Robin Gow’s Gooseberry is a moving middle-grade novel about a young nonbinary person searching for family and finding it with a sweet rescue dog. B has lived with so many different foster families and youth programs that they have to invent nicknames for them to keep track. Their parents died in a car accident when they were four, and they’ve been moved around ever since. And even though some foster families don’t really get B or why they haven’t picked a new name yet (though B has been grappling with that for a while), B tries their best to stay positive. They try to keep a list of names that might fit, and they dream of being able to live in a home where they could adopt a dog and teach him all sorts of tricks. So when they meet Gooseberry, they know they have to adopt him and give him a loving home. But training a dog isn’t as easy as B first suspected. Gooseberry is anxious and barely even wants to let B pet him. But the queer couple B is staying with, Eri and Jodie, help them to adopt Gooseberry and start training him. Even when Gooseberry snaps and growls, B doesn’t give up. But is this new home enough to change things for good for B and Gooseberry? Moving, heartwarming, and full of hope, Gooseberry is a friendship story classic in the making!
Author
Gow grew up in rural Pennsylvania and lives in Allentown Pennsylvania with their two pugs, Eddie and Gertie and their queer family. He works at Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center coordinating supportive services for the local LGBTQIA+ community. Awarded the Jerry Cain and Scott James Creative Writing Fellow, Gow earned their MFA in Creative Writing from Adelphi University where they also taught writing courses as an adjunct professor. Gow runs the trans & queer reading series Gender Reveal Party and co-edits the new magazine The Comments Section. Robin is the author of the chapbook Honeysuckle by Finishing Line Press and the collection Our Lady of Perpetual Degeneracy by Tolsun Books. Their first YA novel in verse, A Million Quiet Revolutions, is forthcoming March 2022 with FSG Books for Young readers and their first essay collection, Blue Blood, is forthcoming with Nasiona Publishing House. They is a managing editor The Nasiona and the assistant editor at large at Doubleback Books. They served for four years as the production editor of the Lantern literary magazine and are Social Media Coordinator for Oyster River Pages. They has also worked to help produce several zines and taught creative writing workshops in a variety of community spaces, including online forms. They are an out and proud autistic bisexual genderqueer man passionate about LGBTQIAA+ issues.
