In 2021, "the call" was a Zoom call. Photo: Tae Keller. As soon as the 2021 Youth Media Awards were announced, I started hearing from other writers, from friends, from family: The Newbery will change your life. This felt fairly accurate, considering I hadn’t slept for thirty-six hours, I had...
Oh my goodness. The Newbery speech. This is a little intimidating. I’ve spent the past months wondering what, exactly, a Newbery speech should contain. I wondered if I should mention that this all feels a little impossible. I wondered if I should talk about how I called my family as...
Thank you so much for this award. I am so honored and grateful. Receiving it is surreal, because the fact that this book even exists is still surreal. To be honest, I was afraid to write it. I almost didn’t write it. Many times, I nearly quit. It felt too...