ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Dahlia Adler (she/her) is an editor by day, a freelance writer by night, and an author and anthologist at every spare moment in between. She’s the founder of LGBTQReads.com; her novels include Kids’ Indie Next picks Cool for the Summer, Home Field Advantage, and Going Bicoastal; and she is the editor of the anthologies His Hideous Heart, That Way Madness Lies, At Midnight, and, with Jennifer Iacopelli, Out of Our League. Dahlia lives in New York with her family and an obscene number of books. You can sign up for email updates here.

Carrie S. Allen (she/her) is the author of Michigan vs. the Boys, listed on YALSA’s 2020 Best Fiction for Young Adults, the 2020 Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers, and the 2020 Bank Street College of Education’s Best Children’s Books of the Year. Retired from sports medicine, she writes about teen athletes who make a difference on and off the field. Carrie lives in Colorado and spends as much time outdoors as possible, usually chasing after kids, dogs, and chickens.

Sara Farizan (she/her) watches ’90s cartoons and ’80s commercials to relax, and loves pinball but is wary of certain games. She is the award-winning and critically acclaimed author of the young adult novels Here to Stay, Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel, and the Lambda Literary Award–winning If You Could Be Mine, which was named one of TIME magazine’s 100 Best YA Books of All Time. Her novel Dead Flip is her favorite book she’s written. She has short stories in the anthologies Fresh Ink, All Out, The Radical Element, Hungry Hearts, Come On In, and Fools in Love. She also had a dream come true in writing a DC Comics middle grade graphic novel, My Buddy, Killer Croc. She lives in Massachusetts and thanks you for reading her work. You can find out more about her at sarafarizan.com.

Juliana Goodman was born and raised in Blue Island, Illinois. She received her BA in English Literature from Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois, in 2014, and her MFA in Fiction Writing in 2017 from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Juliana has received several awards and scholarships for her writing and was a fellow with the Tulsa Artist Fellowship for four years. She’s had work published in Sigma Tau Delta’s Rectangle, Blackberry: A Magazine, and Fiyah Literary Magazine. Her debut young adult novel, The Black Girls Left Standing, was a 2022 Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection. In her free time, she enjoys watching horror films, reading the latest young adult novels, and hanging out with her poodle, Darcy, and her cat, Pickle.

Maggie Hall indulges her obsession with distant lands and far-flung adventures as often as she can. She has played with baby tigers in Thailand, learned to make homemade pasta in Italy, and taken thousands of miles of trains through the vibrant countryside of India. In her past life, she was a bookstore events coordinator and marketing manager, and when she’s not on the other side of the world, she lives with her husband and their cats in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she watches USC football and does work in graphic design.

Leah Henderson is a national rowing champion, an All-New England soccer player, and a champion track-and-field athlete. When she isn’t playing or cheering on her favorite teams or athletes, she can be found scribbling down stories. She is the author of a number of critically acclaimed books for young readers including The Magic in Changing Your Stars, Together We March, A Day for Rememberin’, and The Courage of the Little Hummingbird. Leah teaches in Spalding University’s graduate writing program and lives in Washington, DC.

Sarah Henning is a former sports journalist and the author of several books for young adult and middle grade readers featuring headstrong girls, including two very sporty books, Throw Like a Girl and It’s All in How You Fall. When not writing, she runs ultramarathons, hangs out with her husband and two kids, and takes the world’s largest (and fluffiest) corgi for long walks. Sarah lives in Lawrence, Kansas, hometown of Langston Hughes, William S. Burroughs, and a really good basketball team. Visit her at sarahhenningwrites.com.

Jennifer Iacopelli was born in New York and has no plans to leave, ever. Growing up, she read everything she could get her hands on and now, as a high school librarian, she frolics all day with her students, books, and computers and writes at night while cheering on her beloved Yankees. Jennifer is the author of Game. Set. Match., Losing at Love, Break the Fall, and Finding Her Edge, as well as the co-editor, with Dahlia Adler, of Out of Our League. Follow her @jennifercarolyn. You can sign up for email updates here.

Naomi Kanakia is the author of Just Happy to Be Here and two other contemporary YA novels. She’s also written The Cynical Writer’s Guide to the Publishing Industry, and her short fiction, poetry, and literary criticism have been published, err, all over the place. She lives in San Francisco with her wife and daughter.

Growing up in Tennessee, Miranda Kenneally dreamed of becoming an Atlanta Brave, a country singer (cliché!), or a UN interpreter. Instead she writes and works for the State Department in Washington, D.C., where George W. Bush once used her shoulder as an armrest. Miranda is the author of many YA sports novels, including Catching Jordan, Racing Savannah, and Breathe, Annie, Breathe. Miranda loves Twitter, Star Trek, and her husband. Visit mirandakenneally.com.

Yamile (sha-MEE-lay) Saied Méndez is a sports-obsessed Argentine American Pura Belpré gold medal–winning author. She lives in Utah with her Puerto Rican husband and their five kids, two adorable dogs, and one majestic cat. An inaugural Walter Dean Myers Grant recipient, she’s also a graduate of Voices of Our Nations (VONA) and the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA Writing for Children and Young Adults program. She writes picture books, middle grade, young adult, and adult fiction. Yamile is a founding member of Las Musas, the first collective of women and nonbinary Latine MG and YA authors. She’s represented by Linda Camacho at Gallt & Zacker Literary.

Cam Montgomery (nonbinary she/her) is a born-and-raised Angeleno. She is the author of YA novels Home and Away and By Any Means Necessary, and editor of All Signs Point to Yes, an anthology. When not off dreaming up some romance-y work in progress, you can find her on Instagram @camstagram.jpg or on TikTok @hey.itsCam. Having ditched L.A., she now resides in Seattle with her rescue pup Sébastien (“Bash”).

Marieke Nijkamp (she/they) is a #1 New York Times–bestselling author of novels, graphic novels, and comics, including This Is Where It Ends, At the End of Everything, Critical Role: Vox Machina—Kith & Kin, Hawkeye: Kate Bishop, The Oracle Code, and Unbroken: 13 Stories Starring Disabled Teens. Marieke lives and writes in Small Town, the Netherlands.

Amparo Ortiz is a young adult and middle grade author from Puerto Rico. Her speculative work includes the Blazewrath Games duology, Last Sunrise in Eterna, and Saving Chupie. She’s published short story comics in Marvel’s Voices: Comunidades #1 and in the Eisner Award–winning Puerto Rico Strong. She’s also co-editor of Our Shadows Have Claws, a young adult horror anthology featuring myths and monsters from Latin America. Her story in Out of Our League marks her contemporary debut.

Aminah Mae Safi is the author of four novels, including Tell Me How You Really Feel and Travelers Along the Way: A Robin Hood Remix. She’s an erstwhile art historian, a fan of Cholula on popcorn, and an unironic lover of the Fast & Furious franchise. Her writing has been featured on Bustle and Salon, and her award-winning short stories can be found in Fresh Ink and First Year Orientation. When not writing, she teaches at the low-residency MFA program at Antioch University as well as instructs new writers at the UCLA Extension Creative Writing program. She started training in aikido at age seven and nobody has managed to keep her out of the ring or the dojo since.

Kayla Whaley is the author of the chapter book series A to Z Animal Mysteries. Her essays and short fiction have appeared in numerous anthologies including Unbroken, Vampires Never Get Old, Game On, and Allies. She holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of Tampa, and is a graduate of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop. Kayla lives outside Atlanta, Georgia, where she drinks too much coffee and buys too many books.