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A Particular Invisibility

By |2020-03-28T13:40:37-05:00June 19th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Blogathon 2016, Writers on Writing|Tags: , , |

by Kayla Whaley The first essay I ever submitted won an award. A group of writing professors at my university read the piece, described it as written with “delicate emotion,” and handed me a check along with the certificate. I called home as soon as I found out, literally breathless with the news. I told Mom I’d won a writing contest, and before she could even react, rushed to say she couldn’t ever, ever read the essay. A few days later my sister told me to call home. “Mom’s freaking out,” she said. “She doesn’t know why she [...]

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Never Am I Whole

By |2020-03-28T13:40:37-05:00June 18th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Blogathon 2016, Guest Blogs, Readers on Reading, Teen Voices, Writers on Writing|Tags: , , , , |

by Wesaun  There’s nothing more exciting than the prospect of finally seeing myself in the books I read except, oh wait, I never do. I look and look and search and search and all that meets me is a gap, all that meets me is the laughter track as if I am on a comedy show and I am the queer character that has just had a cruel trick played on them. All that meets me is parts of my identity dismembered and separated into different stories but never am I whole. Because according to books, I do [...]

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Where They Never Bothered to Go: Hiding Queer YA from the Mainstream

By |2020-03-28T13:40:38-05:00June 16th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Blogathon 2016, Writers on Writing|

by Shaun David Hutchinson  To say I've been overwhelmed by the response to my latest book, We Are the Ants, is a bit of an understatement.  I didn't start out writing books with queer narrators.  It wasn't until my third book that I worked up the nerve to do so (and that courage came in part from splitting with my first agent and feeling like my writing career was all but dead, and therefore I had nothing left to lose).  My first two books had queer characters in them—a gay best friend that comes out in Deathday, and [...]

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I Volunteer As Tribute: Writing the Book I Wish I’d Had As A Teen

By |2020-03-28T13:40:50-05:00June 4th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Blogathon 2016, New Releases, Writers on Writing|Tags: , |

by Chelsea M. Cameron “So, are you just going to write books about lesbians now?” This was usually the third or fourth question I got from people when I came out. After “how did you know?” and “what did your mom say?” “Um, no?” was usually my response. I’ve been publishing books (first independently, then also traditionally, aka, being a hybrid author) since February of 2012. Every single one of them was about a heterosexual couple. Because I was heterosexual. Until, in October of 2015, I realized I wasn’t. Twenty-nine years of denial, down the drain. It was intense, it was terrifying, but it was [...]

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The Love That Lives Here: On Queer Girls, Transboys, and Sex on the Page

By |2020-03-28T13:40:50-05:00June 1st, 2016|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Blogathon 2016, Writers on Writing|Tags: , , |

by Anna-Marie McLemore Sex-on-the-page. Doesn’t that sound like some kind of drink book lovers should come up with? Like sex-on-the-beach, but more bookish. (Paging Dahlia Adler, because I think she would have some ideas about what should go in this.) The fact that I'm talking about drink recipes probably gives away the fact that I'm a little uncomfortable with what I'm gonna talk about right now. But I'm gonna do it anyway. For anyone who doesn’t know, I’m a queer girl of color, and I'm married to a transgender guy I met as a teen, and who I [...]

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Why We Need Editors (AKA Writing While Demi-Sexual)

By |2020-03-28T13:40:55-05:00April 12th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Writers on Writing|Tags: , |

by Janine A. Southard My editor gently reminded me that not all my teen characters can be ace. And she's right. As someone on the asexual spectrum, it doesn't occur to me to put sexual tension (or interest) between strangers into my books during the drafting phase. That's the drafting phase, though. In editing, I can't assume all the characters will be just like me. Sure, some characters may never have romance plot lines, but many will have sexual thoughts. For instance, I once wrote a novel where my teenage protagonists find themselves in a brothel. (Hive & [...]

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My Big Gay Sequel

By |2020-03-28T13:41:34-05:00June 23rd, 2015|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Writers on Writing|Tags: , , , |

by Casey Lawrence This past May my first book, Out of Order, was published through Dreamspinner Press’s YA branch Harmony Ink. My first foray into queer YA has been, on the one hand, a whirlwind of excitement, and on the other, a huge let down. My book will never be a New York Times Bestseller, and I’ve made my peace with that. It will never win awards, sit on Indigo shelves, be translated into a dozen languages. This isn’t because my main character is a biracial, bisexual teenaged girl or because my writing style is still growing, still [...]

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Give Your Characters an Online Presence

By |2020-03-28T13:41:38-05:00May 30th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs, Writers on Writing|Tags: |

by Steve Berman There was a time when you could be all alone even when surrounded by dozens, even hundreds, of people. I'm talking about high school and the time before the Internet and smart phones. Everyone feels isolated now and then, but true isolation, being ignored while the rest of the world goes about its day, is something teenagers face. Especially LGBT teens. We're the outsiders, after all. Different. Sometimes special, but very different. Where we look we see a world that was built for heterosexuals and cisgendered people. Seeing a film, watching a commercial, noticing a [...]

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Reasons Writers Exclude Queer Characters: Debunked!

By |2020-03-28T13:41:39-05:00May 25th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs, Writers on Writing|Tags: |

by Libertad Araceli Thomas As an aspiring writer, over the past year I’ve heard and read perhaps a dozen reasons why some writers are reluctant to incorporate queer narratives in their work in progresses. I mean, I get it, writing characters outside of your comfort zone isn’t always easy. What do they always tell us, write “what you know”. As unreal as it sounds a lot of people don’t know any Queer people personally and want to hold onto that excuse but in order to unlock something deeper from your writing, I think it can be a learning experience [...]

Making Choices in LGBTQ YA

By |2020-03-28T13:41:47-05:00May 18th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Writers on Writing|Tags: , , , |

by Dahlia Adler I've spoken a lot about how Under the Lights wasn't originally a f/f romance. I had always planned to write one, but my very first was going to be the YA I'm actually drafting now, which is a contemporary inspired by the historical War of the Roses. (It's still f/f - not to worry!) But when I was drafting UtL, I really, really struggled with the romance I was writing for Vanessa with this boy, and why there was zero story and zero chemistry. I was talking to one of my critique partners about it, and I [...]

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