Ithaca is Books: Kalynn Bayron and Laila Sabreen Author Visit

A Conversation on Craft and Process: Join authors Kalynn Bayron and Laila Sabreen as they dive into their approaches to writing craft, shed light on their writing processes, and share how writing for a YA audience shapes how they engage with storytelling, both practically and ideally.

Laila Sabreen (pronounced lay-luh suh-breen) is a young adult contemporary writer who was raised in the Washington DC area. She is a recent graduate of Emory University and is currently pursuing her PhD in English Literature. Her love of writing began as a love of reading, which started when she used to take weekly trips to her local library. There she fell in love with the Angelina Ballerina series, so much so that she started to write Angelina Ballerina fanfiction at the age of five (though she did not know it was fanfiction at the time). When she isn’t writing, she can be found creating niche playlists, watching reality TV, working on an academic article about literature and Black girlhood, or hanging out on Substack. Her debut YA contemporary novel, YOU TRULY ASSUMED, released with Inkyard Press/HarperCollins on February 8, 2022. She also has a short story included in the YA anthology, STUDY BREAK, which released with Feiwel & Friends/Macmillan in Winter 2023 and featured short stories written by Gen Z contributors for Gen Z readers.

Kalynn Bayron is the New York Times and Indie bestselling author of the YA fantasy novels Cinderella Is Dead and This Poison Heart. Her latest works include the YA horror novel Make Me a Monster and the middle grade paranormal adventure series, The Vanquishers. She is a CILIP Carnegie Medal Nominee, a Bram Stoker Award nominee, a LOCUS Award finalist, and the recipient of the 2022 Randall Kenan Award for Black LGBTQ fiction. She is a classically trained vocalist and musical theater enthusiast. When she's not writing you can find her watching scary movies and spending time with her family.

Presented as part of the Ithaca is Books Festival. For more information, visit ithacaisbooks.org

Laila Sabreen books in our catalog | Kaylynn Bayron books in our catalog