During Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week, we want to use our space on GayYA to support AroSpec voices. Last year, we decided to host Awareness Week Series over the various LGBTQIA+ Awareness Weeks throughout the year. Though we hope to include everyone on the site at all times, we wanted to dedicate a concentrated space to people from a specific community to talk about how they’re represented in YA. The response from the community was phenomenal– we got to feature many fantastic and thought-provoking posts, and watched as the community fostered some nuanced discussions via our identity-centric Twit Chats. I personally remember feeling amazed as I read the posts that were sent in and scrolled through the Twit Chat hashtag. I realized I wasn’t alone in my feelings of discontent regarding the representation of my identities, or my hopes for what that representation could look like in the future. I got to meet and connect with so many smart and passionate people.
So of course, we had to do the Awareness Week Series again this year.
During the 2017 Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week, we’ll feature 3-5 posts from various AroSpec contributors over the course of the week, and dedicate a space to talk about AroSpec representation in YA.
Interested in contributing? Here are the details:
Posts should be between 800-2500 words, and center around AroSpec representation in YA. Your posts may go through light edits or a collaborative workshopping process.
Send your post as a Word or Google doc to vee@gayya.org. Please include a 2-5 sentence bio about yourself including links to your blog, Twitter, website, or tumblr. Any links you’d like to use should be included as hyperlinks in the post. If you’d like to include a headshot or other images please attach them to the email– do not embed images in the document!
We do not offer monetary compensation of any sort, but are usually happy to help you out in other ways if we can. Just ask!
The deadline for submitting a post is February 1st. We’ll let you know by the 10th if we’ve selected your post for the series.
A Few Words of Advice:
We will consider any topic that is related to LGBTQIA+ YA, however please be aware that we try to avoid repeating similar takes on identical topics. The more specific you can be, the more likely we are to accept your submission. Here are some ideas to get the ball rolling:
-Why AroSpec representation is important to you
-A character you read as AroSpec
-What kind of AroSpec representation you would like to see
-Other media (webcomics, podcasts, webseries) that feature AroSpec characters
-Microagressions toward AroSpec people in YA fiction
If you have a couple topics in mind, you can also email vee@gayya.org with your ideas, and we can narrow it down to what post topic would work best.
Email vee@gayya.org with any questions. We look forward to reading your submissions!
