Lesley Younge

Lesley Younge is an educator and writer from Silver Spring, Maryland. She debuted as an author in 2023 with two books for young people. Nearer My Freedom (co-authored with her mentor Monica Edinger) is an award winning YA verse novel remix of British abolitionist Olaudah Equiano’s seminal autobiography. A-Train Allen, her first picture book, was the inaugural Own Voices, Own Stories Grand Prize Winner awarded by Sleeping Bear Press. Lesley is a fellow of Hurston/Wright Foundation and Anaphora Literary Arts. Her poetry and short stories have appeared in Spoken Black Girl Magazine, West Trade Review, Midnight & Indigo, The Plentitudes, and Full Bleed.