During a recent #GayYA chat, Lucas and Robin both expressed dissatisfaction with the term “Just Happening to Be LGBTQ”.  We asked them to tell us more about it . This is Part 2 of the  post they wrote for us on “Just Happening to Be Gay”.  Do you agree? Robin: I think there is a tendency to lump "about being LGBT" and "coming out stories" in together. Whereas I don't think either one of those things can ever really stand alone. But whether a character is especially focused right now on coming out or on saving the world [...]

During a recent #GayYA chat, Lucas and Robin both expressed dissatisfaction with the term "Just Happening to Be LGBTQ".  We asked them to tell us more about it . This is Part 1 of a 2 Part post they wrote for us on "Just Happening to Be Gay".  Enjoy! (Update for #BestofGayYA readers: Part 2 is up here!)  Robin Talley: So we discovered in a recent #gayya chat on Twitter that we're both peeved by, and have gone so far as to blog about, the frequently expressed desire by many readers to see more books with characters who [...]

Young adult is a category filled with the documentation of firsts—first love being one of the most common. Any story about a teenager is going to be about self-discovery. So it stands to reason that a lot of books about GLBT (or “queer” to cover the gamut and then some) teens will be in large part about the process of coming out. Personally, I was 28 when I came out and it felt like being 15 again. So if being a teen is about coming out, coming out can sometimes seem an awful lot like being a teen. [...]

When I was a teenager, I faithfully devoured all six or so books I could get my hands on that had lesbian main characters. These were overwhelmingly coming out stories, and most of them left me balling my eyes out because of how depressing they were. The movies weren’t much better. Enter the world of fanfiction. Now that was something I could get behind! Okay, maybe they weren’t always the most well written stories, but at least they were about something besides coming out. I quickly began writing my own, and after many years of that I decided [...]

Brooklyn, Burning by Steve Brezenoff is a story of friends lost and families found, place sought and love gained, but the book will be remembered for more than a heartbreaking and moving story. But I wish you would stop reading this review now and read the book yourself. Right now. This will be here when you get back. Because what makes this book so remarkable is the way in which Brezenoff takes a fairly typical story of angst and trauma, a story no less powerful despite its archetypal structure, and puts it in a form that forces the [...]

When was the last time you saw a character in a tv or book whose entire life revolves around their heterosexuality? Never? Me too. Admittedly, heterosexual people have not gone through the horrible atrocities the LGBTQ community has dealt with over the course of history. Straight people do not have to deal with the potential of being kicked out of their homes once they come out. Obviously, the LGBTQ community does need novels about coming out. But why are the vast majority of LGBTQ YA books only about the beginning of a queer person’s identity? These books tend [...]

By Karen Kincy I’m not qualified to blog about LGBTQ characters and pairings. This was my first reaction to being asked to write for Gay YA. My second reaction: Why not? Am I more qualified to write about boys, werewolves, men, shapeshifters, and anyone much older than me? Who says I’m able to understand the inner thoughts of a small-town sheriff, or a murderer? Many more people in my life identify themselves as LGBTQ rather than werewolves or serial killers. In all seriousness, I want to know why I still felt like this was something off-limits. In my [...]