Blog — Malinda Lo

Writing Time

FeaturesMalinda LoMay 7, 2013writing

On Word Count

FeaturesMalinda LoMay 2, 2013writing

On Bisexual Characters and YA Literature

FeaturesMalinda LoApril 25, 2013diversity, Diversity in YA, LGBTQ, young adult literature

Representing LGBT Romance on Young Adult Book Covers

FeaturesMalinda LoApril 17, 2013LGBTQ, young adult literature

On labels (for books and for people)

I was wondering: what do you think about novels being labelled a “lesbian novel” or a “gay novel” simply because the primary love interest isn’t straight?

FeaturesMalinda LoApril 10, 2013diversity, LGBTQ, life, Asian American

Diversity in 2012 Young Adult Bestsellers

On March 17, Publishers Weekly posted its accounting of the bestselling children’s books of 2012, including young adult titles. PW does this every year, and I’ve always wondered what proportion of these bestselling titles include main characters of color and/or LGBT characters. I’ve always assumed that very few of the bestsellers would prominently feature diversity, but as a former economics major I also know that I really shouldn’t make those kinds of assumptions.

So over the past couple of weeks I sat down with the list, some spreadsheets, and crunched the numbers. The results both confirmed some of my assumptions and surprised me. (Note: This post collects all four parts originally posted at Diversity in YA in one master post.)