Lamar Giles

Last updated
Lamar Giles
Lamar Giles Public Headshot 2019.jpg
Born (1979-11-14) November 14, 1979 (age 44)
Hopewell, Virginia, U.S.
EducationB.S. in Communications, minor in English; M.F.A in English, Creative Writing
Alma materOld Dominion University
Genre Young Adult Fiction
Years active2004–present
Notable worksFake ID, Spin, The Last Last-Day-of-Summer, Not So Pure and Simple
Website
lamargiles.com

Lamar Giles (born November 14, 1979) [1] is an American author of young adult novels and short stories. He best known for his award-winning novels with his most popular being Fake ID, SPIN, Not So Pure and Simple, and The Legendary Alston Boys middle grade fantasy series. He is also one of the founding members of the American non-profit We Need Diverse Books.

Contents

Personal life

Giles grew up next to an army base [2] in Hopewell, Virginia. [3] He wrote his first novel at 14 [4] and graduated from Hopewell High School in 1997. [3] Giles has a B.S. in communications with a Minor in English from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. [5] He started wanting to become a published writer after reading Stephen King's On Writing in college, [6] and sold his first short story at age 21. [3] He also independently published novels and short stories as L.R. Giles. [4] Giles worked as a real estate agent for a while before being awarded a fellowship from the Virginia Commission of the Arts in 2006. [5] He sold what would become his first novel, Fake ID, at 31. [7]

Giles is a founding member of the non-profit We Need Diverse Books, their former VP of Communications, [8] and was on their 2017 advisory board. [9] Giles was a judge for the 2018 National Book Awards [10] and is a faculty member in the Spalding University MFA program. [11]

He lives with his wife in Chesapeake, Virginia. [3]

Selected works

Giles' debut young adult novel, Fake ID, was published by HarperCollins in 2014. Fake ID is a thriller following an African-American teen moving to a new town under a fake identity because of his father's crimes and who gets entangled in solving the mysterious murder of his best friend. [12] Giles cites Gerald Shur's non-fiction works and Casanegra by Steve Barnes as some of his inspirations for the novel. [13]

His next novel, Endangered, about a vigilante teen whose undercover identity gets revealed to the world, was published by Harper Teen in 2015. [14]

Giles is the editor of the anthology Fresh Ink, a collection of stories by authors Nicola Yoon, Malinda Lo, Melissa de la Cruz, Sara Farizan, Eric Gansworth, Walter Dean Myers, Daniel José Older, Thien Pham, Jason Reynolds, Gene Luen Yang, Sharon G. Flake, Schuyler Bailar, and Aminah Mae Safi about marginalized experiences. It was published by Crown in 2018. [15]

Bibliography

Works under "Lamar Giles"

Novels

Short stories

As contributor

As editor

Works under "L.R. Giles"

Short stories

Novels

Awards and nominations

Nominated

2015

2015-2016

2016

2016-2017

2017

Won

2015-2016

Related Research Articles

HarperCollins Publishers LLC is an Anglo-American publishing company that is considered to be one of the "Big Five" English-language publishers, along with Penguin Random House, Hachette, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster. HarperCollins is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Corp.

Harold Schechter is an American true crime writer who specializes in serial killers. He is a Professor Emeritus at Queens College, City University of New York where he taught classes in American literature and myth criticism for forty-two years. Schechter's essays have appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, and the International Herald Tribune. He is the editor of the Library of America volume, True Crime: An American Anthology. His newest book, published in September 2023, is Murderabilia: A History of Crime in 100 Objects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adriana Trigiani</span> American novelist

Adriana Trigiani is an American best-selling author of eighteen books, playwright, television writer/producer, film director/screenwriter/producer, and entrepreneur based in New York City. Trigiani has published a novel a year since 2000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walter Dean Myers</span> American childrens book author

Walter Dean Myers was an American writer of children's books best known for young adult literature. He was born in Martinsburg, West Virginia, but was raised in Harlem. A tough childhood led him to writing and his school teachers would encourage him in this habit as a way to express himself. He wrote more than one hundred books including picture books and nonfiction. He won the Coretta Scott King Award for African-American authors five times. His 1988 novel Fallen Angels is one of the books most frequently challenged in the U.S. because of its adult language and its realistic depiction of the Vietnam War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Bloor</span> American novelist and playwright

Edward William Bloor is an American novelist and playwright, best known for Tangerine and London Calling.

Elaine Marie Alphin was an American author of more than thirty books for children and young adults. Although she specialized in fiction, she has published many non-fiction titles, including biographies of Davy Crockett, Louis Pasteur, Dwight Eisenhower, and John Paul Jones, which she co-wrote with her husband Arthur Alphin.

Kenneth Martin Edwards is a British crime novelist, whose work has won multiple awards including lifetime achievement awards for his fiction, non-fiction, short fiction, and scholarship in the UK and the United States. As a crime fiction critic and historian, and also in his career as a solicitor, he has written non-fiction books and many articles. He is the current President of the Detection Club and in 2020 was awarded the Crime Writers' Association's Diamond Dagger, the highest honour in British crime writing, in recognition of the "sustained excellence" of his work in the genre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Veronica Roth</span> American author (born 1988)

Veronica Anne Roth is an American novelist and short story writer, known for her bestselling Divergent trilogy which has sold more than 35 million copies worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nova Ren Suma</span> American novelist

Nova Ren Suma is an American #1 New York Times best selling author of young adult novels. Her best-known work is The Walls Around Us. Her novels have twice been finalists for the Edgar Award for Best Young Adult from Mystery Writers of America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Malinda Lo</span> American writer of young adult novels

Malinda Lo is an American writer of young adult novels including Ash, Huntress, Adaptation, Inheritance,A Line in the Dark, and Last Night at the Telegraph Club. She also does research on diversity in young adult literature and publishing.

Kyo Maclear is a Canadian novelist and children's author.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sam J. Miller</span> English science fiction, fantasy and horror short fiction author

Sam J. Miller is an American science fiction, fantasy and horror short fiction author. His stories have appeared in publications such as Clarkesworld, Asimov's Science Fiction, and Lightspeed, along with over 15 "year's best" story collections. He was finalist for multiple Nebula Awards along with the World Fantasy and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Awards. He won the 2013 Shirley Jackson Award for his short story "57 Reasons for the Slate Quarry Suicides." His debut novel, The Art of Starving, was published in 2017 and his novel Blackfish City won the 2019 John W. Campbell Memorial Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Meredith Russo</span> 21st-century American author

Meredith Russo is an American young adult author from Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Hillary Monahan is an American author, best known for her New York Times-bestselling debut novel MARY: The Summoning. Her work includes young adult, horror, urban fantasy, and romance novels. She has published more than a dozen books. Her other pen names include Thea de Salle and Eva Darrows.

Anna-Marie McLemore is a Mexican-American author of young adult fiction magical realism, best known for their Stonewall Honor-winning novel When the Moon Was Ours, Wild Beauty, and The Weight of Feathers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ibi Zoboi</span> Haitian-American author of young adult fiction

Ibi Aanu Zoboi is a Haitian-American author of young adult fiction. She is best known for her young adult novel American Street, which was a finalist for the National Book Award for Young Adult's Literature in 2017.

Dahlia Adler is an American author of young adult and new adult fiction.

Brandy Colbert is an award-winning American author of young adult fiction and nonfiction, best known for her books Black Birds in the Sky: The Story and Legacy of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, The Only Black Girls in Town, and Little & Lion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Ransome (illustrator)</span> American illustrator (born 1961)

James E. Ransome is an American illustrator of children's books.

Ashley Herring Blake is an American author of children's fiction, best known for her Stonewall Honor Book Award-winning middle grade debut Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World and Girl Made of Stars.

References

  1. "My Birthday Wish: Meet Stephen King". Lamar "L.R." Giles (Old Site). 2014-09-26. Retrieved 2019-04-04.
  2. "Author Interview with Lamar Giles". The New York Public Library. Retrieved 2019-04-04.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Lamar Giles". The Booking Biz. Retrieved 2019-04-04.
  4. 1 2 "How I Became A Writer by Lamar Giles | Epic Reads Blog". Epic Reads. 2014-01-21. Retrieved 2019-04-04.
  5. 1 2 "2006-2007 Fellowship Recipients - The Virginia Commission for the Arts" (PDF). The Virginia Commission for the Arts. Retrieved 4 April 2019.
  6. "Interview: Lamar Giles on Coffee, Videogames, and "The Important Stuff"". The Booking Biz. 2018-06-01. Retrieved 2019-04-04.
  7. "Author Interview: Lamar Giles on Writing Mysteries, Diversity & His Writing Journey". Cynthia Leitich Smith. 2017-02-23. Retrieved 2019-04-04.
  8. "5 Questions for Lamar Giles | YARN" . Retrieved 2019-04-04.
  9. "About WNDB". diversebooks.org. 28 April 2017. Retrieved 2018-11-29.
  10. "National Book Foundation - 2018 National Book Awards". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2018-11-29.
  11. "Lamar Giles". Spalding University. Retrieved 2019-04-04.
  12. "Children's Book Review: Fake ID by Lamar Giles. HarperCollins/Amistad, $17.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-06-212184-4". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 2018-11-29.
  13. "Author Interview with Lamar Giles". The New York Public Library. Retrieved 2018-11-29.
  14. Bush, Elizabeth (2015-05-19). "Endangered by Lamar Giles (review)". Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books. 68 (10): 490. doi:10.1353/bcc.2015.0468. ISSN   1558-6766. S2CID   141729501.
  15. "Fresh Ink: An Anthology by Lamar Giles | SLJ Review". School Library Journal. Retrieved 2018-11-29.
  16. Kellogg, Carolyn (21 January 2015). "Finalists for the 2015 Edgar Awards are announced". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 2018-11-29.
  17. "Past Winners & Nominees | Georgia Peach Book Award for Teen Readers". georgiapeachaward.org. Retrieved 2018-11-29.
  18. "Edgars Database | Search the Edgars Database". theedgars.com. Retrieved 2018-11-29.
  19. "Previous Years LYRC Nominees - Louisiana Young Readers Choice - Literacy and Reading - State Library of Louisiana". www.state.lib.la.us. Retrieved 2018-11-29.
  20. "The 2017 Abraham Lincoln Award Nominations". Lincoln Park High School Library. Retrieved 2018-11-29.
  21. "Virginia Readers' Choice - Wiki". www.jmrl.org. Retrieved 2018-11-29.