Craft Talk: Writing Queer YA with Max Fischer and David Levithan

Join us for a craft talk on writing queer YA with Max Fischer and David Levithan to celebrate the launch of The Unpoetic Life of August Grey
About this Event

Pushpart prize nominee Max Fischer is joined by queer YA giant David Levithan in this conversation about fiction writing, writing for young adults, and writing queer youth to celebrate the release of Max’s debut novel The Unpoetic Life of August Grey. 

Seventeen-year-old August Grey is a closeted trans teen struggling to find his place in a small Nebraska town. When August earns a coveted spot in a prestigious New York City summer writing program, he sees it as a chance to overcome the writer's block that has followed. Leaving behind his strained home life and complicated friendship, August arrives in New York envisioning a summer filled with poetry, friendship, and authenticity. Instead, he finds himself navigating unexpected challenges as he struggles to discover his voice, embrace his identity, and imagine a future for himself.

In the tradition of The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo, I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver, and Me (Moth) by Amber McBride, Fischer’s debut is a debut about loss, queer joy, and the resilience it takes to begin again.

Copies of the book will be available for purchase and there will be a signing after the event. 

Max Fischer is a transgender Pushcart Prize nominated poet and nonfiction writer who holds an MFA in writing for children and young adults. His work focuses on queer joy told through the lens ofunconventional narrative structures and the merging of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. The Unpoetic Life of August Grey is his debut novel.

David Levithan is the author and co-author of over thirty YA novels, many of them bestsellers. His first YA novel was Boy Meets Boy in 2003. He is also the author of the adult books The Lover's Dictionary and Songs for Other People's Weddings (with songs by Jens Lekman) and the YA nonfiction work The Fight of Our Lives: AIDS in America, written with Gabriel Duckels.

Hive Mind Books is a queer and trans bookstore and coffee shop in Bushwick, Brooklyn. We are located off of the Dekalb Ave (L), Myrtle-Wyckoff (L/M), and Knickerbocker (M) subway stations. Our coffee and tea bar will be open for the duration of this event.