Feature image by F.J. Jimenez via Getty Images
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Hi everyone! It’s Yashwina, back with my metal detector and everything I’ve dug up on the literary internet over the last couple weeks. It’s been a good time — I got to write my very first quiz for Autostraddle featuring some fun vintage queer literature from my collection, I got to review River Butcher’s latest standup set, and I’ve been having a splendid time reading Melissa Febos’s forthcoming craft book Body Work and Grace Lavery’s amazing new memoir Please Miss. Y’all know I’m a history nerd too, so currently on my nightstand is this book about depictions of women in 1940s graphic art — aka, yes, Rosie the Riveter and her ilk are queer as hell and we knew it all along. Just been on a real nonfiction kick!
Alrighty, folks, let’s make like an orange and peel. On this week’s Rainbow Reading, we’ve got:
Shelf Care: Reviews, Essays, and other Things of Note
- Help send books and reading recommendations to incarcerated trans women! (Here’s the contact form too!)
- [lizzo voice] I’ve been WAITING for this one — Isaac Fellman’s novel about a trans vampire archivist Dead Collections is out this week!
- “If one idea holds the weight of this thoughtful, acerbic, bracingly hopeful book, it’s that everything is gender, except gender, which is everything else.” Dead Collections also got a great review from Casey McQuiston in the New York Times!
- Also out now — Manhunt is here!!
- In Sensorium is also out now, and stay tuned for the Autostraddle review!
- This is the coolest — Los Suelos is a multimedia digital anthology about a haunted California town, and it’s got new work from some amazing queer writers. I especially loved this short story from R. Phalen Rayson and this one from Ross Showalter!
- Emme Lund, author of The Boy with a Bird in His Chest, wrote an absolutely gorgeous essay about finding her style!
- Stevie THEE Nicks says: Watch Storks…?!
- The debate about Sally Rooney’s depictions of bisexuality and queerness continues apace
- Curious about the behind-the-scenes of bookmaking? Follow from paper to print as they assemble Marlon James’ latest book Moon Witch Spider King!
- A loving homage to The Magic Wand in The Cut
- Three more wonderful interviews from The Rumpus: Kim Fu, author of Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century; Edgar Gomez, author of High Risk Homosexual; and Ariel Delgado Dixon, author of Don’t Say We Didn’t Warn You
- Kristen Arnett has a new short story in this 30th Anniversary issue of The Oxford American
- My favorite Valentine’s Day piece — there’s so much love in Reimagining the Stories We Tell About Trans Love by Alex McElroy for ELLE!
- Valentine’s Day brought some interesting perspectives out of the archives: loved this 2020 piece about the queer history of couples “living apart together” and this one about platonic life partners
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“Manhunt is really my attempt to show the utility and the importance of existing in discomfort.”
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Gretchen Felker-Martin her interview with Drew about her new novel, Manhunt
Autocorrect: Books content from the last couple weeks at Autostraddle!
- In addition to this wonderful interview with Drew, Gretchen Felker-Martin wrote this essay about the process of writing Manhunt and depicting its TERF characters
- I’m so, so excited about Dani’s new poetry column In Verse — check out the first installment here, featuring recommendations for healing broken hearts
- I’ll take any opportunity to talk about cool old gay books — which vintage queer classic from my bookshelf are you?
- A deep cut: I stumbled across this piece from 2016 and have since ordered every single book from my local library.
- Casey came through with the best romance recs of the month — check out her quiz and find out which queer romance novel you should read next!
- KKU’s Short Fiction Playlist column continued with a Valentine’s Day iteration featuring short stories with queer sex
That’s all she wrote, folks! If you’re a queer writer, particularly an early-career queer writer: I’d love to hear about the cool things you’re up to so that I can share links to your published essays, book reviews, short stories, poems, and longform features on LGBTQ+ topics! Please email me links for consideration at [email protected] with the subject line “Rainbow Reading Submission” — I’m an avid browser-tab-collector, and I especially want to hear from you if you’ve just landed your first publication or first major byline.
I somehow missed the poetry column, thank everything you were here! And for that Southern old article i don’t know if you read the comments too but if you missed it – also add Dorothy Allison ! Cavedweller isn’t as well known as her others but damn I loved it
I read the Electric lit article on Sally Rooney and it was so scathing, I loved it. I look forward to the Lux one.
To paraphrase one of my favorite YouTube comments ever: I have never read a Sally Rooney book. I have never even started a Sally Rooney book. But I have an endless thirst for queer theory takedowns of Sally Rooney books
Oooh, Dead Collections looks interesting!
And I have to gush about the book I just finished – Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree. It’s about an orc who retires from being a mercenary to open a coffee shop, and there’s a lovely slow burn sapphic romance. It’s billed as high fantasy, low stakes and omg is that accurate – it’s like a D&D quest to make friends and open a coffee shop. In another lifetime I might have found this too slow or too obvious but reading it now, it was damn perfect.