One step forward, six steps back (Say Yes to Gay YA)

[pameladean]

sartorias and rachelmanija have an essay up on Genreville (a site well worth the attention of readers of sf and fantasy in general) about sending a collaborative YA fantasy novel to an agent and being told that the agent would represent and expect to sell it if they would just remove a gay viewpoint character, or make the character, at least apparently, heterosexual -- one suggestion was that, should the series the book is part of be a huge hit, the character could be revealed to be gay later on. Ugh.
I am frankly astonished that anybody should have such an experience in 2011, but that just shows my naivete, and my enormous good luck in having an editor who told me that the same-sex relationship in my forthcoming novel was one of the things she liked.
The article is set up so that other authors who have had similar experiences can comment pseudonymously if they like. I am curious but alarmed to see how many more writers have had this happen to them.
Pamela

ETA: The agent not named in the original Genreville post has responded:

http://theswivet.blogspot.com/2011/09/guest-blogger-joanna-stampfel-volpe.html

sartorias and rachelmanija have responded in turn:

http://rachelmanija.livejournal.com/969918.html

And Malinda Lo, who has published YA novels with gay characters, produces some statistics, which demonstrates that really, there is a serious problem here:

http://www.malindalo.com/2011/09/i-have-numbers-stats-on-lgbt-young-adult-books-published-in-the-u-s/

Having known sartorias for the better part of 25 years, and having known rachelmanija for a much shorter but non inconsiderable amount of time, I am inclined to look askance at the agent's version of events.

Comments

[kore-on-lj.livejournal.com]

Nobody is saying "it's impossible to sell a gay fantasy or science fiction to the YA market because of publishing homophobia." That is your straw man.

[willshetterly.livejournal.com]

Then why did the unnamed agent refuse the book?

[nellorat.livejournal.com]

If the odds of selling the book are non-zero but still worse that if it didn't have a gay p.o.v. character, the agent just didn't want to mess with it, instead wanting to take on books with better odds--possibly including this book with the p.o.v. removed. That doesn't seem hard to understand or at all implausible.

[willshetterly.livejournal.com]

Forgive me for asking, but do you have any experience with publishing? Agents don't have 100% success rates. Those who don't have agendas accept books they think might sell and reject books they're sure they can't. That shouldn't seem hard to understand or at all implausible.

Have you seen the list that Rachel is commenting on?

http://tanuki-green.livejournal.com/329393.html

It would seem to be proof that you can sell gay YA fantasy & SF. What agent wouldn't want someone with the potential for success like Holly Black's?

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Just for the record, since this is bugging me for no good reason -- Tanuki Green is hosting that. Rachel Manija and her blog-commenters are the ones who compiled that list. So she's less commenting on it and more using it as a useful piece of activism.

[willshetterly.livejournal.com]

I'm not following your distinction. Didn't Rachel say something about commenting on stuff there? That's why I used the word.

It is interesting to me that this activism isn't to make something new but to establish that something has existed for some time.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Ah. When you say “have you seen the list that Rachel is commenting on” it implied to me that she was simply someone remarking upon it, one of a group of commenters, and not a creator of it. Thank you for clarifying.

I think it’s a perfectly reasonable kind of activism. If I (as a hypothetical teenager in, to pick an example, relatively isolated northern New Hampshire) don’t know more books about queer kids exist, it’s hard to read them. Lists help. Lists also help those of us who want to buy more books, buy more books. (Mind you, it’s only one small part of the activism suggested in her post, too.)

Anyway. I’m going to bed. G’night!

[willshetterly.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree about the usefulness of lists. If you track back the conversation here, I was saying I hoped someone was making some before anyone mentioned that some existed. What strikes me is that this advocacy is proving something that's been true for a while; I'm used to advocacy that's fighting for something new.

But sometimes you have to fight rearguard actions.

Anyway, I hear Rachel and Sherwood are getting some interest in the book now, so here's wishing them the best of luck in selling it!

G'night!