Maine Lit Fest - Day 9
According to the most recent U.S. Census Poverty Data, more than 10 million children—nearly 1 in 7—live in poverty. An even larger share of children—1 in 6—worry about where and if they’ll get their next meal. For many children whose families are experiencing financial hardships, hunger, housing insecurity, and limited access to health care and childcare provide an uncertain backdrop against which all other interactions and relationships play out.
This panel will feature YA and Middle Grade authors whose work explores economic challenges from the perspectives of adolescents and youth. What can be gleaned about our society, institutions, and families from a young person’s eye? How can stories and novels for young people featuring characters with diverse economic circumstances expand empathy as well as provide, as Rudine Sims Bishop describes, “windows and mirrors and sliding glass doors” for many young readers?
Featured authors include Rob Costello (anthologized in Rural Voices: 15 Authors Challenge Assumptions About Small Town America), Gillian French (Sugaring Off and Grit), George Jreije (Shad Hadid and The Alchemists of Alexandria), Jo Knowles (Ear Worm and Where the Heart Is), and Maria Padian (How to Break a Heart and Wrecked). Jennifer Richards Jacobson (Paper Things and The Dollar Kids) will facilitate.
This event is free.
Books will be sold by Print: A Bookstore.
Rob Costello (he/him) is a queer man who writes contemporary and dark speculative fiction with a queer bent for and about young people. His work has appeared in The Dark, The No Sleep Podcast, Hunger Mountain, Stone Canoe, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Narrative, and Rural Voices:15 Authors Challenge Assumptions About Small-Town America.
He holds an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and is an alumnus of Millay Arts. He is an active member of the Horror Writers Association and has served on the faculty of the Whole Novel Workshop at the Highlights Foundation since 2014. He lives and works in Ithaca, NY with his husband and their dogs. Find out more at www.cloudbusterpress.com or on Twitter @CloudbusterRob.
Gillian French‘s debut novel, Grit (HarperTeen), was an Indie Next List pick, a Junior Library Guild Selection, received starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews and ALA Booklist, was an Edgar Award Finalist, a South Carolina Young Adult Book Award Finalist, and received both a 2018 Lupine Award from the Maine Library Association and a 2018 Maine Literary Award.
Her other novels include The Door to January (Islandport Press; Bram Stoker Award Finalist), The Lies They Tell (HarperTeen; 2018 Junior Library Guild Selection2019 International Thriller Award Finalist, an Amazon Bestselling New Release in both print and audio editions, 2019 Maine Literary Award Winner), The Missing Season (HarperTeen; 2019 Junior Library Guild Selection, starred review from Booklist), and her upcoming novel for teens, Sugaring Off (Algonquin Young Readers, 11/1/22). Her short fiction has placed in Writer’s Digest and Zoetrope: All Story contests, as well as appearing in such publications as Weirdbook.
George Jreije is the Lebanese-American author of Shad Hadid and the Alchemists of Alexandria, a forthcoming children's fantasy novel with HarperCollins. He has also written short stories published in collaboration with UNICEF. When not writing, George enjoys trying tasty Arabic pastries, messing with new yoga poses, and mentoring other writers.
Jo Knowles is the author of six novels, including Living With Jackie Chan, See You At Harry’s, Pearl, Jumping Off Swings, and Lessons from a Dead Girl. Her newest book, Read Between The Lines, was called “masterfully woven” in a starred review by Kirkus. Some of her awards include two SCBWI Crystal Kite Awards, a New York Times Editor’s Choice and Notable Book, the PEN New England Children’s Book Discovery Award, an American Library Association Notable, Bank Street College’s Best Books for Children (Outstanding Merit), and YALSA’s Best Fiction for Young Adults. Jo has a master’s degree in children’s literature and teaches writing for young adults in the MFA program at Southern New Hampshire University. She lives in Vermont with her husband and son.
Young adult novelist Maria Padian lives and writes from her home in midcoast Maine. Before devoting herself full-time to fiction she worked as a news reporter, congressional aide, radio essayist and freelance writer. These days, she takes breaks from the computer to text her grown children, take long walks along the beach, feed logs into the wood stove or work on her (tennis) backhand.
Jennifer Richard Jacobson, a graduate of Harvard Graduate School of Education, is the author of over a dozen award-winning children’s books including Small as an Elephant (IRA Young Adult’s Choice, Parents’ Choice Gold Award), Paper Things (ILA Social Justice Award, NTCE Charlotte Huck Honorable Mention) and The Dollar Kids illustrated by Ryan Andrews (ABA IndieNext List and Bank Street Best Book of the Year). Her newest launches are a chapter book series (Twig and Turtle: Big Move to a Tiny House) and a middle grade romance: Crashing in Love released in October 2021. She lives in Maine and when not writing, offers coaching and critiques.