Vee – Page 22 – YA Pride

Girl Sex 101

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:41-05:00September 8th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog|Tags: lesbian, Queer Girls, Sex, Sex Ed|

Editor's Note: There are NSFW text and images in this post. How did you learn about sex? From health class? Your parents? Your first time? Porn? It’s hard to learn about sex at all, even harder if you’re on the LGBTQ spectrum. For that reason, many of us have to seek out info on our own, leading us to the internet or that more experienced friend. Sometimes that works out well. Other times, not so much. As a reader, I looked for books, finding a dark corner of the library where I could surreptitiously flip through pages. I [...]

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Interview With Francesca Lia Block

By Vee|2016-05-24T14:52:10-05:00September 6th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Author Interview, Book Club|

Francesca Lia Block is the author of our August Book of the Month, Love in the Time of Global Warming! Hope you enjoy. :) [Transcript to come.] This is our first recorded interview-- if you have comments or suggestions for us, tweet us @thegayya, or shoot me an email at victoria@gayya.org. (Our comments are STILL not working. Le sigh.) Our September Book of the Month is The Summer Prince, by Alaya Dawn Johnson. Stay tuned for our interview with Alaya! If you have something you'd like us to ask her, hit us up on Twitter!

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Minor Queer Characters in YA

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:41-05:00September 5th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs, Teen Voices|Tags: Representation|

The unfortunate truth is that most mainstream YA centres around a boy-girl romance with maybe a bit of magic or tragedy or dystopian violence thrown in. That's it. There's very little room on the Teen Fiction shelves at Barnes & Noble for books about girls who kiss girls or boys that kiss boys simply because - apparently - the readership isn't quite "ready" for those themes yet. Now, obviously, I understand that Barnes & Noble (and other bookshops) can't physically make their shops any bigger just to please the fairly minuscule percentage of their readers that are a) [...]

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We Are Not Just a Diversity Checkbox Part 3

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:41-05:00September 5th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs, Teen Voices|Tags: asexual, Bisexual, Representation, Stereotypes|

There are people who partially fit the stereotypes of their sexuality (butch lesbians, effeminate gay men, sex-repulsed asexuals, etc.) but in media they are often presented as caricatures. These negative portrayals in media lead to real-life queer people who fit these stereotypes being attacked by other queer people, mostly due to the fear of exposing the MOGII community as a whole to the negativity attached to those stereotypes. In both fiction and in real life, all members of the MOGII community deserve to be respected and respectfully represented, regardless of how they express themselves. Instead of telling MOGII people [...]

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The Impact of Representation

By Vee|2016-05-24T14:52:10-05:00August 27th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: Representation|

I had something else I was going to write on representation. But then I heard about Robin Williams, and I thought of other things. About feeling alone. About depression, that horrendous, hideous beast that traps you and makes you feel like there’s no reason to get out of bed. I thought about my depression, which I still struggle with. What I struggled with during high school, particularly (I hesitate to say because of) my struggles with my sexuality, with not feeling like I belonged anywhere, especially when I was still in the closet. It was lonely. God. I [...]

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We Are Not Just a Diversity Checkbox Part 2

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:41-05:00August 22nd, 2014|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs, Teen Voices|Tags: Representation|

Editors note: Part One of the We Are Not Just a Diversity Checkbox mini-series addressed background MOGII characters in media, and why there is no good excuse to leave out queer characters. In Part Two, Emily K, one of our Teen Voices, goes further into this, looking specifically at speculative fiction. This series updates every Friday, and will be wrapping up the first week of September. It doesn’t stop at just a lack of queer characters. Many YA speculative fiction books take place in worlds where the existence of MOGII people isn’t even considered. The possibilities in world-building for [...]

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Jack by Shannon LC Cate: review by Simren Handa

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:41-05:00August 14th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Book Review|Tags: PoC, Small Press|

Mama doesn't like boys, but Jack's not like most boys. Born a girl during the Civil War, Jack has been passing as a boy in the slums of Five Points, Manhattan, since running away from an orphans' home at age eight. He makes his living at petty thievery, surviving pocket watch-to-pocket watch until he discovers a talent for gambling. Lucy is a bright girl trapped in a dreary life with her widowed mother. When she meets Jack on the street, her days are happier than they have ever been. But her heart is broken when mother takes her [...]

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We Are Not Just a Diversity Checkbox Part 1

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:41-05:00August 8th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs, Teen Voices|Tags: Minor Queer Characters, Representation|

Editor's note: We are so excited to be hosting this mini-series We Are Not Just a Diversity Checkbox. It will be updated every Friday and wrap up the last week of August. Emily K, one of our Teen Voices will be talking about MOGII (Marginalized Orientation, Gender Identity, and Intersex) representation in YA, specifically minority characters, and others that are included more or less to check us off. When the hype for Disney’s animated feature “Frozen” was at its peak, many people were exuberant over the male store owner having a husband and children who were shown for two [...]

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Review: Love in the Time of Global Warming by Francesca Lia Block

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:41-05:00August 6th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Book Club, Book Review|Tags: Speculative|

First things first, this a beautiful book. You don't even need to read it to realise that it's beautiful: you can tell by the way the dust jacket is all textured and pretty, with the letters jutting out and being bumpy underneath your fingers. It is a gradient turquoise sky, a stormy sea, and a splash of orange that's like the splash of hope this book will provide for the queer teenagers who read it or have read it. Our August 2014 Book of the Month! It's a reimagining of Homer's Odyssey, which is incredible in [...]

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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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