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We Can Be Heroes

By |2020-08-21T06:32:41-05:00August 21st, 2020|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Readers on Reading|Tags: , , |

This Summer, YA Pride has been running a pre-order campaign for three upcoming books by queer Black authors. The Summer of Everything is one of those books! We're at 11 pre-orders for it now, and would love to get to 25-- just 14 away! If you pre-order the book and tweet or email us proof of purchase (contact@yapride.org), we will add it to the count! by Julian Winters Growing up, I struggled with reading. I simply couldn’t get into the books assigned to me in class and rarely read [...]

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On shelving–and unshelving–the book of my heart

By |2020-08-13T21:55:12-05:00August 20th, 2020|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Writers on Writing|Tags: , , , , |

by Rebecca Kim Wells In 2015 I reached a major milestone in my writing career: I signed with a literary agent. The book I had written was a dark fairy tale-inspired YA fantasy, drenched with blood and magic and lies and quests. It was also a book featuring a queer main character and romantic relationship. I saw no reason for this to be a problem. It was true that there weren’t that many queer YA books out there (especially not published by major US publishers), but there were some. [...]

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Writing Your Way Out Of The Closet

By |2020-08-13T21:19:35-05:00August 19th, 2020|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Writers on Writing|Tags: , , , , |

by Abdi Nazemian Many years ago, after my first book – an adult gay novel called The Walk-In Closet was published – a wonderful and open-minded Iranian therapist hosted a book club at her home. The attendees were largely Iranians of my parents’ generation. They all dressed for the event like it was an awards show. It was very formal. And I was very afraid. Because up until then, I had largely been hiding my queerness from my cultural community. Or maybe the right way to put it is that they had been choosing not to see [...]

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When Queer Books Lead to Queer BFFs

By |2020-08-18T10:25:07-05:00August 18th, 2020|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Writers on Writing|Tags: , |

by Kelly Quindlen Three years ago, when I was going through a rough patch, my parents gave me some advice. “We think you need queer friends,” my dad said. “Have you considered a gay cruise?” I laughed out loud when he suggested it, but I knew the larger point was true: I was starving for friends who reflected my queerness back to me. I have some amazing friends, but they are overwhelmingly straight and cis. This is not their fault. We can’t all be blessed with queerness. But the point [...]

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The Path to Publication: Writing the Queer Black Girls of Cinderella Is Dead 

By |2020-08-13T20:48:08-05:00August 17th, 2020|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog|Tags: , , , , , , , |

by Kalynn Bayron I’ve always been a fan of genre fiction. From horror to fantasy to sci-fi. I love all things magical and atmospheric and bone chilling. I’m a writer because I was a reader, first. In those stories I found ghosts, mythical creatures, people with impossible powers, aliens, orcs, fairies, elves, kings and queens. What I didn’t see was Black people or queer people. Until I discovered Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston, Audre Lorde, and Octavia Butler I didn’t see Black women centered and I didn’t see queer people being treated with care and concern, [...]

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An Open Letter From You

By |2020-03-28T13:40:10-05:00July 1st, 2017|Categories: Author Guest Blog, Guest Blogs|Tags: , , , |

Pride Month Blogathon: Day 15 – Introduction to Pride Month Blogathon by Cam Montgomery The first time you kiss a girl, you’re twenty-two-years-old. A college junior, majoring in two things that’d make you spiritually rich, but broke in the pockets. Young, queer, and naïve, is what they call that. You call it living. Oh, the girl? You’re still friends. (On Facebook.) And she, to this day, doesn’t know she was “your first.” All the same, you remind yourself, constantly, that you owe her more than you’re willing to admit. She, this femme with the eyes like whoa and the hair [...]

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The Power of Stories: Saving Lives and Connecting Readers, One Book at a Time

By |2020-03-28T13:40:11-05:00June 22nd, 2017|Categories: Author Guest Blog, Guest Blogs, New Releases, Writers on Writing|Tags: , , , , |

Pride Month Blogathon: Day 10 – Introduction to Pride Month Blogathon by Kheryn Callender I didn't like myself very much when I was younger. I was the only black student in my private school for a few years, and whenever I left my school, which was deep in the countryside where many white people from the states lived, I was surrounded by locals from St. Thomas who thought I acted too snobby, who thought I spoke with a stateside accent because I didn’t love my island, who thought I acted too “white.” It seemed wherever I went, whichever community [...]

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“That Which Does Not Kill Us”

By |2020-03-28T13:40:11-05:00June 21st, 2017|Categories: Author Guest Blog, Guest Blogs|Tags: , , |

Pride Month Blogathon: Day 9 – Introduction to Pride Month Blogathon by L.D. Lewis It’s 2017 and the world is on fire. Whatever day it is you’re reading this, you probably woke up lost and groaning. Maybe while staring at the ceiling or at nothing in particular in the mirror, you idly pondered what sort of distant, existential crisis would manifest itself in a very real threat to your being today and if/how you would react to it. Survive it. After all, yesterday [wasn’t so bad/was utter trash]. How much should you reasonably be expected to endure? Disclaimer: I [...]

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The Queer, Enchanted Girls

By |2020-03-28T13:40:11-05:00June 20th, 2017|Categories: Author Guest Blog, Guest Blogs, New Releases, Writers on Writing|Tags: , , , , , |

Pride Month Blogathon: Day 8 – Introduction to Pride Month Blogathon by Anna-Marie McLemore I love fairy tales. I love them so much that even when I don’t mean them to, they find their way into my stories. But my third book, Wild Beauty (October 3), may be the story I’ve written so far that looks, from the outside, most like a fairy tale. It’s a book of secrets, pretty dresses, and magical gardens. It’s the story of a generation of cousins who are both haunted by their family’s legacy and enchanted by their own fierce hearts. It’s also [...]

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The War of the Words Started in November

By |2020-03-28T13:40:11-05:00June 14th, 2017|Categories: Author Guest Blog, Guest Blogs, Writers on Writing|

by Danny Lore There are a lot of things in this world that our conservative nightmare of a government will try and take from you. That’s undeniable, even though we’re going to fight our asses off to make sure it doesn’t happen. They want to limit our access to healthcare, our ability to support ourselves, to educate ourselves— all while trying to convince us we don’t count as human. I’d be lying if I wasn’t upfront about that. Hell, that’s why you’re reading this in the first place, to figure out a way to slog through this GOP [...]

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