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Bill Konigsberg

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Bill Konigsberg
Konigsberg at the 2015 Texas Book Festival
Konigsberg at the 2015 Texas Book Festival
BornNovember 11, 1970 (1970-11-11) (age 53)
New York City
OccupationAuthor
GenreYoung Adult, LGBT
Notable worksOpenly Straight, The Porcupine of Truth
Website
billkonigsberg.com

Bill Konigsberg is an award-winning American author, best known for his LGBT novels. He wrote Out of the Pocket, Openly Straight, The Porcupine of Truth, Honestly Ben, and The Music of What Happens. He lives with his husband outside of Phoenix, Arizona.

Work

Out of the Pocket won the 2008 Lambda Literary Award in the LGBT Children's/Young Adult category.[1] His second novel, Openly Straight, was released in June 2013.[2] It received a strongly positive review in The New York Times,[3] and starred reviews from Booklist and The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books. The novel won the Sid Fleischman Award for humor and was a finalist for the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award. It also made Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA)'s Best Fiction for Young Adults list for 2014; the American Library Association Rainbow List; The Texas Library Association's Tayshas List (as a top ten title); and was nominated for the Georgia Peach Award. The novel has been translated into German, Vietnamese, and Portuguese. The Porcupine of Truth, which came out in June 2015, won the Stonewall Book Award and the PEN Center USA Literary Award, received starred reviews by Booklist and School Library Journal, made the Indie Next List, YALSA's Best Fiction for Young Adults list for 2016, Booklist Best of 2015, New York Public Library's Best Book for Teens 2015, Teenreads Favorites of 2015, the 2016 Rainbow List, and the Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) Choices 2016 List.[4]

In March 2016, Konigsberg released Honestly Ben, the sequel to Openly Straight. It received three starred reviews: from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and School Library Journal. Both novels in the series were released as audio books that month.[4]

Before becoming a fiction writer, Konigsberg was a sports writer. As a sports writer and editor for The Associated Press from 2005–08, he covered the New York Mets and his weekly fantasy baseball column appeared in newspapers across the country, from the New York Daily News to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. In May 2001, while working for ESPN.com, he came out on the front page of the website in an article entitled "Sports World Still a Struggle for Gays".[5] That article won him a GLAAD Media Award the following year.

Since then, he has spoken at numerous venues across the country on what it is like to be a gay person in the world of sports. Some of the publications he has written for include The New York Times, North Jersey Herald-News and The Denver Post. His work has also appeared in Out Magazine. In 2011, his coming out was named the #64 moment in gay sports history by the website Outsports.com. His story was included as a chapter in the book Jocks 2: Coming Out to Play by Dan Woog.[6]

Bibliography

  • Out of the Pocket (2008)
  • Openly Straight (2013)
  • The Porcupine of Truth (2015)
  • Honestly Ben (2016)
  • The Music of What Happens (2019)

References

  1. ^ "21st Annual Lambda Literary Awards". Lambda Literary. Retrieved 23 April 2013.
  2. ^ "Books | Bill Konigsberg Online". Bill Konigsberg. Retrieved 23 April 2013.
  3. ^ "Review - Openly Straight and Rapture Practice".
  4. ^ a b "Books | Bill Konigsberg Online". Bill Konigsberg. Retrieved 3 March 2014.
  5. ^ Sports World Still a Struggle for Gays. ESPN, May 24, 2001.
  6. ^ "About Bill | Bill Konigsberg Online". Bill Konigsberg. Retrieved 29 April 2013.
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