The V-Word

Contributors

Amber J. Keyser did not anticipate writing a book about sex for young adults. In fact, she’s always been closemouthed about her own sexual history. But through her work on The V-Word, she came to believe that engaging in honest conversations about sex with young people is her responsibility as a parent and as a woman. Everyone deserves a deeply pleasurable and wholly chosen sex life. That doesn’t happen by accident. Amber’s other work includes numerous nonfiction titles and the young adult novel The Way Back from Broken (Carolrhoda Lab, 2015). Learn more about her work at www.amberjkeyser.com and on Twitter at @amberjkeyser.

About the Contributors

Molly Bloom is the nom de plume for an author of books for children and young adults. She grew up in a small town in the Midwest but she currently makes her home in New York City. She sports the words of Molly Bloom, from James Joyce’s Ulysses, on her arm: “and yes I said yes I will Yes.”

Kiersi Burkhart was raised as a cowgirl in Colorado, and even though she now lives in Portland, Oregon, she has never forgotten her frontier roots. Her debut middle-grade novel Shy Girl and Shy Guy releases in 2016 and taps into her love of stories about bravery, friendship, and horses. Find out more about Kiersi on Twitter at @kiersi and at www.kiersi.com.

Chelsey Clammer has been published in The Rumpus, Essay Daily, and The Water~Stone Review among many others. She is the managing editor and nonfiction editor for The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review, the essays editor for The Nervous Breakdown, and senior creative editor of www.insideoutediting.com. Her first collection of essays, BodyHome, was released from Hopewell Publishing in Spring 2015. Her second collection of essays, There Is Nothing Else to See Here, was published by the Lit Pub in Summer 2015. You can read more of her writing at www.chelseyclammer.com.

Christa Desir writes contemporary fiction for young adults. Her novels include Fault Line, Bleed Like Me, and Other Broken Things. She lives with her husband, three small children, and an overly enthusiastic dog outside of Chicago. She has volunteered as a rape victim activist for more than ten years, including providing direct service as an advocate in hospital ERs. She also works as an editor at Samhain Publishing. Visit her at christadesir.com.

Kate Gray is a poet and novelist. For more than twenty years, Kate has tended her students’ stories as a teacher at an Oregon community college. Her first novel, Carry the Sky, attempts to stare at bullying without blinking. She has published essays and three poetry collections. She and her long-time partner just married and live in a purple house in Portland, Oregon, with their sidekicks, Rafi and Wasco, two very patient dogs.

Justina Ireland enjoys dark chocolate and dark humor, and is not too proud to admit that she’s still afraid of the dark. She lives with her husband, kid, and dog in Pennsylvania. She is the author of Vengeance Bound and Promise of Shadows. Visit her at justinaireland.com.

Laurel Isaac is the pen name of a queer essayist and student in the Pacific Northwest. More of her sexual memoir writing can be found in the collections Shameless Behavior: Brazen Stories of Overcoming Shame and The Big Book of Submission: 69 Kinky Tales. Laurel’s work also addresses issues of queer community, navigating contradictory identities, and how to make queer theory more accessible. Formerly a volunteer and contributor for the feminist sex ed website Scarleteen, she is particularly interested in the intersection of sex education, sex-positive activism, and LGBTQ history. She enjoys hiking and practicing the clown-free circus arts.

Karen Jensen, MLS, has been a young adult services librarian for twenty-one years. She is the creator and administrator for the Teen Librarian Toolbox, where she reviews YA literature and hosts the #SVYALit Project, where young adult literature is used to discuss sexual violence and consent in the lives of teens. In 2014 she was named as a Library Journal Mover & Shaker. She is the coeditor of The Whole Library Handbook: Teen Services published by ALA Editions in 2014. When she isn’t doing librarian things, she is trying to raise two daughters.

Kelly Jensen is a former teen and youth services librarian turned associate editor and community manager for Book Riot (bookriot.com) and she blogs about young adult fiction, reading, and serving teens (stackedbooks.org). She is also the author of It Happens: A Guide to Contemporary Realistic Fiction for the YA Reader from VOYA Press. Her writing has been featured in The Horn Book Magazine, School Library Journal, and VOYA, as well as on The Rumpus, Rookie, and The Huffington Post.

Sidney Joaquin-Vetromile is the pseudonym for a Filipina American writer and college English instructor. She’s been published in The New York Times, Gawker, and The Rumpus, among other places, and is at work on a memoir and a young adult novel. She divides her time between the Philippines and the United States. Sidney no longer identifies as Catholic but she definitely believes in love.

Alex Meeks holds an associate’s degree in Young Adult Education from Washington State Community College in Marietta, Ohio, (cum laude) and a BA in English from Wells College in Aurora, New York. She lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she writes, plays housewife, and surrounds herself with the finest freaks and outcasts the Delaware Valley has to offer.

Carrie Mesrobian is the author of three young adult novels: Sex & Violence, Perfectly Good White Boy, and Cut Both Ways. She teaches teenagers about writing at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. Visit her at www.carriemesrobian.com.

Sarah Mirk is a Portland-based journalist who mostly writes about gender, sex, and social justice. She’s the online editor of feminism and pop culture for Bitch Media and the host of the podcast Popaganda. She is also the author of the open-minded guidebook to dating, Sex from Scratch: Making Your Own Relationship Rules.

Sara Ryan is the author of the graphic novel Bad Houses with art by Carla Speed McNeil, published by Dark Horse Comics; the young adult novels Rules for Hearts and Empress of the World, both published by Viking; and various comics and short stories on themes including but not limited to teen angst, female celebrity, joining the military, the 1962 escape from Alcatraz, and circuses. She grew up in Michigan, and now lives in Portland, Oregon, where she works as a librarian and writes at night and on the weekends. She still has all the journals she kept as a teenager. Find her at sararyan.com and @ryansara on Twitter.

Erica Lorraine Scheidt’s young adult novel, Uses for Boys was a 2014 PEN Center Literary Award finalist, a 2014 Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers, and a Best First Book for Youth by the American Library Association’s Booklist. A teaching artist and advocate for literary arts programming for youth, Erica is the founder of the Berkeley Writers’ Workshop, a creative writing workshop for teens; a founding team member at Chapter 510, a made-in-Oakland creative writing and literacy project; and a longtime volunteer at 826 Valencia, a creative writing center in San Francisco. She was a 2012 Artist in Residence at Headlands Center for the Arts and a 2014 recipient of the Creative Work Fund award. Erica lives with her wife and stepdaughter in Berkeley and spends her days with tenth grade students at Oakland’s MetWest High School.

Jamia Wilson is a feminist media activist, organizer, and storyteller. By day, Jamia is the executive director of Women, Action, and the Media, and by night, she is a staff writer for Rookie, an online magazine. Jamia has been recognized as one of Refinery29’s “17 Faces of the Future of Feminism” and as a #SmartFeministofTwitter by the Ms. Magazine blog. Jamia’s words and works have been featured in CBS News, Essence, CNN, Forbes.com, Al-Jazeera, Slate, Salon, New York Magazine, The New York Times, The Guardian UK, The Today Show, The Washington Post, several anthologies, and more. Follow her on twitter at @jamiaw.

About the Sex Educators

Amy Lang helps parents discover talking to kids about “it” doesn’t have to be scary or overwhelming. Her engaging, humorous, and inspiring style shows parents how to turn conversations they dread into something they look forward to and wholeheartedly embrace. Through her business Birds + Bees + Kids^® Amy helps parents of all beliefs have easy, open and effective conversations about sex with their kids. She is the author of Birds + Bees + YOUR Kids: A Guide to Sharing Your Beliefs about Sexuality, Love, and Relationships and Dating Smarts: What Every Teen Needs to Know to Date, Relate, or Wait. Amy has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, and Babble.com. Learn more about her work at www.birdsandbeesandkids.com.

Jo Langford is a dad and a Master’s-level therapist and sex educator for tweens, teens, and parents in Seattle. For the last twenty years he has worked with teens, parents, and professionals to promote healthy, positive, and safe sexual behavior. He uses information, education, and humor to help families increase their knowledge and self-confidence as a proactive defense against the unfortunate consequences that sometimes accompany teen sexual activity. His mission is to provide healthy social and sexual information to teens and their parents in a multi-pronged approach, consisting of live speaking events, his book The SEX-EDcyclopedia, and a series of social and dating-themed apps for the iPhone. Learn more about Jo and his work with youth, parents, and professionals to promote healthy, positive, and safe sexual and social behavior at www.beheroes.net.

Pepper Schwartz received her PhD from Yale University and is professor of Sociology at the University of Washington in Seattle. She is the past-president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality and the Pacific Sociological Society. She has been honored for her work by the American Sociological Association and been named a Distinguished Alumni from Washington University in St. Louis. She has written twenty-two books and over fifty academic articles. Several of her books have received national recognition, including The Normal Bar: The Surprising Secrets of Happy Couples (a New York Times bestseller), Ten Talks Parents Must Have with Kids about Sex and Character (an Outstanding Book by Mothers’ Voices) and Dating after 50 for Dummies. She is currently the Love, Sex, and Relationship Ambassador for AARP and serves on the board of Trojan and the Sexual Studies PhD program for the Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. Known for her translation of academic work into popular formats, she has appeared often on Oprah, The Today Show, CBS Morning News, NPR and other national programs. She also serves as one of the four relationship experts on Married at First Sight, a television series on A & E network on the FYI channel. She lives in Snoqualmie, Washington, on a horse ranch.

Al Vernacchio, MS Ed, is the sexuality educator at Friends’ Central School in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. He teaches classes, organizes sexuality programming, provides parent education on human sexuality, and is the faculty advisor for the Gay-Straight Alliance Network. A human sexuality educator and consultant for over twenty years, Al has lectured, published articles, and offered workshops throughout the country on sexuality topics. His work has been featured in “Teaching Good Sex,” a November 2011 cover story in The New York Times Magazine. In addition, Al is a TED Talk speaker and is the author of For Goodness Sex: Changing the Way We Talk to Teens about Sexuality, Values, and Health.