Diversity Countdown: Sarah Stevenson's "The Latte Rebellion"

Sarah Stevenson is the fourth and final panelist I'm highlighting in preparation for my panel discussion on diversity at the upcoming KidLitCon 2011 tomorrow Saturday September 17, 2011 - "Blogging Diversity: "Prejudice and Pride!"

Sarah Stevenson

Sarah's debut book is "The Latte Rebellion," about Asha, a senior in high school. When she gets called a "towel head" at a pool party,

"...the racist insult gives Asha and her best friend Carey a great money-making idea for a post-graduation trip. They'll sell T-shirts promoting the Latte Rebellion, a club that raises awareness of mixed-race students.

Seemingly overnight, their "cause" goes viral and the T-shirts become a nationwide fad. As new chapters spring up from coast to coast, Asha realizes that her simple marketing plan has taken on a life of its own-and it's starting to ruin hers. Asha's once-stellar grades begin to slip, threatening her Ivy League dreams, and her friendship with Carey is hanging by a thread. And when the peaceful underground movement turns militant, Asha's school launches a disciplinary hearing. Facing expulsion, Asha must decide how much she's willing to risk for something she truly believes in."

I really enjoyed reading about Asha's journey, and how at first the Latte Rebellion was just a way for her to make money, but then as she sees it touch a nerve in so many others, it starts to hit a nerve for her as well.

Sarah is also known as 'Aquafortis' (a regular commenter here!) and blogs about YA at Finding Wonderland, sharing her comics on writing (I particularly loved this one on plot) author interviews, and excellent (and detailed) book reviews. She also writes a more personal blog, Aqua Fortis.

An artist as well as a writer, Sarah is a huge force (the designer and webmaster and one of the reviewers as well) over at Guys Lit Wire, an incredible blog (for which I am also an occasional contributor) highlighting great books for teen guys.

I am so excited to have Sarah on the Diversity Panel!

And now you know more about her and her books, too - and with all four of these authors on tomorrow's panel, we all win!

Namaste,
Lee

Diversity Countdown: Sara Ryan's "Rules For Hearts"

Sara Ryan is the third panelist I'm highlighting in preparation for my panel discussion on diversity at the upcoming KidLitCon 2011 this upcoming Saturday September 17, 2011 - "Blogging Diversity: "Prejudice and Pride!"

Sara Ryan

She's the author of "Empress of the World" and "The Rules for Hearts" (both of which have places of honor on the book lists of this blog!) and a number of short stories and comics. (Her comic "Me and Edith Head" was an Eisner Award Finalist for Best Short Story!) She's a librarian (I LOVE librarians!) and she blogs at sararyan.com, sharing visual inspirations and moments of her author journey.

In "Empress of the World," Nicola, who goes by "Nic," spends the summer off at a program for gifted Teens. She thinks she's going to figure out her future - will she really choose to be an archaeologist? But what she is actually faced with figuring out turns out to be way more important: who she might be falling for (a girl named "Battle"), and what that means about who she is.

In "The Rules for Hearts," It's the summer before college, and Battle (who just broke up with Nicola from "Empress of the World") joins her newly found runaway older brother in a Portland co-op full of artsy, broke, theatrical and sexy gals and guys who are on their way to becoming Adults. Her roommate Meryl is alluring, her brother is frustrating, and there's a lot for Battle to discover about who she is and who her brother might be.

I love that Sara's characters and their relationships are at times playful, at times intense and always so deliciously complex.

And check this out - her comic book series "Flytrap" which she writes and other artists illustrate, are available for download from her website on the honor system:

"If you like the stories, donate via paypal."

Which is a pretty cool twist on using technology to get our stories out there.


I am delighted to have Sara on the Diversity Panel!

And now you know more about her and her books, too - and with three authors featured so far, it's a win-win-win!

Namaste,
Lee

Diversity Countdown: Brent Hartinger's "Shadow Walkers"

Brent Hartinger is the second panelist I'm highlighting in preparation for my panel discussion on diversity at the upcoming KidLitCon 2011 this upcoming Saturday September 17, 2011 - "Blogging Diversity: "Prejudice and Pride!"

Brent Hartinger

He's the author of eight books, most of which I've featured here on this blog because he often writes books with gay teen characters. In fact, I've been a fan ever since Brent's ground-breaking "The Geography Club," where the queer teens at Robert L. Goodkind High School decide that there's only one way they can form a Gay Straight Alliance without their fellow students becoming suspicious:

"We just choose a club that's so boring nobody in their right mind would ever in a million years join it. We could call it the Geography Club!"

How genius is that?

His latest title is "Shadow Walkers," a gay teen supernatural romance thriller - with a fascinating parallel between the internet and online relationships and astral projection!

In it,

Zach lives with his grandparents on a remote island in Puget Sound in Washington State. With only his little brother, Gilbert, to keep him company, Zach feels cut off from the world. But when Gilbert is kidnapped, Zach tries the only thing he can think of to find him: astral projection. Soon, his spirit is soaring through the strange and boundless astral realm — a shadow place. While searching for his brother, Zach meets a boy named Emory, another astral traveler who's intriguing (and cute).

As Zach and Emory track the kidnappers from the astral realm, their bond grows, but each moment could be Gilbert's last. Even worse, there's a menacing, centuries-old creature in their midst that devours souls and possesses physical bodies. And it's hungry for Zach.

Brent also does great (and funny) videos online (dare I call it "vlogging?"), including this one - "Seven reasons you should read Shadow Walkers":



He also does a cool thing on his website, where you can read the first chapter of all of his books for free. (That's to get you hooked. And watch out - you will be!)

He's been a mainstay of AfterElton.com as the Associate Editor over there, holding forth on queer content on TV and in our culture. One of my favorite articles he wrote was "Why Can't You Just Butch Up?" which speaks to why high school students tell me every year 'it's harder to be an effeminate straight boy than a masculine gay boy.' Brent did just step down from his Associate Editor gig to focus more on his writing, but he's still going to be contributing posts at AfterElton.com, and heck, that means we'll get more great books...

I am delighted to have Brent on the Diversity Panel!

And now you know more about him and his books, too - so once again, it's a win-win!

Namaste,
Lee

Diversity Countdown: Justina Chen's "Nothing But The Truth (and a few white lies)"

I'm honored to be moderating a panel discussion on diversity at the upcoming KidLitCon 2011 this upcoming Saturday September 17, 2011 - we're calling it "Prejudice and Pride!"

My panelists are amazing:

Justina Chen (formerly Justina Chen Headley), Brent Hartinger, Sara Ryan and Sarah Stevenson! (And yes, to not show favoritism, that order is alphabetical!)

So since I have four incredible authors on the panel, I thought I'd do a countdown this week, highlighting one of each of their books and their blog presence, to help all of you do your homework as I do mine.

It's all in preparation for a great discussion, and even if you can't be at the conference and panel, it's a wonderful opportunity to talk about these authors and their work.

So to kick off our Diversity Countdown, let's explore the work of author Justina Chen!

Justina Chen

I'd previously read (and loved) the gorgeously written "North of Beautiful," Justina's third book, when it was a finalist for the Cybils Award. Justina's second book is "Girl Overboard," and last week I picked up her debut book "Nothing But The Truth (and a few white lies)."

I was surprised at how much I felt in common with Nothing But The Truth (and a few white lies)'s main character, Patty. She's a half-white-half-Taiwanese-American girl in high school, and though my life experience is worlds away from hers, I felt for Patty so deeply! And the book, especially Patty's snarky voice, is really funny. It opens with a scene where Patty's missing her Freshman dance because her mother dragged her to a fortune-teller... who is digging into Patty's bellybutton with her finger to divine her future!

Her single mother will only admit to one mistake, marrying Patty's white father, who abandoned them. And Patty's older brother, Abe, is the 'perfect one' (he even looks all-Asian, while Patty is a mix. And he just got into Harvard.) Patty's 15 and subjected to lectures and Chinese herbal tonics to make sure she doesn't fall in love with a white boy, but all the while she's thinking she'd be better off if she were all white... Then she goes to summer math camp at Stanford, and everything starts to change!

It's a great book.

Justina is also a co-founder of the incredible "Readergirlz" - an online virtual author visit and book club community for teens which was awarded the National Book Award for Innovations in Reading. The project is endlessly inspiring, and has done so much for promoting literacy, highlighting great books for teen girls, and building community!

Justina also blogs at Wordlings by Justina Chen, where she shares visual collages and brief windows into her writing process.

I am delighted to have Justina on the Diversity Panel!

And now you know more about her and her books, too - so it's a win-win!

Namaste,
Lee

YALSA Celebrates Diversity! A Guest Post By Lauren Bjorkman

The national YALSA Conference — Diversity, Literature, Teens: Beyond Good Intentions — last weekend launched me into the Stratosphere of Happiness. I had so much fun! Over 350 librarians came to share their passion for getting diverse books into the hands of teen readers.

On the first morning, Michael Cart and Christine Jenkins gave a “history lesson” on teen fic with GLBT content, highlighting books published from 1969 to 2010. Both of them are experts on the subject. I could tell by their extraordinarily long CVs.

Seriously, this pair knows their gay teen lit! The mound of books they brought with them (hundreds, I think) wowed my socks off. I especially enjoyed the covers from the books written in the 1970’s. Check this one out!


Michael and Christine book-talked dozens of titles each. The earlier books were tragedies, and usually ended with the gay character killed in a car wreck. Or truck wreck. Or motorcycle wreck. Seriously!

Luckily things got better in the 80’s, when some of the books ended on a hopeful note, and a few were funny — particularly books by M.E. Kerr. Still, the majority of GLBT teen lit consisted of sad stories and “problem” novels.

In the 2000’s there are many breakthroughs — LGBT books for the retail market, ones with multi-cultural characters, humor, happy endings, awards, and more books for younger readers. Viva Gaytopia!

In the afternoon, I was part of a panel about moving forward in LGBT teen lit with Megan Frazer (Secrets of Truth and Beauty), Kirstin Cronn-Mills (The Sky Always Hears Me), and Malinda Lo (Ash). We talked on serious topics — the fluidity of sexuality, labeling, coming out, heteronormativity, and settings without homophobia — and still managed to make 50+ librarians laugh out loud.

Megan's book

Kirstin's book

Malinda's Book

Lauren's Book

Friday night, we did a casual Q&A at Alamosa Books, an Albuquerque store devoted entirely to books for young readers and teens.

From left to right: Malinda Lo, Lauren Bjorkman (me), Kirstin Cronn-Mills, Alexandra Diaz (Of All the Stupid Things), and Megan Frazer.

Saturday, I went to "The New Gay Teen: Moving Beyond the Issue Book," where authors read from their latest works. P.G. Kain (The Social Experiments of Dorie Dilts) had us in hysterics, as did Madeleine George (Looks). I’m very susceptible to funny books, so I can’t wait to read theirs!

I enjoyed every minute of the conference. Besides attending panels and meeting caring librarians, I drank margaritas with other authors, ate fab New Mexican food, and autographed 50 copies of my book, including one to a lovely librarian from Shiprock, New Mexico!

Shiprock (Wow! But where’s the library?)

***



Lauren Bjorkman is the author of My Invented Life, one of the great books featured right here on this blog!

Thanks, Lauren, for sharing with us your experience at the National Conference of the Young Adult Library Services Association (of the American Library Association.) While I wish I could have been there, your report gave us all a taste of what was served up... and it sounds amazing!

My thanks as well to Lauren for talking about my Hunger Mountain-published article, GLBTQ Teen Coming Out Stories: Move Beyond Them, or Keep 'Em Coming? An Imaginary Yang and Yin Dialog By One Writer of Two Minds" during her panel presentation. Thanks as well to Malinda Lo for including my article with the other wonderful links gathered from the panel. Great stuff there, and I'm honored to be included.


Namaste,
Lee