Lamar Giles is a well published author and a founding member of We Need Diverse Books. Lamar has two novels publishing in 2019: his debut middle grade fantasy THE LAST LAST-DAY-OF-SUMMER (Versify / HMH) and his fourth YA thriller SPIN(Scholastic).

Lamar Giles is a two-time Edgar Award finalist in the YA category, for his debut YA thriller FAKE ID (HarperCollins, 2014), and his second YA thriller, ENDANGERED (HarperCollins, 2015). His third YA thriller, OVERTURNED (Scholastic, 2017) received this glowing New York Times review, and was named a Kirkus Best Book of 2017. You can see the book trailer for OVERTURNED here. FAKE ID has been optioned by Sony Pictures.

Lamar is a contributor to the YA anthology THREE SIDES OF A HEART (HarperCollins, 2017), editor of the We Need Diverse Books YA short story anthology FRESH INK (Random House 2018), a contributor to the YA anthology BLACK ENOUGH: STORIES OF BEING YOUNG & BLACK IN AMERICA (HarperCollins / Balzer & Bray), and a contributor to a forthcoming We Need Diverse Books middle grade anthology. He has published several short stories for adults. You can see tv interviews with Lamar here, here and here, and a truly fun “Fun Facts”  short interview, created by HarperCollins.