Books by… Clint Chico

Our first ‘Author of the month’ feature is coming to an end, and we want to offer you a recap of all his works and where to find them!

High school freshman Marcia Torres finds her life flipped upside down when she’s forced to come out as gay in front of her entire 9^th grade class. Suddenly she’s the most well-known lesbian in her conservative little Indiana town. She falls for her high school crush (and has her heart shredded), she works with her best friend Charlie (Charlotte) Parker to start her school’s first Gay/Straight Alliance, and she finds true love in the form of a sweet little genius named Patience Lancaster. Now Marcia, Patience, and Charlie have to figure out how to stop a conservative parent group dead-set on making life miserable for same-sex couples in the school.

Marcia Torres is back, along with Charlie and Patience, for their 10^th grade year of high school. And things look great, at first: Charlie’s got a newfound passion for art, Marcia’s widowed mom gets proposed to by her long-time boyfriend, and things between Marcia and Patience are going great. But then Marcia loses her student council election, gets badly injured on the soccer field, and has to spend Christmas without her girlfriend Patience. And that’s before things get really bad. What looks at first like a string of unfortunate coincidences turns out to be the work of someone doing their best to give Marcia the worst year ever. Is her freshman-year nemesis Ashley Harwood seeking revenge, or is there a new villain in town?

Marcia, Charlie, and Patience enter their 11^th grade year with a new high school principal, which would be fine if he wasn’t also a racist and a homophobe (and an idiot). The student council elections are rigged to keep out anyone who isn’t straight and white, and things go south from there. With racists and bullies in charge of the school, Marcia, Patience and Charlie have to find sneaky and subversive ways to fight back. Along the way, they help old friends, attend marches and help organise rallies. They quickly discover that their new principal isn’t just a bigot, but also a criminal. Now, with the help of a brilliant rules-breaking freshman student named “Tiny” Tina Hampton, the girls take on their biggest challenge yet – fighting an entire system designed to work against them. 

During the summer between their junior and senior years, Marcia, Charlie, and Patience agree to play a tabletop role-playing game with sisters “Tiny” Tina Hampton and her older sister “Mouse”. The story switches back and forth between the ‘real world’ story of the girls getting together, and the ‘fantasy world’ story of Marcia the Fighter, Patience the Wizard, and Charlie the Cookie Elf. Just like in real life, the fantasy version of the girls take down bad guys and protect the innocent by bending and breaking every rule in the books. And they just might destroy a castle or two along the way. 

Marcia Torres starts her final year of high school with a slight touch of existential dread. After all, she knows the school year will end with her saying goodbye to her mom, to her stepdad, to her best friend of a decade, Charlie Parker and, unless she can find a way to get into Princeton, to her genius girlfriend, Patience. But first things first – Marcia has to take care of the here-and-now. She gets elected Student Council President, she gets a job tutoring a snarky nine-year-old, she manages to secure her future with Patience, and she befriends new students Katrina Jimenez and Anna DeTollo. But tragedy befalls Charlie at the same time that a new group of hateful bullies pops up, and suddenly making it to graduation becomes the least of Marcia’s problems.

High School freshman Katrina Jimenez has a theory – sometimes life gives you the chance to start over. So, she decides to take advantage of her first year of high school by resetting and redefining herself. “New Katrina” joins the soccer team alongside her best friend Anna DeTollo even though she’s never played before. She somehow wins election to the student council even though she wasn’t officially running. She ends up on stage doing Shakespeare even though she’s never acted before in her life. And she ends up coming out as gay, falling in love, and having her heart broken. Not necessarily in that order. She and Anna also end up taking on a group of racist school bullies with the help of fellow students Tina Hampton, Marcia Torres, Patience Lancaster, and Charlie Parker. After all, what’s a little anarchy and rebellion among friends?

A group of twelve teenagers sign up for a new reality survival show called “Island Games”. They’re flown out to a small, unnamed island and stranded with only one female producer, a hapless show host and an army of small robotic drone cameras. When teenage skate punk Anika Bright is voted out the game, she thinks her adventure is over until she finds a cryptic note that reads EVERYTHING YOU’VE BEEN TOLD IS A LIE. Now Anika has to work alongside her former competitors, including a numbers-obsessed girl, a preteen genius, and a giant football player with the personality of a teddy bear. They have to figure out why exactly someone would decide to fake an entire TV show, and what kinds of secrets are worth killing for.

Dora Roberts is a sophomore transfer to the famous Crestwood School of the Performing Arts. She happens to arrive at the same time as a film crew there to shoot a documentary on the school and its students. Besides Dora, the producers of the documentary focus their sights on former child star Solace Abernathy and musical prodigy Benji Carmichael, a strange girl with a strange name and strange, short blue hair. Benji and Dora form a quick friendship before Benji admits that she has a crush on Dora. Dora, who has never had a crush on anyone, is unsure of how she feels. But just when Dora is finally, finally honest about her love for Benji, tragedy befalls the girls, and they find themselves with only a few weeks left together before they’ll be pulled apart for good. This is the story of two girls finding themselves, finding each other, falling in love, and falling apart. This is love and loss and everything life can be. This is Art School Blues.

Losing someone you love can leave you feeling shattered inside. Like a piece of you is missing. Chipped. Cracked. Broken. High school sophomore Katrina Jimenez has a theory about that. She believes that, sometimes, broken can be beautiful.

• Coming Spring 2024 – “Wayward Magic” (stand-alone fantasy novel)
• Coming Fall 2024 – “Katrina’s Theory of Infinite Possibilities” (Katrina Book 3)

Clint Chico is an inner city high school media teacher, and the parent of LGBTQ+ kids. He’s the author of nine YA novels that feature diverse characters and focus on LGBTQ themes.

He says about himself

I love to write stories that are fun and funny while still hitting on themes and topics that are important and timely. I specialize in bright, colorful characters and sharp, clever dialogue. I’ve been told that my books will make you laugh and cry, often in the same chapter. But most of all, I hope my books will make you smile.

You can find him on Facebook as Clint Chico and Clint Chico YA Author, and on Instagram at booksbychico, send him an email clintchico@gmail.com or buy his books on Amazon.

You can listen to his podcast interview at “Tell Me About My Book” where he talked about “My Name is Marcia” and watch his “Stay Woke” Book Club interview for “Island Games”.

And definitely you can drop us a comment too, letting us know what you liked about his books!