Award Winner: 2018 Best Book Awards LGBTQ: Non Fiction
Three volumes organized by the three phases of life—youth, middle age, and old age—explore the LGBTQ+ experience, delving deeply into research on a multitude of hot topics including risks experienced by this sometimes targeted population.
More than forty topics in three volumes are timely and in the news
Each topic is evaluated by academic authorities
References are authoritative and include primary resources
Contributors embrace and reflect the diversity found in the LGBTQ+ community
Award Finalist: 2018 Best Book Awards LGBTQ: Non Fiction
“Seinfeld meets Sedaris in the Snapchat Age.” - Jill Dearman, The Great Bravura
Whether they’re trembling before an invasive squirrel, giving the straight dope to an errant call-girl or enduring a #MeToo moment with a handsy waiter on their Roman honeymoon, Kyle and Julius are just the kind of gay married couple who didn’t see the 2016 election coming.
In this variegated book of vignettes, flash scenes and personal essays, award-winning author Kyle Thomas Smith documents the peculiarities of life in his home, his borough, his chiropractor’s office and these times.
Award Finalist: 2018 Best Book Awards LGBTQ: Non Fiction
An honest, unfiltered memoir about a girl with an unconventional family.
“The story everyone wants to hear isn’t the story I want to tell.” Lara Lillibridge grew up with two moms—an experience that shaped and scarred her at the same time. Told from the perspective of “Girl,” Lillibridge’s memoir is the no-holds-barred account of childhood in an atypical household. Personally less concerned with her mother’s sexuality and more with how she fits into a world both disturbed and obsessed with it, Girl finds that, in other people’s eyes, “The most interesting thing about me is not about me at all; it is about my parents.”
It won’t be long before readers realize that “unconventional” barely scratches the surface. In the early years, Girl’s feminist mother reluctantly allows her to play with her favorite Barbies while her stepmother refuses to comfort her when she wakes up from nightmares. She goes skinny dipping on family vacations in upstate New York and kisses all the boys at church. Girl and her brother travel four thousand miles—unaccompanied—to visit their father in rural Alaska, where they sleep in a locked cabin without running water, telephone, or electricity. Raised to be a free spirit by norm-defying parents, Girl has to define her own boundaries as she tries to fit into heteronormative suburban life, all while navigating her mother’s expectations, her stepmother’s mental illness, and her father’s serial divorces.
Lillibridge bravely tells her own story and offers a unique perspective. At times humorous and pithy while cringe-worthy and heartbreaking at others, Girlish is a human story that challenges readers to reevaluate their own lives and motivations.
Award Finalist: 2018 Best Book Awards LGBTQ: Non Fiction
“… A palpable and invigorating book, mapping one woman’s lifelong efforts to discover her own sexual identity through Christianity and friendship.”—Kirkus Review
“Sandra Worsham’s humor, clear-eyed honesty stitch this amazing quilt of meaning and experience together in a wonderful way.”—Jill McCorkle, author of Life after Life and Going Away Shoes
"The struggle of the gay Christian's complicated effort to reconcile sexuality and faith is often overlooked by church leaders and more secular gays. But it is a complex, and deeply engaging journey. I was deeply moved by Sandra's book, engaged by her voice, her mind, her heart. I think many will find their very human story here in the hands of a wise and compelling woman." —George Hodgman, author of Bettyville
Award Finalist: 2018 Best Book Awards LGBTQ: Non Fiction
From Paris's famous opera house to its gossip-rich salons,KISS ME AGAIN, PARIS celebrates youth at the end of the 1970s, when women werein fashion and every woman, gay or straight, fell in love with women.
Author Renate Stendhal ekes out a living as a culturaljournalist in Europe's most cultured city. She walks Paris at night dressed asa boy, has friends and lovers among artists and writers, and falls under the spellof the mercurial actress Claude, who has all of Paris talking. At the sametime, she finds herself in the crosshairs of an alluring stranger who seems toappear everywhere and nowhere at once. There are mysteries with and withoutclues. Is sexual obsession a way to avoid the risk of love?
Filled with sensuality, style, romance, and suspense,Stendhal plays with the concept of memoir as a genre and transports the readerto another time and place. No matter what age you are, you'll be young and inlove again when you reach the last page.
Award Finalist: 2018 Best Book Awards LGBTQ: Non Fiction
Transgender Profiles: Time for a Change is an inspirational volume from Linda DeFruscio about the courage it takes to become the person you have always felt you were inside to shirk off the mask that you have worn for your whole life until this moment. As an electrologist, Linda sees clients every day who are in the process of transitioning to a different gender, and she is there to help them in their journey of self-expression and the claiming of their identity. Filled with twenty unique stories of bravery from all different walks of life, this book is a tribute to all the courageous people who take their identity in their own hands and go forth to find the body that fits the soul and mind within. For those considering transitioning, for those looking for perspective and guidance in supporting loved ones, or for those who are curious and want to understand the struggles and triumphs of transgender individuals, Transgender Profiles is an invaluable resource.
Award Finalist: 2018 Best Book Awards LGBTQ: Non Fiction
Poetry. Memoir. Born from the isolation of rural Pennsylvania, a life of homeschooling, and physiological and physical domestic abuse, Kayleb Rae Candrilli's memoir in verse, WHAT RUNS OVER, demands attention. Unfurling and unrelenting in its delivery, Candrilli has painted "the mountain" in excruciating detail. They show readers a world of canned peaches, of Borax cured bear hides, of urine filled Gatorade bottles, of the syringe and all the syringe may carry. They show a world of violence and its many personas. WHAT RUNS OVER, too, is a story of rural queerness, of a transgender boy almost lost to the forest forever.
"When Roethke said 'energy is the soul of poetry,' he might have been anticipating a book like WHAT RUNS OVER, which is so full of energy it practically vibrates in your hand. Here, Candrilli's speaker sticks their tongue 'into the heads / of venus fly traps just to feel the bite,' then later, burns holy books in the backyard and rolls around in the ashes until they become 'a painted god.' This is the verve of an urgent new poetic voice announcing itself to the world. As Candrilli writes: 'This is what I look like / when I'm trying to save myself.'"--Kaveh Akbar
This story follows Moe as she moves into a more constructive, positive lifestyle. She faces many obstacles and uses them as steps in her elevation. It's captivating and unique voice grabs you page after page. MOEtivation is the beginning to a beautiful story.
