Discussing Diversity in YA Fiction

Author Jenna Terese has a wonderful article up on her blog today that explores the issue of presenting diverse characters in young adult fiction, especially in Christian YA fiction.  She asked for book recommendations and overall opinions and thoughts from writers and readers alike, and compiled those in this post, along with her own thoughts.  Please do yourself a favor and go read it here.  (And I'm not just saying that because I contributed some of my opinions.)

Jenna is a Christian YA author, like me, and I've been following her Instagram and her blog for a while now because she has such wonderful enthusiasm for stories, as well as great insights into the writing process.

When I started writing my Once Upon a Western series, I committed myself to including characters from many different racial and ethnic backgrounds because the Old West was a remarkably diverse place, but our fiction and movies often don't reflect that.  So this is a topic I have thought a lot about, both as a reader and a writer, and also as a mom who's raising three young Christians.  I'm grateful to Terese for exploring this topic in such a thoughtful way!