I'm awkward and it's something I've accepted I will never grow out of. In fact, it seems to have worsened with time. Looking back on the years I spent as a teenager with body issues and a twisting tornado of sexual confusion chasing my every thought, I wish I could go back and give my teen self a hug, point to some recent events and explain how at least my teen self hasn't gone through this yet. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm better on paper. In person, I'm a sweaty mess of stumbling [...]

Imagine you’re a seventeen-year-old cowgirl living on an isolated cattle ranch in Montana, being raised by your father, a redneck Texan who thinks gays and lesbians are, “unnatural and disgustin’.” Imagine your mother abandoned you when you were twelve and the only sex education your father provided was, “You’ve seen the critters go at it. Figure it out from there.” Imagine that what you want most in life is your father’s love and approval. Imagine you discover you’re gay.   In my paranormal thriller, Threshold, the pieces of seventeen-year-old Leah Dillon’s confused sexuality fall into place during an [...]

(Editor's Note: Kelly York is the author of HUSHED. Check out our review of it here.) When I first started writing HUSHED, up until the point I started querying it to agents, I thought nothing except: “This is the story I want to tell.” Not once did I wonder what kind of reaction I might get to having written a male/male pairing. Even when it did dawn on me that some agents might not be into that, I wasn’t worried about that in particular. It had more to do with, “I’ve written a male/male pairing...and I’m not a [...]