YA Pride

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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It’s Not Just a Phase

By Marilla|2020-03-28T13:41:18-05:00September 25th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Author Interview|Tags: Bisexual|

Bisexual Awareness Week Series: Day 5 – 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 by Justina Ireland When I was in high school I used to argue a lot about politics. I was the girl in class who would raise her hand and correct the teacher when they’d say something wrong or just plan biased. This usually exasperated the rest of my classmates. Sometimes I cared. Mostly I didn’t. I thought it was better to be [...]

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There Once Was a Girl

By Marilla|2020-03-28T13:41:18-05:00September 24th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: Bisexual, Representation|

Bisexual Awareness Week Series: Day 4 – Previous Posts: Introduction to Bisexual Awareness Week Series – Bisexuality in YA – On Failing to Recognize Ourselves in Mirrors - The "B" Word by Tristina Wright Once upon a time, there was a college girl very confused about her sexuality, and her best friend was a lesbian. They were the closest of friends and helped each other through the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. They were never more than friends, nor did they ever want to be. They were friends and that was special in itself. There’s [...]

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The “B” Word

By Marilla|2020-03-28T13:41:18-05:00September 23rd, 2015|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: Bisexual, Representation|

Bisexual Awareness Week Series: Day 3 – Previous Posts: Introduction to Bisexual Awareness Week Series – Bisexuality in YA - On Failing to Recognize Ourselves in Mirrors by Camryn Garrett Reading a book is like being sucked into someone else’s world. I’ve learned about other worlds, but also my own through reading. Not only have I discovered that I was struggling with mental illness, but I’ve learned more about other cultures, other thoughts, other places, all in between two covers. But on the other hand, I’m often learning about a specific group of people. It changed between the [...]

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On Failing to Recognize Ourselves in Mirrors

By Marilla|2020-03-28T13:41:19-05:00September 22nd, 2015|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: Bisexual, LGBTQIA, Representation|

Bisexual Awareness Week Series: Day 1 – Previous Posts: Introduction to Bisexual Awareness Week Series – Bisexuality in YA by Claire Spaulding When I first started brainstorming for this post, I came up with a list of what I want to see in bisexual YA: more badass bisexual ladies going on adventures! Swoon-worthy romance with happy endings! Bisexual pirates! Seriously, guys, where are my bisexual YA pirate novels?! But then I moved beyond what I want in bisexual YA right now, and I started thinking about what I wanted in bisexual YA back when I really, deeply needed [...]

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Bisexuality in YA

By Marilla|2020-03-28T13:41:27-05:00September 21st, 2015|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog|Tags: Bisexual, Representation|

Bisexual Awareness Week Series: Day 1 – Previous Posts: Introduction to Bisexual Awareness Week Series by Shira Glassman Climbing the Date Palm by Shira Glassman (Prizm Books, 2014) When I was a little girl, it took me until I was fourteen to realize that the way I liked girls counted as that way. Looking back, it was pretty obvious; I was obsessed with the cute blonde detective on Mathnet at age six and the Egyptian princess in The Ten Commandments at seven; at nine I talked about boobs an awful lot (my name for them, at [...]

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