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The Friends of the Concord Free Public Library present CFA Young Adult Authors, featuring Jennifer De Leon, author of Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From, Desmond Hall, author of Your Corner Dark, and Margo Rabb, author of Lucy Clark Will Not Apologize.

Jennifer De Leon is the author of the YA novel Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From (published by Caitlyn Dlouhy Books/Simon & Schuster, 2020) and the essay collection White Space: Essays on Culture, Race, & Writing (published by UMass Press, 2021), which is the recipient of the Juniper Prize. She is also the editor of the award-winning anthology Wise Latinas: Writers on Higher Education (published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2014). An Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Framingham State University and faculty member in the MFA in Creative Nonfiction program at Bay Path University, she has published prose in dozens of literary journals including Ploughshares, Iowa Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and more. 

Desmond Hall is a Jamaican born author whose debut YA novel, YOUR CORNER DARK, is a fast-paced thriller that has been described as American Street meets Long Way Down. This searing and gritty novel takes an unflinching look at the harsh realities of gang life in Jamaica and how far a teen is willing to go for family. The book confronts police brutality, “Colorism,” gang culture and political deception. Desmond graduated from Marquette University with a BA in Journalism and was selected for Who’s Who of American College Students. He’s written and directed an HBO feature movie, “A Day in Black and White” which was nominated for the Gordon Parks Award. He also wrote and directed a full-length stage play, “Stockholm, Brooklyn,” which won the Audience Award at the Downtown Theater Festival at the Cherry Lane theater, and was picked for the Public Theater's New Works Series.  

Margo Rabb is the author of the novels Lucy Clark Will Not Apologize, Kissing in America, and Cures for Heartbreak. Her essays, journalism, book reviews, and short stories have been published in The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, The Atlantic, Slate, Salon, Marie Claire, The Rumpus, Zoetrope: All-Story, Seventeen, Best New American Voices, New Stories from the South, One Story, and elsewhere, and have been broadcast on NPR. She received the grand prize in the Zoetrope short story contest, first prize in the Atlantic fiction contest, first prize in the American Fiction contest, and a PEN Syndicated Fiction Project Award. 

This event is sponsored by the Friends of the Concord Free Public Library.