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Extra Credit: Young Queer-Lit Activist Amelia Roskin-Frazee Does It By The Book


Amelia Roskin-Frazee, 15
San Francisco, CA

Already a drummer, costume-maker and aspiring novelist, Amelia Roskin-Frazee, a sophomore at the Bay Area’s Lick-Wilmerding High School, somehow found the time to start the Make It Safe Project, which provides queer-themed books to schools and youth shelters.

Since its launch last year, MISP has provided some some 60,000 teens with LGBT-inclusive titles like Alex Sanchez’ young-adult novel Rainbow Boys; out country singer Chely Wright’s memoir, Like Me; and Kathy Belge’s Queer: The Ultimate LGBT Guide for Teens.

Actually, Roskin-Frazee could write a guide for gay teens herself: out to her family since she was 12, she founded her school’s GSA in eighth grade and went on to become a Student Ambassador for GLSEN and youth council member for the Gay-Straight Alliance Network. This year, The Advocate named her one of its Top 40, Under 40.

With luck, one of Roskin-Frazee’s own literary efforts might become part of Make It Safe: She’s currently  shopping around a novel “about a fifteen-year-old girl who writes her dead girlfriend back to life.”  We can’t wait to read it.

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