I know, I know – we do not do blog tour stops at LGBTQReads, and that’s still true. But as a 2024 Sydney Taylor Honor Book awardee, I was asked to be a host for this year’s tour, and when I found out I would be featuring a queer book I happen to have absolutely loved, and processed the fact that we both got our Sidney Taylor stickers on queer books, I decided I get to break the rules, just this once. And so, I’m thrilled to be talking to A.R. Vishny today about Night Owls, Sydney Taylor Book Award and National Jewish Book Award winner for Young Adult. (Also, full disclosure: I judged this year’s NJBA for YA, so if you’re wondering how much I loved it, the answer is “Enough to help it when the top prize and then write the blurb for it.”)
Before we get into it with the author, though, here’s a bit more on the book:
Night Owls by A.R. Vishny
Clara loves rules. Rules are what have kept her and her sister, Molly, alive—or, rather, undead—for over a century. Work their historic movie theater by day. Shift into an owl under the cover of night. Feed on men in secret. And never fall in love.
Molly is in love. And she’s tired of keeping her girlfriend, Anat, a secret. If Clara won’t agree to bend their rules a little, then she will bend them herself.
Boaz is cursed. He can’t walk two city blocks without being cornered by something undead. At least at work at the theater, he gets to flirt with Clara, wishing she would like him back.
When Anat vanishes and New York’s monstrous underworld emerges from the shadows, Clara suspects Boaz, their annoyingly cute box office attendant, might be behind it all.
But if they are to find Anat, they will need to work together to face demons and the hungers they would sooner bury. Clara will have to break all her rules—of love, of life, and of death itself—before her rules break everyone she loves.
And now, check out my chat with A.R. Vishny!
Continue reading Sydney Taylor Book Award Blog Tour: Night Owls by A.R. Vishny
Zachary Sergi is the queer author of Major Detours and nearly a dozen works of Interactive Fiction, including the Heroes Rise and Versus series. Zachary was raised in Manhattan, studied Creative Writing at Regis High School and the University of Pennsylvania, and now lives in Los Angeles with his husband, where he also writes for television. Learn more at 
Lev Rosen writes books for people of all ages, including the Evander Mills series, which began with the Macavity Award winning Lavender House (Anthony finalist, Lambda finalist, Best Book of the Year from Buzzfeed, Library Journal, Amazon, Bookpage, and others) and continued with The Bell in the Fog, (Publisher’s Weekly Editor’s Choice, Best Book of the year from Amazon, CrimeReads and Autostraddle). His most recent YA novels are Emmett (Best Book of the year from Kirkus and Amazon), Lion’s Legacy (Best Book of the year from Booklist and the New York Public Library) and Camp (Best Book of the year from Forbes, Elle, and The Today Show and others). The third Evander Mills mystery, Rough Pages, will be out in fall 2024. He lives in NYC with his husband and a very small cat. You can find him online at LevACRosen.com and @LevACRosen
JJ Clapton is a queer, autistic writer of science fiction and fantasy across multiple age ranges. Originally from London, she grew up retreating from life into the stories in her head. When she became sick with a chronic illness as a teen, she relied on the stories to help her escape. After more than half her life spent somewhere between housebound and bedbound, stories have been a constant companion and light even in the hardest of times. JJ loves to write stories in which characters like her exist and have adventures even if she doesn’t get to have many herself. Apart from being an avid reader, she loves craft, watching sports, and stimming to music. She now lives in Lanzarote where she enjoys meowing at all the local cats (of which there are many!). And has a lovely, vicious, cute little cat of her own called Rocky.
Kit Rosewater lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico with her partner and two small children who are bent on destroying the universe. She is the author of Books 1-3 in The Derby Daredevils, an illustrated middle grade series out through Abrams. Her debut YA romcom, All’s Fair in Love and Field Hockey, comes out in Spring 2025 through Delacorte Romance. Kit has been a high school theater and English teacher, a bookseller, a Children’s Literature academic, and a creative writing instructor for adults. Catch her online at 
Mariah Stillbrook, originally from Iowa, lives in Colorado with her white German shepherd, husband, and little girl. She spends most of her days writing, reading, and enjoying the occasional hike. In her late twenties she realized that her writing was missing something, magic. She now focuses her writing on urban fantasy and horror in both adult and young adult genres. As a pansexual woman, most of her works have LGBTQ rep.
Victoria Zeller is a trans writer born and raised in Buffalo, New York, where she still proudly resides. A former football player and lifelong fan, her initial focus was sports journalism before she made a sharp pivot to writing about queers who can’t stay out of trouble. Her sportswriting can be found at Defector, while her manic minute-by-minute sports analysis can be found on Twitter at @dirtbagqueer. One of the Boys is her debut novel.
