GAY WRITES PICKS
A Dowry of Blood
ST Gibson
A queer reimagining of Dracula’s brides and their tangled, polyamorous relationships. The rival consorts must band together if they’re ever to escape his web of ecstasy and deceit.
This Is How You Lose the Time War
Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
An epistolary love story between two time travelling lesbians spies, beginning after they meet and ending before they’re together, their coded correspondence stretching across millennia.
Missing From the Village
Justin Ling
Queering the ethics of true crime, this tells the story of the eight men who fell victim to serial killer Bruce McArthur in Toronto's gay village, and the negligent police force that failed to protect the community.
The Left Hand of Darkness
Ursula K. Le Guin
A lone, human envoy is on a mission to convince the people of the planet Gethen, who have no fixed sex, to join an intergalactic alliance. To succeed, he'll need to bridge an enormous cultural gulf and outrun those who wish to subvert him.
Bad Cree
Jessica Johns
A creeping thriller about a young woman who tries to escape the darkness of her past after her sister's death, only for it to seep out through the cracks of her dreams into the waking world around her.
The Sluts
Dennis Cooper
Told through a series of online reviews and forums for gay male escorts, this novel chronicles the rise in infamy of Brad — from young trick to snuff star — and his hustler, Brian.
Popisho
Leone Ross
Over the course of a day, the people of Popisho, each born with a unique gift from the gods, will be faced with the gluttony of their nation, and must take responsibility or be smothered under it.
Party Monster
James St. James
A queer icon’s memoir-cum-true-crime-extravaganza, which details the hedonistic heyday of 90s NYC nightlife and its maestro, Michael Alig — from Club Kid to Convicted Killer.
We the Animals
Justin Torres
A vivid coming-of-age odyssey of three Latino brothers tearing through adolescence, hopelessly naive to their family's poverty, their parents' volatile relationship, and the men they’re becoming.
Afterparties
Anthony Veasna So
Nine snapshot portraits of Cambodian-American refugees and their children, shouldered with the inherited trauma of surviving the Khmer Rouge genocide.
Manhunt
Gretchen Felker-Martin
A splatterpunk gender-pocalypse that follows two trans women trying to survive the end of the world, harvesting estrogen from the testes of feral men and outrunning the TERFs on their tails.
Paul Take the Form of a Mortal Girl
Andrea Lawlor
The story of a shapeshifting bartender in 1993, chasing his libido across the country — equal parts pop culture, gender theory, and certifiable smut.
Nevada
Imogen Binnie
The og T4T cult classic, which follows newly-single-and-unemployed Maria, who finds herself the inadvertent trans role model of a young boy she meets at a Walmart in backwater Nevada.
Black Wave
Michelle Tea
A hallucinatory work of autofiction from a queercore icon, this follows a young bohemian writer struggling to get her life under control before the impending apocalypse.
Fight Club
Chuck Palahniuk
Every incel's fav book (by a famously unknown homosexual), it’s the story of a soap-dealer-turned-anarchist-prophet who facilitates a series of discreet, anonymous encounters between sweaty men in bars.
To Be Taught, If Fortunate
Becky Chambers
The diary of an engineer and her crew on an intergalactic mission to unravel the mysteries of the universe and send their findings to a home, lightyears away, that may not be as they remember it upon return.
Darryl
Jackie Ess
The diary of a "straight," "cis," tender cuck, contemplating how he can transcend gender hierarchies — a GHB-fueled journey through his deepest, vulnerable desires.
The Death of Vivek Oji
Akwaeke Emezi
After discovering the body of her son wrapped on her doorstep, Vivek’s mother traces through the memories of his loved ones to solve the mystery of his death, only to learn that she may not have known her son at all.
Personal Attention Roleplay
Helen Chau Bradley
A collection of 10 gay shorts that follow gay Asian misfits struggling with gay loneliness and gay intimacy as they search for a place in the world around them — did I mention it was gay?
Detransition, Baby
Torrey Peters
In which three women, trans and cis alike, each an ex/current lover of another in the throuple, prepare to co-parent a child after an unexpected pregnancy — existential queer moms anyone???
The Listeners
Jordan Tannahill
A young woman wakes to the sound of a persistent hum, heard only by a select few who form a support group, desperate to solve the riddle of its source before their lives unravel for good.
The Spectacular
Zoe Whittall
A Venn diagram of mother/woman/self-hood that follows an estranged mother and daughter over 15yrs as they struggle to define their reproductive freedoms in a world outside of heteronormative families.
The Price of Salt
Patricia Highsmith
The definitive girl-meets-divorced-housewife-and-becomes-instantly-infatuated-before-embarking-on-a-cross-state-road-trip lesbian love story — c’mon U-Haul romance !
We Had No Rules
Corrine Manning
A collection of 11 short stories that centre #messy, splintering queer relationships with #authentic queer characters, each breaking and rewriting the "rules" of their community.
Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars
Kai Cheng Thom
A young trans runaway joins a street gang of sex workers. Armed with rhinestoned brass knuckles and spiked heels, they hit the streets with a mission of vengeance against the men who think they own them.
Butter Honey Big Bread
Francesca Ekwuyasi
The story of a mother and her twin daughters, their relationships fractured for over a decade, returning to their childhood home in Lagos to find each other again — a delectable feast of family and kinship.
100 Boyfriends
Brontez Purnell
The collection of stories in this novel (if I can call it that?) flaunt the revolving doors of its narrators' sex lives — a whirlwind pilgrimage through a little black book, a queercore cruiser's wet dream.
Autobiography of Red
Anne Carson
Part coming-of-queer novel, part fragmented poem, this reimagines the Greek myth of Geryon as a modern day artist, escaping his abusive family and finding his first queer love (read: fuckboi Hercules breaks his heart).
We Are Never Meeting in Real Life
Samantha Irby
A collection of essays on love and sex in middle-age-dom, where your longest relationship is one of mutually abusive codependency with your cat and your favourite outing is getting McNuggets from the drive-thru.
Red at the Bone
Jacqueline Woodson
Weaving strands of memories across three generations of a family of Black women in America, Jacqueline packs a story of intergenerational love, motherhood, class, race, and identity into a slim 200 pages
Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian)
Hazel Jane Plante
Part love letter, part eulogy, part encyclopedia for an eccentric television series, this novel sifts through a young trans woman's memories of her late best friend.
Less
Andrew Sean Greer
Arthur Less, a perfectly mediocre novelist, embarks on an international literary tour to avoid confronting his floundering career, his friend-zoning lover, and his impending fiftieth birthday.
On a Sunbeam
Tillie Walden
A young woman joins a reconstruction crew who travel the recesses of space to restore ancient buildings and their forgotten history, always carrying with her the memories of her first, forgotten love.
The Tiger Flu
Larissa Lai
Set in a world where a pandemic has wiped out most of the men, where capitalism’s consumptive force has brought about ecological and social collapse, two women battle the looming implosion of civilization.
A History of My Brief Body
Billy Ray Belcourt
In his memoir-cum-essay-collection-cum-prose-poem, Belcourt reflects on the necessity of joy — and the challenge of achieving it — at the juncture of sexuality, indigeneity, and colonial violence.
How to Write an
Autobiographical Novel
Alexander Chee
Through a collection of essays that meditate on formative personal moments, Chee gives a masterclass on how to study the stories of our lives and why making art at the end of the world really matters.
Little Fish
Casey Plett
A trans woman in Winnipeg discovers that her late grandfather, a devoted mennonite farmer, may have been trans himself. Struggling against the stagnancy of her life, she resolves to untie the knots of her Opa's story.
No Ashes in the Fire
Darnell L. Moore
This memoir chronicles Moore’s story of growing up Black and queer during the AIDS epidemic in New Jersey, accentuating the realities of heavily policed communities with economic disparity.
My Cat Yugoslavia
Pajtim Statovci
The fable of a young Muslim woman who flees her home and marriage in Yugoslavia, and her son, 30 years later (and now in Finland), his pet snake, and a sexy, abusive talking cat.
Jonny Appleseed
Joshua Whitehead
A 2S teenager, working as a cam boy in Winnipeg after being displaced from the rez, weaves through the memories of his childhood in search of his own definition of “home” before returning for his stepfather's funeral.
We Have Always Been Here
Samra Habib
Habib’s memoir recounts her life of displacement, growing up as an Ahmadi Muslim in Pakistan and escaping to Canada as a refugee, where she is further ostracized while discovering her sexuality.
White is for Witching
Helen Oyeyemi
After the sudden loss of her mother, a young girl acquires an affliction that links her to four generations of women in her family who have lived in their Dover manor, whose own consciousness begins to reveal itself.
Love in the Big City
Sang Young Park
Told in four parts, this novel follows Young through his early adulthood, from student to writer, as he navigates formative relationships and queer life in Seoul in the 21st century.
In the Dream House
Carmen Maria Machado
A wholly original memoir of queer, domestic abuse, told through a collection of short chapters, each exploring the relationship through the lens of a distinct literary trope.
Bottle Rocket Hearts
Zoe Whittall
Habib’s memoir recounts her life of displacement, growing up as an Ahmadi Muslim in Pakistan and escaping to Canada as a refugee, where she is further ostracized while discovering her sexuality.
What Belongs to You
Garth Greenwell
After the sudden loss of her mother, a young girl acquires an affliction that links her to four generations of women in her family who have lived in their Dover manor, whose own consciousness begins to reveal itself.
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
Ocean Vuong
A wholly original memoir of queer, domestic abuse, told through a collection of short chapters, each exploring the relationship through the lens of a distinct literary trope.
Paradise Rot
Jenny Hval
A young woman studying biology abroad moves into an old brewery with no permanent walls and a roommate with no boundaries. Every sound carries, every smell saturates, and their loft begins to transform into the fungal petri dish of her sexual awakening.
Our Wives Under the Sea
Julia Armfield
A woman logs her crew’s deep-sea dive that ends in catastrophe, stranded on the bottom of the ocean; and her wife, who presumed her lost, tries to care for her after reappearing six months later.
Confessions of the Fox
Jordy Rosenberg
A book-within-a-book, this reimagines notorious 18th century London thief, Jack Sheppard, as a trans man — a gender studies professor in the modern day annotates Jack’s found memoirs as we read his story.
You Exist Too Much
Zaina Arafat
Jumping between past and present, the novel follows a queer Palestinian-American woman from adolescence to adulthood, when she finally confronts her self-destructive quest for love.
Memorial
Bryan Washington
Benson and Mike’s relationship is hanging on by a thread when Mike decides to leave to make amends with his estranged, dying father — leaving his visiting mother with Benson back home.
Ten Bridge’s I’ve Burnt
Brontez Purnell
Through a collection of prose poems, Brontez gives us a peek into his art and relationships over the four decades of his life — always in the distinctly biting voice that propelled him from punk musician to cult hero.
The Faggots and their Friends Between Revolutions
Larry Mitchell, Ned Asta
This fable-cum-manifesto uses allegorical vignettes to paint queer ideals of community, sexual liberation, and anti-assimilation under structural oppression