JKM Library: LGBTQ+ History and Pride: Fiction eBooks

	: 2024-2025 Hours

"Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) Pride Month is currently celebrated each year in the month of June to honor the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Manhattan. The Stonewall Uprising was a tipping point for the Gay Liberation Movement in the United States. In the United States the last Sunday in June was initially celebrated as "Gay Pride Day," but the actual day was flexible. In major cities across the nation the "day" soon grew to encompass a month-long series of events. Today, celebrations include pride parades, picnics, parties, workshops, symposia and concerts, and LGBTQ Pride Month events attract millions of participants around the world. Memorials are held during this month for those members of the community who have been lost to hate crimes or HIV/AIDS. The purpose of the commemorative month is to recognize the impact that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals have had on history locally, nationally, and internationally." ~ Library of Congress

"LGBT History Month is an annual month-long observance of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender history, and the history of the gay rights and related civil rights movements. It was founded in 1994 by Missouri high-school history teacher Rodney Wilson. LGBT History Month provides role models, builds community, and represents a civil rights statement about the contributions of the LGBTQ+ community. As of 2020, LGBT History Month is a month-long celebration that is specific to Hungary, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Greenland, and the city of Berlin. In the United States, Canada, and Australia, it is celebrated in October to coincide with National Coming Out Day on 11 October and to commemorate the first and second marches on Washington in 1979 and 1987 for LGBT rights. In Hungary and the United Kingdom, it is observed during February; in the UK this coincides with a major celebration of the 2003 abolition of Section 28. In Berlin, It is known as Queer History Month and is celebrated in June." ~ Wikipedia "LGBT History Month"

Ambientes: New Queer Latino Writing by Lazaro Lima (Editor); Felice Picano (Editor)
ISBN: 9780299282240
As the U.S. Latino population grows rapidly, and as the LGBTQ Latino community becomes more visible and a more crucial part of our literary and artistic heritage, there is an increasing demand for literature that successfully highlights these diverse lives. Edited by Lázaro Lima and Felice Picano, Ambientes is a revolutionary collection of fiction featuring stories by established authors as well as emerging voices that present a collective portrait of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender experience in America today.
The Art of Escaping by Erin Callahan
ISBN: 9781944995652
Seventeen-year-old Mattie has a hidden obsession: escapology. Emphasis on hidden. If anyone from school finds out, she'll be abandoned to her haters. Facing a long and lonely summer, Mattie finally seeks out Miyu, the reclusive daughter of a world-renowned escape artist. Following in Houdini's footsteps, Miyu helps Mattie secretly transform herself into an escapologist and performance artist. When Will, a popular athlete from school, discovers Mattie's act at an underground venue, Mattie fears her secret persona will be exposed. Instead of outing her, though, Will tells Mattie a secret not even his girlfriend knows. Through a blossoming friendship, the two must find a way to express their authentic selves.
The Black Bear Inside Me by Robin Becker
ISBN: 9780822965244
Becker celebrates the interconnectedness of creatures and places--never losing sight that much will turn out precarious, illusory, provisional. These poems speak, in ardent voices, about our affinities: an articulate, black bear mourns habitat loss; a frail man and failing dog become one; a scientist and her African grey parrot research language acquisition for thirty years. Ecologies interlace, as when a troubled family "sacrifices one member,/ as plants surrender leaves in times of drought." Becker responds with rage and wit to corporate excess and intractable geo-politics. Love and friendship empower in wry narratives, though time "mows" down our days, though we may never escape "original cruelties." Tragedies permeating our enmeshed, global identities haunt the book: the massacre of gay youth in Orlando; the terrors facing Cambodian teenagers working fishing boats. Wise, capacious, by turns unsettling and joyous, The Black Bear Inside Me incorporates histories and losses into a luminous present.
Blue Is the Warmest Color by Julie Maroh
ISBN: 9781551525143
Blue is the Warmest Color is a tender, bittersweet, full-colour graphic novel about the elusive, reckless magic of love: a lesbian love story for the ages that bristles with the energy of youth, rebellion and the eternal light of desire. Clementine is a junior in high school who seems 'normal' enough: she has friends, family and even a boyfriend. When her openly gay best friend takes her to a gay bar, she becomes captivated by Emma, a punkish, confident girl with blue hair, an event that leads Clementine to discover new aspects of herself, both passionate and tragic.
Building Fires in the Snow: A Collection of Alaska LGBTQ Short Fiction and Poetry by Martha Amore; Lucian Childs
ISBN: 9781602233010
Diversity has always been central to Alaska identity, as the state's population consists of people with many different backgrounds, viewpoints, and life experiences. This book opens a window into these diverse lives, gathering stories and poems about lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer life into a brilliant, path-breaking anthology. In these pages we see the panoply of LGBTQ life in Alaska today, from the quotidian urban adventures of a family--shopping, going out, working--to intimate encounters with Alaska's breathtaking natural beauty. At a time of great change and major strides in LGBTQ civil rights, Building Fires in the Snow shows us an Alaska that shatters stereotypes and reveals a side of Alaska that's been little seen until now.
Cotton's Queer Relations: Same-Sex Intimacy and the Literature of the Southern Plantation, 1936-1968 by Michael P. Bibler
ISBN: 9780813929842
Finally breaking through heterosexual clichés of flirtatious belles and cavaliers, sinister black rapists and lusty "Jezebels," Cotton's Queer Relations exposes the queer dynamics embedded in myths of the southern plantation. Focusing on works by Ernest J. Gaines, William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Lillian Hellman, Katherine Anne Porter, Margaret Walker, William Styron, and Arna Bontemps, Michael P. Bibler shows how each one uses figures of same-sex intimacy to suggest a more progressive alternative to the pervasive inequalities tied historically and symbolically to the South's most iconic institution. Bibler looks specifically at relationships between white men of the planter class, between plantation mistresses and black maids, and between black men, arguing that while the texts portray the plantation as a rigid hierarchy of differences, these queer relations privilege a notion of sexual sameness that joins the individuals as equals in a system where equality is rare indeed.
The Drifts by Thom Vernon
ISBN: 9781552452288
Julie's two daughters have just run off to Hollywood to be famous when she suddenly finds herself, at forty-six, unexpectedly expectant. She's not sure she can bear to be a mother again. And her husband, Charlie, won't come home to talk it over with her. Charlie wants another child more than anything, but he doesn't know how to deal with Julie. His affair with Wilson, his best friend, is over, but he's found a different and unusual kind of intimacy. Wilson works in the Singer factory that keeps the town alive. She wants more than anything to be loved, but she knows that Charlie wasn't the way to get there. She's in love with Dol. Dol is a transgender, divorced father of two children, who can't afford the transition that would make his body make sense--although the doctors visiting from Atlanta might change that. Their very different voices converge as the blizzard gathers force, their stories violently mapping in the snow the ways that memory, gender, and history carve themselves upon our bodies.
First Spring Grass Fire by Rae Spoon
ISBN: 9781551524801
This novel presents a coming-of-age story about growing up queer in a strict Pentecostal family. At first the narrator faithfully attends church with their family. Upon discovering the music that becomes their means of escape, things begin to change. Their father's schizophrenia causes their parents' marriage to unravel, leading them to take comfort in their siblings and in the awareness that they are not the person their parents think they are.
Jonny Appleseed by Joshua Whitehead
ISBN: 9781551527253
'You're gonna need a rock and a whole lotta medicine' is a mantra that Jonny Appleseed, a young Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer, repeats to himself in this vivid and utterly compelling novel. Off the reserve and trying to find ways to live and love in the big city, Jonny becomes a cybersex worker who fetishises himself in order to make a living. Self-ordained as an NDN glitter princess, Jonny has one week before he must return to the 'rez,' and his former life, to attend the funeral of his stepfather. The next seven days are like a fevered dream: stories of love, trauma, sex, kinship, ambition, and the heartbreaking recollection of his beloved kokum (grandmother).
Little Fish by Casey Plett
ISBN: 9781551527208
Wendy Reimer is a thirty-year-old trans woman in Winnipeg who comes across evidence that her late grandfather - a devout Mennonite farmer - might have been transgender himself. At first she dismisses this revelation, but as she and her friends struggle to cope with the challenges of their increasingly volatile lives - which range from alcoholism, to sex work, to suicide - Wendy is drawn to the lost pieces of her grandfather's life, becoming determined to unravel the mystery of his truth.
London Triptych by Jonathan Kemp
ISBN: 9781551525020
In the 1890s, a young man named Jack apprentices as a rent boy and discovers a life of pleasure and excess that leads to new friendships, most notably with the soon-to-be-infamous Oscar Wilde. A century later in 1998, David tells his own tale of unashamed decadence from prison, recalling life as a young man arriving in the city in the mid-'80s just as the scourge of AIDS hit. Where their paths cross, in the politically sensitive 1950s, when gay men were the target of police and politicians alike, the artist Colin tentatively explores his sexuality while working on his painting 'London Triptych.'
Running with Lions by Julian Winters
ISBN: 9781945053627
Bloomington High School Lions star goalie Sebastian Hughes should be excited about his senior year: His teammates are amazing, and he's got a coach who doesn't ask anyone to hide their sexuality. But when his estranged childhood-best-friend Emir Shah shows up at summer training camp, Sebastian realizes the teams success may end up in the hands of the one guy who hates him. Determined to reconnect with Emir for the sake of the Lions, he sets out to regain Emirs trust. But to Sebastian's surprise, sweaty days on the pitch, wandering the towns streets, and bonding on the weekends spark more than just friendship between them.
Scissors, Paper, Rock: A Novel by Fenton Johnson; Pam Houston (Introduction by)
ISBN: 9780813166568
Along with his siblings, Raphael Hardin left his childhood home in rural Kentucky. Grappling with an AIDS diagnosis, he returns to care for his dying father. Told from the perspectives of Raphael, his family, and their lifelong neighbor, Fenton Johnson's landmark novel reveals the blood struggles and binding loves of a broken family made whole.
Sketchtasy by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
ISBN: 9781551527291
Sketchtasy takes place in that late-night moment when everything comes together, and everything falls apart: an urgent, glittering, devastating novel about the perils of queer world-making in the mid-'90s. Set in Boston, 1995, Alexa, an incisive twenty-one-year-old queen, faces everyday brutality with determined nonchalance, negotiating past and present traumas with a scathing critique of the world. Drawn to the ecstasy of drugged-out escapades, Alexa searches for nourishment in a gay culture bonded by clubs and conformity, wilful apathy, and the spectre of AIDS.
Sodom Road Exit by Amber Dawn
ISBN: 9781551527161
It's the summer of 1990 and the small town of Crystal Beach has lost its beloved, long-running amusement park, leaving the lakeside village a virtual ghost town. It is back to this fallen community Starla Mia Martin must return to live with her overbearing mother after dropping out of university and racking up significant debt. But an economic downturn, mother-daughter drama, and Generation X disillusionment soon prove to be to be the least of Starla's troubles: a mysterious force begins to dog Starla... Soon enough, she must confront the unresolved traumas that haunt Crystal Beach.
The Tiger Flu by Larissa Lai
ISBN: 9781551527314
Kirilow is a doctor apprentice whose lover Peristrophe is a 'starfish,' a woman who can regenerate her own limbs and organs, which she uses to help her clone sisters whose own organs are failing. But when a denizen from Salt Water City suffering from a mysterious flu comes into their midst, Peristrophe becomes infected and dies, prompting Kirilow to travel to Salt Water City, where the flu is now a pandemic, to find a new starfish who will help save her sisters. Bold, beautiful, and wildly imaginative, The Tiger Flu is at once a female hero's saga, a cyberpunk thriller, and a convention-breaking cautionary tale - a striking metaphor for our complicated times.
Weird Girl and What's His Name by Meagan Brothers
ISBN: 9781941110270
In the podunk town of Hawthorne, North Carolina, seventeen-year-old geeks Lula and Rory share everything--sci-fi and fantasy fandom, Friday night binge-watching of old X-Files episodes, and that feeling that they don't quite fit in. Lula knows she and Rory have no secrets from each other; after all, he came out to her years ago, and she's shared with him her "sacred texts"--the acting books her mother left behind after she walked out of Lula's life. But then Lula discovers that Rory--her Rory, who maybe she's secretly had feelings for--has not only tried out for the Hawthorne football team without telling her, but has also been having an affair with his middle-aged divorcee boss. With their friendship disrupted, Lula begins to question her identity and her own sexual orientation, and she runs away in the middle of the night on a journey to find her mother, who she hopes will have all the answers.
Women Lovers, or the Third Woman by Natalie Clifford Barney; Chelsea Ray (Editor); Melanie C. Hawthorne (Introduction by)
ISBN: 9780299306908
This long-lost novel recounts a passionate triangle of love and loss among three of the most daring women of belle époque Paris. In this barely disguised roman á clef, the legendary American heiress, writer, and arts patron Natalie Clifford Barney, the dashing Italian baroness Mimi Franchetti, and the beautiful French courtesan Liane de Pougy share erotic liaisons that break all taboos and end in devastation as one unexpectedly becomes the "third woman."
Snowsisters by Tom Wilinsky
ISBN: 9781945053528
High school students Soph, who attends private school in Manhattan, and Tess, a public school student who lives on a dairy farm in New Hampshire are thrown together as roommates at a week-long writing conference. As they get to know each other and the other young women, both Soph and Tess discover unexpected truths and about friendship, their craft, and how to hold fast to their convictions while opening their hearts to love.
Monster of the Week by F. T. Lukens
ISBN: 9781945053825
Spring semester of Bridger Whitt's senior year of high school is looking great. He has the perfect boyfriend, a stellar best friend, and an acceptance letter to college. He also has this incredible job as an assistant to Pavel Chudinov, an intermediary tasked with helping cryptids navigate the modern world. His days are filled with kisses, laughs, pixies, and the occasional unicorn. Life is awesome. But as graduation draws near, Bridger's perfect life begins to unravel. Uncertainties about his future surface, his estranged dad shows up out of nowhere, and, perhaps worst of all, a monster-hunting television show arrives in town to investigate the series of strange events from last fall. The show's intrepid host will not be deterred, and Bridger finds himself trapped in a game of cat and mouse that could very well put the myth world at risk. Again.
Love Ruins Everything by Karen X. Tulchinsky
ISBN: 9781554830350
Award-winning writer Karen X Tulchinsky's debut novel, Love Ruins Everything (originally published in 1998 by Press Gang), follows the adventures Nomi Rabinovitch, a sweet but insecure and bumbling butch lesbian as she recovers from a broken heart and negotiates her way back into the dating scene in San Francisco. Summoned back home to Toronto to attend her mother's surprise second wedding, Nomi is drawn into the AIDS activism of her gay, HIV-positive cousin, Henry and the girl she lusts after and might grow to love, Julie Sakamoto as they battle to expose uncomfortable truths about the origins of the epidemic. As in real life, humour, romance and tragedy are woven through this warm, funny and thought-provoking portrayal of queer life at the end of the last century. Insomniac Press is proud to present this new edition for a new generation of readers to enjoy.
I Came Out for This? by Lisa Gitlin
ISBN: 9781932859737
There's only one place Joanna Kane can tell it like it is. Her journal: I hate Terri Rubin, the woman I'm in love with. She called and told me she's dating a woman named Sonya. I hate this Sonya and I hate Terri and I hate myself because I was never like this in my life. Do you know what it's like to come out when you're in your forties, having menopausal symptoms, for God's sake, and then fall madly in love with someone? All of a sudden you're in adolescencefor the first time. You don't even recognize yourself. My whole adult life I was this cool, collected writer, strutting around in jeans and leather jacket, advising friends and siblings about their relationships, being a devoted daughter and a responsible professional person and a good citizen, and then one day I woke up and realized I was gay, and then this sassy woman walked into my life and I fell in love at first sight, after spending my life thinking that never really happened and only watching WestSide Story because of the gangs. And now I've become the kind of person I used to make fun of, who becomes hysterical because her beloved tells her she's dating some woman named Sonya who has an apothecary store in Bethesda, Maryland. I'm sick of being in this endless rut, I'm sick of Cleveland, and I'm thinking of moving to Washington, DC to be with Terri Rubin who I hate.
Running with Lions by Julian Winters
ISBN: 9781945053627
Bloomington High School Lions star goalie Sebastian Hughes should be excited about his senior year: His teammates are amazing, and hes got a coach who doesnt ask anyone to hide their sexuality. But when his estranged childhood-best-friend Emir Shah shows up at summer training camp, Sebastian realizes the teams success may end up in the hands of the one guy who hates him. Determined to reconnect with Emir for the sake of the Lions, he sets out to regain Emirs trust. But to Sebastians surprise, sweaty days on the pitch, wandering the towns streets, and bonding on the weekends spark more than just friendship between them.
Pissing in a River by Lorrie Sprecher
ISBN: 9781558618527
Amanda moves to London with nothing but her guitar and her collection of punk music as the soundtrack to her every step. With the company of a few friendly voices in her head, she finds a best friend and new lover. She forms a band and completely rewrites the story of her life. In this irreverently funny yet profound novel, Amanda risks deportation, recalls the fervour of AIDS activism, connects to the punk class struggle and finds redemption in love. But she also must confront her own mental illness, her lover's rape and the violence of post-9/11 politics.