Acclaimed Portland Author Pairs with Poet for New YA Novel

In Watch Us Rise, Portland-raised, Coretta Scott King Award-winning author Renée Watson and poet Ellen Hagan present two dynamic creative young women who stand up and speak out.

The feminist YA story focuses on Jasmine and Chelsea -- best friends on a mission. Sick of the way women are treated even at their progressive NYC high school, the girls decide to start a Women's Rights Club. They post their work online--poems, essays, videos of Chelsea performing her poetry, and Jasmine's response to the racial microaggressions she experiences--and soon they go viral. But with such positive support, the club is also targeted by trolls. When things escalate in real life, the principal shuts the club down. Not willing to be silenced, Jasmine and Chelsea will risk everything for their voices--and those of other young women--to be heard. 

Watch Us Rise -- Watson’s fifth novel -- features compelling art and poetry along with powerful personal journeys that will inspire readers and budding poets, feminists and activists. Find it in bookstores February 12, 2019.

About the authors:

Renée Watson is the New York Times bestselling, Newbery Honor, and Coretta Scott King Award-winning author of Piecing Me Together, This Side of Home, What Momma Left Me, and Betty Before X, co-written with Ilyasah Shabazz, as well as two acclaimed picture books: A Place Where Hurricanes Happen and Harlem's Little Blackbird, which was nominated for an NAACP Image Award. She is the founder of I, Too, Arts Collective, a nonprofit committed to nurturing underrepresented voices in the creative arts, and currently lives in New York City. 

Ellen Hagan is a writer, performer, and educator. Her poetry collections include Hemisphere and Crowned. Her work can be found in ESPN Magazine, She Walks in Beauty, and Southern Sin. Ellen is the Director of the Poetry & Theatre Departments at the DreamYard Project and directs their International Poetry Exchange Program with Japan, South Korea and the Philippines. She co-leads the Alice Hoffman Young Writer's Retreat at Adelphi University.