With November just around the corner, we’re hard at work on the final stages of marketing for Forgive Me If I’ve Told You This Before.
Karelia Stetz-Waters’s Triinu Hoffman, like so many other LGBTQ teens in public schools, is the subject of bullying—both from fellow students and from faculty. Triinu hides who she really is behind her goth exterior and keeps her pining for a friend, Ursula, a secret.
Stetz-Waters’s lyrical storytelling was what hooked me when I first read the earliest draft pitched to Ooligan. But reading through it again this past week, I remembered why I felt this novel absolutely had a place at our press. I fell in love with Triinu again as she tried to find her way through a world that did want her as she was. I loved Isabel for her fearlessness, I loved Pru-Ann and her ridiculous boy-craziness, and I loved Triinu’s classics-quoting parents. Despite the twenty-year gap between the novel’s events and the present day, Triinu’s story mirrors the struggle of so many young people, and it’s why I believe that this book is an important one—for us as a press and for the Young Adult genre, and especially because October is LGBTQ History Month! Websites like LGBT History Month have a countdown of LGBT icons, including Lord Byron, Billie Holiday, Marc Jacobs, Freddie Mercury, Frank Ocean and CeCe McDonald.
On October 11, 1987, hundreds of thousands participated in the Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. To commemorate this march, October 11 has become National Coming Out Day*. After the march, several LGBTQ organizations formed that still exist today, including the National Latino/a Gay & Lesbian Organization (LLEGÓ) and AT&T’s LGBT employee group, LEAGUE. Additionally, October was officially established as National LGBT History Month in 1994 in order to include National Coming Out Day.
And to celebrate National Coming Out Day, we’re offering a free download of the ebook of Forgive Me if I’ve Told You This Before here that day. Anyone who downloads the book on October 11 will be entered in a drawing for a free signed copy of the book if they review it on Amazon or Goodreads and send us the link via Twitter (@ooliganpress)! The winner will be chosen and notified by October 31, 2014.
“To this day National Coming Out Day continues to promote a safe world for LGBT individuals to live truthfully and openly.” —Human Rights Campaign.
For more information on LGBT History and National Coming Out Day, check out these resources:
*National Coming Out Day is a day to celebrate coming out. This does not mean it is mandatory nor should anyone be outed.