YA Pride

Introduction to Bisexual Awareness Week Series

By Marilla|2016-05-24T14:49:19-05:00September 21st, 2015|Categories: Archive, Updates and Announcements|Tags: Bisexual|

Welcome to GayYA's Bisexual Awareness Week Series! Bisexual Awareness Week is a yearly event that “exists to help draw attention to the public policy concerns of bisexual people while also celebrating the great resiliency of bisexual culture and community.” (Find out more about it here http://www.bisexualweek.com/about/ and keep an eye on the #BiWeek hashtag!) During Bisexual Awareness Week, we’ll feature posts from bisexual/biromantic contributors on various issues surrounding bisexuality 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 [...]

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Pat Schmatz Blog Tour: Book Birthday

By Marilla|2020-03-28T13:41:28-05:00September 8th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog|Tags: New Releases, Speculative, Trans|

We're thrilled to be hosting the last post of Pat Schmatz's book release blog tour. Pat's new book, Lizard Radio, is out in stores today! You should make sure and pick up a copy-- not only is it a phenomenal read, it is also our pick for GayYA's October Book Club. :D Check out all the stops on the blog tour, and enter the giveaway here! YA Books Central The Pirate Tree TeenReads The Children’s Book Review KidLit Frenzy The Book Rat Swoony Boys Podcast Gay YA Fifteen-year-old bender Kivali has had a rough time in a gender-rigid [...]

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Author Interview: Elliott DeLine

By Marilla|2020-03-28T13:41:29-05:00September 7th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Author Interview|Tags: Queer Guys, Realistic, Trans|

We're thrilled to be talking today with Elliott DeLine, author of the YA/NA books Refuse and I Know Very Well How I Got My Name, and the autobiographical nonfiction book Show Trans! We got to chat with him a bit about his work, transgender YA, and why it's so important to have transgender authors writing trans YA. We also got some great questions from Elliott's readers about his writing process and more! Vee: Hey Elliott! Thank you so much for joining us on GayYA. To start, can you share a little bit about yourself and your books? Elliott: [...]

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Cover Reveal + Interview: Pride: Celebrating Diversity and Community by Robin Stevenson

By Marilla|2020-03-28T13:41:31-05:00August 6th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Author Interview, Cover Reveal|Tags: LGBTQIA, Middle Grade|

Pride: Celebrating Diversity and Community by Robin Stevenson is delving into an awesome new area—it's a Middle Grade nonfiction book about the history of Pride and Stonewall! It'll be coming out April 2016. Today, we're THRILLED to reveal the awesome cover of this awesome book. We also got to talk to the fantastic author herself about why this book needs to exist, what exactly is in it, and why you should be super excited for its release in April 2016! For LGBTQ people and their supporters, Pride events are an opportunity to honor the past, protest injustice and [...]

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On Love in a Dystopian Time: A Call to ([White] Queer) YA Authors About #BlackLivesMatter

By Marilla|2020-03-28T13:41:31-05:00August 5th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: Black, Intersectionality, Representation|

by Jennifer Polish As authors (us too, fan fic writers!), aspiring authors, and readers of YA literature, many of us are often thinking about the meanings of love in dystopian societies. Katniss’s protectiveness of Rue, of Prim. Peeta’s devotion to Katniss. Tris and Christina. Tris and Four. Lucky and Digory. Loup and Pilar. David and Callan. But, as YA enthusiasts, it is also our responsibility to think long and to think hard on love in this dystopian time. Because if you go to buy Skittles while Black, or if you love someone who does; if you attend a [...]

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Cover Reveal + Interview: Dagger by Steven dos Santos

By Marilla|2020-03-28T13:41:31-05:00August 4th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Author Interview, Cover Reveal|Tags: gay, Queer Guys|

We are big fans of Steven dos Santos's first series The Torch Keeper. Today, we are THRILLED to reveal the fantastic cover of his next book, Dagger. Dagger was turned down by an agent back in 2008 because it had a gay protagonist—now, it's finally being published! Along with revealing this fantastic new cover, we also got to talk to Steven about how it feels to have this book published, diversity in publishing, and why Dagger should be on your TBR come September. When Ultimate Evil engulfs the entire world, only Dagger can pierce the Darkness—even if the [...]

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Review: Street Dreams by Tama Wise

By Marilla|2020-03-28T13:41:32-05:00June 26th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Book Review|Tags: gay, Intersectionality, PoC, Queer Guys, Realistic|

by Nathaniel Harrington Street Dreams (Bold Strokes Press 2012) From Goodreads: Tyson Rua has more than his fair share of problems growing up in South Auckland. Working a night job to support his mother and helping bring up his two younger brothers is just the half of it. His best friend Rawiri is falling afoul of a broken home, and now Tyson's fallen in love at first sight. Only thing is, it's another guy. Living life on the sidelines of the local hip-hop scene, Tyson finds that to succeed in becoming a local graffiti artist or [...]

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Dumbledore Gets Married in Ireland. Sort Of.

By Nadia|2020-03-28T13:41:33-05:00June 25th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: Activism, Advocacy, Allies, gay, LGBTQIA, Representation|

by Jennifer Polish So Dumbledore and Gandalf got married. At the suggestion of J.K. Rowling. And all the fandoms rode off into the proverbial sunset. But that’s not the entire story. In the same episode of Doctor Who that Shakespeare was portrayed as bisexual (I punched the air myself before remembering I was watching it with a straight cis guy who was glaring at me), the Doctor proclaims – after saving the world with the iconic spell Expelliarmus! (please don’t ask how) – “Good old J.K.!” Which is largely what the queer interwebs have been saying of late: [...]

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Cover Reveal + Interview: Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley

By Marilla|2020-03-28T13:41:33-05:00June 24th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Author Interview, Cover Reveal|Tags: Bisexual, Black, Historical, PoC, Queer Girls|

We are HUGE fans of Robin Talley's debut novel Lies We Tell Ourselves. Today, we are THRILLED to reveal the gorgeous new cover that this fantastic book will soon be getting! We also got to talk to Robin Talley and her kick ass editor T.S. Ferguson about the cover redesign, representation, and Robin's forthcoming projects. Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley (Harlequin Teen, 2014) Lies We Tell Ourselves UK Version (MIRA Ink, 2014) In 1959 Virginia, the lives [...]

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My Big Gay Sequel

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:41:34-05:00June 23rd, 2015|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Writers on Writing|Tags: Bisexual, F/F, Queer Girls, Small Press|

by Casey Lawrence This past May my first book, Out of Order, was published through Dreamspinner Press’s YA branch Harmony Ink. My first foray into queer YA has been, on the one hand, a whirlwind of excitement, and on the other, a huge let down. My book will never be a New York Times Bestseller, and I’ve made my peace with that. It will never win awards, sit on Indigo shelves, be translated into a dozen languages. This isn’t because my main character is a biracial, bisexual teenaged girl or because my writing style is still growing, still [...]

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