Dystopian can be a tough genre to track down these days, especially because it’s usually mashed up with another genre. But for those who’ve been on the hunt, here are five to get you started!
The Culling by Steven dos Santos (G)
The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow (B, f/f)
Willful Machines by Tim Floreen (G)
Coda by Emma Trevayne (B, m/f)
Lizard Radio by Pat Schmatz (GQ)
If you read f/f NA/Romance, it’s pretty impossible not to know Rebekah Weatherspoon, but how well do you really know Rebekah Weatherspoon? (Also, not to brag, but I just got to see her on several panels at RT and she was freaking fantastic; if you ever get the opportunity to hear her panel somewhere, DO IT.) How could I not beg to pick the brain behind not only a seriously epic collection of diverse romance, but the entire #WoCInRomance site? (PS she also had a new release just this past weekend: check out So Right, the sequel to So Sweet, which share a bi heroine in an m/f relationship!)
I usually avoid asking authors about their inspiration because I know it gets asked to death, but you have a paranormal lesbian sorority series, and I’m sorry but I must know where the idea for that came from. Must.
Ha! I don’t know where the idea came from, I remember exactly where I was when the idea came to me. I was driving down Wilshire Blvd and I hit the intersection at New Hampshire Ave (I’m from New Hampshire, you see). The idea popped into my head and I remember thinking this is so ridiculous and over the top I’ll be kicking myself if I don’t run with it. So I did.
You’re one of very few writers of f/f NA, and bless you for it. What have been the biggest challenges and awesome moments of publishing it?
Honestly, I don’t see any challenges. I think a lot of my work is outside of the mainstream. I write a lot of women of color and being a woman of color I face the same challenges walking down the street or going to the bank. It’s just another day.
What’s a particularly conscious choice you’ve made in your representation?
I’ve made the choice to write women of color, particularly young black women. I feel like young women of color (tween-25) almost NEVER seen themselves on screen or in literature. And if they are screen they are sometimes played by an adult. I love Arden Cho something fierce, but she was like 28 when she started playing a 17-year-old on Teen Wolf. I know that sort of thing messes with the teen mind. In writing NA, I wanted to give younger women a most realistic portrayal of themselves. Even if there are vampires involved.
What’s the first queer representation you saw in any medium that really stuck with you, for better or for worse?
Oh man, I really have to think. When I was growing up none of the LGBTQ terms were in my vocabulary. My parents just had friends that were married to other women, but they didn’t tell me they were lesbians so I didn’t have the words for it. BUT I think Ricky on My So-Called Life stuck with me. Ricky was gay and out and Latino and living in a mostly white town, but he was also so cool. I remember really wishing that Ricky could find his own happiness outside of Angela and her family. I’m sure he’d have it by now.
What’s something you’ve seen in LGBTQIAP+ lit that’s really stuck with you, for better or for worse?
Uh, there’s a lot of racism. That kinda sucks. Also a lot of different flavors of misogyny and transmisogny and transphobia that sneak in. When I came out I remember being really excited and then extra bummed that a lot of what I was seeing in the straight/cis community was presenting in every aspect of the LGBTQIAP+ community as well including our literature.
Which of your books has queer representation?
Main characters? So Sweet, So Right, The Fling, Treasure, SATED, At Her Feet, Better Off Red, Blacker Than Blue, and Soul to Keep.
What’s your favorite of your covers, and why?
You can’t make me choose. I won’t choose. (Blogger’s note: This is legit; her covers are fanfreakingtastic. You can scroll through them all here.)
What are some of your favorite queer-centric things on the Internet?
Tumblr. Aint nothing queerer than my tumblr feed.
What do you do when you’re not writing?
Watching TV. I’m super boring, but I’m also kind of obsessed with consuming media. To be a writer or to work in entertainment you have to know what’s going on. I watch a ton of TV and a lot of movies.
What are your favorite LGBTQIAP+ reads?
What would you still love to see in LGBTQIAP+ lit?
A lot less of the crud I mentioned before with the bigotry, etc. and I NEED more queer New Adult reads, and I would sell my grandma for more erotic queer lit of every kind. Queer erotic fairy tales, queer erotic sports romances, queer erotic romantic comedies. Make ’em queer, and sweet, and extra porny.
What’s up next for you?
Self-pub wise, after I wrap up the Sugar Baby series in the fall I’ll be working on some space lesbian erotic romance. There’s not enough erotic romance in space, featuring lesbians.
Ain’t that the truth. You can buy any and all (preferably all) of Rebekah’s books here! (If you’re a Kindle person like I am, I’ll make that even easier here.)
This month’s new release spotlight is one of my absolute favorite reads of the year, and if you haven’t already heard me gush to death about it, well, here I am doing it again!
Russo’s debut centers around Amanda, whose new life at her new school sees her finding cool friends and a great boyfriend, none of whom know her secret: that she used to be Andrew. One of my favorite things about the book is the way flashbacks are integrated, taking the reader back through the milestones of Amanda’s emotional and transitional journey, but the present day is excellent too. Rather than me babbling on and on about it, though, I’ve asked Meredith Russo to answer some interview questions, so, here she is to do just that!
If I Was Your Girl is your debut novel; what have been the coolest and most surprising parts of your debut experience so far?
The coolest thing by far has been the people I get to talk to. I’ve become friends with one of my idols because of this book, for one, and I’ve met loads of other amazing people I never would have met without the book. I think the most surprising thing is that a lot of my job right now isn’t writing fiction! I’m always thinking about promotion, I just finished recording some things for the audiobook, I’m making travel plans for conferences, and, well, doing interviews.
What’s the first queer representation you saw in any medium that really stuck with you, for better or for worse?
Lieutenant Einhorn in Ace Ventura, Pet Detective. In case you haven’t seen it (don’t see it), Einhorn, the villain, is a trans woman who used to be a pro football player and had a nervous breakdown after losing the Super Bowl, after which she transitioned and went stealth. She kills someone because they discover her “secret” (watching it now I guarantee it was probably self defense because a guy freaked out or whatever) and then when Ace reveals she’s the killer at the end of the movie he tears her clothes off, exposes her genitals in front of all her employees (while the song from The Crying Game plays and the men she slept with puke), and beats her senseless. Needless to say that movie screwed me up as a kid.
What’s something you’ve seen in LGBTQIAP+ lit that’s really stuck with you, for better or for worse?
A huge number of trans books I’ve read aren’t really about the trans character but, rather, about a cis narrator’s feelings about the trans character’s transition or existence, and I hate it. Maybe it’s because I’m trans, but I care way more about how the trans character feels than any cis characters.
You’ve got a gorgeous cover, the first I know of in YA to feature a transgender model. What was the process of creating that cover like?
I wasn’t super involved, but when I met with Flatiron they actually asked for my advice on ways to make the book as positive as possible, which blew my mind, so I suggested we keep trans people as involved as possible at every step and they actually listened, which is how we got Kira Conley for the cover and Samia Mounts for the audiobook!
What are your favorite writing snacks?
I’m a total pickle lesbian (well, bi, but whatever). Look it up, it’s a Thing.
What do you do when you’re not writing?
Parenting, of course, but I also play a lot of video games, board games, and D&D, as well as consuming way too much anime when I should be, you know, reading like a real grown-up.
What are your favorite LGBTQIAP+ reads?
Two of my favorite books of all time are Nevada by Imogen Binnie and A Safe Girl to Love by Casey Plett. They’re both adult fiction, so maybe not appropriate for my audience, but if you want to know what it’s like to be trans in your twenties these are the books you read.
What would you still love to see in LGBTQIAP+ lit?
I want to see queer trans people. I feel like we’re still in a place where people are only ready to grapple with the idea of trans girls who like boys and trans boys who like girls but, I mean, trans people self-identify as bi much, much more than cis people do, and that’s way underrepresented.
What’s next for you?
I’m working on two new books! They’re both about trans girls; one is a YA romance, while the other is a darker, more adult examination of what it means to be bitter, lonely, and burned out as a trans woman in her early twenties.
If I Was Your Girl releases May 3rd! Buy it:
Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera (Contemp)
More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera (Light Sci-Fi)
When the Moon was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore (Magical Realism)
Down to the Bone by Mayra Lazara Doyle (Contemp)
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (and presumably its future companion, There Will Be Other Summers) by Benjamin Alire Saenz (Contemp)
Every month, the site will feature an LGTBQIAP+ read that’s over a year old, as part of a “Backlist Book of the Month” feature. I’m excited to kick it off with one of my personal favorites, Not Otherwise Specified by Hannah Moskowitz (Simon Pulse). Three reasons I love this book:
Etta is tired of dealing with all of the labels and categories that seem so important to everyone else in her small Nebraska hometown.
Everywhere she turns, someone feels she’s too fringe for the fringe. Not gay enough for the Dykes, her ex-clique, thanks to a recent relationship with a boy; not tiny and white enough for ballet, her first passion; and not sick enough to look anorexic (partially thanks to recovery). Etta doesn’t fit anywhere— until she meets Bianca, the straight, white, Christian, and seriously sick girl in Etta’s therapy group. Both girls are auditioning for Brentwood, a prestigious New York theater academy that is so not Nebraska. Bianca seems like Etta’s salvation, but how can Etta be saved by a girl who needs saving herself?
