Ellen Wittlinger, Author of Hard-Hitting Queer YA, Has Died

On the identical day information broke concerning the loss of YA creator Marcus Sedgwick, the YA group misplaced one more legend within the subject. Ellen Wittlinger, who wrote groundbreaking, hard-hitting life like YA that includes queer characters in an period the place such tales have been exceedingly uncommon, died November 17, 2022.

Wittlinger’s profession started as a playwright within the Seventies and 80s, after she earned her MFA on the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. Though she continued to jot down performs and be lively within the playwriting world, she discovered a real residence along with her writing abilities and writing voice in YA.

Hard Love, printed in 1999 and her third novel, was a finalist for YALSA’s first ever Printz Award. It was additionally a Lambda Literary Award winner, and it earned starred critiques and significant acclaim from a number of main shops. The story follows a boy and a lady who join over zines and, by way of the course of their friendship, navigate parental divorce, sexuality, and what it means to search out oneself.

“Maybe the most important thing that winning the Printz Honor Award did was make me feel legitimate in my own eyes. Even though it was my third YA novel, winning a major prize gave me a feeling of acceptance in the field that I hadn’t had before. Suddenly I felt confident about saying, “Yes, this is what I do–I write novels for teenagers,”” mentioned Wittlinger in an interview with Cynthia Leitich Smith in 2005.

Central to Wittlinger’s books have been teen characters navigating emotionally-complex conditions, and she or he didn’t draw back from depicting the darkish components of the adolescent expertise. Her tales featured characters who have been acutely aware of class, in addition to social realities. Wittlinger printed all through the early 2000s, throughout a time when queer YA — significantly brazenly queer YA — was uncommon.

Wittlinger is perhaps finest recognized for her e book Parrotfish, one of the primary books in YA that includes a trans important character. Published in 2007, the e book follows Grady as he comes out as transgender and begins to transition, regardless of heavy opposition from family members. The e book earned a Lambda Literary Award nomination. Parrotfish was a uncommon story giving energy to trans teenagers in a time when such tales weren’t being printed, and ten years after publication, Wittlinger and her editor up to date the e book to make use of extra correct language across the trans expertise. Though a product of its 2007 publication, many cite it as the primary time they noticed themselves mirrored in books written for them.

Tributes to the creator got here in over social media upon studying the information.

Other books by Wittlinger embrace What’s In a Name, Zig Zag, Someone Else’s Shoes, Love & Lies: Marisol’s Story, Local Girl Swept Away, and extra.