Author Interview: Smash or Pass by Birdie Schae

Birdie Schae’s debut, Smash or Pass, is exactly the sapphic summer (sporty!) romance we need right now. Ellie is autistic, freshly dumped, and ends up at a beach volleyball camp where she is paired with Sierra, a volleyball legacy who wants nothing more than to be seen as her own person. What follows is funny and tender and very good. We asked Birdie some questions about writing women’s sports, the title that was never supposed to be the title, and how Sierra’s athletic identity and personal one became impossible to separate. Check it out below!

Smash or Pass

by Birdie Schae
Published by: Knopf Books for Young Readers
on May 12, 2026
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For 16-year-old Ellie, beach volleyball camp is a disaster until she's paired with Sierra, an athletic prodigy who teaches her that volleyball...and love are about taking the right shot in this sporty sapphic romance.
Ellie dates the Right Guy, says all the Right Things, and acts the Right Way to avoid being ridiculed for her autism. When that Right Guy unceremoniously dumps her right before they're supposed to go to beach volleyball camp together, Ellie's perfectly curated world comes crashing down and she's labeled the boring, weird girl.
Desperate to regain her good reputation (and yeah, sure, the boy...), Ellie goes to Camp SMASH, which is nothing like she expected. There, she's paired with Sierra, a mysterious, standoffish volleyball legacy who makes Ellie's quest to get her boyfriend back even more complicated...
Dive into this sporty summer romance full of the classics: a ragtag group of friends, a tense game of capture the flag, and a swoon-worthy sapphic love story.

Interview with Birdie Shae

Women’s sports are finally getting a cultural moment, from the NWSL to the Paris Olympics to the rise of women’s college basketball, and beach volleyball has its own specific legacy in that conversation. What drew you to volleyball specifically, and how did you think about writing Ellie and Sierra as serious athletes rather than using the sport as backdrop for the romance?

As someone who grew up playing and loving beach volleyball, I am so happy that women’s sports are finally being put in the spotlight a little more! I wanted to pour some of the love I have for this team sport into a book, and just like that Smash or Pass was born. While Ellie is new to beach volleyball at the start of the book and not necessarily excited to be at a summer camp that revolves around it, she quickly learns to appreciate what it’s like to be part of a team and a duo. Sierra, on the other hand, is the daughter of a retired beach volleyball legend and just wants to be seen and appreciated for what she does, which I think is still very relevant when talking about women’s sports, even though its audience is growing.

Though Smash or Pass does have a romance plot, I mostly just wanted to show the community and connection that is found through sports. Sierra and Ellie might not be professional athletes yet, but I really hope readers will appreciate the sports aspects of this book!

The title is doing double duty, it is a volleyball term and a pop culture meme about whether someone is worth your time, and Ellie starts the book very much playing that game on herself. Was that layering intentional from the start or did it develop as you wrote her?

The layering was definitely not intentional. I actually only realized when rereading the first draft of the book that Smash or Pass was the perfect title for this reason. The funny thing about it is that it was never supposed to actually be called that! When I was talking about writing it a few years ago on Twitter, I needed a way to refer to it without using the actual title, so I thought Smash or Pass would be funny purely because it was a volleyball book. But then people, including me, seemed to get really attached to it and I realized that it just fit too well with the book to throw it away. I’m really, really happy I got to keep it!

Sierra is described as a volleyball legacy, which comes with its own specific kind of pressure and identity, separate from anything romantic. How did you balance writing her athletic identity against her personal one without letting either one flatten the other?

I honestly think Sierra’s athletic and personal identity are impossible to separate from each other. They are so intertwined with one another, especially since she has basically made volleyball her entire life in hopes of impressing her dad. I see Sierra’s journey as one of learning she can be a good athlete who takes volleyball seriously, while also living a fun life surrounded by friends.