The Right to Read vs. Book Bans: Stories & Advice from the Front Lines, Sponsored by Blue Flower Arts

 

Thursday, March 5, 1:45 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. ET

Ballroom I, Baltimore Convention Center, Level 400

Book bans designed to keep diverse stories—particularly BIPOC and LGBTQ+ voices—out of classrooms and libraries are growing at an alarming rate. We believe in the freedom to read. We believe in the power of literature to foster empathy and help isolated young people know they are not alone. We invite you to join our fight! Come hear from our panel of celebrated YA authors as they share lessons they’ve learned taking a stand against censorship—and how to empower us all to do the same.

Panelist Bios:

Malinda Lo is the New York Times bestselling author of seven novels, including A Scatter of Light. Her novel Last Night at the Telegraph Club won the National Book Award, the Stonewall Book Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, and a Printz Honor, and was an LA Times Book Prize finalist. Her books have received fifteen starred reviews and been finalists for multiple awards, including the Andre Norton Award and the Lambda Literary Award. She has been honored by the Carnegie Corporation as a Great Immigrant. Lo’s short fiction and nonfiction has been published by The New York Times, NPR, Autostraddle, The Horn Book, and multiple anthologies. She lives in Massachusetts with her wife and their dog.

Photo credit: Sharon Jacobs

Ibi Zoboi is the New York Times bestselling author of American Street, a National Book Award finalist; (S)Kin; Nigeria Jones, a Coretta Scott King Book Award winner; Pride; My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich; Star Child; Okoye to the People; the Walter Award–winning Punching the Air, cowritten with Exonerated Five member Yusef Salaam; and the Coretta Scott King Honor–winning picture book The People Remember. She is also the editor of the anthology Black Enough. Born in Haiti and raised in New York City, she now lives in New Jersey with her family.

Photo credit: Nicole Mondestin Photography





Mahogany L. Browne, a Kennedy Center’s Next 50 fellow, is a writer, playwright, organizer, and educator. She received fellowships from All Arts, Arts for Justice, AIR Serenbe, Baldwin for the Arts, Cave Canem, Hawthornden, Poets House, Mellon Research, Rauschenberg, Wesleyan University, and Ucross. Her books include Chrome Valley, A Bird in the Air Means We Can Still Breathe, Vinyl Moon, Chlorine Sky, Black Girl Magic, and banned books Woke: A Young Poet’s Call to Justice and Woke Baby. Founder of the Woke Baby Book Fair, Browne won the 2024 Paterson Poetry Prize. She holds an honorary PhD from Marymount Manhattan College, is the inaugural poet in residence at Lincoln Center, and writes across the genre as a resident of Brooklyn, New York.





Andrew Karre is senior executive editor at Dutton Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, a division of Penguin Random House. In his over two decades editing young adult fiction, he’s had the pleasure of working with many award-winning and bestselling authors, including A. S. King, Malinda Lo, Ibi Zoboi, Candice Iloh, Joy McCullough, and Ashley Hope Pérez. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.