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Queer people exist. In the past, present and future.
Years and years of prejudice, erasure, being unseen, unvalued can add up to feeling alone, like you're wrong, broken, unwanted.
You aren't.
You're here. You are seen.
Years and years of prejudice, erasure, being unseen, unvalued can add up to feeling alone, like you're wrong, broken, unwanted.
You aren't.
You're here. You are seen.
It can mean the world to see someone like yourself existing, thriving, being— in our world, in a world you want to see. SFF is particularly dear to my heart because it's all about possibility. Swords, spaceships and magic, everything I wanted as a kid but thought was for others.
Being a hero, having grand destinies, adventures, magic, romance in the stars, saving the day— these stories, these happy endings— I couldn't ever imagine me, queer and brown and lost— getting to have any of that. Seeing someone like me getting to have any of that.
Why write? Why stories? Because stories have power. Because you exist, I exist, because there is so much more in the universe that you deserve but were taught that you don't.
2015 when I was writing NOT YOUR SIDEKICK feels like another era, a world where people told me a sapphic superhero adventure-romance would never sell. I didn't care. I just wanted the story to get out there, and I am so thankful @DuetBooks gave this story, this series a home.
The SIDEKICK SQUAD is three books with one more on the way— a series about queer teens fighting back against a corrupt government, with robots and superpowers and just getting to be kids and have some fun along the way. https://cb-lee.com/books/sidekick-squad-series/
Fun—that's what I would tell relatives, friends, coworkers who asked, "What are you writing? Why?" and I would dismiss myself, my genre, what I was doing— but I realized, to be queer and to thrive in a story, in a world where you are oft forgotten is important in of itself.
So thank you for reading, for sharing, for believing in stories. I'm honored to get to write more. It's been a struggle especially this year to create, for many people. I am proud of what I created this year, finished or not. The work, the plans, it's all part of it.
A story I wrote for a galaxy far, far away is coming into the world in two weeks. I'm nervous but also excited for you all to meet Chase. He's the kind of hero that I needed when I was a kid. A boy with a box and so much more. #FromACertainPOVStrikesBack https://twitter.com/DelReyStarWars/status/1321121455447416832
