Leila Mottley celebrates the release of her debut novel “Nightcrawling” TODAY, one of the buzziest book releases of the summer. 📚👏 The Oakland writer was just 17 when she began writing the book, based on the real-life story of a teenager who was sexually exploited by Oakland police. She finished it in the summer before she went off to college and soon found herself in a 13-way bidding war among major publishers. On her 18th birthday, she signed her book contract. “I read the first 10 pages of the manuscript and was just pretty blown away,” says writer Ruth Ozeki, who was Mottley’s writing professor at Smith College in Northampton, Mass. “I realized this is really different, that this is a person who’s got a very unusual voice and a very unusual talent.” Read more about the promising writer, who turns 20 in about a week, and her novel at the link in bio (✍️: Brandon Yu)