In summer 2010 I had the best idea. It was one of those times when it feels as if the universe has just lobbed a gift directly into your brain, and within minutes I was madly scribbling down notes. The notes, which can still be found on a page in one of my notebooks, look something like this:

Ancient warrior (soul? spirit?) trapped in blade for centuries.
Heroine accidentally releases? Sets magic/curse in train…
Blade belongs to… heroine? Heroine’s FAMILY.
Warrior heroine – sword-fighter, like a manga heroine. OMG JAPANESE!
British born Japanese heroine. Ancestral katana! Forbidden!
Kitsune, nekomata, yokai (OMG)
Contemp London setting!
Ensemble cast… heroine, hero, best friend, others…
Best friend – Goth, ass-kicker. Gay? Jack…

That last note was significant in a number of ways.

Firstly, because I’m one of those writers who mostly gets to know my POV characters through the actual writing of their story. I prefer writing in first person – but synopses and that sort of thing are in third person. The result of this is that my POV characters tend to feel pretty blank and featureless until I get to work on the first draft. When I’m planning and researching a story and outlining it, the characters I feel most attached to are the secondary main characters. The rest of the ensemble. The ones who are seeing the adventures and angst and excitement from the outside, the way that I am at that point. Those guys come into focus incredibly sharply, right from the beginning, and they get a special place in my heart.

So straight away, I had a fondness for the mysterious Jack, whose name just appeared in my head like magic. The name brought with it an image of bleached white hair with multicoloured streaks, and, for some reason, a tendency to make jokes about obscure eighties pop culture. Even though Jack was not destined to be the POV character of the book, I knew that Jack would be my voice of reason in this story, the one asking all the questions the reader wanted answered.

That note was significant in another way. When I began work on my Big Secret Project – later to be named The Name of the Blade Trilogy – I quickly realised it was going to be a huge undertaking for me, my very first trilogy, and also my very first novel with a contemporary setting. As such, I wanted it to display all the things that are most important to me as a writer. Reflecting the beautiful diversity of the real world (not a bland, straight, white, able-bodied, cis-gendered version) is really high on that list. My previous books had all been high fantasies, where I created an imaginary universe for my characters to inhabit. I was well aware that bringing diversity to a book with a real setting would be a different kind of challenge because readers would bring a different set of assumptions and stereotypes to a book that took place in their world. Maybe that’s why I knew straight away that Jack would be gay – more than that, Jack would be out and proud.

The thing is, even though I knew all this about Jack right from the start, the one thing I didn’t know was what sex or gender Jack would be.

That was a stumper.

Jack’s role in the story, snarky sense of humour, and complicated romantic subplot, would be unchanged regardless of hir gender. So how was I supposed to make up my mind?

My first instinct was to think that the sort-of-masculine-sounding name was giving me a hint, and to make Jack a guy. My last book, FrostFire, had featured a lesbian couple, so it seemed only fair to swap for this book and feature a guy instead. But some part of me resisted the ease of that decision. When it came to books with contemporary settings, I had an uneasy feeling that while all parts of the QUILTBAG community were horribly under-represented, the gay male experience was still probably more likely to make an appearance than any other. I thought about all the books I’d read recently with a contemporary setting (and which weren’t about the experience of coming out or coming to terms with sexual orientation) that had featured a gay character. Sure enough, the characters were all boys. When was the last time I’d read a book which had a gay girl in it who was just hanging out, being a friend, having adventures, falling in love? They seemed unfairly rare.

However, very aware that I hadn’t read All The Books, I realised I might be extrapolating based on wonky evidence here. So I decided to ask my readers what they thought. I posted this question on my blog and waited for the response:

Do you think my heroine’s best friend should be a gay GUY, or a gay GIRL? Either way they are extremely fierce, smart and protective, are a little bit Goth, and end up having an extremely complex love life throughout these books.

I wasn’t sure that anyone would care enough to answer my question, but it turned out I was completely wrong. The response was overwhelming – in fact, I don’t think I’d ever had that many responses on a post before (at least, not a post where I wasn’t giving away free stuff). And almost everyone wanted to see me write Jack as a girl. Most wanted this because they said they’d hardly ever or never read a YA book or an urban fantasy book with a lesbian character in it, and they thought it would be different and interesting. I also got some some comments – and some moving private emails – from young gay women who said they’d kill to see more fun, realistic lesbian characters – girls like them! – in works of urban fiction.

There were a few votes for a male Jack, which I was fine with – until I read the comments that went with them. Some of the voters said they felt a gay male best friend would be ‘more loyal’, ‘more helpful’, ‘stronger’ and ‘better as a straight girl’s bestie’. I’m still not sure where those commentors are coming from. Are girls not loyal, helpful and strong enough to be best friends with? Is a guy friend always better? Perhaps this attitude is a little revealing as to why the gay gay-friend has become such a trope.

Anyway, the response to my question made Jack’s identity solidify in my mind. As I got to work writing the first book of the trilogy – The Night Itself – I felt all the pieces click into place. I loved writing about a really strong and important friendship between two girls – Jack and my heroine, Mio. I loved writing a lesbian character who was modern and funny and real, and whose love life was a mess not because she gay but because she was too busy kicking ass and saving the world to notice she was falling in love. Basically, I just loved Jack, and wished I could make her my best friend in real life. I think that’s the way all the best characters make you feel, and that’s how you know you’ve done a good job as a writer.

Hopefully when the book comes out (on the 4th of July this year) all my readers, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, will feel the same way about Jack as I do. 

Zoë Marriott is an award-winning British YA fantasy novelist who lives on the east coat of England with two rescued cats, a spaniel known as The Devil Hound, and a growing library of over 10,000 books which will inevitably bury her alive one day (totally worth it). You can follow her on Twitter at @ZMarriott, check out her blog at thezoe-trope.blogspot.co.uk , or peruse her website www.zoemarriott.com.

Author Guest Blog: Laura Lam

Caveat: What I reveal about characters in Pantomime does somewhat “spoil” a “twist” that is revealed 20% into Pantomime. Some people have enjoyed being surprised, but if you’d prefer to read the book without knowing, please skip this post! I will say that I don’t think knowing this going in unduly colours the reading experience, but then again it’s impossible for me to know, as I can never read the book I’ve written for the first time.

Another note on gender pronouns: I use the pronoun the character identifies as at the point in the story.

When I tell people that the protagonist of my novel Pantomime is intersex, quite often I get blank looks. People sometimes think it means asexual, or transsexual, or just aren’t sure. When I tell them, sometimes I’ve been asked: isn’t that a myth?

I find it odd in a world where pretty much everyone knows the meaning of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender, so many still aren’t sure what intersex means. I didn’t know the correct term until I was 19 and started researching for my book: I thought the term “hermaphrodite” was still politically correct. Why has intersex and non-binary gender somehow become the last taboo, both in society and, therefore, in young adult fiction?

I know I’m preaching to the choir, but diversity in YA is vital in order to widen people’s minds. Teenage years are when people are deciding who they want to be, what their core beliefs are. So many books I read during that time had an indelible effect on me, and going back and reading them will give me a feeling of nostalgia of just what I was going through in the week or two I read it. I remember reading books and thinking “I’m not alone,” sometimes when I was the loneliest I’d ever been. In the case of intersex and gender variant (not identifying as either solely male or female, regardless of physical sex) teens, they might not know anyone in real life who is going through what they are. Through books, perhaps they can learn and understand more about themselves, and accept themselves. And, as fiction always does, readers can put themselves in others’ shoes, and take the “othering” aspect away from the Other.

First, a bit of background info: babies born intersex are not that uncommon. The Intersex Society of North America states “If you ask experts at medical centers how often a child is born so noticeably atypical in terms of genitalia that a specialist in sex differentiation is called in, the number comes out to about 1 in 1500 to 1 in 2000 births. But a lot more people than that are born with subtler forms of sex anatomy variations, some of which won’t show up until later in life” (source). That makes it about on par with people with red hair, according to the BBC documentary Me, My Sex, and I. But how many intersex people do you know? Or openly intersex celebrities? Similarly, though androgyny is increasingly popular in mainstream media, such as in fashion and music (just take a look at David Bowie’s “The Stars are Out Tonight” music video—and, you know, Bowie’s entire career), characters in fiction that are unequivocally gender-variant are still uncommon. That means that many children who grow up intersex, or gender variant may have few people to look up to or identify with, and while they could find solace in YA fiction, there’s currently not a lot in the genre for them to find.

Micah Grey of Pantomime is intersex, and he evolved slowly in my mind over a couple of years. I knew I wanted to write about a character that was gender variant. Growing up, many of my favourite reads had aspects of subverting gender roles—such as The Song of the Lioness quartet by Tamora Pierce, which has the protagonist dressing as a boy so she can become a knight, or the Tamir Triad by Lynn Flewelling, where a baby girl is disguised as a boy to protect her from a mad king—but no one told her, and she’s raised thinking she’s a boy, Tobin. After nine books, the reader doesn’t conclusively know the gender of The Fool in Robin Hobb’s work, and I hope it’s never revealed.  So as a result of that interest, and perhaps growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, Micah came to life in dribs and drabs. I wrote other things for a while, worried that I wouldn’t be able to do this character justice, but then I decided to try.

In Pantomime, the boy Micah Grey was once Iphigenia Laurus, 16-year-old daughter to a noble family. Born both male and female, with neither gender the right fit, Iphigenia one night overhears her parents planning to “fix” her. Horrified by the prospect of surgery, Iphigenia flees and becomes Micah.

He joins R.H. Ragona’s Circus of Magic, but beneath its veneer of bright lights and fantasy, the circus is crumbling due to the ringmaster’s drinking, gambling, and rage. Just as Micah begins to discover his place in the circus, his past catches up with him.

When I was researching querying my book, there were very few other books with gender-variant characters, much less protagonists, and I wasn’t sure why. Since then I’ve heard of a few titles—I’ve heard Incarnate by Jodi Meadows and Above by Leah Bobet both have intersex secondary characters, though I’ve not yet read either yet. Are there any others?

Over at the blog Birth of a New Witch, Usagi and Ashleigh discuss Non-Binary in YA, and Usagi has gender dysphoria to some extent and Ashleigh is asexual. It’s an excellent article that says “yes, we want more YA with people like us,” and Usagi also found some recent sobering statistics on transgender youth in America. Overall, things are changing for the better, but it’s slow and we still have a long way to go. Having gender explored more in YA fiction could, in the long term, help this.

So I hope the trend continues and more authors and publishers decide to write about non-binary characters in YA stories.  It’s important for gender-variant teens to be able to see themselves reflected in fiction. It’s important for those who have never been exposed to non-binary gender to see it in fiction to help prevent prejudices and ignorance. I’d love it for, in a few years, if I say “my protagonist is intersex,” most everyone just nods because they know what it means, and it’s not a big deal.

Laura Lam was raised near San Francisco, California, by two former Haight-Ashbury hippies. Both of them encouraged her to finger-paint to her heart’s desire, colour outside of the lines, and consider the library a second home. This led to an overabundance of daydreams.She relocated to Scotland to be with her husband, whom she met on the internet when he insulted her taste in books. She almost blocked him but is glad she didn’t. At times she misses the sunshine.

Pantomime was released February 2013 through Strange Chemistry, the YA imprint of Angry Robot Books. The sequel, Shadowplay, will follow in January 2014. She can be found on her website, Facebook page, or Twitter. 

When I approached Mark Probst, owner of Cheyenne Publishing, about releasing a young adult book for charity, I did so with no clear idea of what to expect—only a vision of the end result as my guide. To my delight, Mark was enthusiastic: if I could organize the authors, he would take on the book at Cheyenne.

Just the one snag. Organize the authors. If you work in the arts, you’ve heard it before: “Will you donate your time/talent for … ?”

Now it was my turn to ask, with nothing but a pretty-please and assurance that they would be contributing to a fantastic cause (supporting The Trevor Project). I had to find three young adult authors who were not only gifted writers and already active in LGBT-themed fiction for teens, but who also believed in our cause. Believed enough to say yes.

The final book would be an anthology of YA novellas, one each capturing a story of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth. With a publisher ready and waiting, myself as the fourth author, and an amazing nonprofit working 24/7 to assist in crisis situations and prevent suicide among LGBTQ youth to benefit, the journey to build Awake began.

I started sending emails—wondering if I could ever get this project off the ground. Authors are incredibly busy, incredibly hardworking, often taken for granted artists. How could I expect them to go above and beyond in their own writing schedules with a long piece of fiction they could not profit from?

How foolish of me.

After some months, through many emails and discussions, I learned that there can be few groups of people as generous with their time, as welcoming, as committed to their work as the authors of LGBT fiction for young adults. I received the most genuine and gracious letters back, soon finding not only three amazing writers willing to embrace this project with us, but a foreword as well.

Nancy Garden, author for kids and young adults of classics like Annie on My Mind before there was such a thing as LGBT YA, would write our L story.

Robin Reardon, author of A Secret Edge and Thinking Straight, among other YA novels, would take G. Her newest book, The Revelations of Jude Connor, was just released in April, 2013.

Jordan Taylor, myself, would pen B, so underrepresented in literature.

Brian Katcher, author of Almost Perfect and Playing with Matches, would write T.

And the foreword to Awake would be created by multi-talented YA and adult author Kathe Koja, known in YA for Buddha Boy and Straydog, among others.

Now, to write. Many months later, each of these amazing authors had turned in their work ahead of schedule. All had done an outstanding job, leaving me again taken aback by the magnanimous nature of these people: giving of their precious time and talents for a charity book.

With the help of our editor, Tracey Pennington, completed cover art, and press releases, Awake was released by Cheyenne Publishing in the summer of 2011, only a little over a year after Mark and I first discussed the project.

It’s been two blindingly brief years now and Awake is as fresh, as new, as exciting as it was the first moment I held the paperback. The novellas within are both modern and timeless, the messages powerful, while the emotion for the reader, from laughter to anger to tears, remains the driving force behind this book. The cause itself makes this remarkable experience all the more powerful.

Every copy of Awake sold means funds sent directly to The Trevor Project—for one more crisis prevention, one more suicide prevention. Each copy read, given as a gift, donated to a library, along with each passing day, brings us closer to a time when organizations like The Trevor Project are no longer needed. When LGBTQ youth are no more prone to depression or suicide than any other demographic. The day every child, every teen, regardless of gender identity or whom they love, regardless of where or who they are in the world, no longer fears being bullied, abused, shunned, or rejected.

A remarkably giving, talented, wonderful group of people made Awake possible. The readers, the greatest gift of all, continue to make the mission of Awake possible. Each and every one of you has turned a dream into a dream come true.

Thank you.

Jordan Taylor

Awake online:

www.amazon.com/Awake-Tracey-Pennington/dp/0982826761

The publisher and organization:

www.cheyennepublishing.com

www.thetrevorproject.org

The authors’ sites:

www.nancygarden.com

www.robinreardon.com

www.jordantaylorbooks.com

www.briankatcher.com

www.kathekoja.com

I was having a conversation with an author whose first book comes out next year, and he was worried that his book, written from a female point of view, wouldn’t be well received because he’s a man.  We got onto the topic of writing gay characters and having gay protagonists, and he said something that echoed exactly how I felt before my debut in 2010.  He didn’t want to be labeled a “gay author.”

I didn’t write Oliver Travers, my horny, teenage narrator from The Deathday Letter as heterosexual because I was worried about being a gay author, I wrote him that way because that’s how he popped into my head.  However, as the book neared publication and I started working on other book ideas, I did worry about being pigeonholed.  I wrote a gay character’s totally boring coming out into Deathday as a nod to my own painless coming out, but it was such a minor part of the book that I didn’t think most people would even notice.  It was the next couple of books I wrote that I worried about.

Before settling on FML, I wrote drafts for a few other ideas.  All of them included gay and lesbian characters in some form.  Best friends, secondary characters, parents even.  But none of them were protagonists.  Back then, I told myself that it was because the YA publishing world wasn’t ready for a gay protagonist in a story that wasn’t about coming out.  I think the truth was that I wasn’t ready to be a gay author. In the same way that literature about women or African Americans is often relegated to separate shelves in bookstores, I worried that my books would be thought of as gay first and everything else second.

I did take a step in the right direction.  FML features the hijinks of an awesome gay couple.  Ben and Coop are cute, loving, and accepted by their peers.  Their storyline revolves around their quest to find a place to have sex for the first time.  No one at Simon Pulse questioned my decision. My editor loved the couple, and I loved writing them.  But I still felt like I wasn’t being true to myself.

I don’t write for teens.  I write for me.  I write the stories I would have wanted to read as a teen (and that I would have read as an adult if I hadn’t been the one writing them).  So why hadn’t I written a book with a gay protagonist?  The climate was right.  Publishers and readers were asking for more books with characters who weren’t heterosexual.  Books with gay, lesbian and transgender characters were starting to pop up more often.  Something was holding me back.

It wasn’t that I was ashamed of being gay.  In fact, I began to wish that I’d embraced my own uniqueness sooner. It was the fear that my story would be dismissed.  That some people wouldn’t be able to get over a gay protagonist and appreciate the story.  It was my fear of being a gay author.  Except, I was a gay author, uniquely qualified to write a story featuring a gay protagonist.  It was time to write a story that embraced that.

I sold The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley to Simon Pulse in March and it comes out in 2015.  It tells the story of Drew, a young man who secretly lives in a hospital and falls in love with another boy who has secrets of his own.  It’s my first book featuring a gay protagonist, and the book I’m most proud to have written.  It’s not a story about coming out or about how difficult it is to be gay.  It’s a story about secrets and loss, about grief and guilt, about how difficult it is to be a human being.

I think readers are ready for more books that feature gay protagonists in regular stories.  Action books and magic books and paranormal books.  Leading men and women who don’t fit the mold, kicking ass and being fabulous.  I’m pretty happy that I get to share one of those stories with you.

I’m sure some people will label me a gay author.  I’m sure some readers will refuse to read it because Drew is gay.  I’m totally okay with that.  The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley is a special book for special people.  You don’t have to be gay to read it, you just have to be awesome.