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

Two Great Things To Celebrate The Finale Of Library Appreciation Week: Operation Teen Book Drop and Emily Lloyd's "Shelf Check" Comic Blog

Librarians ROCK! That's established.

And Libraries are critical. We agree.

But for a library to really function, it needs to have some books, right?

Well there are quite a few libraries without the resources and materials to give their kids that very basic thing - some good books to read. So, for the third year in a row, like the superheroes they are, the writers and readers and members of the children's literature community (the "kidlitosphere") - led by the incredible Readergirlz, the awesome GuysLitWire gang, the Young Adult Library Services Association of the ALA, and this year, the Native American Children's Book Club, If I Can Read, I Can Do Anything - have jumped in to help with

(daa-da-da-AHHHH!)

OPERATION TEEN BOOK DROP!

This week, 10,000 new books, donated by publishers, will be "dropped" to libraries to support teens on Native Reservations and Tribal Lands.

More than 100 YA authors are going to leave new YA books in public places, with a bookplate from Operation TBD.

And individuals (like you and me) are buying books, one at a time, at the wishlists at Powell's bookstore to stock the libraries of two specific schools, Ojo Encino Day School (located twenty-five miles west of Cuba, New Mexico on the Navajo Nation) and Alchesay High School (located in Whiteriver, Arizona in the heart of the White Mountain Apache Reservation.)

Book by book, lives will start to change for the better.

I couldn't be prouder of our kidlit community.

Wanna feel great about it, too? Go to the wishlists (here's how) and buy one of these libraries a book. Go on - you'll feel awesome about it, and about yourself, too.

Now that you feel all altruistic, here's something more to celebrate:

Emily Lloyd is a poet and blogger who runs an insightful, funny and thought-provoking comic strip with a lesbian librarian main character on her blog, Shelf Check. She was kind enough to let me share one of her comics here with you.

Enjoy!

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