Speakers

CH1CON 2021

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Camryn Garrett was born and raised in New York. In 2019, she was named one of Teen Vogue’s 21 Under 21 and a Glamour College Woman of the Year. Her first novel, Full Disclosure, received rave reviews from outlets such as Entertainment Weekly, the Today Show, and The Guardian, which called a “warm, funny and thoughtfully sex-positive, an impressive debut from a writer still in her teens.” Her second novel, Off the Record, was released May 18, 2021. Camryn is also interested in film and is a student at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. You can find her on Twitter @dancingofpens, tweeting from a laptop named Stevie.

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Ananya Devarajan is an undergraduate at the University of California, Irvine, pursuing a major in Neurobiology and Behavior with a minor in English. Like the majority of her characters, she is a second-generation Indian American young adult.

Her love for storytelling began on Wattpad, where she grew her audience as a Featured Author, and she later went on to win first place in TeenPit 2019. Now, Ananya writes young adult romance novels featuring dynamic Indian teenagers, lighthearted drama, and swoon-worthy banter. In her free time, she can be found watching her favorite Bollywood movies or studying for yet another Organic Chemistry exam. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram under the handle @ananyad12.

Her debut novel, KISMAT CONNECTION, is slated for publication in Summer 2023 by Inkyard Press/HarperCollins. She is represented by the wonderful Ann Leslie Tuttle at Dystel, Goderich, and Bourret LLC.

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Ennis Bashe is a queer disabled graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and proud cat parent. Their debut novel A Scheme of Sorcery is releasing August 2021 from Ninestar Press. Find them on Twitter at @RookTheBird, and sign up for their newsletter at https://tinyletter.com/rookthebird

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Christel Thompson is a poet and novelist, based in Chicago. Fluent in four languages, she recently completed a B.L.A at the University of Illinois, and is now actively immersing herself in all the culture possible. Christel can be found reading by day and unable to get to sleep by night. Outside of her literary endeavors, Christel is a portrait photographer, avid tea-drinker, and professional makeup hoarder. She has professed that she’s loathe to speak about herself in the third person but has been known to be persuaded on occasion.

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Miranda Sun is twenty-one years old. A Pitch Wars 2020 mentee and former editorial assistant for Ninth Letter Online, her work has been recognized by the Writers Alliance of Gainesville, as well as nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize. Publications include Ghost City Press, Red Queen, Blue Marble Review, and more. When not writing books about fierce Asian girls and the boys who’d walk through fire for them, you can find her procrastinating on Twitter or roaming the streets of Chicago in search of bubble tea. She is represented by Paige Terlip at Andrea Brown Literary Agency.

CH1CON 2020

We’re announcing speakers all week on our Twitter!

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Keynote Speaker 2020: Ravynn K. Stringfield

Ravynn K. Stringfield is a Ph.D. candidate in American Studies and Africana Studies graduate affiliate at William & Mary. Her dissertation project focuses on Black women and girls as creators and protagonists of new media narratives that are futuristic, fantastic, and/or digital in nature. Her writing practice also includes blogging, crafting essays and drafting novels and short stories. You can find her written work across the Internet, though most notably on her weekly blog, Black Girl Does Grad Schooland her freelance work has appeared in ZORA, Shondaland, Greatist, Catapult and more. Her fiction is represented by Leah Pierre of Ladderbird Agency. When she’s not writing, she can be found posted up in local coffee shops, trying out new beginner asanas in a yoga studio or telling her dog, Genghis, all about her Lois Lane obsession.

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Speaker: Christina Li

Christina is a student at Stanford University studying Economics. In her spare time, when she is not stressing over her latest stats problem set, she is dreaming up characters and stories for children and young adults. Her debut, Clues to the Universe, is coming out from Quill Tree Press in early 2021.
You can find her on twitter @CLWrites or visit her website christinaliwrites.com

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Speaker: Rona Wang

Rona is an undergraduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her debut short story collection, CRANESONG, was published in 2019 by Half Mystic Press. Her debut novel, YOU HAD ME AT HELLO WORLD, is forthcoming from Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers and it looks absolutely fanTAStic.

When she’s not writing, she likes coding, drawing, and spamming her friends with memes. She is very glad to meet you!

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Speaker: Tashie Bhuiyan

Tashie is a Bangladeshi American writer based in New York City. She recently graduated from St. John’s University with a bachelor’s degree in Public Relations, and hopes to change the world, one book at a time. She loves writing stories about girls with wild hearts, boys who wear rings, and gaining agency through growth. When she’s not doing that, she can be found in a Chipotle or bookstore, insisting 2010 is the best year in cinematic history. (Read: Tangled and Inception.)
Her debut novel COUNTING DOWN WITH YOU (Inkyard/HarperCollins) releases on May 4th, 2021.