Getting a promotion, finding new friends, learning you are attracted to women…. Nia Toyomoto has worked hard all her life to prove she was the best; she graduated early from high school, college, and got the dream job in Manhattan. Becoming a partner at the tender age of thirty she thought she had it all until the law firm made demands about her personal appearance and a few other things that made her change her life for the promotion. Then she realizes having everything isn’t all that it is cracked up to be without someone to share it with… A successful lawyer in the big city, choices have to made, sacrifices and surprises await this beautiful and talented woman….does she make the right ones though?

    policy on gays serving in the military, was repealed in September 2011, soldier Stephen Snyder-Hill (then Captain Hill) was serving in Iraq. Having endured years of this policy, which passively encouraged a culture of fear and secrecy for gay soldiers, Snyder-Hill submitted a video to a Republican primary debate (held two days after the repeal). In the video he asked for the Republicans’ thoughts regarding the repeal and their plans, if any, to extend spousal benefits to legally married gay and lesbian soldiers. His video was booed by the audience on national television. Soldier of Change captures not only the media frenzy that followed that moment, placing Snyder-Hill at the forefront of this modern civil rights movement, but also his twenty-year journey as a gay man in the army: from self-loathing to self-acceptance, to the most important battle of his life–protecting the disenfranchised. Since that time, Snyder-Hill has traveled the country with his husband, giving interviews on major news networks and speaking at universities, community centers, and pride parades, a champion of LGBT equality.

    Tena Clark was born in 1953 in a tiny Mississippi town close to the Alabama border, where the legacy of slavery and racial injustice still permeated every aspect of life. On the outside, Tena’s childhood looked like a fairytale. Her father was one of the richest men in the state; her mother was a regal beauty. The family lived on a sprawling farm and had the only swimming pool in town; Tena was given her first car—a royal blue Camaro—at twelve. But behind closed doors, Tena’s life was deeply lonely, and chaotic. By the time she was three, her parents’ marriage had dissolved into a swamp of alcohol, rampant infidelity, and guns. Adding to the turmoil, Tena understood from a very young age that she was different from her three older sisters, all of whom had been beauty queens and majorettes. Tena knew she didn’t want to be a majorette—she wanted to marry one. On Tena’s tenth birthday, her mother, emboldened by alcoholism and enraged by her husband’s incessant cheating, walked out for good, instantly becoming an outcast in society. Tena was left in the care of her black nanny, Virgie, who became Tena’s surrogate mother and confidante—even though she was raising nine of her own children and was not allowed to eat from the family’s plates or use their bathroom. It was Virgie’s acceptance and unconditional love that gave Tena the courage to stand up to her domineering father, the faith to believe in her mother’s love, and the strength to be her true self. Combining the spirit of poignant coming-of-age memoirs such as The Glass Castle and vivid, evocative Southern fiction like Fried Green Tomatoes, Southern Discomfort is about the people and places that shape who we are—and is destined to become a new classic.

    Can she make her dreams become reality? Fiona can’t wait to leave her dysfunctional family life, her safe boyfriend and the small town she grew up in far behind her when she goes to Music School in the city.She needs to figure out what she wants in life and love, but there seem to be more questions than answers. Then there is her growing obsession with her aloof singing teacher, Joss Red. Will Fiona find a way to tell Joss about her fantasies?A sizzling Age Gap, Dominant/submissive romance from Grace Parkes

    The first handbook on navigating the exciting, tricky, and potentially disastrous terrain of interracial relationships, with testimony and expert tips on how to make the bumpy ride a bit smoother.The first handbook on navigating the exciting, tricky, and potentially disastrous terrain of interracial relationships, with testimony and expert tips on how to make the bumpy ride a bit smoother.

    One morning, after struggling to run up a mountain trail, she meets Eve Monroe who stirs her in ways she doesn’t understand.Eve helps women achieve the physical fitness they yearn for, but when it comes to her love life, she buries her own yearnings and only dates casually. All that changes the day she meets the beautiful and sheltered Olivia. Eve is surprisingly smitten, and she soon finds that her desire to help is quickly overshadowed by her desire to make love.When Olivia hires Eve as her trainer, their attempts at controlling their attraction are no match for their unbridled passion. But it’s the deeper, more poignant feelings neither of them can ignore that have Olivia and Eve questioning everything they’ve ever known about love.Cover Artist: Tammy SeidickGenres: Contemporary / Romance Tags: Coming Out, Friends to Lovers Romance, Virgins/First Love

    this IS a serious, thoughtful (and thought-provoking) comprehensive introduction to, and examination of, a much misunderstood and misused practice. But more than that, it is a witty, provocative, damn fine read, with as much to offer to the faithfully monogamous as to those looking for a bit more out of life, love and relationships. Go on. Dive in. "Wendy-O tackles a touchy subject with clarity and creativity. She is wise beyond her years. This guide teaches you how you can have it all. I gave the jealousy tips to my lover immediately." [Annie Sprinkle]

    We've all felt uncomfortable in our own skin at some point, and we've all been told that it's just a part of growing up. But for Arin Andrews, it wasn't a phase that would pass. He had been born in the body of a girl and there seemed to be no relief in sight. In this revolutionary memoir, Arin details the journey that led him to make the life-transforming decision to undergo gender reassignment as a high school junior. In his captivatingly witty, honest voice, Arin reveals the challenges he faced as a girl, the humiliation and anger he felt after getting kicked out of his private school, and all the changes, both mental and physical, he experienced once his transition began. Arin also writes about the thrill of meeting and dating a young transgender woman named Katie Hill and the heartache that followed after they broke up. Some Assembly Required is a true coming-of-age story about knocking down obstacles and embracing family, friendship, and first love. But more than that, it is a reminder that self-acceptance does not come ready-made with a manual and spare parts. Rather, some assembly is always required.

    With this he built a deep, internalized homophobia that made him want to disappear rather than live with the truth about himself. That denial played out in the forms of anorexia, bulimia, and obsessive running, which consumed him as an adolescent and young adult.It wasn’t until a grueling yet transformative Outward Bound experience that Jon began to face his sexual identity. This exploration continued as he entered college and started the serious work of sorting through years of repressed anger to separate from his father’s control and condemnation.My Thinning Years is an inspiring story of courage, creativity, and the will to live—and of recreating the definition of family to include friends, relatives, and teachers who support you in realizing your true self.“A storyteller's job is to help others find their way. Show them choices. Perhaps avoid pitfalls. Jon Derek Croteau's powerful new book is a beacon shining on the puzzle of life.”—Bob Dotson, New York Times bestselling author of American Story, a Lifetime Search for Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things & NBC News/Today Show Correspondent“I canceled plans to finish this book, and you will, too. Alternately riveting, heartfelt and horrifying, Jon Derek Croteau's descent into anorexia and obsessive running as a means to deny his true self is spellbinding.”—Eric Poole, author of Where's My Wand“Jon Derek Croteau writes with unstinting honesty in his memoir MY THINNING YEARS, and courageously explores the harmful effects of bullies long after they've left the scene. But he also reveals the plain fact that the greatest bully we have to win over is often the one within us.”—James Lecesne, Co-Founder of THE TREVOR PROJECT“A fantastic and harrowing story, told deeply and honestly…an emotional read…a generous, hopeful book I dearly hope gets into the hands of the many people who face similar hardships and desperately need to hear Jon Derek Croteau's story.”—Randy Harrison, actor, Queer As Folk“MY THINNING YEARS is an inspiring story of one man's struggle with anorexia, with sexual identity, and his struggle for selfhood.”—Betsy Lerner, author of Food and Loathing“The story of all of us as we come to terms with who we are. As I raced through these pages like the runner within them, I was reminded of my own trials… It takes courage to tell your story, to come out, to remove yourself from an abusive relationship. These pages help usher in our more tolerant present and our ever-evolving hearts.”—Award-winning singer/songwriter, Will Dailey“MY THINNING YEARS is not just a labor of love but a love-letter to those who are struggling silently and suffering deeply with an eating disorder. Jon Derek Croteau sheds incredible insight and a heartfelt vision for surviving and thriving in your life.”—Jess Weiner, Author, Strategist and Self-Esteem Expert“MY THINNING YEARS is an emotional journey through Jon Derek Croteau’s struggle with eating disorders and accepting his identity as a gay man. In his struggle to accept his sexuality, Croteau attempts to erase his pain through trying to erase himself. Men’s experiences of anorexia and bulimia are underrepresented in media, medical and personal accounts. This is an honest, powerful and raw insight into the self-punishing, self-harming and consuming force of eating disorders.”—Grace Bowman, author of Thin“You do not need an eating disorder, homosexual tendencies, or a terrible parent to love this book. Croteau's story is a universal one, and his painful and hard-won transformation will both move and inspire you.”—Eric Poole, author of Where’s My Wand? One Boy’s Magical Triumph over Alienation and Shag Carpeting“MY THINNING YEARS is a powerful story about overcoming adversity. Jon Derek Croteau’s courage, honesty, and unfailing passion are sure to both inspire and keep the pages turning!”—Jenni Schaefer, co-author of Almost Anorexic, author of Life Without Ed and Goodbye Ed, Hello Me

    Despite the group’s warm welcome, Kina (Nayfack) prepares for her life-altering operation all alone. But a caring nurse (Ivory Aquino), a wise couple (Kate Bornstein and Annie Golden), and a karaoke-loving bellhop (Telly Leung) may be exactly who she needs to ignite her truest sense of self. WTF Associate Artistic Director Laura Savia directs this spirited comedy about a woman who tests the bonds of an unlikely sisterhood.The playwright wishes to thank The Drama League's Beatrice Terry Residency, Daryl Roth, Natasha Sinha, Beehive Dramaturgy Studio, Playwrights Horizons, Rachel Jett, Daryl Roth, and the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center’s National Theatre Institute.Note: This play contains mature themes and language.

    Family is truly the only gift that keeps on giving—namely, the gifts of dysfunction and eccentricity— and Wade Rouse’s family has been especially charitable: His chatty yet loving mother dresses her son as a Ubangi tribesman, in blackface, for Halloween in the rural Ozarks; his unconventional engineer of a father buries his children’s Easter eggs; his marvelously Martha Stewart–esque partner believes Barbie is his baby; his garage-sale obsessed set of in-laws are convinced they can earn more than Warren Buffett by selling their broken lamps and Nehru jackets; his mutt Marge speaks her own language; and his oddball collection of relatives includes a tipsy Santa Claus with an affinity for showing off his jingle balls. In the end, though, the Rouse House gifted Wade with love, laughter, understanding, superb comic timing, and a humbling appreciation for humiliation. Whether Wade dates a mime on his birthday to overcome his phobia of clowns or outruns a chub-chasing boss on Secretary’s Day, he captures our holidays with his trademark self-deprecating humor and acerbic wit. He paints a funny, sad, poignant, and outlandish portrait of an an all-too-typical family that will have you appreciating—or bemoaning—your own and shrieking in laughter.

    Drawing on in-depth interviews with over a hundred women and men, Opening Up explores the real-life benefits and challenges of all styles of open relationships -- from partnered non-monogamy to solo polyamory. With her refreshingly down-to-earth style and sharp wit, Taormino offers solutions for making an open relationship work, including tips on dealing with jealousy, negotiating boundaries, finding community, parenting and time management. Opening Up will change the way you think about intimacy.

    In this book, you’ll find a bit of everything including the usual helicopter parents and awful administration, horrendous student behavior with no consequences, and crazy-ass parents and their insane requests. But you’ll also find weirdly entertaining stories about a little kid with a foot fetish, a group of teachers chasing a naked kid around the school parking lot, and two pregnant sisters fighting over the same baby daddy on the first day of school. There’s plenty of gross stuff, like all the strange places kids put their poop and dirty maxi pads, a Barbie in a butthole, and kids who masturbate in class and hump desks. Unlike her other books, Morris included a sprinkling of tales that will break your heart and a few that will give you the warm and fuzzies we all need to keep going. This book is hilarious, shocking, heartwarming, sad, gross, and sometimes inspiring because that is what teaching is really like.

    Kyle has found through his personal psychic practice and work with the angels that when people are experiencing difficulties, there is one topic that helps click everything else into place – forgiveness. Forgiveness is not an easy subject, but it is a necessary focus in spirituality and personal growth. In this book, the reader is taken on a journey – not outside of themselves, but within. Drawing on many spiritual texts, including A Course in Miracles and The Gnostic Gospels, Kyle shows that we truly are all held and cherished by the divine, and makes these sacred concepts more accessible for his 21st-century readers. Together with the angels, he will show you how to call in the power of heaven to help you forgive, release all that no longer serves you and experience joy and peace.

    Giving birth to his son Samson clarified his gender identity and allowed him to project a more masculine self. And yet, when his partner Anna adopted Samson, the legal documents listed Belc as “the natural mother of the child.”By considering how the experiences contained under the umbrella of “motherhood” don’t fully align with Belc’s own experience, The Natural Mother of the Child journeys both toward and through common perceptions of what it means to have a body and how that body can influence the perception of a family. The Natural Mother of the Child is a visual memoir-in-lyric-essays, an archive of Belc’s queerness. By engaging directly with the documentation often thought to constitute a record of one’s life—childhood photos, birth certificates—Belc creates a new kind of life record, one that addresses his own ambivalence about the “before” and “after” so prevalent in trans stories, which feels apart from his own.The Natural Mother of the Child is the story of a person moving past societal expectations to take control of his own narrative, with prose that delights in the intimate dailiness of family life and explores how much we can ever really know when we enter into parenting.