Abstract

While there has been an increase in the publication of homosexuality-themed young adult (YA) literature, novels that feature adolescent lesbian characters account for fewer than one-quarter of all published titles. The politics of production in YA literature with adolescent lesbian characters is a complex and multifaceted network of power relations. Originating with the author, or the hub, a production network linking author, editor/publishing house, reviewer and vendor/purchaser nodes, maintains gatekeeping functions that determine which lesbian images are constructed for consumption. While the author creates the lesbian characters in her book and decides the lesbian experiences therein conceived, these choices--whether or not conscious--have been impacted by both her personal ideologies and her perceptions of dominant values and norms, including those inherent within the network itself, which govern and inform notions of acceptability. Based upon interviews with seven authors regarding their novels, publication dates spanning from 1978 to 2003, a socioeconomic network model is deployed to understand how the politics of production makes the adolescent lesbian an invisible/visible girl in YA literature.