YesGayYA
September 19, 2011 10:19 AM   Subscribe

YA authors asked to 'straighten' gay characters. Two YA authors posted about their unhappy experience with trying to find an agent for their book that includes gay characters. Soon, a representative of the previously unnamed agency (though also not the actual agent in question) posts a rebuttal. Debate flies back and forth in the comments, on Twitter, and on various blogs, with writers coming forward with their own experiences. (1 2 3, among many others.) Cleolinda has a detailed and informative summary of the whole situation. (Previously.)
posted by kmz (55 comments total) 25 users marked this as a favorite
 
If you think this happened because the YA publishing industry is retrograde, dysfunctional and discriminatory, turn to Page 97.

If you think this happened because the authors hoped to stir up some marketable outrage, turn to Page 94.
posted by chavenet at 10:31 AM on September 19, 2011 [35 favorites]


"YA" is apparently the industry acronym for "young adult" which is what publishers call teenagers.
posted by mr.ersatz at 10:31 AM on September 19, 2011 [2 favorites]


Oh thank god you posted this and saved the internets from my editorialized rantings.

I'm still not sure how I feel about their refusal to name the agent in question.
posted by elizardbits at 10:32 AM on September 19, 2011 [2 favorites]


Young Adult =/= Choose Your Own Adventure.

..actually that probably sums up the work and school situation pretty well right now.
posted by curious nu at 10:33 AM on September 19, 2011 [8 favorites]


My co-blogger Kate Hart at YA Highway also put up an amazingly comprehensive collection of links & reactions to the #GayYA controversy; it's more neutral than Cleolinda's, which favors the authors.
posted by changeling at 10:34 AM on September 19, 2011 [2 favorites]


Through a system of mirrors, I have turned to pages 94 and 97 simultaneously.

YA authors asked to 'straighten' gay characters

Comic relief double entendre?
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 10:35 AM on September 19, 2011 [1 favorite]


In better news, Don't Ask/Don't Tell officially dies at midnight tonight.
posted by schmod at 10:38 AM on September 19, 2011 [10 favorites]


It's amazing to me that this is still happening.

Frankly, I think YA novels is probably exactly the place it would be good to see some diversity in sexual orientation and gender. For an isolated or disenfranchised LGBTQ person, what a difference it could make.
posted by widdershins at 10:38 AM on September 19, 2011 [4 favorites]


Read the links. The claim appears to be bullshit.
posted by cmoj at 10:40 AM on September 19, 2011 [5 favorites]


disclaimer: three YA Highway authors are represented by the accused agency; and many of us know the agents in question personally, including me; however, it has no bearing on Kate's round-up, or even my own personal opinion of the issue. Frankly, I found the authors' original post sort of suspicious and potentially self-serving from the get-go, especially in the wake of the Jessica Verday thing, but the agency's response was a bit too inflammatory. Overall, our industry looooves controversy and there was a whole lot of bandwagon jumping. But at least it got people discussing the issue, and sharing recs of some fantastic LGBTA YA that is emerging (though there is very much a need for more).
posted by changeling at 10:41 AM on September 19, 2011 [5 favorites]


I was wondering if this was going to be posted.

I know people represented by the agency in question, with gay characters in their YA, and so I feel kind of close to the situation. I suspect it's more complicated than the authors suggested, and I'm a big fan of Sherwood Smith's (and going to a workshop taught by her next month).
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 10:42 AM on September 19, 2011


If you think this happened because the YA publishing industry is retrograde, dysfunctional and discriminatory, turn to Page 97.

If you think this happened because the authors hoped to stir up some marketable outrage, turn to Page 94.


I'm asking without snark: what point are you trying to make, exactly? What I'm reading you as saying is something like "Yeah, books for teens are mired in a conservative process that can't take a risk, everyone knows this and so why the bitching?" and "Writers are just in it for the publicity and attention (and money!), so why should we listen to them anyway?"

Whole lot of questions being begged there, if I've read you right, but maybe not. Maybe, like the writers, you just commented for favorites and don't know - or care - what you really think about this.
posted by rtha at 10:42 AM on September 19, 2011 [1 favorite]


And my thoughts are pretty much what changeling says, but we're writerly pals, so maybe that's natural.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 10:42 AM on September 19, 2011


To be more clear, it looks to me like the authors may have genuinely misread the intent behind standard editorial suggestions.
posted by cmoj at 10:44 AM on September 19, 2011


I wonder how much of this is anti gay, and how much of this is pro profit. I always thought that having your book banned by ultra right wing groups was a good thing. Hell every book they burn is a profit for the author.
posted by Felex at 10:44 AM on September 19, 2011


I wonder how much of this is anti gay, and how much of this is pro profit. I always thought that having your book banned by ultra right wing groups was a good thing. Hell every book they burn is a profit for the author.

If I can clarify some of this, because there are a lot of people complaining about, say, homophobic publishers and book bannings, this is specifically about a literary agent turning down authors on representation, not about it being rejected by publishers, or banned by conservative groups.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 10:46 AM on September 19, 2011


The "rebuttal" link is the meat of the story and probably renders reading the rest of the links superfluous. Colleen Lindsay, who maintains the Swivet, is a queer woman and one of the most respectable and influential voices in the publishing industry. If she says there's nothing to see here, I'm inclined to believe her.
posted by 256 at 10:48 AM on September 19, 2011 [1 favorite]


I think I was commenting without snark; it seems to me that both paths are valid explanations for what happened here, which seems to be both boneheaded from the agency's point of view and played for marketable effect by the writers. As with the Choose Your Own Adventure stories, both paths move the story forward. I would guess the overall result from this squabble will be net positive: the authors and their character will be taken on by some other agency; and the agency in question seems already to have "learned the lesson," (or didn't need to learn the lesson, as the linked blog describes it, but were offering arguably valid editorial advice) and take that onboard the next time.)

For me, I would choose Page 94.
posted by chavenet at 10:54 AM on September 19, 2011 [1 favorite]


it looks to me like the authors may have genuinely misread the intent behind standard editorial suggestions.

Via the summary link, the authors claim that the agent literally said that the gay character had to go:

They specifically said that being gay was the problem. They told us we could keep the character so long as he wasn't gay. We protested, and they said that maybe he could be revealed to be gay in later books, but not in the first one.
posted by burnmp3s at 10:55 AM on September 19, 2011


Right, the justification for asking for the changes was profit. I actually believe this was the motivation behind the problem. Minority (gay, disabled, or other) teens make up a much smaller target audience then straight teens. Is it cowardly; yes. Could they make it work; yes.
posted by Felex at 10:56 AM on September 19, 2011


If you read the FPP, one will discover that after analysis, about 1% of YA fiction has an LGBT character - most of whom are white gay men. No percentage was given, but I'm guessing very few of even that tiny number are the protagonist or a main POV character. While this is an excellent argument for having young people have access to all books - adult through kiddie lits - I also think the original complaining authors' point is essential. There IS systemic bias against and silencing of GLBTQ content in YA lit. This is not the same as blatant homophobia, and is unfortunately part of *systemic* oppression. "Remove/straightwash the queer character" because "it won't sell" obliterates the LGBTQ content just as effectively as "remove/straightwash the queer character because they gross me out/offend my religious sensibilities." The obliterating excuse doesn't matter (although the meta political/social changes will differ). The removing/altering the LGBTQ characters matters.

Other statatistics indicate english-reading LGBT folks read/buy books at almost double the level of their het peers. I certainly did! So, writing *in* LGBTQ characters would seem a more rational business move than editing LGBT characters out.

I wonder what percentage of YA sales are institutional (schools and libraries) vs. Individual? Would homophobia at institutions, preventing LGBTQ YA book buys, lose more sales than individual consumer sales wcould replace? I imagine this is the publishers' fear.
posted by Dreidl at 11:06 AM on September 19, 2011 [8 favorites]


I don't want to editorialize in my own post too much, but I'll just point out two excerpts from Cleolinda's post that I think are especially pertinant, first a tweet from Scott Westerfeld:
@ScottWesterfeld: "I feel foolish for getting only one side of the story. But I'll make up for it by uncritically accepting the other side!" -the Internets
And from Cleolinda herself:
Here's the thing: I think, for the purposes of this discussion, it would be best to take the word "homophobia" off the table. Not because that is or is not what's happening, or that it isn't a valid concern--I'm saying, set aside that question for a separate discussion, because it's the exact point where communication here is breaking down. Most people in this discussion don't want to be homophobic, wouldn't consider themselves or their friends or their colleagues to be, and immediately shut down once the word comes up. "That's not true. That's not what I am. So this is not a problem I have. I'm not censoring anyone, so censorship is not a problem." A number of the author complaints posted above actually support this interpretation--the issue isn't about industry feelings towards gay people; it's about their feelings towards marketing books about gay people. I know that sounds like a fine distinction, but in order to get anything productive done, we're going to have to use a scalpel instead of a sledgehammer for the moment.

I think that there are really two different issues going on here. Publishing probably really is one of the least homophobic industries, in terms of who works in it and how they feel about people in real life. No one wants to be called "homophobic," particularly people who are, in their personal dealings, anything but. That word comes out and people shut down, stop listening, stop believing. There is a difference between "I am gay," "my friends are gay," "my relatives are gay," "I would never do or say anything homophobic," and "I don't think this really good book will sell if the characters are queer." The latter is a far more subtle, widespread, insidious problem. As Marie Brennan puts it, "You don't have to hate gay people to contribute to the ways in which they get silenced. It can happen even if you like them, because that's how institutionalized prejudice works."

[...]

--and what so many of these subsequent posts, even the ones that disagree, have touched on: publishers need to put out books about all kinds of people, and readers need to let publishers know that they will buy them. And they need to not let fear stop them, because YA saves, and kids need these books.

@robin_talley: The BEST thing you can do, if you're upset by #yesGayYA, is buy queer YA books. http://www.leewind.org.

That's all this was ever supposed to be about, I think.
posted by kmz at 11:09 AM on September 19, 2011 [6 favorites]


Which is super funny for me cause I got a really good suggestion from my editor (not YA per say) that it would make the story a lot tighter and clear up the characters more if one of the relationships was overtly same-sex and eliminating the need for a secondary love interest that doesn't do anything much.
posted by The Whelk at 11:11 AM on September 19, 2011


Caveat: I think we need more gay YA. I'm a bi woman who reads massive amounts of YA novels, and I've seen first hand how few characters who think like me are represented, even in books like Ally Condie's Matched which are all about the evils of arranged hetereosexual marriages. I also have an agent for a young adult sci-fi novel that was written in part to address that lack--it deals with the question of gay marriage in a somewhat dystopian society directly. I had no agents bring this aspect up as problematic while querying, and in fact, when I mentioned worrying about it to the agent I signed with, she reassured me that it was fine. However, that does not mean that I don't think straightwashing occurs. I've heard too many stories otherwise to say that it doesn't.

"Remove/straightwash the queer character" because "it won't sell" obliterates the LGBTQ content just as effectively as "remove/straightwash the queer character because they gross me out/offend my religious sensibilities." The obliterating excuse doesn't matter (although the meta political/social changes will differ). The removing/altering the LGBTQ characters matters.

Of course, the agency in question is claiming that this was an editorial suggestion made for other reasons. The fact that the two reports of their telephone conversation completely contradict notwithstanding, even I don't feel--with all of the above being said--that queer POVs in YA necessarily be a protected class solely for reasons of representation if they're not serving the story well in other ways. I've read plenty of books with token gay characters, and they're terrible, often didactic, and tiresome. What if that character's POV was genuinely problematic in terms of storytelling? What if it was underdeveloped, wooden, or not strongly rendered? Should it have been kept present simply because of representational problems in YA?

Also, the agency claims that the big editorial suggestion was to make the novel middle grade (and the authors' comments confirm this), which would lower the age of the audience down to eleven or so. Relationships are handled differently in books for that age group than in YA.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 11:18 AM on September 19, 2011 [3 favorites]


changeling, PhoBWanKenobi, 256, thanks. It's helpful to have some inside perspective.

our industry looooves controversy

Really? I would have thought priority was on avoiding controversy (and conservative hyperreaction). Huh. Well, that plus what's been said here about Lindsay personally makes the publisher look much more innocent than I had thought.

Author-agent misunderstanding now looks like a plausible hypothesis to me, particularly since I misjudged the publisher that way. Legitimate criticism can legitimately sound malicious.Kelly McClymer:

when discussing LGBT issues in a work, it is useful to remember that "codespeak" is alive and well in today's society. If this had been my book, I would have translated "turn it into MG and get rid of the romantic relationships" as codespeak for "ditch the gay character."
I would then have politely asked if that was the agency's problem. Anyone who has ever confronted codespeak (of any kind, not just anti-gay) this way knows what happens next: a complete denial.

posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 11:25 AM on September 19, 2011


McKlymer's quote seems kind of heads-I-win, tails-you-lose. I would agree that there is such a thing as codespeak. I would also agree that people tend to deny bias when confronted. But I also think it possible that an author could have written a book as YA and that an agent could think it would work better aimed at younger readers.
posted by Diablevert at 11:43 AM on September 19, 2011 [1 favorite]


Meanwhile, Michelle Bachmann jokes away on the Tonight Show.
posted by Ironmouth at 11:44 AM on September 19, 2011


I would have thought priority was on avoiding controversy (and conservative hyperreaction).

When I say "our industry", I guess I mean all the authors and aspiring writers and readers and bloggers that make up the vocal online portion.

Since much of this is contradictory, it simmers down to she said/she said. PhoBWanKenobi just stated a lot of what I've been thinking. The truth is, it's very, very rare to have more than 2 POV characters in YA. None of us have read the book, and can comment on whether the gay character's POV -- and the two straight POVs the agent suggested the authors cut as well -- really added to the story, or were superfluous. Like PhoB said, straightwashing does happen, absolutely, and we need more LGBTA characters in YA, absolutely. But what we need is quality, three-dimensional gay characters, who are crucial to the story -- not token gay characters, plopped in for PC value. Which was this particular character? None of us can know.
posted by changeling at 11:46 AM on September 19, 2011


My co-blogger Kate Hart at YA Highway also put up an amazingly comprehensive collection of links & reactions ...

Just read that posting. It's a great summary to better understand this entire affair.

I think I'm with one of the 'opinions' she cites:
"The authors are out for publicity.

The authors themselves refer to the affair as 'a publicity blitz.'"
posted by ericb at 11:48 AM on September 19, 2011


I was wondering if this was going to be posted.

Oh you knew it would be posted. Once it became doctorow grar, it was only a matter of time. That alone should have tipped you off that this is a publicity stunt.
posted by charlie don't surf at 11:48 AM on September 19, 2011


Oh you knew it would be posted. Once it became doctorow grar, it was only a matter of time. That alone should have tipped you off that this is a publicity stunt.

Well, it wasn't posted when I was deep in GRAR-throes at least, which surprised me. But was probably better for metafilter.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 11:51 AM on September 19, 2011


Diablevert, I meant that an agent's legitimate criticisms could sound like codespeak even if they weren't. The agent could truthfully deny that they were intended as codespeak, but that's exactly what a codespeaker would say.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 12:06 PM on September 19, 2011


So everything that is posted on BoingBoing is obviously a publicity stunt?

At this point, I think this is a she said/she said situation, and what you think about it is highly dependent on who you think is a more plausible source. Personally, I am more inclined to believe Smith and Brown's side of the story--but I can't pretend that's objective. I don't have a substantial relationship with either of the authors, but I am friends with Smith on lj. I'm sure that her story seems more plausible to me because of that, and because I read her take on things first.

I suspect that people who know the agent in question (and especially people who have a professional relationship with the agency) are also more inclined to trust the word of their friends and allies.

And, as seems quite reasonable to me, if the initial situation was at least in part a miscommunication, I think it's important to say that having a different take on a complicated, emotional conversation, especially when communication breaks down, is something much different from engaging in a publicity stunt or making accusations.

I think you can easily interpret what went down in such a way that Smith and Brown were incorrect in their interpretation of what the agent said but sincerely believed that interpretation was correct and were acting in good faith by talking publicly about it.

I think you can also plausibly believe that the agent in question wasn't consciously trying to silence queer stories and yet that her actions had that result. You know, like how people with privilege (even those who are sincerely trying to be allies in anti-oppressive work) often mess up without realizing that they're messing up.
posted by overglow at 12:12 PM on September 19, 2011 [2 favorites]


The authors themselves refer to the affair as 'a publicity blitz.'"

To me that's talking about publicity for the issue itself, not for their book. If you wrote about something you cared a lot about, wouldn't you want to see it spread as far and wide as possible? (The book still doesn't even have an agent. I suppose you could argue this is a really convoluted attempt to attract an agent.)

Once it became doctorow grar, it was only a matter of time. That alone should have tipped you off that this is a publicity stunt.

I don't read BoingBoing (or Reddit or HuffPo or whatever) but thanks for playing! I won't even get into the logical fallacy of your latter statement (unless you're saying BB rejects legitimate stories and only posts publicity stunts).
posted by kmz at 12:13 PM on September 19, 2011 [1 favorite]


YA doesn't mean teenager, I don't think. More like 7-11.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:13 PM on September 19, 2011


At this point, I think this is a she said/she said situation, and what you think about it is highly dependent on who you think is a more plausible source. Personally, I am more inclined to believe Smith and Brown's side of the story--but I can't pretend that's objective. I don't have a substantial relationship with either of the authors, but I am friends with Smith on lj. I'm sure that her story seems more plausible to me because of that, and because I read her take on things first.

I suspect that people who know the agent in question (and especially people who have a professional relationship with the agency) are also more inclined to trust the word of their friends and allies.


It's weird for me since I actually really trust both sources generally. I don't think I completely trust either side's account of what happened, though. Both made statements--Sherwood and Rachel that the other agents must have requested edits out of homophobia, the agency's statements that they were being exploited--which suggest to me that none of the parties involved are able to relate a clear and defensible account of what really happened during that phone call.

YA doesn't mean teenager, I don't think. More like 7-11.

No, YA novels in publishing are aimed at readers 12-18. Middle grade novels are aimed at younger readers.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 12:16 PM on September 19, 2011 [1 favorite]


YA doesn't mean teenager, I don't think. More like 7-11.

Just to clarify, YA generally refers to ages 12 and up. (Sometimes 12-14 are referred to as "younger YA".) Ages 7-11 would be considered middle grade.
posted by cider at 12:19 PM on September 19, 2011 [2 favorites]


So everything that is posted on BoingBoing is obviously a publicity stunt?.

It's a bad idea to trust anything that appears on Cory Doctrow's personal echo chamber. The place makes the Drudge Report look like a haven of thoughtful, reasoned analysis of all sides of an issue.

As has been shown in this thread, the situation is a complex, nuanced one, that reveals more of a systemic industry problem that probably has a number of causes other than homopnpbia. But Doctrow's gang has a new enemy, and in their black-and-white world nuance has no place.
posted by happyroach at 1:02 PM on September 19, 2011 [2 favorites]


Thanks, kmz, for putting together such a good post on this. Cleolinda's summary is great, as is Kate Hart's.

The "rebuttal" link is the meat of the story

Really? Because it seems to me they responded by personalizing the discussion in ways the original accusers went out of their way to avoid.
posted by mediareport at 1:10 PM on September 19, 2011 [5 favorites]


- So, you fired me because I don't have any arms.

- No, we fired you because you're a shitty drummer.

- Because I don't have any arms.

- You have no arms, and, in addition to that, you’re a shitty drummer.
posted by Bookhouse at 1:19 PM on September 19, 2011


s.e smith over at Tiger Beatdown wrote a really interesting piece about the idea of Issue Books and how that relates to gay and minority YA in particular:
There’s a tendency to believe that books with minorities belong in a special section. They aren’t ‘regular’ books, because the characters aren’t ‘normal.’ Which is not such a great thing, when you’re a young person looking for people who look like you. Some folks really love issue books, and I have a soft sport in my heart for them myself, but I also love it when minority characters are allowed to just be and it’s a natural part of the story, rather than the focal point. The reality is that we don’t go around being walking issues; we have lives, we do things, our minority identities are part of us but they aren’t the focal point, and with YA in particular I think it’s critical to make sure that representation includes not just a centring of issues, but also a showing of us in our natural habitat, so to speak.
I think it's a shame that this whole thing seems to be exaggerated, or a bit of a farce, because I think the issue of gay YA is an interesting one and something that we should be talking about. And we are, a bit, but it does damage the credibility a bit.
posted by NoraReed at 1:47 PM on September 19, 2011 [1 favorite]


I realize that this is kinda a goofy bit of exotification that has its own problems, but outside of a very few writers who manage to create compelling, conflicted and resonate heterosexual romances in the YA I've read recently (which is not nearly as much as my gf), such as Suzanne Collins, the vast majority of them are tropes I've seen a thousand times and at least when it's a same-sex relationship, that still feels novel enough for me to ignore some of the lazy and gloopy stuff that goes along with a lot of teen romance writing.

I feel this way about almost all media — as a straight white guy, I would almost always rather watch or read a minority character's perspective on anything. Straight white guys in media are like Bill Knapps' cooking, bland and vague, and I'd rather have the spice of pretty much any minority viewpoint, because if it's well written it almost always includes something that I wouldn't have expected or thought of myself.
posted by klangklangston at 2:08 PM on September 19, 2011


It's depressing that this conversation seems to be concentrating on a spat between a single agent and a couple of authors when so many people are shouting out that it's true, and it's an endemic problem.

I suspect that agents can't sell overtly LGBT novels and even when they do, the publishers can't then sell them to the public(*). This is depressing, and other than having all publishers everywhere sign up to something that says "We will all provide {x} books with LBGT characters, I can't see what can be done.

That said - Except in a few cases, book fashions follow social patterns more than they mould them. I expect to see LGBT characters increase in the US with the increased liberalism in its position towards LBGT issues.

(*) I'd consider this the most controversial statement I've made here. As anecdata, I refer you to "The time it was revealed Dumbledore was gay vs The Moral Panic that ensued."

Finally - Are there any transsexual main characters in YA fiction? I hope so, but I suspect there are not.
posted by seanyboy at 4:04 PM on September 19, 2011


It's depressing that this conversation seems to be concentrating on a spat between a single agent and a couple of authors when so many people are shouting out that it's true, and it's an endemic problem.

This is the source of my major disappointment ever since the first article was released. Because the authors concentrated on a single anecdote, the likelihood that people would solely be interested in this because of wider issues of representation was unlikely. People were interested in the identity of the agency, and the conflicting accounts and inability to ferret out the "truth" is going to be a draw for a lot of readers.

Finally - Are there any transsexual main characters in YA fiction? I hope so, but I suspect there are not.

There are a few. I am J is one.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 4:15 PM on September 19, 2011 [1 favorite]


seanyboy, this post Cleolinda links (scroll down to the 4th and 5th charts, especially) puts some numbers to YA glbt publishing. It claims 4% (of the 1% of all YA novels that feature glbt characters) feature trans characters. Footnote 2 mentions that Little, Brown published a book this year "about an FTM trans boy."

If anyone knows what that book is I'd love to know the title.
posted by mediareport at 4:17 PM on September 19, 2011


Ah, on non-preview, there it is: I Am J.
posted by mediareport at 4:18 PM on September 19, 2011


A few more: Parrotfish, Luna, Almost Perfect (Though the last two describe the trans experience through the eyes of straight narrators, and not always so perfectly, I've heard).
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 4:43 PM on September 19, 2011


Also: Brooklyn, Burning is apparently from the POV of characters whose genders you never learn. I haven't read it yet but I've heard it's fantastic.
posted by changeling at 6:18 PM on September 19, 2011 [1 favorite]


The GoodReads reviews makes Brooklyn, Burning sound quite interesting. This bit from this review especially made me stand up and take notice:
Even though the two main characters had no gender, I couldn’t help but assign them one anyway. Throughout the book I kept looking for clues to see if Brezenoff gave anything away (“She must be a girl because boys don’t drink Vodka and Cranberry, do they?” “OK, he must be a boy because they wouldn’t assume a girl set fire to the warehouse, would they?”) But in doing that I realised I was just highlighting my own ridiculous and unfounded preconceptions about gender. (I have a male friend who could drink me under the table with fruit-based drinks… but I guess that wouldn’t take much for I am an absolute lightweight). Why can’t a boy drink vodka and cranberry? Why can’t a girl set fire to a warehouse? Absolutely no reason. After about three chapters I gave up because I realised I didn’t want to know what gender they were. It didn’t matter in the slightest. Gender identities are drummed into us from birth but this book effectively shows us they are futile and restricting. Love is love… it doesn’t need a definition or a label.
I'd love to hear a teen bookclub talk about it.
posted by Kattullus at 8:47 PM on September 19, 2011 [1 favorite]


I think YA books are a perfect place to write a few books where you do not know it is GLBT couple until the last few pages. This would, perhaps, open a few eyes to the reality that "they" "are just like me". However, in many of the GLBT character books it should be clear at the outset who is what orientation in order to really "repreSENT" GLBT youth. Next, I want a book or two from the POV of a kid with high functioning autism written by an adult with that experience. [Maybe the kid could be an atheist too seeing that it is a good probability that she/he could be just that-- see this link: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2011/09/atheism-as-mental-deviance/ ]
posted by RuvaBlue at 10:46 PM on September 19, 2011


That was my first MF post ever. So, I apologize for the link in being in long form and not HTMLd.
posted by RuvaBlue at 11:06 PM on September 19, 2011


Nicola Griffith: How facts get distorted, but prejudice is still out there
posted by Artw at 5:40 PM on September 20, 2011 [1 favorite]


Art - link is bad! Post a good one, please? She's fantastic, and I want to know what she thinks of all this (I poked around on her blog, but nothing leapt out at me).
posted by rtha at 5:45 PM on September 20, 2011




Thanks!
posted by rtha at 5:59 PM on September 20, 2011


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