Trans – Page 5 – YA Pride

I Was Made to Believe There’s Something Wrong With Me: Why #BlackLivesMatter in YA Lit

By Shelly|2020-03-28T13:42:20-05:00December 14th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: Black, Intersectionality, PoC, Queer Girls, Representation, Trans|

Black Lives Matter Series: Day 1 - Previous Posts: Introduction to Black Lives Matter Series by Nakiya I’ve been reading LGBTQ YA fiction for almost five years and I’ve never read a book focused on a black LGBTQ woman. When I was in elementary school, one of my favorite books was Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor. In middle school two of my favorite series were The Babysitter’s Club by Ann M. Martin and Animorphs by K. A. Applegate, both of which had a central black female character. I grew up in a town that [...]

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Author Interview: Ami Polonsky

By Nadia|2020-03-28T13:42:24-05:00November 17th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Author Interview|Tags: Middle Grade, Realistic, Trans|

Gracefully Grayson, which we reviewed earlier this month, is a middle-grade book about a transgender girl and it's Ami Polonsky's debut novel. We had the pleasure of interviewing Ami about her amazing book and her writing process. Gracefully Grayson by Ami Polonsky (Hyperion 2014) Q: Gracefully Grayson was just released on November 4th! What is it like to have your book out in the world? A: Thanks so much for interviewing me! It’s really exciting that GRACEFULLY GRAYSON is out in the world. I waited twenty-five months for pub day! On one hand, I love that people all over can read [...]

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Interview With Laura Lam

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:24-05:00November 15th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Author Interview, Book Club, Teen Voices|Tags: Fantasy, Intersex, Non Binary, Speculative, steampunk, Trans|

Sooo only like a month late, here is our interview with Laura Lam, author of our October and November Book Club books, Pantomime and Shadowplay! We had a lot of fun with this one, since Kathleen and I were also joined by Sarah and Laya, two of the awesome people behind lauralamfans.tumblr.com! Our transcript for it should be up soon. In the meantime, we're right in the middle of our Shadowplay book club! So grab a copy, join us on #GayYA Book Club on Tumblr, and let's discuss this wonderful book! (also check out the same tag on [...]

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Welcome to the Mainstream

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:24-05:00November 14th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Teen Voices|Tags: gay, Non Binary, Other Media, Representation, Trans|

by Karina Rose Twenty three million worldwide downloads. Hundreds of sold out shows. One hovering glow cloud that watches us all as we point and scream at it in praise. Welcome to Night Vale. It’s hard to even find a place to begin when talking about the cult hit podcast Welcome To Night Vale, as even from the beginning its listeners have been shocked, terrified, and confused, but above all else in love instantly. I can’t even describe Night Vale, and I talk about it literally every day. The only way I could imagine it would make sense [...]

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Review: Being Emily by Rachel Gold

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:24-05:00November 11th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Book Review|Tags: Trans|

Being Emily by Rachel Gold (Bella Books, 2013) They say that whoever you are it’s okay, you were born that way. Those words don’t comfort Emily, because she was born Christopher and her insides know that her outsides are all wrong. They say that it gets better, be who are you and it’ll be fine. For Emily, telling her parents who she really is means a therapist who insists Christopher is normal and Emily is sick. Telling her girlfriend means lectures about how God doesn’t make that kind of mistake. Emily desperately wants high school in [...]

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Resilient Butterflies: On Rigoberto González’s The Mariposa Club

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:24-05:00November 10th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs|Tags: gay, PoC, Trans|

We are thrilled to introduce one of our new contributors, Sonia Alejandra Rodríguez! She will be writing mostly about Latina/o characters and representation in queer YA. We are so happy to have her on board! by Sonia Alejandra Rodríguez The Mariposa Club (Alyson Books, 2009) Rigoberto González’s [1] The Mariposa Club (2009) is the first novel in a three part series followed by Mariposa Gown (2012) and Mariposa U (forthcoming 2015). The series stands out as the first of its kind because it’s the first to center queer Latino youth characters. The series is a part of a [...]

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Review: Gracefully Grayson by Ami Polonsky

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:24-05:00November 4th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Book Review|Tags: Middle Grade, Realistic, Trans|

Happy Release day to Ami Polonksy! Gracefully Grayson, a middle-grade book about a transgender girl is out on shelves today. Find it in a local bookstore (this may entail badgering them to order it) or buy it online! Make sure to give the author a follow on Twitter as well, and wish her a happy release day! by Nadia “I feel like I’m covered in a layer of ice that is starting to melt. I can practically feel it loosening around me.” GRACEFULLY GRAYSON is a story about a transgender girl. Grayson Sender is a 12-year-old, a [...]

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Halloween Reads

By Chris|2020-03-28T13:42:28-05:00October 16th, 2014|Categories: Archive|Tags: gay, lesbian, Mystery, Paranormal, Queer Girls, Queer Guys, Thriller, Trans|

Looking for a good Halloween read? Fed up with the excessive cishetero-ness of most book lists? We've got you covered! To start you off, here are some realistic mystery/thriller novels with gay, bi, lesbian, and trans protagonists: Dark Tide by Greg Herren (Bold Strokes Books, 2014) For Ricky Hackworth, a summer job to save money before he leaves for college is a necessity. When he lands a job as a lifeguard at the Mermaid Inn in Latona, Alabama, on the beautiful Gulf Coast, it’s like a dream come true. But once he moves into the Inn, he starts [...]

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Recap: #JustGrace Book Launch

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:38-05:00October 6th, 2014|Categories: Archive|Tags: Bisexual, gay, lesbian, Non Binary, Trans|

The JustGrace book release part was a co-launch of Rachel Gold's new book Just Girls, and Juliann Rich's book Searching for Grace. It was so much fun guys. You shoulda been there. We were invited to join Rachel for dinner beforehand (which unfortunately Kathleen was not able to make it to :( ) and she asked me a bunch of research questions for her next book. She also told me the premise of it and OH MY GOD you guys am I excited for it. Like I told her then, she has a talent of fufilling what I'm looking [...]

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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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