September 17, 2011, Saturday - Second Story Reading: LGBT Panel & Reading (Featuring David Levithan) at the Loft

Time: 7:00pm

Location: The Loft, 1011 Washington Avenue South
 
Second Story Reading Series in collaboration with Normandale Community College and Minnesotans United for All Families present a panel discussion about young adult LGBT publishing and literature with Kirstin Cronn-Mills, Pat Schmatz, and David Levithan followed by a reading with authors David Levithan and Brian Farrey.

David Levithan is the author of many acclaimed novels, including The Lover's Dictionary, Boy Meets Boy, The Realm of Possibility, Love is the Higher Law (an IndieBound Top Ten pick), Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist with Rachel Cohn, which was turned into a popular movie, and with John Green Will Grayson, Will Grayson. His latest work is a photographic novel entitled Every You, Every Me, with photographs by Jonathan Farmer. He is also the editor of the Lambda-award-winning anthology The Full Spectrum (edited with Billy Merrell). He is an editorial director and publisher at Scholastic, overseeing the Scholastic Press fiction list, the Crossmedia publishing program, and the PUSH teen imprint.

Brian Farrey is the acquiring editor for Flux, the young adult imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide. Brian studied in Hamline University’s MFA program, where his final project was named Outstanding Fiction Thesis in 2008. His debut novel, With or Without You, was recently published by Simon Pulse. His forthcoming middle-grade novel, The Vengekeep Prophecies, will be published by HarperCollins Children’s in 2012.You can read his painfully boring blog at http://www.brianfarreybooks.com/ or follow his slightly more interesting tweets @BrianFarrey.

Kirstin Cronn-Mills is a novelist and poet. Her first novel, The Sky Always Hears Me and the Hills Don't Mind, was a finalist for the 2010 Minnesota Book Award for Young People's Literature. Her second novel, Beautiful Music for Ugly Children, will be published in 2012. She teaches at South Central College in North Mankato, Minnesota, where she also serves as the faculty advisor for SCC P.R.I.D.E. (People Really Interested in Diversity Education).

Pat Schmatz grew up in rural Wisconsin and received a BS in psychology at Michigan State University and an MA in physical education at the University of California at Berkeley. She published her first novel, Mrs. Estronsky and the UFO (Windstorm Creative) in 2001. Circle the Truth (Carolrhoda Books, 2007) was chosen by Wisconsin Library Association as one of the outstanding books for children by a Wisconsin author, and Mousetraps (Carolrhoda Books, 2008) was awarded the Council for Wisconsin Writers Award for children’s fiction and was a 2009 Lambda Literary Award nominee for best children’s/young adult fiction. Bluefish (Candlewick Press, 2011), Pat’s fourth novel for teens, is a recipient of the 2010 PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working writer Fellowship.