Today on the site we’re shining the spotlight on the 2024 finalists for the Lambda Literary Award for Best Anthology! Anthologies are pretty near and dear to my heart, having edited five of them, and I’m thrilled to help showcase these editors, contributors, and volumes before the Lammy Awards take place on June 11th!
2 Trans 2 Furious: An Extremely Serious Journal of Transgender Street Racing Studies ed. by Tuck Woodstock & Niko Stratis (Rapid Onset Gender Distro / Self-published)
The ironic subtitle of this book says it all. Canadian zine 2 Trans 2 Furious is anything but “extremely serious.” And the playful descriptive copy perfectly captures the tone of this labor of fan love: “More than 40 trans writers and artists have joined forces to explore the deeper meanings of the Fast & Furious franchise (and also gender). There’s really no way to know why this exists, but it does, and you can own it!” Co-editor Niko Stratis dates her love of the franchise back to when she saw the first Fast & Furious movie “the month before trying to come out as trans for the first time.” The first print run has already sold out, but we’re holding out hope that it will be back in stock soon so everyone can enjoy this compilation of fiction and nonfiction that explores the queer subtext of the iconic street racing film saga.
A Pill for Promiscuity: Gay Sex in an Age of Pharmaceuticals ed. by Andrew R. Spieldenner and Jeffrey Escoffier (Rutgers University Press)
How has PreP changed the landscape of gay sex? Novelists, cartoonists, and activists alike explore this question in a collection that offers up perspectives from different generations, countries, ethnic backgrounds, and HIV statuses. Drawing on the stereotypes and stigma surrounding promiscuity, the legacy of the AIDS crisis, and the rich history of gay cruising, these writers look to the past to imagine a new future. The editors wanted the conversation to sound like one you might overhear at a gay bar, and these voices will stay with you long after you finish the book.
Being Ace: An Anthology of Queer, Trans, Femme, and Disabled Stories of Asexual Love and Connection ed. by Madeline Dyer; with contributions by Cody Daigle-Orians, Kat Yuen, Akemi Dawn Bowman, Rosiee Thor, Madeline Dyer, Linsey Miller, K. Hart, S.E. Anderson, Emily Victoria, Anju Imura, RoAnna Sylver, Moniza Hossain, Lara Ameen, Jas Brown, and S.J. Taylor (Page Street Publishing / Page Street YA)
Geared toward young adult readers, this collection of fourteen fictional stories centering asexual characters and written by asexual authors surely has something for every kind of reader: science fiction, fantasy, and contemporary; thrill seekers and romance lovers alike. The editor also smartly includes a mix of well-known and emerging authors, and these authors are unafraid to explore how asexuality intersects with other identities, including one story about a powerchair user trying to rescue her girlfriend from kidnappers. Rosiee Thor’s story, “Well Suited,” about two aspec teens who enchant a suit of armor and send it off to pose as a knight, is a fan favorite.
Fairy Tale Review: The Rainbow Issue ed. by Benjamin Schaefer (Wayne State University Press)
This annual literary journal has been “dedicated to publishing new fairy tales” since 2005. Traditionally, each issue is named for a color—the Lilac Issue, the Gold Issue, the Coral Issue—and, as you might have guessed, the Rainbow issue is dedicated to “queer fairy tales written by queer writers.” “When reviewing the final manuscript of The Rainbow Issue,” writes editor Benjamin Schaefer, “I noticed that the majority of its contents had one thing in common: apart from being queer, nearly all of them involved some kind of transformation. People transformed into castles and cakes and whole cities; they transformed into foxes and sphinxes, bears and wolves, daffodils and tobacco and cannabis. They transformed into reflections of their own mothers; they transformed into kings and spontaneous hustlers.” These transformative contributions include tales from The Sea Elephants author Shastri Akella and The Last Catastrophe author Allegra Hyde.
Rosalind’s Siblings: Fiction and Poetry Celebrating Scientists of Marginalized Genders ed. by Bogi Takács; with contributions by Cameron Van Sant, Celia Neri, D.A. Xiaolin Spires, Emma Alice Johnson, Hal Y. Zhang, Isha Karki, Jennifer Lee Rossman, Julian K. Jarboe, Julie Nováková, Kanika Agrawal, Laura Jane Swanson, Leigh Harlen, Lisa M. Bradley, Lydia Moon, Osahon Ize-Iyamu, Phoebe Barton, Polenth Blake, Premee Mohamed, Santiago Belluco, Stefani Cox, Tessa Fisher, Ursula Whitcher, and Vajra Chandrasekera (Atthis Arts)
Bogi Takács, already a Lambda award winner, named this anthology for Rosalind Franklin, a physical chemist who played a significant role in the discovery of DNA and in the field of virology, but who never got her due because of her gender. Now, the 23 writers in this collection, new and established alike, celebrate other, imagined scientists of marginalized genders through their fiction and poetry. These stories feature astronauts and botanists, lepidopterists and animal behaviorists, and all of them celebrate the challenges of research and the joys of discovery.
