Queer Book List Origin Story

It was during my years as an undergrad that I first began to take interest in literature about queer adolescence.  At the time, I was only interested in adult literature and focused on coming out narratives and coming of age narratives in particular. During my first semester of graduate school, I took a class on children’s and young adult literature. It was during this class that I first thought to look at young adult literature in an academic and theoretical way.

As I began to work on a paper on queer young adult literature for that course, I realized how limited the resources were. Very few records exist tracking queer young adult publications, and of those few even less do so in an academic way. It became clear that I would have to build this intellectual database myself. I started to take notes about the books that I was reading, focusing on the depiction of queer content and characters. I realized that if I was doing the work then I had a responsibility to share it with others who can benefit from it. After a month or so of planning, queerbooklist.com was born.

The following semester I took a course run by the education department, something that I would never do again after earning my certification to teach high school English as an undergrad. The class made me think about issues that I had not considered in years, especially the importance of including queer content in the classroom. I began thinking about how I could expand this site in order to serve this goal. I started designing lesson plans to go with the books that I was reading and thinking of other resources that I might add.

Queer Book List is meant to be a resource for all. What started as a way for me to keep track of what I was reading, has grown into something far greater. In less than a year this site has evolved in ways that I could never have imagined, and this blog is just the newest expansion. I already have a few ideas for future features, but who knows how else Queer Book List might eventually expand. It is still a small site right now, but I can imagine in becoming far larger.