Vee – Page 15 – YA Pride

Tumblr Teens: BookMad for Diversity

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:41:40-05:00May 20th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs, Readers on Reading, Teen Voices|

by Manda/BookMad “People talk about coming out as though it’s this big one-time event. But really, most people have to come out over and over to basically every new person they meet. I’m only eighteen and it already exhausts me.” – Everything Leads to You by Nina Lacour This ongoing call for diverse characters—of all races, of all genders, of all sexual/romantic orientations, anything you can name under the sun—isn’t so widespread because readers are hungry for new and interesting characters to paint the ever-changing, complex fictional worlds they’ve built inside their heads. It runs much, much deeper [...]

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No Dumbledores Need Apply

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:41:47-05:00May 18th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: Editors, Representation|

Hey! We mixed up our links today, 5/20/15. If you're looking for the post on what teens on tumblr are saying or about the call for diversity and having limited spaces to call home, check out Tumblr Teens: BookMad For Diversity. If you want an editor's perspective on why he's going to stop using the phrase "just happens to be gay" and what he's looking for in queer YA, read on! by T.S. Ferguson You may be aware of a conversation that happened in April focusing on the phrase “just happens to be gay.” The conversation was started by [...]

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I’ve got a girl in the war

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:41:48-05:00May 13th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Guest Blogs, Readers on Reading|Tags: asexual, Non Binary, Representation|

by Marieke Nijkamp “The objection to fairy stories is that they tell children there are dragons. But children have always known there are dragons. Fairy stories tell children the dragons can be killed.” With these words, the late, great Terry Pratchett famously misquotes G.K. Chesterton’s Tremendous Trifles. It’s not a misrepresentation of Chesterton’s ideas though. For Chesterton, too, stories were St. Georges, dragonslayers. But I’d like to think it goes further than that. Stories tell readers dragons come in many ways and many forms—from false friends to overwhelming dystopias. Stories do not just tell readers dragons can be [...]

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How To Make Your Library a Safe Place for Queer Teens

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:41:48-05:00May 11th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: Advocacy, Allies, Library|

by Angie Manfredi Last year, I chose Alex London’s YA dystopian thriller Proxy as my teen book club’s selection. This meant my library would purchase multiple copies, many teens would read it, and then we would Skype with Alex to talk about it. Why did I choose Proxy? Well, partially because it’s superb YA: a well-written, engaging, fast-paced read that asks interesting questions about debt and income inequality. But I also partially chose it because it has a gay, biracial lead character and the author is a gay man. I wanted my teen readers to experience a swashbuckling [...]

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On Building a Better Tomorrow

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:41:48-05:00May 8th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog|Tags: Advocacy, Allies, Minor Queer Characters|

by Ellen Hopkins I write contemporary young adult fiction. To date, I’ve published eleven bestselling YA novels-in-verse, and each storyline is unique. I’ve written about addiction, abuse, suicide, prostitution and the drive for perfection, both internal and external—issues that touch teen lives every day. The books are diverse, but they all have in common queer characters somewhere in their pages. Burned by Ellen Hopkins (Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2006) Sometimes they’re main characters. Other times, they’re peripheral or barely seen. For instance, in Burned, Pattyn has a gay uncle who’s been shunned by his ultra religious [...]

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Tanuja Desai Hidier’s “Dimple Lala/ GayYA Bday Party Playlist”

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:41:49-05:00May 7th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Fun Things, Guest Blogs|Tags: Intersectionality, Minor Queer Characters, Other Media, PoC, Queer Girls, Realistic, South Asian|

4 original songs from Tanuja’s ‘booktrack’ albums When We Were Twins (songs based on her first novel, Born Confused) & Bombay Spleen (songs based on her new novel, sequel Bombay Blues) to celebrate GayYA’s 4th birthday! And for now, and always, I knew: Love had to be allowed in wherever, whenever, and in whatever form it took. We didn’t have to shrink to fit it, box it to casket. And even then, when we found it dying, could opt for ashing down rather than burial, scatter it to all five corners of the earth and ether. Whatever could [...]

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Booktube Needs You!

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:41:49-05:00May 5th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Book Review, Guest Blogs, Readers on Reading|Tags: Book Community|

by Danika Leigh Ellis If you're a bookish person, and especially if you're a fan of YA, you should be exploring the wonderful world of Booktube by now. Booktube is the bookish community of Youtube. Hundreds of people make videos about books, from reviews to bookish tags to provocative discussion topics. It's similar to the book blogosphere, but feels more interconnected. Being able to see people's faces as they discuss book they're passionate about makes it a much more personal interaction, and you quickly begin to feel like you really know the people you follow. Booktube is also [...]

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Blogathon Schedule: Week 1

By Vee|2016-05-24T14:50:32-05:00May 4th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Updates and Announcements|

May 1st: I'll Write Queer Characters Forever by Francesca Lia Block May 2nd: I Kissed a Girl and I Liked It but not in a Vapid Katy Perry Way Justina Ireland May 3rd: They Turned My Gay Teen Novel Into a Movie. Here’s What I Learned. by Brent Hartinger May 4th: Have You Ever Considered Writing About Straight People? by Robin Talley May 5th: DOUBLE POST The Love That Does Not Know Its Name by Elizabeth Wein Booktube Needs You! by Danika Leigh Ellis May 6th: Guest Blog by Kimberly Derting May 7th: Guest Blog by Tanuja Desai [...]

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I Kissed a Girl and I Liked It but not in a Vapid Katy Perry Way

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:00-05:00May 2nd, 2015|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Guest Blogs, Readers on Reading|Tags: Bisexual, Queer Girls|

by Justina Ireland The first time I kissed a girl I was fifteen. It was at one of those awkward boy/girl house parties where everyone wants something (beer, weed, sex) but the parents are too near to properly get at it. We played spin the bottle, since this was before the Internet and that’s what we did for fun in the old days, and mine happened to land on a girl I barely knew. For a moment we hesitated, while everyone in the room collectively held their breath. Then I shrugged. “We don’t have to if you don’t [...]

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I’ll Write LGBTQ Characters Forever

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:01-05:00May 1st, 2015|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog|Tags: censorship|

by Francesca Lia Block I'm often asked about my LGBTQ characters but it's kind of like asking me about women and men, or teenagers and adults, in my books. They just happen to be who they are and they're usually based on people I know and love. I don't think about it consciously, though I do want to include a diverse array of characters and I believe it's important to have more books about all under-represented people, including the LGBTQ community. Love in the Time of Global Warming by Francesca Lia Block (Henry Holt and Co., 2013) [...]

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