Sarah Rees Brennan is the author of THE DEMON'S LEXICON TRILOGY and can be found online at: www.sarahreesbrennan.com So, let us discuss the most common fake fictional world of all. It doesn't involve vampires or werewolves. It involves - well, rent a majority of mainstream movies and you can see it. It's a world where everyone is a certain way - white, straight, able-bodied - and the really important stories are always a guy's. There mayyy be people who aren't white, straight and able-bodied around in this world. I believe they live on the Isles of Issuelandia, and they are [...]

Mike Mullin’s debut novel, Ashfall, will be released by Tanglewood Press in October 2011. Visit www.mikemullinauthor.com to learn more about Mike, Ashfall, or what termites taste like. When I began writing Ashfall in 2008, I quickly realized that the story had the potential to take on a kind of comic-book quality. The disaster I’d chosen to depict, the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano, was so horrible and the resulting world so severe that it could easily feel unreal to readers. And while I love comic books, that wasn’t the kind of book I wanted to write. I wanted [...]

Caitlin Kittredge writes the Iron Codex trilogy for young adults. The first book, The Iron Thorn, has been called "the next Hunger Games" and was released in February 2011. She also writes urban fantasy for adults, including the bestselling Black London series and the Icarus Project novels with fellow YA author Jackie Kessler. Visit her website at www.caitlinkittredge.com I'm fortunate that I came of age when LGBTQ characters were starting to make appearances in both YA novels and YA media—but usually, they were sassy best friends, lesbian comic relief or, most often, characters who were tortured, murdered or [...]

Julie Anne Peters is author of several YA, middle grade, and children's novels including Keeping You a Secret, Define "Normal" and Rage: A Love Story. She can be found online at julieannepeters.com We asked her about some of the things she's encountered in her career as an author. Q: What are some of the unexpected gifts that you have found through writing GLBT characters and relationships? A: Let me just list them: 1. The empowerment I get from hearing from readers whose lives are impacted by my work. Making that personal connection with a reader is a reward [...]

LGBTQ Characters in Mainstream Superhero Comics By Karen Mahoney "I heard the whistle of a train as it approached the crossing. I reached my arm around Goran, pulled him in, and our lips met. It felt like flying." Perry Moore, HERO So, I write for teenagers. For young adults. These kids need a gay superhero just as much as they need the supposedly more acceptable - and certainly more commonly represented - straight ones. We are all - every single one of us - born with the beautiful potential both to love and to be loved. That's the [...]

Nora Coon is a YA author with three nonfiction books published, a novel in progress, and a caffeine addiction. You can find her via her blog or Twitter. Parents in YA literature tend to fall into one of two categories – absent or obstacle. If they’re absent, they may be dead or simply unaware; if they’re obstacles, they actively interfere with the protagonist’s attempts to achieve his or her goals. YA lit with gay characters takes this tradition to a new extreme. Parents are either fearsome zealots or bigots who reject their children at the first sign that [...]