Dominic Car­ril­lo is the author of The Improb­a­ble Rise of Paco Jones (win­ner of the SDBA for best YA, 2017), The Unusu­al Sus­pects (IAN Book Award final­ist & SDBA win­ner, 2018), and its sequel, Nia & the Deal­er (2019). His short sto­ry ​“Ghet­to is Not an Adjec­tive” is fea­tured in the YA col­lec­tion Liv­ing Beyond Bor­ders (2021, Pen­guin). Orig­i­nal­ly from San Diego, Cal­i­for­nia, he now lives and works in Sofia, Bulgaria.