June 12, 2015 (Washington, D.C.)

Gene Luen Yang joins We Need Diverse Books Advisory Board.

Gene Luen Yang, the acclaimed, award winning writer and artist joins We Need Diverse Books Advisory Board. In 2006, Yang’s American Born Chinese was the first graphic novel to be nominated for a National Book Award and the first to win the American Library Association’s Michael L. Printz Award. His 2013 two-volume graphic novel Boxers & Saints was also nominated for a National Book Award and won the L.A. Times Book Prize.  Yang currently writes Dark Horse Comics’ Avatar: The Last Airbender and DC Comics’ Superman.

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Meg Medina moves from Executive Committee to Advisory Board Chair.

Meg Medina, an award-winning author moves from We Need Diverse Books Executive Committee to Advisory Board Chair. “I feel very fortunate to have been a part of the WNDB campaign from its beginning. Moving to the advisory board gives me the opportunity to stay in touch with an amazing group of people who are working hard to change the face of publishing. I look forward to advocating and fundraising for this wonderful organization,” Medina said.

In 2014, Medina was recognized as one of the CNN 10 Visionary Women in America and was also the recipient of the Pura Belpre medal. Her young adult novel Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass was the CYBILS Fiction winner in 2013, and in 2012, she received the Ezra Jack Keats New Writers Medal for her picture book Tia Isa Wants a Car.