YA Pride

Introduction to Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week Series

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:41:09-05:00February 16th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Updates and Announcements|

Welcome to GayYA’s Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week series! In honor of Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week, we’re featuring posts from aromantic and aro-spec contributors on various issues surrounding aromantic representation in YA. We have an AWESOME line up of contributors and 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 the different ways their [...]

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Cover Reveal: Screaming Down Splitsville by Kayla Bashe

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:41:09-05:00February 12th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Cover Reveal|Tags: disability, lesbian, Queer Girls|

Today we are thrilled to host the cover reveal of the upcoming F/F YA Screaming Down Splitsville by Kayla Bashe! Screaming Down Splitsville takes place in an alternate 1950s where two groups of people with magical powers fight for dominance. Flip, a young lesbian, thinks her healing powers are completely useless. After her escape from a lab, she's been grounded to a safe base, and while everyone else is on important missions, she keeps the fridge stocked and fixes the plumbing. However, when a chance coincidence sends her on a solo rescue mission, Flip has a surprising reunion with [...]

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Cover Reveal: THE OLIVE CONSPIRACY by Shira Glassman

By Nita|2020-03-28T13:41:09-05:00January 11th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Cover Reveal, Fun Things|Tags: bisexuality, jewish rep, shira glassman, Trans|

We're fans of Shira Glassman's books here at The Gay YA, and even bigger fans of the work she does promoting diverse LGBTQIA+ lit and her passion for representation. Today, we're revealing the cover for The Olive Conspiracy, the fourth book in the Mangoverse series! Here's some info from Shira about the book: The Olive Conspiracy is due out on July 20, 2016 from Prizm Books. It's part of the Mangoverse series but you don't have to read any of the other books first because I try my best to write my books as standalone adventures about the same family-of-choice. It's [...]

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Clearing Trans Paths in Middle Grade Fiction

By Marilla|2020-03-28T13:41:10-05:00November 20th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: Middle Grade, Representation, Trans|

Now that my debut middle grade novel, George, has been released into the world (fly, baby, fly!!) I’ve been witnessing and engaging in conversations about “who this book is for”. In other words, “is this age-appropriate?” Now let me be clear. There is no age at which it is inappropriate to appreciate people for who they are. And there is no age before we know ourselves. We may not have fully formed those notions, but each of us is the only person we know inside and out, and each of our challenges includes finding, respecting, and celebrating that [...]

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Knights, Defenders and Double Edged Swords

By Marilla|2020-03-28T13:41:10-05:00November 18th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: Representation, Trans|

by Sarah Benwell When I was a kid, I wanted to become a knight. To take on chivalry and honour and a bravery that was bigger than I’d ever felt in real life. I wanted to protect, defend, pick up a sword and fight for something good. I wanted to be Lancelot or Gawain or a knight of Gondor or Cair Paravel. And sometimes talking and writing about diversity feels a little bit like picking up that mantle. I’ve talked a lot lately – in schools and cons and AGMs and right across the internet – about how [...]

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Should I or Shouldn’t I? On Writing Trans Narratives Respectfully

By Marilla|2020-03-28T13:41:10-05:00November 17th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: Trans|

by John Jacobson Writing about yourself is hard. Writing about something, or someone, that you understand is hard. Writing about something or someone that is oppressed, stereotyped, and dehumanized by society is hard - especially when you don't understand that struggle on a personal level. Trans narratives are vital to the young adult book community. Trans teenagers often seek resources that can be found online, in libraries, and through other relatively quiet methods. Our voices as people outside of the gender binary are quiet when we're young because we're often met with varying degrees of unsafe environments. The [...]

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Trans Representation in YA Is Only the Beginning

By Marilla|2020-03-28T13:41:10-05:00November 16th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: Representation, Trans|

by Everett Maroon In the November 8, 2015 issue of The New York Times' Book Review, Malindo Lo opened a review of two novels with a note about diversity in contemporary YA fiction. It was an eloquent, simple summation regarding the ongoing conversations about representation: "[The] call for diversity has been accompanied by uncomfortable yet necessary debates about what constitutes quality representation, and few people agree on that." I'd like to focus on one very important word in her opening. Quality. Quality representation. Because while including transgender and gender nonconforming characters is an important shift in contemporary young [...]

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Superheroes Saved My Life

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:41:10-05:00November 15th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: Trans|

by Cheryl Morgan There are many things about the lives of trans kids today that leave me a bit misty-eyed. When I was at school hormone blockers were unheard of, and coming out as trans was liable to land you in an asylum getting electroshock treatment. YA wasn’t even a thing back then, so there was no point in asking for diverse characters. We did have books, though. Paper had been invented. Reading was pretty heavily gendered. I don’t think I could have got away with reading books like Little Women or Anne of Green Gables. I was [...]

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Introduction to Transgender Awareness Week Series

By Vee|2016-05-24T14:49:16-05:00November 15th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Updates and Announcements|

Welcome to GayYA’s Transgender Awareness Week Series! In honor of Transgender Awareness Week, we’re featuring posts from trans and trans-spectrum contributors on various issues surrounding transness in YA. We have an AWESOME line up of contributors and 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 the different ways their [...]

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“Instant Attraction Can’t Be Real!” The Tale of an Angry Teenage Demisexual

By Marilla|2020-03-28T13:41:10-05:00November 1st, 2015|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: asexual|

Asexuality in YA Series: Day 7 – Previous Posts: Introduction to Asexuality in YA Series – Aces Out: Laying the Cards On the Table – Acing Romance: On Writing YA Love Stories as an Asexual – 5 Tips and Tricks To Writing Asexual Characters – Interview with Simon Tam – Reading While Asexual: Representation in Ace YA - Being Ace: Cultural Differences and Progress by Morgan York I’ve been experiencing demisexuality since I was old enough to develop sexual feelings. But I didn’t know the word “demisexual” until I was 21. If I’d known the term existed as a [...]

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