Skip to content

Join us for the 2026 Kentucky Book Festival on Saturday, November 7!

LockingtonMJ_Author

Mariama J. Lockington

Mariama J. Lockington is an adoptee, educator, and award-winning author. She has been telling stories and making her own books since the second grade, when she wore shortalls and flower leggings every day to school. Mariama’s middle-grade debut, For Black Girls Like Me, earned five starred reviews and was a Today Show Best Kids’ Book of 2019. Her sophomore middle-grade book, In The Key of Us, is a Stonewall Honor Award book and was featured in the New York Times. Her debut young adult novel, Forever is Now, was the 2024 winner of the Schneider Family Book Award. Her second young adult novel, I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm, is a USA Today bestseller. 

Mariama holds a Masters in Education from Lesley University and a Masters in Fine Arts in Poetry from San Francisco State University. She calls many places home, but currently lives in Kentucky with her wife, her sausage dogs, Walter and Sammy, and an abundance of plants.

 

Featured Book

LockingtonMJ_Cover

I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm

When snow falls, sparks fly in this irresistible queer romance from Schneider Family Book Award and Stonewall Honor winner Mariama J. Lockington—for fans of She Gets the Girl and Jennifer Dugan.

High school senior Lyric has always found Christmas to be the hardest season. While other kids got presents and family time by the fire, she was in and out of foster care. An up-and-coming make-up influencer and aspiring cosmetology student who loves a bold lip, Lyric definitely isn’t looking for romance—not when opening up to someone feels a lot like asking to get hurt.

Christmas is Juniper’s favorite time of year. At least, it was, until her moms’ separation. They’re back together now, and Juniper hopes they’ll stay that way. Because if they’re happy, that means Juniper can leave for her gap-year trip after graduation (the one she has yet to tell her parents about, and can’t really afford without their help).

When a chance meeting brings these two opposite personalities together, they should clash . . . only they don’t. Instead Lyric strikes a deal with Juniper: pose as her fake girlfriend in a series of holiday-themed social media posts and they can split the money from her beauty sponsorships. But soon the lines between what’s real and what’s not start to blur. Could it be that sparks are flying both in front of the camera and behind it? Told from dual perspectives, one in prose and one in verse, I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm is a cozy and modern love story.

 

Meet Mariama J. Lockington and get a copy of their book at the 2026 Kentucky Book Festival, Saturday, November 7, 2026, at Joseph-Beth Booksellers.