One of our goals for the new image of the LGBTQIAP+ profile is to showcase the best of undiscovered talent. We have so many diamonds in the rough around the platform and we need to do better in ensuring they get the spotlight that they deserve too!

Are you ready for the next author interview?

*voice of Fairy Godmother in Shrek*

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Short Story

Teen Fiction/LGBTQ

#bear #boyxboy #bxb #coming-of-age #completed #depression #drama #featured #freethelgbt #gay #generalfiction #grief #hope #lgbt #lgbtfiction #lgbtliteraryawards #lgbtq #romance #shortfiction #shortstory #songfic #songfiction #sunflowerawards2 #teenfiction #youngadult

Following the death of his brother, Drew's parents leave him to his own devices. Unable to cope, and incapable of grieving alone, Drew feels he's slowly turning invisible.

Forced to relocate for spring break, he stumbles over what could be his salvation, in the woods behind his grandfather's house.

For Aiden, his former child-hood crush that's arrived back is now all sorts of weird. But before he can decide if it's good weird, he's unwillingly pulled into a plan to help Drew keep a secret, one that would put him at odds with his own parents.

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Author of Bear Town, The Last of Us, The Dead Ones, and The Edge of Eighteen

I wrote Bear Town for the LGBTQ+ Song-Fiction contest. They challenged me to write a short story inspired by a song, with a principal character that identifies as LGBTQ+. I chose '' by a band called The Amity Affliction. The song is very dark but insanely awesome. The lyrics cover the theme of grief, and I took this as inspiration along with the title, although I admit, I swapped the horse for a bear.

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For Bear Town, I spent a lot of time researching grief, only to find that everyone experiences it slightly differently. It became a challenge to portray the subject in a way I had not tackled before. Normally, I will try to do some research before I start a new story, but probably not as much as I should.

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I came to Wattpad as a reader. After a year of being a silent one, I entered the Open Novella contest in 2019, and my writing journey began. This contest is one of my favourites on the platform, and the encouragement the Wattpad community provides is invaluable. I have met a tonne of exceptional writers since, many that I now call friends.

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If I can choose historical as opposed to dead, I would invite my younger self. I would share insights that took me decades to learn, how to avoid the mistakes I learned nothing from, and tell her that the spring roll she ate in Munich wasn't a spring roll after all.

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Netflix. Eating. Netflix. And I read quite a lot.

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I am testing the waters with a new teen-fiction mystery. The story features an introverted teen that is forced to help a fellow student unravel the mystery of the night she never came home. But as with all good mysteries, my protagonist has secrets of his own, even if he doesn't know it.

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, , , , , and are all super talented.

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To keep going, even when you think you suck, because you have to persevere to improve. And don't be afraid to hit that publish button either!

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Only three songs, geez, you're tough. I don't think I could pick. There would definitely be a song for when I'm happy, one for when I'm sad, and another to chill with.

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Thank you so much for doing this interview with us, ! It was a fun time!

Undiscovered reads are always a favorite of ours and we will try our best to recognize more and more writers of these hidden gems. So now we have a mission for all you participants...

Using the inline comments below, Show some love for authors of hidden gems.

Stay groovy, folks!

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