Brendan Kiely
“As a teacher and a writer, I think stories should be entertaining; characters, their desires and conflicts, should always come first--as John Gardner suggested, a writer's job is to construct an uninterrupted dream the reader experiences from the first to the final page. I strive to write those vivid, memorable dreams, and for me, the dreams I appreciate most are the ones that help me reflect on what it means to be a human being in my society today...”
“This approachable memoir and guide, comprising Kiely’s own experiences relating to race and allyship, is a welcome tool to help facilitate conversations with white teenagers about white privilege, and the ongoing journey to become effective allies to those in the “Global Majority,” on both a personal and systemic level.”
“Well-executed and long overdue.”
“A beautiful, searing journey into the American heartland. This book, like an epic road trip, is full of difficult truths, great music, and deeply human companions”
“With Reynolds writing Rashad’s first-person narrative and Kiely Quinn’s, this hard-edged, ripped-from-the-headlines book is more than a problem novel; it’s a carefully plotted, psychologically acute, character-driven work of fiction that dramatizes an all-too-frequent occurrence. Police brutality and race relations in America are issues that demand debate and discussion, which this superb book powerfully enables.”
Brendan Kiely is the author of the widely-acclaimed The Other Talk: Reckoning with Our White Privilege (Simon & Schuster, 2021), which Booklist called “A heartfelt, motivating, and necessary call to action." Other books include his most recent novel,Tradition (Simon & Schuster, 2018), The New York Times bestselling All American Boys (with Jason Reynolds), The Last True Love Story, and The Gospel of Winter.
Known for his activism around racial justice, feminism, and intersectionality, Kiely, a former high school teacher, is the kind of YA writer who meets young people where they live, and engages them in the most compelling social issues of our time. Remembering his own introduction to books and reading, Kiely reminisced “Some of my oldest memories are my father taking me for long walks in Cambridge, Massachusetts, going from bookstore to bookstore to bookstore. We did that every Sunday because my mother worked the night shift at Mass General Hospital, so my dad needed to get me out of the house so she could sleep. For me, going to bookstores was kind of like going to church on Sunday mornings.”
His work has been published in ten languages, received a Coretta Scott King Author Honor Award, the Walter Dean Myers Award, the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award, was twice awarded Best Fiction for Young Adults (2015, 2017) by the American Library Association, and was a Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2014.
Originally from the Boston area, he now lives with his wife in New York City.
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