Justina Chen is an award-winning novelist for young adults whose most recent book, Return to Me, was called an “uplifting story” by Publishers Weekly.
North of Beautiful was named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus and Barnes & Noble.
Her other novels include Girl Overboard (a Junior Library Guild premiere selections) and Nothing but the Truth (and a few white lies), which won the Asian Pacific American Award for Literature.
Additionally, she co-founded readergirlz, a cutting-edge literacy and social media project for teens, which won the National Book Award for Innovations in Reading.
When she isn’t writing for teens, Justina is a communications strategist for executives and was the speechwriter and executive communications manager for a president of Microsoft.
She conducts popular corporate storytelling workshops and has presented at prestigious organizations ranging from the Mayo Clinic to NASDAQ and AT+T to SAS.
Q: Why did you write North of Beautiful?
A: “To tell you the truth, I was sick of our society glamorizing a really narrow definition of beauty: blonde, size 00. You know. A chance comment from an acquaintance whose son has a port wine stain completely inspired the book. When I was lauding her parenting because he’s such a confident, cool kid, she stopped me and said, “That’s because he’s a boy…” There it was, my next novel. What if a girl had a birthmark on her face? Could I tackle the notion of real beauty–true glorious beauty–with this character?”
