Essay in Teen Librarian Toolbox
I wrote a thing. It appears today in School Library Journal’s Teen Librarian Toolbox. It's about the struggle I faced to find a publisher for my new novel.
But more importantly, it's about the way that, even before Moms for Liberty and the current nightmare administration, children's publishing was turning away from telling certain kinds of edgier queer stories in favor of safer, more popular, and more lucrative queer joy narratives -- at the expense of publishing books that deal with the darker, more difficult, yet still important and formative queer experiences that many queer young people face every day.
As I say in my Author's Note to AN UGLY WORLD FOR BEAUTIFUL BOYS, "When we shy away from telling such stories, we reinforce the terrible message of the censors that certain queer experiences are shameful and should be kept hidden. That the queer teens who endure them are problematic and don’t matter.”
I fear things are only poised to get worse in the years ahead. I hope you will read this essay and consider sharing it. Now more than ever we need to push back against what's safe and easy if we are going to serve the interests of the most vulnerable kids (and not just queer and trans kids, either).