Guest Blogs – Page 12

Being Queer Friendly in Your Library

By Maria|2020-03-28T13:42:59-05:00November 3rd, 2011|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|

Guest Post by Suzie Day http://cataloguethisblog.blogspot.com/ Not long ago, I asked a room full of about 30 queer youth, most in their early twenties, to raise their hand if they were bullied at school. Almost everyone did. I then asked those who had been bullied if they had taken refuge in their school library. About 75% of the room raised their hand. For LGBTQ youth, school can be one of the most dangerous places to be, with 89% of queer youth in Australia reporting that they had been harassed on school grounds (Hillier, Turner, & Mitchell, 2007). [...]

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How I Knew I Was a Klutz

By Everett Maroon|2020-03-28T13:43:02-05:00June 20th, 2011|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Guest Blogs|Tags: Trans|

It’s been a blast writing for the good folks and readers of Gay YA—I believe in the core of my being that young readers need these stories, especially as there are so many nincompoops out there who would slam the entire genre and dismiss our hard work out of hand. Those naysayers are not our audience, after all. I hope you’ll come and see me over at my blog, Trans/Plant/Portation, and elsewhere around the net. And I do suspect I’ll be back here from time to time, as the powers that be are inclined. Happy reading, and happy [...]

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Finding an Audience

By Everett Maroon|2020-03-28T13:43:02-05:00June 14th, 2011|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Guest Blogs, Writers on Writing|Tags: publishing|

I've looked at stories, characters, plot devices, layering, the writer's mission, and some of the tropes around gay YA and genre fiction this past month or so, but left to examine among many other aspects of writing is audience. Not all writers seek publication, and that's fine, but for those of us who want to get our words communicated to the world outside our heads should understand our options, the market, and readers' expectations. In no particular order: Get your work in line with your mission—Looking to write crossover or mainstream YA novels? Then there needs to be [...]

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We Want More Gay YA

By Maria|2020-03-28T13:43:21-05:00April 10th, 2011|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs, Readers on Reading|Tags: Representation|

By Maggie Hira I’d like to think I wasn’t quite eavesdropping on them. But I was. I totally was. And what I heard was extremely enlightening. It happened a few weeks ago at my local Barnes & Noble. I was in the YA section, as usual, not looking for anything in particular, but browsing for something that would catch my eye or pique my interest. That’s when I heard them chattering in the other aisle—two teenage girls also on the hunt for an interesting read. I didn’t want to listen in on their conversation, but I couldn’t help [...]

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The Gay Gamut

By admin|2020-03-28T13:43:24-05:00April 2nd, 2011|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs, Readers on Reading|Tags: Representation|

Today's guest post was written by Charlotte Johnson of Lady Charlotte's House of Delirium. Enjoy! Admittedly, my exposure to LGBT characters in young adult fiction has been less than desired. Perhaps the first gay character I met was in Holly Black’s second novel, Valiant, which of course was Ruth (and eventually Luis, but only in retrospect…actually, I wasn’t even sure Ruth was a lesbian because Jen, a girl who did not approve of Val, had called her so). Then, when I read Tithe, I met Corny. Oh dear, Corny, those scenes between him and Nephamael were almost [...]

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