Guest Blogs – Page 4

Duality, YA, and Crumpled Stickers

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:34-05:00September 21st, 2016|Categories: Guest Blogs, Readers on Reading, Teen Voices|Tags: Bisexual, Representation|

Bisexual Awareness Week Day #1 - Previous Posts: Introduction by Shelly Z I’ve begun to see that there is a strange duality when it comes to my pride. I wear it openly online, and in person only to those who I know extremely well. I attended Pride for the second year this summer, and I am struck again and again by the duality upon reflection. A key highlight of Pride for me is seeing the colourful stickers that attendees wear to ID or to just celebrate. The only day I wear my “Proud” sticker is on Pride. I [...]

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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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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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Never Am I Whole

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:37-05:00June 18th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Blogathon 2016, Guest Blogs, Readers on Reading, Teen Voices, Writers on Writing|Tags: Black, Intersectionality, Mental Health, nonbinary, Representation|

by Wesaun There’s nothing more exciting than the prospect of finally seeing myself in the books I read except, oh wait, I never do. I look and look and search and search and all that meets me is a gap, all that meets me is the laughter track as if I am on a comedy show and I am the queer character that has just had a cruel trick played on them. All that meets me is parts of my identity dismembered and separated into different stories but never am I whole. Because according to books, I do [...]

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Editing Diversity in Chile – Part 2

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:38-05:00June 15th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Blogathon 2016, Guest Blogs, Publishing People|Tags: Bisexual, international, Latin@, Representation|

by Daniela Cortés del Castillo I’ve already covered the challenges I’ve faced at Loba Ediciones when trying to publish diversely. Now I’d like to speak briefly about what happens when I change my hat and become an editor working with an author. Editing with intersectional feminism in mind is not easy. You carry around a lot of theoretical baggage that you need to use, but can also spoil the trip. I don’t want to become so pedagogical that I ruin a perfectly good story. Early on, I had to decide on a strategy, something that would allow me to [...]

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Publishing Diversity in Chile – Part 1

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:38-05:00June 14th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Blogathon 2016, Guest Blogs, Publishing People|Tags: Intersectionality, Latin@|

by Daniela Cortés del Castillo I thought about writing this guest post about my experiences as a young reader and how, as a teenager, there were no kidslikeme in the books I read, and how fantastic and helpful for my sense of self it would have been if there were. Now, all of these things are true, but it’s a topic that has been covered many times before (on this blog and elsewhere) by people who are much more eloquent than I. Therefore, I’d like to focus this post on something that, albeit a tad less interesting, might [...]

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Latinx Gay YA

By Nadia|2020-03-28T13:40:49-05:00June 12th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Blogathon 2016, Book Lists, Guest Blogs|Tags: Intersectionality, Latin@, LGBTQIA, PoC, Queer Girls, Queer Guys|

by Dr. Sonia Alejandra Rodriguez There remains a great need for Latinx Gay young adult literature. The list below is a compilation of texts that center and complicate these experiences. I’ve decided to make this list a space dedicated to stories written by self-identifying Latinx authors who have created gay Latinx protagonists. There are certainly other books with gay Latinx minor characters and books with gay Latinx characters written by non-Latinx. Many of the protagonists in the novels listed below express a feeling of isolation when they come out or at simply existing as a gay Latinx person. [...]

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On Creating the “Perfect” Booklist for a GLBTIQ Course

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:49-05:00June 11th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Blogathon 2016, Guest Blogs, Teachers & Librarians|

by Robin Kurz This summer, after two institutions and four years, I finally have the opportunity to design and teach a GLBTIQ course for library science students. Since it’s a “resources and services” course, I’m able to incorporate books rather heavily into the syllabus. I have taught a variety of these sorts of courses (from YA to multicultural) and use class-wide reads as a way to introduce students to relevant themes, genres, communities, etc. Basically, the entire class reads the same title and we then discuss it based on the questions and prompts I provide and inclusive of [...]

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Promoting LGBTQIA+ YA: A Publicist’s POV

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:49-05:00June 10th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Blogathon 2016, Guest Blogs|Tags: LGBTQIA, nonbinary, Trans|

by Jamie Tan As a publicist, I’m used to being gregarious or quiet, adapting to whichever author I’m with. I’ve sat quietly with authors, filled up space with small talk so an author could have a moment of rest, and leaned back while an author took the floor. I’m here to be supportive, but more importantly I want to be respectful of the author and the work they have created. Pat Schmatz was one of the first authors I worked with when I started at Candlewick. I can say now how much I adore working with her, [...]

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There was, there is/it was, it is

By Nadia|2020-03-28T13:40:49-05:00June 9th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Blogathon 2016, Guest Blogs, Readers on Reading|Tags: LGBTQIA, Poetry, Queer Girls|

There was a girl. There was a girl who loved to read and read and read. There was a girl who loved to read and read and read but hated it sometimes but she couldn’t tell why. There was a teen. There was a teen who watched too much tv but still found time to read and read. There was a teen who watched too much tv and started thinking that maybe some girls were hot but still found time to read and read. There were moments. Experiences. Thoughts. Feelings. Moments. It was going to a party to [...]

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