Monthly Archives: March 2021

Happy Holigays

Happy Trans Day of Visibility!

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Happy Trans Day of Visibility! As usual, we’re celebrating with books by trans authors and starring trans main characters, so please check ’em out! (Please note that this post only includes books that weren’t featured last year, so you can find even more here.)

Books to Buy Now

Detransition Baby by Torrey Peters

Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn’t hate. She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: a life of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men.

Ames isn’t happy either. He thought detransitioning to live as a man would make life easier, but that decision cost him his relationship with Reese–and losing her meant losing his only family. Even though their romance is over, he longs to find a way back to her. When Ames’s boss and lover, Katrina, reveals that she’s pregnant with his baby–and that she’s not sure whether she wants to keep it–Ames wonders if this is the chance he’s been waiting for. Could the three of them form some kind of unconventional family–and raise the baby together?

Buy it: Bookshop | B&N | Amazon | IndieBound

Ana on the Edge by A.J. Sass

For fans of George and Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World, a heartfelt coming of age story about a nonbinary character navigating a binary world.

Twelve-year-old Ana-Marie Jin, the reigning US Juvenile figure skating champion, is not a frilly dress kind of kid. So, when Ana learns that next season’s program will be princess themed, doubt forms fast. Still, Ana tries to focus on training and putting together a stellar routine worthy of national success.

Once Ana meets Hayden, a transgender boy new to the rink, thoughts about the princess program and gender identity begin to take center stage. And when Hayden mistakes Ana for a boy, Ana doesn’t correct him and finds comfort in this boyish identity when he’s around. As their friendship develops, Ana realizes that it’s tricky juggling two different identities on one slippery sheet of ice. And with a major competition approaching, Ana must decide whether telling everyone the truth is worth risking years of hard work and sacrifice.

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Sasha Masha by Agnes Borinsky

Sasha MashaIn this #OwnVoices LGBTQ young adult debut, Alex comes to realize his true identity as a young woman named Sasha Masha.

Alex feels like he is in the wrong body. His skin feels strange against his bones. And then comes Tracy, who thinks he’s adorably awkward, who wants to kiss him, who makes him feel like a Real Boy. But it is not quite enough. Something is missing. Is the missing piece a part of Alex himself?

As Alex grapples with his identity, he finds himself trying on dresses and swiping on lipstick in the quiet of his bedroom. He meets Andre, a gay boy who is beautiful and unafraid to be who he is. Slowly, Alex begins to realize: Maybe his name isn’t Alex at all. Maybe it’s Sasha Masha.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | B&N | IndieBound

Girl Haven by Lilah Sturges, ill. by Meaghan Carter

Three years ago, Ash’s mom, Kristin, left home and never came back. Now, Ash lives in the house where Kristin grew up. All of her things are there. Her old room, her old clothes, and the shed, where she spent her childhood creating a fantasy world called Koretris.

Ash knows all about Koretris: how it’s a haven for girls, with no men or boys allowed, and filled with fanciful landscapes and creatures. When Ash’s friends decide to try going to Koretris, using one of Kristin’s spellbooks, Ash doesn’t think anything will happen. But the spell works, and Ash discovers that the world Kristin created is actually a real place, with real inhabitants and very real danger.

But if Koretris is real, why is Ash there? Everyone has always called Ash a boy. Ash uses he/him pronouns. Shouldn’t the spell have kept Ash out? And what does it mean if it let Ash in?

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Can’t Take That Away by Steven Salvatore

Carey Parker dreams of being a diva, and bringing the house down with song. They can hit every note of all the top pop and Broadway hits. But despite their talent, emotional scars from an incident with a homophobic classmate and their grandmother’s spiraling dementia make it harder and harder for Carey to find their voice.

Then Carey meets Cris, a singer/guitarist who makes Carey feel seen for the first time in their life. With the rush of a promising new romantic relationship, Carey finds the confidence to audition for the role of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, in the school musical, setting off a chain reaction of prejudice by Carey’s tormentor and others in the school. It’s up to Carey, Cris, and their friends to defend their rights–and they refuse to be silenced.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Books to Preorder

Victories Greater Than Death by Charlie Jane Anders (April 13th)

Tina never worries about being “ordinary”—she doesn’t have to, since she’s known practically forever that she’s not just Tina Mains, average teenager and beloved daughter. She’s also the keeper of an interplanetary rescue beacon, and one day soon, it’s going to activate, and then her dreams of saving all the worlds and adventuring among the stars will finally be possible. Tina’s legacy, after all, is intergalactic—she is the hidden clone of a famed alien hero, left on Earth disguised as a human to give the universe another chance to defeat a terrible evil.

But when the beacon activates, it turns out that Tina’s destiny isn’t quite what she expected. Things are far more dangerous than she ever assumed–and everyone in the galaxy is expecting her to actually be the brilliant tactician and legendary savior Captain Thaoh Argentian, but Tina….is just Tina. And the Royal Fleet is losing the war, badly–the starship that found her is on the run and they barely manage to escape Earth with the planet still intact.

Luckily, Tina is surrounded by a crew she can trust, and her best friend Rachel, and she is still determined to save all the worlds. But first she’ll have to save herself.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

The Companion by EE Ottoman (April 16th)

New York, 1949

After years of trying to break into New York City’s literary scene, Madeline Slaughter is emotionally and physically exhausted. When a friend offers her a safe haven as the live-in companion to reclusive, bestselling novelist Victor Hallowell she jumps at the chance to escape the city.

Madeline expects to find rest and quiet in the forests of Upstate New York. Instead, she finds Victor, handsome and intensely passionate, and Audrey Coffin, Victor’s mysterious and beautiful neighbor.

When Victor offers her a kiss and the promise of more Madeline allows herself to become entangled even as Audrey is also claiming her heart. The only problem is that Audrey and Victor are ex-lovers with plenty of baggage between them. As Madeline finds herself opening up and falling in love with both she starts to wonder, can there be a future for all three?

Buy it: Amazon

Too Bright to See by Kyle Lukoff (April 20th)

It’s the summer before middle school and eleven-year-old Bug’s best friend Moira has decided the two of them need to use the next few months to prepare. For Moira, this means figuring out the right clothes to wear, learning how to put on makeup, and deciding which boys are cuter in their yearbook photos than in real life. But none of this is all that appealing to Bug, who doesn’t particularly want to spend more time trying to understand how to be a girl. Besides, there’s something more important to worry about: A ghost is haunting Bug’s eerie old house in rural Vermont…and maybe haunting Bug in particular. As Bug begins to untangle the mystery of who this ghost is and what they’re trying to say, an altogether different truth comes to light—Bug is transgender.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | B&N | IndieBound

Defekt by Nino Cipri (April 20th)

This is the sequel to Finna.

Derek is LitenVärld’s most loyal employee. He lives and breathes the job, from the moment he wakes up in a converted shipping container at the edge of the parking lot to the second he clocks out of work 18 hours later. But after taking his first ever sick day, his manager calls that loyalty into question. An excellent employee like Derek, an employee made to work at LitenVärld, shouldn’t need time off.

To test his commitment to the job, Derek is assigned to a special inventory shift, hunting through the store to find defective products. Toy chests with pincers and eye stalks, ambulatory sleeper sofas, killer mutant toilets, that kind of thing. Helping him is the inventory team—four strangers who look and sound almost exactly like him. Are five Dereks better than one?

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | B&N | IndieBound

Between Perfect and Real by Ray Stoeve (April 27th)

Dean Foster knows he’s a trans guy. He’s watched enough YouTube videos and done enough questioning to be sure. But everyone at his high school thinks he’s a lesbian—including his girlfriend Zoe, and his theater director, who just cast him as a “nontraditional” Romeo. He wonders if maybe it would be easier to wait until college to come out. But as he plays Romeo every day in rehearsals, Dean realizes he wants everyone to see him as he really is now––not just on the stage, but everywhere in his life. Dean knows what he needs to do. Can playing a role help Dean be his true self?

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | B&N | IndieBound

Meet Cute Diary by Emery Lee (May 4th)

Noah Ramirez thinks he’s an expert on romance. He has to be for his popular blog, the Meet Cute Diary, a collection of trans happily ever afters. There’s just one problem—all the stories are fake. What started as the fantasies of a trans boy afraid to step out of the closet has grown into a beacon of hope for trans readers across the globe.

When a troll exposes the blog as fiction, Noah’s world unravels. The only way to save the Diary is to convince everyone that the stories are true, but he doesn’t have any proof. Then Drew walks into Noah’s life, and the pieces fall into place: Drew is willing to fake-date Noah to save the Diary. But when Noah’s feelings grow beyond their staged romance, he realizes that dating in real life isn’t quite the same as finding love on the page.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | B&N | IndieBound

All Kinds of Other by James Sie (4th)

Two boys are starting at a new school.

Jules is just figuring out what it means to be gay and hasn’t totally decided whether he wants to be out at his new school. His parents and friends have all kinds of opinions, but for his part, Jules just wants to make the basketball team and keep his head down.

Jack is trying to start over after a best friend break-up. He followed his actor father clear across the country to LA, but he’s also totally ready to leave his past behind. Maybe this new school where no one knows him is exactly what he needs.

When the two boys meet, the sparks are undeniable. But then a video surfaces linking Jack to a pair of popular transgender vloggers, and the revelations about Jack’s past thrust both Jack and Jules into the spotlight they’ve been trying to avoid. Suddenly both boys have a choice to make—between lying low where it’s easier or following their hearts.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon |  IndieBound

May the Best Man Win by Z.R. Ellor (May 18)

Jeremy Harkiss, cheer captain and student body president, won’t let coming out as a transgender boy ruin his senior year. Instead of bowing to the bigots and outdate school administration, Jeremy decides to make some noise—and how better than by challenging his all-star ex-boyfriend, Lukas for the title of Homecoming King?

Lukas Rivers, football star and head of the Homecoming Committee, is just trying to find order in his life after his older brother’s funeral and the loss long-term girlfriend—who turned out to be a boy. But when Jeremy threatens to break his heart and steal his crown, Lukas kick starts a plot to sabotage Jeremy’s campaign.

When both boys take their rivalry too far, the dance is on the verge of being canceled. To save Homecoming, they’ll have to face the hurt they’re both hiding—and the lingering butterflies they can’t deny.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Future Feeling by Joss Lake (June 1st)

The year is 20__, and Penfield R. Henderson is in a rut. When he’s not walking dogs for cash or responding to booty calls from his B-list celebrity hookup, he’s holed up in his dingy Bushwick apartment obsessing over holograms of Aiden Chase, a fellow trans man and influencer documenting his much smoother transition into picture-perfect masculinity on the Gram. After an IRL encounter with Aiden leaves Pen feeling especially resentful, Pen enlists his roommates, the Witch and the Stoner-Hacker, to put their respective talents to use in hexing Aiden. Together, they gain access to Aiden’s social media account and post a picture of Pen’s aloe plant, Alice, tied to a curse:

Whosoever beholds the aloe will be pushed into the Shadowlands.

When the hex accidentally bypasses Aiden, sending another young trans man named Blithe to the Shadowlands (the dreaded emotional landscape through which every trans person must journey to achieve true self-actualization), the Rhiz (the quasi-benevolent big brother agency overseeing all trans matters) orders Pen and Aiden to team up and retrieve him. The two trace Blithe to a dilapidated motel in California and bring him back to New York, where they try to coax Blithe to stop speaking only in code and awkwardly try to pass on what little trans wisdom they possess. As the trio makes its way in a world that includes pitless avocados and subway cars that change color based on occupants’ collective moods but still casts judgment on anyone not perfectly straight, Pen starts to learn that sometimes a family isn’t just the people who birthed you.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

The Ghosts We Keep by Mason Deaver (June 1)

When Liam Cooper’s older brother Ethan is killed in a hit-and-run, Liam has to not only learn to face the world without one of the people he loved the most, but also face the fading relationship with his two best friends.

Feeling more alone and isolated than ever, Liam finds themself sharing time with Marcus, Ethan’s best friend, and through Marcus, Liam finds the one person that seems to know exactly what they’re going through, for the better, and the worse.

This book is about grief. But it’s also about why we live. Why we have to keep moving on, and why we should.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

The Witch King by H.E. Edgmon (June 1)

Wyatt would give anything to forget where he came from—but a kingdom demands its king.

In Asalin, fae rule and witches like Wyatt Croft…don’t. Wyatt’s betrothal to his best friend, fae prince Emyr North, was supposed to change that. But when Wyatt lost control of his magic one devastating night, he fled to the human world.

Now a coldly distant Emyr has hunted him down. Despite transgender Wyatt’s newfound identity and troubling past, Emyr has no intention of dissolving their engagement. In fact, he claims they must marry now or risk losing the throne. Jaded, Wyatt strikes a deal with the enemy, hoping to escape Asalin forever. But as he gets to know Emyr, Wyatt realizes the boy he once loved may still exist. And as the witches face worsening conditions, he must decide once and for all what’s more important—his people or his freedom.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

The Passing Playbook by Isaac Fitzsimons (June 1st)

Fifteen-year-old Spencer Harris is a proud nerd, an awesome big brother, and a David Beckham in training. He’s also transgender. After transitioning at his old school leads to a year of isolation and bullying, Spencer gets a fresh start at Oakley, the most liberal private school in Ohio.

At Oakley, Spencer seems to have it all: more accepting classmates, a decent shot at a starting position on the boy’s soccer team, great new friends, and maybe even something more than friendship with one of his teammates. The problem is, no one at Oakley knows Spencer is trans–he’s passing. So when a discriminatory law forces Spencer’s coach to bench him after he discovers the “F” on Spencer’s birth certificate, Spencer has to make a choice: cheer his team on from the sidelines or publicly fight for his right to play, even though it would mean coming out to everyone– including the guy he’s falling for.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

The (Un)popular Vote by Jasper Sanchez (June 1st)

Vaseline on the teeth makes a smile shine. It’s a cheap stunt, but Mark Adams knows it’s optics that can win or ruin an election.

Everything Mark learned about politics, he learned from his father, the congressman who still pretends he has a daughter and not a son. To protect his father’s image, Mark promises to keep his past hidden and pretend to be the cis guy everyone assumes he is. But when he sees a manipulatively charming candidate for student body president inflame dangerous rhetoric, Mark decides to risk the low profile he assured his father and insert himself as a political challenger.

One big problem? No one really knows Mark. He didn’t grow up in this town, and he has few friends; plus, the ones he does have aren’t exactly with the in-crowd. Still, thanks to countless seasons of Scandal and The West Wing, these nerds know where to start: from campaign stops to voter polling to a fashion makeover. Soon Mark feels emboldened to get in front of and engage with voters—and even start a new romance. But with an investigative journalist digging into his past, a father trying to silence him, and a bully front-runner who stands in his way, Mark will have to decide which matters most: perception or truth, when both are just as dangerous.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Both Can Be True by Jules Machias (June 8th)

Ash is no stranger to feeling like an outcast. For someone who cycles through genders, it’s a daily struggle to feel in control of how people perceive you. Some days Ash is undoubtedly girl, but other times, 100 percent guy. Daniel lacks control too—of his emotions. He’s been told he’s overly sensitive more times than he can count. He can’t help the way he is, and he sure wishes someone would accept him for it.

So when Daniel’s big heart leads him to rescue a dog that’s about to be euthanized, he’s relieved to find Ash willing to help. The two bond over their four-legged secret. When they start catching feelings for each other, however, things go from cute to complicated. Daniel thinks Ash is all girl . . . what happens when he finds out there’s more to Ash’s story?

With so much on the line—truth, identity, acceptance, and the life of an adorable pup named Chewbarka—will Ash and Daniel forever feel at war with themselves because they don’t fit into the world’s binaries? Or will their friendship help them embrace the beauty of living in between?

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Violet Ghosts by Leah Thomas (June 8th)

Dani’s best friend, Sarah, is a ghost. But maybe that’s normal when you’ve spent your childhood running from an abusive parent.

Dani and Sarah might be more than friends, though Dani dares not say so. Dani is afraid that if he tells Sarah he’s trans, she won’t bother haunting him anymore. Sarah’s got good reason to distrust boys, having been strangled by one.

After Sarah and Dani come across another ghost haunted by her own brutal murder, they set out to bring peace and safety to spirits like her. But when an old rival reenters Dani’s life, their unexpected friendship gives Dani a strange new feeling of belonging. As Dani starts to find his place in the living world, he’ll need to let go of his ghosts.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

The Natural Mother of the Child: A Memoir of Nonbinary Parenthood by Krys Malcolm Belc (June 15th)

Krys Malcolm Belc’s visual memoir-in-essays explores how the experience of gestational parenthood—conceiving, birthing, and breastfeeding his son Samson—eventually clarified his gender identity.

Krys Malcolm Belc has thought a lot about the interplay between parenthood and gender. As a nonbinary, transmasculine parent, giving birth to his son Samson clarified his gender identity. And yet, when his partner Anna adopted Samson, the legal documents listed Belc as “the natural mother of the child.”

By considering how the experiences contained under the umbrella of “motherhood” don’t fully align with Belc’s own experience, The Natural Mother of the Child journeys both toward and through common perceptions of what it means to have a body and how that body can influence the perception of a family. With this visual memoir-in-essays, Belc has created a new kind of life record, one that engages directly with the documentation often thought to constitute a record of one’s life—childhood photos, birth certificates—and addresses his deep ambivalence about the “before” and “after” so prevalent in trans stories, which feels apart from his own experience.

The Natural Mother of the Child is the story of a person moving past societal expectations to take control of his own narrative, with prose that delights in the intimate dailiness of family life and explores how much we can ever really know when we enter into parenting.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

The Calyx Charm by May Peterson (July 13th)

Second chances take many forms…

Violetta Benedetti knows how to hide things. She spent years concealing herself behind the persona her father expected of her. Now she hides in the dark corners of Vermagna’s underworld, lying low to keep her father from using her magic in his unending quest for power.

But her biggest secret is her love for her best friend, who only knew her as Mercurio Benedetti, not the woman she is today. Now he’s dead, and she’ll never be able to tell him the truth.

Tibario Gianbellicci was dead. And then…he wasn’t. Reborn as an immortal, he has powers he never imagined. Powers his crime boss mother wants to tap into to destroy their longtime rivals: House Benedetti.

But Tibario is hiding something, too: his best friend is a Benedetti—and the love of his life. With a second chance at life, he’ll have to risk revealing his heart.

Buy it: Amazon

Summer Fun by Jeanne Thornton (July 27th)

Gala, a young trans woman, works at a hostel in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. She is obsessed with the Get Happies, the quintessential 1960s Californian band, helmed by its resident genius, B—-. Why did the band stop making music? Why did they never release their rumored album, Summer Fun?

Gala writes letters to B—- that she light not only on the Get Happies, but paint an extraordinary portrait of Gala. The parallel narratives of B—- and Gala form a dialogue about creation–of music, identity, self, culture, and counterculture.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | B&N | IndieBound

Cheer Up: Love and Pom-Poms by Crystal Frazier, ill. by Val Wise (August 10th)

Annie is a smart, antisocial lesbian starting her senior year of high school who’s under pressure to join the cheerleader squad to make friends and round out her college applications. Her former friend BeeBee is a people-pleaser—a trans girl who must keep her parents happy with her grades and social life to keep their support of her transition. Through the rigors of squad training and amped up social pressures (not to mention micro aggressions and other queer youth problems), the two girls rekindle a friendship they thought they’d lost and discover there may be other, sweeter feelings springing up between them.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Both Sides Now by Peyton Thomas (August 24th)

There are just two things keeping Finch Kelly from a full-blown case of high-school senioritis: a) the agony of waiting to learn whether he’s gotten off the deferral list to Georgetown, the school of his nerdy political dreams; and b) the prospect of taking home the gold at Nationals, the culmination of his four-year unbroken debate team winning streak. With his own unmatched expertise, and with the charming, silver-tongued Jonah Cabrera as his partner and #1 fan, Finch is nearly invincible — until a devastating second-place finish at the State Championship sends him reeling into self-doubt.

Nationals are Finch’s chance at redemption, and his last, best shot at showing Georgetown that he belongs there. But no amount of debate prep can shake Finch of his deeply held fears: that his wrinkled Gap Kids suit will never measure up to his prep-school competitors’ starched uniforms and that he’ll never have a love as picture-perfect as the one Jonah has with his movie-star-handsome boyfriend. But as Finch knows better than anyone else, there’s always more than one side to every argument.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

For the Love of April French by Penny Aimes (August 31st)

April French doesn’t do relationships and she never asks for more.

A long-standing regular at kink club Frankie’s, she’s kind of seen it all. As a trans woman, she’s used to being the scenic rest stop for others on their way to a happily-ever-after. She knows how desire works, and she keeps hers carefully boxed up to take out on weekends only.

After all, you can’t be let down if you never ask.

Then Dennis Martin walks into Frankie’s, fresh from Seattle and looking a little lost. April just meant to be friendly, but one flirtatious drink turns into one hot night.

When Dennis asks for her number, she gives it to him.

When he asks for her trust, well…that’s a little harder.

And when the desire she thought she had such a firm grip on comes alive with Dennis, April finds herself wanting passion, purpose and commitment.

But when their relationship moves from complicated to impossible, April will have to decide how much she’s willing to want.

Buy it: Amazon

Act Cool by Tobly McSmith (September 7th)

Aspiring actor August Greene just landed a coveted spot at the prestigious School of Performing Arts in New York. There’s only one problem: His conservative parents won’t accept that he’s transgender. And to stay with his aunt in the city, August must promise them he won’t transition.

August is convinced he can play the part his parents want while acting cool and confident in the company of his talented new friends.

But who is August when the lights go down? And where will he turn when the roles start hitting a little too close to home?

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Obie is Man Enough by Schuyler Bailar (September 7th)

Obie knew his transition would have ripple effects. He has to leave his swim coach, his pool, and his best friends. But it’s time for Obie to find where he truly belongs.

As Obie dives into a new team, though, things are strange. Obie always felt at home in the water, but now he can’t get his old coach out of his head. Even worse are the bullies that wait in the locker room and on the pool deck. Luckily, Obie has family behind him. And maybe some new friends too, including Charlie, his first crush. Obie is ready to prove he can be one of the fastest boys in the water—to his coach, his critics, and his biggest competition: himself.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki (September 28th)

Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the devil: to escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six.

When Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, catches Shizuka’s ear with her wild talent, Shizuka can almost feel the curse lifting. She’s found her final candidate.

But in a donut shop off a bustling highway in the San Gabriel Valley, Shizuka meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four. Shizuka doesn’t have time for crushes or coffee dates, what with her very soul on the line, but Lan’s kind smile and eyes like stars might just redefine a soul’s worth. And maybe something as small as a warm donut is powerful enough to break a curse as vast as the California coastline.

As the lives of these three women become entangled by chance and fate, a story of magic, identity, curses, and hope begins, and a family worth crossing the universe for is found.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

The Heartbreak Bakery by A.R. Capetta (October 12th)

Syd (no pronouns, please) has always dealt with big, hard-to-talk-about things by baking. Being dumped is no different, except now Syd is baking at the Proud Muffin, a queer bakery and community space in Austin. And everyone who eats Syd’s breakup brownies . . . breaks up. Even Vin and Alec, who own the Proud Muffin. And their breakup might take the bakery down with it. Being dumped is one thing; causing ripples of queer heartbreak through the community is another. But the cute bike delivery person, Harley (he or they, check the pronoun pin, it’s probably on the messenger bag), believes Syd about the magic baking. And Harley believes Syd’s magical baking can fix things, too—one recipe at a time.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Books to Add to Your TBR

Deal Announcements

March 2021 Deal Announcements

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Adult Fiction

Lambda finalist author of Camp Lev AC Rosen’s LAVENDER HOUSE, pitched as Knives Out meets Carol, following a police inspector in 1950s San Francisco, who after being caught in a raid on a gay bar and fired, is hired by a mysterious widow to investigate a death at a wealthy household with more than a few secrets to hide, to Kristin Sevick at Forge, at auction, in a two-book deal, by Joy Tutela at David Black Literary Agency.

Charlotte Anne Hamilton’s LITTLE LOSS OF INNOCENCE, in which a Scottish woman travels to America on the Titanic and unexpectedly falls for the exhilarating woman she has to share a cabin with, to Jen Bouvier at Entangled Embrace, for publication in summer 2021 (world).

Author of the Out in Portland series Karelia Stetz-Water‘s ADULTS ONLY, about a director of feminist adult films and her newly hired personal assistant who is looking for a change; as the two women sort out their past relationships and professional challenges, they find themselves falling for each other, to Madeleine Colavita at Forever Yours, by Jane Dystel at Dystel, Goderich & Bourret (NA).

University of Wisconsin-Madison MFA graduate Kathryn Harlan‘s FRUITING BODIES, comprising mostly queer, often genre-bending stories ranging from the fantastical to the Gothic to the eerily realistic, seeking to answer the call for a new age of storytelling in the face of insufficient myths and fairy tales, to Jill Bialosky at Norton, in a pre-empt, in a two-book deal, by Meredith Kaffel Simonoff at DeFiore and Company (NA).

K.D. Casey’s UNWRITTEN RULES, a contemporary male/male romance in which a struggling Jewish catcher and his superstar ex-boyfriend work to reconcile after they unexpectedly reunite at the MLB all-star game, to Stephanie Doig at Carina Press, in a nice deal, by Deidre Knight at The Knight Agency (world English).

Verity Lowell’s MEET ME IN MADRID, an #OwnVoices BIPOC f/f romantic comedy, in which a museum courier is unexpectedly reunited with her grad school crush, an art historian who provides shelter in a Spanish blizzard, and then ends up chasing her back to the States to try to solve the two-body problem of long distance life, love, and work, to Kerri Buckley at Carina Press Adores, for publication in November 2021, by Jessica Alvarez at BookEnds.

Electric Literature associate editor Alyssa Songsiridej’s LITTLE RABBIT, about a queer writer’s unexpectedly intense involvement with an older choreographer; a book about power, desire, and patronage, to Callie Garnett at Bloomsbury, in a good deal, at auction, by Kate Johnson at MacKenzie Wolf (NA).

Sid Karger’s BEST MEN, pitched as a gay spin on Bridesmaids or My Best Friend’s Wedding, about a man who thinks he has everything figured out, until his best friend announces her engagement, forcing him to navigate his shared wedding party duties with the groom’s charming, infuriating, and (really, really) hot gay brother, and not make his best friend’s wedding all about himself, to Cindy Hwang at Berkley, at auction, in a two-book deal, by Daniel Lazar at Writers House (NA).

Author of LET’S TALK ABOUT LOVE Claire Kann’s THE ROMANTIC AGENDA, her debut adult rom-com, about a young, Black, ace woman who decides to finally let her best friend know she is in love with him during a romantic weekend trip that goes awry, to Kristine Swartz at Berkley, in a good deal, in a pre-empt, in a two-book deal, for publication in spring 2022, by Carrie Pestritto at Laura Dail Literary Agency (world).

R.A. Frumkin’s CONFIDENCE, a humorous takedown of the American Dream, featuring two con men, lifelong friends and sometimes lovers, who attempt to pull off a major global scheme on the scale of Theranos or Herbalife, pitched in the vein of Succession meets Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley series; and BUGSY, a collection of transgressive, radical, and darkly humorous stories that are considerations of mental illness, sexuality, and Kimye, to Zachary Knoll at Simon & Schuster, in a pre-empt, in a two-book deal, by Ross Harris at Stuart Krichevsky Agency (world).

British Eritrean Ethiopian author of SILENCE IS MY MOTHER TONGUE and THE CONSEQUENCES OF LOVE Sulaiman Addonia’s THE SEERS, exploring an Eritrean unaccompanied minor refugee’s first weeks in London, giving a glimpse into the U.K. asylum system and what it does to the mental health of young refugees, and how the intergenerational history of colonization affects intimate relationships; also detailing the sexual conquests of young queer African immigrants in London, who are fluid, trans and androgynous, to Fiona McCrae and Steve Woodward at Graywolf, in a nice deal, in an exclusive submission, for publication in spring 2023, by Jessica Craig at Craig Literary (NA).

TJ Alexander’s CHEF’S KISS, an #OwnVoices LGBTQ+ rom-com starring a type-A pastry chef whose professional goals are interrupted by not only a career transition, but the introduction of her wildly attractive nonbinary kitchen manager, who happens to be undergoing a transition of their own, to Lara Jones at Emily Bestler Books, in a good deal, in a pre-empt, in a two-book deal, for publication in summer 2022, by Larissa Melo Pienkowski at Jill Grinberg Literary Management (world).

Poet and co-editor of COLONIZE THIS: YOUNG WOMEN OF COLOR ON TODAY’S FEMINISM Bushra Rehman‘s ROSES IN THE MOUTH OF A LION, about female friendships and queer love within a Pakistani community in Corona, Queens, pitched as combining the structure of Sandra Cisneros’s A House on Mango Street with the lyricism of Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, to Caroline Bleeke at Flatiron Books, in a pre-empt, for publication in summer 2022, by Ayesha Pande at Ayesha Pande Literary (world).

Sondi Warner‘s debut LEAD ME ASTRAY, a LGBTQIA+ paranormal, polyamorous romance following a newly dead medium who can see her ghost and a P.I. werewolf who band together to solve the mysterious circumstances surrounding her death, all while falling for each other, to Deanna McFadden at Wattpad, in a nice deal, for publication in winter 2022 (world).

New Yorker fiction contributor Taymour Soomro’s OTHER NAMES FOR LOVE, on legacy, queerness, and violence in Pakistan, about a young man whose sexual and intellectual awakening in the feudal lands leads to an estrangement from his family and a difficult reunion after several decades, to Mitzi Angel at Farrar, Straus, at auction, by Adam Eaglin at The Cheney Agency, on behalf of Natasha Fairweather at Rogers, Coleridge & White (NA).

Tara Sim’s THE CITY OF DUSK, the first in an adult epic fantasy trilogy, in which the four heirs of four noble houses, each gifted with a divine power, must form a tenuous alliance to keep their kingdom from descending into a realm-shattering war, to Priyanka Krishnan at Orbit, in a three-book deal, for publication in spring of 2022, by Victoria Marini at Irene Goodman Agency (world).

Juno Dawson’s HER MAJESTY’S ROYAL COVEN, about a covert supernatural government department established by Queen Elizabeth I, as their oracle foretells the genocide of all witches, and conflict over how to tackle the prophecy threatens to tear apart a group of lifelong friends; exploring gender, feminism, the patriarchy, and the corrupting nature of power, to Margaux Weisman at Penguin, at auction, in a three-book deal, by Alyssa Reuben and Katelyn Dougherty at Paradigm, on behalf of Sallyanne Sweeney at MMB Creative (NA).

Children’s Fiction

Young Adult Fiction

Author of THE HENNA WARS and HANI AND ISHU’S GUIDE TO FAKE DATING Adiba Jaigirdar’s DONUT FALL FALL IN LOVE, about a Bangladeshi Irish girl still healing from a breakup with her ex-girlfriend, and who can think of nothing batter than to win the Junior Irish Baking Show, a Great British Bake Off-style reality competition; even if it means competing against her ex and another contestant that she may be falling for, to Foyinsi Adegbonmire at Feiwel and Friends, for publication in spring 2023, by Uwe Stender at TriadaUS Literary Agency (NA).

SURRENDER YOUR SONS author Adam Sass‘s THE 99 BOYFRIENDS OF MICAH SUMMERS, in which an artsy teen who posts sketches of his imaginary boyfriends to Instagram finally has a meet cute with the much-anticipated Boy 100, but when it turns into a missed connection, he embarks on a Prince Charming-like quest throughout Chicago to find true love, to Kelsey Murphy at Philomel, in a six-figure deal, at auction, in a two-book deal, for publication in fall 2022 and fall 2023, by Chelsea Eberly at Greenhouse Literary Agency on behalf of Dovetail Fiction/Working Partners and Eric Smith at P.S. Literary Agency (NA).

Sonora Reyes’s debut THE LESBIANA’S GUIDE TO CATHOLIC SCHOOL, following a 16-year-old who has just started at a new Catholic school after being outed by her ex-best friend and crush at her old school; her new goals: make her mom proud, keep her brother out of trouble, and most importantly, don’t fall in love, but that’s not easy when the only openly queer girl at school is so funny, cute, and seems like she might be interested, to Alessandra Balzer at Balzer & Bray, in a good deal, at auction, in a two-book deal, for publication in spring 2022, by Alexandra Levick at Writers House (NA).

Author of THE HENNA WARS and HANI AND ISHU’S GUIDE TO FAKE DATING Adiba Jaigirdar’s A MILLION TO ONE, a high-stakes romantic heist novel set on the Titanic, in which four girls team up to steal a priceless jewel-encrusted book, to Claudia Gabel at Harper Children’s, for publication in spring 2022, by Uwe Stender at TriadaUS Literary Agency (world).

Leslie Vedder’s debut THE BONE SPINDLE, an #OwnVoices LGBTQ fantasy pitched as a gender-flipped retelling of Sleeping Beauty meets Indiana Jones, in which a cursed treasure hunter and an axe-wielding huntswoman must team up in the treasure hunt of a lifetime to save a lost prince, to Arianne Lewin at Putnam Children’s, in a pre-empt, in a two-book deal, for publication in spring 2022, by Carrie Hannigan and Ellen Goff at HG Literary (NA).

Non-Fiction

Advocate for LGBTQ+ issues and gun violence prevention, and survivor of the 2016 Pulse Nightclub shooting Brandon Wolf’s SAFE SPACE, recounting how the support of the greater Orlando community inspired him towards activism in the wake of that tragic night, and exploring the struggles he faced to find a sense of belonging, the resiliency required to maintain it in an increasingly chaotic and fearful world, and the essential role that community has in effecting positive social change during times of crisis, to Selena James at Little A, in a pre-empt, by Jud Laghi at Jud Laghi Agency (world).

Lambda Literary Fellow Lamya H’s MARYAM IS A DYKE, a memoir in essays about her experience as a queer hijabi Muslim immigrant seeking to make sense of herself, her faith, and her place in the world through the lens of radical, lyrical interpretations of the Quran, to Katy Nishimoto at Dial, at auction, by Julia Kardon at HG Literary (NA).

Author of the 2021 PEN Open Book Award finalist and NAACP Image Award-nominated poetry collection UN-AMERICAN, and literary agent at Janklow & Nesbit Hafizah Geter’s THE BLACK PERIOD: ON PERSONHOOD, RACE & ORIGIN, a genre-bending memoir that explores how the origin stories we inherit can be remade by delving into the author’s personal and political experiences with Blackness, queerness, Islamophobia, shame, and grief as they cross continents from Nigeria and Gambia to the U.S., to Jamia Wilson at Random House, at auction, by Ayesha Pande at Ayesha Pande Literary (NA).

 

Shopper's Delight

5 New March eBooks for Under $5!

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The Home I Find With You by Skye Kilaen (Polyam Romance, $2.99)

Sweethand by N.G. Peltier (Bi m/f Contemporary Romance, $2.99)

Black Boy Out of Time by Hari Ziyad (Memoir, $3.99)

Learned Reactions by Jayce Ellis (m/m Contemporary Romance, $4.99)

Knit, Purl, a Baby, and a Girl by Hettie Bell (f/f Contemporary Romance, $4.99)

All links are Amazon affiliate. Purchasing through them earns a small percentage of income for the site.

Uncategorized

Introducing Amble Press, an LGBTQ Imprint of Bywater Books!

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Last week, we revealed the cover of Michael Nava’s newest Henry Rios book, Lies With Man, and today, he’s back to talk about the imprint publishing that book, Amble Press! Amble Press is a new LGBTQ imprint of Bywater Books, noted lesbian publisher of such titles as Jericho by Ann McMan, I Can’t Think Straight by Shamim Sarif, Compass Rose by Anna Burke, and Bury Me When I’m Dead by Cheryl A. Head. Now they’re going beyond the L, and as Managing Editor, Michael Nava’s here to talk about how it began, what’s coming up, and what they’re looking for!

***

Michael Nava

Independent presses have been the life-blood of LGBTQ literary culture for decades. Scrappy small presses in the 70’s and 80’s published the first works of Rita Mae Brown, Dorothy Allison and Alison Bechdel, as well as trailblazing Black and Latinx writers like Larry Duplechan, James Earl Hardy, Jewelle Gomez, Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua. Firebrand Books published Stone Butch Blues, a pioneering work of work of trans literature and Alyson Publications dared to publish gay and lesbian childrens’ books – most notably Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman – at a time when gay people were demonized a pedophiles who recruited children into their ranks.

These presses existed because, by and large, New York publishers were hostile to queer writers even though it was an open secret that there were gay and lesbian editors at those big publishing houses. My own experience is instructive: in 1986, I submitted my first novel, a mystery featuring a gay, Mexican-American criminal defense lawyer named Henry Rios, to 13 New York publishers. It was rejected by every one of them. The editors who responded with more than a form letter rejection said essentially the same thing: this is a well-written book, but there’s no market for it. I found a home at Alyson Publications, which was then the preeminent small gay publisher. (Eventually, I would be published first by HarperCollins and then by Putnam until, in 2000, I began a fifteen-year break from writing and publishing.)

Small queer presses continue to be an essential part of our literary landscape because they remain necessary. Although the Big Publishers roll out the occasional LGBTQ book, queer writers, like writers from other traditionally marginalized still have a harder time getting their books published by an the increasing cautious and profit-driven mainstream publishing industry. A quick Google search reveals there are many small queer presses and to those already existing ones I want to introduce Amble Press, an imprint of Bywater Books, where I serve as managing editor.

Bywater Books is a respected lesbian press founded in 2004 that boasts among its award-winning roster of writers Cheryl Head, Ann McMan, Paula Martinac, Penny Micklebury and many more. In 2018, the Bywater’s leadership, publisher Salem West and director of operations, Marianne K. Martin, decided they wanted to start a new imprint that would expand their reach behind the lesbian community to other queer writers, and especially writers of color. They named the imprint Amble Press and their first acquisition was Alan E. Rose’s novel As If Death Summoned, a moving novel set in the last days of the worst of AIDS epidemic which reviewer Grady Harp calls “a beautiful, involving novel,” and about which Jerry Wheeler says in Out In Print “I couldn’t put it down.”

I was tapped as Amble’s managing editor last spring because of my interest in giving back to the queer literary community the same boost I had received when I was a young, emerging writer. Part of the agreement was that Amble would publish the next Henry Rios novel, Lies With Man, which appears in April. My first acquisitions will be published in the summer of 2021; Matthew Clark Davison’s debut novel Doubting Thomas in June, 2021 and Joe Okonkwo’s collection of short stories, Kiss the Scar on the Back of My Neck in August.

These books illustrate the great range of excellent queer writing out in the world that is not finding homes in the risk-averse culture of Big Publishing. Neither Davison nor Okonkwo are first-time, inexperienced writers. Davison teaches in the creative writing department of San Francisco State University, has published widely in places like Guernica and The Atlantic and anthologies like Empty the Pews and is the recipient of a number of literary awards and grants. But even with this pedigree and a literary agent, he struggled to find a publisher for his first novel about a gay teacher at an elite, private school falsely accused of inappropriately touching one of his students and its aftermath. Okonkwo’s first novel Jazz Moon, won the Publishing Triangle’s Edmund White Award for outstanding first novel and he too was represented by a distinguished literary agent for his superb collection of short stories.

Thirty years ago, both these writers may well have found homes with one of the big publishers. Of course, big publishing’s loss in Amble’s gain and, ultimately, also benefits queer readers who might otherwise be deprived of the work of these brilliant writers.

Amble Press is currently accepting submissions and is, as I said, particularly interested in queer writers of color. You can see our submissions information at https://www.bywaterbooks.com/amble_press_submissions/

Cover Reveal, Giveaway

Exclusive Cover Reveal + Galley Giveaway: Interactive Novel (!) Major Detours by Zachary Sergi

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I am so excited to have today’s guest on the site, because this is seriously a project unlike any I’ve ever seen. Major Detours by Zachary Sergi is an interactive YA novel releasing from Running Press on September 7th, 2021, and today we’re not only revealing the cover, but we’re giving away three galleys with a different beautiful cover, and, because I had to know WTF it means that it’s an interactive YA novel, I asked Zach to share a little more about the process of making this happen!

But first, the book:

It’s the summer before college and four best friends—Amelia, Chase, Cleo, and Logan—are on the first leg of their road trip inspired by the unique tarot deck that Amelia inherited from her grandmother. However, their trip full of visiting occult shops, bonding, and sightseeing quickly takes a major detour when they discover that their tarot deck is more valuable—and coveted—than they could’ve ever imagined. Suddenly pursued by collectors who are after the legendary “lost” work of an infamous cult-following artist, the four friends will discover the fortunes that await those who unearth the deck’s four missing cards.

As the reader, you’ll get to make actual choices to further the friends’ road trip adventure in this first-of-its-kind interactive novel. Will you help the main characters, Amelia and Chase, learn and grow? How will you navigate Amelia’s steamy budding romances and overcome the challenges facing Chase and Logan’s queer-teen relationship?  Will you uncover the mysteries of the tarot deck? The choices are yours to make!

Major Detours is more than the branching-path books from your childhood. Instead, this fresh format bridges the gap between nostalgic choose-your-own-adventure and the modern style of digital interactive fiction, with choices that always lead you forward in the story and feature four diverse, queer characters navigating relationships and self-discovery. In Major Detours, the reader can interactively engage in two queer romances (from 2 alternating POVs), between the challenges facing a teen cis-male monogomous long-term relationship and a budding discovery of pansexual and nonbinary identities.

And because I cannot keep this epic cover from you any longer:

**Art by Karl Mountford | Design by Marissa Raybuck**

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | B&N | IndieBound

And, as promised, here’s Zachary Sergi to talk about the creation and inspiration of this novel!

Publishing Choices

As with any novel, the links in the chain that led to the creation of Major Detours could take us decades back, but I’ll start us more recently: after years of writing digital interactive fiction novels for Choice of Games (Heroes Rise and Versus, which have found the most devoted and lovely readerships) and almost selling two TV pilots (one about a youth cult and another about tarot cards—sound familiar?), I decided to focus my energy on returning to my very first dream: writing and publishing a print novel.

That story spans several years (and includes writing a more straightforward YA supernatural horror novel), but this intention ultimately put me on the path to meeting my agent, Lucy Carson, and eventually my editor at Running Press Kids, Britny Brooks-Perilli. It turns out Britny had read my novels for Choice of Games and wanted to know if I was interested in adapting my unique style of interactive fiction for print.

Of course, the answer was yes. Though really, I had never set out to write interactive fiction. The first Heroes Rise came about similarly: a manager asked if I’d pitch Choice of Games as one of my first opportunities out of college (this was before iPhones had become popularized, so writing a novel that would live as an app for a brand-new publishing company was…a leap of faith, to be sure). As it turns out, like many others, I’m uniquely suited to write interactive fiction, having made up RPG games and stories my whole life (with my ever-growing action figure collection). As RuPaul often says, sometimes you have to let the dream dream you. I always dreamed of being a writer—and as the universe would have it, I’m meant to be an interactive writer.

Needless to say I was very up for the challenge of adapting the complex, coded style of modern IF for print. Britny and I then embarked on a very non-traditional process—perhaps fitting for a very non-traditional print debut. Britny (who has turned out to be my creative soulmate)  pitched me a concept: road trip with a potential genre twist. I then pitched tarot cards, a subject I had spent lots of time researching and knew had hidden depths not reflected in pop culture yet. We talked style, then I drafted a full proposal, complete with a sample chapter and a totally new interactive format—one designed to feel as reader-friendly as possible.

After many months of additional drafts and conversations, Britny’s team approved the novel. After years of work, I had arrived at this dream-come-true destination—by taking lots of unexpected detours. But now I actually had to write this novel we had proposed…

Writing Choices

Interactive fiction was born out of the interactive novels of the 80s and 90s: most think of the Choose Your Own Adventure line, but I actually grew up reading the Goosebumps: Reader Beware…You Choose The Scare line (I even tried building my own interactive slasher novel in the 3rd grade…so again, detour or destiny?) The novels written for Choice of Games, however, are all grown up: with sophisticated plots and characters, including complicated choices that are tracked by built-in coding and statistics (born out of early adventure video games). How were Britny and I going to replicate this digital/app-driven medium for print?

With lots of creativity, it turns out. The format we invented for Major Detours has three cornerstones. First: a more novelistic style. The original interactive print novels are what we call “bushy,” with lots of short story branches that end quickly and jump all over the book, then send you back to the beginning. In Major Detours, the choices always lead you forward and follow the spine of a linear plot—plus there are callbacks to choices you’ve made along the journey.

This leads us to the second cornerstone: a reading guide in the backmatter, where you can write in your choices using keywords. This unique system keeps track of your choices in a simple way, but once finished reading, you can then plug your choice-keywords into several reader personality profiles. Of course, the choices you make further the plot and branch scenes, but primarily these choices focus on shaping the interior lives of the two protagonists: defining their relationships, their struggles, and their beliefs. In doing so, you also build your own personality profile, choice by choice.

Third, the tone here is no longer middle-grade adventure; instead, we’re dealing with contemporary YA characters and their emotional, steamy, drama-filled coming-of-ages. Oh, and our teen crew is on a spooky tarot adventure, on the run from a maybe-cult of thrilling antagonists and answering deep questions about the meaning of life via the tarot. Some choice themes you will encounter: Can you predict the future or is there no such thing as destiny? Are spirits real or do we only ever haunt ourselves? How can long-term relationships survive going to college on opposite coasts? Is it better to fall for the mysterious good one or the seductive bad boy? Perhaps most importantly, these themes offer several queer romances to navigate… but saying any more about these would definitely mean spoilers for the alternate endings.

The Choices Are Yours

Interactivity, road trips, the tarot, cults, spirituality, queer joy—welcome to Major Detours, an interactive novel unlike any you’ve read before. We truly cannot wait to share it with all you readers!

How cool is that??

BUT WAIT. THERE’S MORE.

The galleys for Major Detours actually have a different cover, though it’s every bit as striking, and the Running Press team is giving three of them away here!

To enter, just leave a comment below! Let us know what you think about the cover, tell us about a choice you made (or wish you’d made), tell us your favorite game, or just acknowledge that this is really damn cool. Giveaway is open to U.S. recipients age 18 and over, and winner will be selected on Thursday, April 1st. Void where prohibited, and please allow for shipping delays due  to *gestures around at the world*. 

Excerpt

Excerpt: Singled Out: The True Story of Glenn Burke by Andrew Maraniss

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Today on the site, we welcome New York Times-bestselling author Andrew Maraniss, author of the newly released Singled Out: The True Story of Glenn Burke, published by Philomel Books, to share an excerpt! Here’s some more info on the book:

On October 2nd, 1977, Glenn Burke, outfielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers, made history without even swinging a bat. When his teammate Dusty Baker hit a historic home run, Glenn enthusiastically congratulated him with the first ever high five.

But Glenn also made history in another way–he was the first openly gay MLB player. While he did not come out publicly until after his playing days were over, Glenn’s sexuality was known to his teammates, family, and friends. His MLB career would be cut short after only three years, but his legacy and impact on the athletic and LGBTQIA+ community would resonate for years to come.

New York Times bestselling author Andrew Maraniss tells the story of Glenn Burke: from his childhood growing up in Oakland, his journey to the MLB and the World Series, the joy in discovering who he really was, to more difficult times: facing injury, addiction, and the AIDS epidemic.

Packed with black-and-white photographs and thoroughly researched, never-before-seen details about Glenn’s life, Singled Out is the fascinating story of a trailblazer in sports–and the history and culture that shaped the world around him.

Buy it: Amazon | B&N | IndieBound

(Blogger’s Note: if you, like me, first heard of Glenn Burke thanks to Phil Bildner’s excellent MG novel, A High Five for Glenn Burke, stay tuned for that to take on some more relevance on the site in April.)

And now, here’s an excerpt!

***

In 1975, The Advocate magazine ran national advertisements in main­stream publications showing straight readers that gay people were a part of their lives even if they didn’t realize it. Depicting a group of ordinary-looking men and women standing side by side, the ad was simple but provocative for the time: “Meet the chairman of the board, your clergyman, the mechanic, your favorite actress and maybe your son or daughter. They all live in a closet.”

Even The Advocate, a gay magazine founded in 1967, didn’t go so far as to suggest that someone’s favorite Major League ballplayer might be gay.

Which is not to say the thought hadn’t crossed the editors’ minds. A year earlier, the magazine had mailed letters to Major League teams requesting interviews with players “living a gay lifestyle.” The request was meant to jolt the baseball establishment into acknowledging that there were indeed gay men playing the game. Editors were stunned by the hostility of the few replies they received, especially one from long­time Minnesota Twins public relations director Tom Mee.

“The cop-out, immoral lifestyle of the tragic misfits espoused by your publication,” Mee wrote, “has no place in organized athletics at any level. Your colossal gall in attempting to extend your perversion to an area of total manhood is just simply unthinkable.”

Mee’s rant was featured in a landmark 1975 series of articles, “Homosexuals in Sports” by Lynn Rosellini of the Washington Star. “Mee is not the only one who loathes any suggestion of homosexuality in sports,” she wrote. “For hundreds like him in the image-conscious athletic establishment, homosexuality remains a fearsome, hateful aberration.”

This was the context in which Glenn Burke returned to the Dodgers’ Class AA team in Waterbury, Conn. for the 1975 season. All that separated him from the major leagues was the Dodgers’ Triple-A team in Albuquerque. But while his teammates understood that it was their ability to hit the curve­ball or to throw strikes consistently that would determine their fates, Glenn Burke knew that as a closeted gay man, his challenges extended well beyond the basepaths. In the spring and summer of 1975, he’d be a gay man in baseball, living a double life, keeping a secret from the profession that provided a livelihood while at the same time discover­ing a new world where he could be himself, fully and without shame.

As a twenty-two-year-old big fish in a small, decaying town, this would not be easy.

Waterbury had a long baseball history, with more than a dozen Minor League teams—the Spuds, the Authors, the Invincibles—entertaining fans there dating back to the late 1800s. But the stadium where Burke and the Dodgers played was a joke. Some ballpark quirks add character: the towering Green Monster at Fenway, the ivy-covered walls at Wrigley, the fountains in Kansas City. But the unusual feature in Waterbury added nothing but danger. A running track extended through foul ter­ritory along the first base line before cutting across the outfield grass behind second base and shortstop. The fact that a track dissected the field was bad enough; what made it worse were the elevated curbs on either side of the running lanes, posing a threat to ground balls and infielders alike.

Dodger farmhands considered Waterbury cold, wet, and boring; for John Snider and his wife, Jane, fun consisted of driving out into the country to admire old rock walls. In this environment, whatever enjoyment was to be had came when the players hung out together at the apartments they shared, in the clubhouse, or at bars. And while Burke remained the most outgoing player in the clubhouse, keeping everyone loose with his jokes and music, he began to carefully remove himself from social situations with his teammates, and instead sought clandestine relationships with gay men in town. Most important, and most confusing to his teammates, he decided not to share a house with any of them in ’75, renting a small room at the Waterbury YMCA.

Three years before the Village People released their hit song extol­ling the virtues of gay life at the Y (“They have everything for young men to enjoy / You can hang out with all the boys”), Burke was already onto the notion. When his friends on the team questioned the decision, Burke told them he loved to play basketball, and living at the Y allowed him to shoot hoops every morning before he went to the ballpark.

His teammates thought this was odd, but Burke was a different kind of dude, so they didn’t make too much of it. But one day, Marvin Webb came to the Y to play basketball with Glenn. After they shot around for a while, Burke invited him to check out his room. Webb was surprised by how small it was, maybe six feet across and twelve feet deep, and dumbfounded when Burke introduced him to an out-of-town guest, his lover from California.

Webb looked around the room and saw just one small cot. “Where,” Webb asked, “is he going to stay?”

Glenn didn’t respond, but the answer was obvious.

An unspoken drama was unfolding in this small room at the Waterbury Y, at once simple and profound. Burke was in love and wanted to share this most basic of human emotions with his buddy, Webb. But disclosing his sexuality to his teammate required enormous courage. If Webb reacted with hostility or even whispered nonjudgmen­tally in the clubhouse, Burke’s career could be over. And though Webb walked out of the YMCA uncertain about how he felt about the revela­tion, within days he affirmed Burke’s trust, telling Burke not to worry; they’d always be friends.

When Burke’s partner returned home to the Bay Area, Glenn ven­tured into nearby New Haven, home of Yale University. There, he met a white professor, a man who was fully his type—older and scholarly. Burke and the professor established a routine, with Glenn riding a bus twenty-three miles every morning so they could meet for a leisurely lunch on the fabled New Haven Green, an expansive and historic down­town park.

At night after home games, Burke made up various excuses when his teammates invited him out to chase women, sometimes having one quick drink and leaving, other times saying he needed to get back to the Y for a late game of basketball. Instead, he’d go to the town’s gay bar, the Road House Café, always looking over his shoulder to be sure no one saw him walking in. But one night, Burke walked out of the bar just as a member of the team’s administrative staff walked in. Neither man said a word, but Burke gave him a knowing look, as if to say, Neither one of us will speak a word about this. And neither did.

The encounter caused Burke to think more seriously about the implications of being found out by other members of the baseball establishment. The best protection from his bosses’ likely homophobia, Burke decided, was his performance on the field. “I’m just going to have to hit .300 and lead the league in steals,” he concluded. “Then nobody can say shit to me.”

Burke fell short on batting average, hitting .270 in 1975, but he slugged a career-high 12 homers and set an Eastern League record with 48 stolen bases.

At season’s end, Burke couldn’t wait to get back to San Francisco, where he could surround himself with other gay men and not have to put on an act every day. Ever since his appearance on The King Norman Show as a kid, he had enjoyed the spotlight and relished being the center of attention in any gathering of people. But increasingly, he found it dif­ficult to reconcile his sexuality with the hetero culture of professional baseball. No longer did he want to provide the spark at his teammates’ gatherings. Now, he told a friend, he wanted to “leave his teammates behind and slip away to his own party.” Fortunately for him, in the mid-seventies Black people and gay men were changing the way Americans partied in an exhilarating new way.

Disco Fever was spreading, and Glenn Burke caught it.

Buy it: Amazon | B&N | IndieBound

Excerpted from SINGLED OUT: The True Story of Glenn Burke by Andrew Maraniss. © 2021. Follow Andrew on Twitter @trublu24 and learn more about the book at andrewmaraniss.com.

Andrew Maraniss is a New York Times-bestselling author of narrative nonfiction. His latest book, SINGLED OUT, is a biography of Glenn Burke, the first openly gay Major League Baseball player.

His first book, STRONG INSIDE, was the recipient of the 2015 Lillian Smith Book Award and the lone Special Recognition honor at the 2015 RFK Book Awards. The Young Reader edition was named one of the Top 10 Biographies and Top 10 Sports Books of 2017 by the American Library Association and was selected as a Notable Social Studies Book for 2019 by the National Council for the Social Studies.

His second book, GAMES OF DECEPTION, is the story of the first U.S. Olympic basketball team, which competed at the 1936 Summer Games in Nazi Germany. It received the 2020 Sydney Taylor Honor Award and was named one of Amazon’s Best Books of 2019. Both the National Council for the Social Studies and the American Library Association honored it as a Notable Book of 2019.

Andrew is a Visiting Author at Vanderbilt University Athletics and a contributor to ESPN’s TheUndefeated.com.

Andrew was born in Madison, Wis., grew up in Washington, D.C. and Austin, Texas and now lives in Brentwood, Tenn., with his wife Alison, and their two young children. Follow Andrew on Twitter @trublu24 and visit his website at andrewmaraniss.com.

Cover Reveal

Exclusive Cover Reveal: Tonight We Rule the World by Zack Smedley

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As a huge fan of Zack Smedley’s debut, Deposing Nathan, I’m thrilled to be revealing the cover of his sophomore novel, Tonight We Rule the World, which releases from Page Street on October 5th, 2021! Here’s the story:

Owen Turner is a boy of too many words. For years, they all stayed inside his head and he barely spoke—until he met Lily. Lily, the girl who gave him his voice, helped him come out as bi, and settle into his ASD diagnosis. But everything unravels when someone reports Owen’s biggest secret to the school: that he was sexually assaulted at a class event.

As officials begin interviewing students to get to the bottom of things, rumors about an assault flood the school hallways. No one knows it happened to Owen, and he’s afraid of what will happen if his name gets out. He’s afraid that his classmates will call him a word he can’t stand—“victim.” He’s afraid his father, a tough-as-nails military vet, will resort to extreme methods to hunt down the name of who did it. And he’s afraid that when Lily finds out, she’ll take their relationship to a dark, dangerous place to keep Owen quiet. Then, one day, Owen’s fears all come true. And it will take everything he’s got to escape the explosion intact.

Heartbreaking and hopeful, Tonight We Rule the World is an accessible coming-of-age story that examines identity, voice, and the indelible ways our stories are rewritten by others.

And here’s the haunting, evocative cover, designed by Julia Tyler for Page Street Publishing!

Preorder: Bookshop | Amazon | IndieBound

Zack Smedley was born in 1995, in an endearing Southern Maryland county almost no one has heard of. His critically acclaimed debut novel, Deposing Nathan, was a Kirkus Best Books of 2019 selection, an ALA Rainbow List selection, a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and winner of the 2019 YA Bi Book Award. Alongside writing, he has a degree in Chemical Engineering from UMBC and currently works within the field. He spends his free time building furniture, baking, programming, screenwriting, and tinkering with electronic systems.

Fave Five

Fave Five: Memoirs by Asian Authors

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Gaysia: Adventures in the Queer East by Benjamin Law

Before the Rain: A Memoir of Love & Revolution by Luisita Lopez Torregrosa

Naturally Tan by Tan France

Fairest by Meredith Talusan

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee (Essays)

Cover Reveal

Exclusive Cover Reveal: Lies With Man by Michael Nava

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Today on the site I’m thrilled to be helping Michael Nava reveal the cover of the newest book in his award-winning Henry Rios mystery series, Lies With Man, releasing from Bywater Books’ new Amble Press imprint, which is helmed by Nava himself! (More on that later this month!) Lies With Man releases on April 27th, and the author’s sharing more about it here:

Evangelical Christians and right-wing Republicans push a ballot initiative to forcibly quarantine people with the HIV virus in the eighth Henry Rios novel, Lies With Man, by award winning mystery writer, Michael Nava. Set in Los Angeles in 1986, Rios, a gay, Latino criminal defense lawyer, agrees to represent members of a militant gay activist group called QUEER (Queers United to End Erasure and Repression) who are fighting to defeat the ballot measure with civil disobedience. When a fundamentalist church is firebombed, killing its pastor who supported the initiative, Theo Latour, a member of QUEER is arrested for the crime. And Rios suddenly finds himself defending a client facing the death penalty.

But, in the tradition of the best noir novels, and nothing is as it first appears. As Rios delves into the case, shocking secrets emerge about the victim, Rios’s client, QUEER, the highest echelons of the Los Angeles Police Department and the young man Rios falls in love with. Although set 30 years in the past, the themes of Lies With Man – the Christian right’s assault on LGBTQ people, a community overwhelmed by an epidemic, and police misconduct – could have been taken from today’s news. Lies With Man proves again what the Los Angeles Times said about a previous Rios novel: “Nava’s mysteries are set apart by their insight, compassion, and sense of social justice.” Or, in words of The New York Times Book Review, “Nava is one of our best.”

And here’s the explosive cover, designed by Ann McMan!

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | B&N | IndieBound

Michael Nava’s Henry Rios crime novels have won seven Lambda Literary awards for gay mystery. He is also the author of The City of Palaces, a historical novel set at the beginning of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. In 2001, he was awarded the Publishing Triangle’s Bill Whitehead Lifetime Achievement Award in LGBT literature. He currently serves as the managing editor of Amble Press, an imprint of Bywater Books. Amble Press publishes LGBTQ writers and is particularly interested in publishing queer writers of color.

Giveaway, Happy Holigays, Housekeeping

Happy 5th Anniversary, LGBTQReads!

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Yup. Five years.

Five YEARS, this site has existed.

In five years, there have been over 800 posts, 20,000 Twitter followers, 16,000 Tumblr followers, and over 3,000 Instagram followers. We’ve revealed 126 covers, and yes, that’s my favorite number because it also happens to be my birthday, and no, I probably didn’t do that on purpose. (Plus, it’ll be 127 tomorrow.)

In five years, we’ve done a whole lot, all together. You’ve posted and shared, you’ve reblogged and retweeted, you’ve donated and commented, you’ve recommended this site to your library patrons and students, and you’ve helped make it what it is.

Thank you.

A few fun facts:

The most popular post on the entire site is… LGBTQIAP YA Preview 2020: January-June (and it damn well should be, since I wrote blurbs for 72 books)

The most popular guest post on the entire site is… Recommendations for Polyamory in Fiction by Shira Glassman

The most popular discussion guest post is… Goodbye, Bad Bi: the Lose-Lose Situation of Bisexual YA by Casey Lawrence

The most viewed cover reveal is… The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

The most viewed New Release Spotlight is… Darius the Great is Not Okay by Adib Khorram

The most viewed Better Know an Author is… Kacen Callender

The most viewed Fave Five is… Canon Demisexual Characters

and the most viewed subpage is… (Romance) by Trope/Archetype

So, an anniversary! What are we doing to celebrate??

To be honest, not much! Because I had a book come out yesterday and have another one out in less than two months and I am a little fried! But you can enter to win that first one here, and if you want to win the latter (aka Cool for the Summer), comment below with one of your favorite LGBTQIAP+ books, and one you’re looking forward to reading this year! I’ll give away one bound galley (left) and one ARC (right) so please include which one you’re entering for in your comment!