My writing books with positive gay characters has come more out of anger than anything else: anger at not having been able to find honest, accurate books about people like myself as a teen, books that show we're as diverse as straight people and that we can lead happy, healthy, productive lives just as straight people can.

When I was growing up as a young lesbian in the '50s, I looked in vain for books about my people. I did find some paperbacks with lurid covers in the local bus station, but they ended with the gay character's committing suicide, dying in a car crash, being sent to a mental hospital, or 'turning' heterosexual.

I think kids in every minority need to see people like themselves in books; that's an acknowledgment of their existence on this planet and in this society.

I write for young people because I like them and because I think they are important. Children's books can be mind-stretchers and imagination-ticklers and builders of good taste in a way that adult books cannot, because young people usually come to books with more open minds. It's exciting to be able to contribute to that in a small way.

My coming out, like most people's, was and is a gradual process - for no matter how out one is, there are always situations when one's with people who don't know, and one has the choice or, sometimes, the necessity of coming out to them.

Buon Natale,” she whispered, “amore mio.” “Merry Christmas, my love,” I answered.

Chad kept kidding me that I was in love, and asking with whom, and then Sally and Walt did, too, and after a while I didn’t even mind, because even if they had the wrong idea about it, they were right. Soon it wasn’t hard any more to say it – to myself, I mean, as well as over and over again to Annie – and to accept her saying it to me.

I think one reason why we didn’t move away from each other was because if we had, that would have been an acknowledgment that we were touching in the first place.

Oh,” she said, putting her hand to her throat – it was a suprisingly long, slender hand, in contrast to the roundness of her face.

Ugh! Young girls, they should laugh. Life’s bad enough when you’re grown, you might as well laugh when you’re young.