GAYYA
GayYA.org is a website and blog dedicated to everything LGBTQIA+ in YA! We started in April 2011 after Jessica Verday was asked to change her m/m story in the Wicked, Pretty Things anthology to a m/f pairing. The reaction from the YA community was incredible and made it clear to us that there were tons of fans who loved Gay YA and they needed a place to talk about it and be heard.
When we launched in 2011, our mission was to mobilize a clear and active market for LGBTQIA+ YA. Most publishers weren’t straightening characters because of outright homophobia, but because they believed books with gay characters wouldn’t sell. At that time, there were only a handful of titles from major publishers being published every year that had LGBTQIA+ characters. Now, there are almost too many published each year for any one person to keep up with!