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I.W. Gregorio Books In Order

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Publication Order of Standalone Novels

None of the Above (2015)Description / Buy at Amazon
This is My Brain in Love (2020)Description / Buy at Amazon

Publication Order of Anthologies

Our Stories, Our Voices(2018)Description / Buy at Amazon
Body Talk(2020)Description / Buy at Amazon

IW Gregorio is a gay and lesbian, contemporary and young adult who also doubles up as a surgeon during the day. After she graduated with her MD from Yale, she proceeded to do her residency at Stanford. It was at Stanford that she got the inspiration for “None of the Above,” her debut novel when she met an intersex patient who explained her issues to her. The award-winning novel won the Top Ten Sports Book for Youth by the ALA Booklist, was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in 2016, and made the list for Flying Start by Publishers Weekly in 2015. The novel also made the Rainbow List by the American Library Association in 2016. She published her second novel “This is My Brain in Love” in 2020. In addition to her writing, she is a member of the board at interACT. This is an organization that works for better outcomes for Intersex Youth. She is also a co-founder and former vice president in charge of development at We Need Diverse Books. Gregorio’s writing has been featured in the “Journal of General Internal Medicine,” “The Washington Post,” “Scientific American,” “Newsweek,” “New York Daily News,” “San Francisco Chronicle,” and the “San Jose Mercury News.” She currently lives with her husband and children in Pennsylvania.

Gregorio was brought up in Utica in the state of New York, a city that is known as the headquarters of the FX Matt Brewing Company that makes the famous Kirkland beers. However, it was the “Utica Crib,” a local invention that is now very popular as a restraining device for mental patients that drew her family to the area. Her grand uncle who was a psychiatrist was so fascinated with the device that he moved to Utica. Unlike her uncle who was interested in scientific pursuits, IX was more interested in creative genres. As a high schooler, she was involved in theatre and played piano for a school play that the theatre director was full of praise or. She was also a Writing Club Member and for a time was a Science Olympian and Mathlete. For a while, she played with the idea of becoming an ornithologist after finding inspiration from “The Westing Game” by Ellen Raskin. She would later develop a love for reading contemporary young adult fiction, which is a passion that has stayed with her even when she has become an author. Nonetheless, she reads other genres too and as a teen, the highlight of her life was meeting fantasy fiction authors Susan Cooper and Lloyd Alexander.

IW Gregorio wanted to become a professional author ever since she was in high school. However, she was anxious particularly as she did not believe she was good enough as a writer to make a career of it. After graduating from college, she enrolled for a master’s in nonfiction writing but soon realized that she hated freelance journalism since it involved a lot of selling. Since she came from an Asian family, there was a lot of pressure to study medicine, and as such writing took the back burner while she went back to college to become a doctor. The writing bug bit while she was in college and she wrote her first manuscript and was lucky enough to land an agent though she never sold the work. Just like every unpublished author, it was quite the journey and she felt like quitting many times, particularly when she thought that she was not doing justice to her subject matter or getting into the head of her character. She wanted to make her characters emotionally compelling but she felt that her passion for medical accuracy was coloring her writing and making it bland. Ultimately, it was her writing and critique colleagues Sonya Mukherjee and Abigail Hing Wen who guilted her into making submissions every month. She wrote several manuscripts and rewrites and got the requisite rejections before she finally got “None of the Above” published in 2015.

“None of the Above” by IW Gregorio is a trailblazing novel that tells of the life and times of an intersex girl and what happens when the entire school learns of her secret. Everything changed in an instant when Kristin Lattimer was elected homecoming queen. It had always been a dream of hers to become queen and she could not be happier. She had recently earned a full college scholarship as a champion hurdler and she adores her boyfriend. Lattimer was preparing to take things to the next level as she felt everything was falling into place. But then what was to be a perfect moment turned out to be not what she had expected it would be as something is just not right. She heads to the hospital and the doctor tells her the horrible truth – she is an intersex girl. Outwardly, she could not be any more female but inside she has male parts and chromosomes. It was hard taking in the news about her body but it is even worse when the news is leaked to the entire student body and her identity becomes a common talking point. Her world is unraveling as she is coming to terms with who she is. It is a sensitively told and incredibly compelling narrative that explores what it means to be a girl or a boy or something that is both.

IW Gregorio’s “This is My Brain in Love” tells the compelling story of Jocelyn Wu. The junior year student in college has only three wishes: to make at least two months without being confused or compared to the only Chinese girl in her class, the confused Peggy Chang, to direct a short film alongside Priya Venkatram her best friend, and to make it through the year before she died of boredom. Meanwhile, Will Domenici has two objectives: to prove to the higher-ups that he is the best man to become permanent editor of the school paper and to find a paying internship for the summer holidays. But then Jocelyn’s father phones her with the bad news that their restaurant is dire financial straits and that they may not survive and her wishes now seem so trivial. Her father has never been good with marketing and it is now up to her to team up with Will their newest employee to try to bring their Chinese restaurant up to the high standards of the 21st century. They never liked each other from the start but their relationship soon blossoms into something more. But an uncertain future and family prejudices threaten to tear the two apart and take what they have built including the budding romance and the family restaurant.

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