Vee – Page 21 – YA Pride

Call for Contributors!

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:39-05:00October 2nd, 2014|Categories: Archive, Updates and Announcements|

We are looking for 5 new regular contributors for GayYA.org. Regular contributors are people who write monthly posts for us. The posts must be somehow related to queer characters in YA lit. Contributors can go wide and talk about a lot of different things, or go deep and focus on one topic. Or they can do like a “Top 5 ___” type thing. They can be serious or fun, or anywhere in between. We’re open to people of all ages! We’re especially looking for people who are able to commit for a long period of time. This call [...]

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Review of Searching for Grace by Juliann Rich

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:39-05:00October 2nd, 2014|Categories: Archive, Book Review, Teen Voices|Tags: Religion|

At the end of Caught in the Crossfire I was convinced I would not last until Searching for Grace... and the end of Searching for Grace has left me in the exact same state. I believe the email I sent Juliann said something along the lines of "I NEED TAKING THE STAND LIKE YESTERDAY." Like the first book in the Crossfire Trilogy, Caught in the Crossfire, Searching for Grace is an amazingly unique and honest portrayal of a teen walking the line between his sexuality and his faith. As some of you know, I have walked a similar path. The experience [...]

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Announcing our October Book of the Month: Pantomime by Laura Lam!

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:39-05:00October 1st, 2014|Categories: Archive, Author Interview, Book Club, Updates and Announcements|Tags: Bisexual, Intersex, Non Binary|

Every month we choose a book as our Book of the Month, one of our favorites that has contributed something great and unique to queer YA literature. We chose Pantomime because it is an excellently written fantasy/steampunk series with an intersex, nonbinary, and bisexual protagonist. There is also a large amount of diversity within the rest of the characters. All of these things are unique in queer YA, and when you put them all together, what you get is a wonderful and important read. Shadowplay is the sequel to Pantomime. The third book, Masquerade is in the works. Unfortunately, Laura Lam's publisher [...]

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Review: Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:39-05:00September 30th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Book Review, Teen Voices|Tags: lesbian, New Releases, PoC, Queer Girls, Religion|

by Laurel May When I heard this book was about an interracial lesbian couple living in the 1950's I immediately wanted it. I was just blown away by the idea of this story! Now that I have read it, I am blown away by the actual story. What an exceptional book! "Lies We Tell Ourselves" is not an easy read. You only have to look at the time period to understand why that is. This book is set in 1959, after the desegregation of Little Rock School. Here, Sarah and 10 other black students are the first to [...]

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Interview With Alaya Dawn Johnson, Author of The Summer Prince

By Vee|2016-05-24T14:52:09-05:00September 29th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Author Interview, Book Club|Tags: Bisexual, PoC, Queer Guys, Speculative|

Part 1 of Interview: Part 2: Transcript to come! Next month we'll be interviewing Laura Lam, author of our October Book of the Month, Pantomime. Let us know what you thought of this month's interview in the comments (because they are working again!!! *throws hat*), and drop some questions you'd like us to ask Laura Lam.

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From Activist to Author, and Back Again

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:39-05:00September 29th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog|Tags: Activism, Small Press|

by Andrew J. Peters Note: Suicide content warning Writing fiction started out as something I did privately as an outlet for self-expression. For most of my career, I worked at an LGBT youth organization. I think that certain values have always been a part of my writing, such as a belief in the essential dignity of everyone. But when I used to sneak away to write, it was mainly a pleasurable escape from day-to-day realities that were hard to leave behind in the office. It has gotten better for LGBT teens since I started as a social worker [...]

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Guest Post from Author KE Payne

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:39-05:00September 26th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog|Tags: lesbian, Queer Girls|

Originally published on the UK Lesfic website. I did a Q&A on another author's blog a while ago, and I was asked what one message did I hope readers took away from my books? My answer was short and sweet: I wanted readers to know that it's okay to be gay, and that assertion was at the forefront of my mind when I started to write my latest Young Adult novel, Because of Her. I didn't want it to just be a let's run around and tell everyone how fab it is to be queer, I just wanted [...]

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How Ideas Evolve

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:39-05:00September 23rd, 2014|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog|Tags: Trans|

“Where do you get your ideas?” is a question that gets some pretty interesting responses from writers—but an even more important question is: “How do your ideas evolve?” When you read a good book, it can feel like such a seamless whole that it’s easy to assume the ideas were there from the start. Sure the writer had to pretty up the words and put in some foreshadowing, move a chapter around, get rid of that character whose name no one can remember and all that, but the way we talk about drafting often makes it sound like [...]

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The Magic of Rhyming Words (And the Agony of Titling Books)

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:39-05:00September 15th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog|Tags: publishing, Religion|

By Juliann Rich Choosing a title is one of the hardest parts of writing a book for me. Seriously, I’d rather write thirty additional chapters than one word or a few words for a title. TOTAL AGONY. A good title needs to communicate the core of the book, catch readers’ attention, and leave them wanting to dive in to see if the book fulfills its promise. Easy-peasy, right? Wrong. It’s bloody hard to do well. In fact, I thought I’d never figure out the title for the sequel to Caught in the Crossfire (originally titled in my mind [...]

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Review: The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:41-05:00September 10th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Book Club, Book Review, Teen Voices|Tags: Bisexual, Polyamory|

A heart-stopping story of love, death, technology, and art set amid the tropics of a futuristic Brazil. The lush city of Palmares Tres shimmers with tech and tradition, with screaming gossip casters and practiced politicians. In the midst of this vibrant metropolis, June Costa creates art that's sure to make her legendary. But her dreams of fame become something more when she meets Enki, the bold new Summer King. The whole city falls in love with him (including June's best friend, Gil). But June sees more to Enki than amber eyes and a lethal samba. She sees a [...]

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