Things I'll Never Say Stories About Our Secret Selves

Fifteen top young-adult authors let us in on provocative secrets in a fascinating collection that will have readers talking.

A baby no one knows about. A dangerous hidden identity. Off-limits hookups. A parent whose problems your friends won’t understand. Everyone keeps secrets—from themselves, from their families, from their friends—and secrets have a habit of shaping the lives around them. Acclaimed author Ann Angel brings together some of today’s most gifted YA authors to explore, in a variety of genres, the nature of secrets: Do they make you stronger or weaker? Do they alter your world when revealed? Do they divide your life into what you’ll tell and what you won’t? The one thing these diverse stories share is a glimpse into the secret self we all keep hidden.

With stories by:
Ann Angel
Kerry Cohen
Louise Hawes
Varian Johnson
erica l. kaufman
Ron Koertge
E. M. Kokie
Chris Lynch
Kekla Magoon
Zoë Marriott
Katy Moran
J. L. Powers
Mary Ann Rodman
Cynthia Leitich Smith
Ellen Wittlinger

Ann Angel is the author of many biographies, including Janis Joplin: Rise Up Singing, which won a YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults. Previously, she served as contributing editor for the anthology Such a Pretty Face: Short Stories About Beauty. A graduate of Vermont College’s MFA program in writing for children and young adults, Ann Angel directs the English graduate program at Mount Mary University in Milwaukee, where she lives with her family.