It actually took a few days for me to figure out what book to choose! A big thanks to Beth Revis for giving me something to blog about, and a chance to win some awesome books. Check out the contest here: http://bethrevis.blogspot.com/2011/10/show-gratitude-for-booksand-win-19.html

I thought about a lot of books for a lot of different reasons, Harry Potter, The Jungle Book, and a lesser known one, Faerie Tale by Raymond Fiest. Each of those books had a hand in my decision to write my own books, but I’m not as grateful for them as I am a book called The Whispering Road by Livi Michael

The Whispering Road inspired me to write one of my first books that has yet to see the light of day. I fell in love with the way Michael blended hints of the fantastic into something that was otherwise very real. The book shows the magic in even the worst of circumstances. I think I read the book in two days and very soon after that began to consider my own story that could try and meld the real and the imaginary. The resulting book is one of my favorites, and one I’m very proud of.

Its quite possible I would have come up with the story on my own, its a story that hasn’t died from my mind in the years since it was written. I’m constantly considering other works that would tie into the world I created. Still, I can’t help but credit Levi Michael with inspiring the whole world. Though I haven’t read her book again since the first time, I look at it fondly on my shelf, remembering the story like an old friend I haven’t seen for a while.

This is something I find happens with a lot of the YA books I read. More so than books for adults, these books stick with me. They are usually bursting with life and love and fear and sadness. They practically scream for your attention much like the teens who are meant to read them. I don’t get this from adult books. I read them, I enjoy them, and most of the time they don’t cross my mind again. With The Whispering Road and other YA books I glance at them on my shelf and smile, remembering the time I was lost in their world and for that I will always be grateful.

Wow, nothing gets rid of the Monday morning blahs better than clicking a random link on someones Twitter and finding out that someone thinks your book is one of the top ten books for gay/queer teens right now! I mean, way to make me feel awesome first thing in the morning.

Check out the full list here:
http://shellysbookstore.com/2011/09/19/fiction-monday-top-ten-fiction-books-for-gay-queer-teens/

So yesterday the internet (specifically Twitter and Blogs) spun into a frenzy over this PW article: http://blogs.publishersweekly.com/blogs/genreville/?p=1519 that talked about two writers who were asked to change their gay characters to straight ones, or cut them out of the story entirely.

While being asked to cut the characters out is pretty ridiculous, I think what’s more concerning is the agents who rejected their book, but didn’t specifically say it was because of the gay characters. I think that is probably a far more widespread phenomenon. It’s easy to point fingers and cry out when someone has the balls to say that you need to change a character to make it more marketable, but how many people rejected their book without giving an honest reason why?

How many books is this happening to every day? How many form rejections of “This doesn’t seem like the right work for us at this time” really mean “Sorry, gays don’t sell”? It’s a lot harder to pin down those rejections for what they really are. No one asked me to straighten up my girls in Morning Rising but none of the agents I sent it out to (even ones who were looking for diversity and actively seeking clients) seemed to be able to look past the lesbian fact.

Now, perhaps I just wrote a pile of crap, I’m completely aware that that could be the case. That doesn’t change the fact that when rejections come in for a GayYA, you can’t help but wonder in the back of your mind if it’s the story they don’t like or the characters. That sucks for authors. It sucks that this book which I love almost more than any other one I have written because it’s exactly what I wanted to read as a teen, will never reach as many teens as I want it to.

I self-published through Amazon and Barnes & Noble because I wanted to see what the self-publishing hype was about. I chose to publish this book through them because I knew it was going to be the hardest to sell to an agent. Sad, but true.

If you are interested in supporting GayYA check out some of the books from this list http://tanuki-green.livejournal.com/329393.html or visit http://www.gayya.org/