Lamar Giles

Lamar Giles (born November 14, 1979) is an American author of young adult novels and short stories. He best known for his award-winning novels with his most popular being Fake ID, SPIN, Not So Pure and Simple, and The Legendary Alston Boys middle grade fantasy series. He is also one of the founding members of the American non-profit We Need Diverse Books.

Personal life Giles grew up next to an army base in Hopewell, Virginia. He wrote his first novel at 14 and graduated from Hopewell High School in 1997. and sold his first short story at age 21. He sold what would become his first novel, Fake ID, at 31.

Giles is a founding member of the non-profit We Need Diverse Books, their former VP of Communications, and was on their 2017 advisory board. Giles was a judge for the 2018 National Book Awards and is a faculty member in the Spalding University MFA program. He was named the inaugural writer-in-residence of William & Mary Libraries in 2025.

He lives with his wife in Chesapeake, Virginia. Giles cites Gerald Shur's non-fiction works and Casanegra by Steve Barnes as some of his inspirations for the novel.

His next novel, Endangered, about a vigilante teen whose undercover identity gets revealed to the world, was published by Harper Teen in 2015.

Giles is the editor of the anthology Fresh Ink, a collection of stories by authors Nicola Yoon, Malinda Lo, Melissa de la Cruz, Sara Farizan, Eric Gansworth, Walter Dean Myers, Daniel José Older, Jason Reynolds, Gene Luen Yang, Sharon G. Flake, Schuyler Bailar, and Aminah Mae Safi about marginalized experiences. It was published by Crown in 2018.

Awards