Archive

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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Transcript: Gay YA Interview with Francesca Lia Block

By admin|2020-03-28T13:42:41-05:00September 13th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Author Interview|

In August of this year, we had the honor of interviewing Francesca Lia Block, author of numerous Gay YA novels including Weetzie Bat, first published in 1989, and our August Book of the Month, Love in the Time of Global Warming, and its companion, The Island of Excess Love. The audio has already been released, and can be found HERE. The interview below is between Francesca Lia Block and Victoria & Kathleen, admins of GayYA.org. - V: Hi everyone, I’m Victoria. K: And I’m Kathleen. We’re going to be talking to Francesca Lia Block today about her book [...]

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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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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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