YA LGBT Books discussion
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Yeah... so I started this thread and then forgot I'd started it. I'm good like that...I don't blog every day anymore, but I do post 2-3 times a week. Today I've blogged a thank you to some people, and a bit about the necessary evil of promoting one's books when one is an author. http://www.joramsey.com/?p=1774
Yeah, my least favorite thing too. Good luck with yours.
I was invited to take part in the Next Big Thing blog hop, and since my Next Big Thing will be Fresh Meat, a YA werewolf novel with a gay main character (who identifies as bisexual; he and I have been disagreeing on that for a while now), I posted about it. http://www.joramsey.com/?p=1784
I posted today about having principles and sticking to them, in the wake of having been invited by two authors to appear on their blogs and then having the invitations taken back when they realized there are GLBT characters in my books. http://www.joramsey.com/?p=1792
So their YA characters live in hermetically sealed het worlds? How sad for them. It's disappointing that people who write for teens would have such closed minds.
One isn't a YA author; she writes inspirational romance and refused to host me because my *adult* stuff has GLBT characters. Both of them made the decision for religious/branding reasons.
Jo wrote: "One isn't a YA author; she writes inspirational romance and refused to host me because my *adult* stuff has GLBT characters. Both of them made the decision for religious/branding reasons."Well your adult stuff would be an uncomfortable fit with a religious inspirational romance author, I guess. But your YA shouldn't offend anyone's sensibilities unless they are just bigoted to begin with.
Kaje, the author who refused to host my YA because it had a GLBT character isn't bigoted herself, but belongs to a church that is, and she writes fiction targeted at members of that religion specifically. She was perfectly willing to host me to promote that book, but her *publicist* told her not to because it would offend her readers.
Posted an excerpt from Listening Skills, my Christmas follow-up to my short story Life Skills. (Listening Skills will hopefully be released later this month from Featherweight Press.)
Jo wrote: "Posted an excerpt from Listening Skills, my Christmas follow-up to my short story Life Skills. (Listening Skills will hopefully be released later this month from Featherweight Press.)"Ooh, I didn't know you were that close to release with this book. Excellent - bi teenagers are very underrepresented IMO.
Thanks :) Yeah, Listening Skills is supposed to be a Christmas release this year, and so is Accepting Me, which is sort of a follow-up to my novel Cluing In and is about an asexual teenage boy. (Listening Skills was my choice; Accepting Me was because Ralph dared me...LOL)
Thanks :) I wrote those over the summer, though... Haven't been as busy lately. Trying to work up the nerve to write the books I pitched to publishers at GayRomLit...
Posted an excerpt from my other YA Christmas story, Accepting Me (also due from Featherweight Press). This one's about an asexual, aromantic 16-year-old boy who wishes his family and friends would understand that he just doesn't want a relationship.
About the recent spate of people getting on authors' cases for not including sex, drugs, and booze in YA fiction. http://www.joramsey.com/?p=1916
Valid points. My own experience falls somewhere in the middle. I was raised socially liberal, but still religious (i.e., Christian evangelical), with a short dip into fundamentalism in my teens. I recall my younger brother and I going to our mother when I was about 12, to ask if we could please use some obscenities in the stories we were writing "for realism." We negotiated the use of "damn" and "hell," which I then proceeded to use quite a lot. :-)As a teen, I was nervous about sex and didn't actually experience it until I was 19. My best friend was having sex with his girlfriend at 16 and kept trying to push me into potentially sexual situations with girls, but of course I was more interested in something happening with HIM. (Nothing happened on either front.)
At the same time, my friend pushed me into trying to smoke (which I hated and thankfully never picked up) and drink beer. I hated the beer, too, though I later took to drinking VERY heavily in college. (Not anymore.) :-)
I still have a blog... and I still post on it. This time, I'm talking about the Facebook chat I did over the weekend to promote my new Harmony Ink release. http://www.joramsey.com/?p=2167
For those who might be interested, I blogged today about the difference between vanity publishing and self-publishing. http://www.joramsey.com/?p=2187
Posted today about the crazy-heavy edits I've been doing on my upcoming YA urban fantasy novel Where No One Knows, which has a transgender main character. http://www.joramsey.com/?p=2194
Blogged about a non-profit some teens I know started to combat bullying. http://www.joramsey.com/?p=2209
Good for them - it's great to see teenagers getting involved and finding an effective voice. (Unfortunately I'm not on Facebook, but it sounds like they deserve some "likes".)
Yeah, they're doing an amazing job already. They've set up an antibullying week at our town's middle school, have done an interview with the town's weekly newspaper, and have even had communication with our state's governor's office about expanding their efforts.One of the members, my daughter's best friend, does photography and filming; he and I are talking about doing a short film of Nail Polish and Feathers playing up the bullying aspect for their group to use, and for me to use as a promotional tool.
That's a cool idea. Congratulations to them.
I posted more thoughts on bullying today. While I'm proud of the group I blogged about last week, I learned that the young woman who started that group actually bullied my daughter when my daughter came out as gender-fluid earlier this year. So I have rather mixed emotions at this point. http://www.joramsey.com/?p=2223
Last week, I read a news report about a grandfather who disowned his daughter when *she* disowned her son for coming out as gay. The grandfather took in his grandson and wrote a scathing letter to his daughter. So I blogged about grandparents today.
Tomorrow is the release of my novel Where No One Knows, about a transgender boy who is kicked out of his house for being psychic, so today I shared an excerpt from it on my blog.
Oh, good luck with that one. On my TBR list, although it looks like it's not listed on GR yet.
I'm not sure if this publisher lists the books or if I have to list it myself...
Jo wrote: "Tomorrow is the release of my novel Where No One Knows, about a transgender boy who is kicked out of his house for being psychic, so today I shared an excerpt from it on my blog."I read the excerpt and it sounds incredible. Good luck with it I am sure it will be a success.
Lack thereof - oh, yeah. I think it's normal minor brain aging, and too many things on our minds. Right?
Kaje, yeah, I think so! LOLToday I have part 2 of my short story that morphed into my novel Nail Polish and Feathers. (I posted part 1 last week, but it looks like I forgot to post the link here...part 1 is here for those who want to see it.)
Today, I've posted episode 7 of my YA serial "Supernuisance." What happens when a teenage boy who pretends to be a superhero meets a teenage boy who really is one? The post includes a link to the first episode, which has links to all subsequent episodes, so if you haven't read any of it and are interested, you can catch up. See episode 7 here.