Chaim Potok was an American author, novelist, playwright, editor and rabbi. Of the more than a dozen novels he authored, his first book The Chosen (1967) was listed on The New York Times’ bestseller list for 39 weeks and sold more than 3,400,000 copies, and was adapted into a well-received 1981 feature film by the same title.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a 1999 young adult novel by American author Stephen Chbosky. Set in the early 1990s, the novel follows Charlie, an introverted and observant teenager, through his freshman year of high school in a Pittsburgh suburb. The novel details Charlie's unconventional style of thinking as he navigates between the worlds of adolescence and adulthood, and attempts to deal with poignant questions spurred by his interactions with both his friends and family.
William Wallace Johnstone was an American author most known for his western, horror, and survivalist novels.
Julia Scheeres is a journalist and nonfiction author. Born in Lafayette, Indiana, Scheeres received a bachelor's degree in Spanish from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and a master's in journalism from the University of Southern California. Now living and working in San Francisco, California, she has been a contributor to the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Wired News, and LA Weekly. She is a 2006 recipient of the Alex Awards.
A Good House is the first novel by Canadian writer Bonnie Burnard, published by Picador in 1999 and later by Henry Holt and Company in United States of America. It was the winner of that year's Scotiabank Giller Prize. The novel narrates the story of a family in three generations, five houses starting from 1949 until 1997.
Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas is a 2001 novel by American author James Patterson, which argues the importance of balance within one's life. Two interwoven stories are told throughout the novel. The framing story is based on Katie Wilkinson, a New York City book editor, whose relationship with poet Matthew Harrison ends suddenly. During this period, Katie learns about Matt's past through the diary written by Suzanne.
Habibi is a 1997 young adult novel by Naomi Shihab Nye. It tells the story of 14-year-old Liyana Abboud and her family, her Arab father, American mother, and brother Rafik, who move from their home in St. Louis to Mr. Abboud's native home of Palestine in the 1970s. It is semi-autobiographical.
Tricks is a young adult verse novel by Ellen Hopkins, released in August 2009. It tells the converging narratives of five troubled teenage protagonists. It is noted for its gritty realism in addressing issues of sexual activity and drug use for a young adult readership. It has been banned in some places due to its references to drug use, sexual themes and language.
Jesmyn Ward is an American novelist and a professor of English at Tulane University, where she holds the Andrew W. Mellon Professorship in the Humanities. She won the 2011 National Book Award for Fiction for her second novel Salvage the Bones, a story about familial love and community in facing Hurricane Katrina. She won the 2017 National Book Award for Fiction for her novel Sing, Unburied, Sing.
Boyfriends with Girlfriends is a 2011 young adult novel by Alex Sánchez. The book was published by Simon & Schuster and deals with the pressures of teens coming to terms with their sexuality and of coming of age. Sanchez began working on the novel after receiving e-mails from teens who were being criticized by both their straight and homosexual peers for being bisexual. Boyfriends with Girlfriends has been nominated for a Lambda Literary Award and was a 2012 ALA Rainbow Bridge List novel.
Bill Konigsberg is an American author, best known for his LGBT novels. He wrote Out of the Pocket, Openly Straight, The Porcupine of Truth, Honestly Ben, The Music of What Happens, and The Bridge. He lives with his husband outside of Phoenix, Arizona.
David Rytman Slavitt is an American writer, poet, and translator, the author of more than 100 books.
Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass is a 2013 young adult novel by Cuban-American author Meg Medina. The book was first published in the United States on 26 March 2013 through Candlewick Press and is the winner of the 2013 Cybils Award and the 2014 Pura Belpré Award. The book has been challenged in some schools due to its title and language, and deals with the theme of teen bullying and its effects on the individual and their lives.
Julie Murphy is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the books Side Effects May Vary (2014), Dumplin' (2015), Ramona Blue (2017), and Puddin' (2018). Murphy wrote her first novel, Side Effects May Vary, during National Novel Writing Month.
Atia Abawi is an American author, DEI speaker and television journalist. While working as a foreign correspondent, she was based in Kabul, Afghanistan, for almost five years. Her first book, the critically acclaimed The Secret Sky: A Novel of Forbidden Love in Afghanistan was published by Penguin Random House in September 2014. Abawi is known for her strong support for female empowerment in both her writing and reporting. She is fluent in Dari and is a graduate of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
Alex Gino is a genderqueer American children's book writer. Gino's debut book, Melissa, was the winner of the 2016 Stonewall Book Award and the 2016 Lambda Literary Award in the category of LGBT Children's/Young Adult.
The Hate U Give is a 2017 young adult novel by Angie Thomas. It is Thomas's debut novel, expanded from a short story she wrote in college in reaction to the police shooting of Oscar Grant. The book is narrated by Starr Carter, a 16-year-old African-American girl from a poor neighborhood who attends an elite private school in a predominantly white, affluent part of the city. Starr becomes entangled in a national news story after she witnesses a white police officer shoot and kill her childhood friend, Khalil. She speaks up about the shooting in increasingly public ways, and social tensions culminate in a riot after a grand jury decides not to indict the police officer for the shooting.
Silver Wedding is a 1988 novel by the Irish author Maeve Binchy. Set in London, Dublin, and the west of Ireland in the year 1985, the novel explores the lives and inner feelings of a couple and their family and friends who are about to celebrate the couple's 25th wedding anniversary.
See You in the Cosmos is a 2017 epistolary Bildungsroman novel by Chinese-American author Jack Cheng. It is his second book, and his first for children. Written as transcription, the story follows astronomy-loving pre-teen Alex Petroski as he embarks on a journey to understand the life of his late father and records the journey in notes on his iPod to launch into space.
Travis John Klune is an American author of fantasy and romantic fiction featuring gay and LGBTQ+ characters. His fantasy novel The House in the Cerulean Sea is a New York Times best seller and winner of the 2021 Alex and Mythopoeic Awards. Klune has spoken about how his asexuality influences his writing. His novel Into This River I Drown won the Lambda Literary Award for Best Gay Romance in 2014.
