Vee – Page 16 – YA Pride

Call for Volunteers

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:01-05:00April 20th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Updates and Announcements|

Join us in our mission to provide a platform to discuss and promote queer YA! As a GayYA volunteer you can connect with our group of volunteers who are all extremely passionate about queer YA, create unique resources that support authors and enable teens to find queer books, and occasionally read queer YA before it is published. We are looking for five new volunteers. The general time commitment for volunteers is 5 hr/wk, but it is subject to change as our busyness increases and decreases, and we can be a little flexible around your schedule. Volunteers may be [...]

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It’s GayYA’s Fourth Birthday!

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:02-05:00April 2nd, 2015|Categories: Archive, Updates and Announcements|

For our Fourth anniversary, we are taking a trip back through the best of GayYA's archives, and celebrating 4 years of excellence from authors, readers, educators, and more by featuring a post a day for the month of April. In May, we'll host a month long blogathon, which we are SO EXCITED ABOUT!! :D To keep up with which posts we're featuring as the #BestofGayYA, follow this post! Speaking Into the Frost by Jessica Albrecht One of my characters recently – and completely unexpectedly – came out to me. I smiled when it happened. I looked up into the trees. It [...]

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Author Interview: Everett Maroon

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:02-05:00March 30th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Author Interview|Tags: Trans|

Today we bring you an interview with Everett Maroon, author of The Unintentional Time Traveler and Bumbling into Body Hair. In 2011 he was a regular contributor for GayYA-- we're so pleased to have him back for this interview on his books, trans YA, and himself. Hope you enjoy! The Unintentional Time Traveler by Everett Maroon (2014, Booktrope Editions) Fifteen-year-old Jack Inman has mad skills with cars and engines, but knows he'll never get a driver's license because of his epilepsy. Agreeing to participate in an experimental clinical trial to find new treatments for his disease, he finds himself in [...]

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Criticism and Discussion of The Other Me

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:03-05:00March 20th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog|Tags: Non Binary, Trans|

by Suzanne Van Rooyen Authors need a thick skin. Putting a book out there for others to read takes enormous amounts of courage. Not only does it feel like you're exposing yourself – if not laying your soul bare for strangers' eyes – but you're also opening yourself up to the possibility of criticism, and not just the constructive kind. All of this I had experienced before with my previous novels, so I knew what was coming when my YA trans novel, The Other Me, made its way into the world. But I wasn't entirely prepared for the [...]

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Sneak Peek: Honey Girl by Lisa Freeman

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:03-05:00March 19th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Sneak Peek|Tags: Historical, lesbian, Queer Girls, Realistic|

Today, we're honored to be hosting a short excerpt from the newly released Honey Girl by Lisa Freeman. The records on my turntable were stacked starting with Joni Mitchell’s Ladies of the Canyon. When Rox flipped the switch, she listened and said, “I love Joni,” like she was her best friend or something. It was the first time I had ever seen Rox without her waterproof mascara. She looked younger. Also, wearing my flannel nightgown and slippers, she looked downright sweet. “Would you [...]

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A Girl Like Me

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:03-05:00March 14th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog|Tags: graphic novel, publishing, Trans|

With more publishing options out there than ever before, and many stories of success and failure on every front, how do you know which path is right for you? Traditional, indie, and self-publishing all have their pros and cons. It’s important to know what to expect with each one, but it’s even more important to know yourself and your project. Know your strengths, your limitations, and your relationship to the project. Each project is different. What is an ideal publishing route for one might not be for another. In a feature I wrote on publishing, author Steve Almond [...]

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Exclusive Cover Reveal + Interview: Lizard Radio by Pat Schmatz

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:06-05:00March 9th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Author Interview, Cover Reveal|Tags: Trans|

We're so happy to be revealing the cover of Pat Schmatz's newest novel, Lizard Radio! Lizard Radio will be released September 2015. I could go on for quite awhile about how excited I am for this book, but I think you'll experience the excitement yourself, as you learn more about this book, without any prompting. First, here is the newly released blurb! FEAST YOUR EYES. Lizard Radio by Pat Schmatz: Fifteen-year-old bender Kivali has had a rough time in a gender-rigid culture. Abandoned as a baby and raised by Sheila, an ardent nonconformist, Kivali has always been surrounded by uncertainty. Where [...]

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Leelah Alcorn & Invisible Monsters

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:07-05:00February 11th, 2015|Categories: Archive|

Leelah Alcorn Of course, we’re all talking about Leelah Alcorn. Or at least we should be. And if we’re not, then we’re not grasping the meaning of her last letter to the world. It's much easier to go through life unaware of actual abuse transgender minors are put through by their own unaccepting parents. Sometimes we just don’t listen, and it isn’t until these struggles are written out in a novel, or a television script, or even a suicide note, and handed to us that we truly listen. But sometimes scripts and even novels dance around [...]

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Cut Both Ways by Carrie Mesrobian: Exclusive Cover Reveal and Interview

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:07-05:00February 6th, 2015|Categories: Archive|Tags: Bisexual, Queer Guys|

We are absolutely thrilled to be hosting Carrie Mesrobian's cover reveal for her new book Cut Both Ways out in September 2015. Carrie was one of mine and Kathleen's middle school writing teachers, and we've been in other classes with her over the following years. She's a great instructor, a fabulous writer, and has been incredibly supportive of us as we re-launched GayYA. We've been hearing little snippets about this unnamed book that had a bisexual guy as the protagonist for months, so when she approached us with the chance to host the cover reveal I was like uuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmm YES. [...]

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February Book Club: The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley by Shaun Hutchinson

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:07-05:00February 3rd, 2015|Categories: Archive, Book Club|

In February, we’ll be reading The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley by Shaun Hutchinson! The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley (Simon Pulse, 2015) Andrew Brawley was supposed to die that night. His parents did, and so did his sister, but he survived. Now he lives in the hospital. He serves food in the cafeteria, he hangs out with the nurses, and he sleeps in a forgotten supply closet. Drew blends in to near invisibility, hiding from his past, his guilt, and those who are trying to find him. Then one night Rusty is wheeled into the [...]

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