ABOUT THE AUTHORS

George M. Johnson (they/them) is an award-winning and bestselling Black nonbinary author and activist. They have written on race, gender, sex, and culture for Essence, the Advocate, BuzzFeed News, Teen Vogue, and more than forty other national publications. George has appeared on BuzzFeed’s AM2DM as well as on MSNBC. They are also a proud HBCU alum twice over and a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated. Their debut memoir, All Boys Aren’t Blue, was a New York Times bestseller and garnered many accolades. It was the second-most challenged book of 2022 in the United States, according to the American Library Association. For their work fighting book bans and challenges, the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) honored George with its Free Speech Defender Award, and TIME magazine named them one of the “100 Next Most Influential People in the World.” George was nominated for an Emmy Award for their dramatic reading of All Boys Aren’t Blue. Originally from Plainfield, New Jersey, they now live in Los Angeles, California. Visit them online at iamgmjohnson.com, or sign up for email updates here.

    

Charly Palmer (he/him) is the Coretta Scott King–John Steptoe New Talent Award–winning illustrator of picture books and novels, including Mama Africa!: How Miriam Makeba Spread Hope with Her Song, which won the Africana Book Award, as well as The Legend of Gravity, which he wrote himself.

Charly is also a graphic designer and fine artist. His work has appeared on the cover of TIME magazine, the NBA 2K22 packaging, and John Legend’s Bigger Love album. He studied art and design at the American Academy of Art and the School of the Art Institute, both in Chicago. He lives with his family in Atlanta, Georgia. Visit him online at charlypalmer.com, or sign up for email updates here.