Happy Pride! It’s a season to celebrate the people, joys, and triumphs of the queer community. It’s also an opportunity for all of us to reflect on the history of systemic exclusion and violence that still haunts LGBTQ2+ individuals, and threatens a return through recent events in our socio-political climate. It’s a good time to consider what we’ve accomplished, and what we still need to do to make our communities more inclusive and equitable.
Here at Read Local BC, we want to highlight the enormous talent and wealth of knowledge of LGBTQ2+ authors by doing what we do best: recommending cool books for you to read and enjoy!
Paint your bookworm soul with all the colours of the rainbow by checking out these BC titles.
This novel is Vancouver author Hazel Jane Plante’s much-anticipated second novel. It is a two-sided fictional memoir by trans indie rock musician Tracy St. Cyr that reveals how the act of creation can heal trauma and even change the past. This is a novel about friendship and other forms of love, travelling in a body across decades, and transmuting trauma through art making and queer sex—a love letter to trans femmes and to art itself.
Out now!
From the Lambda Literary Award finalist Andrea Routley comes this collection of linked novellas that explores love and loss in a rural West-coast community of queer women.
From the publisher: “While characters often embody painful histories and cringe-worthy decision-making skills, the stories are full of humour and love.”
Out now!
A pioneer of sound, visual, and performance poetry, bill bissett composes his poems as scripts for pure performance. Since the 1960s, he has consistently worked to extend the boundaries of language and visual image, honing a synthesis of the two in the medium of concrete poetry. The poems in this collection are coupled with stunning illustrations by the author.
Out now!
Crip Up the Kitchen: Tools, Tips and Recipes for the Disabled Cook by Jules Sherred (TouchWood Editions)
From the publisher: “Crip Up is a term used by disabled disability rights advocates and academia to signal taking back power, to lessen stigma, and to disrupt ableism as to ensure disabled voices are included in all aspects of life.”
Trans activist author Jule Sherred reimagines what the kitchen could be if the needs of disabled and neurodivergent cooks are taken into account, with the help of three trusty appliances: the electric pressure cooker, the air fryer, and the bread machine. This cookbook, filled with mouthwatering recipes and vibrant photographs, also provides tips on food shopping, meal prepping, food storage, kitchen organization—all through the lens of making the kitchen as accessible as possible.
Out now!
This collection of poems takes us on a journey through time and space to understand the inner workings and deepest desires of two women—the eponymous Emily and Elspeth.
“This collection contains delightful and punchy honesty about love, and the way we wobble towards healing.” —Jónína Kirton, author of Standing in a River of Time
Out now!
I Am Everything in Between by Sydney Sunderland (Rebel Mountain Press)
From the publisher: “Sometimes it’s not as simple as being a boy or a girl.
“I Am Everything In Between is for kids who may not fit into stereotypical gender ideals. This book celebrates children and how they gender identify by sending a positive message that regardless of biological gender, it’s okay to feel like a girl, it’s okay to feel like a boy, and it’s okay to feel like everything in between.”
Out now!
This collection, comprising two plays—“Small Axe” and “Freedom Singer”—leans into the possibilities of verbatim theatre to approach questions of justice, identity, and the complex history all around us. With an opening essay by Kushnir and a concluding essay by McClelland, the book’s literal centre (between the plays) is a verbatim dialogue where the two discuss the white gaze vs. Black “looking back,” theatre-as-a-practice, and how centring caring and equitable relationships is what can make this kind of challenging theatre more ethical, more viable, and more truthful.
Out now!
Banning Transgender Conversion Practices by Florence Ashley (UBC Press)
Banning Transgender Conversion Practices is the first book to offer a comprehensive analysis of how conversion practices targeting transgender people are regulated around the world. It centres trans realities to rethink and push forward the legal regulation of conversion therapy. Most importantly, it culminates in a carefully annotated model law that offers meticulous guidance for legislatures and policymakers.
Out now!