I am a nurse, counselor, and hypnotherapist in Berkeley, California, providing affordable mental health services to alternative communities for the past 30 years. I have been a card-carrying bisexual and polyamorist for fifty years. Because there were so few books for people in polyamorous relationships, I was frustrated by the lack of resources both for myself and my clients. This inspired me to write four books on this subject: Love in Abundanceand The Jealousy Workbook, both published by Greenery Press, The Polyamory Break-up Book: Causes, Survival, and Prevention, published by Thorntree Press, andPolyamorous Elders: Aging in Open Relationships published by Rowman and Littlefield.
I have found this book to be essential reading for my own life as well as in providing culturally-competent and effective counseling for clients in my private practice.
Rowman and Littlefield has been a pioneer in publishing books with accurate and up-to-date information about consensual non-monogamy, LGBTQ issues, and kink and BDSM relationships. This is especially important as they make these books available to universities and other institutions that are training therapists and psychologists so that these clinicians will be qualified to work with these specialized populations that are so often misunderstood and cannot find appropriate mental health services. In addition, these books are written so that the layperson can understand and benefit from them. As a result, individuals who are seeking guidance and information about alternative sexualities and non-traditional relationships can easily utilize these books in their own lives.
Dr. Deborah Anapol wrote what is recognized as the first…
I write fantasy romance, or romantic fantasy, and one of my favorite things this little genre niche can do is use its otherworldly setting to re-examine our preconceived notions of romantic relationships. Polyamory exists in the real world, of course, so surely it should also exist in worlds with hauntings, spells, magic-powered giant mecha, and gods who intervene in mortal fates. Here are some books I have loved that make polyamory a fundamental part of their fantasy worldbuilding.
This novel is the start of a mesmerizing series about being in love with two of your very dear childhood friends, or possibly five of your childhood friends, and feeling inexplicably compelled to return to the eerie ancient manor home where the six of you first spent the summer together. Rare books, dreams, pagan rituals, and a whole lot of sex—what’s not to love? This book really captures the dark, wintery, haunted, strangely out-of-time atmosphere of the house, and it’s extremely (t)horny, putting all of Sierra Simone’s incredible skill on display. This is the kind of complex, emotional writing I aspire to.
Twelve years ago my mother disappeared into the fog-shrouded moors of Thornchapel.
I left her memory there, along with the others. Of my childhood friends, playing in the woods. Of the crumbling, magical world we found, and of the promises we made beneath the wild roses. I moved on, building a life as a librarian in America, far away from the remote manor where my mother was last seen alive.
And then the letter arrives.
A single word, in her handwriting, calling me back to England. Followed by a job offer I could never refuse, from a person I never…
My life has never been very conventional. As a 6’6 nonbinary queer writer who’s been polyamorous for over a decade, I’m very fortunate to live with my two loving partners here in Berlin. My writing focuses on nontraditional and nonmonogamous forms of love, from novels to articles and short stories which have been published in The Sun Magazine, Passages North, Booth, and Guernica. I’ve served on the review committee for the Conference on the Future of Monogamy and Nonmonogamy at UC Berkeley, publicly debated the issue at UCL, and my campaign work for LGBTQ+ and polyamory rights has been referenced in The Mirror, Buzzfeed, and BBC News.
There is never enough alternate history. Particularly alternate history that doesn’t focus either on the Nazis winning World War II or the South winning the American Civil War. Thankfully we have Egalia’s Daughters, yet another forward-thinking novel from the seventies. Set in a world where gender norms are swapped around entirely, its male characters wear special testicle bras and adorn their beards with flowers (I do like that last part). Of course, this woman-dominated world is no less homophobic than our own, and as part of their gender rebellion, the men form relationships with one another, in various configurations. It’s a delightful read, with its gender reversals a mirror reflection of our own society.
Reminiscent of Orwell and Huxley's dystopian novels, this classic of women's literature is an intelligent and well-written contribution to the sex-role debate.
Welcome to the land of Egalia, where gender roles are topsy-turvy as "wim" wield the power and "menwim" light the home fires. This re-telling of the prototypical coming-of-age novel will have readers laughing out loud and wondering who should prevail: poor Petronius, who wants more than anything to cruise the oceans as a seawom; or his powerful and protective mother Director Bram, who rules her family with an authoritarian righteousness. But for better or for worse, as the…
I am fascinated with romantic relationships and the way they work. I was in high school when I stumbled upon the romance novel Addicted by Zane. I remember reading about couples in her novels and being intrigued by the intimacy and sensuality between them. I loved reading about the ins and outs of the relationships between these characters. They helped me to gain some perspective about romantic relationships early on. I learned a lot through these characters, and I was able to use their experiences as a guide for myself. I began writing my own romance stories to explore relationships my way, and I fell in love with it.
Two Monogamous is the introduction to my first romantic suspense series the (Two Monogamous series).
It questions monogamy when Jarrah unknowingly falls in love with twin brothers, Dario and Dustin. One of the twins offers her romance, mental stimulation, and security, while the other offers her sensuality, adventure, and spontaneity. The two of them work together to be the perfect man for her.
This novel opened my mind to polyamory and made me question whether twins could share each other’s emotions, thus falling in love with the same person. I wrote this series to tackle issues that make relationships difficult. However, I demonstrate how creating a community can make relationships easier.
Check out the Two Monogamous series to explore poly relationships through a group of relatable characters.
Jarrah Harper, a newly divorced young woman, embarks on a journey to escape the pain from losing her ex-husband Quincy. She moves from the countryside of Atlanta to the big city of Chicago to work for her college friend Theresa Martine as editor in chief of Theresa's magazine, Her World Magazine. Along the way, she meets a handsome, charming, almost too good to be true man named Dustin, who opens her up to new, bold, and steamy adventures that makes her question the woman she is becoming. Dustin gives Jarrah a double dose of a perfect man and turns her…
I have been practicing some flavor of non-monogamy for over a decade now—and how much has changed in the past few years! In my coaching practice, I’ve seen an increase in clients who are trying to evaluate what kind of relationship is best for them. Many people know that the traditional dating game and lifelong monogamy are not for them, but they also feel concerned, intimidated, or confused by exploring non-monogamy. These books have helped many of my clients get perspective on how non-monogamous relationships work in real life.
Our society gives us a surprisingly narrow view of what “real” love is. It must be between two people (often heterosexual). It must be long-term and headed toward marriage. It must include sex, co-parenting, and cohabitation. Philosopher Carrie Jenkins cuts through this limited perspective by examining the social, cultural, and even scientific history of how we have chosen to define love. Jenkins highlights the many different forms that socially acceptable love has taken throughout time, and also theorizes about the future of relationships. This is a great read for anyone who loves lofty, philosophical conversations with a partner, looking at the convergence of the abstract and the finite, the ideal and the real.
What is love? Aside from being the title of many a popular love song, this is one of life's perennial questions. In What Love Is , philosopher Carrie Jenkins offers a bold new theory on the nature of romantic love that reconciles its humanistic and scientific components. Love can be a social construct (the idea of a perfect fairy tale romance) and a physical manifestation (those anxiety- inducing heart palpitations) we must recognize its complexities and decide for ourselves how to love. Motivated by her own polyamorous relationships, she examines the ways in which our parameters of love have recently…
My life has never been very conventional. As a 6’6 nonbinary queer writer who’s been polyamorous for over a decade, I’m very fortunate to live with my two loving partners here in Berlin. My writing focuses on nontraditional and nonmonogamous forms of love, from novels to articles and short stories which have been published in The Sun Magazine, Passages North, Booth, and Guernica. I’ve served on the review committee for the Conference on the Future of Monogamy and Nonmonogamy at UC Berkeley, publicly debated the issue at UCL, and my campaign work for LGBTQ+ and polyamory rights has been referenced in The Mirror, Buzzfeed, and BBC News.
I might be obsessed with science and speculative fiction, but I rarely venture over to the fantasy section of the bookstore. I don’t know, maybe there’s just too much gender-stereotyping and absolute monarchy for my taste — so I’ll be ever-grateful for being gifted a copy of Tales of Nevèrӱon. Exploring polyamory without resorting to vampires, Samuel R. Delany’s novel looks at queer relationships in a manner much like Woman on the Edge of Time and was published later that same decade. It’s fantasy unlike anything else I’ve read.
Presumably elaborated from an ancient text of unknown geographical origin, the stories are sunk in translators' and commentators' introductions and appendices, forming a richly comic frame.
My first passion, as a youngster, was speculative fiction—stories and comics that set the imagination ablaze with visions of wondrous possibilities and impossibilities. Later, my experiences of being queer, transgender, and autistic led me to an academic career in which I helped create the field of Neurodiversity Studies and something called Neuroqueer Theory (which is what you get when you mix Queer Theory and neurodiversity together and shake vigorously). These days I’m back to writing fiction, including the urban fantasy webcomic Weird Luck, and I’m thrilled to find myself part of an emerging wave of neuroqueer speculative fiction. Here are some of the best so far...
Transgender anarchist author Margaret Killjoy’s collection of short speculative fiction stories,We Won’t Be Here Tomorrow, is a stark contrast to the dazzling high-tech fantasies and cinematic adventures of my first three recommendations. Most of these stories are set in disturbingly plausible and not-at-all-distant futures, and veer into the territories of dark fantasy, gritty dystopianism, and atomspheric horror. No interplanetary space opera here; Killjoy’s protagonists are earthbound, anarchistic outcasts and misfits struggling to survive on the edges of society or in society’s ruins, in worlds gone unfathomably strange. And Killjoy writes it all beautifully, with a clarity of description that often left me stunned by its simple poetic power. This one’s for you if you like your speculative fiction close to the bone.
Death cults, queer love, and the end of everything.
Spaceships, man-eating lesbian mermaids, swords, spears, demons, ghouls, thieves, hitchhikers, and life in the margins. Margaret Killjoy’s stories have appeared for years in the science fiction and fantasy magazines both major and indie. Here, we have collected the best previously published work along with brand new material. Ranging in theme and tone, these imaginative tales bring the reader on a wild and moving ride. They’ll encounter a hacker who programs drones to troll CEOs into quitting; a group of LARPers who decide to live as orcs in the burned forests of…
I am a therapist, and I work with people from all walks of life and with all manner of suffering. I am drawn to memoirs because I consider it the real self-help genre of literature. Like good therapy, a good memoir will make sense of a story: how it happened, why it happened, how it affected the person, and what they did (do) to face it, and thrive in spite of it. As a writer, I take pride in bringing that same quality to my work. I have been asked many times, “How can you bear to reveal all that stuff about yourself, especially when it’s unflattering?” The answer is always “Isn’t that the part that matters? Isn’t that the part where the growth occurred? Isn’t that what makes the story worth telling?”
Wendy Plump’s VOW is the only memoir I have ever read that reveals what it is like to be the “cheating” partner (there are many books that address being cheated on). This is NOT a book touting infidelity or polyamory. It is simply an extremely honest accounting of a marriage riddled by affairs (both partners), how the author coped with the fallout, and grew into a more mature and insight-driven version of herself. This very topic activates so much judgment by so many people (just read some of the seething, scathing reviews on Amazon), but the truth is, human beings DO cheat, they DO commit infidelity, and Wendy Plump, who is a terrific, elegant writer and storyteller, has addressed this topic with great candor. It takes an extremely brave person to tell this type of story; hence, this book is brave and beautiful.
There are so many ways to find out. From a cell phone. From a bank statement. From some weird supermarket encounter. One morning in early January 2005, Wendy Plump's friend came to tell her that her husband was having an affair. It was not a shock. Actually, it explained a lot. But what Wendy was not prepared for was the revelation that her husband also had another child, living within a mile of their family home.
Monogamy is one of the most important of the many vows we make in our marriages. Yet it is a rare spouse who does…
My life has never been very conventional. As a 6’6 nonbinary queer writer who’s been polyamorous for over a decade, I’m very fortunate to live with my two loving partners here in Berlin. My writing focuses on nontraditional and nonmonogamous forms of love, from novels to articles and short stories which have been published in The Sun Magazine, Passages North, Booth, and Guernica. I’ve served on the review committee for the Conference on the Future of Monogamy and Nonmonogamy at UC Berkeley, publicly debated the issue at UCL, and my campaign work for LGBTQ+ and polyamory rights has been referenced in The Mirror, Buzzfeed, and BBC News.
An immensely sweet novel with a focus on Japanese homophobia, Twinkle Twinklefollows the gay male Mutsuki and straight woman Shoko as they enter into a sham marriage. Though it shares some themes with An Excess Male, the novel isn’t speculative, instead providing insights into contemporary Japanese society and social customs — particularly the stifling sense of conformity. Yet despite cultural pressures, the fascinating three-way dynamic between Mutsuki, Shoko, and Mutsuki’s boyfriend carries the tale and will leave a lasting impression.
They got married ten days ago. They haven't had sex yet and they don't intend to.
As it turned out, the only way to make their parents get off their backs about trying to "find someone" was actually finding somone--with whom to put marriage for show. Mutsuki is stictly gay and has a boyfriend, while Shoko is a clinical case of emotional instability who's in no shape for a relationship. They've each found in the other a perfect partner for a sham marriage. Since the conspirators' parents know of their own child's undesirability, but not the spouse's, the union manages…
I was the type of kid who tossed a coin in a fountain and wished that every day could be Valentine’s Day. So, it’s no surprise that my younger years were dominated by dating, love, and heartbreak. I learned enough about the matter to even have my own dating advice column for a few years. Mostly what I’ve learned is how important it is to have compassion for yourself and to know you’re not the only one having a hard time finding your forever love. I hope these book picks bring you some comfort.
I contributed an essay to this collection and there’s quite a few writers I admire in this book, as well.
It’s refreshing to see other people’s perspective on what can feel like an albatross around your neck. Some of the essays are humorous, others are more poignant, but they all work together to show that a single life can look and feel a bazillion different ways—yours will be what you make it.
A feminist anthology inspired by legendary Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown's Sex and the Single Girl, featuring twenty-four new essays on the triumphs and heartbreaks of modern singlehood from acclaimed and bestselling authors, including Kristen Arnett, Morgan Parker, Evette Dionne, and Melissa Febos.
Sixty years ago, Helen Gurley Brown's Sex and the Single Girl sent shockwaves through the United States, selling more than two million copies in three weeks. Helen's message was radical for its time: marriage wasn't essential for women to lead rich, fulfilling lives.
