Allies – YA Pride

What’s Your Queery? Advocacy & Inclusivity in Teen Library Services

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:38-05:00June 17th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Blogathon 2016, Teachers & Librarians|Tags: Activism, Advocacy, Allies|

by Candice Happy LGBTQIA Heritage Month and happy 5th anniversary, Gay YA!! I am so honored to have been invited to contribute to Gay YA’s awesome Pride Month and anniversary blogathon! As the President of the Young Adult Library Services Association and the Senior Librarian of systemwide Teen Services at the Los Angeles Public Library, I wanted to highlight how some library staff have advocated for greater inclusivity and awareness of LGBTQIA communities and provide tips for those who want to organize and advocate locally. I interviewed Xochitl Oliva and David Hagopian, the Chair and Co-Chair, respectively, of [...]

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A Learning Journey

By Nadia|2020-03-28T13:40:49-05:00June 8th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Blogathon 2016, Guest Blogs|Tags: Allies, LGBTQIA, Queer Girls, Queer Guys|

As a librarian and a blogger, I want to be able to purchase, read and promote excellent books. The first step is finding those books. That would seem easy enough, but I also want to make sure that I’m finding a wide range of quality stories providing windows and mirrors for readers. This is where it gets more complicated. We read through a lens of our own experiences and that certainly affects what we see or don’t see as we read. I’m on a journey as a reviewer, librarian, and obviously a human being. I make mistakes – [...]

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Dumbledore Gets Married in Ireland. Sort Of.

By Nadia|2020-03-28T13:41:33-05:00June 25th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: Activism, Advocacy, Allies, gay, LGBTQIA, Representation|

by Jennifer Polish So Dumbledore and Gandalf got married. At the suggestion of J.K. Rowling. And all the fandoms rode off into the proverbial sunset. But that’s not the entire story. In the same episode of Doctor Who that Shakespeare was portrayed as bisexual (I punched the air myself before remembering I was watching it with a straight cis guy who was glaring at me), the Doctor proclaims – after saving the world with the iconic spell Expelliarmus! (please don’t ask how) – “Good old J.K.!” Which is largely what the queer interwebs have been saying of late: [...]

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How To Make Your Library a Safe Place for Queer Teens

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:41:48-05:00May 11th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: Advocacy, Allies, Library|

by Angie Manfredi Last year, I chose Alex London’s YA dystopian thriller Proxy as my teen book club’s selection. This meant my library would purchase multiple copies, many teens would read it, and then we would Skype with Alex to talk about it. Why did I choose Proxy? Well, partially because it’s superb YA: a well-written, engaging, fast-paced read that asks interesting questions about debt and income inequality. But I also partially chose it because it has a gay, biracial lead character and the author is a gay man. I wanted my teen readers to experience a swashbuckling [...]

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Are They LGBTQIA? Let Your Characters Tell You

By Helen|2020-03-28T13:41:48-05:00May 10th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Writers on Writing|Tags: Allies, LGBTQIA, Minor Queer Characters|

by Karen Sandler As a cis white author who’s inching ever closer to old lady status, I experienced a couple fortunate circumstances in my youth that shaped me as a writer. First, when I transferred to a new high school in 1970, the circle of friends who drew me in were largely gay, lesbian, and transgender. Second, when I started writing more seriously in my early 20s, several of the members of my critique group—which included luminaries Katherine Forrest and Montserrat Fontes—were gay or lesbian. I don’t mention this to brag that I’m “all that and more” or [...]

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On Building a Better Tomorrow

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:41:48-05:00May 8th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog|Tags: Advocacy, Allies, Minor Queer Characters|

by Ellen Hopkins I write contemporary young adult fiction. To date, I’ve published eleven bestselling YA novels-in-verse, and each storyline is unique. I’ve written about addiction, abuse, suicide, prostitution and the drive for perfection, both internal and external—issues that touch teen lives every day. The books are diverse, but they all have in common queer characters somewhere in their pages. Burned by Ellen Hopkins (Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2006) Sometimes they’re main characters. Other times, they’re peripheral or barely seen. For instance, in Burned, Pattyn has a gay uncle who’s been shunned by his ultra religious [...]

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Author Guest Blog: Kimberly Derting

By Olivia|2020-03-28T13:41:49-05:00May 6th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog|Tags: Advocacy, Allies|

By Kimberly Derting I have three kids, and I’ve raised them all to be conscientious and loving—to see people as people rather for their sexual orientations or skin colors or religious beliefs. But it’s my youngest daughter—my 14-year-old—who is fierce about these principles, to the point of being rabid. This was what she asked for as her 14th birthday. "Why ban gay marriage when you can ban kidz bop?" She wears it everywhere, until eventually I have to sneak it into the wash. I think, secretly, she wants to overhear a whispered slur just so [...]

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Being a Straight Ally

By admin|2020-03-28T13:43:21-05:00April 5th, 2011|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Writers on Writing|Tags: Allies, Bisexual|

Chandra Rooney has threatened to stop watching Glee if Kurt and Blaine break up. She sporadically updates her personal blog (Dreaming in Red,) and you can follow her on twitter as @sakuralovestea. If you had asked teen me to name LGBTQ characters and canon pairings in YA lit, most of them would’ve come from Asian comics. The novels I remember reading as a teen—LJ Smith, Christopher Pike, RL Stine—were all hetro couples; manga was where to find the variety. It was probably Cardcaptor Sakura that I most connected with; CLAMP had written a story reflecting the relationships [...]

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