YA Pride

Interview with author Shannon LC Cate

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:41-05:00July 24th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Author Interview|Tags: publishing|

Today we have author Shannon LC Cate talking about race and gender histories, the importance of small-press or self publishing, and of course, her book Jack. Find out more about Jack here! Question: Why did you choose the particular time and setting? (Post Civil War, New York and Arizona?) What about that time and those places interested you, or served the story? SHANNON LC CATE: I studied this period during my graduate work in American literature. When I write historical fiction, I tend to naturally choose the last quarter of the 19th century because of my familiarity with that [...]

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Announcing GayYA’s August 2014 Book of the Month, and Other Updates!

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:41-05:00July 21st, 2014|Categories: Archive, Book Club, Updates and Announcements|

Announcing our August 2014 BotM: Love in the Time of Global Warming by Francesca Lia Block! Our August 2014 Book of the Month! Her life by the sea in ruins, Pen has lost everything in the Earth Shaker that all but destroyed the city of Los Angeles. She sets out into the wasteland to search for her family, her journey guided by a tattered copy of Homer’s Odyssey. Soon she begins to realize her own abilities and strength as she faces false promises of safety, the cloned giants who feast on humans, and a madman who [...]

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Wait! This novel has GAY people in it!

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:42-05:00July 14th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Book Club|Tags: censorship, lesbian|

Molly Beth Griffin I didn’t start writing my first novel assuming that it would actually be read by anyone but me and my graduate school advisor, and maybe the memory of my teenage self. It was an experiment in longer-form fiction taken on by a self-defined picture book writer. But the project took flight, and after years of hard work, *Silhouette of a Sparrow *hit shelves in hardcover in 2012 and then again in paperback in 2013. Which was terrifying. Aside from the usual trepidation of a debut novelist, I had some added fears. Why? Because although the [...]

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REVIEW: Silhouette of a Sparrow by Molly Beth Griffin

By admin|2020-03-28T13:42:42-05:00July 4th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Book Club, Book Review, Teen Voices|

SILHOUETTE OF A SPARROW is GayYA’s July Book of the Month. We are giving away a signed copy in our monthly raffle, which you can enter HERE! Upon opening Silhouette of a Sparrow, I took its first-person narrative as a tragic misstep, which is the case in many YA novels I have read (or, attempted to read). I was pleasantly mistaken, and by chapter 2, I was hooked. Silhouette of a Sparrow is narrated by 16-year-old Garnet Richardson, a bird-lover with a curious mind and an honest voice, who is sent to stay with relatives, the Harringtons, over the summer while [...]

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Interview With Kirstin Cronn-Mills, Author of BEAUTIFUL MUSIC FOR UGLY CHILDREN

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:42-05:00June 23rd, 2014|Categories: Archive, Author Interview, Book Club|

Hey everyone! Today we have Kirstin Cronn-Mills, author of BEAUTIFUL MUSIC FOR UGLY CHILDREN (our June 2014 Book of the Month) talking about music, research, her book, and of course ice cream. Tune in! Victoria: Beautiful Music for Ugly Children is about a guy named Gabe, who is navigating his way through life, romance, family and friendship, the same as any other teen. The only difference is that he was born in a girl's body, as Elizabeth. BMUC tells the story of him coming into himself and leaving Elizabeth behind. How did this story come to you? Kirstin: This story was [...]

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Sexy Girl Sex! (and Why it’s Important)

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:42-05:00June 14th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog|Tags: New Adult|

Female sexuality in young adult and new adult fiction is a topic that has interested me for many years, and something that I’ve been wanting to write about for just as long. I’m glad I waited until now, because last month was a gold mine for arising issues relating to the topic. On twitter, social occurrences and media treatment of said occurrences sparked the trend of #YesAllWomen and #WeNeedDiverseBooks. While the events that initiated both hashtags were either disheartening or devastating, women used social media to prove that their opinions mattered. I also had the opportunity to attend [...]

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The Cross-Dresser in YA Literature

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:43-05:00June 12th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Book Review|

First let me say that I’m very happy and honored to be writing a blog post for Gay YA. What I’d like to talk about today is the representation of cross-dressers in YA literature. Though transgender characters are becoming easier to find, cross-dressing characters are not. Why is this? I think it represents our prejudices as a society. I truly believe that cross-dressers are one of the most marginalized and misunderstood segments of the population today. I’m thinking specifically of teen cross-dressers. Gay and transgender kids have support groups, but CD teens have very few if any resources. Representation of [...]

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June Book Haul

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:43-05:00June 9th, 2014|Categories: Archive|

Woah, it's June already! I don't know how that happened. I headed to the library last week and picked up my monthly quota of Gay YA, which I'm here to share with you all. On the docket for this month isssssss: Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block After David Levithan said at the con I attended that Weetzie Bat had inspired him to write, I had to read it. And Francesca Lia Block is one of my new favorite authors, so I had double the motivation! Shine by Lauren Myracle This has been on my TBR FOREVER. I just started it [...]

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Book Review: Caught in the Crossfire by Juliann Rich

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:43-05:00June 3rd, 2014|Categories: Archive, Book Review, Teen Voices|

Juliann Rich’s debut novel Caught in the Crossfire is a new and much needed story in Gay YA literature. The book is about a gay teen who is a devout Christian, and struggling to reconcile those two things. We first meet Jonathan at the beginning of a month long bible camp. At the beginning of the story, Jonathan is aware of his feelings for guys, but not too eager to try and understand them. We’re also introduced to Ian, the love interest, quite early. Ian, we learn, is also gay and is much more outspoken about gay rights. [...]

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The Intersection of Art and Advocacy

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:43-05:00June 2nd, 2014|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog|

My son came out to me at the age of 15, and I remember feeling totally overwhelmed with fear. Though I could provide safety and acceptance within our home, I felt powerless to protect him in a world I knew could be less than kind to him. So I became an advocate as well as a mom. Let me take a moment to make an important point about what advocacy is and what it is not. True advocacy is walking beside a person engaged in fighting for equality. It does not assume that the people we support are powerless or weak, for that too is [...]

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