One-on-One with Michael Leali

Join middle grade author Michael Leali in a one-on-one conversation about his book THE CIVIL WAR OF AMOS ABERNATHY. THE CIVIL WAR OF AMOS ABERNATHY: Amos Abernathy has been a historical reenactor nearly all his life. But when a cute new volunteer arrives at his Living History Park, Amos finds himself wondering if there’s something missing from history. Someone like the two of them. Amos is sure there must have been LGBTQ+ people in nineteenth-century Illinois. His search turns up Albert D. J. Cashier, a Union soldier who might have identified as a trans man if he’d lived today. Soon Amos starts confiding in his newfound friend by writing letters in his journal—and hatches a plan to share Albert’s story with his divided twenty-first-century town. It may be an uphill battle, but it’s one that Amos is ready to fight.

About the authors

MICHAEL LEALI is a writer and educator living in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. He earned his MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. He is the author of the middle grade novels The Civil War of Amos Abernathy and Matteo. READ MORE ABOUT MICHAEL

About the Host
Audrey Jennifer Smith is a Greensboro-based writer and educator. Their essays have appeared in Hippocampus Magazine and Nat. Brut., and an excerpt from her book-in-progress is forthcoming from the North Carolina Literary Review.