November 6, 2026
It gives us great pleasure to present Season 11, Episode 41: Steven Gellman!
Steven Gellman shares his YA novel, Somewhere in Nowhere! We discuss teen anxiety, coming of age, writing real lived experience into fiction, and the mystery of 11:22. Steven highlights the importance of grounding fiction in observing life, and in found family being more important that he realized!
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Bio:
Steven Gellman is an award-winning songwriter turned author. Inspired by his early love for Judy Blume’s groundbreaking stories, Steven has found his passion for writing coming-of-age fiction that centers LGBTQ+ voices and the real-life challenges of navigating adolescence in an ever-changing world.
Steven has long championed authentic queer storytelling — first through song, now through fiction. Billboard Magazine once praised him as one of the ‘out-queer tunesmiths […] making waves along the coffeehouse circuit.’ His debut album Photobook was nominated for Debut Album of the Year by the Gay/Lesbian American Music Awards (GLAMA). His latest release, All You Need, was a finalist for four Wammie Awards and earned a silver from the Mid-Atlantic Song Contest for “Twenty-Nine.”
When he’s not writing, Steven can be found sipping a cup of Dark Rose tea and plotting new adventures for his book club, Tea & Peril. Now in its tenth year, the club has hosted a growing number of New York Times bestselling authors including Travis Baldree, Sarah Beth Durst, Emily X.R. Pan, Eleanor Brown, and William Kent Krueger.
Somewhere in Nowhere (NineStar Press, April 2026) took Second Place in The BookFest’s Fall 2026 awards, in two fiction categories: LGBTQ+ Young Adult and YA Boys & Men. Steven was also named an ApollyCon Wordsmith Scholar and will appear at the event in 2027. He lives in Maryland’s Piedmont region with his husband and a houseful of rescued companion animals.
