Portland, ORE.— Ooligan Press has announced that Oregon native Karelia Stetz-Waters has been nominated for a Lambda Literary Award for her young adult novel Forgive Me If I’ve Told You This Before, published October 2014.
Forgive Me If I’ve Told You This Before has been nominated in the LGBT Children’s/Young Adult category. The book tells the story of small-town high school student Triinu Hoffman, who must navigate through bullies, first loves, and the upheaval of LGBT rights in 1990s Oregon. As she tumbles headlong into first love and teenage independence, she realizes that the differences that make her a target are also the differences that can set her free. With everyone in town taking sides in the battle for equal rights in Oregon, Triinu must stand up for herself, learn what it is to love and have her heart broken, and become her own woman.
Karelia Stetz-Waters spent her childhood exploring the woods and backroads of rural Oregon, and after going off to earn degrees at Smith College in Massachusetts and the University of Oregon, she returned to settle close to her hometown. She came out by going to her junior prom in drag; this, along with her other experiences growing up gay during the violent political atmosphere surrounding the anti-gay Ballot Measure 9, inspired Forgive Me If I’ve Told You This Before. Karelia is the author of The Admirer and The Eastbank Killer. This is her first young adult novel. She teaches writing and literature at Linn-Benton Community College and lives with her wife, Fay, and their cat, Cyrus the Disemboweler.
Now in its twenty-seventh year, The Lambda Literary Awards, aka The Lammys, is the nation’s pre-eminent award for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender books. Stetz-Waters has been nominated alongside writers published by the likes of Simon & Schuster, Candlewick Press, and Harlequin Enterprises. Winners will be announced at a ceremony on June 1 in New York City.
For more information visit ooligan.pdx.edu.
