Congratulations to Liara Tamani on the publication of This Ain’t Our First Rodeo (Greenwillow, Feb. 3, 2026). From the publisher’s website:
This ain’t Josie’s first rodeo. Her parents own several fancy restaurants in Houston, and they just opened a new one right outside the stadium. Josie is expected to stay inside the restaurant and help, and maybe take over their growing empire one day, but that isn’t what Josie wants. She’d rather be at the rodeo itself than in a high-end restaurant next to it. Or eating funnel cakes and Texas-sized corn dogs at the carnival on the grounds. Or better yet, riding her horse at her grandparents’ ranch, the very place her mom wants to sell.
It ain’t Shawn’s first rodeo either. He’s been riding bulls since his mom died, doing everything he can to live up to his rodeo-champion stepfather’s sky-high expectations. But as Shawn’s stardom rises, so do tensions in their relationship. His stepfather’s drinking and gambling problems sure don’t help.
After one unforgettable night leaves Josie and Shawn wanting nothing but each other, their lives become entwined in increasingly complex ways. Can they save Josie’s family land? Or will Shawn’s stepfather and his shady plan be the ranch’s ruin? Will one wrong move cost them everything? Rodeo after rodeo, year after year, can Josie and Shawn keep their hearts open through the secrets, twists, and turns?
Take a look back to Liara’s first Cynsations interview in 2017 for her debut, Calling My Name (Greenwillow, 2017).
New Voice: Liara Tamani on Calling My Name
By Robin Galbraith
Liara Tamani is the debut author of Calling My Name (Greenwillow/HarperCollins, 2017). From the promotional copy:
This unforgettable novel tells a universal coming-of-age story about Taja Brown, a young African American girl growing up in Houston, Texas, and it deftly and beautifully explores the universal struggles of growing up, battling family expectations, discovering a sense of self, and finding a unique voice and purpose.
Told in fifty-three short, episodic, moving, and iridescent chapters, Calling My Name follows Taja on her journey from middle school to high school.
Literary and noteworthy, this is a beauty of a novel that deftly captures the multifaceted struggle of finding where you belong and why you matter.
What was your initial inspiration for writing this book?
I started writing Calling My Name to explore and heal the wounds of my teenage self.
Like Taja, the protagonist of Calling My Name, I grew up in a very loving and religious family. My family was always in church—Bible study, choir rehearsal, Sunday services, Vacation Bible School, Church conventions—you name it, we were there. Also like Taja, I had a lot of doubts and questions about religion but quickly learned that I wasn’t supposed to have these doubts and questions, that their presence meant I might not be saved. So I dealt with them internally, fighting against the fear of hell, which was very real to me at the time.
And when I became sexually active in my later teenage years, my fears were compounded by guilt and shame. Let me tell you, it wasn’t fun.
While Calling My Name is not my story, it was definitely born out of my experience. And I wanted to share my truth, to give voice to the struggle of sexual shame and guilt (which a lot of teenagers deal with, especially girls), and to speak to the terrifying experience of departing from one’s family and community teachings to find one’s own way.
What model books were most useful to you and how?
Because Calling My Name is written in vignettes, I mostly studied novels that were composed of interrelated vignettes and short stories.
They taught me how to take the images, observations, ideas, and threads of dialogue in my individual vignettes and stories and expand them within the larger social, cultural, and emotional context of my book.
As an MFA in Writing student/graduate, how did that experience impact your literary journey?
I wrote Calling My Name during my MFA in Writing program at Vermont College of Fine Arts. I started the first piece at the very end of my first semester, fell in love with the voice, and spent the next year and a half adding to the novel piece by piece. Upon graduation, I had a finished, polished book. I didn’t plan it that way, but I was very fortunate to have it happen that way.
It was great to have each new chapter of my novel critiqued every month by an adviser. It was also nice to be able to dedicate the critical analysis part of the program to studying books and techniques that would help me write Calling My Name. And the structure and discipline of the MFA program was invaluable. I don’t think I would have written Calling My Name so fast without the deadlines.
Obviously, an MFA isn’t essential to becoming a fiction writer. There are so many paths, but this one was the right one for me. And one of the best things about the program is the lifelong community of writers it creates.
Taja is a young African-American girl, and her culture is on full display in this book; it’s embedded in the story. Some issues with race come up because race is always a factor for black people, and I wanted to be honest about the ways it’s a factor in Taja’s life.
One issue involves the time when the neighborhood families of Taja’s white friends move away when the neighborhood starts becoming too black. Another issue surrounds the hard time Taja has with the new black girls at school who thinks she talks too white.These issues are present, but they aren’t the focus. While books that explicitly deal with America’s race problem are very important (especially in these times), books that remind readers that black people and people of color have more than race problems, that we are whole human beings, with the whole spectrum of human problems and human joys are equally as important.
Liara Tamani is the author of the acclaimed young adult novels Calling My Name, All the Things We Never Knew, What She Missed, and This Ain’t Our First Rodeo, which released February 3, 2026. Her words have appeared in Time Magazine, NPR, and The New York Times. And her work has been featured by Good Morning America, Buzzfeed, Essence Magazine, Teen Vogue, and more.
Before becoming a writer, she attended Harvard Law School and worked as a marketing coordinator for the Houston Rockets & Comets, production assistant for Girlfriends (TV show), home accessories designer, floral designer, and yoga and dance teacher. She holds an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts and a BA from Duke University. Liara Tamani grew up in Houston, Texas, where she still lives.