Brent Hartinger is the author of Geography Club, a popular young adult novel about a group of gay, lesbian and bi teens who form a gay-straight alliance at their high school.

AfterEllen.com: What inspired you to write a young adult novel about gay teens?
Brent Hartinger: In many ways, the book is my own story, since it includes many of the things I experienced in high school. In some sense, I think I wrote the book to rewrite my own adolescence, but give it a better resolution (and a happier ending!). I've also worked with lgbtq teens, on an off, for years, and I knew there was an incredible need for a book like this. There still so little quality stuff out there.

But I think the biggest reason I wrote it is that I thought it made a good story! Who doesn't love the story of an underdog, and who's more of an underdog than a group of gay and bisexual teens?

AE: Although the protagonist is a gay boy, one of the main characters in the book, Min, is a bisexual Asian-American teenage girl with a white lesbian girlfriend; why did you decide to include these characters?
BH: The process of inventing characters is so bizarre, at least for me. At some point, yes, I do make them up. But once I do, they become real people in my mind. Intellectually, I know they don't really exist. But emotionally, they are absolutely real, as real as some of my friends. Seriously! Someone insults one of them, and I take offense. I know this makes me sound loopy, which is funny, because I'm really very down-to-earth. But if I don't think of my characters as real, no one else will either.

Why is Min bisexual? Why is anybody bisexual? That's just who she is. As for Terese, the white butch lesbian, the great thing about writing a group of gay characters is that you can give some of them serious flaws! If there's only one gay character, you don't necessarily want him or her to be too imperfect, for fear that straight readers will end up thinking bad things about all gay people. But with a group of gay characters, you can have some that are really pretty flawed. Unfortunately, Terese has a bit of an anger-management problem.

AE: Gay and lesbian teens are rare in YA fiction, but bisexual teens are almost non-existent, as are Asian-American teens. Any particular reason you decided to write the character of Min with these attributes?
BH: Probably because they're almost non-existent! The Asian-American thing also had something to do with the theme. The kids form a gay-straight alliance, but they don't want anyone to know the true nature of their club, and they don't want anyone else to join, so they give it the most boring name they can think of: the "Geography Club." It's a ruse--they don't learn any actual geography. But, of course, they do end up learning a geography of sorts. They learn how the different social cliques and groups in high school are almost like countries at war with each other, and how the borders of those "countries" are very rigid. In other words, the kids in the Geography Club end up learning all about social and emotional geography!

The kids in the Geography Club are united by the fact that they're gay, but they all come from a different social groups. Thematically, it worked to have them be different ethnicities too.

AE: What kind of reaction have you received from readers about Min and Terese? Has that reaction differed based on the reader's age, sexual orientation, etc.?
BH: People love Min! She's the absolute heart of this book. People tell me that all the time. She is Russel's moral conscience, the one character who doesn't give a damn what other people think, and who never gives in to peer pressure. At the same times, she's not perfect. She's uncompromising and overly competitive. Like every character in the book, she has her strengths and she has her weaknesses. But after Russel, she is most important character in the book, even more important than Russel's love interest.

I've heard from a lot of people who tell me they love the character, including several bisexual teens. I haven't heard from anyone who doesn't like her. But then I've heard from at least one person who identifies with each of the major characters in the book--except for the "villain," Gunnar, who no one likes. I tell you, he's just misunderstood!

AE: Considering the subject matter, have you had any problems with schools and libraries purchasing the book?
BH: I have heard from so many librarians! About half say they've bought the book and they're displaying it proudly, and thank you very much for writing it. And the other half say they WISH they could buy the book, but they're afraid they'll get into trouble, but thank you very much for writing it anyway. I also know that while bookstore and book club sales have been fantastic, library sales haven't been nearly as strong. This makes me angry, because I think it's outrageous that gay and bi people are expected to pay their full share of taxes, but we still don't see ourselves accurately reflected in public and school libraries. Libraries are about choices, or at least they should be, and it annoys the hell out of me that some bluenose thinks he or she should be able to decide for everyone else what we can and cannot read. There is absolutely nothing offensive in this book, unless you think the very existence of gay people is offensive. And I find THAT idea offensive!

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