When his best friends Gunnar and Min invite him to get a job with them as counselors at a summer camp for burn victims, Russel thinks he’ll have it made. Now, he can’t wait to get away for the summer to anywhere where he won’t be known as the “gay kid”. Ever since his “Geography Club” was exposed as really being a Gay, Bisexual, Straight Alliance. Russel Middlebrook is not having a good time at school. I answer all questions, so feel free to contact me on social media, or through my website: In most cases, I think the important thing for a writer or filmmaker is to get out of the way and just tell the damn story. But I think “story” is a lot more than “beautiful language” or complicated camera angles, which I often find self-indulgent and distracting. If I had to describe my own writing projects, I would say, “Strong central concept, strong plot, strong character and voice.”īasically, I see myself as a storyteller. I try hard to write books that are page-turners, and movies that are fast-paced and accessible. You can follow our 'digital nomad' journey at Instead, I travel the world indefinitely with my husband, writer Michael Jensen, moving to a new country every few months. * Two Thousand Pounds Per Square Inch (a free short story) * Double Feature: Attack of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies/Bride of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies (book #3) * Barefoot in the City of Broken Dreams (book #2) * The Thing I Didn't Know I Didn't Know (book #1) My 2007 YA mystery, Project Pay Day, is much lighter, and has also been adapted as feature film (which I wrote), to be released in 2020. My 2016 gay teen puzzle box thriller Three Truths and a Lie was nominated for an Edgar Award (this, and my 2005 novel Grand & Humble, are real mind-benders, trust me).

In 2017, I released a new, stand-alone series starring Russel’s gay disabled friend Otto Digmore, called The Otto Digmore Series. These books are “new adult” (making Russel one of very few literary characters to “jump” genres in projects created by the same author). In 2013, I continued Russel’s story as he grew up, into his twenties, in a new, stand-alone series called Russel Middlebook: The Futon Years. I tried to give these books a lot of humor and heart.

I subsequently wrote three more books about Russel, calling them The Russel Middlebrook Series. It was one of the first in a new wave of break-out LGBTQ young adult fiction, and it was adapted as a feature film in 2013. My first novel, Geography Club (2003), is the story of a gay teen named Russel Middlebrook. I’ve published fourteen novels, had nine screenplays optioned, and had two of my projects turned into feature films.

I am Brent Hartinger, a novelist and screenwriter.

Geography club by brent hartinger