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Debuting with Queer Joy

Writing in Tumultuous Times

A conversation with debut authors Jess Callans, Sawyer Lovett, and Miriam Zoila Pérez

Join us for a discussion between queer authors with 2025 debut novels, as they celebrate their work while navigating a rapidly changing and challenging landscape as writers of Children's and Young Adult literature.

*To request a reasonable accommodation for this program, please contact DCPLaccess@dc.gov or call 202-727-2142.

About the authors:

Jess Callans is a queer children’s author and wanna-be-illustrator with an MFA from Rosemont College. He lives outside of Philly with his partner and four amazing kids, where they collectively bake, garden, and tirelessly pursue the human experience. His debut middle-grade novel Ollie in Between was published by Fiewel and Friends in April 2025.

Sawyer Lovett is a writer who lives in Tazewell County, VA by way of Philadelphia. He is a writer and professor, a dog dad, an occasional bookseller, barista, and balloon artist who makes zines, mistakes, and messes frequently and enthusiastically. His debut young adult novel Shampoo Unicorn was published by Hyperion in May 2025.

Miriam Zoila Pérez is an award-winning queer Cuban writer and activist. Their work, which mostly looks at the intersections of race, health and gender, is motivated by a desire to understand how the world shapes our bodies, and to explore all the many solutions that already exist for some of our biggest problems, but simply don’t get the attention they deserve. Their debut young adult fiction novel, Camila Núñez’s Year of Disasters, was published by Page Street YA in 2025. 

Books will be on sale by Little District Books.

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