Adult
Lecturer in creative writing at San Francisco State University and creator and teacher at The Lab: Writing Classes ‘s DOUBTING THOMAS, chronicling a year in the life of a gay fourth grade teacher at a school serving Portland, Oregon’s progressive Obama-era elite; he is fired, even after being cleared of a false molestation accusation, just before a family tragedy makes him the guardian of his 12-year-old biracial nephew; digging into the disparity between ideals and reality, to Michael Nava at Amble, in a nice deal, in an exclusive submission, for publication in spring 2021 (world English).
Cornell University MFA graduate, poet, professor, and performer ‘s LIGHT FROM UNCOMMON STARS, about three women trying to escape their pasts—a hell-damned violin legend and teacher, a young transgender runaway and aspiring musician, and a spaceship captain fleeing a faraway war—who find each other, and unexpected magic, in California’s San Gabriel Valley, to Lindsey Hall at Tor, in a pre-empt, in a two-book deal, by Meredith Kaffel Simonoff at DeFiore and Company (world English).
‘s MANHUNT, about trans women scavenging for estrogen in a post-apocalyptic world where a viral plague has transformed all cis men into feral monstrosities, fighting tooth and nail against a menace they’ll join if they miss a dose, and on the run from an authoritarian faction of cis women who see them as a dangerous liability, pitched as a trans woman’s response to Y: THE LAST MAN, plus another standalone horror novel, to Kelly Lonesome at Nightfire, in a very nice deal, in an exclusive submission, in a two-book deal, for publication in March 2022, by Connor Goldsmith at Fuse Literary (world).
‘s A MARVELLOUS LIGHT, a historical fantasy pitched as JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR. NORRELL meets WITCHMARK, about a young civil servant named as liaison to the secret magical bureaucracy of Britain who must work with his magician counterpart to unravel a dangerous conspiracy, while struggling with their unexpected attraction and a deadly curse, to Ruoxi Chen at Tor.com, in a three-book deal, for publication in 2021, by Diana Fox at Fox Literary (NA).
Brooklyn-based writer and VONA/Voices and Queer Art Mentorship alumna Emily Hashimoto’s A WORLD BETWEEN, in which a college fling between two women turns into a lifelong connection, to Lauren Hook at Feminist Press, for publication in September 2020, by Robert Guinsler at Sterling Lord Literistic (NA).
Lambda-nominated writer and critic Megan Milks’s MARGARET AND THE MYSTERY OF THE MISSING BODY, a genre-bending queer and trans coming-of-age story that combines a ’90s-era girl group mystery series with a haunted eating disorder treatment center and a surreal mutant body-world, and SLUG AND OTHER STORIES a reissue of their debut collection with new stories, to Lauren Hook at Feminist Press, in a two-book deal, by Rach Crawford at MacKenzie Wolf (world English).
‘s OF TRUST & HEART, an #OwnVoices f/f 1920s historical in which a lesbian Scottish heiress, who must find a husband soon, falls for a singer at a speakeasy, to Lydia Sharp at Entangled Embrace, for publication in 2021 (world).
Children’s/Middle Grade
and ‘s Picture Book THE MEANING OF PRIDE, about the significance, beauty, and universality of the concept of pride, as celebrated by millions of queer people and their allies around the world, illustrated by , to Erika Turner at Versify, for publication in spring 2022, by Saba Sulaiman at Talcott Notch Literary Services for the author, and by Nicolas Gomez and Michelle Collins at A Non-Agency for the illustrator (world).
Author of SEAFIRE ‘s Middle Grade THE DEVOURING WOLF, in which a young werewolf-to-be struggles to understand why she hasn’t yet transformed as expected, and to get to the bottom of the mystery and become the wolf she was always meant to be, she will have to unearth her community’s deepest secrets and face off against a terrifying creature from legend, to Chris Hernandez at Razorbill, in a very nice deal, in a two-book deal, for publication in fall 2021, by Lara Perkins at Andrea Brown Literary Agency (world English).
Founder and executive director of inQluded and 2019 SCBWI Emerging Voices winner medina’s THE ONE WHO LOVES YOU THE MOST, which follows a 12-year-old who lives at the intersection of multiple identities as they long to find their place in the world, but a school project, new trans and queer friends, and a YouTube channel helps them find purpose in their journey and find community, to Nick Thomas at Levine Querido, in a pre-empt, for publication in fall of 2021, by Marietta Zacker at Gallt and Zacker Literary Agency (NA and Dutch).
Young Adult
‘s YA THE CITY BEAUTIFUL, set against the backdrop of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, a queer Jewish Gothic fantasy that follows a young immigrant who is possessed by the dybbuk of his murdered best friend and is thrust into a deadly hunt for a serial killer, to Rebecca Kuss at Inkyard Press, in a nice deal, in a two-book deal, for publication in fall 2021, by Thao Le at Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency (world English).
‘s YA A MILLION QUIET REVOLUTIONS, a love story in verse between two transgender boys who come out to each other the weekend before their senior year; together, they explore their identities and search history for the often untold stories of queer people like them, to Trisha de Guzman at Farrar, Straus Children’s, in a good deal, at auction, in a two-book deal, for publication in winter 2022, by Jordan Hamessley at New Leaf Literary & Media (NA).
‘s SOFI AND THE BONE SONG, after losing everything to an undeserving rival, a young musician sets out to expose that her rival’s newfound musical abilities stem from an illegal use of magic—but what she discovers will rock everything she knows about her family, music, and the girl she thought was her enemy, to Sarah McCabe at Simon Pulse, for publication in spring 2022, by Jim McCarthy at Dystel, Goderich & Bourret (world).
Emery Lee’s MEET CUTE DIARY, about a trans teen who must decide if he’s dedicated to romantic formulas or open to unpredictable love after an internet troll-attack on his trans romance blog compels him and a fan to start fake-dating to salvage the blog’s reputation, to Alexandra Cooper at Quill Tree, for publication in summer 2021, by Beth Phelan at Gallt and Zacker Literary Agency (world English).
‘s NATE PLUS ONE, a teenage boy dreads the idea of attending his wealthy aunt’s wedding retreat in South Africa, until his crush, an indie rock musician, volunteers to be his plus-one; an #OwnVoices gay love story pitched as What if It’s Us meets Crazy Rich Asians, to Polo Orozco at Random House Children’s, for publication in spring 2022, by Robert Guinsler at Sterling Lord Literistic (world English).
, , and ‘s ALL SIGNS POINT TO YES, an anthology of love stories for each of the star signs that will showcase BIPOC characters and celebrate the myriad facets of love, from meet-cutes to the lesser-explored love expressed by aromantic people, to Natashya Wilson at Inkyard Press, for publication in winter 2022, by Jim McCarthy at Dystel, Goderich & Bourret (world).
‘s FULL-COURT CRUSH, about a basketball player whose team is being shut down, and her bookish girlfriend who is struggling alone with her chronically depressed mother; together, they learn how to navigate the troubles of life and 11th grade, to Kiara Valdez at First Second, in a significant deal, at auction, in a two-book deal, for publication in 2023, by Linda Camacho at Gallt and Zacker Literary Agency (NA).
‘s THIS IS WHY THEY HATE US, a debut about a bisexual Latino teen from East L.A. who is determined to get over his crush on his best friend by summer’s end and winds up discovering hilarious, heartfelt truths about friendship, family, and himself, to Jennifer Ung at Simon Pulse, for publication in spring 2022, by Tina Dubois at ICM (NA).
Lambda Literary Award-winning author and Stonewall honoree ‘s FOOLS IN LOVE, a YA romance anthology offering up fresh takes on classic romance tropes in multiple genres, featuring Rebecca Barrow, Gloria Chao, Sara Farizan, Claire Kann, Hannah Moskowitz, Lilliam Rivera, Laura Silverman, Amy Spalding, Rebecca Kim Wells, Natasha Ngan, Julian Winters, and more, to Britny Brooks at Running Press Kids, for publication in December 2021, by Eric Smith at P.S. Literary Agency (world).
Author of HAVE A LITTLE FAITH IN ME Sonia Hartl’s THE LOST GIRLS, about a girl who sets out for revenge against the undead ex-boyfriend who turned her into a vampire decades ago, then starts to fall for his mortal girlfriend, to Ashley Hearn at Page Street, for publication in fall 2021, by Rebecca Podos at Rees Literary Agency (world).
Jonny Garza Villa’s FIFTEEN HUNDRED MILES FROM THE SUN, an #OwnVoices debut pitched as SIMON VS. THE HOMO SAPIENS AGENDA meets One Day at a Time, about a Texas high school senior who accidentally comes out to the world on social media and must now juggle the joy of first love and fear of his socially conservative father finding out before he’s ready, to Carmen Johnson at Skyscape, at auction, by Claire Draper at The Bent Agency (world).
Nonfiction
Author of PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award and Lambda Literary Award-nominated essay collection MINE ‘s AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHADOWS, a dual narrative memoir about her coming-of-age and coming out in mid-’90s Florida under the tutelage of a conspiracy theorist high school teacher and her wife’s Title IX investigation as the result of false accusations leveled by a professional rival, as covered in the author’s viral New York Times Magazine essay, to Sally Howe at Scribner, in a pre-empt, by Matt McGowan at Frances Goldin Literary Agency (world English).
Sugar Applebaum doesn’t hate the idea of spending a quiet summer at Sideling Springs, a sleepy Jewish resort in West Virginia, with her mother (who she adores) and her sister (who she does not), but she’s not exactly hyped about it. That is, until she crashes a staff party and meets Mara, the older, gorgeous, and acid-tongued dance instructor with very little patience for people with Sugar’s amount of privilege and supposed heterosexuality. But Mara’s dance partner, Tristan, is getting top surgery and can’t perform, and she needs a way to replace him without anyone noticing. Guess who’s the only volunteer?
Thana has a huge reputation to live up to as daughter of the Serpent, who rules over Ghadid’s secret clan of assassins. Opportunity to prove herself arrives when Thana accepts her first contract on Heru, a dangerous foreign diplomat with the ability to bind a person’s soul under his control.
Seventeen is nothing like Codi Teller imagined.
It’s summer 1977 and closeted lesbian Tammy Larson can’t be herself anywhere. Not at her strict Christian high school, not at her conservative Orange County church and certainly not at home, where her ultrareligious aunt relentlessly organizes antigay political campaigns. Tammy’s only outlet is writing secret letters in her diary to gay civil rights activist Harvey Milk…until she’s matched with a real-life pen pal who changes everything.
Kiskeya Burgos left the tropical beaches of the Dominican Republic with a lot to prove. As a pastry chef on the come up, when she arrives in Scotland, she has one goal in mind: win the Holiday Baking Challenge. Winning is her opportunity to prove to her family, her former boss, and most importantly herself, she can make it in the culinary world. Kiskeya will stop at nothing to win , that is, if she can keep her eyes on the prize and off her infuriating teammate’s perfect lips.
Tattoo artist Jamie Winston is used to caring for others. Between her assistant manager position at a tattoo parlor, single-parenting her twelve-year-old daughter and supporting her alcoholic parents, Jamie rarely prioritizes her own needs—unless Sierra Clark is in her chair. The bubbly younger woman somehow manages to make Jamie feel like the carefree teenager she never got to be, making anything seem possible.
All London Noble wanted out of her senior year of high school was anonymity. The complete opposite of Jasmine, her emotionally unstable baby sister, London has worked hard to stay out of the spotlight.
Nishat doesn’t want to lose her family, but she also doesn’t want to hide who she is, and it only gets harder once a childhood friend walks back into her life. Flávia is beautiful and charismatic, and Nishat falls for her instantly. But when a school competition invites students to create their own businesses, both Flávia and Nishat decide to showcase their talent as henna artists. In a fight to prove who is the best, their lives become more tangled―but Nishat can’t quite get rid of her crush, especially since Flávia seems to like her back.
Hannah Walsh just wants a normal life. It’s her senior year, so she should be focusing on classes, hanging out with her best friend, and flirting with her new girlfriend, Morgan. But it turns out surviving a murderous Witch Hunter doesn’t exactly qualify as a summer vacation, and now the rest of the Hunters seem more intent on destroying her magic than ever.
Iris Turner hightailed it out of Salty Cove, Maine, without so much as a backward glance. Which is why finding herself back in her hometown—in her childhood bedroom, no less—has the normally upbeat Iris feeling a bit down and out. Her spirits get a much-needed lift, though, at the sight of the sexy girl next door.
Hollywood powerhouse Jo is photographed making her assistant Emma laugh on the red carpet, and just like that, the tabloids declare them a couple. The so-called scandal couldn’t come at a worse time–threatening Emma’s promotion and Jo’s new movie.
Saoirse doesn’t believe in love at first sight. She definitely doesn’t believe in happy endings. If they were real, her mother would still be able to remember her name. She wouldn’t be in a care home with early onset dementia, a condition Saoirse may one day develop herself. So Saoirse isn’t looking for a relationship. She doesn’t see the point.
When genderqueer fourteen-year-old Z Chilworth wakes from death after a car crash that killed their parents and sisters, they have to adjust quickly to their new status as a zombie. Always a talented witch, Z can now barely perform magic and is rapidly decaying. Faced with rejection from their remaining family members and old friends, Z moves in with Mrs. Dunnigan, an elderly witch, and befriends Aysel, a loud would-be-goth classmate who is, like Z, a loner. As Z struggles to find a way to repair the broken magical seal holding their body together, Aysel fears that her classmates will discover her status as an unregistered werewolf. When a local psychiatrist is murdered in an apparent werewolf attack, the town of Salem, Oregon, becomes even more hostile to monsters, and Z and Aysel are driven together in an attempt to survive a place where most people wish that neither of them existed.
Bitty is heading to junior year of college and though he has overcome his fear of getting ‘checked’ on the ice, he and Jack now face new challenges. They must navigate their new relationship while being apart and also decide how they want to reveal their relationship to those around them. Not only that, but Jack and the Falconers are now a big part of the NHL—and Bitty’s life! It’s a hockey season filled with victories and losses.
Before Quinn Ryan was in love with Jamie Rudawski, she loved Jamie Rudawski, who was her best friend. But when Jamie dumps Quinn a month before their senior year, Quinn is suddenly girlfriend-less and best friend-less.
In this epic sequel to Once & Future, to save the future, Ari and her Rainbow knights pull off a heist…thousands of years in the past.
A young pilot risks everything to save his best friend–the man he trusts most and might even love–only to learn that he’s secretly the heir to a brutal galactic empire.
After an assault, bigender seventeen-year-old Aleks/Alexis is looking for a fresh start―so they voluntarily move in with their uncle, a Catholic priest. In their new bedroom, Aleks/Alexis discovers they can overhear parishioners in the church confessional. Moved by the struggles of these “sinners,” Aleks/Alexis decides to anonymously help them, finding solace in their secret identity: a guardian angel instead of a victim.
Sydney’s dad is the only psychiatrist for miles around their small Ohio town.
Indigo, the newest collection by Ellen Bass, merges elegy and praise poem in an exploration of life’s complex grey areas. Whether her subject is oysters, high heels, a pork chop, a beloved dog, or a wife’s return to health, Bass pulls us in with exquisite immediacy. Her lush and precisely observed descriptions allow us to feel the sheer primal pleasure of being alive in our own “succulent skin,” the pleasure of the gifts of hunger, desire, touch. In this book, joy meets regret, devotion meets dependence, and most importantly, the poet so in love with life and living begins to look for the point where the price of aging overwhelms the rewards of staying alive. Bass is relentless in her advocacy for the little pleasures all around her. Her gaze is both expansive and hyperfocused, celebrating (and eulogizing) each gift as it is given and taken, while also taking stock of the larger arc. She draws the lines between generations, both remembering her parents’ lives and deaths and watching her own children grow into the space that she will leave behind. Indigo shows us the beauty of this cycle, while also documenting the deeply human urge to resist change and hang on to the life we have, even as it attempts to slip away.
Nadya doesn’t trust her magic anymore. Serefin is fighting off a voice in his head that doesn’t belong to him. Malachiasz is at war with who–and what–he’s become.
A cocktail-spitting, norm-pinching dive into everyday queer life in the twenty-first century—a hilarious, moving memoir
Tattoo artist Jamie Winston is used to caring for others. Between her assistant manager position at a tattoo parlor, single-parenting her twelve-year-old daughter and supporting her alcoholic parents, Jamie rarely prioritizes her own needs—unless Sierra Clark is in her chair. The bubbly younger woman somehow manages to make Jamie feel like the carefree teenager she never got to be, making anything seem possible.
Tom Rastrelli is a survivor of clergy-perpetrated sexual abuse who then became a priest in the early days of the Catholic Church’s ongoing scandals. Confessions of a Gay Priest divulges the clandestine inner workings of the seminary, providing an intimate and unapologetic look into the psychosexual and spiritual dynamics of celibacy and lays bare the “formation” system that perpetuates the cycle of abuse and cover-up that continues today.
Rick’s never questioned much. He’s gone along with his best friend Jeff even when Jeff’s acted like a bully and a jerk. He’s let his father joke with him about which hot girls he might want to date even though that kind of talk always makes him uncomfortable. And he hasn’t given his own identity much thought, because everyone else around him seemed to have figured it out.
Jubilee has it all together. She’s an elite cellist, and when she’s not working in her stepmom’s indie comic shop, she’s prepping for the biggest audition of her life.
What does it mean to be non-binary in the 21st Century? Our gender identity is impacted by our personal histories; the cultures, communities and countries we are born into; and the places we go and the people we meet. But the representation of contemporary non-binary identities has been limited, until now. Pushing the narrative around non-binary identities further than ever before, this powerful collection of essays represents the breadth of non-binary lives, across the boundaries of race, class, age, sexuality, faith and more. Leading non-binary people share stories of their intersecting lives; how it feels to be non-binary and neurodiverse, the challenges of being a non-binary pregnant person, what it means to be non-binary within the Quaker community, the joy of reaching gender euphoria. This thought-provoking anthology shows that there is no right or wrong way to be non-binary.
The teenagers of Four Paths must save their home.
When university student Ludwik meets Janusz at a summer agricultural camp, he is fascinated yet wary of this handsome, carefree stranger. But a chance meeting by the river soon becomes an intense, exhilarating, and all-consuming affair. After their camp duties are fulfilled, the pair spend a dreamlike few weeks camping in the countryside, bonding over an illicit copy of James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room. Inhabiting a beautiful natural world removed from society and its constraints, Ludwik and Janusz fall deeply in love. But in their repressive communist and Catholic society, the passion they share is utterly unthinkable.
In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson explores his childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia. From the memories of getting his teeth kicked out by bullies at age five, to flea marketing with his loving grandmother, to his first sexual relationships, this young-adult memoir weaves together the trials and triumphs faced by Black queer boys.
Bunny Lampert is the princess of North Shore—beautiful, tall, blond, with a rich real-estate-developer father and a swimming pool in her backyard. Michael—with a ponytail down his back and a septum piercing—lives with his aunt in the cramped stucco cottage next door. When Bunny catches Michael smoking in her yard, he discovers that her life is not as perfect as it seems. At six foot three, Bunny towers over their classmates. Even as she dreams of standing out and competing in the Olympics, she is desperate to fit in, to seem normal, and to get a boyfriend, all while hiding her father’s escalating alcoholism. Michael has secrets of his own. At home and at school Michael pretends to be straight, but at night he tries to understand himself by meeting men online for anonymous encounters that both thrill and scare him. When Michael falls in love for the first time, a vicious strain of gossip circulates and a terrible, brutal act becomes the defining feature of both his and Bunny’s futures—and of their friendship.
Cinrak the Dapper is a keeper of secrets, a righter of wrongs, the saltiest capybara on the sea and a rider of both falling stars and a great glass whale. Join her, her beloveds, the rat Queen Orvilia and the marmot diva Loquolchi, lead soprano of the Theatre Rat-oyal, her loyal cabin kit, Benj the chinchilla, and Agnes, last of the great krakens, as they hunt for treasures of all kinds and find adventures beyond their wildest dreams. Let Sir Julius Vogel Award-winning storyteller A.J. Fitzwater take you on a glorious journey about finding yourself, discovering true love and exploring the greatest secrets of the deep. Also, dapperness.
AJ Fitzwater lives between the cracks of Christchurch, New Zealand. Their work focuses on feminist and queer themes, and has appeared in venues of repute such as Clarkesworld, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Shimmer, Giganotosaurus, GlitterShip, and in various anthologies. They are the author of rodent pirate escapades in The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper, and the WW2 land girls shape-shifter novella No Man’s Land. With a background in radio, AJ lends their voice to podcast narrations, including for the Escape Artists universe. They enjoy maintaining a collection of bow ties. A unicorn disguised in a snappy blazer, they tweet 