Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg

Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg

Rafe is a normal teenager from Boulder, Colorado. He plays soccer. He's won skiing prizes. He likes to write.

And, oh yeah, he's gay. He's been out since 8th grade, and he isn't teased, and he goes to other high schools and talks about tolerance and stuff. And while that's important, all Rafe really wants is to just be a regular guy. Not that GAY guy. To have it be a part of who he is, but not the headline, every single time.

So when he transfers to an all-boys' boarding school in New England, he decides to keep his sexuality a secret -- not so much going back in the closet as starting over with a clean slate. But then he sees a classmate breaking down. He meets a teacher who challenges him to write his story. And most of all, he falls in love with Ben... who doesn't even know that love is possible.

Openly Straight, which received the SCBWI Sid Fleischman Award for Comedy and was added to the YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults list; The Porcupine of Truth, which won the Stonewall Book Award and was chosen a Booklist Editors' Choice selection; and Out of the Pocket, which won the Lambda Literary Award, are among Bill Konigsberg's works. Bill and his husband, Chuck, live in Chandler, Arizona. Visit him at www.billkonigsberg.com and follow him on Twitter @billkonigsberg.