Being Ace: Cultural Differences and Progress
Asexuality in YA Series: Day 6 – Previous Posts: Introduction to Asexuality in YA Series – Aces Out: Laying the Cards On the Table – Acing Romance: On Writing YA Love Stories as an Asexual – 5 Tips and Tricks To Writing Asexual Characters – Interview with Simon Tam – Reading While Asexual: Representation in Ace YA
by Teresa Santos
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single woman must be in want of a husband.
Except when they’re in want of a wife. Or a partner. Everyone wants somebody, right? Mm, maybe not.
If you have been paying attention to Asexual Awareness Week, chances are that you have come to realise that that isn’t always the case. There are those who don’t want a sexual partner. Those who don’t want a romantic partner. Those who simply don’t care for a traditional relationship. Sadly though, there are plenty of people who remain adamant that a life bereft of sex and/or romance is not a “real” life. Like with everything else, every thought is more predominant in some countries than others.
As someone who has lived in two European countries (Portugal and England), trust me when I say that the difference can be striking.
I was still living in Portugal when I found out asexuality existed. That I wasn’t a one-time freak. It was early 2011. For weeks, months, I kept quiet. Nobody else had heard of it – if they had, they’d have mentioned it in Sex Ed, Biology or in some other conversation. To my knowledge, anyone who didn’t have a romantic partner or showed interest in “love” would immediately be pitied, mocked or deemed a closeted homosexual. I was nineteen and knew for a fact that many were certain I was a lesbian. But still, there must be someone out there I could talk to face to face, right? Someone who got it.
Well, it figures that no, not really. The only out LGBT+ person I knew in my university told me it was a phase. When I turned to the Portuguese LGBT+ forums, I found a single thread on asexuality. It was brimming with derogatory posts. Asexuals were called closeted, prudes, sick, and viler things still. Despite this, I naively told a few colleagues of mine I got along with. They asked if I was an amoeba and laughed awkwardly.
If the queer Portuguese community – the one who should know what it’s like to be erased and set aside – , if my fellow biologists to be – who ought to show interest in the world’s diversity – did not accept or try to understand me, what was the point in coming out? To be laughed at further?
So you can imagine my surprise when I went on an Erasmus program to the UK and found that the university I went to not only had an LGBTQ+ society but they mentioned asexuals in their website. Not as an after-thought, but right there. In the middle of all other orientations. I wasn’t being ignored or laughed at. I was being included and celebrated.
Still, this did not mean that they would like asexuals. Maybe it was just politeness. Who knows? But when I walked up to two members of the society who were handing flyers, when I stammered that I was ace, they grinned. They told me there were others like me. They handed me a flyer and told me to go to their next meeting. Then, they introduced me to the others. And suddenly there we were, asexuals of all kinds, discussing our experiences along with trans men, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, … everyone. Heck, there were even informal talks on asexuality open to the student body.
Slowly, they gave me the courage not to be quiet but to tell my lab colleagues about my sexuality. Not all at once, but slowly. Whenever romance or sexuality came up, I’d let it naturally flow into the conversation. Some had heard of it. Others had not. They’d cock their heads, say “really? I’d never heard of it. What’s it like?” I’d explain and, because we’re all biologists, we’d delve into a conversation about genetics, neuroscience and ecology. Not in a “your brain needs to be fixed” way. In a curious, let’s understand the world way.
It was not perfect. The “what is it?” was still there, as was confusion. But there was no dismissal. Only understanding and simple curiosity.
In both countries, I am half inside the closet, half outside it. Anxiety always wraps its fingers around my heart when it comes to uttering those words. But if you ask me where I’ll admit to being ace with less fear, the answer is easily given. The UK.
Now, don’t get me wrong, a lot has changed in Portugal the past two years. A couple of articles have been published on the biggest magazines and newspapers. It came up on national news once. There’s finally a Facebook page and group for asexuals in Portugal. There were a handful of people waving the asexual flag on the last LGBTQ+ march in Lisbon. Asexuals are popping out their heads from their hide-outs and waving hello.
But it’s in the small things that you can see change. Just the other day, I was sitting on a lab bench next to a Portuguese colleague of mine. We were chatting about what we’d do after work and I mentioned I would be writing a blog post about asexuality. His answer? “That’s cool! (pause) Oh, did you finish labelling the tubes yet?” No condescension, no nothing. It gave me hope. The tides might finally be changing.
There is still a lot to be done in both countries. But maybe, just maybe, we might be close to being acknowledged. That by itself deserves a big slice of chocolate cake to celebrate. Would anyone like to join in?
—
Teresa Santos is a biologist, a writer in the making, and an aromantic asexual. When she isn’t busy eating chocolate or trying to catch up on reading, she can be found prowling Twitter @tessalsantos or babbling about books, photography and whatever tickles her fancy at tessellatedtales.wordpress.com. Approach with caution to avoid second-hand embarrassment for she is prone to geeking out and singing in the middle of the street.
Reading While Asexual: Representation in Ace YA
Asexuality in YA Series: Day 5 – Previous Posts: Introduction to Asexuality in YA Series – Aces Out: Laying the Cards On the Table – Acing Romance: On Writing YA Love Stories as an Asexual – 5 Tips and Tricks To Writing Asexual Characters – Interview with Simon Tam
by Agent Aletha
Hi, I’m Agent Aletha. I was kindly invited to write something for GayYA for Asexual Awareness Week! I read and review fiction with asexual spectrum characters on my tumblr Ace Reads and keep a database of all works with ace characters I can find on Tagpacker.
The first explicitly asexual (ace) character I ever encountered was Kevin, from Guardian of the Dead. Only a few months before I had found the term asexual and it caused an epiphany that shook up my ideas of myself and made many disparate, previously inexplicable pieces of my experience suddenly slide into place. I was working in a bookstore at the time and I bought it in hardcover the day it was released, terrified that my coworkers would question my eagerness over a random young adult book. I had spent all of my teenage years desperately avoiding the topics of crushes, hotness, and sex with a fear that made my heart race and my hands tremble. I knew I was different. I didn’t know how or why. Asexuality made the past ten years make sense.
Occasionally there had been other characters where I caught a glimpse of someone who thought and felt like me. Tarma, from the Vows and Honor series. Chandra, from the Fire’s Stone. Dexter, from the Dexter book series. But never had I seen someone like myself be openly asexual, contradicting society and everything in pop culture and every song on the radio and every book that I had read and every classmate and adult in my life who implied or outright stated that to be human is take part in this to me undecipherable dance of desire and sex.
Kevin was mind-blowing. Kevin was validation. If you’ve experienced it, you know how powerful it is first find yourself reflected in fiction, out there for the world to see. Many great writers have written recently about the importance of diversity and representation in fiction, and although it has been said more eloquently, this was my inspiration for writing about asexual representation in fiction.
A few years ago, when I first decided to try and read and review with ace characters because I was tired of waiting for someone else to do it, there wasn’t much to go on. The same five books or so books were always brought up when someone asked where oh where are the books with ace characters. Some of them are so unappealing I’ve still never found an a review from anyone in the ace community. But when I actually started investigating, the situation had changed. Awareness that asexuality exists has continued to increase. Ebooks had appeared and independent and self-publishing has opened the way for more diverse voices to tell their stories. Stories that might have been too niche or were not expected to be a commercial success can now be released to the world by their authors. This has had a huge effect on the frequency of ace characters. The number of books with ace characters has increased from maybe 1 or 2 a year to over 15 for the past couple of years. I’ve been reading through the lists and while I’ve been reading a couple of books each month, I still have so many to read!
Initially I was surprised at how hard it was to objectively judge if a character actually was asexual. There are many reasons why any particular character might not show any interest in sex in a particular story that aren’t necessarily due to them being asexual. In addition there still seems to be quite a bit of confusion over the difference between celibacy and asexuality, by both readers and authors. So many times I end up examining only two vague statements as the entire body of evidence that a character is asexual. And there are many different factors even beyond suggestive statements and levels of vagueness. What did the author mean? How much does what the author meant matter? What if they are ace by choice? By magic? What if they wouldn’t consider themselves ace? What if their society has no concept of sexual orientation? What counts? I try to not be a gatekeeper, but I’m also fairly critical about fictional representation. I think the ace community has been so desperate for representation that we have willing made possibilities into castles. Fan characterizations have their place but we shouldn’t need to rely on them. Especially since we now have a decent start in canon representation.
However, there are still tendencies for ace characters to be non-human, to use asexuality as a way to show their alienness, their otherness, their separation from “normal” society. Sometimes this just comes with the territory – science fiction especially, and fantasy as well have always tended to explore the boundaries of what it means to be human, even with non-human characters. Some authors make it clear that their character is ace entirely separately from them being non-human. But other authors reinforce the idea that to feel sexual attraction is essential to humanity and to be human is to feel sexual attraction.
I’ve also noticed that asexual characters tend to be intellectual instead of having physical strength. Aces are often depicted as geniuses or nerds, definitely people who live in their minds. This isn’t bad by itself but I think it points to a problematic underlying assumption that aces aren’t physical, that maybe we aren’t really comfortable with our bodies. I would like to see some deviation from this trend in the future.
Another frustrating trend I see is for authors to be so vague in making a character asexual that 98% of the audience has no idea and would deny it later if asked. Remember the uproar over Rue from The Hunger Games being black? And that happened even when readers know that black people exist. Audiences default characters to white and straight even when there is textual evidence saying otherwise. Asexual characters especially have the ability to invisible even when right in front of you. Take the Big Bang Theory. Sheldon has said something that sounds asexual about every third episode and not only is it treated as a joke, even fan fiction writers, who don’t even need a significant look to make two characters gay for each other, don’t see it. I just checked and there are over 1500 works of Big Bang fan fiction and less than ten are tagged asexual character. Ten! Imagine a character who said he liked guys every few episodes but everyone just continued writing him straight and homophobic without a second thought. Ace invisibility is an active force working to enforce compulsory sexuality.
An author can’t show-not-tell something that most readers don’t know how to recognize when they do see it. I hear that there is a concern that a book will become an “issue book” but good writers get around this all the time just by being good writers. Stating on social media later that a character is ace does avoid this issue – a work can claim to have representation while not actually making the audience confront the fact that a character they like and identify with is not straight – but it would be much better to see it explicitly in the text. Cassandra Clare has said that Raphael from her Mortal Instruments series is asexual, while Scott Westerfeld agreed in a tweet that Darcy, the main character from Afterworlds, is demisexual. Recognition after the fact is better than nothing, but while it still makes ace readers happy, it does little to increase visibility. However, it is encouraging to see ace awareness from established authors and shows some progress toward more ace representation in YA fiction.
In the books I have read, I have found more stories about characters who just happen to be ace. The argument between stories focusing on the asexual experience and stories that happen to have ace characters is a pointless one. We need both kinds. Some people need escape, a break from the world, others need to see that they are not alone in their experiences and their fears and struggles. Sometimes it just depends on mood or what happened that day, or whether someone is new to asexuality or identified as ace for years. Both need to exist.
Fiction is a powerful tool for understanding diverse experiences because of how it puts the reader directly in the life of someone different. I care about asexual representation not just for the sake of aces, but also to have a meaningful way to help non-aces understand the difficulties of navigating life in a sex obsessed society. People seem to find asexuality hard to comprehend, but sometimes stories can reveal and grow connection where a hundred facts cannot. Thankfully, representation is increasing by the month. We’re starting to see more variety on the ace and romantic spectrums, more diversity in who is ace, what types of books they’re in, and what type of stories they get. I am so happy to have so many works to read. Even if I don’t always agree that a character is ace, I’ve discovered a lot of lovely books. With more stories, more variety, more people will be able to see themselves in fiction and more people will understand not just asexuality, but the diversity of what it can mean to be ace.
There are many lists of books with asexual characters. But I’m ready to go beyond that and find books that really get to what if feels like to be ace, that embrace a variety of experiences of what it means to be ace. Books that don’t just mention asexuality, books that have ace characters that we love. That celebrate being ace. Books we can recommend to librarians wanting to reflect the diversity of their communities in their collections and friends or family who might understand better in story form. Stories that we wish we could go back and hand to our younger selves and say, “Read this. You’re not alone.”
We’re not quite there, but at least we have options these days. They have their flaws but I love every one of these ace characters.
If you’re looking for main characters, you have Tori, engineering genius on the run from enemies earth doesn’t even know they have, Carrie just trying to figure out how to connect to people, Niavin, an sidhe drug lord dealing with cutthroat politics, Darcy discovering romance and writing, and Clariel just wanting to be left alone after being dragged to a city on the verge of explosion with magic she doesn’t really know how to handle.
If you’re willing to expand to supporting characters, you have best friend Kevin, just starting to come out as ace and pulled into a battle of magic and mythology, best friend Nash, smart and sarcastic and learning magic on his own, and creative whimsical camp counselor Layla.
Please support works with asexual characters and ace authors!
Books recommended:
Quicksilver by R.J. Anderson (Tori) – teen action adventure
Carrie Pilby by Caren Lissner – teen fiction/romance
Sinners by Eka Waterfield (Niven) – action adventure
Clariel by Garth Nix – teen action adventure
Guardian of the Dead by Karen Healey (Kevin) – teen action adventure with a bit of romance
Demonosity by Amanda Ashby (Nash) – teen paranormal romance
Lunaside by J.L Douglas (Layla) – teen romance
Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld (Darcy) – teen romance
Interview with Simon Tam
Asexuality in YA Series: Day 4 – Previous Posts: Introduction to Asexuality in YA Series – Aces Out: Laying the Cards On the Table – Acing Romance: On Writing YA Love Stories as an Asexual – 5 Tips and Tricks To Writing Asexual Characters
Hi! Welcome to the Gay YA’s Asexual Awareness Week! I’m interviewing Simon Tam, doctor aboard Serenity, the spaceship from the cult spacewestern hit TV show Firefly. In my headcanon, Simon is asexual and aromantic but just lacks labels. As someone who has changed her labels not infrequently in the last ten years since I came out, I thought it’d fun to talk about language, labels, and letting yourself be a work in progress.
Katherine: Hi, Simon! Welcome to the Gay YA!
Simon: Thank you for having me. It’s an honor to be asked.
Katherine: I want to talk about sexual attraction, the lack thereof, what happens when we try to cram ourselves into little boxes, and the importance of having language and labels for our identities and experiences.
Simon: I hope I have something to contribute!
Katherine: I am sure you do. You’re basically why I’m doing this in this format.
Simon: …okay…
Katherine: I was thinking the other day…you’re the most asexual aromantic person I’ve ever ‘known’. I think you just didn’t have the language during the filming of Firefly and Serenity.
Simon: Can you define asexuality and aromanticism for me?
Katherine: Sure. Asexuality is generally defined as the lack of sexual attraction. Aromanticism is the lack of romantic feelings. Sexual attraction and romantic attraction are different and it’s really important that we understand and identify that. People who are asexual may call themselves ace. Aromanticism is often abbreviated aro. Someone who is both might say ace aro.
Simon: I think…I think that might be right? I’ve never heard those words before, but that seems about right. I really want to understand sexual attraction because everyone seems to experience it. It’s really deeply ingrained in our cultural contexts and understanding of human interactions. Same with romanticism. Falling in love, finding a soulmate, partnering up with someone, forever with one person…we hear this in a variety of ways throughout our culture—both yours and mine.
Katherine: I used bisexual for years when I first came out because that described the people I thought I could date. But I still thought I was broken because I didn’t experience sexual attraction to anyone. I tried to trick myself and tell myself I was feeling it when I wasn’t.
Simon: I did the same thing. Tried to tell myself that if a girl made me laugh and smile, then that was just “my” sexual attraction.
Katherine: Same. But it wasn’t.
Simon: No.
Katherine: It’s weird not to have words for things. It’s not even about labels, is it? It’s literally not having words for something you’re experiencing. It’s a certain type of…
Simon: Dissonance.
Katherine: Yes. Dissonance between what we can name and what we can’t name.
Simon: I’m a physician by training, so labels and words for things are really important to me. I find them very powerful. It’s why I wanted to label my sister’s illness even though it’s almost impossible to name and I probably shouldn’t have been diagnosing her. Maybe I was doing that because I didn’t have words for my own experiences.
Katherine: And people don’t understand how you don’t know. Or you don’t have words. Because there have always been words for the default. That is, cisgender heteronormativity. But the words for those of us outside that default change. I use demisexual panromantic if I ‘break it down’ but I prefer queer because it also encompasses my feelings on gender identity.
Simon: I worry that people won’t see past the stereotypes if I label myself. Asexual doesn’t necessarily mean I don’t have sex. Aromanticism doesn’t mean I won’t have relationships. It’s just that sex and romance aren’t primary drivers in my relationships.
Katherine: I know. I worry about explaining asexuality/demisexuality to partners.
Simon: How do you?
Katherine: The only partner I’ve ever told was totally fine with it. I was out as bi prior to meeting him, and I casually corrected him when he said something about bisexuality and said queer or demisexuality. He hadn’t heard demisexuality before so I explained it and he said, “Cool” and that was it.
Simon: Lucky.
Katherine: I know. But I told him because he was also a safe person. I mean, not that I’d date a not-safe person, but in particular, he was a known entity.
Simon: I think the crew of Serenity would understand. For the most part. Mal would be confused but he generally seems to think that it’s not any of his business and I don’t mind that.
Katherine: I’m glad. I’m just thinking about all the times that Kaylee was outright flirting with you and you didn’t seem interested and then it seemed like you were trying to force yourself to be into her.
Simon: If you don’t experience the attraction yourself, it’s hard to figure out how to reciprocate. I really like Kaylee. She’s really fantastic and fun. She’s so in tune with herself it’s intimidating. But at the same time, she knows what she wants and I…don’t. I don’t know what that relationship would look like yet.
Katherine: I think it’s okay to say that.
Simon: You think?
Katherine: Yeah. It’s okay to say “I’m figuring this out. I think this is how I’d label myself now, but that could change. Please be patient with me.” And a partner who is deserving of you will respect that.
Simon: That’s really good to know. Sometimes we forget that last part.
Katherine: I’m twenty-eight. I just started using ace/demi last year. Those are the best labels I know for myself right now. If I learn a different word that better describes my experience, I’ll use that. Language and people evolve. We have to be better at letting people change and flux.
Simon: Easier said than done?
Katherine: But important.
Simon: As someone still finding his own labels, and now armed with these new ones, I think I can agree with that.
Katherine: Thanks for stopping by, Simon. Good luck with everything.
Simon: Thank you for this! If I have questions about asexuality, can I ask you?
Katherine: Sure. Just @ me on Twitter at @bibliogato. Or hit me up through my contact page on my website.
Simon: Thanks, Katherine.
Katherine: Stay shiny, Simon.
—
Katherine Locke lives and writes in a very small town outside of Philadelphia, where she’s ruled by her feline overlords and her addiction to chai lattes. She writes about that which she cannot do: ballet, time travel, and magic. When she’s not writing, she’s probably tweeting. She not-so-secretly believes most stories are fairy tales in disguise. Her books include TURNING POINTE, SECOND POSITION, and FINDING CENTER, available from major ebook retailers. She can be found online and on Twitter.
5 Tips and Tricks To Writing Asexual Characters
Asexuality in YA Series: Day 3 – Previous Posts: Introduction to Asexuality in YA Series – Aces Out: Laying the Cards On the Table – Acing Romance: On Writing YA Love Stories as an Asexual
by Aisha Monet
It is only a few weeks before NaNoWriMo, when writers all over the world will be cracking down to write a 50,000+ novel in the month of November, and I want to challenge everyone to include an asexual character in their novel this year. It’s so excruciatingly easy that I’m not even sure how to describe it.
All you have to do is have a character who is asexual, have them state or have it explicitly implied that they’re asexual, and voila! Your book is that much more diverse.
But if you need more then that, here are five easy tips and tricks to writing asexual characters! Enjoy!
- Sex does not make or break a character
I promise. I seriously promise that writing a character that doesn’t want to have sex or be in a relationship does not define them as an awesome character.
It doesn’t mean that they are necessarily missing something, or that there is something wrong with them, or even that they haven’t met the right person (although we have lovely people within the Ace/Aro community who fit this category).
If having your character fall for someone else defines them that much then sorry to say, but you might be writing your characters wrong.
- Not Criminal Masterminds
Asexuals are not criminal masterminds, (well at least most of the time), we still have feelings and portraying asexual people as insensitive, cold hearted people only adds to the stigma that we don’t have feelings and that somehow not feeling the need for sexual/romantic relationships makes us evil.
Of course, if your character is a criminal mastermind who also happens to be asexual, then great! But if evil criminal mastermind is the only thing that comes to mind when you think of writing asexual characters, then please reevaluate your life choices and get back to us.
- Human Interaction Is Still A Thing
Characters connect to other characters. They make connections, they’re taught connections.
Either way whenever a new character enters a story they form a connection or several connections immediately.
Even if it’s as simple as a connection with a cashier and a customer, we make little and big connections throughout our lives.
The point of me saying this is to remind you that just because a person might not be romantically or sexually involved with anyone doesn’t mean that’s the end of human contact that your character should have.
Just because your character might not have a significant other doesn’t mean they don’t have significant people in their lives; like friends, family, and of course, little kittens.
You don’t have to write your character as an aloof person who cannot form human relationships just because they’re asexual. Seriously. That makes no sense.
- Happy and well adjusted
Your character can be happy and well adjusted. Your character can be asexual and without a partner and be completely content in life, and not longing for a partner. Your character can live a full life without romantic interests.
Bilbo Baggins, Sherlock Holmes, and Charlie Weasley are all fictional characters who have never had canon logical relationships and they’re still completely awesome characters, and yours can be too.
- Asexuals & Relationships
Despite what I’ve said about asexual characters being perfectly content without a partner, this is not true for all asexual people and therefore characters.
The Ace/Aro spectrum is just as diverse as any other spectrum and although a lot of asexual persons do not wish to engage in sexual relationships, there are definitely asexual people who are the opposite! There are also plenty of asexual people who want to be in romantic relationships, just like there are definitely ones who do not.
Your character, you decide. Just remember that not wanting to be in a relationship does not mean that there is something missing for your character, or something you need to overcompensate for by making them aloof criminals.
In summary writing asexuals, and all diversity for that matter, is just as easy as writing non-asexual characters and you can always do more research if you like here, here, and here.
I hope to see you all talking about writing asexual characters this November and beyond.
Happy Asexual Awareness week!
—
Find Aisha online or follow her on twitter @Hijabionahilltop or tumblr at hijabionahilltop.
Acing Romance: On Writing YA Love Stories as an Asexual
by JL Douglas
I identify as demisexual. For me, that’s defined as “maybe I want to kiss and hold hands, but probably only after I’ve known the person for years.”
I also write Young Adult romance. So far, none of my characters are demisexual. They get crushes, and sometimes they even act on them in ways that go beyond kissing and holding hands. Generally, their approach to romance is much more fast-paced than the one I know. They feel attractions, sometimes to people they just met!
Lunaside, my first book, is in part about a girl dealing with her immediate attraction to another girl when she already has a girlfriend. Moira, the main character, feels attraction in a very immediate way that she can’t avoid. She spends a lot of time being made breathless by the two girls she likes, and feeling very physical things toward them.
This isn’t at all what the story looked like at first. There was no breathlessness or physical feelings or love scenes. The initial tension came from the inner workings at the summer camp where the story is set (also called Lunaside).
But then I sent Lunaside off to its first beta readers and I realized just how much my asexuality informs what I write.
By that I mean that eventually all of them got back to me with some version of “ok, but have you considered sexual tension?”
Until that point, I really hadn’t. What I’d written was a story about a girl who works at a summer camp and is eventually in love with another girl. Something I could relate to.
Even though asexuality was somewhat visible (my university had pamphlets about it in their counseling centre!) by the time I identified as ace, as a writer and reader of YA romance there was always that lingering afterthought of “oh right, I guess YA romance needs the sexual stuff.”
Because of that, I listened to my beta readers without question. I’d never intended for Moira to be asexual, mostly because all of the advice I’d gotten told me that YA books with asexual main characters don’t get published. I did include a biromantic ace side character, but in the end I wrote a romance featuring an allosexual lesbian lead. There’s sexual tension and even a suggestive (not explicit) love scene.
The good news is that being published really gave me a lot more faith in my own work. It also exposed me to the ace readers who have read Lunaside. Layla, my biromantic character, has gotten an unexpectedly positive response. Since she’s a side character I created mostly for me, I hadn’t anticipated anything like that. But it has boosted my confidence to the point where the book I’m working on now (a sequel to Lunaside) features Layla along with an aroace secondary main character.
That one is out to beta readers for its first round of critiques now. Once again, I’ve written a story about a girl who works at a summer camp (different girl, though), and is eventually in love with another girl. Still no demisexual main character, but I’m definitely closer to being able to write one than I was when I got my first feedback notes from Lunaside.
Maybe my beta readers will ask for more love scenes again.
Maybe this time I won’t listen.
—
JL Douglas is a demisexual Canadian lesbian. A former summer camp counselor, she wrote Lunaside to answer the question “is there life after summer camp?” The answer was “yes, writing books about summer camp.” Although she believes this goal will keep her busy for a while, she’s secretly playing the long game of working toward one day opening her own summer camp.