Archive – Page 17

Aces Out: Laying the Cards On the Table

By Marilla|2020-03-28T13:41:14-05:00October 26th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: asexual|

Asexuality in YA Series: Day 1 - Previous Posts: Introduction to Asexuality in YA Series by Zach J. Payne I didn’t come out with a bang, but with a whimper. There are people who might see this as a blessing. Some people have their sexualities so scrutinized by those around them, and they’re forced to make a declaration for one side of the other. Some pray for the ability to slide under the radar, to have nobody recreate the Spanish Inquisition every time that they dare to express themselves. Me? There are times where I feel like Schrödinger’s [...]

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Introduction to Asexuality in YA Series

By Vee|2016-05-24T14:49:17-05:00October 26th, 2015|Categories: Archive|

Welcome to GayYA’s Asexuality in YA Series! In honor of Asexual Awareness Week , we're featuring posts from asexual and asexual-spectrum contributors on various issues surrounding asexuality in YA. We have a FANTASTIC line up of posts, and we’re so excited to share them with you all! The Awareness Week series are something we’ve started doing for all of the LGBTQIA+ Awareness Weeks throughout the year. Though we hope to include everyone on our site at all times, we’ve found that dedicating a specific and concentrated space to a community to talk about issues of how they’re represented in YA can produce phenomenal results. [...]

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BLEEDING EARTH Exclusive Trailer Reveal + Giveaway!

By Nita|2020-03-28T13:41:14-05:00October 21st, 2015|Categories: Archive, Fun Things|Tags: Queer Girls, Speculative|

Hey everyone! We're so supremely super excited today at The Gay YA because we get to exclusively reveal the trailer for Kaitlin Ward's upcoming queer girl sci-fi, BLEEDING EARTH! We're also sharing an exclusive excerpt with you AND a chance to win signed ARCs of the book! So let's get started!!! Lea was in a cemetery when the earth started bleeding. Within twenty-four hours, the blood made international news. All over the world, blood appeared out of the ground, even through concrete, even in water. Then the earth started growing hair and bones. Lea wants to ignore the blood. She wants to [...]

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Cover Reveal + Excerpt: Unicorn Tracks by Julia Ember

By Marilla|2020-03-28T13:41:14-05:00October 17th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Cover Reveal|Tags: Fantasy, Queer Girls|

We're so happy to be hosting the cover reveal for Julia Ember's debut novel Unicorn Tracks. Julia hosted the fantastic Queer YA Scrabble charity event this Summer, and Unicorn Tracks (coming from Harmony Ink Press, April 2016) sounds phenomenal! Along with the cover, we've also got an exclusive excerpt to share with ya'll. :) Read on! After a savage attack drives her from her home, sixteen-year-old Mnemba finds a place in her cousin Tumelo’s successful safari business, where she quickly excels as a guide. Surrounding herself with nature and the mystical animals inhabiting the savannah not only allows Mnemba’s [...]

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Cover Reveal + Interview: My Year Zero by Rachel Gold

By Marilla|2020-03-28T13:41:15-05:00October 13th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Author Interview, Cover Reveal|Tags: Bisexual, Jewish, lesbian, Mental Health|

We're big fans of Rachel Gold's first two books Being Emily and Just Girls... and today, we're thrilled to reveal the cover for her newest book My Year Zero! I am so SO excited to be hosting this cover reveal-- as I read My Year Zero I was filled with an overwhelming desire to make everyone ever in the whole history of ever read this book. Along with the cover reveal, I had the chance to interview Rachel. Below we discuss the diversity within the book, geek culture, narratives in LGBQTIA+ YA and more! I hope by the [...]

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Truth in Fantasy and LGBT Heroes

By Marilla|2020-03-28T13:41:15-05:00October 12th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog|Tags: LGBTQIA|

by Andrew J. Peters I don’t know how I got into writing fantasy exactly. I certainly didn’t follow the popular advice: write what you know. My books tend to involve ancient world settings and characters from myth. Not much from my everyday experience to draw on there. I guess it’s been a matter of what feeds my creative soul. I like earthy mysticism and imagining what it would have been like to live in an ancient time. My writing takes me through a lot of research, and when I read books about ancient history and myth, sparks ignite [...]

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How To Make Your Library a Safe Space for Queer Teens

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:41:17-05:00October 8th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|

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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The “Acceptance” Narrative in Trans YA

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:41:17-05:00September 30th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: Representation, Trans|

by Vee S. Transgender people, like most marginalized groups, have continuously had their stories taken from them. Throughout the years, they’ve been told that the feelings of their oppressors are more valid and important than their own. Their stories have been repositioned to put cisgender people in the center of them. This happens in real life-- the opinions of cisgender people on trans issues are prioritized above those of transgender people—and in fiction. In this post, I focus on the fictional aspect, and how it relates to real life. In fiction, a narrative has come forth that centers [...]

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Labels, Erasure, Visibility: A Q&A About (Not) Writing Bi Characters

By Marilla|2020-03-28T13:41:18-05:00September 27th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog|Tags: Bisexual, Representation|

by Corinne Duyvis Identification. Labels. Exploration. These topics are often brought up in YA. Even more so in queer YA: after all, discovering your own identity and who you are or aren’t attracted to is a huge part of many queer kids’ lives. Something that often leads to even more confusion—on all sides—is when someone is attracted to more than one gender. Yes, the “confused bisexual” borders on stereotype, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t occur. I mean, I was super confused about my orientation as a young teenager (which I’ve written about at DiversifYA before) and I [...]

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#BiVisibility

By Marilla|2020-03-28T13:41:18-05:00September 26th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: Bisexual|

Bisexual Awareness Week Series: Day 6 – Previous Posts: Introduction to Bisexual Awareness Week Series – Bisexuality in YA – On Failing to Recognize Ourselves in Mirrors – The “B” Word – There Once Was a Girl - It’s Not Just a Phase by Sarah Kettles If you’re reading this, there’s no way you don’t know what a ridiculous and problematic and wonderful and frightening and enormously influential thing social media is, particularly in the lives of teenagers, and even more so in the lives of marginalized teenagers. Sites like Tumblr and Twitter and Instagram and my once-beloved LiveJournal [...]

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