Blogathon 2016 – YA Pride

On the Queer Trans Experience: Because Sometimes Just One Letter Ain’t Enough

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:35-05:00June 30th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Blogathon 2016, Writers on Writing|Tags: Queer Girls, Realistic, Trans|

by Meredith Russo One of the things most often praised about my book If I Was Your Girl isn’t the book itself, but the author’s note at the end (or the beginning, depending on if you’re reading the ARC or the final print) where I lay out my hope that cis people won’t take Amanda’s rather normative story as a set of rules trans people must follow and, more importantly for this post, where I admit that I had to make some concessions so the story would be more palatable for them. Let’s talk about those concessions, because [...]

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Interview: Vee sits down with David Levithan & Nina Lacour

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:35-05:00June 29th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Author Interview, Blogathon 2016, Book Club, Fun Things, New Releases, Teen Voices|Tags: Coming Out, gay, lesbian, Minor Queer Characters, New Releases, Poetry, Queer Girls, Queer Guys, Realistic, Representation|

I had the INCREDIBLE opportunity to be able to sit down with David Levithan & Nina Lacour when they came to Addendum Books on the You Know Me Well book tour. This was literally one of the best experiences of my life and I am so thankful to the authors for taking the time to do this and to everyone else who had a hand in making this possible. We got to talk about the new narratives You Know Me Well brings to the table of LGBTQIA+ YA, how the collaboration on YKMW began, and what its existence [...]

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Interview: Eleanor Herman, author of the Blood of Gods and Royals series

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:35-05:00June 28th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Author Interview, Blogathon 2016, New Releases, Writers on Writing|Tags: asexual, Fantasy, Historical, New Releases, Queer Guys, Speculative|

Empire of Dust by Eleanor Herman In Macedon, war rises like smoke, forbidden romance blooms and ancient magic tempered with rage threatens to turn an empire to dust After winning his first battle, Prince Alexander fights to become the ruler his kingdom demands—but the line between leader and tyrant blurs with each new threat. Meanwhile, Hephaestion, cast aside by Alexander for killing the wrong man, must conceal the devastating secret of a divine prophecy from Katerina even as the two of them are thrust together on a dangerous mission to Egypt. The warrior, Jacob, determined to forget his [...]

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Interview: Caleb Roehrig author of Last Seen Leaving

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:36-05:00June 27th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Author Interview, Blogathon 2016, New Releases|Tags: Bisexual, Coming Out, gay, New Releases, Queer Guys, Realistic, Representation, Thriller|

One of the amazing authors I got to interview at BEA was Caleb Roehrig! Caleb and I were both slightly food-deprived and wholly overwhelmed by the massiveness that was BEA, so some of our questions and answers were a little off the wall (frex: after the interview, I learned some fun facts about the population living around Lake Superior). But we also discussed new narratives in LGBTQIA+ YA, how his debut book Last Seen Leaving fits into the mix, and our favorite LGBTQIA+ YA books. So I'm SUPER psyched to be able to share this interview! (Also apparently I cannot [...]

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There are no rules

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:37-05:00June 26th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Blogathon 2016|Tags: Representation, size|

by Mariko Tamaki I need a second to tell you this thing. Ready? There are no rules. Okay. Wait. Hold on. There are some rules. You can’t eat a grill cheese in math class. You can’t walk barefoot in places that have a sign that says you can’t walk barefoot there. Sure sure, I get that. I’m not here to get you in trouble. Allow me to clarify. There are no rules about who you can and cannot be. You think there are rules because people tell you there are rules. People say stuff like, “Girls wear make [...]

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Don’t Judge A Book By Its Description

By Nadia|2020-03-28T13:40:37-05:00June 25th, 2016|Categories: Author Guest Blog, Blogathon 2016|Tags: LGBTQIA, Queer Girls, Queer Guys, Representation|

by Zac Brewer I have to admit, I may have squealed a little when I read the email inviting me to write a piece for Gay YA. It’s an honor to be included, to feel like my voice matters, on the subject of being queer. Growing up, there wasn’t really any YA to speak of (this was the 70s/80s—yeah, I KNOW THAT WAS A MILLION YEARS AGO, OKAY?—so we pretty much had Judy Blume and then went straight into adult fiction), and there certainly wasn’t, at least within my grasp, any queer fiction available. If there had been, [...]

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LGBTQIA+ Books and Libraries: Helping Queer Kids Find the Stories They Need

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:37-05:00June 24th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Blogathon 2016, Guest Blogs, Teachers & Librarians|Tags: Representation|

by Amanda MacGregor I’ve worked in the book field for 16 years. I’ve worked as the children’s lead bookseller at Barnes & Noble; at The Children’s Book Shop, an independent bookstore in Brookline, Massachusetts; as a children’s librarian; in a high school library; and as a librarian in a public library. I’ve been reviewing YA books professionally for almost as long (and my list of places I’ve worked for is nearly as long—The Horn Book, SLJ, VOYA, the long-defunct KLIATT, & Children’s Literature). I recently left my library gig, as we’re moving, but while there also spent 4 [...]

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What My Queer YA Means To Me

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:37-05:00June 23rd, 2016|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Blogathon 2016, Writers on Writing|Tags: Bisexual, Speculative|

by Erin Bow I will be honest. I didn’t set out to write a book in which girls kiss each other. As a novelist, I’m not much of a planner. Even the few things I do have planned don’t always work out, and that was certainly the case with my 2015 book, The Scorpion Rules. I came to it with some original equipment, some seeds from the writing gods: the character of my narrator, Greta Gustafsen Stuart, Duchess of Halifax, Crown Princess of the Pan Polar Confederacy, came to me with her smarts and braids and stoicism fully [...]

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If You Haven’t Seen

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:37-05:00June 22nd, 2016|Categories: Archive, Blogathon 2016, Guest Blogs, Teachers & Librarians|Tags: Asian, Black, Intersectionality, Latin@|

by Edith Campbell Back in October 2015 my daughter shared news with me about the book Large Fears by Myles Johnson and Kendrick Daye and I was so excited that I posted about it on FaceBook. I was easily engaged by the artwork and intrigued by the story of a young black boy who daydreamed about escaping to Mars where he could be free to love the color pink. Just above the image of the book, I wrote, “I'm really glad to know about this book! I would say there are so few books for queer black boys, but [...]

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Bury Your Cliches

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:37-05:00June 21st, 2016|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Blogathon 2016, Writers on Writing|Tags: lesbian, Queer Girls, Representation, Speculative, tropes|

by Kiersten White Although as the And I Darken trilogy progresses the stakes get higher (that’s a little Vlad the Impaler humor for you), here are two things I can promise you: 1. There will be no vampires. 2. No lesbians will die. Now, maybe that sucks out some of the tension (not literally, because again, no vampires). I don’t care. My lesbians are 100% guaranteed to make it out alive. The dead lesbian trope is one I’m fully committed to avoiding forever. But that’s an obvious(ly terrible) way that LGBTQIA+ characters are constantly done a disservice in [...]

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