Representation – Page 2

The Room Where It Happens

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:19-05:00November 16th, 2016|Categories: Guest Blogs, Publishing People|Tags: Representation, Trans|

Trans Awareness Week: Day #2 Previous Posts: Trans Stories Are Human Stories by April Daniels, Center Trans Voices: Introduction to Trans Awareness Week Series by Vee S.) by Parrish Turner With each new “trans book,” I hold my breath as I read over the summaries and quotes which litter the pages. Without fail, I will see the words “dark secret,” “eye-opening,” or “change the way you think.” I find myself disappointed every time. The fact is, trans people are still seen as a mysterious other. Through many people’s hard work, we are just starting to see books about transgender [...]

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So Now What? The Post-Coming Out Story in LGBTQ YA Fiction

By Daisy|2020-03-28T13:40:30-05:00November 11th, 2016|Categories: Author Guest Blog|Tags: Coming Out, Intersectionality, Representation|

by Emily O’Beirne Does every single LGBTQ young adult book have to be a coming out story? This is a sighed-out question we hear a lot these days. And while I do think that we need to pause and take some small pleasure in the fact that we’ve reached a cultural point where we can complain about the ubiquity of any kind of LGBTQ story, there’s definitely a glut of coming out narratives dominating this corner of the world. But let’s not kid ourselves, either. We’d be misguided to think that coming out stories are not still a vital [...]

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Interview: C.B. Lee & Rachel Davidson Leigh

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:34-05:00September 23rd, 2016|Categories: Author Interview, New Releases, Writers on Writing|Tags: Asian, Bisexual, Intersectionality, labels, PoC, Queer Girls, Queer Guys, Representation|

Bisexual Awareness Week Series Day #3 – Previous Posts: Introduction -- Duality, YA, and Crumpled Stickers -- Let's Push For More Nuanced Bi+ Representation Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee & Hold by Rachel Davidson Leigh are both ALL THE WAY UP on our TBRs! Today, we're so excited to have BOTH of these authors on GayYA! Add Not Your Sidekick & Hold to your TBR Buy Not Your Sidekick & Pre-Order Hold CB: Hello! Thank you so much for having me on your blog, I'm very excited to be here. I'm C.B. and from [...]

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Duality, YA, and Crumpled Stickers

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:34-05:00September 21st, 2016|Categories: Guest Blogs, Readers on Reading, Teen Voices|Tags: Bisexual, Representation|

Bisexual Awareness Week Day #1 - Previous Posts: Introduction by Shelly Z I’ve begun to see that there is a strange duality when it comes to my pride. I wear it openly online, and in person only to those who I know extremely well. I attended Pride for the second year this summer, and I am struck again and again by the duality upon reflection. A key highlight of Pride for me is seeing the colourful stickers that attendees wear to ID or to just celebrate. The only day I wear my “Proud” sticker is on Pride. I [...]

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Interview: Vee sits down with David Levithan & Nina Lacour

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:35-05:00June 29th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Author Interview, Blogathon 2016, Book Club, Fun Things, New Releases, Teen Voices|Tags: Coming Out, gay, lesbian, Minor Queer Characters, New Releases, Poetry, Queer Girls, Queer Guys, Realistic, Representation|

I had the INCREDIBLE opportunity to be able to sit down with David Levithan & Nina Lacour when they came to Addendum Books on the You Know Me Well book tour. This was literally one of the best experiences of my life and I am so thankful to the authors for taking the time to do this and to everyone else who had a hand in making this possible. We got to talk about the new narratives You Know Me Well brings to the table of LGBTQIA+ YA, how the collaboration on YKMW began, and what its existence [...]

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Interview: Caleb Roehrig author of Last Seen Leaving

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:36-05:00June 27th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Author Interview, Blogathon 2016, New Releases|Tags: Bisexual, Coming Out, gay, New Releases, Queer Guys, Realistic, Representation, Thriller|

One of the amazing authors I got to interview at BEA was Caleb Roehrig! Caleb and I were both slightly food-deprived and wholly overwhelmed by the massiveness that was BEA, so some of our questions and answers were a little off the wall (frex: after the interview, I learned some fun facts about the population living around Lake Superior). But we also discussed new narratives in LGBTQIA+ YA, how his debut book Last Seen Leaving fits into the mix, and our favorite LGBTQIA+ YA books. So I'm SUPER psyched to be able to share this interview! (Also apparently I cannot [...]

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There are no rules

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:37-05:00June 26th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Blogathon 2016|Tags: Representation, size|

by Mariko Tamaki I need a second to tell you this thing. Ready? There are no rules. Okay. Wait. Hold on. There are some rules. You can’t eat a grill cheese in math class. You can’t walk barefoot in places that have a sign that says you can’t walk barefoot there. Sure sure, I get that. I’m not here to get you in trouble. Allow me to clarify. There are no rules about who you can and cannot be. You think there are rules because people tell you there are rules. People say stuff like, “Girls wear make [...]

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Don’t Judge A Book By Its Description

By Nadia|2020-03-28T13:40:37-05:00June 25th, 2016|Categories: Author Guest Blog, Blogathon 2016|Tags: LGBTQIA, Queer Girls, Queer Guys, Representation|

by Zac Brewer I have to admit, I may have squealed a little when I read the email inviting me to write a piece for Gay YA. It’s an honor to be included, to feel like my voice matters, on the subject of being queer. Growing up, there wasn’t really any YA to speak of (this was the 70s/80s—yeah, I KNOW THAT WAS A MILLION YEARS AGO, OKAY?—so we pretty much had Judy Blume and then went straight into adult fiction), and there certainly wasn’t, at least within my grasp, any queer fiction available. If there had been, [...]

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LGBTQIA+ Books and Libraries: Helping Queer Kids Find the Stories They Need

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:37-05:00June 24th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Blogathon 2016, Guest Blogs, Teachers & Librarians|Tags: Representation|

by Amanda MacGregor I’ve worked in the book field for 16 years. I’ve worked as the children’s lead bookseller at Barnes & Noble; at The Children’s Book Shop, an independent bookstore in Brookline, Massachusetts; as a children’s librarian; in a high school library; and as a librarian in a public library. I’ve been reviewing YA books professionally for almost as long (and my list of places I’ve worked for is nearly as long—The Horn Book, SLJ, VOYA, the long-defunct KLIATT, & Children’s Literature). I recently left my library gig, as we’re moving, but while there also spent 4 [...]

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Bury Your Cliches

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:37-05:00June 21st, 2016|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Blogathon 2016, Writers on Writing|Tags: lesbian, Queer Girls, Representation, Speculative, tropes|

by Kiersten White Although as the And I Darken trilogy progresses the stakes get higher (that’s a little Vlad the Impaler humor for you), here are two things I can promise you: 1. There will be no vampires. 2. No lesbians will die. Now, maybe that sucks out some of the tension (not literally, because again, no vampires). I don’t care. My lesbians are 100% guaranteed to make it out alive. The dead lesbian trope is one I’m fully committed to avoiding forever. But that’s an obvious(ly terrible) way that LGBTQIA+ characters are constantly done a disservice in [...]

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