A rich and riveting debut spanning four generations of Eastern European Jewish women bound by blood, half-hidden secrets, and the fantastical visitation of a shapeshifting stranger over the course of 100 years An ambitious, delirious novel that tangles with queerness, spirituality, and generational silence, City of Laughter announces Temim Fruchter as a fresh and assured new literary voice. The tale of a young queer woman stuck in a thicket of generational secrets, the novel follows her back to her family's origins, where ancestral clues begin to reveal a lineage both haunted and shaped by desire. Ropshitz, Poland, was once known as the City of Laughter. As this story opens, an 18th century badchan, a holy jester whose job is to make wedding guests laugh, receives a visitation from a mysterious stranger--bringing the laughter the people of Ropshitz desperately need, and triggering a sequence of events that will reverberate across the coming century. In the present day, Shiva Margolin, recovering from the heartbreak of her first big queer love and grieving the death of her beloved father, struggles to connect with her guarded mother, who spends most of her time at the local funeral home. A student of Jewish folklore, Shiva seizes an opportunity to visit Poland, hoping her family's mysteries will make more sense if she walks in the footsteps of her great-grandmother Mira, about whom no one speaks. What she finds will make her question not only her past and her future, but also her present. Electric and sharply intimate, City of Laughter zigzags between our universe and a tapestry of real and invented Jewish folklore, asking how far we can travel from the stories that have raised us without leaving them behind.

Award-winning author Eric Schlich's Eli Harpo's Adventure to the Afterlife is an accessible and big-hearted novel that explores belief and forgiveness as a boy grapples with his faith and sexuality on a rollicking family road trip to Bible World. When Eli Harpo was four, he underwent emergency open-heart surgery, flatlined on the operating table, and for a brief time, went to heaven and met Jesus. Or at least that's what his father, a loving but devout Baptist minister, has raised him to believe. Nine years later, Eli isn't so sure. His rounds with his father to evangelize at hospices and sell his father's self-published book, Heaven or Bust!, feel inauthentic and strange, especially now that he's started having sex dreams about Jesus. Between that and his mother's terminal breast cancer diagnosis, Eli feels further from heaven than ever. But when the famous televangelist Charlie Gideon shows up at the Harpos' doorstep with a proposal to create a new attraction based on Eli's trip to the afterlife at his Bible-themed park, Eli isn't able to say no. As the Harpos head off on a rollicking road trip from Kentucky to Bible World in Orlando, Eli is left to grapple with not just his faith and his sexuality, but also his own parents' messy humanity and what happens when a family held together by mythmaking starts coming apart at the seams. Hilarious and moving, Eli Harpo's Adventure to the Afterlife is a kind-hearted story about self-discovery and the search for truth, wherever it takes you.

"Madeleine Gray takes a scalpel to millennial malaise, office romance, and infidelity, and the result is a brainy, gutsy, nervy--and hilarious--wonder of a novel." --Meg Howrey, author of They're Going to Love You An irresistible and messy love story about the terrible allure of wanting something that promises nothing At twenty-four, Hera is a clump of unmet potential. To her, the future is nothing but an exhausting thought exercise, one depressing hypothetical after another. She's sharp in more ways than one, adrift in her own smug malaise, until her new job moderating the comments section of an online news outlet--a role even more mind-numbing than it sounds--introduces her to Arthur, a middle-aged journalist. Though she's preferred women to men for years now, she soon finds herself falling into an all-consuming affair with him. She is coming apart with want and loving every second of it! Well, except for the tiny hiccup that Arthur has a wife--and that she has no idea Hera exists. With its daringly specific and intimate voice, Green Dot is a darkly hilarious and deeply felt examination of the joys and indignities of coming into adulthood against the pitfalls of the twenty-first century and the winding, tortuous, and often very funny journey we take in deciding who we are and who we want to be.

When Daniel de La Luna arrives as a scholarship student at an elite East Coast university, he bears the weight of his family's hopes and dreams, and the burden of sharing his late uncle's name. Daniel flounders at first--but then Sam, his roommate, changes everything. As their relationship evolves from brotherly banter to something more intimate, Daniel soon finds himself in love with a man who helps him see himself in a new light. But just as their relationship takes flight, Daniel is pulled away, first by Sam's hesitation and then by a brutal turn of events that changes Daniel's life forever. As he grapples with profound loss, Daniel finds himself in his family's ancestral homeland in México for the summer, finding joy in this setting even as he struggles to come to terms with what's happened and faces a host of new questions: How does the person he is connect with this place his family comes from? How is his own story connected to his late uncle's? And how might he reconcile the many parts of himself as he learns to move forward? Equal parts tender and triumphant, Andrés N. Ordorica's How We Named the Stars is a debut novel of love, heartache, redemption, and learning to honor the dead; a story of finding the strength to figure out who you are--and who you could be--if only the world would let you.

A fast-paced, hilarious, and ultimately hopeful novel for anyone who has ever worried they might be a terrible person--from the bestselling author of Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead. Enid is obsessed with space. She can tell you all about black holes and their ability to spaghettify you without batting an eye in fear. Her one major phobia? Bald men. But she tries to keep that one under wraps. When she's not listening to her favorite true crime podcasts on a loop, she's serially dating a rotation of women from dating apps. At the same time, she's trying to forge a new relationship with her estranged half-sisters after the death of her absent father. When she unwittingly plunges into her first serious romantic entanglement, Enid starts to believe that someone is following her. As her paranoia spirals out of control, Enid must contend with her mounting suspicion that something is seriously wrong with her. Because at the end of the day there's only one person she can't outrun--herself. Brimming with quirky humor, charm, and heart, Interesting Facts about Space effortlessly shows us the power of revealing our secret shames, the most beautifully human parts of us all.

Ivana Bodrozic's latest award-winning novel tells a story of being locked in: socially, domestically and intimately, told through three different perspectives, all deeply marked and wounded by the patriarchy in their own way. Here the Croatian poet and writer depicts a wrenching love between a transgender man and a woman as well as a demanding love between a mother and a daughter a narrative about breaking through and liberation of the mind, family, and society. This is a story of hidden gay and trans relationships, the effects of a near-fatal accident, and an oppressed childhood, where Ivana Bodrozic tackles the issues addressed in her previous works--issues of otherness, identity and gender, pain and guilt, injustice and violence. A daughter is paralyzed after a car crash, left without the ability to speak, trapped in a hospital bed, unable to move anything but her eyes. Although she is immobilized, her mind reels, moving through time, her memories a salve and a burden. A son is stuck in a body that he doesn't feel is his own. He endures misperceptions and abuse on the way to becoming who he truly is. A mother who grew up being told she was never good enough, in a world with no place for the desires and choices of women. She carries with her the burden of generations. These three stories run parallel and intertwine. Three voices deepen and give perspective to one another's truth, pain, and struggle to survive.

"I don't think I will find a book I love more this year." --Jane Green, New York Times bestselling author "Funny, poignant, joyous, explosive, but most of all affirming of our connections to one another. You Only Call When You're in Trouble is a book to cherish. A book that loves you back. What more could you want, my gosh? Read it!" --Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less Is Lost Is it ever okay to stop caring for others and start living for yourself? After a lifetime of taking care of his impossible but irresistible sister and his cherished niece, Tom is ready to put himself first. An architect specializing in tiny houses, he finally has an opportunity to build his masterpiece--"his last shot at leaving a footprint on the dying planet." Assuming, that is, he can stick to his resolution to keep the demands of his needy family at bay. Naturally, that's when his phone rings. His niece, Cecily--the real love of Tom's life, as his boyfriend reminded him when moving out--is embroiled in a Title IX investigation at the college where she teaches that threatens her career and relationship. And after decades of lying, his sister wants him to help her tell Cecily the real identity of her father. Tom does what he's always done--answers the call. Thus begins a journey that will change everyone's life and demonstrate the beauty or dysfunction (or both?) of the ties that bind families together and sometimes strangle them. Warm, funny, and deeply moving, You Only Call When You're in Trouble is an unforgettable showcase for Stephen McCauley's distinctive voice and unique ability to create complex characters that jump off the page and straight into your heart.

The American LGBTQ Rights Movement: An Introduction is a chronological survey of the LGBTQ fight for equal rights from the turn of the 20th century to the early 21st century. Illustrated with historical photographs, the book beautifully reveals the heroic people and key events that shaped the American LGBTQ rights movement. The book includes personal narratives to capture the lived experience from each era, as well as details of essential organizations, texts, and court cases that defined LGBTQ activism and advocacy.

Stonewall Book Award Winner! A fierce coming-of-age verse novel about identity and the power of drag, from acclaimed poet and performer Dean Atta. Perfect for fans of Elizabeth Acevedo, Jason Reynolds, and Kacen Callender. Michael is a mixed-race gay teen growing up in London. All his life, he's navigated what it means to be Greek-Cypriot and Jamaican--but never quite feeling Greek or Black enough. As he gets older, Michael's coming out is only the start of learning who he is and where he fits in. When he discovers the Drag Society, he finally finds where he belongs--and the Black Flamingo is born.

New York Times Bestseller A TODAY Show #ReadWithJenna Book Club Pick A Big Chill for our times, celebrating decades-long friendships and promises--especially to ourselves--by the bestselling and beloved author of The Guncle. It's been a minute--or five years--since Jordan Vargas last saw his college friends, and twenty-eight years since their graduation from Berkeley when their adult lives officially began. Now Jordan, Jordy, Naomi, Craig, and Marielle find themselves at the brink of a new decade, with all the responsibilities of adulthood, yet no closer to having their lives figured out. Though not for a lack of trying. Over the years they've reunited in Big Sur to honor a decades-old pact to throw each other living "funerals," celebrations to remind themselves that life is worth living--that their lives mean something, to one another if not to themselves. But this reunion is different. They're not gathered as they were to bolster Marielle as her marriage crumbled, to lift Naomi after her parents died, or to intervene when Craig pleaded guilty to art fraud. This time, Jordan is sitting on a secret that will upend their pact. A deeply honest tribute to the growing pains of selfhood and the people who keep us going, coupled with Steven Rowley's signature humor and heart, The Celebrants is a moving tale about the false invincibility of youth and the beautiful ways in which friendship helps us celebrate our lives, even amid the deepest challenges of living.

Examining the ways in which the emergence of trans challenges, develops and extends understandings of gender and reconfigures everyday lives, it asks how trans lives and discourses articulate and contest with issues of rights, education and popular common-sense. With attention to the question of how trans has shaped and been shaped by new modes of social action and networking, The Emergence of Trans also explores what the proliferation of trans representation across multiple media forms and public discourse suggests about the wider cultural moment, and considers the challenges presented for health care, social policy, gender and sexuality theory, and everyday articulations of identity. As such, it will appeal to scholars and students of gender and sexuality studies, as well as activists, professionals and individuals interested in trans lives and discourses.

In Fair Play, Zeigler tells the story of how sports have transformed for LGBT athletes, diving into key moments and issues that have shaped sports for LGBT people today. He shares intimate behind-the-scenes details about various athletes and stories--including NFL Hall of Famer Michael Irvin, transgender MMA fighter Fallon Fox, and NFL hopeful Michael Sam, among others--along with contextual insights about elite sports, including the overhyped "distraction" myth surrounding gay athletes. Always the forward-thinker, Zeigler maps out the necessary steps to complete sports'' transformation and fully open athletics to LGBT people.

With her career as a Los Angeles event planner imploding after a tabloid blowup, Morgan Ross isn't headed home for the holidays so much as in strategic retreat. Breathtaking mountain vistas, quirky townsfolk, and charming small businesses aside, her hometown of Fern Falls is built of one heartbreak on top of another . . .
Take her one-time best friend turned crush, Rachel Reed. The memory of their perfect, doomed first kiss is still fresh as new-fallen snow. Way fresher than the freezing mud Morgan ends up sprawled in on her very first day back, only to be hauled out via Rachel's sexy new lumberjane muscles acquired from running her family tree farm.
When Morgan discovers that the Reeds' struggling tree farm is the only thing standing between Fern Falls and corporate greed destroying the whole town's livelihood, she decides she can put heartbreak aside to save the farm by planning her best fundraiser yet. She has all the inspiration for a spectacular event: delicious vanilla lattes, acoustic guitars under majestic pines, a cozy barn surrounded by brilliant stars. But she and Rachel will ABSOLUTELY NOT have a heartwarming holiday happy ending. That would be as unprofessional as it is unlikely. Right?

"A wrenching love story" (Chris Bohjalian, The Washington Post) based on the true story of two girls who fall secretly, deeply, and dangerously in love at boarding school in 19th century York, from the bestselling author of Room and The Wonder. Drawing on years of investigation and Anne Lister's five-million-word secret journal, Learned by Heart is the long-buried love story of Eliza Raine, an orphan heiress banished from India to England at age six, and Anne Lister, a brilliant, troublesome tomboy, who meet at the Manor School for young ladies in York in 1805 when they are both fourteen.   Emotionally intense, psychologically compelling, and deeply researched, Learned by Heart is an extraordinary work of fiction by one of the world's greatest storytellers. Full of passion and heartbreak, the tangled lives of Anne Lister and Eliza Raine form a love story for the ages.

For LGBTQ youth, this is a resource containing information on the unique issues queer youth face regarding what puberty looks like (particularly for trans youth), dating skills and violence, activism, personal safety, and above all, pride. Parents and other supportive adults who are motivated to educate themselves and who are interested in gaining some tools and skills around making these necessary conversations less uncomfortable and more effective will benefit from this book. The go-to resource for making informed decisions, The Pride Guide is indispensable for teens, parents, educators, and others hoping to support the safe journey of LGBTQ teens on their journey of discovery.

McBride’s story of love and loss and a powerful entry point into the LGBTQ community’s battle for equal rights and what it means to be openly transgender. From issues like bathroom access to health care to gender in America, McBride weaves the important political and cultural milestones into a personal journey that will open hearts and change minds.

A wise-cracking, grammar-obsessed, pansexual amateur sleuth is thrust into the world of the uber-rich when her enigmatic, now-famous childhood friend breezes back into her life begging for help with a dangerous stalker
Our nameless postmodern amateur sleuth is still recovering from her first dangerous foray into detective work when her old friend Priscilla Jane Gill breezes back into her life and begs for help. Pris, now a famous travel writer, fears she's being stalked again after a nearly fatal attack by a deranged fan a year earlier. In Pris's dizzying world of wealth and privilege, nameless meets dreamy but sinister tech billionaire Nathan and his equally unnerving sidekick Chiles. Pris's stalker is murdered outside her book launch, and the shadow of obsession continues to stalk Pris. With no one she can totally trust, nameless knows she's not going to like the answer — but she delves into her old friend's past, seeking the mastermind behind Pris's troubles before it's too late. Bunnywit does his level best to warn them, but no one else speaks Cat, so background peril transforms into foreground betrayal and murder.
In the second installation of the Epitome Apartments Mystery Series, our heroine walks a dangerous path in a world where money is no object and the stakes are higher, and more personal, than ever.

*An Amazon Best Book of the Year optioned for television by Gabrielle Union!* In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson explores his childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia. From the memories of getting his teeth kicked out by bullies at age five, to flea marketing with his loving grandmother, to his first sexual relationships, this young-adult memoir weaves together the trials and triumphs faced by Black queer boys. Both a primer for teens eager to be allies as well as a reassuring testimony for young queer men of color, All Boys Aren't Blue covers topics such as gender identity, toxic masculinity, brotherhood, family, structural marginalization, consent, and Black joy. Johnson's emotionally frank style of writing will appeal directly to young adults.

An engaging exploration of what it means to be asexual in a world that's obsessed with sexual attraction, and what we can all learn about desire and identity by using an ace lens to see the world What exactly is sexual attraction and what is it like to go through the world not experiencing it? What does asexuality reveal about consent, about compromise, about the structures of society? This exceedingly accessible guide to asexuality shows that the issues that aces face--confusion around sexual activity, the intersection of sexuality and identity, navigating different needs in relationships--are conflicts that all of us need to address as we move through the world. Through interviews, cultural criticism, and memoir, ACE invites all readers to consider big-picture issues through the lens of asexuality, because every place that sexuality touches our world, asexuality does too. Journalist Angela Chen uses her own journey of self-discovery as an asexual person to unpretentiously educate and vulnerably connect with readers, effortlessly weaving analysis of sexuality and societally imposed norms with interviews of ace people. Among those included are the woman who had blood tests done because she was convinced that "not wanting sex" was a sign of serious illness, and the man who grew up in an evangelical household and did everything "right," only to realize after marriage that his experience of sexuality had never been the same as that of others. Also represented are disabled aces, aces of color, non-gender-conforming aces questioning whether their asexuality is a reaction against stereotypes, and aces who don't want romantic relationships asking how our society can make room for them.

For anyone in search of pragmatic ways to make our world more inclusive, Davis' recommendations provide much-needed practical guidance about how to work through this complex issue. A provocative call to action, Beyond Trans pushes us to think how we can work to make America truly inclusive of all people.

Headcase is a groundbreaking collection of personal reflections and artistic representations illustrating the intersection of mental wellness, illness, and LGBTQ identity, as well as the lasting impact of historical views equating queer and trans identity with mental illness. The pieces offerpersonal views from both providers and clients, often one and the same, about their experiences. Traversing boundaries of race and ethnic identity, age, gender identity, and socioeconomic status, Headcase should appeal to LGBTQ communities and, specifically, LGBTQ mentalhealth consumers and their friends, families, and comrades.

Using bisexual and non-binary gender experiences as a starting point, this book addresses the key issues with binary thinking regarding our relationships, bodies, emotions, wellbeing and our sense of identity and sets out a range of practices which may help us to think in more non-binary, both/and, or uncertain ways. A truly original and insightful piece, this guide encourages reflection on how we view and understand the world we live in and how we all bend, blur or break society's binary codes.

Out in the Union tells the continuous story of queer American workers from the mid-1960s through 2013. Miriam Frank shrewdly chronicles the evolution of labor politics with queer activism and identity formation, showing how unions began affirming the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender workers in the 1970s and 1980s. She documents coming out on the job and in the union as well as issues of discrimination and harassment, and the creation of alliances between unions and LGBT communities.  Featuring in-depth interviews with LGBT and labor activists, Frank provides an inclusive history of the convergence of labor and LGBT interests. She carefully details how queer caucuses in local unions introduced domestic partner benefits and union-based AIDS education for health care workers-innovations that have been influential across the U.S. workforce. Out in the Union also examines organizing drives at queer workplaces, campaigns for marriage equality, and other gay civil rights issues to show the enduring power of LGBT workers. 

As featured in The New York Times A cleverly designed gift book playing on the 'periodic table' to celebrate all aspects of LGBTQ+ culture, in small, easy-to-digest sections. Celebrate the richness of modern queer culture and its vast history with this fascinating introduction to all the essential elements that helped sculpt the LGBTQ+ community up to the present day, including: · the fascinating stories of queer pioneers like Marsha P. Johnson, celebrities, game-changers and unsung heroes alike · the essential LGBTQ+ timeline of queer world history · the biggest queer culture festivals and events in the world · classic works of queer art, literature, music, TV and film. This fabulous collection shines a light on the rich variety of elements to cheer about that form The Queeriodic Table.

She's Not There was one of the first works to present trans experience from the perspective of a literary novelist, opening a door to new understanding of love, sex, gender, and identity.  Boylan inspired readers to ask the same questions she asked herself:  What is it that makes us---ourselves?  What does it mean to be a man, or a woman?  How much could my husband, or wife, change--and still be recognizable as the one I love?   Boylan's humorous, wise voice helped make She's Not There the first bestselling work by a transgender American--and transformed Boylan into a national spokeswoman for LGBTQ people, their families, and the people that love them.  This updated and revised edition also includes a new epilogue from Jenny's wife Grace; it also contains the original afterward by her friend, novelist and Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Russo.   "Love will prevail," said Boylan's conservative mother, as she learned about her daughter's identity.

For the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, an anthology chronicling the tumultuous fight for LGBTQ rights in the 1960s and the activists who spearheaded it. 28 June 2019 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising - the most significant event in the gay liberation movement and the catalyst for the modern fight for LGBTQ rights in the United States. Drawing from the New York Public Library's archives, The Stonewall Reader is a collection of firsthand accounts, diaries, periodic literature and articles from LGBTQ magazines and newspapers that documented both the years leading up to and the years following the riots. Most importantly, this anthology shines a light on forgotten figures who were pivotal in the movement, such as Lee Brewster, head of the Queens Liberation Front and Ernestine Eckstine, one of the few out, African American, lesbian activists in the 1960s.

Like trigger warnings and gender-neutral bathrooms, pronouns are sparking a national debate, prompting new policies in schools, workplaces, even prisons, about what pronouns to use. Colleges ask students to declare their pronouns along with their majors; corporate conferences print name tags with space to add pronouns; email signatures sport pronouns along with names and titles. Far more than a by-product of the culture wars, gender-neutral pronouns are, however, nothing new. Pioneering linguist Dennis Baron puts them in historical context, noting that Shakespeare used singular-they; women invoked the generic use of he to assert the right to vote (while those opposed to women's rights invoked the same word to assert that he did not include she); and people have been coining new gender pronouns, not just hir and zie, for centuries. Based on Baron's own empirical research, What's Your Pronoun? chronicles the story of the role pronouns have played--and continue to play--in establishing both our rights and our identities. It is an essential work in understanding how twenty-first-century culture has evolved.