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The Openly YA Tour, which celebrates gay characters in YA literature, celebrated its final tour stop with laughter, giveaways, and performances. The tour, which ran during the first week of LGBT Pride Month, had its last event at New York City’s Books of Wonder on June 6^th.
While authors David Levithan (Hold Me Closer), Adam Silvera (More Happy than Not), Bill Konigsberg (The Porcupine of Truth) and Will Walton (Anything Could Happen) made up the Openly YA panel, that night they were joined by James Dawson (This Book Is Gay) who was there to celebrate his first American book release.
The five men, snuggled at the front of an eager and enthusiastic crowd, respectively spoke about their books in seated order. Dawson went first, informing the audience that his publisher actually approached him about a nonfiction book, seeing that he was a sex education teacher at the time.
“I initially said no because I felt like I couldn’t be an authority on gay women, or bi people, or people of color, or people who are not able-bodied,” admitted Dawson. But when the perfect title popped into his head, he decided to go through with the project. To create This Book is Gay, a book that discusses everything from sex to politics from an LGBTQ perspective, Dawson spoke to more than 500 LGBTQ individuals.
Read more about the Openly YA tour.