But this year, something has changed: a genderfluid ex-frat brother called River Runson is named as Melting Queen. As River's reign upends the city's century-old traditions, Edmonton tears itself in two, with progressive and reactionary factions fighting a war for Edmonton's soul. Ultimately, River must uncover the hidden history of Melting Day, forcing Edmonton to confront the dark underbelly of its traditions and leading the city into a new chapter in its history.Balancing satire with compassion, Bruce Cinnamon's debut novel combines history and magic to weave a splendid future-looking tale. Recalling the work of Minister Faust and Vivek Shraya, The Melting Queen lays down a foundational mythology for Edmonton in the vein of Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg.

    After the death of her stepmother Frances Murray is called back to Calgary to help her father, Jimmy, and sister, Bernadette, make the mortgage on the family home. When Robyn, a long lost friend, becomes their house guest tensions are ignited and Jimmy, Bernadette and Frances find themselves increasingly estranged from one another.For the Murrays, history has a way of repeating itself and as each of them wrestles with their own secrets they find themselves unable to forget and unwilling to forgive one another. Part family drama, part queer coming-of-age story, The Western Alienation Merit Badge explores the dynamics of a small family falling apart.

    Canadian-Japanese Karen, who has left her lesbian lover of eight years, befriends Red, a young woman with an unknown background who cleans houses for three others--acrid Milly, divorced by her husband after a 20-year marriage; Henrietta, whose husband is institutionalized in Vancouver; and Miss James, an eccentric, elderly spinster. Birth, illness and death follow one another, uniting the five independent and incisively drawn protagonists. "All that time I was trying to teach you how to live alone and really take care of yourself, I was teaching myself, too," Henrietta tells Red. The resulting warmth is not saccharine but realistic, as Rule illuminates the vagaries and pain of abandonment and loss, and the fragile joy of new bonds.

    God Loves Hair is a collection of 20 short stories following a tender, intellectual, and curious child as he navigates complex realms of sexuality, gender, racial politics, religion, and belonging.Told with the poignant insight and honesty that only the voice of a young mind can convey, each story is accompanied by a vivid illustration by Toronto artist Juliana Neufeld.

    Bob is excited and lonely. He meets and pursues the elusive Jack, a director who is able to transform others without altering himself. Bob goes to the baths, gossips on the phone, goes to a bar, thinks about werewolves, has an orgasm, and discovers a number of truths about Jack. A paean to love and obsession, Glück's novel explores the everyday in a language that is both intimate and lush. "Robert Glück has found a new way of making fiction passionate. This novel is a strange, exhilarating love story rich with invention and observation." -Edmund White

    Her whole life is leading up to the day she decides to become Grady, a guy. While coming out as transgender feels right to Grady, he isn't prepared for the reaction he gets from everyone else. His mother is upset, his younger sister is mortified, and his best friend, Eve, won't acknowledge him in public. Why can't people just let Grady be himself? Grady's life is miserable until he finds friends in some unexpected places -- like the school geek, Sebastian, who explains that there is precedent in the natural world (parrotfish change gender when they need to, and the newly male fish are the alpha males), and Kita, a senior who might just be Grady's first love. From acclaimed writer Ellen Wittlinger, this is the groundbreaking story of one teen's search for self and his struggle for acceptance.

    Rosie is a mystic romantic whose dad earned so much money writing screenplays that she doesn’t need an after-school job. John, Rosie’s ex, works at the roller rink in a rabbit costume and takes care of his mom when she's tired after a day cutting hair. The narrator works at a bookstore and sometimes focuses so hard on their reading that they see polka dots take over the room. John is the narrator's best and oldest friend, so now the two of them must be in love, right? Because if they aren't, why stay in town? But if they aren't, who else will ever understand? What is love and how does it work? See You In the Morning happens at diners and house shows, in paragraph-shaped poems, and the narrator's angry, tender, colorful voice.

    But when her father suddenly leaves and her mother breaks down, Daisy's old life disappears, and she is set free in the rift created between her parents. Susie Taylor's sharp, quick-witted prose carries Daisy through a family cataclysm, relationships with boys, and her increasingly confusing feelings towards girls, especially Wanda. A refreshingly perceptive and honest debut, Even Weirder Than Before explores the nature of family, friendships, and sexual awakenings--and introduces one of Newfoundland's most exciting new writers.

    Massive change. More radical than you could imagine. Her mother is not happy, in fact she’s imploding. Her dad walked out.Alex has turned vegetarian, ditched one school, enrolled in another, thrown out her clothes. And created a new identity. An identity that changes her world.And Alex—the other Alex—has a lot to say about it. Alex As Well is a confronting and heartfelt story of adolescent experience—of questioning identity, discovering sexuality, navigating friendships and finding a place to belong. Alex is a strong, vulnerable, confident, shy and determined character, one you will never forget.With the same tenderness and insight as YA stars such as John Green and David Levithan, Alyssa Brugman has crafted a knockout story about identity, sexuality and family that speaks effortlessly to a universal teen experience.

    His stomach clenched hard, as though he'd been hit. It was just the neighbor lady, Mercedes. J couldn't muster a hello back, not now; he didn't care that she'd tell his mom he'd been rude. She should know better. Nobody calls me Jeni anymore.J always felt different. He was certain that eventually everyone would understand who he really was: a boy mistakenly born as a girl. Yet as he grew up, his body began to betray him; eventually J stopped praying to wake up a "real boy" and started covering up his body, keeping himself invisible - from his family, from his friends...from the world. But after being deserted by the best friend he thought would always be by his side, J decides that he's done hiding - it's time to be who he really is. And this time he is determined not to give up, no matter the cost. An inspiring story of self-discovery, of choosing to stand up for yourself, and of finding your own path - readers will recognize a part of themselves in J's struggle to love his true self.

    Meet 'Bob the Book, ' a gay book for sale in a Greenwich Village bookstore, where he falls in love with another book, Moishe. But an unlikely customer separates the young lovers. As Bob wends his way through used book bins, paper bags, knapsacks, and lecture halls, hoping to be reunited with Moishe, he meets a variety of characters, both book and human, including Angela, a widowed copy of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, and two other separated lovers, Neil and Jerry, near victims of a book burning. Among their owners are Alfred and Duane, whose on-again, off-again relationship unites and separates our book friends. Will Bob find Moishe? Will Jerry and Neil be reunited? Will Alfred and Duane make it work? Read 'Bob the Book' to find all the answers...

    Through his eyes we encounter the composer Robert Christian Gustafson, an Iowa preacher's son whose good looks constitute both a mythic draw and a major limitation, and Angelina "Alabama" Byrnes, a failed deb, five feet tall but bristling with outsized talent.  These friends shelter each other, promote each other's work, and compete erotically.  When tragedy strikes, this circle grows up fast, somehow finding, at the worst of times, the truest sort of family.Funny and heartbreaking, as eventful as Dickens and as atmospheric as one of Fitzgerald's parties, Plays Well with Others combines a fable's high-noon energy with an elegy's evening grace.  Allan Gurganus's celebrated new novel is a lovesong to imperishable friendship, a hymn to a brilliant and now-vanished world.

    I couldn't put this book down!” --Michelle Tea, author of Mermaid in Chelsea Creek

    This is a young adult novel unlike any other—an authentic portrayal of the issues faced by a child growing up with a sexually ambiguous body.Jameson can be like other boys after minor surgery and a few years on testosterone Well, at least that’s what his parents always say. But Jamie sees an elfin princess in the mirror, and male hormones would only ruin her pretty face. For him to become the man his parents expect, Jameson must leave behind the hopes and dreams of a little girl. But what is so wrong with Jamie’s dreams that they can’t be her life?

    When he is shipped off to Straight to God, an institution devoted to ''deprogramming'' troubled teenagers, Taylor Adams learns valuable lessons in love, courage, rebellion, and betrayal in a place where piety is a mask for cruelty and the greatest crimes go.