Project Unicorn
Aug. 3rd, 2012 09:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elabyTwo of my very favorite authors (and favorite people), Sarah and Jenn Diemer, released the first of their lesbian YA stories for their incredibly awesome Project Unicorn today. Does Project Unicorn sound awesome to you? I thought so!
From their site:
Project Unicorn: A Queer-Girl, YA Extravaganza! is a fiction project created by lesbian YA authors Sarah Diemer and Jennifer Diemer. It was created because of the obvious lack of queer-girl heroines in the Young Adult genre, and the critical need for them.
Project Unicorn is updated twice weekly with a free, original, never-before-published YA short story featuring a lesbian heroine. Also, every story is a work of genre fiction (Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Dystopian, Post-apocalyptic, Historical, etc.).
You can read the first story, "Witch Girls" by Sarah, for free by visiting the Project Unicorn site. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but Sarah's writing is always beautiful and stirring and this project is incredibly important. I didn't know enough about myself when I was an adolescent to understand why I was so uninterested and then increasingly irritated by many of the romances in books I read. I thought for many years that it was just a rebellion against the idea that romance is necessary for living a happy, fulfilled life. While I still rebel against that idea, I also believe that a large part of my lack of patience with romance in stories was because I couldn't feel any personal connection with the relationship. In high school, I thought I would "grow out of" my discomfort and disinterest at the idea of romantically being with a guy. Luckily, I found out I didn't have to :)
Even though I never recognized my disconnection with straight romances in stories for what it was, there are lots (and lots and LOTS) of kids who understand that they're not straight and need stories that validate them. Sarah and Jenn say it better than I ever could - please read their dialogue about why writing gay YA matters (click the links to their other blog posts on similar topics - you won't be sorry!)
From their site:
Project Unicorn: A Queer-Girl, YA Extravaganza! is a fiction project created by lesbian YA authors Sarah Diemer and Jennifer Diemer. It was created because of the obvious lack of queer-girl heroines in the Young Adult genre, and the critical need for them.
Project Unicorn is updated twice weekly with a free, original, never-before-published YA short story featuring a lesbian heroine. Also, every story is a work of genre fiction (Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Dystopian, Post-apocalyptic, Historical, etc.).
You can read the first story, "Witch Girls" by Sarah, for free by visiting the Project Unicorn site. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but Sarah's writing is always beautiful and stirring and this project is incredibly important. I didn't know enough about myself when I was an adolescent to understand why I was so uninterested and then increasingly irritated by many of the romances in books I read. I thought for many years that it was just a rebellion against the idea that romance is necessary for living a happy, fulfilled life. While I still rebel against that idea, I also believe that a large part of my lack of patience with romance in stories was because I couldn't feel any personal connection with the relationship. In high school, I thought I would "grow out of" my discomfort and disinterest at the idea of romantically being with a guy. Luckily, I found out I didn't have to :)
Even though I never recognized my disconnection with straight romances in stories for what it was, there are lots (and lots and LOTS) of kids who understand that they're not straight and need stories that validate them. Sarah and Jenn say it better than I ever could - please read their dialogue about why writing gay YA matters (click the links to their other blog posts on similar topics - you won't be sorry!)
