Today on the site I’m delighted to welcome Christen Randall to reveal the cover of their upcoming bi4bi contemporary YA romance, According to Plan, releasing February 3, 2026 from Simon & Schuster! Here’s the story:
As editor-in-chief of their school’s literary magazine, Mal Flowers expected senior year fall to be full of cozy sweaters, good coffee, and copyediting. They just want to stick to The Plan to graduate and get out of their small midwestern town—a place where, as a broke, fat, queer person with ADHD, they’ve never really fit in. But when budget cuts result in the lit mag’s cancellation, Mal is suddenly scrambling to fill the hole in their college application.
That is, until Emerson Pike—loud, confident, and Mal’s complete opposite—suggests that the staff go rogue and create a zine instead. Which would be cool, except that making and selling contraband isn’t exactly what Mal envisioned as the extracurricular activity on their college application. A zine would be unofficial, unapproved, and definitely not in The Plan.
But a zine is also a good way to spend more time with Emerson, whose playful banter and bad jokes Mal can’t seem to get enough of. And maybe, with a group of new friends, the back of the charming coffee shop where Emerson works could be somewhere Mal does belong. Because breaking the rules with Emerson—and flirting with her over coffee—is fun . . .
And here’s the gorgeous cover, designed by Michael McCartney with art by Liz Parkes!
Christen Randall (they/she) is a queer, fat, neurodivergent author of queer, fat, neurodiverse books, including Junior Library Guild selection and instant USA TODAY bestseller The No-Girlfriend Rule. When they’re not writing joyful stories for the next generation of geeky gay kids, you can find them making zines about neighborhood cats, nerding out doing readers’ advisory as a library associate at their local library branch, or at home planning all the D&D campaigns they’ll run one day, they swear. Christen lives in Covington, Kentucky. Visit them online at ByChristenRandall.com and on social media @ByCRandall.
Nicole Melleby, a Jersey native, is the author of highly praised middle-grade books, including the Lambda Literary finalist Hurricane Season and ALA Notable Children’s book How to Become a Planet. She is currently on the faculty of the Hamline University MFA for Writing for Children and Young Adults, and lives with her wife and their cats, whose needs for attention oddly align with Nicole’s writing schedule.
Y. M. Resnik (she/her) is a writer living in the tri-state area. While she loves creating new worlds and re-imagining Jewish folklore, her main goal is simply to brighten your day with a story. Her work has appeared in Cast of Wonders, Worlds of Possibility, Diabolical Plots, and khōréō, among other places. When not writing, she can be found collecting tiaras and trying not to kill her houseplants. You can keep up with her work at 
Lloyd Hall (he/him) is an indie author and bookbinder born and raised in the coastal Connecticut town of Short Beach. He’s known for his Young Adult Sci-Fi books, The Wardenclyffe Series which has won various awards including the Eric Hoffer Award for his first book, Wardenclyffe, and the Reader’s Favorite award for his second book, Mercury. While not working on his novels, Lloyd is also the editor for an independent literary journal.
Julie Leong is a Chinese-Malaysian-American fantasy author who grew up across both New Jersey and Beijing, China. She studied economics and political science at Yale and works in tech, but she has always nurtured a deep love for sci-fi/fantasy beneath her corporate exterior. Julie lives in San Francisco with her husband Drew, their rescue pup Kaya, and a magical Meyer lemon tree in the backyard that somehow always has ripe lemons. When she’s not writing, she enjoys making unnecessary spreadsheets and flambéing things.
Rae Ryan’s science fiction lets people escape into stories with flawed characters, but without identity-based discrimination. Because we all deserve a break. She’s currently working on a contemporary FFM romance when she’s not walking her silly dog, Piper, on the Colorado Front Range.
Rosiee Thor is the Pacific Northwest Indie Bestselling author of Tarnished Are The Stars and Fire Becomes Her, the picture book The Meaning of Pride, and tie-in novels for franchises like Life is Strange and Firefly. Their short fiction appears in anthologies including the Lambda award nominated Being Ace, and they are the editor of Why On Earth: An Alien Invasion Anthology and This is How We Roll. Their debut cozy mystery, The Dead & Breakfast, is forthcoming from Berkley Press. Rosiee lives in Oregon with a dog, two cats, and an abundance of plants.
Joanna Lowell lives among the fig trees in North Carolina, where she teaches in the English department at Wake Forest University. When she’s not writing historical romance, she writes collections and novels as Joanna Ruocco. Those books include Dan, Another 
Bio: After cutting their teeth on a steady diet of fan fiction in the Southwest of England, Esme Symes-Smith wandered north to Wales for their degree in literature and creative writing, then promptly migrated to Missouri after meeting their wife on Tumblr.