Malinda Lo
Blog
Feb 21, 2013
Call for self-published and ebook-only 2013 LGBTQ YA
As part of my preparation for this year’s upcoming YA Pride series in June, back in January I asked for leads on LGBTQ YA published by traditional publishers in 2013. You can still leave suggestions and tips on that blog post.
Today I’m issuing a slightly different call. I’m looking for:
- Young Adult books
- published in 2013
- that are self-published
- or from boutique, ebook-only publishers
- featuring a main character (not secondary or supporting) who is lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, or intersex
- or has a central plot about an issue related to LGBTQQI identity, e.g., a straight character coming to terms with someone close to them who is LGBTQ (such as Happy Families by Tanita S. Davis)
- or is nonfiction about LGBTQ issues (such as Queer: The Ultimate Guide for Teens by Kathy Belge and Mark Biesche).
If you know of a book that fits these requirements, please tell me about it in the comments. Ideally, I would like to know the book’s title, author, publisher if applicable, publication date, and whether the main character is lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, or intersex. If the novel is about an issue, or if it’s a nonfiction book, I’d like to know those details as well. (I will be double checking all of this, but I’d love as much info as you can give me.)
It’s also helpful if you can leave a link to the author’s official website, as well as contact information for the author or publicist. If you’d prefer to not post that contact information publicly, you can email me at mlo@malindalo.com, and please use the subject: YA Pride 2013. Please note that if you leave more than two URLs in your comment, your post will be queued for moderation, but I will check the moderation queue.
Finally, I regret that I won’t be able to feature all of these books in this year’s YA Pride series. I have no idea how many self-published titles there are, and I’m still focusing predominantly on titles published by traditional publishers because that’s where my main interest lies. But given the growth of self-publishing and ebook-only publishers, I do want to take a look at how that’s developing.
Thanks! Again, this post is for self-published and ebook-only LGBTQ YA. You can tell me about traditionally published LGBTQ YA here.
Sarah Diemer and Jennifer Diemer
“Artificial Hearts: A Lesbian YA Short Story Collection (Project Unicorn)” January 20, 2013
http://www.oceanid.org/
I’m actually self-publishing one myself this year. The title is Nowhere Fast, and I plan for it to come out in December. The main character is a gay teenager.
Kitty Burroughs’s The Posterchildren. It’s a superhero novel about, as I understood it, an ensemble cast with a bunch of queer (main) characters (also PoC). It’s out in April.
(Funded Indiegogo campaign link: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/297891/x/1917487)
New Girl by Joan B Flood
Published in October 2012 by Musa Publishing as ebook
Main character is lesbian
It is best described as a coming of age story.
Hi Malinda,
I know you’re looking for 2013s, but I think you might really like HOW TO REPAIR A MECHANICAL HEART. I published it in fall 2012, and it’s up on B&N and Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/How-Repair-Mechanical-Heart-ebook/dp/B009F5OW0U/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1361566862&sr=8-1&keywords=Jc+Lillis
It’s about two boys who fall in love on a summer road trip to six fan conventions for a cult sci-fi show they’re obsessed with. They’re both huge fanboys, and the plot involves a lot of fun stuff about Internet fandom, slash fiction, and shipping (with a side order of unresolved Catholic guilt to keep things interesting).
I also have a website/blog: http://www.jclillis.com.
Thanks!
Thanks for your suggestions, folks! Please keep ‘em coming, but I really am only looking for books being published in calendar year 2013. I have to limit things somehow.
I’d love to submit my book AWAKENED for consideration in your list. Here is the information you are looking for:
Title: Awakened
Author: Kenneth Creech
Website: http://www.kennethcreech.com/awakened.html
Contact information: info@kennethcreech.com
The main character, Caleb McEllis is a gay teen male. In this book, he also has a male romantic interest who is also gay.