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Program Description
Event Details
Join award-winning Silicon Valley author Kyla Zhao for an engaging discussion about her new middle-grade novel, May the Best Player Win. This exciting story offers a family-friendly twist on The Queen’s Gambit and is perfect for readers aged 8-12. After the talk, you’ll have the chance to purchase a copy of her book and get it personally autographed.
This is Kyla's third novel, but her first middle-grade reader. Her previous works include The Fraud Squad (2023) and Valley Verified (2024).
Speaking topics include:
- Drawing on her personal experience as a competitive chess player to craft this narrative
- How a desire to see more positive Asian media representation inspired her to start writing
- Confronting sexism and performance anxiety in competitive sports
- Juggling a full -time tech job and writing novels
- Publishing three novels with Penguin Random House, the world's largest fiction book publisher, at the age of 26
- The similarities between writing for adults vs. writing for children
Registration (recommended but not required) opens February 1, 2025.