A NYS Writers Institute event

David Barclay Moore is the author of the runaway middle grade bestseller, The Stars Beneath Our Feet (2017), the story of a young man who “tries to steer a safe path through the projects in Harlem in the wake of his brother’s death.” Winner of the Coretta Scott King-John Steptoe Award, the novel has been adopted as a core text in school curricula throughout the U.S. The New York Times said, "The right story at the right time…. It’s not just a narrative; it’s an experience. It’s the novel we’ve been waiting for.”

Moore’s new novel is Holler of the Fireflies (2022), about a “boy from the hood in Brooklyn” and his experiences at a STEM camp in Appalachia, where he encounters racism and discovers who he is, including his sexual identity. School Library Journal called it, “both timely and timeless.”

Photo credit: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

Presented by the Albany Public Library and the New York State Writers Institute. Major support and funding provided by the Carl E. Touhey Foundation.