Why did you choose to write the book this way?ĭL: The voice of the book started in a short story I did for Michael Cart’s collection How Beautiful the Ordinary. This was really moving to me and reminded me of what a crucible that time was for the gay male community. ML: Though the narrators in Two Boys Kissing are unnamed, they appear to represent the generation of gay men who came of age in the 1980s (and maybe earlier), during the height of the AIDS crisis. And that in turn emboldens authors to try different things, and break more ground. There were still some people who were nervous about it when Boy Meets Boy came out (along with Keeping You a Secret, Geography Club, Rainbow Boys, Empress of the World, Kissing Kate, and other books in the 2002–03 wave.) That’s not the case now. On the publishing side, there’s no hesitation about LGBT YA anymore. But for so long, it was the only plot being offered (with some notable, rare exceptions), and that’s not the case now at all.

How would you compare today’s LGBT YA with what came out ten years ago? What do you think the biggest change has been?ĭavid Levithan: So much has changed! I think many of us have broken free of the misery plot that was prevalent in LGBT YA – which is not to say that the misery plot is in any way invalid or nonreflective of some LGBT teens’ experience. Malinda Lo: It’s been a decade since your book Boy Meets Boy was published, and a lot has changed since then in YA with regard to LGBT characters. In our interview, Levithan talked about how LGBT YA has changed in the last decade, and why he wanted to put two boys kissing on the cover of his book of the same name. Two Boys Kissing was recently longlisted for the National Book Award. Knopf, a novel about two teen boys who attempt to set a world record for kissing. Levithan’s most recent novel is Two Boys Kissing, published by Alfred A. Levithan also continues to write solo, including his 2012 novel Every Day, about a genderless teen who switches bodies - and thus genders - every day.

Boy Meets Boy won the 2003 Lambda Literary Award and was recently reissued in a tenth anniversary edition.Īmong Levithan’s other novels are Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, co-written with Rachel Cohn, which was made into a 2008 film and Will Grayson, Will Grayson, co-written with John Green. Levithan’s first YA novel, Boy Meets Boy, published in 2003, was a groundbreaking story in which gay teens lived in a completely accepting world. David Levithan is the author of numerous bestselling and award-winning young adult novels, as well as editorial director at Scholastic Press, where he co-founded the PUSH imprint.

Novel by david levithan