A Letter From My Younger Self
For today’s blogathon post, we’re so excited to share this video from Aaron H. Aceves, author of the forthcoming THIS IS WHY THEY HATE US. In this video, he talks about reading a letter from his younger self, and how his journey towards being published has been eighteen years in the making!
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Finding My Queer Self Through Books
by Adrienne Tooley
I didn’t come out until 24. I didn’t even start questioning until 23. I was a late bloomer in many senses, furthered by my own obliviousness. I didn’t see queer women in the books I read, the media I consumed, or even, really, in the world around me. I knew they existed, but I didn’t know them, or their feelings, or their journeys. And I was worse off for it.
When I met the woman who is now my wife, once I’d done a deep dive and examined myself and my feelings, once we’d kissed and I knew, I found myself desperate to explore all the queer media I had missed or ignored. I watched The L Word (though I only made it through the first season), Imagine Me and You, and I Can’t Think Straight. I dug through my girlfriend’s kindle, and read Melinda Lo’s ASH, emily m. danforth’s THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST, Nina LaCour’s EVERYTHING LEADS TO YOU.
There, I found beautiful, messy, explorations of queer girls in books, and I never looked back.
In fact, once I knew I could, I started to incorporate queerness into my own work. I’d had a manuscript I’d shelved because I couldn’t find the emotion in it. The driving force it needed didn’t exist. And then, bam. Just like me, I realized my main character was a queer girl coming into her own, grappling with what her identity meant for her and how the new understanding she had of herself would fit into her old life.
I wrote, with a fervor I’d never had before. And as I explored her story, I got to explore my own, too. My coming out was fast—I met a woman and my life was changed. I shared my joy with people and was, mercifully, mostly accepted for it. But there was so much inside me, so many questions I still had.
How had I missed this intrinsic part of me? Does the fact that I love a woman now negate any of my past relationships with men? Does this change the dreams and plans I’d made? How do I fit into the world now?
I got to explore those questions, examine my own life, through my writing. Through this book, where a girl decides to follow her heart and let the world catch up.
This was the first book I ever finished writing, and when my now-wife finished reading it she looked at me and said softly: “This is the book I wish I’d had at sixteen.”
I realized I wished I’d had books like it, too. A way to see a ripple of who I might one day be if I let myself. It was then that I understood I was in a position to ensure that anything I wrote contained that piece of me, both for teenaged-me and for other teenagers who were just as desperate to see their confusion and hope and love portrayed on the page. I had a responsibility, not only to them, but to myself, too.
As publishers began to take more risks with books featuring queer women, I continued to write. With every story, I grew more comfortable splaying my heart on the page, exploring different sides and facets of my new reality. Once I was ready to put my words out there, I created a list of agents to query, all of whom actively and enthusiastically represented queer and diverse authors.
When I received offers of representation, there was one question I didn’t ask, so much as tell every agent: “All of my books will be queer. In every age-category or genre I choose to write. This is important to me and I want to make sure it’s important to you, too.”
I couldn’t have been luckier in the agent I signed with. He has always been an advocate for queer stories, and is doing the work to get them out into the world. It’s because of him and his understanding of my priorities that my debut, SWEET AND BITTER MAGIC, is a book I lovingly refer to as my “queer witch project.”
He took a chance on me, my editor took a chance on me, and now, I get to tell stories for people like me, people who maybe didn’t always know who they were or who they would love. People who wondered if maybe there was something wrong with them, or their hearts.
Books have always been some of my truest friends, and I was always privileged enough to see myself—a white, cis woman—represented in so many characters. But there were pieces missing, too. Pieces I am lucky enough to find in the sapphic, f/f, and wlw books that are now being published.
My bookish joy comes from being able to fill shelves with books offering so many different insights into the queer experience. To connect with these authors and find similarities (and differences) in our personal journeys and loves. To be a part of a community that says “here we are,” in these pages, on these covers, in this world.
We are everywhere.
And to be a part of that, however small, to know that one day my book could be on a shelf next to queer authors I read when I was just beginning to figure myself out, that maybe my words could be a safe place for someone else, a teenager like me who just needed the opportunity to see her heart reflected on a page.
Maybe my “oh” moment would have come sooner.
My joy comes from the fact that my books will always be queer. That I can write my own story. That I found a community where queerness is celebrated. Special.
I am grateful for my books, my writer friends, other queer readers who share their excitement for queer stories.
I am grateful for my heart and the way that it loves.
I am grateful to be a part of this.
I am grateful to be here.
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Photo by Sylvie Rosokoff
Adrienne Tooley was born and raised in the desert suburbs of Southern California. She grew up in the theater, earning her B.A. in Musical Theatre from Point Park University. She and her wife currently live in New York City where she works in hospitality tech. In addition to writing novels she is also a singer/songwriter and has released several EPs which are available on Spotify & other streaming sites. Her debut novel, SWEET & BITTER MAGIC, will publish from S&S/McElderry in Spring 2021. Her second novel, SOFI AND THE BONE SONG, will release from S&S/McElderry in 2022. She can be found on Instagram and Twitter at @adriennetooley.
The Importance of Being Earnest
by Ciara Smyth
I am a terrible person to write about queer joy because I am cranky and when I smile people think I’m being sarcastic. An anecdote I like to tell, in outraged tones, is about the time my oldest friend read my first ever manuscript and said with genuine surprise, ‘This is funny. Which is weird, because you’re…not.” I am yet to recover from this mortal wound. I’m one of those people who cannot really appreciate anything for longer than two seconds because as soon as I achieve something I am immediately on to the next thing. When I was querying I thought all my problems would be solved if I got an agent. The day I got my wonderful agent Alice, my then partner and I celebrated by going to our favourite restaurant. We had been through many tears over the querying process (all mine, of course). But in the middle of that dinner, I started crying. All I could think was that the book would never sell. Stuff like this may be part of the reason why I’m single now.
So in the spirit of personal growth, I’m going to talk about a few things on my publishing journey that I am deeply grateful for and I’m going to do my best to be earnest. Bear with me, I feel Wednesday Addams when she tries smiling for the first time.
I’m so lucky that for my debut I got to work with two amazing editors; Stephanie Stein for HarperTeen and Chloe Sackur for Andersen Press. I remember speaking with Chloe before she made an offer on the book and honestly, I’ve blocked out all the nice things she said (see above for an explanation of the amnesia), but I remember feeling as though all the suggestions she made for improvement were things that made so much sense that I should have realised them myself. I’ve got to work with Stephanie on two books now and her notes feel like they’ve been plucked from some deep recess of my own brain. Whenever I send her something and I feel like it’s a little off but can’t figure out why, she knows why and if I want her to, she’ll guide me towards the answer. Publishing is weird and can really kick you in the metaphorical self-esteem nards, but having people who are on your side and can mystically read your mind and know what you want to achieve before you’ve got there, is priceless.
I’ve met other incredible people through this process and unfortunately, I kind of owe that to Twitter. I am loath to appreciate Twitter on any level but I have had the opportunity to connect with people I would never otherwise get to know. I’ve been able to make friends with other debut authors in the UK, Ireland, and the US and know that they’re there if I want to share good news or ask ‘is this normal?’ Your real-life friends can’t fully understand any topic that involves you using the phrase ‘well that’s just how publishing works’, and of course you’re happy for them, but you need people who get it. I’ve had people offer to help me with things that I struggle with, even though they barely know me. Others have talked me out of black pits of despair when I feel like I’m doing everything wrong. The same people celebrate every tiny milestone or success with me because they know how important it is.
But real-life people are not dismissed because they don’t live in this topsy turvy world of publishing. My mother makes embarrassing Facebook posts and gets all her friends to buy my lesbian rom-com. My father tells people I’m one of Oprah’s favourite books (definitely not true and a misinterpretation of what a listicle is). My best friend made me a website and graphics and a trailer and tells me how to respond to emails when I feel overwhelmed. He also claims to have written half of book two but he is deliberately misrepresenting ‘brainstorming’ for the immense glory of appearing in the acknowledgments. I couldn’t have managed this process without them.
You might be reading this and thinking Ciara, what about the queer bit? MAKE IT GAYER! Well, that bit is coming now. When I was fifteen I had the fleeting thought, ‘Am I a lesbian?’ I remember the moment vividly. I was standing in my bedroom with the yellow walls and my hand was on the doorknob. I also remember what I said to myself immediately after it occurred to me. ‘No. I couldn’t be that unlucky.’ There were some other difficulties that I was dealing with at the time (I mean being fifteen, amirite?) and I thought that statistically, it would be terribly unlikely that I would have to deal with being a lesbian as well. I pushed that thought very, very, deep down and it didn’t resurface until I was much older. Putting it off probably helped in some ways, and made it much harder in others. I want it to be easier for young people now. For some, it is, for others, of course, it will be much harder than my experience.
Fifteen-year-old me could not have imagined that one day I’d be publishing a lesbian rom-com for teenagers. One where being a lesbian is not the problem. In 2002 I was fifteen. The main character of The Falling in Love Montage would have been born in 2002. I like to think she was somehow born from that moment, in my bedroom, when I first thought I might be a lesbian. I might not have felt very joyful then, but I want to tell fifteen-year-old Ciara that it’s coming.
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Ciara Smyth studied drama, teaching, and then social work at university. She thought she didn’t know what she wanted to be when she grew up. She became a writer so she wouldn’t have to grow up.
She enjoys jigging (verb: to complete a jigsaw puzzle), playing the violin badly, and having serious conversations with her pets. Ciara has lived in Belfast for over ten years and still doesn’t really know her way around.
An Abundance of Serendipities
by Lucas Rocha
Hi, guys! YA Pride invited me to write something about bookish queer joy, and that’s a subject that makes me so happy because, to me, books + queer = joy. I know that we are not especially joyful right now with all that’s happening in the world, so I want to spark a little smile on your face by sharing one of the most exciting moments in my bookish life: my first international book deal.
Okay, let’s start from the beginning: my name is Lucas Rocha, and I’m a 28-year-old writer/librarian writing directly from São Paulo, Brazil. I’m also the author of WHERE WE GO FROM HERE, a queer YA book that talks about HIV and the impact that the virus has in the lives of three boys: one of them who just found out about his positive diagnosis, one that has been living with the virus for three years, and a third one, who is not a HIV+ person, but has a lot of doubts and prejudices when he finds himself in love with a positive person.
It was my first published book ever, and the way that it arrived in the US is still something that makes me catch myself thinking: ‘OMG, did that REALLY happen???’ and that can be summarized in one word: serendipity.
This is a word that doesn’t exist in Brazilian Portuguese, but I guess that I could not find another one in my language that puts together all of what happened with me and this book in such a beautiful way. In fact, my editor used this exact word in his Editor’s Letter in the book’s ARC, and I thought it was perfect. Orlando, you’re the best.
It all begins in 2017, when I first got this book deal to be published in Brazil, where I was born and currently live. After I finished the book, my agent sold it to one of the major publishing houses around here and I was already feeling very lucky only by that fact, because the Brazilian YA book scene is also very competitive and hard to get in if you are a debut author. But I got in, and 2018 was the year my debut novel was released at the Brazilian Book Fair—the Brazilian publishing process is very fast in comparison to the US—the major event in the Brazilian bookish scene.
So, the very first coincidence (or serendipity n. 1) that happened was that 2018 was the same year that this gigantic Book Fair invited David Levithan as an official guest, and (serendipity n. 2), in Brazil, Levithan’s work is published by the same publishing house that published WHERE WE GO FROM HERE.
So, when David Levithan arrived in Brazil, one of the things that he asked my Brazilian publisher was about the new YA voices being published here. He was curious to know the works of non-English writers because (serendipity n. 3) he runs a Scholastic imprint called PUSH that publishes queer books, and they were interested in bringing new voices to US young readers. He also said that one of his editors, Orlando Dos Reis, was able to read in Portuguese and would read the novels to see if something was a good fit for the imprint (serendipity n. 4).
That’s when my Brazilian editor gave David some books and, in the midst of all of them, my debut was there.
Cut to a month later: I receive an e-mail from this unknown man named Orlando Dos Reis, with this official Scholastic signature below his name. He was praising me about the book and asking if I had any interest in being published in the United States.
At first, I honestly thought that it was some sort of joke, prank or just a mistake, because that’s the kind of stuff that just doesn’t happen! I know that the US market is extremely competitive, and the rule is that the authors’ agent goes after the publishing houses, not the opposite! The agency that represents me had just started to work with international rights! My novel had only been out for Brazilian readers for a month before PUSH’s offer! All of it was very unbelievable. But it turned out to be all true.
And, after that, it was just a series of good things (before the pandemic, if I may add): the international book cover, the translation to English (made by the wonderful Larissa Helena, a Brazilian-born living in New York that I had the pleasure of meeting in person last year, when she was in São Paulo), the ARC’s, the signed bookplates and colorful sharpies, a starred review (!) and many others that are starting to appear, and all the good work that the Scholastic team is putting together to make this book reach as many people as possible.
This was also going to be the year that I went to the US for the first time ever, and it was going to be to promote my book and to participate in a bunch of panels and events (some of them are still going to happen, though!), and it’s a bummer that this pandemic, on top of being generally awful and not being taken as seriously as it should by certain governments, turned everything upside down in terms of the book’s promotion, but I still try to be positive about it. Being able to publish my debut novel and having the opportunity to reach outside of my country’s and language’s boarders are still things that are sometimes hard to process as stuff that are really happening to me.
All of it may sound that it was all a strike of luck and that things just fell into the right places at the right time (i.e. just serendipity), but I make sure to remember all of the hard work that I put into writing this book, and that goes into publishing it. The universe was generous to me, I can’t deny it. This whole journey undoubtedly contains some of the happiest moments of my life, and I can’t wait for you to read WHERE WE GO FROM HERE and share those feelings with me.
Most of all, just like this whole journey, this is a happy book, a book that talks about found family, a book that shines a light at HIV+ lives and shows how those lives can be beautiful and happy and – as all lives should be – joyful. So come and have some bookish queer joy with me, Ian, Victor and Henrique.
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Hi, everyone! My name’s Lucas Rocha, I’m 28 years old and currently live in São Paulo, Brazil. I’m a writer and librarian, and my debut novel, WHERE WE GO FROM HERE (PUSH/Scholastic, 2020), will be out in the world on June 2nd! It’s a book about three gay boys living in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, whose lives becomes intertwined in the face of HIV. It’s a story about love, friendship and overcoming prejudices, with a lot of laughter, music and, the most important, people living life at its fullest!
A Rainbow Will Literally Save
by NoNieqa Ramos
If one were to place the reviews of the DISTURBED GIRL’S DICTIONARY into a word cloud generator, one would see words like brutal, raw, gritty, unflinching … and one of my personal favorites “move over dead white guys.” What you won’t find is joy, and certainly not queer joy.
Yet to me, first and foremost, TDGD, was a love story and Macy’s indefatigable devotion for Alma accelerates like George’s motorcycle past the explosive ending into hope and possibility.
THE TRUTH IS is a different creature entirely. In that word cloud you’d find, identity, self-discovery, fierce, stream-of-consciousness, PTSD… hope! But not joy.
My characters’s families reject them because of their LGBTQIA+ identities and they suffer homelessness because of this child abuse. (Yup. CHILD ABUSE.) These characters and the very real queer kids abused by their families deserve their stories to be told. But- I also have a responsibility to write the joyful world that I want to exist for my queer readers even if that hasn’t been my own experience.
I’m writing my first dystopian novel and no matter what bombs systemic racism throws at my characters, it is their very Latinx queer identities that will save them. There will be joy damn it. Latinx joy. Latinx queer joy. A rainbow will literally save.
Queer bookish joy for me is the privilege and the gift to write picture books. I just had a conversation with my lovely editor in which we talked about the sanitized depiction of the friendship between the moms. I had to explicitly say, they are not just friends. That it was important for kids to see the moms lean against each other or hold hands even if it’s not central to the plot line. Because a book doesn’t have to be the gay ABCS for it to be queer. (Yes, we need the gay ABCs, por supuesto. )
Queer joy is the community we find in each other. In the artist’s collective Las Musas, founded by writers and pioneers like Aida Salazar, I found that community, that sacred space, that school of learning and unlearning, that citadel. Queer joy is the community we give to children in the books we write and the books we place in their hands. Children cannot wait until we are comfortable to allow them queer community. Found family is beautiful, but queer children should not have to go on a quest to find the love they deserve at birth.
Queer joy is placing Awaeke Emezi’s PET into my child’s hands. Planning a moon ceremony because of Aida Salazar’s THE MOON WITHIN. Thinking of educators planning a mermaid parade because of JULIAN IS A MERMAID. Knowing the works of Anna-Marie Mclemore, Zoraida Córdova, Mia García, Kacen Callender, Alex Villasante, Mark Oshiro and so many more await me, my children, queer children, and all children is a promise that one day queer joy wil be the dominant narrative.
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NoNieqa Ramos is an educator, literary activist, and writer of “intense” literature. She wrote the THE DISTURBED GIRL’S DICTIONARY, a 2018 New York Public Library Best Book for Teens, a 2019 YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults Selection, and a 2019 In the Margins Award Top Ten pick. It earned starred reviews from Booklist, Voya, and Foreword.
Lilliam Rivera, author of DEALING in DREAMS, selected THE TRUTH IS as a Bustle Book Club selection. Hip Latina included TTI in the “10 of the Best Latinx Young Adult Books of 2019.” Remezcla included TTI in the “15 Best Books by Latino and Latin American Authors of 2019.”
Versify will publish her debut picture books BEAUTY WOKE January 1st, 2021 and YOUR MAMA April 6, 2021 . For more information about NoNieqa, check out https://www.lasmusasbooks.com/nonieqa-ramos.html and https://www.soaring20spb.com/.