Brandy Colbert

Brandy Colbert photo

Brandy Colbert was born and raised in the Ozarks—more specifically, Springfield, Missouri—and earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Missouri State University.

Her second novel, Little & Lion (Little, Brown, 2017), is the winner of ALA’s 2018 Stonewall Book Award; was named to ALA’s 2018 Best Fiction for Young Adults; and was named a Book of the Month Club selection, a Junior Library Guild selection, and a best book of 2017 by Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, Vulture, Bank Street, Bustle, BuzzFeed, Paste Magazine, and Seventeen magazine.

Finding Yvonne (Little, Brown, 2018), her third novel, was named to the Amelia Bloomer List of top feminist teen titles, the CCBC Choices list, the New York Public Library best books of the year, and was a Junior Library Guild selection. Her debut novel, Pointe (Putnam, 2014), won the 2014 Cybils Award for young adult fiction and was named a best book of 2014 by Publishers Weekly, BuzzFeed, Book Riot, the Chicago Public Library, and the Los Angeles Public Library . She was also chosen as a Publishers Weekly Flying Start for spring 2014.

Her work can also be seen in the anthologies Black Enough; Toil and Trouble; Our Stories, Our Voices; Three Sides of a Heart: Stories About Love Triangles; Feral Youth; Here We Are: Feminism for the Real World; and Summer Days & Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories.

Her fourth novel, The Revolution of Birdie Randolph, was published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers in 2019 and was followed by her middle grade debut, The Only Black Girls in Town, in March 2020, which was named “Amazon Best Books of March 2020.”

Brandy is on faculty at Hamline University’s MFA program in writing for children. She lives in Los Angeles where she works as a copy editor for magazines and books. Her writing is represented by Tina Dubois at ICM Partners (Photo by Jessie Weinberg).

Learn more at Brandy Colbert’s official website


8 Books by Brandy Colbert