Contributors
Talya Sokoll
@talyasokoll is a school librarian in Dedham, MA. Talya is passionate about lots of things including but not limited to: Queer YA lit, pickles, musical theater, comprehensive sex ed, Judaism/Yiddishkeit, radical librarianship, The Rock, curriculum development and inclusivity, sparkly things and a growing collection of Pop Funko.
Ari Gofman
Ari Gofman is an academic librarian in Somerville, MA with interests in data, social sciences, social justice, and representation in literature, especially queer YA.
Kelly Webster
Kelly Webster is a Native librarian (Oneida), metadata enthusiast, and a former executive director of the American Indian Library Association.
Jess Yurko
Vee Signorelli
Vee is the admin and co-founder of YA Pride (previously known as GayYA.org) a website dedicated to promoting and discussing LGBTQIA+ Young Adult literature. Vee lives in St Paul, Minnesota and works as a bookseller and library aide. Vee is a first-year college student and hopes to someday become a Teen Services librarian and published author.
Tasha Chemel
Tasha Chemel is a queer and disabled writer and potter living in Cambridge. She is a writing tutor at Newbury College and Suffolk University. She loves young adult novels that center marginalized voices.
Amy Loustau
Amy Loustau is an avid YA book reader and children’s librarian at a public library near Boston. In her spare time, she likes to cook, fight injustice, and count down the days until summer. She blogs YA and children’s book reviews over at checkoutmybookrack.wordpress.com.
Kyle Lukoff
Kyle Lukoff is an elementary school librarian and picture book author. His debut, A STORYTELLING OF RAVENS, will be released by Groundwood Press on May 1st 2018. AIDAN AND THE BABY, his picture book about a transgender boy, will be released by Lee & Low a year later. He served on the Stonewall Book Awards youth subcommittee from 2015-2017, and has presented about trans representation in books for youth on multiple platforms.
Dr. Sonia Alejandra Rodriguez
Dr. Sonia Alejandra Rodriguez teaches composition, literature, and creative writing at LaGuardia Community College, CUNY. Her academic research focuses on Latinx children’s literature and decolonial healing practices. She is a contributing writer for Latinx in Kid Lit, We’re the People Summer List, and See What We See Coalition. Follow her on twitter @mariposachula8.
Angie Manfredi
Angie Manfredi is the Head of Youth Services for the Los Alamos County Library System (NM). She is a passionate advocate for diversity, literacy and children’s right to read whatever they wish. She served on the 2016-2017 Stonewall Mike Morgan & Larry Romans Children’s & Young Adult Literature Award committee. You can follow her on Twitter @misskubelik or her blog.
Ellen Kaluza
Ellen Kaluza is a young adult librarian in Texas who keeps her shelves stocked with the likes of Libba Bray and David Levithan. She’s also the co-founder of Renegade Libraries, a free LGBT library in Houston.
Sierra Elmore
Sierra Elmore is a young adult contemporary writer who studies sociology at Arcadia University. She created the Diverse Book Bridge project for underrepresented teens and edits YA Pride’s Teen Voices column. Her novels focus on teenage girls fighting trauma while wreaking havoc. When not writing, she enjoys Pilates, chasing after her cat, and working at her school’s career center.
Natasha Razi
Natasha Razi is an Editor at Disability in Kidlit, moderator at YA Pride, environmental policy analyst, and writer of queer fantasy. She has lived in four continents and worked in enough countries that she stopped keeping track a while ago. She currently lives in Brooklyn with great roommates and an extremely cute, only moderately evil cat.
Rachel Moir
Rachel Moir is the young adult librarian at Belmont Public Library in Massachusetts. Rachel is a staunch advocate for diversity and accessibility, and as she is queer and has fibromyalgia, she has a special interest in making sure LGBTQ+ kids and those with chronic illnesses can find stories featuring people like them. A nerd and artist in her free time, she is currently in the preproduction stage of a webcomic she hopes to debut in 2018, OF THE WOOD, about a lesbian Robin Hood. You can follow her on twitter @wampishing.
Claudie Arseneault
Lynn O’Connacht
Lynn O’Connacht has an MA in English literature and creative writing, but wouldn’t call herself an authority on either. She’s been an English tutor, writer and editor for over a decade. She currently resides on the European continent and her idiom and spelling are, despite her best efforts, geographically confused, poor things. Her tastes are equally eclectic, though fantasy will always be her first love and most of her work contains at least one ace or arospec character. She has been chasing stories one way or another since she was old enough to follow a narrative.
A.M. Leibowitz
A.M. Leibowitz is an author, editor, and book blogger. They are a former school nurse with a master’s degree in community health education and promotion. In addition to advocacy, they are a co-host of The Bi-Cast, a podcast for the bisexual community. They live in upstate NY with their spouse, their two amazing teens, and their pets.
Sarah Olson
Sarah Olson is a medical library tech and aspiring writer from Minneapolis, MN. She is an advocate for better medical care for LGBTQIA people in her community and the broader medical community. She is a self-identified queer comic book geek, particularly those that feature marginalized voices. She is also passionate about embroidery, quirky dresses, experimental cooking, turtles, adventurous travel, hiking and literally anything that involves being in water.