Word Up celebrates the launch of local authors Ellen Hagan and David Flores’s Tell Me Every Lie, a moving, layered young adult novel in two voices about finding truth in the lies we tell ourselves. There will be a reading, Q&A, and special guests to celebrate the launch. In conversation with Hagan & Flores will be Renée Watson, author of All the Blues in the Sky.

“A simmering romance in which two recent high school graduates at an elite resort endeavor to reinvent themselves by telling lies-and maybe fall in love. The protagonists remain sympathetic even amid their mutual deceit, while the cozy plot builds to a compassionate, mature, and surprising resolution.” —Publishers Weekly

This event is a $5 suggested donation ticket with 50 max attendees. Please register in advance. 

In compliance with Word Up Community Safety guidelines, all attendees are encouraged to stay masked at all time.

Recirculation, a project of Word Up Community Bookshop, is located at 876 Riverside Drive (near 160th St.) in Washington Heights, NYC. You can take the 1 train to 157th St., A/C train to 163rd St., and the M4 and M5 to Broadway and 159/160th.

ABOUT THE BOOK

John Paul Reyes wants to escape the worst truths in his life-other people’s pity since his dad died, and everyone else’s expectations about what he should do with his life now that he’s graduated high school. When he arrives at the Majestic Mountain resort with his Tita Abrigo’s wealthy family, he sees a way to escape-he can be JP Abrigo, rich and set, and he can lie his way to feeling fine.

Mia Malik is trapped in this town, working hard at the resort, trying to escape her broken family and to make her way to the prestigious art program she was accepted into. She’s desperate to afford her way there, and she’s sick of the privileged guests who have the whole world open to them, who don’t really even see her.

But then another staffer dares Mia to make one of the guests fall for her. If she can, she’ll collect enough money to get out. Mia knows this is dangerously against the rules, and doesn’t even want to pretend to like an entitled rich kid, but then she meets JP. Lying to him starts off easy, but then there’s more to him than she expected. And the way JP feels about Mia? So real. As their week together runs out, Mia and JP will have to dig themselves out from the lies they tell to see if there’s any truth in the feelings they have for each other.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ellen Hagan is a writer, performer, and educator. Her books include: Crowned, Hemisphere, Watch Us Rise (YA collaboration with Renée Watson), Blooming Fiascoes, Reckless, Glorious, Girl, Don’t Call Me a Hurricane, All That Shines and Tell Me Every Lie (YA collaboration with David Flores forthcoming from Bloomsbury, Spring 2025). Ellen’s poems and essays can be found in: So We Can Know: Writers of Color on Pregnancy, Loss, Abortion, and Birth, Creative Nonfiction, Underwired Magazine, She Walks in Beauty, Small Batch, Southern Sin, ESPNW and Oprah Daily. She is the recipient of a 2020 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, the 2013 NoMAA Creative Arts Grant and received grants from the Kentucky Foundation for Women and the Kentucky Governor’s School for the Arts. National arts residencies include The Hopscotch House and Louisiana Arts Works. Ellen is Head of the Poetry & Theatre Departments at the DreamYard Project and directs their International Poetry Exchange Program (founded in partnership with Ambassador Caroline Kennedy) with Japan, South Korea, Australia and the Philippines. www.ellenhagan.com @ellenhagan

David Flores is a photographer, filmmaker, and educator. His images can be found on the covers of Poets & Writers, Scalawag, and PLUCK. His work has been showcased at The Kentucky Center, The Verbal Arts Centre of Northern Ireland, and film festivals across the country. In 2018, David began work on “Nueva Bronx: 21st Century Families” — bringing free family portraiture to Railroad Park in the Bronx. This project is his response to recent nationalist movements that have attempted to remove and erase familial representations of immigrants and people of color. David believes that family, in all of its beautiful forms, stands as a cornerstone of the human experience, creating intersections between past, present and future and simultaneously weaving larger connections in the community. David is a regular guest artist of the Digital Age Learning Institute, the Kentucky Governor’s School for the Arts, and the Alice Hoffman Young Writer’s Retreat at Adelphi University. Recent arts residencies include ArtBuilt, Global Writes, Louisiana Arts Works, and the DreamYard Project. David lives in Manhattan with his partner and children.

Renée Watson is a #1 New York Times bestselling author. Her novel, Piecing Me Together, received a Newbery Honor and Coretta Scott King Award. Her books include the Ryan Hart series, Some Places More Than Others, This Side of Home, What Momma Left Me, Betty Before X, cowritten with Ilyasah Shabazz, Watch Us Rise, cowritten with Ellen Hagan, and Love Is a Revolution, as well as acclaimed picture books: Summer Is Here, Maya’s Song, The 1619 Project: Born on the Water, written with Nikole Hannah-Jones, A Place Where Hurricanes Happen, and Harlem’s Little Blackbird, which was nominated for an NAACP Image Award. Renée splits her time between Portland, Oregon and New York City.