Aromantic – YA Pride

The Aromantic and Asexual Database: A Shield Against Illusions
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The Aromantic and Asexual Database: A Shield Against Illusions

Archive, Guest Blogs

The Aromantic and Asexual Database: A Shield Against Illusions

By Kaitlin|2020-03-28T13:39:57-05:00February 20th, 2019|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: Aromantic|

Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week Series by Claudie Arseneault There is no asexual or aromantic representation out there. Here it is. The greatest illusion of asexual and aromantic representation. We all know lies often repeated embed themselves in our collective knowledge and pass as truth. This single sentence is what brought about the Aromantic and Asexual Characters Database. Again and again and again, I would read these words, and they dragged on my soul. I believed in them for so long--believed that googling extensively to find stories with asexual characters would lead me nowhere, that I didn’t exist in fiction [...]

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Centering Friendship in YA Lit
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Centering Friendship in YA Lit

Guest Blogs, Readers on Reading

Centering Friendship in YA Lit

By Vee|2019-02-19T01:33:20-05:00February 19th, 2019|Categories: Guest Blogs, Readers on Reading|Tags: Aromantic|

Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week Series by Ashia Monet The power of friendship has always been one of my favorite tropes to read and write. Watching a group of strangers become lifelong friends is entertaining in its own right. Adding in the acknowledgement that accomplishing their goals is only possible through the love and trust they have for each other makes this a trope for the ages. Not only is it fun to see characters banter and play off of each other’s strengths, it is heartwarming to watch people learn to love each other platonically. There’s a very [...]

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#JanuARO Readathon

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:39:57-05:00January 9th, 2019|Categories: Fun Things, Guest Blogs|Tags: Aromantic, asexual|

by Rosiee Thor I’ve been immersing myself in myself lately. It feels indulgent to say it, but it’s the closest thing to a self-hug I can imagine. As a professional in the publishing industry, I feel constantly pressured to read specific things--partial manuscripts for my boss, CP and mentee manuscripts, the pile of Novel 19s arcs I have on my kindle. Even when these are books I do, in fact, want to read, it can feel like a chore… because very rarely do any of these books speak to the aro/ace part of me. After eleven months of [...]

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Finding the other story: disentangling love from the narrative

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:14-05:00February 23rd, 2017|Categories: Guest Blogs, Readers on Reading, Writers on Writing|Tags: Aromantic|

Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week Series: Day 4 by Natalie Ritter (i) While considering all the ways I could approach writing something worthwhile about how being aro and reading stories intersect, I was reminded of an instance in a speculative fiction creative writing class I took in undergrad. When it came to sci-fi and fantasy, it quickly became clear that, in this entirely white and mostly male class, there were “rules” that my classmates expected (and almost demanded) of sci-fi and fantasy stories. In a sense, there was a “contract” that these readers brought to this genre, and they were [...]

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The Myth of Arospec People and Loneliness

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:14-05:00February 21st, 2017|Categories: Guest Blogs, Readers on Reading, Teen Voices|Tags: Aromantic|

Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week Series: Day 2 by Ruairi There was a horrible moment in realising I was aromantic where it hit me for the first time that the majority of my life plans had gone out the window. Where I'd been taught there should be experimentation and heartbreak and marriage and a happily ever after, usually with some flowers or flowery language involved, I suddenly realised I didn't want any of it, really. All these experiences, these plans, these expectations for the rest of my life didn't feel right. And it was terrifying. I assumed that my life [...]

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Mistlands Launch + Aromantic Representation in Webcomics

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:14-05:00February 20th, 2017|Categories: Book Lists, Guest Blogs, Writers on Writing|Tags: Aromantic, asexual, comics, webcomics|

Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week Series: Day 1 by Laya Rose I’ve recently launched my webcomic, Mistlands! It’s about an aroace half fey girl from a small New Zealand town who suddenly gets herself and her friends caught up in the world of the sidhe – up until now she’s only ever come into contact with smaller harmless fey. It’s a combination of some of my favourite things: faeries, LGBTQIA+ characters, and the New Zealand landscape. This story has been in the works for a couple of years and I’m so happy I’m finally starting it! I’d never really [...]

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Call for Submissions: Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:14-05:00January 4th, 2017|Categories: Archive, Updates and Announcements|Tags: Aromantic|

During Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week, we want to use our space on GayYA to support AroSpec voices. Last year, we decided to host Awareness Week Series over the various LGBTQIA+ Awareness Weeks throughout the year. Though we hope to include everyone on the site at all times, we wanted to dedicate a concentrated space to people from a specific community to talk about how they’re represented in YA. The response from the community was phenomenal– we got to feature many fantastic and thought-provoking posts, and watched as the community fostered some nuanced discussions via our identity-centric Twit Chats. I personally remember feeling [...]

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On Not Being a Real Teenager

By Marilla|2020-03-28T13:40:55-05:00February 23rd, 2016|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: Aromantic, Representation|

Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week Series: Day 8 – Previous Posts: Introduction to Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week Series – The Excitement and Frustration of Being “Alone” – Actual Love – Being Surrounded by Something You’ve Never Quite Understood – On Writing Aromantic Characters in YA – Discovering Aromanticism – Broken, Villains, or Punishment - On Aromantic Visibility in YA by Ren Oliveira If you asked me to summarize what it felt like growing up as an aromantic person, a single memory would come to my mind immediately: my friends talking about boys and crushes and romance while I sat [...]

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On Aromantic Visibility in YA

By Marilla|2020-03-28T13:40:56-05:00February 22nd, 2016|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: Aromantic, Representation|

Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week Series: Day 7 – Previous Posts: Introduction to Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week Series – The Excitement and Frustration of Being “Alone” – Actual Love – Being Surrounded by Something You’ve Never Quite Understood – On Writing Aromantic Characters in YA – Discovering Aromanticism - Broken, Villains, or Punishment by Laya It seems these days that almost every single YA book needs to have a romantic subplot, and it’s rather exhausting. Especially when so many of them are straight/white/cis. I’m not saying romance in fiction is bad – portrayals of all kinds of romantic relationships [...]

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Broken, Villains, or Punishment

By Marilla|2020-03-28T13:40:56-05:00February 21st, 2016|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: Aromantic, Representation|

Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week Series: Day 6 – Previous Posts: Introduction to Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week Series – The Excitement and Frustration of Being “Alone” – Actual Love – Being Surrounded by Something You’ve Never Quite Understood – On Writing Aromantic Characters in YA - Discovering Aromanticism by Fox Salazar I remember being a young teen and a voracious reader. I read almost anything. Old classics like Lovecraft, modern realistic fiction authors like Julie Anne Peters, and too many books with dragons to name. But I hated the romance genre. In fact, I didn’t really like reading romances [...]

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