Welcome to the New Year. After a long three hundred sixty-six days, 2020 has ended its reign. While we may not necessarily know what 2021 holds in store for us, we do know that entering a new month means the promise of new LGBTQ literature.
This month we are happy to report the release of two dynamic books by first-time novelists. Robert Jones Jr.’s lyrical debut novel The Prophets follows the fraught romantic union between two enslaved young men on an antebellum plantation. In Torrey Peters’ sharp domestic novel Detransition, Baby, a group of urban denizens navigate the often angst-inducing contemporary ideas surrounding familial relationships and gender roles.
If you’re after more historical fiction, jump into Anna North’s western Outlawed to enter a reimagined frontier filled with treacherous plans and feminist stakes. Malinda Lo’s Last Night at the Telegraph Club takes you back to America in 1954 to tell of a romance threatened by the Red Scare. Testimony by Paula Martinac entails a young professor attempting to balance love, work, and her personal safety while living in rural Virginia in 1960.
Maybe you’d like a reimagining of a classic tale. Being printed for the first time in English, José Luis Zárate’s The Route of Ice and Salt tells of Dracula’s journey to England. The Gothic tale is a Latin American cult novella filled with queer desire.
Take some time this January to dive into LGBTQ+ studies. Enter the new year learning; possibly of queer sexualities in theological contexts in Queer Political Theologies. Or immerse yourself in examining commodified feminism and intersectionality in White Feminism by Koa Beck.
Akilah Oliver’s beloved poetry collection the she said dialogues: flesh memory is being reprinted twenty-two years after its initial release. This is a Black, feminist classic still essential to current poetics and politics.
If you are looking to add even more poetry to your life, check out new titles from Mark Wunderlich, Dennis Rhodes, and Lesléa Newman.
Read through January’s most anticipated new releases of LGBTQ literature; there is something here to start your new year off right. As always, if our list is missing an author or a book, or if you have a book coming out next month, please email us.
Fiction
- A Study in Cloud Formations by Clark Guire, Jessica Clark
- Art is Everything by Yxta Maya Murray, Triquarterly Books
- Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters, One World
- The Heiress: The Revelations of Anne de Bourgh by Molly Greeley, William Morrow & Company
- Hidden Path by Elena Fortún, Swan Isle Press
- The Liar’s Dictionary by Eley Williams, Doubleday Books
- Outlawed by Anna North, Bloomsbury Publishing
- Prodigal by Charles Lambert, Gallic Books
- The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr, G.P. Putnam’s Sons
- The Wasteland by Harper H. Jameson, Level 4 Press, Inc.
Nonfiction
- Coming Out Stories by Emma Goswell and Sam Walker, Jessica Kingsley Publishers
- The Life of Saint Eufrosine by Amy V. Ogden, Modern Language Association of America
- Live at Jackson Station: Music, Community, and Tragedy in a Southern Blues Bar by Daniel M. Harrison, University of South Carolina Press
- Sweeter Voices Still: An LGBTQ Anthology From Middle America edited by Ryan Schuessler & Kevin Whiteneir, Jr., Belt Publishing
- Queer Men’s Narrative edited by Jude Dibia and Olumide F. Makanjuola, Cassava Republic Press
- The Reflective Workbook for Teachers and Support Staff of Trans and Non-Binary Students by D.M. Maynard, Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Bio/Memoir
- Devils, Lusts and Strange Desires: The Life of Patricia Highsmith by Richard Bradford, Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Everybody (Else) is Perfect: How I Survived Hypocrisy, Beauty, Clicks, and Likes by Gabrielle Korn, Atria Books
- Life After Losses by James Laveck, Self-Published
- My Pursuit of Beauty by Vince Spinnato, Booklogix
- New York Diary by Tim Dlugos, Sibling Rivalry Press
LGBTQ Studies
- Beyond Binaries: Trans Identities in Contemporary Culture by Mike Perez, John C. Lamothe, and Rachel Friedman, Lexington Books
- Black Queer Flesh: Rejecting Subjectivity in the African American Novel by Alvin J. Henry, University of Minnesota Press
- Brown Trans Figurations by Franciso J. Galarte, University of Texas Press
- Contingent Figure: Chronic Pain and Queer Embodiment by Micael D. Snediker, University of Minnesota Press
- Dragging: Or, in the Drag of a Queer Life by Shaka McGlotten, Routledge
- Knowing Women: Same-Sex Intimacy, Gender, and Identity in Postcolonial Ghana by Serena Owusua Dankwa, Cambridge University Press
- Male Homosexuality in 21st-Century Thailand: A Longitudinal Study of Young, Rural, Same-Sex-Attracted Men Coming of Age by Jan W. de Lind Van Wijngaarden, Anthem Press
- One of the Children: Gay Black Men in Harlem by William G. Hawkeswood, University of California Press (Reprint)
- Ovid and Masculinity in English Renaissance Literature by John S. Garrison, McGill-Queen’s University Press
- Queer Atlantic: Masculinity, Mobility, and the Emergence of Modernist Form by Daniel Hannah, McGill-Queen’s University Press
- Queer in Translation: Sexual Politics Under Neoliberal Islam by Evren Savci, Duke University Press
- Queer Jewish Lives Between Central Europe and Mandatory Palestine edited by Andreas Kraß, Moshe Sluhovsky, and Yuval Yonay, Transcript Publishing
- Queer Political Theologies edited by Ricky Varghese, Fan Wu, & David K. Seitz, Duke University Press
- Queer Turkey: Transnational Poetics of Desire by Ralph J. Poole, Transcript Publishing
- Residues of Justice: Literature, Law, Philosophy by Wai Chee Dimock, University of California Press (reprint)
- The Small Book of Hip Checks: On Queer Gender, Race, and Writing by Erica Rand, Duke University Press
- Trans Health: Global Perspectives on Care for Trans Communities edited by Max Nicolai Appenroth and María do Mar Castro Varela, Transcript Publishing
- White Feminism: From the Suffragettes to Influencers and Who They Leave Behind by Koa Beck, Atria Books
Romance
- The Beautiful Things Shoppe by Phillip William Stover, Carina Adores
- Captive in the Underworld by Lianyu Tan, Shattered Scepter Press
- Choosing Grace by Regina Jamison, Bella Books
- The Clinch by Nicole Disney, Bold Strokes Books
- Half a Cowboy by Andrew Grey, Dreamspinner Press
- The Last First Kiss by Julie Cannon, Bold Strokes Books
- The Last Time We Met by Maggie Brown and Leni Hanson, Bella Books
- Liberty Bay by Karis Walsh, Bold Strokes Books
- The Mandolin Lunch by Missouri Vaun, Bold Strokes Books
- Night Tide by Anna Burke, Bywater Books
- Patience & Esther: An Edwardian Romance by S.W. Searle, Iron Circus Comics
- Scent by Kris Bryant, Bold Strokes Books
- Shadows of Steel by Suzie Clarke, Bold Strokes Books
- Veterinary Technician by Nancy Wheelton, Bold Strokes Books
Mystery/Thriller
- A Message in Blood by Catherine Maiorisi, Bella Books
- Journey to Cash by Ashley Bartlett, Bold Strokes Books
- Testimony by Paula Martinac, Bywater Books
- Where There’s Smoke by Angelique Rader, Bella Books
Fantasy
- Eve and the Faders by Berneta L. Haynes and Lornett B. Vestal, Snake Doctor Press
- Lava Red Feather Blue by Molly Ringle, Central Avenue Publishing
- The Mark of Things Unwanted by Alex Clifford, Self-Published
- Of Maidens & Swords by Melissa Marr, MM Ink
- The Route of Ice and Salt by José Luis Zárate, Innsmouth Free Press
- Thor: Daughter of Asgard by Genevieve McCluer, Bold Strokes Books
- Winterkeep by Kristin Cashore, Dial Books
Young Adult and Children’s Literature
- Be Dazzled by Ryan La Sala, Sourcebooks Fire
- An Ideal Man by Adonis Ramirez Parra, Austin Macauley Publishers
- The Fabulous Zed Watson! by Basil Sylvester, HarperCollins
- Gender Identity Workbook for Teens by Andrew Maxwell Triska LCSW, Rockridge Press
- The Greatest Superpower by Alex Sanchez, Capstone Editions
- Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo, Dutton Books for Young Readers
- Meow or Never by Jazz Taylor, Scholastic Inc.
- Over the Shop by Jonarno Lawson, Candlewick Press
- People of Pride: 25 Great LGBTQ Americans by Chase Clemesha, Capstone Editions
- Rainbow Boy by Taylor Rouanzion, Beaming Books
- Toby Wears a Tutu by Lori Starling, Brandylane Publishers, Inc.
- What You Don’t Know by Anastasia Higginbotham, Dottir Press
Poetry
- God of Nothingness by Mark Wunderlich, Graywolf Press
- I Wish My Father by Lesléa Newman, Headmistress Press
- The Lyme Letters: Poems by C.R. Grimmer, Texas Tech University Press
- OCD Poems by Dennis Rhodes, Indolent Books
- the she said dialogues: flesh memory by Akilah Oliver, Nightboat Books (Reprint)
- The Sunflower Cast a Spell to Save Us From the Void by Jackie Wang, Nightboat Books
