yeah. I think if Reed was any other position, it would be a different story.
My brother played center field. He also played in the infield. But he could play pretty much anywhere you wanted to put him, so I had a lot of experience watching my brother train for different positions. I had a lot of high school students who played in different positions, and my favorite baseball players were from all over the field. So when I really wanted to write this story, I asked myself, “Who is the one position that has more weight on their shoulders than anybody else?” And hands down, it's the pitcher.
It starts and ends with the pitcher. You can talk about defense, you can talk about hitting, but at the end of the day, it's your pitching that really does win games. If you don't have depth in your bullpen — in your line of pitchers — your team is not going to advance. A pitcher has to make last second calls. He has a communication device in his ear that allows his catcher to communicate with him, but at the end of the day, it's the pitcher who can decide what pitch he's going to throw, and how much more he's got in him before his arm is literally dead. So, I wanted to have someone who was going to be in the spotlight and have all of that weight on his shoulders and that a pitcher.
AI: You gave Reed so many other things to carry on his shoulders, the weight of not knowing what is happening to his father, of his grandparents, of potentially losing the farm, and of all of his friends’ problems. Why did you give him so many problems? The poor guy.
CM: I taught high schoolers for 12 years and I still work with them, because my husband is a high school band teacher, so I am constantly surrounded by high school kids. These children carry so much more than I ever did as a kid. I did extracurricular work, I took huge class loads, I was an advanced student, and I got involved in a lot of stuff…but I see these kids not only babysitting their younger siblings, but working sometimes two and three jobs as high school kids. Some come from broken families, so they're bouncing around to different houses.
There was never an option to make it easy. Teenagers have it a lot harder than we give them credit for, and I want to be that author that writes realistic teenage fiction. If I have a reader who’s carrying that amount of weight, and they saw Reed doing what he [did], I think that's a really powerful message for readers: you can have a lot on your plate, but that doesn't mean you can't handle it. You were built to handle it. You’ve just got to work at it.
AI: Reed handled it so gracefully.
CM: I think he could have taken a lot of different routes, for sure, like his best friend did not handle the pressure well. But for Reed, because family was involved, he had to. I think had the family aspect not been there, this would have been a different story, and it wouldn't have been my story, because I like writing stories with multiple generations. Family is important.
And you'll see that in my other books as well. There will always be grandparents of some shape or form, because that's who I was growing up. My grandparents raised me just as much as my own parents did.
AI: I remember when my kids went to school in Florida, there were always the spaghetti dinners.
CM: I know where you’re going with this.
AI: The schools would put it together. We never missed out on a single spaghetti dinner. There's such a staple. I don't know why it's spaghetti dinner, but it’s an institution. When Reed was there, I was so excited about it. And then, of course, a food fight. Have you ever been part of an actual food fight?
CM: 100% I have. I have. I was a summer camp counselor every summer for years. It was a great job — you literally got paid to hang out with kids and do crafts and sports all day. And yes, despite our best efforts, children often did try to throw food. And they're sneaky about it. Even in the elementary setting, where I am now, I have seen some things fly.
I myself have been in some food fights in college, believe it or not. I apologize to Radford University, we did clean up our mess.
AI: What food did you go for? And during a spaghetti fight, what food would you have gone for?
CM: Okay, so during the actual food fights that I have had, I remember throwing some rolls. There was a taco bar. I have a memory of shredded lettuce. And fruit! I remember throwing some slices — not whole fruit — but there was some cubed watermelon that had great lift and a very satisfying sound.
Meatballs were not there. I'm Italian, so that was disappointing for me.
But if I was in a spaghetti fight — I've thought about this — it's really going to depend on who else is there. If I've got it out for someone, I'm going to be throwing something hard. I don't want to give up the garlic bread. I want to eat the garlic bread. I would go for the meatballs. I would definitely be throwing some salad, like we'd be tossing the whole bowl. If it was someone that I was really just not a fan of, I'd try to find some kind of hard dessert, like some cookies or something.
AI: They're used to Jello.
CM: Jello! Jello would be good. Jello would be gross with spaghetti, but that could work. I like your vision.
AI: I also loved in your book, how when the theater burns down the whole community comes together and decides, “It's okay. We can do it outside.” The whole concept that the theater can be anywhere.
CM: Some of the most beautiful productions I've ever seen were not in a theater, but they were in an amphitheater. There is something magical about Shakespeare in the park. I just love it. I adore it. Outdoor theater is just beautiful, because you really have to, as an actor and an actress, you're drawing on so many of your skills, because you don't have the lighting and the sets to bounce off of. You're really having to pull from that human emotion. And a lot of times those outdoor amphitheaters aren't mic’d, so you have people doing a lot of good breath work and using that diaphragm to really project their voice. Mad respect for people who do outdoor theater. I think it's beautiful. Theater in general is just very special to me.
AI: Why did you choose to make Eliza want to be a lighting designer? (I know your background is in lighting, but is that a little bit of yourself?)
CM: My grandparents opened a costume shop in New York in the 1950s. They built it from the ground up, and their costumes and props were rented out to local community theaters and high schools, so I have always been drawn to the backstage aspect of theater. I loved watching costumes get sewn and props get made.
When I wrote this story, I knew I wanted a contrast between a character who is under the lights and a character who controls them. That was really important to me. Eliza is already under the spotlight enough; she’s like town royalty. To me, a person who has that constantly wouldn't choose to act on the stage. She would want to give some of that back in my mind. So I drew from personal experience, yes, from my work with the technical side of theater, but I also wanted it to be a nice contrast with Reed.
AI: I am so jealous. We didn't have a costume shop or anything, but we lived in costume. To this day, just give me any opportunity to dress up.
CM: Why do you think I became an elementary librarian? When I was at the high school, I would dress up for different things, and they would be like, “Oh God, Miller's reading The Odyssey today with her freshmen.” At the elementary school, you’ve got to be careful with what you dress up in, because they just want to touch you. One year I went as the rainbow fish. I made this amazing shirt with ironed-on felt pieces, and I found these cool sequins. But then the kids kept touching my stomach! I was like, “Okay, I didn't think this through.”
My husband laughs at me because my costumes in the closet are getting out of hand. I have five different colored tutus, because you can wear a tutu with every costume. Tutus make everything better. Wigs are fantastic, too. Dressing up is the best.
AI: I understand. I would not have chosen lighting. I would have gone with costumes.
CM: That could have been fun, for sure. Lighting was wonderful for me to learn. When I started working with the high school musical productions where my husband works, I played trumpet in the pit orchestra. I was a musician first, then I was a stage director, then I was a set director, and then I was a lighting director. The lighting, honestly, was my favorite, because you're literally painting the stage. You are making people feel something before the members on the stage even open their mouths, and that that was just super special.
AI: There's so many people who don't even notice it. At my store, whenever I have an event, I turn off all the lights and I put up twinkle lights and I put out candles. And everybody's horrified. Candles in a bookstore?
CM: It really does change the atmosphere, and it invites a different level of conversation.
AI: We're going to give a spoiler alert for this question!
There’s a fight between the two families. They place a bet and whoever wins gets to keep the baseball field.
In the end, the Fultons come out victorious. My question to you is, what do you think would have happened if the Crowleys would have won instead? What would have happened to both families? Because both families have a lot at stake.
CM: Yes, that's a great question. Readers might disagree with me.
Because Reed's father and Eliza's father are going to co-own that stadium in the end, I would like to think that even if Eliza's father had won, the same offer would have been given. I do. I think he would have given at least part of the stadium and the earnings and ownership back to the Fultons, and I'll tell you why.
When Reed got hurt in the fire in the theater, the dad didn't hesitate to move the championship game out almost two weeks so that Reed could pitch, because he wanted him to have his shot. To me, it was so important to include that plot bit, because it showed that her father had come to an understanding that this family is a good family, and that just because they come from a feuding family that was generations long doesn't mean that it has to continue that way.
AI: Why did you make it part of the story that the families had to hate each other?
CM: Romeo and Juliet is one of the most used tropes. Enemies to lovers (I think) started with Romeo and Juliet. When you pitch it as “Romeo and Juliet, but with baseball” or “Romeo and Juliet, but with something” it's an auto-buy for so many people, because we love drama. We love a good family feud.
I wanted to write a feud that made sense. Having someone buy a stadium out from under someone else, just because you know people and you can pay them off, that's the real world, that's capitalism, and I felt like that could be relatable. So, it was always going to be enemies to lovers. It was always going to be Romeo and Juliet, just without the depressing ending for me.
AI: What I like about this one is that you learn to like both families. It's hard because you're rooting for both of them.
CM: Thank you. That was important. That’s what I go for.
My next book, which comes out in October, is a Christmas romance with a love triangle. I really like writing stories where you root for both, so I've written a love triangle where I want you to root for both boys — because they're both good! Nothing drives me crazier than when you're told it's a love triangle and there is a clean choice. Why would that person pick anything else? I like writing stories where you're happy with either.
AI: But then you get sad that the other one gets…
CM: Well, I can also spill that my third book will be about the boy who doesn't get picked. He will still get his happily ever after.
AI: Well, Cassie, this has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for writing this book. I love it. I'm recommending it to everybody.
CM: Oh, thank you. And thank your daughter for me too! I'm so glad she likes it. Knowing that 13-year-olds and teenagers are reading it and getting excited about it — that's why I wrote it. Thank you so much, Andrea. This was a pleasure.
Meet Me Under the Lights by Cassie Miller (Viking Books for Young Readers, 9798217038923, PB, YA Romance, $13.99, On Sale: 03/03/2026)
You can learn more about this author at cassiemillerauthor.com.
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