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Bill Konigsberg
Bill Konigsberg was born in 1970 in New York City. Expectations were high from birth - at least in terms of athletics. His parents figured he'd be a great soccer player, based on his spirited kicking from inside the womb. As it turned out, the highlight of his soccer career was at Camp Greylock... show more
Bill Konigsberg was born in 1970 in New York City. Expectations were high from birth - at least in terms of athletics. His parents figured he'd be a great soccer player, based on his spirited kicking from inside the womb. As it turned out, the highlight of his soccer career was at Camp Greylock in 1978, when he was chosen for the Camp's "D" team. There were only four levels. Bill played alongside the likes of the kid who always showered alone, the chronic nosebleeder and the guy with recurrent poison ivy.Early in his life, Bill decided he wanted to be a disc jockey, a professional baseball player, or the Indian from The Village People. None of these career paths worked out for him. Yet. He still holds out hope for a Village People revival and has set up a Google Alert in case it happens.A B- student throughout high school, Bill was voted Most Likely to Avoid Doing Any Real Work In His Life by a panel of his dismissive peers. He proved them wrong with a series of strange-but-true jobs in his 20s - driver recruiter for a truck driving school, sales consultant for a phone company, and temp at Otis Elevators.He moved to Denver in 1996 and was voted Least Stylish Gay Guy in the Metro Denver Area (including Loveland!) for each of the years from 1996-98. His fashion-free wardrobe robbed him of prospective dates countless times, as did his penchant for wearing a mustache that didn't suit him.He worked at ESPN and ESPN.com from 1999-2002, where he developed a penchant for sharing too much information about himself. That character flaw earned him a GLAAD Media Award in 2002, for his column "Sports World Still a Struggle for Gays." That coming out essay made him a household name to tens of people across the country.He continued oversharing in graduate school at Arizona State, where he added People Pleasing to his growing list of character defects and parlayed that into the title of Most Chill Teacher of freshman composition.As a sports writer and editor for The Associated Press in New York from 2005-08, Bill once called his husband, who was at the time working a desk job, from the New York Mets dugout before a game. "I'm so bored," Bill whined. He slept on the couch for a week after making that call.He wrote a novel called Audibles at Arizona State, and sold that novel to Dutton Books for Children in 2007. His editor asked him to change the title so that it would appeal to people other than "football players who read." The resulting novel, Out of the Pocket, received strong reviews from his mother, father, significant other and one girl who had a crush on him in high school. It won the Lambda Literary Award in 2009.His second novel, Openly Straight, hit the bookshelves in late May of 2013. He describes the novel as "Twilight-like, only without vampires and wolves and angsty teenage girls. Also, set in an all-boys boarding school in Massachusetts. Otherwise, it's like an exact replica."Bill currently lives in Chandler, Arizona, which is the thinking man's Gilbert, Arizona.
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A Man With An Agenda
A Man With An Agenda rated it 6 years ago
This was an incredibly sweet and touching story about two boys finding love in a food truck over one summer in Arizona. Max is athletic, popular, and happily out to his parents and close friends. At the start of the novel something has happened, on a date with a college boy things got out of contr...
YA Fanatic
YA Fanatic rated it 7 years ago
Not for me. I didn't enjoy the characters. I thought it was obnoxious how the author constantly complained about religion. I get that its supposed to be a coming of age story and about finding yourself, especially in the LGBTQ community. It just didn't do it for me.
I Live in Many Worlds
I Live in Many Worlds rated it 9 years ago
I've always wanted to read this book. I knew its contents were about LGBTQIA+ characters so I really wanted to read this book and support it. So when I saw it at the library, I grabbed it. I will not lie... this book is quite frustrating to get through. The talk of religion and its hypocrisy and the...
Skinny Dipping Into Books
Skinny Dipping Into Books rated it 10 years ago
Spoiler-ish note: the following discusses what happens to Rafe and Ben. As a middle schooler Rafe was out to his family, friends, and the entire community. His mother, stereotypically overbearing and insanely well adjusted to her son’s sexuality, Boudia-ed off her old life and into the life of a g...
The Symmetrical Bookworm
The Symmetrical Bookworm rated it 10 years ago
Wow, this was awesome!I've said it before (many times), and I'll say it again; Characters are very important to me. And Openly Straight has some good ones. I really like Rafe; he's funny and relatable and overall a very developed protagonist. I also like Rafe's friends Toby and Albie, and Ben. And C...
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