Category Archives: YA

The Hunt is Coming

Tis the season for many things, and one of those things is the Fall Young Adult Scavenger Hunt!

This year, the hunt will run from October 1 to October 6!

Oct 1, noon PST: The hunt begins!

Oct 6, noon PST: The Hunt ends—winners selected.

Oct 8: Winners Announced!

There are four fantastic teams to follow this year. To check out all the books, you can browse this handy Goodreads list to get a feel for the stories and authors on the various teams. I’m Team Purple this time around!

If you’ve never taken part in the hunt and are interested in the rules, visit the official YASH website here. Below are also a few quick links that might help you navigate your first hunting trip or just give you a quick refresher course before the fun is underway!

How to Hunt | When You’re Stuck | Official Entry Form | Prize List

Get ready to win some very cool prizes!

An Interview on YA Cafe!

Today, I was lucky enough to be interviewed on The YA Cafe podcast with Laura Moe! It was a great conversation about Island of Exiles, writing, asexuality, death rituals, speculative fiction, the popularity of dystopia, and more. Not necessarily in that order.

You can listen to the hour-long podcast here!

Thank you, Laura, for a great conversation!

Solo, but never alone


Times like #RT16 are a perfect reminder that even though writing can be a very solitary activity, we’re never actually alone. I am so grateful for every one of these ladies! ?

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I met Tamora Pierce!


Talking to Tamora Pierce is the highlight of #RT16 for me! Childhood idols are never not amazing, but Tamora is extra special every time I get to meet her. If you’ve never read her stories, I highly recommend changing that ASAP! ???

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I was featured on the B&N Teen blog!

The wonderfully talented Michael Waters asked to interview me for a two-part feature about queer YA authors, and of course I was ecstatic and said yes! Part one of the series is out now and you can read about me, Anna-Marie McLemore, and Fox Benwell. Below is a snippet from each of our segments:

Fox Benwell is known around Twitter for his tireless queer and disability activism, his dog and cat photos, and his impeccable taste in ties. The author of The Last Leaves Falling (published under the name Sarah Benwell), he is genderfluid transmasculine and has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/fibromyalgia. Because of the marginalization he has faced, he is committed to creating safe, intersectional spaces for people like him. “It’s important to me to try to be the kind of visible role model I wish I’d always had—to do what I can to make things better for the next generation.”

For Anna-Marie McLemore, magical realism is an essential staple of both her writing and her cultural heritage. As a queer Mexican-American girl, she grew up reading the genre—she cites magical realism novels such as Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate as the reason she fell in love with literature. Now, they are the reason she writes it.

To McLemore, writing magical realism comes naturally. “[Magical realism’s] heart is the intermixing of the ordinary and the ethereal, and I fell into that easily both because it felt right for my work and because it’s where I come from. The origins of magical realism hold close the idea of culture and community, and rising out of the forces that try to hold down your culture and community. It’s a worldview that feels true to who I am and where my stories live.”

Photo Credit: Lani Woodland

Photo Credit: Lani Woodland

Erica Cameron is fighting for visibility. As an asexual author writing asexual characters, she is working to make her identity known and normalized in the public consciousness. Asexuality—describing individuals who experience little or no sexual attraction to anyone—is frequently misunderstood. Even people familiar with its definition may not fully grasp why, for example, there are asexual awareness marches.

Cameron is well aware of this. “What they don’t realize is that we’re not fighting for rights, we’re fighting for recognition,” she says.

Read the full article here!

This package arrived for my students from @summerscourtney today…


This package arrived for my students from @summerscourtney today and omg guys! She is the absolute SWEETEST. The gesture and the letter she sent with it absolutely made my day. I can’t wait to share them with my students on Monday! ?

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Achievement unlocked, guys!


Achievement unlocked, guys! Life And Death is like an official stamp of approval on the gender bent fanfic I wrote in college and so I am THRILLED right now. I probably won’t have the time to read it for a while but omg mine. ?

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I have three words for this book: powerful, insightful, and…


I have three words for this book: powerful, insightful, and important. @IWGregorio has done a brilliant job educating the reader on what it means to be intersex/AIS while not lessening the emotional impact of Krissy’s story in the slightest. This is a book about tolerance, gender, love, strength, mistakes, forgiveness, finding out who you are, and the mutable nature of what it means to be a girl or a boy or human, really. An excellent story by an amazing author and one I highly recommend!

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Guys? Meet Courtney Stevens and Faking Normal

Guys? Meet Courtney Stevens and Faking Normal.

I HAVE FEELINGS ABOUT THIS BOOK, OKAY? It’s poignant and powerful and full of purpose. I meant to post quotes while I read, but I couldn’t put it down long enough to follow through. So, go Courtney for that one.

Also, for anyone who hasn’t experienced rape/abuse and has wanted to learn about one of the quiet ways it destroys lives, read #FakingNormal. In the book, Courtney has captured the confusion and the guilt and the silence that hangs over this kind of situation brilliantly.

Last but definitely not least… Hey, Courtney? I want a Bodee. Kay? Kay. Thanks!

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I need to take more time to read…


I need to take more time to read, so this month I’m posting my TBR list! I picked these three exciting books up over the summer and I can’t wait to finally dig into them all! Faking Normal is up first because it’s been on my wishlist since I heard Courtney talk about it back in 2013. 😀

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