As long as I can remember, I wrote letters. I still have an ongoing stamp to envelope relationship with a bud I met in Australia in the 80s. Sending postcards also became a thing for me, too. As a reader and writer, I love tight, intimate, highly personal narratives where the characters aren’t on paper but in your head. I’ve been a social worker for more than thirty years, so emotional vulnerability is my jam. I gravitate towards quick, easily digestible lengths of many epistolary forms, whether written in a diary, letter, journal, email, text, video, or combinations. The protagonist in my latest novel, Letters From Johnny, writes to legendary Toronto Maple Leafs Captain - Dave Keon - to work out his feelings.
This is a stellar example of YA pushing boundaries with a simple twist to epistolary devices. The protagonist Brynn, seeks answers and a place to vent through letters to Rachel Maddow. While this starts off as an assignment, the book’s hilarity is immediate, and her vulnerability and voice are quickly established. At times raw and edgy (trigger warnings of family violence and homophobia), Kisner morphs this coming of age story into several directions, not the least of which are a treatise on political representation, class, and diversity. Queer and teens with disabilities will find ample representation and prominence.
Brynn Harper's life has one steadying force - Rachel Maddow. She watches her daily, and after writing to Rachel for a school project, Brynn drafts emails to Rachel but never sends them. Brynn tells Rachel about breaking up with her first girlfriend, about her brother Nick's death, her passive mother and even worse stepfather, about how she's stuck in remedial courses at school and is considering dropping out.
Then Brynn is confronted with a moral dilemma. One student representative will have a voice among administration in the selection of a school superintendent. Brynn's nemesis John believes only honors students are…
As an active senior who seeks outdoor adventures and who cringes whenever I hear someone say, “I’m too old to [fill in the blank]…”, I love both writing and reading books with older characters who believe instead, “You’re never too old.” I’m drawn to stories where older folks defy stereotypes and continue to relish new experiences, especially those involving the things I most enjoy: camping, hiking, and climbing. Toss in some fun and laughter and I’m there!
Young Lewis is a believable and relatable character and the aging Chester Wheeler is a classic curmudgeon (at first). Their highly unusual cross-country journey in an old RV is an absolute delight, with both the young man and the old man demonstrating that age is not a barrier to friendship and personal growth.
Unlikely road trip companions form an unexpected bond in an uplifting novel about the past-lost and found-by the New York Times and #1 Amazon Charts bestselling author.
Lewis Madigan is young, gay, out of work, and getting antsy when he's roped into providing end-of-life care for his insufferable homophobic neighbor, Chester Wheeler. Lewis doesn't need the aggravation, just the money. The only requirements: run errands, be on call, and put up with a miserable old churl no one else in Buffalo can bear. After exchanging barbs, bickering, baiting, and pushing buttons, Chester hits Lewis with the big ask.
I can’t resist a queer femme YA story, and this one hit me so hard that I cried in joy and heartbreak.
Young lovers separated by culture and family made a Shakespearean drama that gripped me to the last word.
The world of arranged marriages, family honor, and homophobia reminded me of personal stories from friends in Vancouver. It echoed the fights that many queer people face coming out to family and being their true selves.
A timely and honest coming-of-age story that explores the complicated relationship between identity, culture, family, and love.
Seventeen-year-old Rukhsana Ali tries her hardest to live up to her conservative Muslim parents' expectations, but lately she's finding that impossible to do. She rolls her eyes when they blatantly favour her brother and saves her crop tops and makeup for parties her parents don't know about.
If she can just hold out another few months, Rukhsana will be out of her familial home and away from her parents' ever-watchful eyes at Caltech, a place where she thinks she can finally be herself.…
I'm a gay cartoonist and editor who lives and breathes graphic novels. As an editor at Graphix, Scholastic's graphic novel imprint, I've worked with Dav Pilkey, Jamar Nicholas, Angeli Rafer, Kane Lynch, and many others. As a cartoonist, I'm the author and illustrator of Out of Left Field, which is based on my experiences as a closeted kid on the high school baseball team. So many wonderful books have influenced my journey and career, but these are some of my favorites: groundbreaking graphic novels that helped make Out of Left Field possible.
This book is almost 400 pages long, but it absolutely does not feel like it. It’s one of the most riveting and absorbing books I’ve ever read, in part because of its relatively simple art style and small number of words per page.
It stars Aiden, a teenager who struggles with homophobia and suicidal thoughts as he comes to realize that he’s gay. So much of the dialogue and behavior in this book resonated with my own teenage experiences dealing with toxic “bros,” who made me feel like coming out would be an unsafe thing to do.
Curato creates an incredibly sympathetic character in Aiden, and his two-color artwork—grayscale with well-placed pops of orange and red—deftly supports the book’s thematic and emotional content.
Award-winning author and artist Mike Curato draws on his own experiences in Flamer, his debut graphic novel, telling a difficult story with humor, compassion, and love.
"This book will save lives." ―Jarrett J. Krosoczka, author of National Book Award Finalist Hey, Kiddo
I know I’m not gay. Gay boys like other boys. I hate boys. They’re mean, and scary, and they’re always destroying something or saying something dumb or both.
I hate that word. Gay. It makes me feel . . . unsafe.
It's the summer between middle school and high school, and Aiden Navarro is away at camp. Everyone's…
Being of Eastern European origins, and also a child of the 80s, definitely had a say in what my likings and my character would become growing up. From the cold long winters and the white landscapes, Fantasy genre, and everything Might and Magic have shaped my childhood, my studies, my art (traditional oil painting and clay sculpting) and lingered until now (and definitely beyond).
The Dwarves series (especially the first two books) bring the readers back in time and sets them up, straight from the beginning, on a simpler way of seeing things and also a simpler way of writing, while also being able to convey the true values of the fantasy genre with class.
For countless millennia, no man or beast has ever succeeded in breaching the stone gateway into Girdlegard. Until now . . .
Abandoned as a child, Tungdil the blacksmith is the only dwarf in a kingdom of men. But when he is sent out into the world to deliver a message and reacquaint himself with his people, the young foundling finds himself thrust into a battle for which he has not been trained. Not only his own safety, but the life of every man, woman and child in Girdlegard depends upon his ability to embrace his heritage.
Historical fantasy is my favorite genre, combining my twin passions of history and mythology/folklore. I especially like to read about unfamiliar times, places, identities, and cultures. What I love best about the fantastical is that it allows me to think and write about deep matters symbolically. As someone still discovering my asexuality in middle age, I’ve always identified best with coming-of-age stories, which is why there are so many young protagonists in both my reading and my writing.
I studied Dracula as a university student, so I love the way this book turns the latent homophobia, misogyny, and racism on its head by putting the “Brides of Dracula” and persecuted East European Traveller community center stage and giving us a tender, sapphic love story.
It’s set in the fifteenth-century Romania of Vlad The Impaler—here called the Dragon—when people believed in lele (forest spirits) and strigoi (undead). For me, the most memorable setting is Boyar Valcar’s castle, where twin sisters Lil and Kizzy are taken as slaves. The black-and-red uniforms, the cliff-edge pool, and the unforgettable incident with the bite wine put even the Dragon’s strigoi court in the shade.
Gothic, intoxicating, feminist, darkly provoking and deeply romantic - this is the breathtakingly imagined untold story of the brides of Dracula, by bestselling author Kiran Millwood Hargrave in her much-anticipated YA debut.
'A Chilling and breathlessly paced thriller... Feminism, spirituality, legend and desire are beautifully interwoven in this mesmerising tale of independence and resistance' - The Daily Mail
They say the thirst of blood is like a madness - they must sate it. Even with their own kin.
On the eve of her divining, the day she'll discover her fate, seventeen-year-old Lil and her twin sister Kizzy are captured and…
I believe that the gap between the amount of LGBTQIA+ and heterosexual erotica is far too large in the mainstream. Queer people deserve to have quality, well-written, spicy romance just as much as the mom in Utah reading her Danielle Steel novels does. This includes, gay, bisexual, lesbian, queer, panromantic, polyamourous, and non-binary people just to list a few. People who don’t adhere to cis, heteronormativity deserve to know that they can love, have steamy sex, maintain healthy relationships, and do whatever it is they want to do. Through my books and queer activism, I intend to rectify this by normalizing queer romance novels and increasing accessibility of the genre.
Unlike the other recommendations I’ve given so far, this one is an ongoing series… and a manga.
Now, before you pull back. What if I told you that in addition to the beautiful art, this series had some of the most incredible and complex characters that I’ve seen in queer romance? What if I told you that it touched upon important topics like grief, internalized homophobia, familial expectations, depression, and what it’s like growing up gay in Japan?
Not to mention the sweet, spicy scenes between the two main characters as they grow together in their relationship. It’s one of my all time favorites and even if you aren’t a big manga reader or into anime, it truly is worth it.
A love story between an openly gay novelist and a young man coping with grief that was recently turned into an anime film!
Ever since his parents disowned him for being gay, Shun has been living with his aunt on a small island near Okinawa. One day, he meets Mio, a high school student who recently lost his own parents and now spends his days sitting by the sea. The two young men begin to open up to each other...until Mio reveals that he's leaving. Three years later, an adult Mio returns to the island to confess his true feelings,…
A century of prejudice is laid bare in these books, but within their pages are countless subtle and overt ways that gay Australian men have given homophobes the big middle finger. We may not always have thrived, but through resistance, migration, verbal agility, notoriety, and sheer resilience, collectively we have conquered. I stand on enormous shoulders at a time when queer writing is proliferating on an inevitable tide of equality that has risen across my lifetime in this country. My selections encompass first nations and migrant stories, some of the pioneers of our gay literature, and ‘outside’ voices bravely looking in to discern us with dignity.
Danny Kelly is a living, breathing gay Greek protagonist, and the choices this driven young competitive swimmer faces about loving relationships—while he’s in the pursuit of athletic prowess—are written with a resounding ring of truth. Tsiolkas’ visceral sex scenes, underpinned by gripping descriptions of the desires behind the mechanics, speak to much more than the act itself. They go to the heart of identity in a novel with so many layers of self-definition: the migrant, the working class hero, the quintessential male, the stereotypical gay, the success story, and the abject failure. That Danny escapes his ambition alive is a miracle, and it has everything to do with digging deep and staring down expectations.
From the international bestselling and Booker Prize nominated author of The Slap comes a blazingly brilliant new novel.
Longlisted for the 2014 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
You lose everything. In front of everyone. Where do you go from here?
Daniel Kelly, a talented young swimmer, has one chance to escape his working-class upbringing. His astonishing ability in the pool should drive him to fame and fortune, as well as his revenge on the rich boys at the private school to which he has won a sports scholarship. Everything Danny has ever done, every sacrifice his family has ever made, has…
When I was not yet a teen, a neighbor had what I considered to be a valuable treasure—all of the Nancy Drew Mystery series. Her daughter had died of leukemia, and she had held onto them as a reminder of her precious child. To my surprise, she entrusted them to me to read. That was the beginning of my passion for mysteries. As I got older, I couldn’t get enough of Agatha Christie and P. D. James. I visit them often, like old friends, but I am also eager to make new literary acquaintances. My list has only five, but it could have included thousands. Enjoy this diverse sampling.
A friend told me that John Banville is an amazing writer and storyteller; the book Snow didn’t disappoint. It’s a cozy mystery, meaning it’s always good to have a list of the characters handy, and it is set in Ireland.
Although the darker story involves sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and homophobia, I found the book beautifully written and the characters complex and carefully crafted. It might have been a little graphic for me in the beginning, but that didn’t spoil the book.
THE LOCK-UP - A THRILLING NEW STRAFFORD AND QUIRKE MYSTERY - IS AVAILABLE NOW FOR PRE-ORDER
'Outstanding.' Irish Independent 'Exquisite.' Daily Mail 'Hypnotic.' Financial Times 'This is crime fiction for the connoisseur.' The Times
'The body is in the library,' Colonel Osborne said. 'Come this way.'
Detective Inspector St John Strafford is called in from Dublin to investigate a murder at Ballyglass House - the Co. Wexford family seat of the aristocratic, secretive Osborne family.
Facing obstruction from all angles, Strafford carries on determinedly in his pursuit of the murderer. However, as the snow continues to fall over this ever-expanding…
As both an author and a teacher, I’ve been using Howard Zinn’s iconic book for over 20 years. I have found it to be an effective counterweight to more orthodox texts, as well as a credible platform for stimulating discussion. In writing my own “guide” to U.S. history, I always kept Zinn in mind. While we may not always agree, the dissonance is something I’m certain Howard Zinn would appreciate. He was unafraid to "engage" with his subject matter and his readers. This is an inspiration.
What Zinn achieved in highlighting leftist history and labor history, Kirchick achieves in highlighting gay history and its proximity to the corridors of political power in Washington.
The struggles of gay Americans to gain recognition by the U.S. government as equal to their fellow citizens and commensurate with their talents is a fascinating story, and Kirchick more than does it justice.
Like Zinn’s People’s History, this book carefully reexamines the conventional understanding of our nation’s history as a whole. It is both ambitious and particular.
For decades, the spectre of homosexuality haunted Washington. The mere suggestion that a person might be gay destroyed reputations, ended careers, and ruined lives. At the height of the Cold War, fear of homosexuality became intertwined with the growing threat of international communism, leading to a purge of gay men and lesbians from the federal government. In the fevered atmosphere of political Washington, the secret "too loathsome to mention" held enormous, terrifying power.
Utilizing thousands of pages of declassified documents, interviews with over one hundred people, and material unearthed from presidential libraries and archives around the country, Secret City is…
