This 1994 collection boasts short stories by Francesca Lia Block, Nancy Garden, M.E. Kerr, Lois Lowry, Jacqueline Woodson, and others on the theme of LGB and one or two Q teens. A lot of the stories are dated, okay? Some of them are really great and still get you 21 years laters.
Editor Marion Dane Bauer writes in her introduction, "A good friend of mine once said, "I have never met a bigot who was a reader as a child.'" I feel like there's something inherently classist in that statement, but I also think of the study that came out a while ago about how fiction readers have more empathy than people who don't read fiction. Reading any kind of materials about people different from yourself is a good thing. And people different from the majority or mainstream having stuff to read about themselves is even better.
I appreciate that Bauer had her contributors write first person bios. A lot of them used their regular bios with first person pronouns, or did that after a short original introductory paragraph. I liked better the people who made their bio reflective of the whole book's content and why they wanted to be part of it. Woodson's bio isn't even about being queer, it's about being all of the things that make her herself, including being tall, shy, laughing easily, and not liking to waste money on bad movies.
The stories by men share a theme of gay teens needing to be told or discover that they're not alone. I didn't notice that trend in the stories by women. Something else you might note is that not all of the contributors themselves are LGBTQ. Maybe they have a child that is, or they just like writing across difference, possibly out of a desire to help, like Lois Lowry. There's a jarring moment in Lowry's book where, "Jon sank into a cowering crouch and did his beaten-down-slave imitation." We don't know Jon's race, but blond Will is presumably white. The 17-year-old boys also do British accents when they're playing with each other, so...? No. I don't think so.
Author whose work I am most likely to seek out after reading this collection: Cristina Salat, even if her website looks like it's a little stuck in the 1990s, too. (Sorry to be mean.)