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The Joy of Knowing Yourself

By |2020-08-22T16:03:56-05:00August 28th, 2020|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Writers on Writing|Tags: , , , , |

by Maggie Tokuda-Hall I wrote The Mermaid, The Witch, and The Sea for one kid in particular. Her name is Clare. I met her when she was nine, and I worked in a bookstore. For the first two years I knew her, her parents would bring her into the bookstore where I worked, and would do most of the talking for her. She has a mess of unruly, bright red hair (she is AWARE she looks like the girl from Brave) and was also painfully shy.  But then one day a flip I hadn’t touched switched. [...]

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Fan Fiction: By Us, For Us

By |2020-08-24T18:41:25-05:00August 26th, 2020|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Writers on Writing|Tags: , , |

by Kayla Ancrum As the days blur together and book shipping times get longer, people are beginning to reinvest their time in fan fiction. The art form is hardly without prejudice. Even mentioning it here might elicit some wincing or an eye roll or two. Most of the serious fiction writers I’ve met view it with disdain: a 7/11 lunch of doritos, arizona tea and beef jerky to their white wine and salmon with a salad on the side. Several authors I know personally, who honed their [...]

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Love, Respect, and Celebration: The Legacy of Queer Literature

By |2020-08-19T01:15:44-05:00August 22nd, 2020|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Readers on Reading, Writers on Writing|Tags: , , , |

Caleb Roehrig has written several YA novels starring queer characters, including mystery, heist, and vampire novels. Buy them from one of the author's favorite indies, Literati Bookstore or The Book Cellar! by Caleb Roehrig In 2011, three and a half years before I wrote the manuscript that would become my debut novel, my husband and I put all of our belongings into storage and we moved to Helsinki, Finland. It was a world away from everything we knew, in an unfamiliar country where we didn’t speak the language, and where we had [...]

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On shelving–and unshelving–the book of my heart

By |2020-08-13T21:55:12-05:00August 20th, 2020|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Writers on Writing|Tags: , , , , |

by Rebecca Kim Wells In 2015 I reached a major milestone in my writing career: I signed with a literary agent. The book I had written was a dark fairy tale-inspired YA fantasy, drenched with blood and magic and lies and quests. It was also a book featuring a queer main character and romantic relationship. I saw no reason for this to be a problem. It was true that there weren’t that many queer YA books out there (especially not published by major US publishers), but there were some. [...]

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Writing Your Way Out Of The Closet

By |2020-08-13T21:19:35-05:00August 19th, 2020|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Writers on Writing|Tags: , , , , |

by Abdi Nazemian Many years ago, after my first book – an adult gay novel called The Walk-In Closet was published – a wonderful and open-minded Iranian therapist hosted a book club at her home. The attendees were largely Iranians of my parents’ generation. They all dressed for the event like it was an awards show. It was very formal. And I was very afraid. Because up until then, I had largely been hiding my queerness from my cultural community. Or maybe the right way to put it is that they had been choosing not to see [...]

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When Queer Books Lead to Queer BFFs

By |2020-08-18T10:25:07-05:00August 18th, 2020|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Writers on Writing|Tags: , |

by Kelly Quindlen Three years ago, when I was going through a rough patch, my parents gave me some advice. “We think you need queer friends,” my dad said. “Have you considered a gay cruise?” I laughed out loud when he suggested it, but I knew the larger point was true: I was starving for friends who reflected my queerness back to me. I have some amazing friends, but they are overwhelmingly straight and cis. This is not their fault. We can’t all be blessed with queerness. But the point [...]

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Navigating Privilege and Cultural Capital as a Black Queer Writer

By |2020-03-28T13:40:08-05:00February 23rd, 2018|Categories: Guest Blogs, Writers on Writing|Tags: , , , |

By Allison Jeanne Alcéna Children’s literature writers are often encouraged to pen the stories they wanted to see when they were younger. In my case, I never saw my whole self in children’s books, although I sometimes saw parts. As an adult, I now understand that what was being reflected back to me were the privileged parts of my identity, allowing me to see pieces of myself in the slew of middle-class, white characters that were on the market. And because I saw certain parts of myself in books, I then felt like those must be the most [...]

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Trans Girl Classic Gets New Edition

By |2020-03-28T13:40:08-05:00January 25th, 2018|Categories: Archive, Author Interview, Readers on Reading, Writers on Writing|Tags: |

When Being Emily came out in 2012, it was the first YA novel to tell the story of a transgender girl from her perspective. This May, a new edition will be released with updated language and science, new scenes, a new author’s note and an introduction by poet and Harvard professor Stephanie Burt. To celebrate this upcoming edition, Being Emily author Rachel Gold and Stephanie Burt interviewed each other about the novel and related topics. We begin with questions for both of us and then devolve into Rachel sidetracking Stephanie to talk about comic books. (Which is really [...]

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The Power of Stories: Saving Lives and Connecting Readers, One Book at a Time

By |2020-03-28T13:40:11-05:00June 22nd, 2017|Categories: Author Guest Blog, Guest Blogs, New Releases, Writers on Writing|Tags: , , , , |

Pride Month Blogathon: Day 10 – Introduction to Pride Month Blogathon by Kheryn Callender I didn't like myself very much when I was younger. I was the only black student in my private school for a few years, and whenever I left my school, which was deep in the countryside where many white people from the states lived, I was surrounded by locals from St. Thomas who thought I acted too snobby, who thought I spoke with a stateside accent because I didn’t love my island, who thought I acted too “white.” It seemed wherever I went, whichever community [...]

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The Queer, Enchanted Girls

By |2020-03-28T13:40:11-05:00June 20th, 2017|Categories: Author Guest Blog, Guest Blogs, New Releases, Writers on Writing|Tags: , , , , , |

Pride Month Blogathon: Day 8 – Introduction to Pride Month Blogathon by Anna-Marie McLemore I love fairy tales. I love them so much that even when I don’t mean them to, they find their way into my stories. But my third book, Wild Beauty (October 3), may be the story I’ve written so far that looks, from the outside, most like a fairy tale. It’s a book of secrets, pretty dresses, and magical gardens. It’s the story of a generation of cousins who are both haunted by their family’s legacy and enchanted by their own fierce hearts. It’s also [...]

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