NYCTAF: What Is A Love Story?

McNally Jackson is thrilled to serve as an event host for this, the 10th annual NYC Teen Author Festival, with a panel of writers brave enough to ask the tough questions, including:  

What IS love? 

For the complete NYCTAF events lineup, please visit the festival's website

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Kayla Cagan is a writer and playwright. She received her BFA in Theater from Stephen F. Austin University. She lives in Los Angeles. Piper Perish is her first book.

Susane Colasanti is the bestselling author of When It Happens, Take Me There, Waiting For You, Something Like Fate, So Much Closer, Keeping Holding On, All I Need and the City Love trilogy. She lives in New York, New York. 

Peter Brown Hoffmeister is the author of This Is The Part Where You Laugh. A former troubled teen, Hoffmeister now runs the Integrated Outdoor Program, serving teens of all backgrounds, taking them into wilderness areas to backpack, climb, spelunk, orienteer, and whitewater raft. He lives with his wife and daughters in Eugene, Oregon. 

Adam Silvera was born and raised in the Bronx. He has worked in the publishing industry as a children’s bookseller, at a literary development company, and as a book reviewer of children’s and young adult novels. His debut novel, More Happy Than Not, received multiple starred reviews and is a New York Times bestseller, and Adam was selected as a Publishers Weekly Flying Start. He lives in New York City and is tall for no reason.

Sarvenaz Tash was born in Tehran, Iran, and grew up on Long Island, New York. She received her BFA in Film and Television from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. This means she got to spend most of college running around and making movies. (It was a lot of fun.) She has dabbled in all sorts of writing, including screenwriting, copywriting, and professional tweeting. Sarvenaz currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Maggie Thrash grew up in the South. She is the author of the graphic memoir Honor Girl, and a contributor to the online teen magazine Rookie. She attended Hampshire College and the Sewanee School of Letters. She now lives in Delaware.

Nicola Yoon is the author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers The Sun Is Also a Star and Everything, Everything, her debut novel, which is soon to be a major motion picture. She grew up in Jamaica and Brooklyn and lives in Los Angeles with her family. She’s also a hopeless romantic who firmly believes that you can fall in love in an instant and that it can last forever.

David Levithan (Moderator) is a children’s book editor in New York City and the author of several books for young adults, including Two Boys Kissing, Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List, and Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares (co-authored with Rachel Cohn); Will Grayson, Will Grayson (co-authored with John Green); and You Know Me Well (co-authored with Nina LaCour).  In 2016 he was awarded the Margart A. Edwards award, which honors those who have made significant and lasting contributions to young adult literature. He lives in Hoboken, New Jersey.