Being a teenager means navigating new, exciting, and sometimes confusing relationships wherever you go—whether that’s in an amusement park or on a road trip. The talented novelists in this session take readers on eventful journeys into first love and other relationships. In The Revolution of Birdie Randolph, Stonewall Award winner Brandy Colbert writes about a girl who strives to be perfect in her parents’ eyes—until she starts falling for a boy who’s anything but. Jennifer Dugan’s Hot Dog Girl is a funny and charming queer romance set at the failing Magic Castle Playland amusement park. In Kristina Forest’s I Wanna Be Where You Are, a ballet dancer is determined to get to an audition, so she embarks on a road trip with her annoying (but undeniably cute) neighbor. Rachel Gold’s In the Silences finds gender-seeking teen Kaz tentatively embracing first love while also confronting racism in their small town. And in poet Morgan Parker’s debut YA novel Who Put This Song On?, the relationship her protagonist (also named Morgan) struggles to define is the one with herself, contending with anxiety and depression while learning to embrace her identity as a quirky black girl in a predominantly white town. Our host for this session of must-read new novels is Amy Pattee of Simmons University.
Amy Pattee is an associate professor at Simmons University, where she teaches children's and young adult literature. After completing her master's in library science at Rutgers University, Pattee worked as a children's librarian. She received her doctorate in library and information... Read More →
Morgan Parker is a Pushcart Prize–winning poet, novelist, and nonfiction writer. Her publications include There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé, and most recently, the poetry collection Magical Negro and the YA novel Who Put This Song On?
Kristina Forest is a writer who currently works in children’s book publishing. She earned her MFA in creative writing with a concentration in writing for children at The New School. Her first novel, I Wanna Be Where You Are, published in June 2019. It’s a heartwarming young adult... Read More →
Jennifer Dugan is a young adult and comic writer based in upstate New York. Publishers Weekly called her debut young adult novel, Hot Dog Girl, “relatable and funny.”
Rachel Gold is the award-winning author of Just Girls and Being Emily, the first young adult novel to tell the story of a trans girl from her perspective. Penny Mickelbury says that “young teens gravitate to Rachel Gold’s novels with good reason: she gets them.” Her latest work... Read More →
Brandy Colbert is the award-winning author of young adult novels Little & Lion, Finding Yvonne, and Pointe. Her short fiction and essays can be found in several critically acclaimed anthologies for young people. She is a faculty member at Hamline University’s MFA writing for children... Read More →
Saturday October 19, 2019 1:30pm - 2:45pm EDT
BPL Teen Central700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116