by Michael Earp
// qlife.org.au or 1800 184 527
A free national and anonymous peer counselling and referral service for LGBTI people. QLife have phone and web-based services for all ages.
// au.reachout.com
A free online mental health service for people under twenty-five run by an Australian non-profit. The website has information, fact sheets, tools, stories, videos and a forum.
// www.trans101.org.au
Trans 101 is a starter pack designed to help support trans people around you. Offers a selection of videos and a booklet that provide a crash course in what it means to be trans and how to make the world a better, safer, happier place for trans and gender diverse people.
// www.ygender.org.au
A Melbourne-based peer-led support and advocacy organisation for trans and gender diverse young people. They provide an autonomous space to support each other and advocate for trans and gender diverse rights.
#LoveOzYA is a community-driven initiative that, at its heart, is a way to focus the discussions around YA fiction in Australia. By doing so, it promotes local content to local readers.
The movement began online in 2015, and rapidly garnered the attention of writers, readers, publishers, booksellers and many more invested in our national youth literature. Its aim is to draw the attention of Australian readers, and teens in particular, to Australian books that speak to their experience.
#LoveOzYA unites the youth-literature community by promoting a united message, centralising information and raising the profile of local content. The #LoveOzYA community is represented by an elected Committee who facilitate discussion, speak to the media and carry out actions on behalf of the group.
Follow the hashtag on social media to connect with the #LoveOzYA community. You can also see what’s going on all over the country on the official website: loveozya.com.au
To find Australian YA books with queer content, #AusQueerYA is where it’s at.
When the #LoveOzYA movement started, Michael Earp launched a Tumblr that aims to catalogue all Australian YA titles with LGBTQIA+ content or characters. He also created the #AusQueerYA hashtag as an easy way to indicate this content on social media.
If queer content or characters exist in an Australian book’s literary world, then you’ll find the book on the official blog: auslgbtqya.tumblr.com
JAX JACKI BROWN is a disability and LGBTI consultant, writer, spoken-word performer, public speaker, disability sexuality educator and workshop designer and facilitator. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Cultural Studies and Communication, where she focused on disability and LGBTI studies, providing a sound academic framework to affirm and explore her commitment to disability and social justice issues. Her written work has been published on websites such as Junkee, Daily Life, The Feminist Observer, Writers Victoria, ABC’s Ramp Up and in print for Archer Magazine: The Australian Journal for Sexual Diversity, Queer Disability Anthology (2015), Doing It: Women Tell the Truth About Great Sex (2016), Queerstories: Reflections On Lives Well Lived From Some of Australia’s Finest LGBTQIA+ Writers (2018) and the upcoming Black Inc anthology Growing Up Queer in Australia.
CLAIRE G COLEMAN is a Wirlomin Noongar woman whose ancestral country is in the South Coast of Western Australia. Her debut novel Terra Nullius (2017) won a Black&Write! Fellowship, the Norma K Hemming Award and the Tin Duck Award for Best Long Written Work. It was also short-listed for the Stella Prize and an Aurealis Award. Her second novel The Old Lie will be released in September 2019.
MICHAEL EARP is the editor of Kindred: 12 Queer #LoveOzYA Stories. He has passionately worked with Children’s and YA books for more than 16 years. He has a degree in Early Childhood Education and a Masters in Children’s Literature. He is a contributor to Underdog: #LoveOzYA Short Stories (edited by Tobias Madden) and his writing has appeared in The Victorian Writer, Aurealis and Concrete Queers. He also established the #AusQueerYA tumblr to coincide with the #LoveOzYA campaign, of which he was previously the Committee Chair.
ALISON EVANS is the award-winning author of the YA books Ida (2017), winner of the People’s Choice at the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, and Highway Bodies (2019). They like to write about strange ideas and queer people. Alison is the co-editor of Concrete Queers with Katherine Back, a zine they started in 2015 that features work by queer and questioning creators.
ERIN GOUGH is a Sydney writer whose award-winning short stories have been published in a number of journals and anthologies, including The Age, Going Down Swinging and Black Inc.’s Best Australian Stories. She won the Ampersand Prize for her first novel for young adults, The Flywheel (2015), which was also short-listed for the Children’s Book Council of Australia Young Adult Book of the Year and the Gold Inky. Her second novel, Amelia Westlake (2018), won the Readings Young Adult Book Prize and has been short-listed for a number of other awards.
BENJAMIN LAW is the author of the memoir The Family Law (2010), the travel book Gaysia: Adventures in the Queer East (2012) – both nominated for Australian Book Industry Awards – and the Quarterly Essay on Safe Schools, Moral Panic 101 (2017). He’s the co-author of Shit Asian Mothers Say (2014) with his sister Michelle, and the sex/relationships advice book Law School (2017) with his mother Jenny. Benjamin has written for over 50 publications in Australia and beyond – including The Monthly, frankie, Good Weekend, The Guardian, The Australian, Monocle and The Australian Financial Review – and has a PhD in creative writing from QUT. The Family Law is now also an award-winning TV series, which Benjamin created and co-wrote. He was also a researcher and associate producer on Blackfella Films’ Deep Water: The Real Story (SBS) and a writer on Endemol Shine’s Sisters (Ten). He is co-host of ABC RN’s weekly pop culture show Stop Everything, and a panellist on TV shows like ABC’s Screen Time, Q&A and The Drum.
OMAR SAKR’s new book, The Lost Arabs (UQP), is out now. His first collection, These Wild Houses, was short-listed for the Kenneth Slessor Prize and the Judith Wright Calanthe Award. His poetry has been published in English, Spanish and Arabic, in numerous journals and anthologies including Prairie Schooner, Griffith Review, Overland, Meanjin, Peril, Cordite Poetry Review, The Best Australian Poems 2016, The New Arab and Circulo de Poesía. Runner-up for the Judith Wright Poetry Prize, he has also been short-listed for the ACU Poetry Prize, the Story Wine Prize and the Fair Australia Poetry Prize.
CHRISTOS TSIOLKAS is the author of five novels including Loaded (1995), which was made into the feature film Head-On, The Jesus Man (1999) and Dead Europe (2005), which won the 2006 Age Fiction Prize and the 2006 Melbourne Best Writing Award. He won Overall Best Book in the 2009 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, was short-listed for the 2009 Miles Franklin Literary Award and long-listed for the 2010 Man Booker Prize. He won the Australian Literary Society Gold Medal for his novel The Slap (2008), which also won the 2009 Australian Booksellers Association and Australian Book Industry Awards Books of the Year. Both The Slap and his novel Barracuda (2013) have been adapted for television. His latest book is Merciless Gods (2014). He is also a playwright, essayist and screenwriter. He lives in Melbourne.
ELLEN VAN NEERVEN is a young Yugambeh person from South East Queensland and the author of the poetry volume Comfort Food (2016) and the fiction collection Heat and Light (2014), which won numerous awards, including the 2013 David Unaipon Award, the 2015 Dobbie Award and the 2016 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Indigenous Writer’s Prize.
MARLEE JANE WARD is a writer, reader and podcaster from Melbourne. Her short fiction can be found at Interfictions, Apex, Aurealis, Andromeda Spaceways Magazine, Feminartsy and more. Her debut novella, Welcome To Orphancorp (2015), won the Viva La Novella Prize and the Victorian Premier’s Award for YA Fiction. Its sequels, Psynode (2017) and Prisoncorp (2019), complete the series. She is the host and producer of the podcast Catastropod.
JEN WILDE is the YA author of Queens of Geek and The Brightsiders. She writes unapologetically queer stories about geeks, rock stars and fangirls who smash the patriarchy in their own unique ways.
Her books have been praised by Teen Vogue, BuzzFeed, Autostraddle, Vulture and Bustle. Jen lives in Manhattan with her girlfriend, and her latest book, Going Off Script, is out now.
NEVO ZISIN is a Jewish, queer, non-binary activist, public speaker and author of Finding Nevo (2017), a memoir on gender transition. They are based in Melbourne/Naarm and run workshops and professional development in schools and workplaces around gender inclusivity, unconscious bias and recruitment. They have appeared in various media discussing their complex relationship with gender. Nevo is a contact point in the Jewish community for other children and families confronting issues of gender and sexuality in their own lives.
First published in 2019
by Walker Books Australia Pty Ltd
Locked Bag 22, Newtown
NSW 2042 Australia
www.walkerbooks.com.au
The moral rights of the anthologist and contributors have been asserted.
Anthology and Introduction © 2019 Michael Earp
Rats © 2019 Marlee Jane Ward
In Case of Emergency, Break Glass © 2019 Erin Gough
Bitter Draught © 2019 Michael Earp
I Like Your Rotation © 2019 Jax Jacki Brown
Sweet © 2019 Claire G. Coleman
Light Bulb © 2019 Nevo Zisin
Waiting © 2019 Jen Wilde
Laura Nyro at the Wedding © 2019 Christos Tsiolkas
Each City © 2019 Ellen van Neerven
An Arab Werewolf in Liverpool © 2019 Omar Sakr
Stormlines © 2019 Alison Evans
Questions to Ask Straight Relatives © 2019 Benjamin Law
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without the prior written permission of the publisher.
ISBN: 9781760651305 (ePub/mobi)
ISBN: 9781760651299 (ePDF)
Cover design by Amy Daoud.
Design © 2019 Walker Books Australia Pty Ltd.
COVER/INTERNAL IMAGES: (people) © GoodStudio/Shutterstock.com
Typeset in Berling
Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press
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