SIGNAL BOOST: SAY YES TO GAY YA
Originally posted by darkspirited1 here.
This comes from an article by rachelmanija entitled Say Yes to Gay YA. Our novel Stranger has five viewpoint characters; one, Yuki Nakamura, is gay and has a boyfriend. Yuki's romance, like the heterosexual ones in the novel, involves nothing more explicit than kissing. An agent from a major agency, one which represents a bestselling YA novel in the same genre as ours, called us. The agent offered to sign us on the condition that we make the gay character straight, or else remove his viewpoint and all references to his sexual orientation. This isn't about that specific agent; we'd gotten other rewrite requests before this one. Previous agents had also offered to take a second look if we did rewrites, including cutting the viewpoint of Yuki, the gay character.
It's time to stand up and demand change. Spread the word everywhere if you are just as angry and outraged by this. It's 2011. We are so much better than this. Love is love.
This comes from an article by rachelmanija entitled Say Yes to Gay YA. Our novel Stranger has five viewpoint characters; one, Yuki Nakamura, is gay and has a boyfriend. Yuki's romance, like the heterosexual ones in the novel, involves nothing more explicit than kissing. An agent from a major agency, one which represents a bestselling YA novel in the same genre as ours, called us. The agent offered to sign us on the condition that we make the gay character straight, or else remove his viewpoint and all references to his sexual orientation. This isn't about that specific agent; we'd gotten other rewrite requests before this one. Previous agents had also offered to take a second look if we did rewrites, including cutting the viewpoint of Yuki, the gay character.
It's time to stand up and demand change. Spread the word everywhere if you are just as angry and outraged by this. It's 2011. We are so much better than this. Love is love.