Guest Blogs – YA Pride

Interview: Kacen Callender, author of Felix Ever After
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Interview: Kacen Callender, author of Felix Ever After

Archive, Author Interview, Fun Things, Guest Blogs

Interview: Kacen Callender, author of Felix Ever After

By Kaitlin|2020-07-03T06:10:23-05:00July 3rd, 2020|Categories: Archive, Author Interview, Fun Things, Guest Blogs|Tags: Black, interview, Representation, Trans|

Aaron H. Aceves, author of This Is Why They Hate Us (Spring 2022), interviews Kacen Callender, author of Felix Ever After. Hi, Kacen! In the span of only two years or so, you’ve published two Middle Grade books, two Young Adult books, and a novel for adults. First of all, how are you so damn prolific! Haha, thanks! Honestly I tend to work on multiple novels all at the same time, jumping from one WIP to the next, so I usually end up with about five projects within a quick succession. But, then, I have to retreat back into the [...]

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The Aromantic and Asexual Database: A Shield Against Illusions
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The Aromantic and Asexual Database: A Shield Against Illusions

Archive, Guest Blogs

The Aromantic and Asexual Database: A Shield Against Illusions

By Kaitlin|2020-03-28T13:39:57-05:00February 20th, 2019|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: Aromantic|

Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week Series by Claudie Arseneault There is no asexual or aromantic representation out there. Here it is. The greatest illusion of asexual and aromantic representation. We all know lies often repeated embed themselves in our collective knowledge and pass as truth. This single sentence is what brought about the Aromantic and Asexual Characters Database. Again and again and again, I would read these words, and they dragged on my soul. I believed in them for so long--believed that googling extensively to find stories with asexual characters would lead me nowhere, that I didn’t exist in fiction [...]

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Centering Friendship in YA Lit
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Centering Friendship in YA Lit

Guest Blogs, Readers on Reading

Centering Friendship in YA Lit

By Vee|2019-02-19T01:33:20-05:00February 19th, 2019|Categories: Guest Blogs, Readers on Reading|Tags: Aromantic|

Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week Series by Ashia Monet The power of friendship has always been one of my favorite tropes to read and write. Watching a group of strangers become lifelong friends is entertaining in its own right. Adding in the acknowledgement that accomplishing their goals is only possible through the love and trust they have for each other makes this a trope for the ages. Not only is it fun to see characters banter and play off of each other’s strengths, it is heartwarming to watch people learn to love each other platonically. There’s a very [...]

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#JanuARO Readathon

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:39:57-05:00January 9th, 2019|Categories: Fun Things, Guest Blogs|Tags: Aromantic, asexual|

by Rosiee Thor I’ve been immersing myself in myself lately. It feels indulgent to say it, but it’s the closest thing to a self-hug I can imagine. As a professional in the publishing industry, I feel constantly pressured to read specific things--partial manuscripts for my boss, CP and mentee manuscripts, the pile of Novel 19s arcs I have on my kindle. Even when these are books I do, in fact, want to read, it can feel like a chore… because very rarely do any of these books speak to the aro/ace part of me. After eleven months of [...]

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Body Diversity in Queer YA

By Daisy|2020-03-28T13:40:08-05:00February 25th, 2018|Categories: Guest Blogs|

by Kristen Carter When I was 16, I went on a starvation diet. Over the span of three months, I lost thirty pounds. As I lost the weight, friends would compliment me, which fed into my need to starve myself. The Summer of Jordi Perez (And the Best Burger in Los Angeles) by Amy Spalding Growing up, I loved reading, but I don’t remember reading about a character like me. I found myself having to choose between my marginalizations, black and fat (I didn’t know I was bisexual then). When I watched television, things were a [...]

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Navigating Privilege and Cultural Capital as a Black Queer Writer

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:08-05:00February 23rd, 2018|Categories: Guest Blogs, Writers on Writing|Tags: Black, Intersectionality, PoC, Queer Girls|

By Allison Jeanne Alcéna Children’s literature writers are often encouraged to pen the stories they wanted to see when they were younger. In my case, I never saw my whole self in children’s books, although I sometimes saw parts. As an adult, I now understand that what was being reflected back to me were the privileged parts of my identity, allowing me to see pieces of myself in the slew of middle-class, white characters that were on the market. And because I saw certain parts of myself in books, I then felt like those must be the most [...]

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An Open Letter From You

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:10-05:00July 1st, 2017|Categories: Author Guest Blog, Guest Blogs|Tags: Black, Non Binary, PoC, Recovery|

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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‘Room at the Table’: Pulse, Vincent Rutherford, and the Work We Have Left to Do

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:10-05:00July 1st, 2017|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: Activism, Advocacy, Coming Out, Native, Non Binary|

Pride Month Blogathon: Day 14 – Introduction to Pride Month Blogathon by Weezie Wood I woke up the morning of June 12, 2016, to a text from my cousin asking me if I had seen the news. I was already running late for brunch with my dad and I typed out a quick “No, what’s up?” before heading out the door. I should have heard the news in the car. By that point in the day, there wasn’t a news or radio station that wasn’t blasting what had happened around 2 am that morning in Orlando, but I wouldn’t learn [...]

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How Reading Got Me Through My Teens And Beyond

By Daisy|2020-03-28T13:40:11-05:00June 29th, 2017|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs, Readers on Reading|Tags: Black, Latinx, Non Binary|

Pride Month Blogathon: Day 13 – Introduction to Pride Month Blogathon by EC King Depression and anxiety have always run deeply in my veins. These issues are hereditary in my case and, though they are not my constant companions, they are definitely frequent visitors. Even though I was a privileged, seemingly happy and rambunctious child, I remember clearly the days or weeks when I felt a malaise that I didn’t know how to describe. I called it “being bored”, as I lay in bed staring listlessly out the window without even a book to keep me company, or as [...]

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You Are Not Alone: Finding Community as a Nonbinary Teen

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:11-05:00June 28th, 2017|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs, Teen Voices|Tags: asexual, Bisexual, Intersectionality, Non Binary, PoC|

Pride Month Blogathon: Day 12 – Introduction to Pride Month Blogathon by Kav If I'm being honest with myself, I never thought of myself as “straight.” Growing up, I never labeled myself that way and instead thought along the lines of “I’ll love who I love, no matter their gender.” That's not to say that I never struggled to discover my gender and romantic and sexual orientations or that I never had a coming out experience - it's definitely been a rocky ride. But when it came down to it, I was always fortunate enough to have been sure [...]

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