Note: This session will take place on July 22 at 4 pm Eastern Daylight Time.

Alaya Dawn Johnson will take part in a virtual manuscript critique session with the winning bidder. The critique can be for any story or excerpt up to 5,000 words. Johnson must receive the manuscript at least 3 weeks in advance of the session.

Alaya Dawn Johnson's debut YA novel The Summer Prince was long listed for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. Her follow-up YA, Love Is the Drug, won the prestigious Nebula (Andre Norton) Award for YA Science Fiction and Fantasy. Her award-winning short stories have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015, The Book of Witches, and, most notably, in collaboration with Janelle Monáe in the title story of The Memory Librarian. Trouble the Saints, published by Tor in 2020, was the winner of the World Fantasy Award for best novel. Her latest novel is The Library of Broken Worlds, an epic far-future, galaxy-spanning return to YA after nine years away, published by Scholastic in June 2023.