Signal Boost
Sep. 13th, 2011 11:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
onemuseleftSo Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith wrote a book with a gay POV character and were told by an agent that they needed to make him straight - or erase him entirely - in order for the agent to represent their work. Lovely to know we live in such an enlightened time!
Rachel explains why this is more than a creative issue to her: "When you refuse to allow major characters in YA novels to be gay, you are telling gay teenagers that they are so utterly horrible that people like them can’t even be allowed to exist in fiction."
Her article is here: Say Yes to Gay YA
This came up not very long ago when author Jessica Verday was asked to eliminate a gay character in a short story. (AKA: The Wicked Pretty Things debacle)![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cleolinda documented the entire debate over at her LJ. This isn't a one-time thing. There's a small enough LGBT presence in literature in general, and if authors are being actively pressured to keep it that way, it's going to be hard to see a change.
Rachel explains why this is more than a creative issue to her: "When you refuse to allow major characters in YA novels to be gay, you are telling gay teenagers that they are so utterly horrible that people like them can’t even be allowed to exist in fiction."
Her article is here: Say Yes to Gay YA
This came up not very long ago when author Jessica Verday was asked to eliminate a gay character in a short story. (AKA: The Wicked Pretty Things debacle)
cleolinda documented the entire debate over at her LJ. This isn't a one-time thing. There's a small enough LGBT presence in literature in general, and if authors are being actively pressured to keep it that way, it's going to be hard to see a change.
