Amren Ortega
Girls Break Things by Amren Ortega
High school senior Joyce Liu-Stone is the odd one out in her family. While her moms are both talented artists, Joyce is only interested in one thing: robotics. Well, robotics and dating her teammate, Nyx, but Joyce isn’t ready to admit to herself that she actually has something in common with her moms. When Nyx breaks her ankle in a freak accident, the school board bans their combat robotics team from competing in a prestigious tournament. But the team isn’t that easily defeated. They decide to compete in secret, no matter the cost – even if that cost is expulsion.
As the competition advances, Joyce blurts out her feelings for Nyx and discovers that Nyx has been crushing on her, too. They promise the team not to let their relationship affect the competition, but high school love isn’t that easy to control. Joyce and Nyx forget to bring an important part to their competition, seriously jeopardizing their chances of winning the state championship and the college scholarship Joyce needs to attend her dream school. It’s up to Joyce to stitch the team back together and win the competition – and get the girl.
GIRLS BREAK THINGS combines the female/female romance of HOW TO MAKE A WISH with the Discovery Channel show BattleBots. GIRLS BREAK THINGS is a 70,000 word, #OwnVoices LGBT YA contemporary work based on my partner’s experience as a half-Taiwanese high school student and my own coming-out.
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Bob Luckett
Solving for X
An inside look at the investigation that captured America’s most prolific serial arsonist Thomas Anthony Sweatt Federal Case # 76010-030065 by Bob Luckett
Solving for X is an inside look at the twenty two month investigation that tracked, hunted, arrested and successfully prosecuted the most prolific serial arsonist in the history of the United States. The work takes each reader on the roller coaster ride, which is being a part of the task force that did outstanding work. The Washington DC region was under siege in 2003 when a group of residential fires with an eerily similar ignition source was discovered. They become part of the sleepless nights, they feel the anger investigators dealt with while dealing with information leaks and the politics of being part of a group that had to please, local state and federal administrators. They feel the exhilaration of the arrest and confession. The reader then gets an inside look at the emotions and actions of the sociopathic murder, Thomas Sweatt, as he sits and talks with investigators about why he did things, what he was thinking and how he lived. The readers are with investigators in the federal prison in Indiana when Sweatt tells them just how difficult it was for him to be in a simple conversation with other men. He just could never be himself. When guys would be talking about cars or sports he wanted to be talking about gardening or cooking. Finally the readers also learn about the things that went well and the things that failed in this 73,000 word book that is solidly grounded in factual information and intrigue.
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Veronica Monet
Love, Lust and Romance in the Age of #MeToo: Consent Made Sexy for All Genders by Veronica Monet
Whether you are dating or in a long-term relationship, it’s crucial that you know how to say no to things you don’t want to do. But that can be difficult when you are afraid of damaging the connections you care about.
We need a way to set boundaries while creating intimacy. We need to know how to say no with joy and enthusiasm. And we need to be able to do that even when we are naked and in the throes of passion.
Relationship coach Veronica Monet revolutionizes the way we express our preferences in an intimate context while keeping the connection we want.
Instead of “giving in” or “compromising” because you don’t want to “hurt his/her feelings,” or “make him/her mad,” or “lose” the relationship, you CAN make your preferences and boundaries clear and firm while drawing your person CLOSER to you and creating MORE connection.
Too many of us have learned to feel ashamed about our no. So we may mumble or yell a defiant no. Not surprisingly, our no’s are often met with hurt feelings. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Saying no can bring us closer to each other and spark sexual interest – if you know how to do it.
Veronica’s simple and sexy five-step formula creates love, lust and romance – especially in the age of #MeToo!
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S. A. Sinclair
Amelia Raglan and the Haunted Barn by S. A. Sinclair
Before she moved to Lexington, Kentucky with her parents and cat-on-a-leash Sulu, ten-year-old Amelia Raglan didn’t think she would get to spend the summer horseback riding. She didn’t think she would explore a creepy, potentially haunted old barn in her own backyard. And she definitely didn’t think she would hunt down a thief responsible for stealing horse country’s most valuable racehorses.
Amelia’s dream of taking riding lessons comes true when she moves next door to Jemma Sage. Jemma’s dad runs a racing Thoroughbred farm, and her mom is a riding instructor. Amelia learns all about riding and horses – including how to stop Loki the pony from eating her hair.
But Amelia’s new life isn’t peaceful. Jemma’s claim that the Raglan’s crumbling barn is haunted by Mr. Emerson, the former occupant of Amelia’s house, leads to a terrifying ghost-hunting mission. Then the plague of horse thefts sweeping Lexington strikes the Sage’s farm, and Amelia’s new friend Santi is blamed for the disappearance of their most promising racehorse. If Amelia and Jemma cannot discover the identity of the real thief and their connection to Mr. Emerson, Santi will stay in jail, the stolen horses will be lost forever, and Jemma’s brother could get hurt – or worse.
Amelia Raglan and the Haunted Barn is Stacy Gregg’s Pony Club Secrets meets Linda Fairstein’s Devlin Quick Mysteries with a little Small Spaces by Katherine Arden thrown in. This middle-grade mystery novel is full of ghost-hunting, friendship, and facing fears – but mostly it’s full of horses.
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Michele LeNoir
Hear Our Voices! by Michele LeNoir
Hear Our Voices! shout fascinating, young adult refugee immigrants who struggle, albeit with humor and gratitude, to acclimate to the USA.
You could read Homeland Security’s annual yearbook–pages of statistics–stats per foreign country, for each state’s intakes, for human trafficking victims, and more! But no human faces, no stories. No worries; I gotcha with A-Z chapter “Voices.” Like Voice O: Oo Meh, who wandered her family’s small, dank apartment, confused by no elevator. Don’t all Americans have elevators? And Voice F: Frederic Ndayirukiye, now mentored by a well-known artist, whose father allows him to go to college, as long as he works thirty-six hours in the factory to help pay bills. And Voice Y: EstefannY Hernandez, who tells how she was rescued from human trafficking in Mexico and became a proud legal citizen.
But this born-in-the-USA woman to tell their stories? Well, yes. They first shouted them out to me as their teacher and to one another in a dual-credit speech course in an international high school. Now graduated, they still share their stories, their goals, their needs. And I still teach them–some how to drive, some how to survive college on ZERO family savings. Think of this nonfiction book of 91,500 words as a condensed telling of the many immigrant stories available, like Lauren Markham’s The Brothers Far Away and Abdi Nor Iftin’s Call Me American.
Hear Our Voices! They shout; I shout; you will shout once you know more.
Oh, and yes, there are some pictures.
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Brianna Bolduc
Untitled by Brianna Bolduc
Rowan Lucas is pretty much like any other sixteen-year-old girl. She lives with her aunt Hannah and cousin April in futuristic New Earth, where space shuttles replace cars, and everyone rushes to buy the newest version of the Holopad. She’s Japanese American and can always be spotted wearing her beloved red Converse high tops with the rubber peeling off the toe and the red color slowly retreating. Rowan has her own teenage problems, trying to live up to her cousin’s expectations, dealing with the aftereffects of a war that happened fifteen years ago, and of course being a teenager, but when her cousin accepts a job from the president himself, Rowan knows something is wrong. With the help of a police-officer-in-training that has his own mysteries and his younger brother that is pretty much a mastermind, Rowan decides to figure out the truth about her cousin’s acceptance of the mysterious job offering while also trying to figure out more about the police guy that she doesn’t really know without being weird about it.
My work does not currently have a title, sorry about that. My name is Brianna and I am fourteen years old. My work was written as part of my first NaNoWriMo, which I took part in this year. It is just under 36,600 words and is a YA sci-fi mystery about sticking up for what you believe in and the true meaning of family, even if that means traveling to a different planet to figure out why exactly your cousin left you for some presidential job. I was inspired by Hank Green’s “An Absolutely Remarkable Thing”, which is also a sci-fi and the characters in Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles series.
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Beth Burnett
Revenge Prose by Beth Burnett
Revenge is a dish best served published, or so Crystal and Susan find out. Dumped by their significant others, Crystal, a stripper with a heart of, well, not exactly gold but certainly good intentions, and Susan, a happy homemaker and full-time supporter of her perpetual student husband, find themselves newly single and in a bit of a financial pickle. It’s Susan who bubbly suggests to practical Crystal that they start writing revenge prose – stories in which ugly, hairy men are killed in interesting and hilarious ways. Their stories go viral, thanks to the unsolicited help of Crystal’s new acquaintance and potential love interest, and the women find themselves reliving the past as exes try to sabotage their success. If Crystal can learn to trust and Susan can learn the power of saying no and together, they might build the foundation of a promising publishing future.
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Kristina Cooper
Library Hell by Kristina Cooper
“Monica and Becky are gluing sparkles onto paper ducks,” writes Anne Hayes in an email to a coworker. “Just another day in the lunatic asylum.” Anne wants to catalog her journals in peace, but the university library where she works attracts crazy employees the way a black hole sucks in light. The serials librarian squeaks and sighs and hoards campus mail in numbered boxes. Her husband, the cataloging librarian, wears his jeans pulled up to his neck and knocks over library carts when enraged. Monica Sharpe, a recent hire, is obsessed with organizing “Fantastic Flock Fridays” and winning the Dynamic Duck contest. This contest, named after the university’s mascot, was created by the PR department in an effort to rally employee morale at the financially struggling Lakeville University.
As the academic year trudges on, unhappy library staff vent their hostilities at meetings while the director hides in his office and composes desperate emails calling for staff harmony. When Anne mocks a Fantastic Flock Friday event, she becomes the target of Monica’s increasingly unhinged attempts to win the Dynamic Duck contest and gain campus-wide fame as a Team Leader Who Solves Problems—Anne being the Problem. To keep her job (and her sanity), Anne will have to get a little crazy to fight crazy.
A series of emails exchanged between coworkers reveals the story of a library staff striving to stay relevant in a paperless world that is redefining what “higher education” means—and to do so without killing each other.
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Tonya Preece
More Than Meets the Eye by Tonya Preece
Seventeen-year-old Cordelia never lets anything get her down, but when the anniversary of the explosion that killed her dad triggers nightmares and panic attacks, her mom insists on counseling. The diagnosis: PTSD. Treatment: eye movement therapy. Cordelia’s opinion: absurd. Therapy does have a bright side, though—a hot guy named Gino she meets in the waiting room. Gino’s pop-punk style and sense of humor grab her attention.
As they bond over music, the discovery of why he’s in therapy softens her tough exterior but sharing her own tragedy with him raises questions surrounding her dad’s death. While she isn’t entirely sure she wants to find answers, eye movement therapy begins to defy her expectations. Repressed memories surface that could hold the key to what’s causing her pyrophobia and nightmares.
Cordelia’s recovery hinges on allowing certain walls and pedestals to crumble. First, she must face painful truths, not only about herself, but also the father she idolized. If she isn’t careful, her avoidance habits may push everyone away, including Gino, the musical soulmate she’s always hoped for.
MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE is contemporary YA fiction and was selected as a finalist for the Joan Lowery Nixon Memorial Award at the 2018 Houston SCBWI conference. It will appeal to fans of Carolyn Mackler and Emery Lord and delivers a surprising twist like Tamara Ireland Stone’s Every Last Word. I consulted a therapist trained in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and drew on my own experience with the treatment as well.
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Malavika Kannan
All The Yellow Suns by Malavika Kannan
Vincent Van Gogh was an incurable artist. He couldn’t help eating yellow paint. Fifteen-year-old Maya Kaimal is an incurable idealist. She couldn’t help falling for Juneau Zale the day she immigrated to the United States.
A human tidal wave and Renaissance masterpiece combined, Juneau is the de facto leader of the Pugilists: a merry band of highschool mischief-makers who right the wrongs of the world each Friday. Immediately, Maya finds herself drawn to Juneau and her boundless way of living. They forge a friendship over trips to the Metropolitan Museum, crusades for social justice, and life-or-death escapades in the colorful inner-city neighborhood of Columbia Heights.
But as their bond grows stronger, Maya begins to suspect that there’s a whole different person beneath Juneau’s painted-on facade. The harder she looks, the farther she finds herself from the girl she once idealized. Because without meaning to, she’s allowed Juneau Zale to steal a piece of her heart. Now, she will never be the same.
All The Yellow Suns is written by an Indian-American teenage activist, exploring Gen-Z themes of race, womanhood, and justice with refreshing candor and depth. Told through poignant and philosophical vignettes, it follows Maya’s journey to Find The Truth in Juneau’s mysterious, mixed-up world. The girl she loves is counting on her.
About the author
Malavika Kannan is an 18-year-old Indian-American student activist, writer, and speaker. She’s written about topics like race and feminism for the Washington Post, Huffington Post, Teen Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Broadly, and VICE, among other places. Her writing has also been recognized by organizations including the National YoungArts Foundation, Scholastic Art & Writing, Library of Congress, and the J.F.K. Library. Malavika is passionate about progressive politics, serving on the national Women’s March Youth Cohort and March For Our Lives to amplify youth power in politics. She is also founder and executive director of the Homegirl Project.
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