What else should I be? All apologies.

so i immigrated to the US at age 9, right, and one of the first things my family did was join the local Chinese church. as far as the whole “figuring out how to do things so we no longer have to live in the back shed of Uncle Joe’s* Magic Emporium” thing goes, it’s a pretty sound strategy! now we had people to teach my dad how to drive and give us old furniture and say “hey, Seattle is pretty rainy maybe you should rent an apartment-like space before either a) the shed roof caves in b) your daughter with the famously delicate constitution falls dramatically ill from a strain of black mold or possibly herpes”

*is not my uncle, that’s what his store was called. he sold magic gadgets and my dad knew him because???? possibly in a past life they ran a meth empire in Albuquerque, who knows

ANYWAY. thanks to the church i did not fall dramatically ill from black mold or possibly herpes, but there was an unforeseen factor in joining a Christian church, which was that they? were pretty hardcore? about Jesus?**

**in a nice “we build houses for the homeless” way, not in…the other way

given that we’d just immigrated and that China’s religious policy is worshiping Mao’s preserved corpse ehhhhh…let’s call it “freedom of atheism,” my family was decidedly not hardcore about Jesus. my parents mostly took the bemused “i guess Jesus is okay since he indirectly led to us living in a place suited for human habitation” route, but i

was

DISGUSTED.

i was the first kid in my class to get her red scarf, okay, and when we sang the national anthem and saluted the flag every morning i fucking meant what i was singing. we almost didn’t come to America; my dad had more lucrative job offers in Germany and Belgium, but i put my foot down because everyone knows Europe is full of gross imperialists Dad, GOSH, and the Americans helped us fight off the Japanese.

so seeing all these fellow Chinese believing in THE CAPITALIST GOD was basically the worst thing to ever happen to my delicate psyche. my parents’ tacit approval was even worse: DID PATRIOTISM AND COMMUNISM MEAN NOTHING TO THEM? DIDN’T THEY KNOW THAT DOING NOTHING AGAINST OPPRESSION MADE THEM OPPRESSORS THEMSELVES??

clearly something needed to be done.

so because the church was pretty hardcore about Jesus, it was understandably also hardcore about Christmas. big party, massive intricately decorated REAL TREE, sleepover for the kids with presents in the morning—you name it. everyone was going to be there.

WHAT A GREAT OPPORTUNITY TO PROVE TO EVERYONE HOW WRONG THEY ARE ABOUT JESUS.

my plan:

sleep UNDER the giant real Christmas tree: y’know, the one with real pointy needles reaching all the way down to the base? that sheds? with lots of pokey tinsel?

catch Jesus in the act of depositing presents***: look. i’d seen like, ALL of Scooby Doo by this point. i knew Jesus was probably a real person, just not the Son of God.

subdue Jesus so he’s still around when everyone else wakes up: CLEARLY VERY FEASIBLE, given that Jesus was a heavyset white dude who used superhuman agility and strength to deliver presents around the world overnight and possibly had reindeer minions and i weighed 70 pounds at most while sopping wet.

(who is Santa Claus?? who cares)

????

EVERYONE MAGICALLY BECOMES AN ATHEIST AGAIN, AMERICA BECOMES A COMMUNIST STATE

***even if i didn’t believe in him, why was i slavishly devoted stopping a highly altruistic man who gave? people? presents? did i hate joy????

sure enough, at around 3 in the morning i heard soft boots approaching the tree. i reached out and snatched one of the Ankles of Jesus

—whereupon Youth Pastor Liao screamed “OH MY LORD” and kicked me in the face.

Kilfane Glen, Ireland

I want to tell you guys a story.

A few years ago, I came out to my mom the morning after my senior prom. She was surprised, then quiet, then asked what my real orientation was. I said, “I have no idea, but I like this one girl.” She was a little confused, but she kissed me and said, “As long as she makes you happy.” For the next few weeks, she asked a lot of questions: when did I realize? What was my new girlfriend’s orientation? What was the word for this or that? I WAS happy, right?

Fast forward about two years. My mom sits me down and tells me that she needs my help with her next book. She’s been writing middle-grade girls’ books (like, 9-14 range) since I was eight, and she says she has an idea that she really, really wants to get right. It follows the plot of Romeo and Juliet, she says, and the main character is a twelve-year-old girl realizing she has a crush on another girl when they put on the play for English class.

Fast forward another year to now. STAR-CROSSED is about to come out, and it is absolutely amazing.

My mom has poured her heart and soul into making sure this is a positive thing for kids to read. I’ve been reading and editing and helping with this book since its first draft and I’ve been, metaphorically and sometimes literally bouncing up and down on my heels, waiting to be able to tell people about it. It’s beyond sweet, and there’s a ton of Shakespeare and humor and goofy preteen drama and twelve-year-old girls flirting and Star Wars jokes and a glossary of Shakespearean insults in the back (yes, really), and it’s just so fun and positive and smart and I want to show it to every kid I know.

This book is for LGBT kids, written by a mom who has asked questions and done her research and tried as hard as she possibly could to make her own queer kid feel safe and loved and valid, and it REALLY shows. Mattie (the cutie on the left) and Gemma (the cutie on the right) are given space to learn about themselves, and ultimately they don’t have to figure themselves out right away or come out to everyone at once or choose a label. They’re kids. It’s okay to still be figuring things out. It’s okay. 

Fun facts: 

My mom said from the beginning she wanted both girls on the cover to make it clear what the book was about; then when they got the final artwork and Mattie’s hair was short, my mom wrote back and asked the artist to do the hair over to make it as obvious as possible that Mattie is a girl. 

When a few people started buzzing about Mattie being the youngest bisexual protagonist they’ve seen, she went back and changed passages to confirm that Mattie likes boys and girls. 

When I asked for a happier and less ambiguous ending scene, she set Mattie and Gemma up on a frigging date. 

I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation indivisible, Liberty and Justice for all,” read Bellamy’s Pledge of Allegiance, which was published in the September 8, 1892 issue of Youth’s Companion. On October 12 that year, according to The Journal of Education, “upwards of 13 million pupils” recited the Pledge.

Those who did so also performed what became known as the Bellamy Salute, which, according to the American Flag Association, called for students to keep their “right hand uplifted, palm downward, to a line with the forehead and close to it.”