Phil Stamper

Phil Stamper grew up in a rural village near Dayton, Ohio. He has a B.A. in Music and an M.A. in Publishing with Creative Writing. And, unsurprisingly, a lot of student debt. He works for a major book publisher in New York City and lives in Brooklyn with his husband and their dog.

Stamper's debut novel is The Gravity of Us.

From his Q&A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: The Kirkus Review of The Gravity of Us begins, "Gay romance goes interstellar in this quirky coming-of-age tale." What do you think of that description?

A: At the end of the day, as long as Kirkus isn’t yelling at me I don’t care what they say.

I do think they found a nice catchy way to get people interested in the book. One big challenge I didn’t expect was that most readers initially assume the teens are in space, or that the teens are astronauts. I’ve seen Maya Rudolph’s gays in space gif about 40,000 times, and it always cracks me up.

But it’s helped me learn how to describe my book better…and how to be clearer about the fact it’s a contemporary YA, that the gays are not in space, that their parents are the astronauts, and so on.

Unfortunately, Kirkus saying “gay romance goes interstellar” kind of furthers that misconception. It’s such a great line, but I always worry about misleading people.

Anyway, let me reiterate: The gays are...[read on]

Visit Phil Stamper's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Gravity of Us.

--Marshal Zeringue