Blog — Malinda Lo

On Self-Rejection and Writing From a Marginalized Perspective

Over the weekend I caught the tail end of a Twitter discussion centered on the hashtag #dontselfreject, created by writer and editor Rose Lemberg in response to an essay by writer and editor Nisi Shawl in the literary quarterly The Cascadia Subduction Zone. Nisi Shawl’s essay, titled “Unqualified,” is about how difficult it is for writers of color, and particularly African American writers (Nisi is African American, among other identities), to develop the confidence to try to get published — essentially, how hard it is to believe that their stories are valuable and worth it.

FeaturesMalinda LoJanuary 6, 2015life, writing, Asian American

From 2014 to 2015

FeaturesMalinda LoDecember 31, 2014annual review

2014 LGBT YA by the Numbers

For the last three years I’ve been tracking the number of young adult novels about LGBT ((LGBT stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender. It is currently most widely accepted English term used to identify sexual and gender minorities, but its initials omit other identies such as queer, intersex, asexual, and more. While I could add more initials (e.g., LGBTQQIA+) or use a term such as QUILTBAG, I believe that would simply be too confusing for the general reader, so I’ve chosen to follow the standards in the GLAAD Media Reference Guide - AP and New York Times Style.)) characters. Here are my statistics from 2011, 2012, and 2013, as well as an overview of LGBT YA published by mainstream publishers from 2003–13.

Anyone who reads these posts can see that the topics I’ve been interested in unpacking have changed and focused, my methodology has been refined, and the language I’ve used to describe gender has evolved as I’ve learned more and as the language itself has evolved. I use the term “LGBT YA” to identify a young adult book with an LGBT main character or that has a plot primarily concerned with LGBT issues. Some books have multiple main characters, and if one of that cast of primary characters is LGBT, I also count that book as an LGBT YA book (e.g., Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater). In the cases of books about LGBT issues, those issues typically focus around a straight person’s relationship with an LGBT person who comes out to them (e.g., The Boy I Love by Nina de Gramont). I do not include YA books with supporting LGBT characters because I think it’s important to focus on books where the LGBT person is the star of the story, but I recognize that the dividing line between supporting and main can be pretty blurry. Nor do I include YA books that have subtextual gay story lines (e.g., The Girls of No Return by Erin Saldin; and more recently, Dirty Wings by Sarah McCarry), because I’m focused on books where the gay story line is overt. (In other words, I’m tracking openly gay YA!) That means I may have left out some YA titles that others would count as “LGBT YA,” either on purpose or by accident.