Love & LiteraTea Opportunity for LGBTQ+ High School Students

This week we’re pleased to share the Love & LiteraTea online book group. Love and LiteraTea is “a safe and affirming place for LGBTQ+ youth to connect through books and pop culture”.

Every academic year, students and facilitators will read and discuss LGBTQ+ young adult books along with supplementary literature and media. The books chosen as the foundational texts for this year center on authors and characters who identify as LGBTQ+ and Black, Indigenous, People of Color. The list of books can be found at the end of our blog.

This Fall will be their first year. Their mission is to empower, uplift, and provide community for LGBTQ+ youth by reading and discussing the work of LGBTQ+ writers and artists. Founded by queer teachers, shea martin and Dr. Cody Miller, Love & LiteraTea is a virtual community that aims to create connections in a space rooted in radical love, truth, and pride. 

This group is not a class, and there are no grades. Love and LiteraTea is a space to read, discuss, and amplify LGBTQ+ stories. “This space is by and for LGBTQ people who love reading, sharing, and discussing books!”

Love & Literatea is run by Dr. Henry “Cody” Miller and shea martin.                                 

                                 Dr. Henry “Cody” Miller (he/him/his)        shea martin (they/them/theirs)

Any members of the LGBTQ+ community who are in high school are welcome to join. The application process can be found here (https://www.loveliteratea.com/apply) and applications are due at 11:59PM on October 5, 2020.

Please share this information with anyone who may be interested.

Love & Literatea is free to join, and books will be provided to readers pending funding. (Group members can also buy their own books). Dr. Miller and shea martin will meet bi-weekly (and virtually) with exact dates TBD.

Here are the books Love & LiteraTea will be discussing this year:

“Anger is a Gift” by Mark Oshiro        “The Black Flamingo” by Dean Atta

   

“Felix Ever After” by Kacen Callender   "Juliet Takes a Breath” by Gabby Rivera    

              

“Like a Love Story” by Abdi Nazemian "Cemetery Boys” by Aiden Thomas

For those who are not able to join but would still love to contribute, here is the GoFundMe to find more information and donate: https://www.gofundme.com/f/loveliteratea?utm_source=customer&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link_all

In addition, here is their Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/loveliteratea

The first $1000 raised will go towards supplying a copy of their first book to each participant, digital resources accompanying the book, and a safe, password protected space for participants and facilitators to meet.

In addition, check out shea martin (https://twitter.com/sheathescholar) and Cody Miller (https://twitter.com/codymillerela) on Twitter to get to know them!

Here is their website to get more information: https://www.loveliteratea.com/

The NCSCL is so happy to hear about this fantastic opportunity for LGBTQ+ youth. Please share this with anyone who may be interested!

-(SS)

Dr. Naomi Hamer's Talk "Enter Through the Gift Shop"

Hello scholars!

We are so excited to invite you to Dr. Naomi Hamer’s talk, “Enter through the Gift Shop: Transmedia Storytelling and the Picture Book from Mobile Apps to Museums”.  Dr. Hamer’s talk will be February 19, 2020 4:00 to 5:30pm in Love Library 430. We are always so grateful for such insightful talks, and we know this one will be no different!

Dr. Naomi Hamer is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at Ryerson University. Her current research and publications examine the cross-media adaptation of children's literature with a focus on picture books, mobile apps, and children’s museums. She is the co-editor of More Words About Pictures: Current Research on Picture Books and Visual/Verbal Texts for Young People (eds. Hamer, Nodelman and Reimer, 2017), and The Routledge Companion of Fairy-tale Cultures and Media (eds. Greenhill, Rudy, Hamer, and Bosc, 2018). Her current research project (Curating the Story Museum) has been awarded a SSHRC Insight Development Grant.

This lecture presents highlights from her ongoing research on the adaptation, remediation, and commodification of picture books. This work focuses on how transmedia storytelling offers opportunities for counterpoint and disruptive narratives by authors and readers of picture books while also addressing the limitations of interactive and mobile technologies. Framed by cross-disciplinary work on transmedia storytelling and digital cultures, cross-media case studies of canonical picture books reveal the absences and omissions in the texts chosen by publishing houses, entertainment companies, and children's museums for adaptations and exhibitions focused on picture books. The lives and experiences of Indigenous youth, 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, and young people of color (and their families) are only recently featured as central to picture books, and tend to be less likely the focus for dominant cross-media franchises. This lecture particularly explores the development of the Pism Finds her Miskanow story app (2019) as well as select examples from picture book exhibitions as venues for dialogue and play with picture book narratives.

Leading up to the talk you can find Dr. Hamer on Twitter @naomihamertime to get to know her!

We look forward to seeing you there!

-(SS)

Trans+: Love, Sex, Romance, and Being You

Trans+: Love, Sex, Romance, and Being You by Kathryn Gonzales and Karen Rayne is excellently self-described as “a ground-breaking, all-inclusive, uncensored must-have guide for teens who are transgender, nonbinary, gender-nonconforming, gender-fluid, or questioning their gender identity, and for cis-allies” (Gonzales & Rayne, back cover).

For the sake of this blog post, I would like to state I am a cis woman, so I am coming from an ally perspective, and therefore I cannot speak to the accuracy of the trans experience that is depicted and described. Although I cannot speak to the accuracy of this aspect, the novel is written by a trans woman and includes many diaries of teens with a variety of gender expressions and sexual identities explaining their experiences with being transgender, nonbinary, gender-nonconforming, gender-fluid, or questioning their identity.

­ Trans+ is an incredibly welcoming book, with a muted grey cover and the title is in the colors of the trans flag. It starts off introducing the backgrounds of the authors of the book and teens interviewed for the diary entries. 

In media, it can sometimes seem as if there is only one way to be trans, and that is to be passing as cisgender, but Gonzales and Rayne break this misconception down. Trans+ does not describe the process of transitioning as perfect and emphasizes that no one transition is “ideal” or has to follow a certain set of rules. Gonzales and Rayne break down stigma surrounding the discussion of gender and sexuality and approach it in an understandable manner, and yet the readers are never babied or talked down to.

Diverging from the written content, I would like to point to the pictures in this book and applaud the illustrator, although they are not named in the book. I cannot include copies of the illustrations, but I can promise that the illustrations are excellent, depicting people of varying races, religions, and (dis)abilities.

This book is not perfect; I would recommend a bit more of an emphasis on the potential dangers of improper chest binding and how that could permanently damage chest tissue (Gonzales & Rayne, 109), but they do somewhat caution to be aware of how you are physically feeling when binding. There may be inaccuracies I was not aware of, but it overall seems incredibly inclusive and well researched.

There were some issues with paragraphs repeating exactly, a couple typos, and some more terms should be added to the glossary, including ‘neutrois’ and some other terms, but this is something that can be easily fixed.

Trans+ is an excellent book, and after additional reviewing I believe it should be in all schools and libraries for teens and adults alike of all identities to access. Trans+ is set to be published in August of 2019 through Magination Press, and I highly recommend you all check it out. I look forward to the final copy being released!

-SS

Citation: Gonzales, Kathryn, and Karen Rayne. Trans+: Love, Sex, Romance, and Being You.      Magination Press, 2019.