ALICE AUSTEN LIVED HERE has received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist. It has won an Earphones Award from Audiofile for the audiobook, read by Alex, and been named on ALA’s 2023 Rise: A Feminism Book Project list.
Order your signed, personalized copy of Alice Austen Lived Here from Oblong Books, (include any personalization in your comments) or use Indie Bound to find an independent bookstore near you. Audiobook read by the author is also available.
Thanks to Oblong Books for hosting a fun virtual launch event with The Literal Bestest, author Mike Jung, and the also fabulous agent Jenn Laughran. Missed it? You can view it here, complete with Alex’s favorite game, Bad Book Descriptions.
From the award-winning author of Melissa, a phenomenal novel about queerness past, present, and future.
Sam is very in touch with their own queer identity. They’re nonbinary, and their best friend, TJ, is nonbinary as well. Sam’s family is very cool with it… as long as Sam remembers that nonbinary kids are also required to clean their rooms, do their homework, and try not to antagonize their teachers too much.
The teacher-respect thing is hard when it comes to Sam’s history class, because their teacher seems to believe that only Dead Straight Cis White Men are responsible for history. When Sam’s home borough of Staten Island opens up a contest for a new statue, Sam finds the perfect non-DSCWM subject: photographer Alice Austen, whose house has been turned into a museum, and who lived with a female partner for decades.
Soon, Sam’s project isn’t just about winning the contest. It’s about discovering a rich queer history that Sam’s a part of — a queer history that no longer needs to be quiet, as long as there are kids like Sam and TJ to stand up for it.
Learn more about Alice Austen and The Alice Austen House Museum here. And check out the photograph that inspires Sam and TJ’s statue proposal, The Darned Club made available by the Staten Island Historical Society:
