Topic: Another too cool for school liberal/literary agent

[LadyVirginia]

Nelson Literary Agency Has No Prob With LGBTQ


Holy cow! Can't believe I missed this article yesterday. I'm so glad an agent friend forwarded to me. Take a moment to read it and tweet it on but in short, it's an appeal to support literature with gay and lesbian characters and the fact that there are some appalling agents and editors out there who are making requests that the writers make a gay character straight.

Seriously? What year are we in?

I cannot tell you how delighted I was to see a link to a list of YA literature that features gay/lesbian characters and my author Sarah Rees Brennan's THE DEMON'S LEXICON series was on it.

This author of mine is brilliant. It's a wonderful series and her new trilogy that I just sold to Random House also has an absolute kick-a** gay/lesbian main character. The first book UNSPOKEN publishes in fall 2012.

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I must admit it never occurred to me to add to my agency's submission page that we are open to accepting material with LGBTQ characters because I kind of thought it went without saying but I'm rethinking it now.

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Note: LGBTQ stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning.

LINK

from wikipedia:

Young-adult fiction or young adult literature (often abbreviated as YA)[1][2] is fiction written for, published for, or marketed to adolescents and young adults, roughly ages 14 to 21.[3] The Young Adult Library Services (YALSA) of the American Library Association (ALA) defines a young adult as "someone between the ages of twelve and eighteen". Young adult novels have also been defined as texts written for the ages of twelve and up. Authors and readers of young adult (YA) novels often define the genre as "literature written for ages ranging from ten years up to the age of twenty" (Cole). Another suggestion for the definition is that Young Adult Literature is any text being read by adolescents, though this definition is still somewhat controversial.
 
Although YA literature shares the fundamental elements of character, plot, setting, theme, and style common to other genres of fiction, theme and style are often subordinated to the more tangible basic narrative elements such as plot, setting, and character, which appeal more readily to younger readers. The vast majority of YA stories portray an adolescent as the protagonist, rather than an adult or a child.
 
It is generally agreed that Young Adult Literature is literature written for adolescent readers, and in some cases published by adolescent writers. The subject matter and story lines are typically consistent with the age and experience of the main character, but beyond that YA stories span the entire spectrum of fiction genres. Themes in YA stories often focus on the challenges of youth, so much so that the entire age category is sometimes referred to as problem novels or coming of age novels.[4] Writing styles of YA stories range widely, from the richness of literary style to the clarity and speed of the unobtrusive and even free verse.

LINK


I know kids as young as 10 or 12 are reading this junk.  These YA novels on kids' required summer reading lists. I can tell you when I was 20 I didn't want to read anything a 10 year old would read...(except maybe for Lord of the Rings...but then no 10 year olds I knew ever read it though it was written for that age--my daughter read it when she was 9).

[rickl]

I never did read Lord of the Rings.  I've never cared for fiction; I've always preferred non-fiction, even when I was a child.

Based on the recommendation of a friend, I tried reading The Hobbit when I was in college, but I gave up after about 30 pages.  It just didn't interest me.

But nowadays I see references to LOTR everywhere I turn, so maybe I should make it a point to read it.

(On the other hand, the first 30 pages of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy are probably the funniest 30 pages I've ever read anywhere.)

[Sectionhand]

Coming soon ... "Nancy Drew: Lesbian Detective Meets The Gay Hardy Boys" .

[IronDioPriest]

I never did read Lord of the Rings.  I've never cared for fiction; I've always preferred non-fiction, even when I was a child.

Based on the recommendation of a friend, I tried reading The Hobbit when I was in college, but I gave up after about 30 pages.  It just didn't interest me.

But nowadays I see references to LOTR everywhere I turn, so maybe I should make it a point to read it.

(On the other hand, the first 30 pages of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy are probably the funniest 30 pages I've ever read anywhere.)

The Hobbit takes about 100 pages. I gave up my first time too, but I went back to it, and I am an enduring fan. You may not like fiction, but you are interested in the struggle between good and evil, and this work personifies nearly all aspects of the struggle.

Re; Lady V's original post, isn't it interesting that the militant homosexuals have now expanded the victim class to include "questioning". I've gotta hand it to them. In their diabolical agenda to pervert our society through our kids, they seem to be one step ahead. It's as if nothing will stop them short of a bullet through the brain.

[LadyVirginia]

Coming soon ... "Nancy Drew: Lesbian Detective Meets The Gay Hardy Boys" .

I'm sure that's not far away.  From the same agent:

And because we are talking about multicultural too, check out my author Kimberly Reid's debut YA novel MY OWN WORST FRENEMY. It's an African-American urban Nancy Drew series. I mean, just how cool is that?

Urban is code for any and all adult situations that these people think kids should read about.


Taking my daughter to work today I asked her if she knew what the Q was and she knew.  No longer is it enough to advocate acceptance for those who find themselves to be gay, now the agenda is to create the belief that one's sexual preference must be explored.

I asked my daughter when she first remembered encountering the idea of gay people.  She said when she was a kid she saw a magazine cover in Walgreens of two men holding hands with a headline referencing gay marriage.  She thought it was a joke.  In her mind guys didn't get married!  And besides the magazine was right next to the tabloids highlighting 8-headed babies. She thought it was another ones of those crazy tabloid stories!

[Weisshaupt]

[ In their diabolical agenda to pervert our society through our kids, they seem to be one step ahead. It's as if nothing will stop them short of a bullet through the brain.

I can not emphasize it enough. Double Tap. That is 2 bullets. These are undead, they will just get back up if you don't shoot them twice.

On a literary note, I found the hobbit more accessible as a child. And Fellowship of the Ring really dragged for me when I read it as a  kid. Rereading them as an adult, the Hobbit doesn't pull me in, but the the entire trilogy I now find engrossing.

[LadyVirginia]

My daughter rebuked me this morning.  She read the trilogy when she was 8 not 9.  Corrected. LOL 


I'd never heard of LOTR until in college a boyfriend let me borrow his set.  Kept the set, dumped the boyfriend.  Only good thing that came out of that relationship. 

[RickZ]

I read The Hobbit for some high school class.  Also in high school, we went to the animated movie, which sucked -- big time.

The Hobbit lays a foundation for hobbits and their habits in that granddaddy of a tale, The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy; it also helps explain how Bilbo got the bloody ring in the first place.  But I find The Hobbit to be a weak book, filler, really.  The LotR, though, is an excellent story of good versus evil.  While it might seem a little long to some, if it were any shorter you'd be pissed.

[LadyVirginia]

I read The Hobbit for some high school class.  Also in high school, we went to the animated movie, which sucked -- big time.

For my high school class on the Civil War we watched Gone with the Wind.  For Shakespeare in English went to see Romeo and Juliette.  Filler as far as I was concerned.
I read those on my own.

[RickZ]

I read The Hobbit for some high school class.  Also in high school, we went to the animated movie, which sucked -- big time.

For my high school class on the Civil War we watched Gone with the Wind.  For Shakespeare in English went to see Romeo and Juliette.  Filler as far as I was concerned.
I read those on my own.

The Franco Zeffirelli film of Rome and Juliet I saw in high school back in the '70's was a beautiful movie (it was playing at an 'art' theater, and we went one afternoon).  The actors being the teenagers they were fit in nicely with Shakespeare's original play.