It’s been a year since this ridiculously fun, delightful, romantic, and inspiring YA released, and if you’re looking for the perfect bit of joy to extend Pride month, you’ve found it in Lyla Lee’s K-Pop bi/bi m/f romance, I’ll Be the One! (Or, if you’d rather wait for the paperback, that’ll be out on December 21st!)
Skye Shin has heard it all. Fat girls shouldn’t dance. Wear bright colors. Shouldn’t call attention to themselves. But Skye dreams of joining the glittering world of K-Pop, and to do that, she’s about to break all the rules that society, the media, and even her own mother, have set for girls like her.
She’ll challenge thousands of other performers in an internationally televised competition looking for the next K-pop star, and she’ll do it better than anyone else.
When Skye nails her audition, she’s immediately swept into a whirlwind of countless practices, shocking performances, and the drama that comes with reality TV. What she doesn’t count on are the highly fat-phobic beauty standards of the Korean pop entertainment industry, her sudden media fame and scrutiny, or the sparks that soon fly with her fellow competitor, Henry Cho.
But Skye has her sights on becoming the world’s first plus-sized K-pop star, and that means winning the competition—without losing herself.
I am delighted to have Xan West back on the site today to reveal the cover of their newest Romance, which just happens to take place during Chanukah! Eight Kinky Nights is a kinky polyamorous f/f Romance releasing just in time for the holiday on December 16, 2019, and includes friends to lovers, roommates to lovers, kink lessons, seasoned romance and getting your groove back tropes, and polyamorous, gray ace, pansexual, Jewish, fat, autistic, and disabled representation. (More details in the tags.) Here’s the official blurb, with content warnings located here:Newly divorced stone butch Jordan moves into her friend Leah’s spare room, ready, at 49, to take on a new job and finally explore kink and polyamory. But moving to NYC during the holidays sends grief crashing through her, and Jordan realizes that when she isn’t solely focused on caring for others, her own feelings are unavoidable. Including her feelings for Leah.
51-year-old queer femme Leah, an experienced submissive kink educator who owns a sex shop, has recently come to terms with being gray ace and is trying to rework her life and relationships to honor that.
Leah has a brainstorm to help them both: she offers Jordan eight kink lessons, one for each night of Chanukah, to help Jordan find her feet as a novice dominant, and to create a structured space where Leah can work on more deeply honoring her own consent, now that she knows she’s gray ace.
She’d planned to keep it casual, but instead the experience opens cracks in the armor Leah’s been using to keep people at a distance and keep herself safe. Now she needs to grapple with the trauma that’s been impacting her life for years.
Can these two autistic queers find ways to cope with the changes they are making in their lives and support each other, as they build something new they hadn’t thought was possible?
And here’s the warm, lovely, kinky cover, illustrated by Hannah Zayit!
But wait, there’s more! Here’s an excerpt!
“So I had this idea and I wanted to see what you thought about it,” Leah said.
“Okay, I’m listening.”
“I was thinking about Chanukah, and had this idea for a present for you. You said you wanted to learn how to be a good dominant. I thought I could give you lessons, as your present. One lesson per night of Chanukah.”
Jordan felt her eyes go wide. She really had not been expecting that. “But, I thought you didn’t want to, so you told Iris to do it.” She hadn’t even decided to say that, had just blurted it out. It probably came out wrong. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful.”
“No, no it’s fine. I just want to make sure I understand what you meant. You thought I was rejecting you?”
“Well. Yeah. I mean, I’m used to it. You never took me to kink things. You didn’t really want me to go to your class. You seemed all weird after the party.”
“Oh, fuck. I’ve made a mess of this. I’m sorry. I didn’t take you to kink things because I was trying to be respectful of your vanilla-ness. Now that I know you’re kinky…I think I’ve been playing catch-up. I don’t change how I think of things very fast, you know that about me. So…I’ve acted all weird, not because I’m rejecting you, but because I’m awkward with change.”
“That’s the only thing that’s going on? Nothing else is making this weird?” Jordan wanted to be sure.
“Well, I think that’s the main thing that’s going on.”
“Uh huh.” Jordan knew there was something else.
“There’s this other thing I’ve been dealing with, and I’m still figuring out how to handle it. It might’ve had some splash over.”
“Okay. Do you want to tell me about it?”
“I’m not sure I have the words. But yeah I would, maybe. Though not right this minute.”
“Okay. So you really want to give me kink lessons? I don’t want you to feel obligated.”
“Yes, I really want to.”
“That would actually be great. It was okay getting stuff for my toybag with Iris, and I like her and everything, but if you were up for teaching me, I think that would feel…safer, if that makes sense?”
“Yeah, I get that. We have such a deep friendship, it could make a safer place to learn.”
Jordan nodded. “I trust you, and it feels better learning from another autistic person, honestly. You won’t expect me to learn in an allistic way.”
Leah grinned at her. “I definitely will not expect that. I didn’t even consider that aspect of this.”
“It feels like a big deal, for me anyway. I haven’t had the best learning experiences. You know that, you saw how hard college was for me.”
“Yep, I remember. So I was thinking about eight lessons, one per night, though eight nights in a row might be too much, so they can always be postponed.”
“Sounds good.”
“How would you feel about a structure where I do some teaching, then we do a short scene where you get to practice what we covered? And then we could do follow-up, if you have questions or want feedback.”
“So a bit like where Iris taught me some safety stuff about clips, and then I got to try it out?”
“Yeah, but a bit more formal than that. I might even make a handout for the lesson, and it would be a bit longer, probably. Not quite so quick and dirty.”
“I do better if I get to practice, and a handout would help me, actually. I also get things better if you can lead me to realizing them myself, and help me connect to other things I know.”
“Okay, I can work with that. So it sounds like this is something you want to do, then?”
Jordan took several slow breaths and held the idea for a few moments, just to be sure. “Yes. This is a really wonderful present, Leah.”
“I want to be sure it doesn’t fuck things up with our friendship. You mean so much to me, Jordan. I don’t want this to ruin what we have. So we need to keep it strictly about learning, okay?” Leah’s voice was raw.
“I don’t want us to ruin what we have, either. It’s been thirty years, darlin’. We made it this far; I really think we’ll be okay. Our friendship might change, might have new layers to it, move slightly differently. But then, that’s already started, and it seems okay so far, yes?”
Leah nodded. “I might need you to reassure me about this,” she whispered, closing her eyes.
“I can do that. We have a solid foundation. I truly believe that. We’re just adding new aspects to what we already have. Sex, kink, romance…none of that is more important than friendship.” Jordan watched Leah’s face carefully to see how she reacted to the fact that she’d snuck the word romance in there. A small tentative smile grew on Leah’s face, like she was rolling the words around in her head, wanting to believe in them. She definitely didn’t seem to object to the word. Jordan would just leave it there, for now.
Eight Kinky Nights is available for preorder from Gumroad and Amazon and releases December 16, 2019!
***
Xan West is the nom de plume of Corey Alexander, an autistic queer fat Jewish genderqueer writer with multiple disabilities who spends a lot of time on Twitter.
Xan’s erotica has been published widely, including in the Best S/M Erotica series, the Best Gay Erotica series, and the Best Lesbian Erotica series. Xan’s story “Trying Submission,” won the 2018 National Leather Association John Preston Short Fiction Award. Their collection of queer kink erotica, Show Yourself to Me, will be rereleased soon.
After over 15 years of writing and publishing queer kink erotica short stories, Xan has begun to also write longer form queer kink romance. Their recent work still centers kinky, trans and non-binary, fat, disabled, queer trauma survivors. It leans more towards centering Jewish characters, ace and aro spec characters, autistic characters, and polyamorous networks. Xan has two other queer kink romances currently available: Nine of Swords, Reversed and Their Troublesome Crush.
The policy here for what constitutes “backlist” is that it has to be a year old. So did I literally put Beneath the Citadel by Destiny Soria into my schedule to promote the very single month it became eligible, even though it’s technically kind of the author’s frontlist? Sure did! Because it is great and underread and has gay, bi, and ace rep and it’s “friends on a quest” which is my favorite kind of contemporary (think Finnikin but gay!) and if you haven’t yet read it, you absolutely should!
In the city of Eldra, people are ruled by ancient prophecies. For centuries, the high council has stayed in power by virtue of the prophecies of the elder seers. After the last infallible prophecy came to pass, growing unrest led to murders and an eventual rebellion that raged for more than a decade.
In the present day, Cassa, the orphaned daughter of rebels, is determined to fight back against the high council, which governs Eldra from behind the walls of the citadel. Her only allies are no-nonsense Alys, easygoing Evander, and perpetually underestimated Newt, and Cassa struggles to come to terms with the legacy of rebellion her dead parents have left her — and the fear that she may be inadequate to shoulder the burden. But by the time Cassa and her friends uncover the mystery of the final infallible prophecy, it may be too late to save the city — or themselves.
I’m so thrilled to be featuring this groundbreaking anthology on the site today, along with eleven notes by queer contributors on their entries! The representation in this book is so wonderfully varied, and it’s great to have so many authors here to talk about it! So here’s The (Other) F Word: A Celebration of the Fat & Fierce ed. by the fabulous Angie Manfredi.
Chubby. Curvy. Fluffy. Plus-size. Thick. Fat. The time has come for fat people to tell their own stories. The (Other) F Word combines personal essays, prose, poetry, fashion tips, and art to create a relatable and attractive guide about body image and body positivity. This YA crossover anthology is meant for people of all sizes who desire to be seen and heard in a culture consumed by a narrow definition of beauty. By combining the talents of renowned fat YA and middle-grade authors, as well as fat influencers and creators, The (Other) F Word offers teen readers and activists of all ages a guide for navigating our world with confidence and courage.
“I’ve always had a weird relationship with clothes. I feel like it’s something that a lot of fat trans people deal with. Already clothing and fashion is hard to navigate when you’re fat, this industry doesn’t like you, it doesn’t want to see you be fashionable. It also wants to make you pay extra for daring to have a body. But when you’re trans on top of all of that? It can feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders. It’s so much harder to find clothing as a fat trans person, clothing that can literally save your life, or make you feel like the person you truly are.
Clothing is a life-line for both of us, for fat people, and for trans people. It has the magic to make us feel like our real selves, to be more confident in who we are. I’d never seen anything talk about this connection, ever, so I wanted to say my piece. Because it’s a hard world to navigate, and I want teenagers dealing with the same feelings to know that they aren’t alone with them.”
***
S. Qiouyi Lu, “Fat, And”
I wrote “Fat, And” because I’ve often been frustrated by fat spaces that focus on fatness to the exclusion of other identities and experiences. As not only a fat person, but a nonbinary person of color, I wanted to represent the complexity of a multilayered identity: Each layer influences the others and is inextricable from the whole. I hope I can inspire people to see themselves as a whole instead of a collection of parts, especially considering how often we’re forced to turn our bodies into parts (my stomach, my arms, my legs, etc.) in a body-negative culture.
***
Jess Walton, “Losing My Religion”
As a teenager, I came out and found a beautiful, vibrant community that accepted and celebrated me as a bisexual person. Having that community around me helped me stand up to hateful bigotry over the years.
I did not find disability and fat pride and community until my thirties, so ableism and anti-fatness have had a lot more time to do me harm. I wrote ‘Losing my Religion’ because joining Weight Watchers as a teenager was formative and extremely damaging to the way I felt about myself. It led to an adulthood focused on weight loss and ‘fixing’ my body. I was so ashamed of the way I looked – I felt undesirable and unloveable. Every time I managed to lose weight, I would be congratulated and told how good I looked, which reinforced the idea that I needed to lose weight, and that fat bodies were bad, failed bodies. For me, disability and fat pride are closely linked. They’re both about saying my body is not a failed body. I can be proud of who I am instead of ashamed. I can reject those who hate the fat and disabled parts of me, just as I reject those who hate the queer part of me.
I also wrote ‘Losing My Religion’ because Weight Watchers still exists, and is still doing serious harm to fat people, including kids. In fact, they’re targeting kids and teens with their kurbo app. They can try rebranding themselves as ‘Wellness that Works’, but I’ll always see them for what they are – a harmful, predatory, profit driven cult.
I’m honoured to be a part of this anthology; it’s one of the books I really needed as a fat, queer, disabled teen. I’m so, so relieved that it exists in the world now.
***
Alex Gino, “Body Sovereignty: This Fat Trans Flesh is Mine”
I have the right to change my transgender body. I do not have an obligation to change my fat body. Body sovereignty, the idea that I am the decision-maker over my very self, holds these two statements in balance. It’s also the idea at the heart of my essay Body Sovereignty: This Fat, Trans Flesh is Mine. Like the title, this piece mixes a touch of radical body theory with a practical look at how transgender and fat bodies are treated, and why it’s so important to claim and reclaim control over how and whether our bodies are altered. There’s even a little chart! I can only imagine the hard roads I could have skipped down a little more easily if someone had slipped an essay like this, as part of a book like this, into my hands when I was a teen, and I’m delighted to be able to do that for others, especially for fat queer, trans, and nonbinary youth.
***
Jiji Knight, “Brighter Than Starlight”
This book is everything I wish I had when I was growing up fat and struggling to answer the the question “What is normal?”
No one ever assures you that yes! You are the norm. Your body is the norm. Body positivity is still such a foreign movement to some people – hell – most people. The very concept that fat people are reclaiming the word ‘fat’ and celebrating their curves, their bodies, is exhilarating.
I am fat. I am bisexual. I am an artist. And I am proud to have been a part of such a wonderful amalgamation of beautiful contributors.
***
Miguel M. Morales, “50 Tips from a Fat and Fabulous Elder”
The pieces I submitted to the anthology revealed themselves as I walked in the park near my home in Kansas. I wanted to build up stamina for all the walking I’d be doing on an upcoming trip to Hawai’i. I’d never been that far from home and I wanted to do, see, and taste so much. I also wanted to make sure I didn’t push my body too hard all at once. My secret unspoken goal was to hike Diamond Head.
At the park, I listened to music to help me set a pace for the hike. That’s when I noticed changes in my body’s movement; in its rhythm. I noticed the beauty of nature’s largeness and how society celebrates this grandeur yet blames ours on weakness. I wondered if we amused the trees by hastily moving on a circular path going nowhere, trying to get smaller while we admired their size.
I found my relationship my clothes began to change. Instead of tugging at my shirts desperate for them to hang loose on me, I allowed them to caress my curves. Instead of pulling up my shorts constantly afraid I’d display plumber’s crack, I allowed them to gently settle and rest comfortably on my hips without a worry.
I thought about the anthology and advice I’d want to share. Things my oldness and my queerness and my brownness has taught me about being fat. I remembered those who’ve helped me learn not only to operate this body but to love it.
I’m thrilled this anthology features four of my pieces. I’m eager to write more about intersectional fatness.
Oh, I did hike Diamond Head. I got passed up on the trail by some elderly people and some children, but it was amazing. I was amazing. You should have seen me.
***
Laina Spencer, “To All the Pizzas I’ve Loved Before”
Funnily enough, I don’t normally write non-fiction, but when Angie approached me about writing as essay for The (Other) F Word, I was so excited that I couldn’t say no. I kept thinking about myself as a teenager, and what it would have meant to read something like this. And because I’m always thinking about books and representation, and especially YA books, that’s what I decided to write about that.
And as someone who’s aroace, I wanted to talk about how I don’t necessarily relate to certain narratives, and how it feels sometimes to be aroace in fat spaces, and vice versa. Hopefully I did that pretty well!
***
Hillary Monahan, “Fatness & Horror: The Match Made in Not Heaven”
“When Angie asked me to talk about fatness in my genre of choice–horror–I was delighted. It was something I’d ranted and railed about in my private circles for years. How can we exist in a world, take up space in the world, people the world and be either completely absent from stories OR be “punished” for our fatness by making comedic, convenient victim fodder? I want none of that–as a fat fan and as a fat creator.”
***
“Write Something Fat” by Sarah Hollowell
When I wrote my first book in high school, it never occurred to me that my characters could be anything other than skinny. I didn’t understand then how much damage I was internalizing from a lack of positive representation – not just feeling bad about myself, but erasing myself at every opportunity.
I wasn’t just erasing my fatness. Finding out that bisexuality existed as an option was an amazing, freeing moment in my life. I wanted to shout it from the rooftops, but most of the reactions I got were that it was a phase or I was trying to be trendy. I also went to a high school in southern Indiana in the early 2000s – not a lot of out-and-proud queer people there! It was mostly me, my gay best friend, the girl who was my first kiss, the one other out gay kid, and the ones we suspected were closeted.
I wasn’t seeing queer people like me in the media, I wasn’t seeing them in my life, and even well-meaning people around me seemed to think I’d grow out of it. I didn’t write a queer story until I was in college. I was erasing myself, again.
“Write Something Fat” is about giving myself permission to not erase myself. I wrote it to the teenage version of me, but I also wrote it to the current version of me who wonders if now I write too many fat bisexual girls.
But here’s the thing: If other authors can write dozens of books about straight skinny characters, then I can sure as hell write as many as I want about the fat queer ones. And you can, too.
***
Jon Higgins, Ed.D., “Black, Fat, Fem: The Weight of a Queen”
As soon as I heard about this anthology, the fat 16 year old queer kid inside of me jumped for joy. After reaching out and learning that my work had been accepted, I not only felt validated, but that my work and journey would in turn help someone who might really need the reassurance that they are seen and valued.
Working on this project reminded me that I am my ancestor’s wildest dreams. I am fat, Black and queer and I am leaving behind seeds of my experiences to help other people grow. What’s even more riveting is knowing that I, in my own way, got to share a narrative that is often overlooked and undervalued in my own voice and in my own experience.
Working on this project reminded me of why I began writing in the first place. Why I felt the need to continue to remind others that their lives and their experiences need to be heard and more, that these stories will be the ones that change the lives of those who need it most. I am so grateful for the opportunity and I can’t wait for the world to engage in the greater context of this book and it’s many chapters of knowledge, hope and resistance.
***
“You Are Loved” by Ady Del Valle
I wrote the chapter “You Are Loved” because these are words we don’t get told often but also words we don’t tell ourselves often. I wanted to be able to write something real and meaningful for this amazing and inspiring book, while relating it to myself ans what I do in the industry to do mt part. “You Are Loved” is a chapter of self-love with fashion or without, no matter your size or how you identify you are worthy in more ways the one. The “Other” F Word: A Celebration of the Fat and Fierce is a book that will speak to so many in many ways that we all can relate to, its real words form real people. I hope my chapter and the book as whole helps and inspires anyone who flips through the pages no matter who they are and give them motivation to love who they are as they are.
***
Angie Manfredi is a librarian and writer who owns every season of Law and Order on DVD and sends over 150 handwritten Valentines every year. She has spent the last 11 years working directly with children and teens of all ages in a public library and now works in library consulting on all things youth services. Angie is fat and not sorry about it. She is a passionate advocate for literacy, diversity, and decolonizing the discourse surrounding children’s literature. Her latest book is The (Other) F Word: A Celebration of the Fat & Fierce.
Today on the site we’re revealing yet another super cute cover by Xan West, this one for Their Troublesome Crush, the contemporary polyam trans m/cis f Romance novella that kicks off the Kink & Showtunes series with its release on April 16, 2019! Here’s the blurb:
In this queer polyamorous m/f romance novella, two metamours realize they have crushes on each other while planning their shared partner’s birthday party together. Ernest, a Jewish autistic demiromantic queer fat trans man submissive, and Nora, a Jewish disabled queer fat femme cis woman switch, have to contend with an age gap, a desire not to mess up their lovely polyamorous dynamic as metamours, the fact that Ernest has never been attracted to a cis person before, and the reality that they are romantically attracted to each other, all while planning their dominant’s birthday party and trying to do a really good job.
And here’s the cover, illustrated by Hannah Aroni!
(An illustrated cover featuring a fat brunette cane-using woman in a cupcake-printed dress holding hands with a fat redheaded trans man in jeans and an open plaid shirt in front of a bakery display case full of cupcakes.)
Ernest had the best idea for Daddy’s birthday and he couldn’t wait to share it with Nora. When would she get here? He was so excited that his hands were fluttery, and he was bouncing a little. They were going to throw Gideon an amazing birthday party, and Gideon was going to ruffle his hair and call him a good boy, and cup Nora’s cheek and give her that sweet smile he had just for her, and he would tell them both they did a good job. There was nothing better than doing a good job.
Ernest was getting ahead of himself, he knew, but he couldn’t help it. He always got giddy at the beginning of tasks; this was their first joint task doing service for Gideon as metamours, and that was exciting, and Ernest was rather bouncy in general, anyway. Luckily, Nora was more grounded and moved slowly and deliberately, so they would balance each other out, he thought. Ernest had this image in his head, of himself tugging on Daddy’s hand, racing forward, unruly short red curls going every which way, and Nora holding Gideon’s other hand, moving slow and steady, gazing up at him like he hung the moon, her tight dark curls framing her face in a somewhat controlled cloud. Maybe there was a song in that, he thought, the two rhythms dancing around the melody, balancing it. His fingers moved on his thighs, building the rhythms, as his head started to fill with the melody. Then these two women sat right next to him, talking loudly about the bat mitzvah they were planning, and he lost the song altogether. He should have sat in the corner.
Ernest moved to the corner table, which was quieter, thankfully, but he couldn’t get the song back, so he sketched out the idea in his notebook and turned his attention back to the party planning. There were a ton of cupcake shops in NYC, but Nora favored this one on the Lower East Side; they were meeting there so Ernest could try them out. He still wasn’t sure cupcakes were the right choice. They would be perfect for his own birthday, but perhaps Gideon would want something more dignified. He had his eye on a pie shop in Brooklyn. But it made sense to at least try the cupcakes, didn’t it? How could he resist a chance to try cupcakes?
Maybe they should get a half dozen and sample. It would give him a chance to take leftovers home and see what Daddy thought. But he knew Nora was diabetic and that made it thorny to fill the table with cupcakes. What if it was a mean thing to do, since she probably could only have a few bites? At least, that was what she generally did with desserts, when they had gotten them in the past. They always shared so she could have a taste but not mess up her blood sugar. But maybe it wasn’t right for him to not ask just because she was diabetic? He didn’t want to act like he was in charge of her food choices. He thought it through, considering it from a few angles, trying to figure out what would be the most considerate and the least intrusive and the most respectful of her autonomy, his brain filling with these spiraling thoughts that contradicted each other, until he remembered what Jax had said to him once: “People think they are being so caring when they comment on what you eat, when you’re a fat diabetic. They don’t see the way our food choices are constantly scrutinized and judged, the way we’re so often blamed for having diabetes, how we have unhelpful non-consensual help pushed on us all the time. What I really need is to be left alone…unless I ask for information or help.”
Well, that cleared things up. He would do the sampler thing and try a few flavors, and let her do what made sense for her. Ernest got enough shit from the world as a mid-sized fat not-really-passing-most-of-the-time trans guy, for eating sweets in public…it seemed likely that as a larger fat diabetic femme cis woman, she got a whole lot more. He definitely didn’t want to add to that. Once he connected those ideas, a whole bunch more slotted into place, as he thought about unhelpful non-consensual help, and all the ways it messed things up, about the ways that kind of help interacted with ableism and fat oppression and misogyny. He started mapping it out in his notebook, connecting the dots for himself. Writing it, mapping it, helped make it stick when there was a gap in a pattern like this, like it was reinforcing a piece of the puzzle that had been missing but was now in place. He didn’t want to lose this piece again.
Ernest traced the pattern he’d drawn in his notebook, and felt his brain ready itself for a leap to another connection, just as he heard his name being said in a husky musical voice that held tones of humor, like perhaps she’d already said it a few times and he’d missed that. So he looked up, and Nora was there, taking off her adorable raincoat, which was bright pink and had white polka dots. She was wearing purple tights and a short black dress. Her dress had cupcakes on it! Nora managed to look both powerful and cute at the same time; it was something about how her clothes suited her pear-shaped fatness perfectly, and something about how she held herself. Her face was flushed, she was smiling, and her chin-length dark brown hair was all wild frizzy curls today. So was his own hair, come to think of it. He actually had a curl in the center of his fucking forehead, which of course put his mother’s voice in his head, exactly where he did not want her. He dug his nails into his thigh to try to get rid of her and focus on the present.
“You were in your own world,” she said.
He ducked his head. “Um, yeah. I do that.”
“I do it too, when I’m writing. My world is a pretty good place to spend time in.”
He smiled. His world was pretty great too. “I know what you mean. My world is a lot better than most places in NYC. Maybe you could tell me about your world sometime?”
“You want to hear about the world I’m writing, the novel I’m working on?”
“Yes, please,” he said firmly. He definitely wanted to hear about that.
“Hmm. That rates a please, does it?”
Ernest blinked, trying to figure out what she meant. Was he not supposed to say please? Was he not supposed to want to hear about her world? He didn’t know what to say, so he just nodded.
She was still standing over the table, though she’d draped her raincoat over her chair, and moved closer to him, so it wasn’t that she was going to leave. Was he supposed to be standing too? She made him nervous, looking down at him, standing so close. His heart was racing. Why did he like being around her so much if she made him nervous like this?
“Come on,” Nora said, and her hand appeared. He was supposed to take it, he knew. But they hadn’t ever touched, so it was a shock to be suddenly faced with it. Did he want to take her hand? After a moment the answer came: yes. So he stood up, and took it. She tugged him over to the display case of all the cupcakes, and then stood next to him, reaching over his body to point out her favorite flavors, closer than she had ever stood before. It made him a bit dizzy, but not in a scary way. It was like being filled with bubbles; he was unsteady, almost floating, definitely not firmly planted on the ground.
He dug his boots into the floor, not wanting to fall, as her voice filled him up, talking about why she loved these particular flavors. The scent of sugar and butter was so strong in this part of the shop. But that wasn’t all he smelled. Her raincoat had a hood but he didn’t think she’d been wearing it, because her hair, which was so close it had brushed his face, smelled like rain. He closed his eyes for a moment and breathed in, concentrating on the smell of rain. He’d always loved the rain, would stand outside in it every chance he got, savoring the sensation of it on his skin. There was nothing like spinning in the rain. He’d tried spinning in the shower but it wasn’t the same. “Singin’ in the Rain” came into his head, and he hummed it, knowing that he couldn’t sing, not in a bakery, even though he wanted to. Humming would have to do.
Xan West is the nom de plume of Corey Alexander, an autistic queer fat Jewish genderqueer writer and community activist with multiple disabilities who spends a lot of time on Twitter.
Xan’s erotica has been published widely, including in the Best S/M Erotica series, the Best Gay Erotica series, and the Best Lesbian Erotica series. Xan’s story “First Time Since”, won honorable mention for the 2008 National Leather Association John Preston Short Fiction Award. Their collection of queer kink erotica, Show Yourself to Me, is out from Go Deeper Press.
After over 15 years of writing and publishing queer kink erotica short stories, Xan has begun to also write longer form queer kink romance. Their recent work still centers kinky, trans and non-binary, fat, disabled, queer trauma survivors. It leans more towards centering Jewish characters, ace and aro spec characters, autistic characters, and polyamorous networks. Xan has been working on a queer kinky polyamorous romance novel, Shocking Violet, for the last four years, and hopes to finish a draft very soon! You can find details and excerpts on their website, and sign up for their newsletter to get updates.
I’m so wildly psyched to have Xan West’s newest cover on the blog today for so many reasons. First of all, dual enby representation FTW. Second of all, Xan’s recs and reviews have helped provide so many titles to this blog, and if you’re not familiar with their bookish website (including the dedicated section of #ownvoices trans reviews), you should be. And third of all, the artist, Laya Rose, happens to be the mastermind behind one of the best Twitter threads ever, which is entirely fanart of wlw books.
So with that said, let’s get to the book, Nine of Swords, Reversed! It’s a speculative romance with a genderfluid/genderfluid pairing (including neopronouns) and includes fat, Jewish, queer, spoonie, and autistic representation, as well as characters who are trauma survivors with chronic pain and depression. Here’s the blurb:
Dev has been with xyr service submissive Noam for seven years and xe loves them very much. Dev and Noam have built a good life together in Noam’s family home in Oakland, where they both can practice their magecraft, celebrate the high holidays in comfort, support each other as their disabilities flare, and where Noam can spend Shabbos with their beloved family ghost.
But Dev’s got a problem: xe has been in so much arthritis pain recently that xe has not been able to shield properly. As an empath, no shielding means Dev cannot safely touch Noam. That has put a strain on their relationship, and it feels like Noam is pulling away from xym. To top it off, Dev has just had an upsetting dream-vision about xyrself and Noam that caused one of the biggest meltdowns xe has had in a while. It’s only with a timely tarot reading and the help of another genderfluid mage that Dev is able to unpack the situation. Can xe figure out how to address the issues in xyr relationship with Noam before everything falls apart?
And here’s the cover, done by the fabulous Laya Rose!
It was good to be out of the house, sitting down with Ezra in one of our places, a feast spread before us. Comforting to see our canes leaning against the booth next to each other, to know Ezra wouldn’t let lunch pass without pushing me to tell zir what was going on. Ze had already indicated that in the car, clucking zir tongue over my low maintenance outfit—just a deep purple maxi dress and my sapphire boots—and how tired I looked, demanding I say what would taste the best for lunch, and driving us all the way to Berkeley for it.
A magical herbalist, Ezra favored floral colors. It had started as a joke ze pulled on one of zir first magic teachers, but had evolved into zir signature style. Today, Ezra was of course dressed impeccably, curly dark hair flowing over zir shoulders, nails pale peach and sparkly to match both zir lipstick and zir hat, in a gorgeous white suit with a dark peach dress shirt. It was Shabbos, and Ezra always dressed up for shul. Besides, ze had this image in zir head of our Friday lunches, our own genderfluid brand of Ladies who Lunch, which absolutely included dressing impeccably. Ze even insisted on singing the Sondheim tune at least once on the way, every time.
As we ate, I concentrated on getting my hands to hold things while Ezra entertained me with a story about teaching zir new boy how to weed the garden properly and not throw away any of the good stuff. Then ze said it was time to tell zir about it.
“I don’t know where to start.”
“Start with why you look so tired, of course.”
“Oh, that. I woke up too damn early because of this dream-vision.”
“That sounds like where to start. Written it down yet?”
“No,” I said quietly. “My hands hurt too much.”
Ezra clucked zir tongue in empathy, and went rooting through zir bag, taking out a notebook, a pen, and a jar of zir salve, which ze opened and gently rubbed into my hands, humming all the while. It felt like ze was rubbing soft sunlight into my skin and the sensation was so much to process that I couldn’t speak, or even look. I closed my eyes, counting my breaths, feeling the pain ebb away. In some ways, its immediate absence was sharper, harder to tolerate.
When ze was done, ze pressed the jar into my hand. “I brought this for you, ‘cause you said you’d run out.”
I took my time putting it away in my bag, getting used to the absence of pain, gathering myself back together. Then I took a long sip of tea, before I started telling zir about being made of ice, surrounded by it, protected by it, in the dream-vision. How at first I felt safe in my ice silo, didn’t even notice the cold until light came and hurt my eyes, and then I was freezing, and able to see the chasm below. A chasm separating me from Noam. How I realized that I couldn’t move, or speak. That they were stuck in their ice silo and me in mine, and Noam was terrified and trapped, just like me. I was helpless to do anything about it. I kept trying, but I could not get to them. How I watched their ice silo shatter, and the dust that was Noam blow away on the wind, waking me into a terrified meltdown.
Ezra didn’t say a word, as ze scribbled down the last details. My heart was a tiny frantic bird beating against my chest, as I remembered. I felt so cold that I took out my tarot deck, put it on the table, and huddled in the scarf I usually wrapped it in, my hands the only thing that felt warm. Ze waited for me to stop trembling before ze spoke.
“What do you think it means?” Ezra asked quietly.
***
Xan West is the nom de plume of Corey Alexander, an autistic queer fat Jewish genderqueer writer and community activist with multiple disabilities who spends a lot of time on Twitter.
Xan’s erotica has been published widely, including in the Best S/M Erotica series, the Best Gay Erotica series, and the Best Lesbian Erotica series. Xan’s story “First Time Since”, won honorable mention for the 2008 National Leather Association John Preston Short Fiction Award. Their collection of queer kink erotica, Show Yourself to Me, is out from Go Deeper Press.
After over 15 years of writing and publishing queer kink erotica short stories, Xan has begun to also write longer form queer kink romance. Their recent work still centers kinky, trans and non-binary, fat, disabled, queer trauma survivors. It leans more towards centering Jewish characters, ace and aro spec characters, autistic characters, and polyamorous networks. Xan has been working on a queer kinky polyamorous romance novel, Shocking Violet, for the last four years, and hopes to finish a draft very soon! You can find details and excerpts on their website, and sign up for their newsletter to get updates. Their Troublesome Crush, a polyamorous kinky queer m/f romance novella about metamours realizing they have a mutual crush on each other as they plan their shared partner’s birthday celebration, is due out in March 2019.
Extremely cute cover reveal alert! Today on the site we’ve got the cover for Soft on Soft, a contemporary f/f Romance by Em Ali that’s ownvoices representation for demisexuality, fat mc and li, anxiety and middle-eastern rep. The best part? It releases in five days, so you can preorder now and devour it within the week! Here are the details:
June Bana might post nearly daily makeup looks that gain thousands of likes but Real Life June has built a wall behind which she exists with her two cats.
But with messy feelings getting in a way of an early hermit life, June begins to realize that she wants more. She wants model/actress, Sunshine Reincarnated Selena Clarke. It doesn’t hurt that Selena is amazing with cats and quiets down June’s anxiety to bearable levels.
June is given the choice of facing her anxieties about relationships to gain not only a girlfriend but also a better understanding of how far she’d go for love.
But would she take it? Would she leave her comfort zone for something softer?
Contemporary fluffy piece where one homebody and one extrovert make one hell of a love story.
Aaaand here’s the adorable cover, designed by Shafiq Shaar!
Em is a part-time whiner part time cat parent. They spend a lot of time reading romance books and crying to Twitter about how good they are. They live in a pretty chill place called Their Brain, but they allow for visitors.
It’s not just that her parents have finally split up. Or that life hasn’t been the same since she quit dancing. Or even that her mother has checked herself into the hospital.
She’s losing time. Doing things she would never do. And objects around her seem to break whenever she comes close. Something is after her. And the only one who seems to believe her is the daughter of a local psychic.
But their first attempt at an exorcism calls down the full force of the thing’s rage. It demands Marianne give back what she stole. Whatever is haunting her, it wants everything she has—everything it’s convinced she stole. Marianne must uncover the truth that lies beneath it all before the nightmare can take what it thinks it’s owed, leaving Marianne trapped in the darkness of the other side.
This is the second book in the In the Present Tense series.
Now on the run from the corporation that turned him into a lab experiment, Miles finds himself in a fight for his life as he unravels the complicated relationships he shares with ex-boyfriend Adam, whom he still loves, and wife Ana, whose allegiance he cannot trust.
Meanwhile, nineteen-year-old Bethany Carter is on the run from her past and present. Having escaped the same institution that trapped Miles, she must find a way to safely manage the schizophrenia that triggers her time travel while navigating unpredictable bouts of paranoia.
As Miles’ and Bethany’s lives become more intertwined, Dr. Branagan, the man who made their lives a living hell at Longleaf Retreat, will stop at nothing to continue his research, even if it means destroying his subjects in the process.
Elena Mendez has always been career-first; with only two semesters of law school to go, her dream of working as a family lawyer for children is finally within reach. She can’t afford distractions. She doesn’t have time for love.
And she has no idea how much her life will change, the day she lends her notes to Cora McLaughlin.
A freelance writer and MBA student, Cora is just as career-driven as Elena. But over weeks in the library together, they discover that as strong as they are apart, they’re stronger together. Through snowstorms and stolen moments, through loneliness and companionship, the two learn they can weather anything as long as they have each other–even a surprise visit from Elena’s family.
From solitude to sweetness, there’s nothing like falling in love. College may be strict…but when it comes to love, Cora and Elena are ahead of the learning curve.
Darius Kellner speaks better Klingon than Farsi, and he knows more about Hobbit social cues than Persian ones. He’s about to take his first-ever trip to Iran, and it’s pretty overwhelming–especially when he’s also dealing with clinical depression, a disapproving dad, and a chronically anemic social life. In Iran, he gets to know his ailing but still formidable grandfather, his loving grandmother, and the rest of his mom’s family for the first time. And he meets Sohrab, the boy next door who changes everything.
Sohrab makes sure people speak English so Darius can understand what’s going on. He gets Darius an Iranian National Football Team jersey that makes him feel like a True Persian for the first time. And he understand that sometimes, best friends don’t have to talk. Darius has never had a true friend before, but now he’s spending his days with Sohrab playing soccer, eating rosewater ice cream, and sitting together for hours in their special place, a rooftop overlooking the Yazdi skyline.
Sohrab calls him Darioush–the original Persian version of his name–and Darius has never felt more like himself than he does now that he’s Darioush to Sohrab. When it’s time to go home to America, he’ll have to find a way to be Darioush on his own.
This is the second book in the Mask of Shadows duology.
As Opal, Sal finally has the power, prestige, and most importantly the ability to hunt the lords who killed their family. But Sal has to figure out who the culprits are before putting them down. Which means trying to ignore the fact that Elise is being kept a virtual prisoner, and that the queen may have ulterior motives.
And the tales coming out of north are baffling. Talk of dark spirits, missing children, and magic abound. As Sal heads north toward their ruined homeland and the lords who destroyed everything, they learn secrets and truths that can’t be ignored.
Today on the site we have guest post from Naomi Tajedler, author of the recently released Concerto in Chroma Major. Naomi’s here to talk about her book’s being #ownvoices, which, for those who don’t know, is a term that was coined by author Corinne Duyvis to refer to work written by an author who shares the marginalized identity (or identities) of their main character.
Before we get to the post, here’s some info on the book:
Alexandra Graff, a Californian living in Paris, is a stained-glass artist whose synesthesia gifts her with the ability to see sounds in the form of colors. When she is commissioned to create glass panels for the new Philharmonie, she forms a special bond with the intriguing Halina Piotrowski, a famous Polish pianist. As their relationship develops, Alexandra shows Halina the beautiful images her music inspires. But when it comes to a lasting future together, will Halina’s fear of roots and commitment stand in the way?
Like many xennial authors, my first creative writing came in the form of fanfiction. This medium turned out to be exactly what I needed to figure out what I wanted to read, what I wanted to write, and how to create my own characters. More importantly, it gave me the courage to write the stories I felt needed to be told, to express the voices I needed to be heard.
It’s at this starting point in my career as an author that I turned to YA. Not only did an opportunity to take this leap into original fiction came in the shape of an anthology (at Duet Books, Interlude Press’ YA imprint), but I felt like the very first time I wanted to write a story all of my own, I needed to write it for Past Me. For the teenager I used to be. For her insecurities, for her doubts, for her pains, for what she didn’t know but unconsciously set her apart from her peers.
Fourteen-year old me needed a story telling her that no matter what, if she stayed true to herself, the people around her would still love her. Thus What The Heart Wants was born.
The story of a young girl who discovers that Straight may not be her norm was a story I could have used at Noam’s age. I could also have used the story of someone who doesn’t fit “normal” beauty standards and yet is loved and crushed on. I could also have used, at some point in my development as a woman who is still questioning herself, the story of someone who refuses to date simply because it is “expected” of her.
Writing Noam’s coming of age story came to me pretty naturally, because my teenage self, back when I wrote it, was bursting at the seams to come back into my life, with all the strength, rage and loudmouth adulthood had tamed into silence.
Writing this short story unlocked the door I had unconsciously closed on my plot bunnies. Stories I had told myself, funny and adventurous. Stories I had daydreamed about while studying and / or working.
Then the time came to think about what would be next, and I decided that I needed to write, well, for me now. For the adult I had become in spite of, or thanks to, the heartbreaks and pains.
Writing Concerto in Chroma Major took me a while, because a short story is not a novel, and writing for adults is not the same challenge as writing for young adults, obviously.
Parallelly to writing this story is when I started therapy, and some sessions were dedicated to that process. Unconsciously, a lot of it infused this story, which is why it cannot suit a young adult audience. It’s not that young adults cannot deal with darker themes, not at all. There are challenges, ideas, we face in Life later on and an insight that demands years to step back from the situation and look at it differently to accept someone else’s point of view.
Through the story, I realized that I projected a lot of who I am into my characters: Halina has my independence, my wanderlust, my love for art; Alexandra has my synesthesia, my fatness, my views on Judaism and how to be Jewish, my romantic identity. She also represents the woman I aim to be: more confident in myself and my body, more at ease with herself and her pursuit of romance, more comfortable with confrontations too.
Concerto in Chroma Major is #ownvoices in many ways. Through it, I express my voice as a fat, bisexual, Jewish woman, all communities that need more representation from within.
No one can claim to speak for an entire community, but I do know that my voice is one representation within a more global picture.
***
Born and raised in Paris, France, Naomi Tajedler learned to love art from the womb when her father played guitar to her pregnant mother. Her love for books led her to a Bachelor of Arts in Book Restoration and Conservation, followed by a Master’s Degree in Art market management. Her first short story, “What The Heart Wants”, was published in Summer Love (2015), an LGBTQ Young Adult collection by Duet Books. When not writing, Naomi can be found sharing body positive tips on social media and trying recipes out on her loved ones.
Skye Shin has heard it all. Fat girls shouldn’t dance. Wear bright colors. Shouldn’t call attention to themselves. But Skye dreams of joining the glittering world of K-Pop, and to do that, she’s about to break all the rules that society, the media, and even her own mother, have set for girls like her.
In the city of Eldra, people are ruled by ancient prophecies. For centuries, the high council has stayed in power by virtue of the prophecies of the elder seers. After the last infallible prophecy came to pass, growing unrest led to murders and an eventual rebellion that raged for more than a decade.
Chubby. Curvy. Fluffy. Plus-size. Thick. Fat. The time has come for fat people to tell their own stories. The (Other) F Word combines personal essays, prose, poetry, fashion tips, and art to create a relatable and attractive guide about body image and body positivity. This YA crossover anthology is meant for people of all sizes who desire to be seen and heard in a culture consumed by a narrow definition of beauty. By combining the talents of renowned fat YA and middle-grade authors, as well as fat influencers and creators, The (Other) F Word offers teen readers and activists of all ages a guide for navigating our world with confidence and courage.
Xan West is the nom de plume of Corey Alexander, an autistic queer fat Jewish genderqueer writer and community activist with multiple disabilities who spends a lot of time on 
Xan West is the nom de plume of Corey Alexander, an autistic queer fat Jewish genderqueer writer and community activist with multiple disabilities who spends a lot of time on 
Something is wrong with Marianne.
Now on the run from the corporation that turned him into a lab experiment, Miles finds himself in a fight for his life as he unravels the complicated relationships he shares with ex-boyfriend Adam, whom he still loves, and wife Ana, whose allegiance he cannot trust.
Elena Mendez has always been career-first; with only two semesters of law school to go, her dream of working as a family lawyer for children is finally within reach. She can’t afford distractions. She doesn’t have time for love.
Darius Kellner speaks better Klingon than Farsi, and he knows more about Hobbit social cues than Persian ones. He’s about to take his first-ever trip to Iran, and it’s pretty overwhelming–especially when he’s also dealing with clinical depression, a disapproving dad, and a chronically anemic social life. In Iran, he gets to know his ailing but still formidable grandfather, his loving grandmother, and the rest of his mom’s family for the first time. And he meets Sohrab, the boy next door who changes everything.
As Opal, Sal finally has the power, prestige, and most importantly the ability to hunt the lords who killed their family. But Sal has to figure out who the culprits are before putting them down. Which means trying to ignore the fact that Elise is being kept a virtual prisoner, and that the queen may have ulterior motives.
Alexandra Graff, a Californian living in Paris, is a stained-glass artist whose synesthesia gifts her with the ability to see sounds in the form of colors. When she is commissioned to create glass panels for the new Philharmonie, she forms a special bond with the intriguing Halina Piotrowski, a famous Polish pianist. As their relationship develops, Alexandra shows Halina the beautiful images her music inspires. But when it comes to a lasting future together, will Halina’s fear of roots and commitment stand in the way?