Do you want a funny, smart, and spicy romance read? Look no further than these two novels! In Julian Winters’s Last First Kiss, Jordan Carter wishes he could forget his past romance and focus on his career at his family’s event-planning company. But when his first crush comes back into his life, maybe it’s time to try again. In Gabriella Gamez’s Kiss Me, Maybe, when a late bloomer goes viral for coming out, she decides to use her newfound fame to get her first kiss—with the help of a sexy bartender. These authors will discuss writing queer romance and how they infuse their pages with tension, love, and even heartbreak.
Photo Credit: Justine Rodriguez
Gabriella Gamez is a Mexican American writer from South Texas. She has BA in English, works as a library aide, and is studying library sciences to become a youth librarian. Her latest book is Kiss Me, Maybe.
Photo Credit: Vanessa North
Julian Winters is the author of the award-winning young-adult novels Running with Lions, Right Where I Left You, How to Be Remy Cameron, The Summer of Everything, As You Walk On By, and Prince of the Palisades, as well as his adult romance debut, I Think They Love You. A self-proclaimed comic-book geek, Julian currently lives outside of Atlanta, where he can be found swooning over rom-coms or watching the only two sports he can follow—volleyball and soccer. His new book is Last First Kiss.
Marian Navarro is a born-and-raised San Antonio native. She has served as a producer at Texas Public Radio for programs like “Morning Edition” and “Fronteras” since 2022. You can hear Marian anchoring the mid-day newscasts, occasionally hosting “Morning Edition,” or on the daily news roundup, “TPR News Now.”
She graduated with a Bachelor’s of Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin in Dec. 2021, where she interned at the Voces Oral History Center.
