Lucy Jane Bledsoe – författare

Finalist, Golden Poppy Award for Best Young Adult Fiction!“A timeless and triumphant story of courage in the face of opposition.” —Foreword Reviews (starred review)It’s 1974. Title IX has passed two years ago, but Louisa’s high school still refuses to fund an all girls’ basketball team. After hearing Gloria Steinem speak, Louisa learns an important lesson: “The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.” Now what can she do but stand up and fight back? When Louisa asks her principal to start a girls team, she’s soon viciously targeted by male coaches at her school, lied to by the school board, and dismissed as “out of line” as she fights for a fair chance to be an athlete. No Stopping Us Now is a story about finding one’s own voice through the joys of sports, love, and the power of sisterhood. Based on the author's true story, it is a compelling examination of the courage it takes to stand up for what’s right. Young adult, LGBTQ historical fiction perfect for the 50th anniversary of Title IX.

For Lucy Jane Bledsoe, wilderness had always been a source of peace. But during one disastrous solo trip in the wintry High Sierra, she came face to face with a crisis: the wilderness no longer felt like home. ""The Ice Cave"" recounts Bledsoe's wilderness journeys as she recovers her connection with the wild and discovers the meanings of fear and grace. These are Bledsoe's gripping tales of fending off wolves in Alaska, encountering UFOs in the Colorado Desert, and searching for mountain lions in Berkeley. Her memorable story ""The Breath of Seals"" takes readers to Antarctica, the wildest continent on earth, where she camped out with geologists, biologists, and astrophysicists. These fresh and deeply personal narratives remind us what it means to be simply one member of one species, trying to find food and shelter - and moments of grace - on our planet.

Scrabbling for ways to believe in themselves and the world, the spirited, heart-driven people who populate these stories find surprising pockets of hope. A woman returns to the Alaskan cabin of her survivalist childhood, full of misgivings and memories. A trip to Yellowstone sparks a crisis for a man who feels kinship with the wolves he glimpses there. Nursing painful pasts, sisters take a cruise together to Antarctica. A runaway finds salvation from violence in her own singing. And in the title novella, a Grand Canyon rafting expedition profoundly changes the lives of six women.Refusing to buckle under the pressures of family and political traumas, the sojourners in this collection are unified by themes of creative expression and of love—how we define it, how we are impelled by it, and how we are lifted by it.

Delia Barnes and Ernest Wrangham met as teens at Celebration Camp, a church-supported conversion therapy programme - the dubious, unscientific, Christian practice meant to change a person's sexuality. After witnessing a devastating tragedy, they escaped in the night, only to take separate roads to their distant homes. They have no idea how each has fared through the years. Delia is a college basketball coach who prides herself on being an empowering and self-possessed role model for her players. But when she gets fired from her elite East Coast college, she's forced to return to her hometown of Rockside, Oregon, to coach at her high school alma mater. Ernest, meanwhile, is a renowned poet with a temporary teaching job in Portland, Oregon. His work has always been boundary-pushing, fearless. But the poem he's most wanted to write - about his dangerous escape from Celebration Camp - remains stubbornly out of reach. Both persist in the mission to overcome the consequences and inhumane costs of conversion therapy. As events find them hurtling toward each other once again, they both grapple with the necessity of remaining steadfast in one's truth, no matter how slippery that can be. TELL THE REST is a powerful novel about coming to terms, with family, history, violence, loss, sexuality, and ultimately, with love.

Two estranged childhood friends find themselves on parallel paths to return to the site of the conversion therapy camp that tore them apart."Two conversion therapy survivors go back to the site of their trauma, hoping the truth will set them free . . . This satisfyingly nuanced story tackles sexuality and spiritual abuse, offering connection and redemption." —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review"Award-winning author Lucy Jane Bledsoe''s latest novel is focused on the life-saving friendship—and escape—of queer teens who meet at a Christian conversion camp. It''s enraging, heartbreaking, satisfying and an important read for our times." —Ms.Delia Barnes and Ernest Wrangham met as teens at Celebration Camp, a church-supported conversion therapy program—the dubious, unscientific, Christian practice meant to change a person''s sexuality. After witnessing a devastating tragedy, they escaped in the night, only to take separate roads to their distant homes.They have no idea how each has fared through the years. Delia is a college basketball coach who prides herself on being an empowering and self-possessed role model for her players. But when she gets fired from her elite East Coast college, she''s forced to return to her hometown of Rockside, Oregon, to coach at her high school alma mater.Ernest, meanwhile, is a renowned poet with a temporary teaching job in Portland, Oregon. His work has always been boundary-pushing, fearless. But the poem he''s most wanted to write—about his dangerous escape from Celebration Camp—remains stubbornly out of reach.Both persist in the mission to overcome the consequences and inhumane costs of conversion therapy. As events find them hurtling toward each other once again, they both grapple with the necessity of remaining steadfast in one''s truth, no matter how slippery that can be. Tell the Rest is a powerful novel about coming to terms, with family, history, violence, loss, sexuality, and ultimately, with love.