Isaac Fitzsimons Books In Order
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The Passing Playbook | (2021) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Anthologies
Isaac Fitzsimons is a young adult romance author best known for his debut novel “The Passing Playbook.” While he is now an author, he still holds a day job with American for the Arts where he has held a number of titles with the latest being Research & Evaluation Manager. Outside of professional pursuits, he has been a dabbler in all kinds of art forms over the years.
Isaac went to the College of Wooster where he studied psychology during the day and was a sketch comedy performer during the night. He would later go to the University of Washington where he graduated with a masters in Educational Psychology. During his time there he helped administer an NI8H grant that helped train teachers on how to use neuroscience principles in class.
When he is not working or writing, he loves to watch Manchester City play soccer or butcher songs on the ukulele, piano or banjo. His dream vacation would be a jaunt across Europe on a sleeper train to watch the home games of top tier soccer teams on the continent. He currently makes his home in Washington DC.
Fitzsimons grew up in the suburbs of Washington DC even though he spent many of his holidays in France and England. He got into writing while he was still a first grader. His school used to have a Writer’s Workshop where the kids would write stories or just about anything creative they could think about.
He still remembers writing a fan fiction series inspired by the “Bunnicula” series. His mother still has many of the stories that she wrote during his creative writing classes in grade school and a lot from his days in college and high school.
Nonetheless, much of his writing in the formative years was more of a hobby until he decided to try Camp NaNoWriMo. It was from there that he learned all about publishing and writing.
Isaac Fitzsimons favorite genres have always been young adult ever since he was young. Nonetheless, he also reads other genres such as domestic thriller and adult mysteries when he is in the mood. He has said that there are not many genres he cannot read or write but what you can always count on is queer characters in his writing.
Growing up, Isaac Fitzsimons noticed that most novels did not have gay or blacks even as secondary characters. Even if they did, most never had those two in the same work. As such, when he started writing the manuscript for his debut she intended to include the diversity that he would have wanted to see in the books he read.
He counts among his influences the likes of British author Robert Muchamore who got him reading for fun while he was still in high school. It was in his novels that he first saw a teenage gay character. Given that it was in the early 2000s it was a very rare thing much unlike it is now.
By deciding to make diversity a core component of his writing, he gave himself the permission to be inspired by his own life experiences that he could then put on the page in very authentic stories.
Looking back at what he used to consume, he initially believed that people like himself could not be lead characters in stories which was something horrific. As a young adult fiction author, it is critical to show LGBTQ and BIPOC youth that they too can have their own stories where they are heroes.
Isaac Fitzsimons “The Passing Playbook” tells the story of Spencer Harris, a fifteen year old boy. He is an amazing big brother, proud nerd and upcoming football star in training that also happens to be transgender. Soon after he transitioned, he had been bullied for almost a year before he transferred to a liberal private school out of the state.
At Oakley, Spencer seems to have hit the jackpot as he has great new friends, a shot at getting a position on the soccer team, accepting classmates and maybe something that could develop into more with one of his classmates. But no one at his new school knows that he is transgender. As such, when a new law is passed, Spencer’s coach is forced to bench him as he finds out that he was born a female.
Spencer now needs to decide whether he will fight for the right to play in the team of cheer from the sidelines. But to fight means that he would have to come out to everyone which he is not sure he is ready for.
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