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Hold Your Own
Kate Tempest - 2014
Based on the myth of the blind prophet Tiresias, Hold Your Own is a riveting tale of youth and experience, sex and love, wealth and poverty, community and alienation. Walking in the forest one morning, a young man disturbs two copulating snakes - and is punished by the goddess Hera, who turns him into a woman. This is only the beginning of his journey . . . Weaving elements of classical myth, autobiography and social commentary, Tempest uses the story of the gender-switching, clairvoyant Tiresias to create four sequences of poems: 'childhood', 'manhood', 'womanhood' and 'blind profit'. The result is a rhythmically hypnotic tour de force - and a hugely ambitious leap forward for one of the UK's most talented and compelling young writers.
The Porcupine of Truth
Bill Konigsberg - 2015
Carson Smith is resigned to spending his summer in Billings, Montana, helping his mom take care of his father, a dying alcoholic he doesn't really know. Then he meets Aisha Stinson, a beautiful girl who has run away from her difficult family, and Pastor John Logan, who's long held a secret regarding Carson's grandfather, who disappeared without warning or explanation thirty years before. Together, Carson and Aisha embark on an epic road trip to find the answers that might save Carson's dad, restore his fragmented family, and discover the "Porcupine of Truth" in all of their lives.
Mundo Cruel: Stories
Luis Negrón - 2010
The writing straddles the shifting line between pure, unadorned storytelling and satire, exploring the sometimes hilarious and sometimes heartbreaking nature of survival in a decidedly cruel world.
Seven Moves
Carol Anshaw - 1988
Forging a trail that leads into the heart of Morocco, Seven Moves tracks Christine's gradual recognition that no one can ever really know another's soul. Bearing Anshaw's trademark style -funny, hip, and laser-sharp -this is "a tightly told tale that resists the bookmark as well as any thriller" (Chicago Sun-Times). A Reader's Guide is now available.
Not Otherwise Specified
Hannah Moskowitz - 2015
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? The latest powerful, original novel from Hannah Moskowitz is the story about living in and outside communities and stereotypes, and defining your own identity.
Fiebre Tropical
Juliana Delgado Lopera - 2020
Her alienation grows when her mother is swept up in an evangelical church, replete with abstinent salsa dancers and baptisms for the dead. But there, Francisca meets the magnetic Carmen: head of the youth group and the pastor’s daughter. As her mother’s mental health deteriorates, Francisca falls for Carmen and is saved to grow closer with her, even as their relationship hurtles toward a shattering conclusion.
Anger Is a Gift
Mark Oshiro - 2018
Along with losing a parent, the media's vilification of his father and lack of accountability has left Moss with near crippling panic attacks.Now, in his sophomore year of high school, Moss and his fellow classmates find themselves increasingly treated like criminals by their own school. New rules. Random locker searches. Constant intimidation and Oakland Police Department stationed in their halls. Despite their youth, the students decide to organize and push back against the administration.When tensions hit a fever pitch and tragedy strikes, Moss must face a difficult choice: give in to fear and hate or realize that anger can actually be a gift.
The Language We Were Never Taught to Speak
Grace Lau - 2021
With influences from pop culture, the Bible, tech, and Hong-Kongese history, these pieces reflect and reveal how the stories of immigrants in Canada hold both universal truths and singular distinctions. From boybands that show the way to become “the kind of girl a girl could love” to “rich flavours that are just a few generations of poverty away,” they invite the reader to meditate on spirituality, food, and the shapes love takes.
De Profundis
Oscar Wilde - 1897
Wilde wrote the letter between January and March 1897; he was not allowed to send it, but took it with him upon release. In it he repudiates Lord Alfred for what Wilde finally sees as his arrogance and vanity; he had not forgotten Douglas's remark, when he was ill, "When you are not on your pedestal you are not interesting." He also felt redemption and fulfillment in his ordeal, realizing that his hardship had filled the soul with the fruit of experience, however bitter it tasted at the time.
Under the Rainbow
Celia Laskey - 2020
But when a national nonprofit labels Big Burr "the most homophobic town in the US" and sends in a task force of queer volunteers as an experiment-they'll live and work in the community for two years in an attempt to broaden hearts and minds-no one is truly prepared for what will ensue. Furious at being uprooted from her life in Los Angeles and desperate to fit in at her new high school, Avery fears that it's only a matter of time before her "gay crusader" mom outs her. Still grieving the death of her son, Linda welcomes the arrivals, who know mercifully little about her past. And for Christine, the newcomers are not only a threat to the comforting rhythms of Big Burr life, but a call to action. As tensions roil the town, cratering relationships and forcing closely guarded secrets into the light, everyone must consider what it really means to belong. Told with warmth and wit, Under the Rainbow is a poignant, hopeful articulation of our complicated humanity that reminds us we are more alike than we'd like to admit.
Fat Angie
E.E. Charlton-Trujillo - 2013
Can a daring new girl in her life really change anything?Angie is broken — by her can’t-be-bothered mother, by her high-school tormenters, and by being the only one who thinks her varsity-athlete-turned-war-hero sister is still alive. Hiding under a mountain of junk food hasn’t kept the pain (or the shouts of "crazy mad cow!") away. Having failed to kill herself — in front of a gym full of kids — she’s back at high school just trying to make it through each day. That is, until the arrival of KC Romance, the kind of girl who doesn’t exist in Dryfalls, Ohio. A girl who is one hundred and ninety-nine percent wow! A girl who never sees her as Fat Angie, and who knows too well that the package doesn’t always match what’s inside. With an offbeat sensibility, mean girls to rival a horror classic, and characters both outrageous and touching, this darkly comic anti-romantic romance will appeal to anyone who likes entertaining and meaningful fiction.It has been awarded the Stonewall Book Award-Mike Morgan and Larry Romans Children's & Young Adult Literature Award for 2014.
Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics
T.C. TolbertE.C. Crandall - 2013
In addition to generous samples of poetry by each trans writer, the book also includes “poetics statements”—reflections by each poet that provide context for their work covering a range of issues from identification and embodiment to language and activism.Poets in Troubling the Line: Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán, Aimee Herman, Amir Rabiyah, Ari Banias, Ariel Goldberg, Bo Luengsuraswat, CAConrad, Ching-In Chen, Cole Krawitz, D’Lo, David Wolach, Dawn Lundy Martin, Drew Krewer, Duriel E. Harris, EC Crandall, Eileen Myles, Eli Clare, Ely Shipley, Emerson Whitney, Eric Karin, Fabian Romero, Gr Keer, HR Hegnauer, J. Rice, j/j hastain, Jaime Shearn Coan, Jake Pam Dick, Jen (Jay) Besemer, Jenny Johnson, John Wieners, Joy Ladin, Julian Talamantez Brolaski, kari edwards, Kit Yan, Laura Neuman, Lilith Latini, Lizz Bronson, Lori Selke, Max Wolf Valerio, Meg Day, Micha Cárdenas, Monica / Nico Peck, Natro, Oliver Bendorf, Reba Overkill, Samuel Ace, Stacey Waite, Stephen Burt, TC Tolbert, Tim Trace Peterson, Trish Salah, TT Jax, Y. Madrone, Yosmay del Mazo & Zoe Tuck. TC Tolbert, a genderqueer, feminist poet and teacher committed to social justice, is the author of territories of folding, spirare, and the forthcoming Gephyromania. Tolbert lives in Tucson.Tim Trace Peterson is a poet, critic, and editor. The author of Since I Moved In and Violet Speech, Peterson is co-editor of the forthcoming Gil Ott: Collected Writings and lives in Brooklyn.
The Girl and the Goddess: Stories and Poems of Divine Wisdom
Nikita Gill - 2020
A girl with a strong will, a full heart, and much to learn. Born into a family reeling from the ruptures of Partition in India, we follow her as she crosses the precarious lines between childhood, teenage discovery, and realizing her adult self. In the process, Paro must confront fear, desire and the darkest parts of herself in the search for meaning and, ultimately, empowerment.Nikita Gill's vivid poetry and beautiful illustrations have captured hearts and imaginations--but in The Girl and the Goddess, she offers us her most personal and deeply felt writing to date: an intimate coming-of-age story told in linked poems that offers a look into the Hindu mythology and rich cultural influences that helped her become the woman she is today.
Real Life
Brandon Taylor - 2020
An introverted young man from Alabama, black and queer, he has left behind his family without escaping the long shadows of his childhood. For reasons of self-preservation, Wallace has enforced a wary distance even within his own circle of friends—some dating each other, some dating women, some feigning straightness. But over the course of a late-summer weekend, a series of confrontations with colleagues, and an unexpected encounter with an ostensibly straight, white classmate, conspire to fracture his defenses while exposing long-hidden currents of hostility and desire within their community.