For Young Adults! Dallas Woodburn in Conversation with Stephanie Kuehn

After her parents’ bitter divorce, family vacations to the Big Island in Hawaii ceased. But across the miles, eighteen-year-old Tegan Rossi remains connected to local Kai Kapule, her best friend from childhood. Now, Tegan finds herself alone and confused about how she got to the Big Island. With no wallet, no cell phone, purse, or plane ticket, Tegan struggles to piece together what happened. She must have come to surprise-visit Kai. Right? As the teens grow even closer, Tegan pushes aside her worries and gets swept away in the vacation of her dreams. But each morning, Tegan startles awake from nightmares that become more difficult to ignore. Something is eerily amiss. Why is there a strange gap in her memory? Why can’t she reach her parents or friends from home? And what’s with the mysterious hourglass tattoo over her heart? Kai promises to help Tegan figure out what is going on. But the answers they find only lead to more questions. As the week unfolds, Tegan will experience the magic of first love, the hope of second chances, and the bittersweet joy and grief of being human.

Dallas Woodburn is a recent John Steinbeck Fellow in Creative Writing at San Jose State University and a four-time Pushcart Prize nominee. She won first place in the international Glass Woman Prize and second place in the American Fiction Prize. Her short stories have appeared in numerous journals and won the Cypress & Pine Short Fiction Award. She is also the founder of Write On! Books (www.writeonbooks.org), an organization empowering youth through reading and writing endeavors.

Stephanie Kuehn is the author of many books for young adults including Charm & Strange, Complicit, and Delicate Monsters.