Youth Out Loud: YA Novels

This event is part of the PEN America “Borders and Belonging” Sessions at the 2019 Southern Festival of Books. Free and open to the public, the annual Southern Festival of Books offers readers and writers an opportunity to celebrate the joy of reading and lifelong learning. To learn more, click here.

Helene Dunbar is the author of several novels for young adults including These Gentle Wounds, What Remains, and Boomerang. Over the years, she’s worked as a drama critic, journalist, and marketing manager, and has written on topics as diverse as Irish music, court cases, and theater. She lives in Nashville with her husband and daughter. 

Julia Watts has written thirteen novels for adults and young adults, most of which explore the lives of LGBT people in rural and small town Appalachia. Her novel Finding H.F. won the 2002 Lambda Literary Award in the Children’s/Young Adult category. A novel for adults, The Kind of Girl I Am, was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award in the Women’s Fiction category, and her 2013 young adult novel Secret City was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and a winner of a Golden Crown Literary Award.