Teen Pride Lounge: Leah Johnson and Tom Ryan

Celebrate Pride Month and chill with us on YouTube and Discord and chat with LGBTQ+ authors, Leah Johnson and Tom Ryan. All are welcome!

Leah Johnson is a writer, editor and eternal Midwesterner, currently moonlighting as a New Yorker. She is a graduate of the fiction writing MFA program at Sarah Lawrence College, and currently teaches in their undergraduate writing program. Leah is a 2021 Lambda Literary Emerging Writers Fellow whose work has been published or is forthcoming in BuzzFeed, Autostraddle, Catapult, and Electric Literature among others. When she’s not writing, you can usually find her on Twitter, ranting about pop culture and politics. You Should See Me in a Crown is her first novel.

Tom Ryan is an award-winning author of books for young readers. His books have been Junior Library Guild and ALA Rainbow List selections, and have been included on several best-of-year lists. He was a 2017 Lambda Literary Fellow in Young Adult Fiction. His 2019 release Keep This to Yourself was the recipient of the 2020 Arthur Ellis Award, the 2020 ITW Thriller Award, and the 2021 Ann Connor Brimer Award, and was nominated for the Amy Mathers Teen Book Award and the John Spray Mystery Award. It was also chosen by the Globe & Mail as one of the ‘Globe 100: Books that shaped 2019’. His young adult mystery I Hope You’re Listening is a finalist for the 2021 Lambda Award for Best LGBTQ Mystery. Tom, his husband, and their dog live in Nova Scotia.