Books Inc. San Leandro proudly welcomes local author Vincent Traughber Meis for a reading from his new book Colton's Terrible Wonderful Year!
Colton is on a quest to meet his surrogate mom who might help him navigate being a Black teenager in today's America.
The woman who gave birth to him is Black. His dads are not. His diverse community of family and friends includes lots of LGBTQ+ people, though his first love is a girl of mixed race like him.
Colton's dads reluctantly introduce him to his birth mother, but she doesn't turn out to be person he hoped for. On his journey of falling in love, nearly losing one of his dads, and confronting a racist cousin, he learns about love, non-traditional families, community, and what is important in life. The biggest challenge of all is something he discovers about his birth, causing friction with his dads. But like every difficulty in his life, the love of his dads ultimately carries him along and lifts him up.
Vincent Traughber Meis grew up in Decatur, Illinois and graduated from Tulane University in New Orleans. He has also traveled extensively, and as result of his travels and time abroad he published a number of pieces, mostly travel articles, but also a few poems and book reviews, in publications such as, The Advocate, LA Weekly, In Style, and Our World in the 1980s and 90s. He has published five novels with Fallen Bros Press: Eddie’s Desert Rose (2011), Tio Jorge (2012), and Down in Cuba (2013), Deluge (2016) and Four Calling Burds (2019). Tio Jorge received a Rainbow Award in the category of Bisexual Fiction in 2012. Down in Cuba received two Rainbow Awards in 2013. Deluge won a Rainbow Award in 2016. His sixth novel The Mayor of Oak Street was released in June 2021 with NineStar Press. His stories have been published in several collections, including WITH: New Gay Fiction, and other collections. He lives in San Leandro, California.
