bibliofeminista:

Our novel, Stranger, has five viewpoint characters; one, Yuki Nakamura, is gay and has a boyfriend. Yuki’s romance, like the heterosexual ones in the novel, involves nothing more explicit than kissing.

An agent from a major agency, one which represents a bestselling YA novel in the same genre as ours, called us.

The agent offered to sign us on the condition that we make the gay character straight, or else remove his viewpoint and all references to his sexual orientation.

Rachel replied, “Making a gay character straight is a line in the sand which I will not cross. That is a moral issue. I work with teenagers, and some of them are gay. They never get to read fantasy novels where people like them are the heroes, and that’s not right.”

The agent suggested that perhaps, if the book was very popular and sequels were demanded, Yuki could be revealed to be gay in later books, when readers were already invested in the series.

We knew this was a pie-in-the-sky offer—who knew if there would even be sequels?—and didn’t solve the moral issue. When you refuse to allow major characters in YA novels to be gay, you are telling gay teenagers that they are so utterly horrible that people like them can’t even be allowed to exist in fiction.

LGBTQ teenagers already get told this. They are four times more likely than straight teenagers to attempt suicide. We’re not saying that the absence of LGBTQ teens in YA sf and fantasy novels is the reason for that. But it’s part of the overall social prejudice that does cause that killing despair.

We wrote this novel so that the teenagers we know—some of whom are gay, and many of whom are not white—would be able, for once, to read a fun post-apocalyptic adventure in which they are the heroes. And we were told that such a thing could not be allowed.

This is SO troubling! Props to the authors for speaking out about this since I can’t imagine this is the first time something like this has happened.

Ms. writer Zetta Elliott interviews acclaimed children’s author Jacqueline Woodson - some very interesting conversation about diversity in children’s literature and the state of publishing. Highly recommend.

From their “about” page:

Once, we were teenagers. Now, we’re both published writers and committed teachers who’ve decided to share what we know about writing and publishing young adult novels. Over a series of ten lectures we will study how to craft a marketable teen novel and offer practical advice on how to present your finished work to agents and editors who are actively acquiring manuscripts. Take one class, take all, take those that offer you the insights you need. In addition to sharing our own strategies for writing and revision, we will study critically and commercially successful teen novels and discuss the structural, artistic, and thematic elements that allow these works to resonate with such a wide audience. Between us, we have sold eleven novels to Simon & Schuster, Random House, Disney-Hyperion, and Penguin. We also have over twenty years of combined teaching experience. Wherever you are in your writing life, we look forward to meeting you and guiding you toward your finished story.

“Welcome! WRITE FUZZY is a publisher of high quality, fiction and non - fiction children’s books. All titles are educationally sound and are age appropriate. ‘Neato’ is our favorite learning tool. Weird is our invisible friend. These are the books we wished we had when we were kids.”