Archives de catégorie : LGBTQ+

DON’T TELL ME WHAT HAPPENS de Raphael Simon et Phillip De Léon

A tender love story, a queer coming-of-age and a gripping mystery all wrapped into one in this YA graphic novel.

DON’T TELL ME WHAT HAPPENS
by Raphael Simon
illustrated by Phillip de León
Roaring Brook, Summer 2026
(via The Gernert Company)

Two queer love stories. Two time periods. One mystery.

Fifteen-year-old Noah lives with his father in New York but is spending the summer with his mother in Venice, CA. An indoor, city sort of person, a RuPaul fanatic, he’s miserable in the sun – until he meets Tomo, a surfer who works in his father’s vintage store. Tomo hands Noah an old composition-style notebook, filled with steamy diary entries by its teenaged owner, Diego, in addition to ephemera from the 1980s. Noah reads about Diego playing footsie in history class with closeted surfer (another surfer!) Casey until one day after school it becomes something more. Noah is enthralled. And there’s one more notebook at the store, but that’s it – Noah and Tomo have no idea what happened to Diego and Casey. And as they set off to find the much older surfer, the two boys find romance of their own…but can Noah keep from sabotaging the first good thing in his life?

Better known as Pseudonymous Bosch, Raphael Simon is the not-so-secret author of two bestselling middle-grade series, the Secret Series and the Bad Books, as well as the ALA Rainbow-Listed Unbelievable Oliver chapter-book mysteries. Most recently, Raphael published The Anti-Book, the first novel to appear under his own name.

Textile designer and illustrator Phillip De León worked as a creative in the advertising world before joining forces with his design partner and sister Nicole and their father Marcus to form the De León Design Group, and to direct the Los Angeles-based textile house, Alexander Henry Fabrics, Inc.

TRANS TIME TRAVEL de Thomas Page McBee

Thomas Page McBee defines the concept of “trans time,” and how the trans experience can be a torch into the future for all of us.

TRANS TIME TRAVEL
A Mind-Bending Journey Across Continents, Centuries, and Dimensions
by Thomas Page McBee
Scribner, TBD
(via Levine Greenberg Rostan)

© A Klass Thomas Page McBee is at 42, he writes, one of the oldest trans people he knows, an “elder,”—and he’s also 12, “a man without a boyhood, alive at the end of the world.” Time is linear, but it’s also cyclical. This moment, with its fever-pitch of anti-trans rhetoric, a broken political system, not to mention climate change, can feel like the end of the world—as have other moments in our history. And yet, as Thomas writes, “the future is already here.” The seeds of what is to come already exist. We need to be asking different and better questions.

This books takes us through time and space and through the ideas that Thomas finds himself obsessed with: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; queer history of the American West; the story of Brandon Teena, subject of the film “Boys Don’t Cry” and the first trans person Thomas ever heard of; how the media, the medical system, the prison system, the archives have all told trans stories.

Thomas Page McBee’s TV and screenwriting career has been enormously successful, with several collaborations with Elliott Page and others, including for an adaptation on Amateur that HBO has momentum behind. He’s been praised by some of the most iconic writers of our generation, from Roxane Gay to Maggie Nelson. His work as a journalist is highly sought after, from the current piece on Mary Shelley he’s writing for Travel and Leisure to a T Magazine feature commissioned by Hanya Yanagihara.

FRIGHTEN THE HORSES d’Oliver Radclyffe

For fans of Jennifer Finney Boylan’s She’s Not There and Thomas Page McBee, FRIGHTEN THE HORSES is a textured and sharply written queer memoir about coming of age in the fourth decade of one’s life and embracing one’s truest self in a world that wants to fit everyone in neat boxes.

FRIGHTEN THE HORSES
by Oliver Radclyffe
Roxane Gay Books/Grove Atlantic, September 2024

From the outside, Oliver Radclyffe spent four decades living an immensely privileged, beautifully composed life. As the daughter of two well-to-do British parents and the wife of a handsome, successful man from an equally privileged family, Oliver played the parts expected of him. He checked off every box—marriage, children (four), a white-picket fence surrounding a stately home in Connecticut, and a golden retriever named Biscuit.

But beneath the shiny veneer, Oliver was desperately trying to stay afloat as he struggled to maintain a façade of normalcy—his hair was falling out in large clumps, he couldn’t eat, and his mood swings often brought him to tears. And then, on an otherwise unremarkable afternoon in September, Oliver Radclyffe woke up and realized the life of a trapped housewife was not one he was ever meant to live. In fact, Oliver had spent his entire life denying the deepest, truest parts of himself. In the wake of this realization, he began the challenging, messy journey toward self-acceptance and living a truer life, knowing he risked the life he’d built to do so.

The journey is fraught, as Oliver navigated leaving a marriage and reintroducing himself to his children. And despite the challenges he faced, Oliver realizes there was no way for him to go back to the beautiful lie of his previous life. Not if he wanted to survive. FRIGHTEN THE HORSES is a trans man’s coming of age story, about a housewife who comes out as lesbian and tentatively, at first, steps into the world of queerness. With growing courage and the support of his newfound community, Oliver is finally able to face the question of his gender identity and become the man he is supposed to be. The story of a flawed, fascinating, gorgeously queer man, FRIGHTEN THE HORSES introduces Oliver Radclyffe as a witty, arresting, unforgettable voice.

Oliver Radclyffe is part of the new wave of transgender writers unafraid to address the complex nuances of transition, examining the places where gender identity, sexual orientation, feminist allegiance, social class, and family history overlap. His work has appeared in The New York Times and Electric Literature, and he has a book of essays due for publication in October 2023 with Unbound Edition Press. He currently lives on the Connecticut coast, where he is raising his four children.

DAMNED IF YOU DO d’Alex Brown

Queer Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Filipino folklore in this horror comedy about a high school stage manager who accidentally sells her soul to a demon.

DAMNED IF YOU DO
by Alex Brown
Page Street Kids, August 2023
(via Dystel, Goderich & Bourret)

Seven years ago, Cordelia Scott’s abusive father left without a word, and life has been normal ever since. The seventeen-year-old spends her days stage managing the school play (which is going great, if anyone asks), pining over her best friend, Veronica, and failing one too many pop quizzes.
She’s never been sad that her father left, but she knows something is…missing. When her school guidance counselor, Fred, reveals during a session that he’s actually a demon, she learns that something is indeed missing: a piece of her actual soul. Why? She unwittingly made a deal with him to make her father disappear – then bargained to have the memory erased. To make matters worse, Fred is here to make another bargain: Help him with a “little” demonic problem, or she’s doomed to spend eternity in Hell with her father.
The deal? Help Fred neutralize a rival demon, who means to do more harm in her hometown than your average demon deal.

Alex Brown is a queer, biracial Filipino American writer whose sapphic YA debut, DAMNED IF YOU DO, published in August 2023. She’s is no stranger to horror, as she’s served as the Showrunner’s Assistant for Supernatural and Netflix’s live-action adaptation of Resident Evil, and is also the co-creator of The Bridge, a narrative fiction sci-fi horror podcast. Alex lives in Los Angeles with her partner and their two very chaotic cats.

NATE PLUS ONE de Kevin van Whye

A fun new, gay rom-com from the author of Date Me, Bryson Keller!

NATE PLUS ONE
by Kevin van Whye
Random House Children’s, May 2022

Seventeen-year-old Nathan Hargreaves has done the bravest thing a gay teen can do: he’s come out to all those around him. But when he and his Mom are invited to his extremely wealthy paternal Aunt’s wedding retreat in South Africa, he’s filled with dread because he knows that all eyes will be on him— the gay boy. Disaster strikes when his Mom can’t make it and Nate will be forced to brave his extended family alone. Enter Jai Patel. Jai is an indie musician whose band is hoping to get their big break through a talent competition. When Jai’s band loses their lead singer weeks before the big competition, Nate steps up to help his friend out. The truth is, Nate is starting to feel more than friendship for the other boy and he’s pretty sure that Jai feels the same way. So, when Jai volunteers to be his plus one to the wedding, Nate’s looking forward to what will be the most perfect first date ever. That is, until Nate’s secret ex-boyfriend enters the picture.

Kevin van Whye is a gay writer of color born and raised in South Africa, where his love for storytelling started at a very young age. At four years old, he quit preschool because his teacher couldn’t tell a story. Kevin’s love affair with stories led him to film school, where he studied scriptwriting. Date Me, Bryson Keller is his first novel. Kevin lives in Johannesburg, and when he’s not reading, he’s writing books that give his characters the happy rom-com endings they deserve.