FP Staff List: NONE OF THE ABOVE + GREAT TRANS FICTION FOR EVERY READING MOOD
This month, the FP team is excited to be publishing Travis Alabanza’s bold, beautiful, and brilliant NONE OF THE ABOVE—a book that will make you question everything you think you know about gender. In unpacking seven phrases that have been directed at them throughout their life (some deceptively innocuous, some deliberately loaded or violent, some celebratory), Alabanza questions how one can survive in a world needlessly enforcing the gender binary and even thrive in the face of society’s rigid ideas of self expression. It will make you laugh, cry, and think, all in the same sitting!
But what if after so much hard truth you’re looking for a little fiction to soothe your soul? Fear not, for FP’s executive director and publisher Margot Atwell has crafted a list of fiction books from trans writers perfect for whatever you are feeling. So sit back, relax, and dive into a complete reading experience.
If you’re in the mood for…
… political speculative fiction that’s actually somehow hopeful about the future
EVERYTHING FOR EVERYONE: AN ORAL HISTORY OF THE NEW YORK COMMUNE, 2052-2072
by M. E. O’Brien and Eman Abdelhadi (Common Notions)
From the publisher: “By the middle of the twenty-first century, war, famine, economic collapse, and climate catastrophe had toppled the world's governments. In the 2050s, the insurrections reached the nerve center of global capitalism—New York City. This book, a collection of interviews with the people who made the revolution, was published to mark the twentieth anniversary of the New York Commune, a radically new social order forged in the ashes of capitalist collapse.”
… stories that blend fantasy and reality while introducing you to a trove of fascinating characters
by Luke Dani Blue (Feminist Press)
From us: “Informed by the author’s experience in and between genders, this debut story collection blurs fantasy and reality, excavating new meanings from our varied dysphorias. Misfit mothers, prodigal ‘undaughters,’ con artists, and middle-aged runaways populate these ten short stories that blur the lives we wish for with the ones we actually lead.”
… something haunting, lyrical, and strange
WE WON’T BE HERE TOMORROW AND OTHER STORIES
by Margaret Killjoy (AK Press)
From the publisher: “Ranging in theme and tone, these imaginative tales bring the reader on a wild and moving ride. They’ll encounter a hacker who programs drones to troll CEOs into quitting; a group of LARPers who decide to live as orcs in the burned forests of Oregon; queer, teen love in a death cult; the terraforming of a climate-changed Earth; polyamorous love on an anarchist tea farm during the apocalypse; and much more.”
… a sexy, wild book about a gender-fluid shapeshifter who moves through queer spaces looking for a place that feels like home
PAUL TAKES THE FORM OF A MORTAL GIRL
by Andrea Lawlor (Knopf)
From the publisher: “It’s 1993 and Paul Polydoris tends bar at the only gay club in a university town thrumming with politics and partying. He studies queer theory, has a dyke best friend, makes zines, and is a flaneur with a rich dating life. But Paul’s also got a secret: he’s a shapeshifter. Oscillating wildly from Riot Grrrl to leather cub, Paul transforms his body and his gender at will as he crosses the country––a journey and adventure through the deep queer archives of struggle and pleasure.”
… a western adventure featuring renegade librarians
by Sarah Gailey (Tor)
From the publisher: “In Upright Women Wanted, award-winning author Sarah Gailey reinvents the pulp Western with an explicitly antifascist, near-future story of queer identity. Esther is a stowaway. She’s hidden herself away in the Librarian’s book wagon in an attempt to escape the marriage her father has arranged for her—a marriage to the man who was previously engaged to her best friend. Her best friend who she was in love with. Her best friend who was just executed for possession of resistance propaganda…”
… a queer found-family retelling of the Peter Pan story featuring BDSM themes
by Sassafras Lowrey (Arsenal Pulp Press)
From the publisher: “Sassafras Lowrey's gorgeously subversive queer punk novel reimagines the classic Peter Pan story. Prepare to be swept overboard into a world of orphaned, abandoned, and runawaybois who have sworn allegiance and service to Pan, the fearless leader of Neverland, and to the newly corrupted Mommy Wendi.”
… a near-future speculative fiction coming of age story set between Bushwick, LA, and the internet
by Joss Lake (Soft Skull)
From the publisher: “An embittered dog walker obsessed with a social media influencer inadvertently puts a curse on a young man—and must adventure into mysterious dimension in order to save him—in this wildly inventive, delightfully subversive, genre-nonconforming debut novel about illusion, magic, technology, kinship, and the emergent future . . . Magnificently imagined, linguistically dazzling, and riotously fun, Future Feeling presents an alternate future in which advanced technology still can’t replace human connection but may give the trans community new ways to care for its own.”
… a warm, witty trans love story set over the course of a long weekend in Copenhagen
by Soula Emmanuel (Feminist Press)
From us: “Phoebe Forde has a new home, a new name, and is newly thirty. An Irish transplant and PhD candidate, she’s overeducated and underpaid, but finally settling into her new life in Copenhagen. Almost three years into her gender transition, Phoebe has learned to move through the world carefully, savoring small moments of joy. After all, a woman without a past can be anyone she wants. But an unexpected visit from her ex-girlfriend Grace brings back memories of Dublin and the life she thought she’d left behind.”
… tender portraits of trans women existing in the world, from New York to Canada
By Casey Plett (Arsenal Pulp Press)
From the publisher: “Longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, award-winning novelist Casey Plett (Little Fish) returns with a poignant suite of stories that center transgender women . . . An ethereal meditation on partnership, sex, addiction, romance, groundedness, and love, the stories in A Dream of a Woman buzz with quiet intensity and the intimate complexities of being human.”
… messy drama, longtime friends, and a super queer party…with pictures!
By Archie Bongiovanni (Abrams)
From the publisher: “Best friends and chosen family Chris, Elise, Jo, and Alex work hard to keep themselves afloat. Their regular brunches hold them together even as the rest of their lives threaten to fall apart. In an effort to avoid being the oldest gays at the party, the crew decides to put on a new queer event called Grind—specifically for homos in their dirty 30s . . . While navigating exes at work, physical and mental exhaustion, and drinking way, way too much on weekdays, this chosen family proves that being messy doesn’t always go away with age.”
About NONE OF THE ABOVE:
In None of the Above, Travis Alabanza explores the concept of gender and their place in a world that rigidly and aggressively enforces the gender binary. Alabanza shares seven phrases that have been directed at them throughout their life—some deceptively innocuous, some deliberately loaded or violent, some celebratory. These phrases act as a lens through which they explore attitudes and misconceptions about gender, illuminating broader issues within a culture that insists on gender as a fixed identity. None of the Above explicates how these rigid ideas of gender are enforced by people—on others, but also on themselves.
Drawing from their experiences as a racialized queer person, Alabanza deftly interrogates our current frameworks around identity with nuance, openness, and humor. The result is a meditation on doubt and language that turns a mirror back on society, and on ourselves. Featuring a foreword by Alok Vaid-Menon, None of the Above questions what we think we know—and shares new ways that we might live.
Foreword by Alok Vaid-Menon.
