User:Wrenhawke/TJ Klune

TJ Klune is a Lambda Literary award winning American gay romance and LGBTQ+ fiction author. His Young Adult novel, House in the Cerulean Sea, is a New York Times Best-Seller and named one of Amazon's Best science fiction and fantasy books of 2020. He is the author of several novels featuring queer characters, including The Extraordinaries, How to be a Normal Person, and Into This River I Drown, which won the Lambda Literary Award for Best Gay Romance in 2014.

Personal Life
Klune was eight years old when he first began to write fiction. His young work in poetry and short stories were the first to be published. Klune’s writing influences include Stephen King, Wilson Rawls, Patricia Nell Warren, Robert McCammon, and Terry Pratchett.

Klune has been open about his lived experiences with asexuality, queerness and neurodiversity influencing his writing. The historical absence of these communities in fiction has motivated choices in Klune's character development.

In 2013, Klune proposed to Eric Arvin at the GarRomLit Conference in Atlanta, Georgia U.S.A. Arvin is also an acclaimed author in the LGBTQ2+ romance genre. The two had met for the first time in person one year earlier at the 2012 GarRomLit Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. Arvin endured many years of health struggles and passed away on December 12, 2016.

Career
Klune's love of writing surfaced while growing up in the 1980s, where he would write fan-fiction about his favorite action-adventure video game Metroid. Later in his childhood, he began writing original stories. His teachers would always encourage his work, saying they look forward to seeing his writing in bookstores one day.

Klune’s first book, Bear, Otter and the Kid, was published in 2011. His motivation for this first book came from a realization of the poor, often offensive stereotypes of queer characters within stories. He wanted to be able to write a novel that had an accurate representation of queer relationships, that were not stereotypical, instead were seen as relatable and positive. Amazon noted Bear, Otter and the Kid as one of the top LGBTQ+ books of 2011.

The House in the Cerulean Sea, Klune’s first stand alone YA Novel, was partially inspired by “The Sixties Scoop”, where the Canadian government removed Indigenous children from their homes, and placed them with unrelated white, middle class families. Seeing the similarities of this event take place in current day Southern USA, Klune felt a need to write a story celebrating children’s differences and to show the positive effects of giving children a safe and supportive place to be themselves.

Klune is currently signed with the Macmillan Tor imprint, Tor Teen, for two more stand-alone Young Adult novels and the completion of his Extraordinaries trilogy.

Critical Reception
Into the River I Drown, a supernatural tale about grief and love in a small town won the 2014 Lambda Literary award for Best Gay Romance.

His Young Adult debut, The Extraordinaries, is praised by Kirkus for its use of superhero and fanfiction tropes, while Publishers Weekly compliments Klune on writing a teenaged character with ADHD in a positive and supportive light.

His second stand-alone YA novel, The House in the Cerulean Sea, is a New York Times Best Seller and has been named by the Washington Post as one of “2020’s Best Feel-Good Reads”. Publisher’s Weekly calls it a “thought-provoking Orwellian fantasy” in its starred review. Kirkus praises Klune for his art of creating enduring characters.

Klune is popular among the gay romance novel scene, being nominated as an all-time favourite M/M author on the book review website, Goodreads in 2017. He is also an advocate for better LGBTQ2+ representation in novel, wishing to see more asexual characters like himself reflected in books.

Young Adult

 * The Extraordinaries Series
 * The Extraordinaries (2020)
 * Flash Fire (2021)
 * The House in the Cerulean Sea (2020)
 * Under the Whispering Door (forthcoming, 2021)
 * In the Lives of Puppets (forthcoming, 2022)

Romance

 * The Seafare Chronicles
 * Bear, Otter, and the Kid (2011)
 * Who We Are (2012)
 * The Art of Breathing (2014)
 * The Long and Winding Road (2017)
 * At First Sight series
 * Tell Me It's Real (2013)
 * The Queen & The Homo Jock King (2016)
 * Until You (2017)
 * Why we Fight (2019)
 * Tell Me It's Real (comic, 2019)


 * How to Be series
 * How to Be a Normal Person (2015)
 * How to Be a Movie Star (2019)


 * Burn (2012)
 * John & Jackie (2014)
 * Olive Juice (2017)
 * Horatio (2019)

Fantasy Romance

 * Tales from Verania Series
 * The Lightning-Struck Heart (2015)
 * A Destiny of Dragons (2017)
 * The Consumption of Magic (2017)
 * A Wish Upon the Stars (2018)
 * The Damning Stone (forthcoming, 2021)
 * Short Stories:
 * 1.5 The Tragic Life of Lady Tina Desilvia (2015)
 * 4.5 Fairytales from Verania (forthcoming, 2021)


 * Green Creek series
 * Wolfsong (2016)
 * Ravensong (2018)
 * Heartsong (2019)
 * Brothersong (2020)
 * Short Stories:
 * 2.5 Lovesong (2018)
 * 3.5 Feralsong (2020)
 * 3.6 Lovesong Part II (2020)


 * Immemorial Year series
 * Withered + Sere (2016)
 * Crisped + Sere (2016)
 * Blasphemy! series


 * 1) Blasphemy! (2018)
 * 2) Jesus Goes to Hell on Vacation! (2020)


 * Into This River I Drown (2013)
 * Murmuration (2016)
 * The Bones Beneath My Skin (2016)

Anthologies


 * Crack the Darkest Sky Wide Open (2013)
 * Zombie Boyz (2013)

Awards

 * 2014 Lambda Literary Award for Best Gay Romance