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Boost the Signal: Say Yes to Gay YA

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Skadi Sundermount


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PostPosted: Sat Sep 24, 2011 5:36 pm


This comes from an article by rachelmanija entitled, Say Yes to Gay YA.
(click the link for the full article)

Quote:
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.


This isn't about that specific agent; we'd gotten other rewrite requests before this one. Previous agents had also offered to take a second look if we did rewrites… including cutting the viewpoint of Yuki, the gay character.


It's time to stand up and demand change. Spread the word everywhere if you are just as angry and outraged by this.
PostPosted: Sun Sep 25, 2011 9:04 pm


I think you should fact-check before spreading that article around.

While I agree completely with the point of the article--that YA lit needs a great deal more diversity in just about every sense--the fact is that the author in question lied to make their point, and weakened their stance by doing so. It's dispicable behavior, and I'd greatly appreciate it if this article stopped spreading, mostly because it is undermining the cause.

VenusRain

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Skadi Sundermount


Snack

PostPosted: Sun Sep 25, 2011 9:10 pm


VenusRain
I think you should fact-check before spreading that article around.

While I agree completely with the point of the article--that YA lit needs a great deal more diversity in just about every sense--the fact is that the author in question lied to make their point, and weakened their stance by doing so. It's dispicable behavior, and I'd greatly appreciate it if this article stopped spreading, mostly because it is undermining the cause.


Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
PostPosted: Sun Sep 25, 2011 9:27 pm


Also, because i forgot to mention it: I'm not saying that the publisher is any less wrong for this, but I think that there's a pretty big (and much more disturbing) difference between "this character is gay and we can't have that" and "we don't think we can market this character if he's gay".

Can't believe I forgot that, but I feel that the statement should have been described as such in the original article, because it shows just how deep the rabbithole goes.

VenusRain

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