"I Faced My Shadow Every Day": Joshua Bassett Opens Up About Writing "Rookie," Healing, And Learning To Keep Moving Forward

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When I first chatted with Joshua Bassett back in February, it was at the Westside Theatre, where he was stepping into his first-ever Off-Broadway role. Today, Josh meets me at the BuzzFeed office on a spring day in April. He greets me with a hug, and we immediately start catching up as we walk to the entrance.

I give him the quick tour, and we take a few minutes to chat about life and our favorite new music. Joshua recommends Noah Kahan's new album, and I immediately add it to my playlist.

Heading into the room I reserved for our chat, I pull out my copy of Rookie — the subject of today’s conversation and what Joshua calls his "most vulnerable and terrifying piece of work." In Rookie, Joshua is opening up about everything he went through, including years of intense public scrutiny, being hospitalized for heart failure in 2021, and more. Having read it cover-to-cover the night before, it's fresh in my mind.

"I'm curious. What was your favorite chapter?" he asks.

"I really loved the part when you snuck into the Hollywood party," I respond. "The way you described it, I felt like I was right there next to you."

Rookie is an exhilarating memoir. I found myself unable to stop turning the pages, and a 20-minute reading break turned into two hours.

Joshua grins. "I'm happy that you were able to fly through it. I don't think any chapter is longer than six pages. I really wanted there to be a rhythm and a momentum in the book."

Realizing I haven't started my voice recorder yet, I quickly hit the "on" button — and our journey into Rookie begins.

Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

BuzzFeed: Take me back to the beginning. When did you first get the inspiration to start writing Rookie?

Joshua: I've always loved writing. I love poetry, and I've always gravitated towards the format I use in Rookie — this minimalistic, rhythmic writing. In about 2021, at the height of a lot of stuff I was going through, Tim Federle [creator of HSMTMTS] was one of the first people to say, "I think you should write a book." I started doing things like going on Discord and sharing notes from my phone, and people started reacting to it.

One day, I called Tim and asked him what kind of book he would want to hear from me. Tim gave me some good insight, and right off the bat, I sent my agent a text. He offered to get me a ghost writer, and I knew I didn't want that. Instead, I asked him to hook me up with a literary agent, and I sent them some sample chapters.

What was their reaction?

My agent connected me with a guy named Albert, and he's the best. I sent him some chapters, and he was like, "Oh my God, dude. You need to be the writer. I don't want any ghost writer. You have to tell this story." He was my biggest encourager and gave me the confidence that I could do this.

For the cover, I wrote out the word "rookie," sent it to a graphic designer, and he put my handwriting in that format with the white. I was like, "Oh my God, that's it!" So the cover came together, and I started just putting notes on my phone of ideas and stories.

I wrote the chapters over a few years. I went through so many experiences, and I felt like I kept growing. Just when I felt I had an understanding of life, I then felt like I had no clue what I was doing. I was writing along the journey.

2025 is when I really finished it, but there are stories like "crying over spilt milk" that I wrote in 2021. There's the VMAs red carpet one I wrote three years ago. I have a journal entry from 2023 about turning 23. So it's cool because it was written throughout this longer period of time.

Initially, I had a publisher, but I wound up going with a different one that was a better fit. With the first publisher, I was fighting them every step of the way. They didn't like the cover. They wanted my face on the cover. We fought on almost every single point.

Then I got on the phone with Authors Equity, and they go, "Tell me your story." I just started bawling my eyes out. I don't know why, but I'm just sobbing on a Zoom call explaining my book. Unprompted, they say, "You know, this is the kind of book that I don't even want your face on the cover." I felt like they understood the vision and that they believed in me. I finally felt ready and stable enough in my life to say, "I can put this out as a statement and stand behind it."

I think all the stars aligned, and it finally felt like I had the grace, the strength, and the resilience to just get through and put it out. But it was not an easy journey, and I faced my shadow every day.

In Rookie, you say that you almost quit writing more times than you can count. What pushed you to continue forward?

Ultimately, it's about thinking: what potential value does this have for people? Words have an impact. When I'm vulnerable in an interview, people will come up to me, even years later, and tell me what I said gave them a new perspective or helped them heal. It's about those moments when someone comes up to you on the street, and they're like, "When you said that years ago, it changed my life." That's the stuff that keeps me going.

The thing I was avoiding was the emotional discomfort of facing my pain. But like I say in the book, the artist paves the road for the audience to stroll down. It's about remembering that it's bigger than just me. If my true goal is to serve others and not myself, that means doing the dirty work. It means persevering, even though you would rather stay comfortable.

As much as Rookie is about tough topics, I enjoyed the moments of humor you sprinkled in. Was it also fun revisiting memories you might not have thought about in a long time?

Absolutely, yeah. They're some of my favorite stories of my life. I think the book has two parts. Part one is to follow your dreams. Go for it. Be fearless — pretend like you belong, and people will believe you.

Part two is, what are you left with when you wake up? You can have all the fun in the world, but what does your life look like the morning after the party? Where do you find meaning?

It was nice to be able to share both sides. It's always fun to write stories that bring people joy while still being insightful.

Something else I noticed while reading is the sketches throughout. How did that element come together?

Those are actually by my friend Hunter Baker. So the backstory is, I made conversation cards based on the book that we're also releasing on May 5. I was originally collaborating with him to work on the cards, and then I found out he's a phenomenal artist.

We were able to work on both together. His drawings are so beautiful, and they add an emotional cherry on top. My favorite drawing is the one of my mom and me playing chess.

How has writing Rookie changed you as a person?

I don't think I really understood the cathartic power of writing until I got into this book. Even as a songwriter, there's something about writing like this that's a little bit more intimate. It really expanded my understanding of processing grief through writing, and a lot of the time, the actual process was so painful — genuinely full-body agonizing pain.

I went back and went through all of my notes from 2020. I have maybe 70,000 notes in my phone — and that's just on one iCloud. As I went backward, I noticed how much more dense and shame-filled my writing was, how I was beating myself up. I was so hyper-critical and straight-up mean to myself, and I felt justified at the time. Now that I look back with a bit of distance, I can see it's not okay to talk to myself like that. That was something that I think I've learned — how to have more compassion for myself.

When I really read through the book again, start to finish, the word that comes to mind is resilient. Even though I wanted to give up many times, I knew I had to keep going. So I learned that I need more compassion, and I'm more resilient than I realized.

Finally, in one of your songs, you sing, "Look how far you've come." Rookie made me think about that line in a new light. What would you say to young Joshua, who just moved to LA and is just starting this journey?

What I would go back and say to my younger self is, "Keep moving forward." I think there were times where I got stuck — and sometimes that's necessary — but there’s a level of working through things that’s so crucial. It's very easy to slip into this "freeze" mode. I spent a lot of time in "freeze." I would go back and say to myself, "It's gonna be hard. The sooner you can embrace that and learn and continue to keep moving forward, things might be a little bit easier."

This journey has been so unexpectedly long and nonlinear. I feel like I'm just now getting to a point in my life, after going through quite a tough time, where I feel like I'm really able to breathe and come up for air. I think younger me would say, "I'm proud of you for remaining resilient and not giving up."

Rookie is available now.

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