Vee – Page 12 – YA Pride

Promoting LGBTQIA+ YA: A Publicist’s POV

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:49-05:00June 10th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Blogathon 2016, Guest Blogs|Tags: LGBTQIA, nonbinary, Trans|

by Jamie Tan As a publicist, I’m used to being gregarious or quiet, adapting to whichever author I’m with. I’ve sat quietly with authors, filled up space with small talk so an author could have a moment of rest, and leaned back while an author took the floor. I’m here to be supportive, but more importantly I want to be respectful of the author and the work they have created. Pat Schmatz was one of the first authors I worked with when I started at Candlewick. I can say now how much I adore working with her, [...]

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Author Interview: Leigh Bardugo

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:49-05:00June 7th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Author Interview, Blogathon 2016|Tags: Bisexual, gay, Speculative|

While I was at BEA, I got a chance to meet and interview the fabulous Leigh Bardugo author of The Grisha Trilogy, Six of Crows, and the forthcoming Crooked Kingdom. Six of Crows is one of my top 5 favorite books, and I was so excited to be able to meet and interview her that I was basically spacing out for the whole interview! We talked about the world building around how sexuality is perceived in the Grisha verse, negative (& positive!) reactions to queer characters, what we can expect from Crooked Kingdom re: Wylan and Jesper and more! Managed [...]

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#YAPride Challenge

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:49-05:00June 5th, 2016|Categories: Blogathon 2016, Fun Things, Updates and Announcements|

Welcome to GayYA’s first ever #YAPride Challenge! #YAPride is all about spreading the LGBTQIA+ love-- and you’re entered to win an AWESOME prize while you do it! The prize? A box of 8 #OwnVoices LGBTQIA+ YA books. We’ll announce the exact titles in a few days, but one of them will be a signed copy of You Know Me Well by David Levithan and Nina Lacour, and there will be a couple ARCs of upcoming releases! Our #YAPride challenge will be split into 3 weeks. It's a mutli-platform challenge on Twitter, Tumblr, Youtube, and Instagram. Enter as many times as you'd [...]

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GayYA Recommends: You Know Me Well by David Levithan & Nina Lacour

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:49-05:00June 5th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Blogathon 2016, Book Club, Book Review, New Releases, Readers on Reading, Teen Voices|Tags: gay, lesbian, Representation|

Who knows you well? Your best friend? Your boyfriend or girlfriend? A stranger you meet on a crazy night? No one, really? Mark and Kate have sat next to each other for an entire year, but have never spoken. For whatever reason, their paths outside of class have never crossed. That is until Kate spots Mark miles away from home, out in the city for a wild, unexpected night. Kate is lost, having just run away from a chance to finally meet the girl she has been in love with from afar. Mark, meanwhile, is in love with [...]

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Juliet Takes a Breath: A How-To Guide for Young Queer Latinas

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:49-05:00June 5th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Blogathon 2016, Book Review, New Releases|Tags: Latinx, PoC, Queer Girls, Realistic|

by Sonia Alejandra Rodriguez, PhD Juliet Milagros Palante is a 19-year-old Puertoriqueña from the Bronx. She knows she’s gay but hasn’t told her family. She decides to come out to her family the night she’s set to travel to Portland, Oregon[1] for her summer internship with the renowned white feminist Harlowe Brisbane. After having read Harlowe’s book Raging Flower: Empowering Pussy by Empowering Your Mind, Juliet is convinced Harlowe is the only one that can help her understand her new gay identity. Juliet is in for a rude awakening and finds solace in unexpected places. Juliet Takes a [...]

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I Volunteer As Tribute: Writing the Book I Wish I’d Had As A Teen

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:50-05:00June 4th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Blogathon 2016, New Releases, Writers on Writing|Tags: lesbian, Queer Girls|

by Chelsea M. Cameron “So, are you just going to write books about lesbians now?” This was usually the third or fourth question I got from people when I came out. After “how did you know?” and “what did your mom say?” “Um, no?” was usually my response. I’ve been publishing books (first independently, then also traditionally, aka, being a hybrid author) since February of 2012. Every single one of them was about a heterosexual couple. Because I was heterosexual. Until, in October of 2015, I realized I wasn’t. Twenty-nine years of denial, down the drain. It was intense, it was terrifying, but it was [...]

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Welcome to GayYA’s 2016 Blogathon!

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:51-05:00June 1st, 2016|Categories: Blogathon 2016, Updates and Announcements|

Hello and welcome to GayYA’s 2016 Pride Month + 5th Anniversary blogathon! We're so thrilled for our upcoming month of posts! For our 2015 blogathon intro we said that GayYA has many goals, but everything we do essentially comes down to one purpose: get more LGBTQIA+ YA published. That’s still true, but now that we have a good selection of LGBTQIA+ out there (and more on the 2017 horizon!) we believe it’s important to look beyond simply getting more published-- we need to ensure that these books are getting into the hands of teens that need them, and that [...]

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Vee at BEA: Recap!

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:51-05:00May 31st, 2016|Categories: Archive, Updates and Announcements|

As I write this, I’m listening to Halo by Beyonce. I kept hearing it in my head when I was at BEA and BookCon. Everywhere I'm looking now I'm surrounded by your embrace My chest kept getting super tight at BEA and I couldn't understand why, until I started realizing I was becoming overwhelmed with everyone's love and support and belief. I had to keep reminding myself to breathe it all in. The expo itself was so entirely overwhelming. People had kept telling me “it’s bigger than you could possibly imagine” and I was sort of like “pshaw, uh huh.” [...]

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Giveaway: Gena/Finn by Hannah Moskowitz and Kat Helgeson

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:55-05:00May 18th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Fun Things, New Releases|

The story follows the unlikely friendship of two young women forged via fan fiction and message boards, and is told entirely in texts, chats, and blog posts. Gena (short for Genevieve) and Finn (short for Stephanie) have little in common. Book-smart Gena is preparing to leave her posh boarding school for college; down-to-earth Finn is a twenty-something struggling to make ends meet in the big city. Gena’s romantic life is a series of reluctant one-night-stands; Finn is making a go of it with long-term boyfriend Charlie. But they share a passion for Up Below, a buddy cop TV [...]

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GayYA at Book Expo America

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:55-05:00May 7th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Updates and Announcements|

Hey there! GayYA admin here. I am going to be at Book Expo America (BEA) and Book Con in Chicago this coming week. Are you going to be there? I would LOVE to connect with you! Send me an email at vee@gayya.org, or get in touch with me via my personal Twitter. :) I'd especially love to connect with you if you're an author of LGBTQIA+ YA! I'm doing a series of short 3-5 question interviews with authors of LGBTQIA+ YA to feature on the site. Let me know if this is something you'd be interested in setting up-- [...]

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