Pride Month Spotlight: Memoirs

Lesbian Love Story by Amelia Possanza

When Amelia Possanza moved to Brooklyn to build a life of her own, she found herself surrounded by queer stories: she read them on landmark placards, overheard them on the pool deck when she joined the world’s largest LGBTQ swim team, and even watched them on TV in her cockroach-infested apartment. These stories inspired her to seek out lesbians throughout history who could become her role models, in romance and in life.

Centered around seven love stories for the ages, this is Possanza’s journey into the archives to recover the personal histories of lesbians in the twentieth century: who they were, how they loved, why their stories were destroyed, and where their memories echo and live on. Possanza’s hunt takes readers from a drag king show in Bushwick to the home of activists in Harlem and then across the ocean to Hadrian’s Library, where she searches for traces of Sappho in the ruins. Along the way, she discovers her own love—for swimming, for community, for New York City—and adds her record to the archive.

At the heart of this riveting, inventive history, Possanza asks: How could lesbian love help us reimagine care and community? What would our world look like if we replaced its foundation of misogyny with something new, with something distinctly lesbian?

Buy it: BookshopAmazon

Continue reading Pride Month Spotlight: Memoirs

Fave Five: Queer YA Set at Summer Camp

Camp by L.C. Rosen

Nothing Happened by Molly Booth

Keeping Her Secret by Sarah Nicolas

Flamer by Mike Curato

Wish You Weren’t Here by Erin Baldwin

Bonus: These are all contemporary, but for supernatural horror, check out Dead Girls Walking by Sami Ellis 

New Releases: June 11, 2024

Middle Grade

Camp Prodigy by Caroline Palmer

After attending an incredible concert, Tate Seong is inspired to become a professional violist. There’s just one problem: they’re the worst musician at their school.

Tate doesn’t even have enough confidence to assert themself with their friends or come out as nonbinary to their family, let alone attempt a solo anytime soon. Things start to look up when Tate attends a summer orchestra camp—Camp Prodigy—and runs into Eli, the remarkable violist who inspired Tate to play in the first place.

But Eli has been hiding their skills ever since their time in the spotlight gave them a nervous breakdown. Together, can they figure out how to turn Tate into a star and have Eli overcome their performance anxieties? Or will the pressure take them both down?

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Continue reading New Releases: June 11, 2024

Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Young Adult Fiction: July-December 2024

A Darker Mischief by Derek Milman (July 2nd)

When Cal Ware wins a scholarship to an elite New England boarding school, he’s thrilled to leave his past behind. Back home in Mississippi, he was the poor, queer kid who never fit in. But at Essex Academy, he’ll be able to reinvent himself. Or so he hopes…

But at Essex, Cal’s classmates only see his cheap clothes and old iPhone. They mock his accent, and can’t believe he’s never left the country, or heard of The Hamptons. Cal, at his breaking point, is about to give up and return to Mississippi when he learns about a secret society on campus — the key to becoming Essex royalty.

Cal knows he’s not exactly secret society material, but to his surprise, he finds an unlikely champion in the handsome, charismatic, and slightly dangerous Luke Kim. As they get swept up in the mystery and glamour of the Rush process, Cal finds himself falling in love for the first time.

But as the initiation rituals grow riskier — and increasingly nefarious — Cal must decide how far he’s willing to go, and how much of himself he’s willing to sacrifice, to save everything and everyone he cherishes most. Because nothing at Essex — not even Cal’s first love — is quite what it seems.

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Continue reading Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Young Adult Fiction: July-December 2024

Pride Month Spotlight: Graphic Novels

Early Reader

Batcat by Meggie Ramm

First in a full-color graphic novel series for emerging readers about accepting yourself and others from up-and-coming author-illustrator Meggie Ramm, creator of the comic strip The Littlest Dungeon Guard and cohost of the Pop! Whiz! Bang! comics podcast.

Batcat loves being all alone in their home on Spooky Island. Up in their tree house, they pass the time playing video games and watching TV. But when Batcat suddenly finds themself haunted by an annoying, ice cream–stealing ghost, they visit the local Island Witch for a spell to remove their ghastly guest permanently!

With their Ghost-B-Gone spell in hand, Batcat travels across Spooky Island to gather ingredients—to the Cavernous Caves where the bats tell them they’re too round to be a bat, and to the Whispering Cemetery where the cats will help only if they commit to being a true cat. But Batcat is neither and that’s what makes them special, right?

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Spotlight on: 2024 Lammy Finalists for Best Anthology

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.

Continue reading Spotlight on: 2024 Lammy Finalists for Best Anthology

Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Middle Grade Fiction: July-December 2024

Benji Zeb is a Ravenous Werewolf by Deke Moulton (July 2nd)

Benji Zeb has a lot going on. He has a lot of studying to do, not only for school but also for his upcoming bar mitzvah. He’s nervous about Mr. Rutherford, the aggressive local rancher who hates Benji’s family’s kibbutz and wolf sanctuary. And he hasn’t figured out what to do about Caleb, Mr. Rutherford’s stepson, who has been bullying Benji pretty hard at school, despite Benji wanting to be friends (and maybe something more). And all of this is made more complicated by the fact that, secretly, Benji and his entire family are werewolves who are using the wolf sanctuary as cover for their true identities!

Things come to a head when Caleb shows up at the kibbutz one night . . . in wolf form! He’s a werewolf too, unable to control his shifting, and he needs Benji’s help. Can anxious Benji juggle all of these things along with his growing feelings toward Caleb?

Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon

Continue reading Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Middle Grade Fiction: July-December 2024

New Releases: June 4, 2024

Middle Grade

Asking for a Friend by Ronnie Riley

Why go through the stress of making friends when you can just pretend? It works for Eden and their social anxiety… until their mom announces she’s throwing them a birthday party and all their friends are invited.

Eden’s “friends,” Duke, Ramona, and Tabitha, are all real kids from school… but Eden’s never actually spoken to them before. Now Eden will do whatever it takes to convince them to be their friends–at least until the party is over.

When things start to go better than Eden expects, and the group starts to bond, Eden finds themselves trapped in a lie that gets worse the longer they keep it up. What happens if their now sort-of-real friends discover that Eden hasn’t been honest with them from the very beginning?

Author Ronnie Riley creates a world full of queer joy and all the ups and downs of true friendship.

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Continue reading New Releases: June 4, 2024

Happy Caribbean American Heritage Month!

Happy Caribbean American Heritage Month! We’re celebrating as we do, with queer Caribbean fiction!

Middle Grade

Hurricane Child by Kacen Callender

Being born during a hurricane is considered unlucky where twelve-year-old Caroline Murphy lives, and she has had her share of bad luck lately. She’s hated and bullied by everyone in her small school on St. Thomas of the US Virgin Islands. A spirit only she can see won’t stop following her. And—worst of all—Caroline’s mother left home one day and never came back.

But when a new student named Kalinda arrives, Caroline’s luck begins to turn around. Kalinda, a solemn girl from Barbados with a special smile for everyone, becomes Caroline’s first and only friend—and the person for whom Caroline has begun to develop a crush. Now, Caroline must find the strength to confront her feelings for Kalinda, brave the spirit stalking her through the islands, and face the reason her mother abandoned her. Together, Caroline and Kalinda must set out in a hurricane to find Caroline’s missing mother—before Caroline loses her forever.

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Continue reading Happy Caribbean American Heritage Month!