Ashley Hope Pérez is a literary scholar, award-winning novelist, youth advocate, and professor at The Ohio State University. Her novel Out of Darkness, frequently listed among the most banned books in the United States , has sparked powerful conversations about racism, history, and resilience.

Ashley’s advocacy goes beyond the page: she is also the editor of Banned Together: Our Fight for Readers’ Rights (Penguin Books, March 2025), an anthology amplifying voices of banned authors and offering teens a blueprint to stand against censorship.

In this interview, Ashley returns to Unban Coolies to discuss:

• The personal and professional toll of being censored

• How Out of Darkness has been received across the country

• What inspired her to create Banned Together and how it unites authors, illustrators, and student activists

• The importance of teens using their unique talents to resist book bans

• Why removing books means losing readers — and the power of that loss

Whether you're a student, educator, librarian, or advocate, this conversation reminds us all of what’s at stake and what’s possible when we fight for the freedom to read.

Interested in defending young people's access to diverse literature? Check out advocacy opportunities through the Unite to Read Project, a 3-year initiative Professor Pérez is directing at The Ohio State University. http://bit.ly/4gTK10K

Now available from Holiday House: BANNED TOGETHER: OUR FIGHT FOR READERS' RIGHTS https://bookspacecolumbus.com/product...

Check out OUT OF DARKNESS, a 2016 Printz honor book and named one of BOOKLIST's "50 Best YA Books of All Time." THE NEW YORK TIMES called it a "layered tale of color lines, love and struggle." Currently banned and removed in dozens of school districts because of coordinated attacks on diverse books. https://linktr.ee/ashleyhopeperez