ABOUT THE AUTHORS

DAHLIA ADLER is an editor of mathematics by day, the overlord of LGBTQ Reads by night, and an author of young adult and romance at every spare moment in between. Her novels include the Daylight Falls duology, Just Visiting, the Radleigh University trilogy, and Cool for the Summer; she is the editor of the anthologies His Hideous Heart and That Way Madness Lies; and her short stories can be found in those anthologies, The Radical Element, All Out, and It’s a Whole Spiel. Dahlia lives in New York with her family and an obscene number of books. You can sign up for email updates here.

    

K. ANCRUM is the author of the award-winning thriller The Wicker King, the interstellar lesbian romance The Weight of the Stars, and the upcoming Peter Pan thriller Darling. K. is a Chicago native passionate about diversity and representation in young adult fiction. She currently writes most of her work in the lush gardens of the Chicago Art Institute.

LILY ANDERSON fell in love with the Bard when she was ten and never looked back. In the twenty years since, she has performed, adapted, and directed Shakespeare plays, as well as retelling Much Ado About Nothing as her debut novel, The Only Thing Worse Than Me Is You. Her other works include Not Now, Not Ever and Undead Girl Gang. You can find her at www.mslilyanderson.com.

MELISSA BASHARDOUST received her degree in English from the University of California, Berkeley, where she rediscovered her love for creative writing, children’s literature, and fairy tales and their retellings. She currently lives in Southern California with a cat named Alice and more copies of Jane Eyre than she probably needs. Melissa is the author of Girls Made of Snow and Glass and Girl, Serpent, Thorn.

PATRICE CALDWELL is a graduate of Wellesley College and the founder of People of Color in Publishing—a grassroots organization dedicated to supporting, empowering, and uplifting racially and ethnically marginalized members of the book publishing industry. Born and raised in Texas, Patrice was a children’s book editor before shifting to become a literary agent. She’s been named a Publishers Weekly Star Watch honoree and featured on Bustle’s inaugural “Lit List” as one of ten women changing the book world. Patrice’s debut fantasy novel is out September 2022 from Wednesday Books/ Macmillan. She is also the editor of A Phoenix First Must Burn: 16 Stories of Black Girl Magic, Resistance, and Hope as well as a YA paranormal romance anthology out in fall 2022. Visit her online at patricecaldwell.com, Twitter @whimsicallyours, and Instagram @whimsicalaquarian.

A. R. CAPETTA and CORY MCCARTHY coauthored the bestselling Once & Future series. They are also the acclaimed authors of over a dozen solo titles, including Cory’s feminist romcom Now a Major Motion Picture and near-futuristic thriller Breaking Sky, and A.R.’s witchy head rush known as The Lost Coast and the romantic, Italian-inspired fantasy The Brilliant Death. After meeting at Vermont College of Fine Arts, they began flirt-sparring much like Benedick and Beatrice. A.R. and Cory now raise a young maverick in the snow-swept mountains of Vermont … and continue to banter as if it were an Olympic sport.

BRITTANY CAVALLARO is the New York Times bestselling author of the Charlotte Holmes novels, including A Study in Charlotte, and with Emily Henry, the author of Hello Girls. Her most recent novel, Muse, was released in early 2021. Her poetry collections Girl-King and Unhistorical were both published by the University of Akron Press. Cavallaro lives with her family in Michigan, where she teaches creative writing at the Interlochen Arts Academy.

SAMANTHA MABRY lives and writes in Texas. Her books include A Fierce and Subtle Poison, All the Wind in the World—which was longlisted for a National Book Award in 2017—and, most recently, Tigers, Not Daughters.

JOY MCCULLOUGH is the author of the YA historical novel Blood Water Paint, which was longlisted for the National Book Award, finalist for the William C. Morris Award, finalist for the Amelia Walden Award, and winner of the Pacific Northwest Book Award and the Washington State Book Award, and the middle grade novel A Field Guide to Getting Lost, a Junior Library Guild selection. She is also a playwright with a degree in theater from Northwestern University and has Shakespeare’s words etched into her skin. She lives in the Seattle area.

ANNA-MARIE MCLEMORE is a nonbinary fairy prince whose family taught them to hear la llorona in the Santa Ana winds. They are the National Book Award–longlisted, Stonewall Honor author of The Weight of Feathers, When the Moon Was Ours, Wild Beauty, Blanca & Roja, Dark and Deepest Red, and The Mirror Season.

TOCHI ONYEBUCHI is the author of the young adult novel Beasts Made of Night, which won the Ilube Nommo Award for Best Speculative Fiction Novel by an African, its sequel—Crown of Thunder—and War Girls, a Nommo and Locus Award finalist. His adult debut was Riot Baby. He holds degrees from Yale, the Tisch School of the Arts, Sciences Po, and Columbia Law School. His fiction has appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Omenana Magazine, Uncanny, and Lightspeed. His nonfiction has appeared in Tor.com, Nowhere Magazine, and the Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy, among other places.

MARK OSHIRO is the young adult author of Anger Is a Gift, winner of the 2019 Schneider Family Book Award and nominated for a 2019 Lammy Award, as well as Each of Us a Desert, and their middle grade debut, The Insiders. When they are not writing, crying on camera about fictional characters for their online Mark Does Stuff universe, or traveling, Mark is busy trying to fulfill their lifelong goal: to pet every dog in the world.

AUSTIN SIEGEMUND-BROKA and EMILY WIBBERLEY are the authors of Always Never Yours, If I’m Being Honest, Time of Our Lives, and What’s Not to Love. They met in high school, where they fell in love over a shared passion for Shakespeare. Austin went on to study English at Harvard so he could continue to impress Emily with his literary analysis, while Emily studied adolescent psychology at Princeton. They live in Los Angeles, where they’ve combined their interests and decided to write stories of high school, literature, and first love.

LINDSAY SMITH is the author of Sekret and other novels for young adults. She writes for Serial Box’s Marvel’s Black Widow: Bad Blood, Orphan Black: The Next Chapter, and The Witch Who Came in from the Cold. She has also written for comics, RPGs, and more. She lives in Washington, DC, where she works in international cybersecurity.

KIERSTEN WHITE is the New York Times bestselling and Bram Stoker Award–winning author of more than a dozen young adult novels, including the And I Darken trilogy, The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein, the Camelot Rising trilogy, and the Slayer series. She lives in Southern California with her spouse and three children, none of whom are allowed to read her books.