Transatlantic Agency would like to extend a Happy Pride Month to all our LGBTQIA+ clients, agents and extended literary family!
Pride Month is a time dedicated to the uplifting of LGBTQIA+ voices, celebration of LGBTQIA+ culture and the support of LGBTQIA+ rights. Pride began after the Stonewall riots, a series of gay liberation protests in 1969, and has since spread worldwide. Throughout the month of June, there have traditionally been parades, protests, drag performances, live theater and memorials and celebrations of life for members of the community who lost their lives to HIV/AIDS. It is part political activism, part celebration of all the LGBTQIA+ community has achieved over the years.
As part of this celebration we would like to share a roundup of eighteen titles from Transatlantic authors from the LGBTQIA+ community and their recently released or forthcoming reads!
THE GAY BEST FRIEND by Nicolas DiDomizio (Sourcebooks)
He’s always been the token gay best friend. Now, stuck between a warring bride and groom hurtling toward their one perfect day, he’s finally ready to focus on something new: himself.
Domenic Marino has become an expert at code-switching between the hypermasculine and ultrafeminine worlds of his two soon-to-be-wed best friends. But this summer—reeling from his own failed engagement and tasked with attending their bachelor and bachelorette parties—he’s anxious over having to play both sides.
The pressure is on. The bride wants Dom to keep things clean. The groom wants Dom to “let loose” with the guys. And Dom just wants to get out of this whole mess with his friendships intact.
But once the rowdy groomsmen show up at the beach house—including a surprise visit from the groom’s old frat brother, handsome and charming PGA star Bucky Graham—chaos (and unexpected romance) quickly ensues. By the time Dom returns for the bachelorette party, he’s accumulated a laundry list of secrets that threaten to destroy everything—from the wedding, to Bucky’s career, to the one thing Dom hasn’t been paying nearly enough attention to lately: his own life.
Nicolas DiDomizio holds a bachelor’s degree from Western Connecticut State University and a master’s degree from NYU. His debut novel, Burn It All Down, was published in 2021 and praised as “unforgettable” by James Patterson. He lives in upstate New York with his partner Graig and their smooshy bulldog Rocco. The Gay Best Friend is his second novel.
Nicolas is represented by Elizabeth Bennett.
ANNE: AN ADAPTATION OF ANNE OF GREEN GABLES (SORT OF) by Kathleen Gros (Quill Tree Books)
In this modern graphic novel retelling of Anne of Green Gables from graphic novelist Kathleen Gros, foster kid Anne Shirley finally lands in a loving home and befriends a girl who she may have more-than-friends feelings for.
Anne Shirley has been in foster care her whole life. So when the Cuthberts take her in, she hopes it’s for good. They seem to be hitting it off, but how will they react to the trouble that Anne can sometimes find herself in . . . like accidentally dyeing her hair green or taking a dangerous dare that leaves her in a cast?
Then Anne meets Diana Barry, a girl who lives in her apartment building, the Avon-Lea. The two become fast friends, as Anne finds she can share anything with Diana. As time goes on, though, Anne starts to develop more-than-friends feelings for Diana.
A new foster home, a new school, and a first-time crush—it’s a lot all at once. But if anyone can handle life’s twists and turns, it’s the irrepressible Anne Shirley.
Kathleen Gros is a cartoonist living in Vancouver, British Columbia. She graduated with a BFA in illustration from Emily Carr University of Art and Design, and she published her first graphic novel, Last Night at Wyrmwood High, soon after. To learn more about Kathleen and her comics, visit her online at www.kagcomix.com.
Kathleen is represented by Elizabeth Bennett.
BROWN AND GAY IN LA: THE LIVES OF IMMIGRANT SONS by Anthony Christian Ocampo (NYU Press)
Growing up in the shadow of Hollywood, the gay sons of immigrants featured in Brown and Gay in LA could not have felt further removed from a world where queerness was accepted and celebrated. Instead, the men profiled here maneuver through family and friendship circles where masculinity dominates, gay sexuality is unspoken, and heterosexuality is strictly enforced. For these men, the path to sexual freedom often involves chasing the dreams while resisting the expectations of their immigrant parents? and finding community in each other.
Ocampo also details his own story of reconciling his queer Filipino American identity and those of men like him. He shows what it was like for these young men to grow up gay in an immigrant family, to be the one gay person in their school and ethnic community, and to be a person of color in predominantly White gay spaces. Brown and Gay in LA is an homage to second-generation gay men and their radical redefinition of what it means to be gay, to be a man, to be a person of color, and, ultimately, what it means to be an American.
Anthony Christian Ocampo, Ph.D. is Professor of Sociology at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. He is the author of Brown and Gay in LA: The Lives of Immigrant Sons and The Latinos of Asia: How Filipino Americans Break the Rules of Race. His writing has appeared in GQ, Catapult, BuzzFeed, Los Angeles Review of Books, Colorlines, Gravy, Life & Thyme, the Chronicle of Higher Education, among others. He earned a BA and MA degree from Stanford University and his MA and PhD from UCLA.
Anthony is represented by Amanda Orozco.
CRYING WOLF: A Memoir by Eden Boudreau (Book*hug Press)
It’s a tale as old as time. Girl meets boy. Boy wants girl. Girl says no. Boy takes what he wants anyway.
After a violent sexual assault, Eden Boudreau was faced with a choice: call the police and explain that a man who wasn’t her husband, who she had agreed to go on a date with, had just raped her. Or go home and pray that, in the morning, it would be only a nightmare.
In the years that followed, Eden was met with disbelief by strangers, friends, and the authorities, often as a result of stigma towards her non-monogamy, sex positivity, and bisexuality. Societal conditioning of acceptable female sexuality silenced her to a point of despair, leading to addiction and even attempted suicide. It was through the act of writing that she began to heal.
Crying Wolf is a gripping memoir that shares the raw path to recovery after violence and spotlights the ways survivors are too often demonized or ignored when they belong to marginalized communities. Boudreau heralds a new era for others dismissed for “crying wolf.” After all, women prevailing to change society for others is also a tale as old as time.
Eden Boudreau was born and raised in a small rural area just outside Halifax. In 2016, she relocated to Ontario with her family. As a bisexual, polyamorous woman who has survived her fair share of adversity, Eden’s work draws on her life experiences to inspire vulnerable and relatable stories. Her essays have been featured in Flare, Today’s Parent, and Runner’s World, amongst others. She is the host and creator of the podcast, Dear Lonely Writer, aimed at destigmatizing mental health struggles during the writing process. Boudreau lives in Georgina, Ontario. Crying Wolf is her first book.
Eden is represented by Samantha Haywood.
THE FAKE by Zoe Whittall (Ballantine Books)
A con artist can make you feel like the luckiest person on earth just to be in their presence. But when the jig is up, they ghost, and you’re left wondering if you ever mattered
After the death of her wife, Shelby feels more alone than ever—until she meets Cammie, a charismatic woman unafraid of what anyone else thinks and whose own history of trauma draws Shelby close. When Cammie is fired from her job and admits she is in treatment for kidney cancer, Shelby devotes all her time to helping Cammie thrive. But Shelby’s intuition tells her there are things about Cammie’s past that don’t add up. Could the realest thing about Cammie be that she’s actually a scammer?
Gibson is almost forty, fresh from a divorce and deeply depressed. Then he meets and falls in love with Cammie. Suddenly, he’s having the best sex of his life with a woman so attractive he’s stunned she even glanced his way, and for the first time ever he feels truly known. This is the kind of desire and passion that musicians have been writing love songs about for centuries. But Gibson’s friends are wary of Cammie, and eventually he too has to admit that Cammie’s dramatic life can feel a bit over the top.
When Shelby and Gibson find out Cammie is a pathological liar, they struggle to understand what they really want from her—sometimes they want to help her heal from whatever causes her to invent reality, and sometimes they want revenge. But the biggest question of all is: how honest can Shelby and Gibson be about their own characters?
ZOE WHITTALL’s fourth novel, The Spectacular, was published in 2021. The New York Times called it “a competent and highly readable testament to the strength of the maternal bond” and the Toronto Star called it “a singularly impressive piece of fiction.” Her third novel, The Best Kind of People, published in 2017, was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, named Indigo’s #1 Book of 2016 and a best book of the year by the Walrus, the Globe and Mail, Toronto Life and the National Post. Her second novel, Holding Still for as Long as Possible, won a Lambda Literary Award for trans fiction and was a Stonewall Honor Book. Her debut novel, Bottle Rocket Hearts, won the Writers’ Trust of Canada’s Dayne Ogilvie Award for Best Emerging LGBTQA+ novel. She has worked as a TV writer on the Emmy Award–winning comedy show Schitt’s Creek and Degrassi, and she won a Canadian Screen Award for comedy writing on the Baroness Von Sketch Show. Zoe Whittall has published three volumes of poetry, most recently an anniversary edition of The Emily Valentine Poems. Born on a sheep farm in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, she lived in Toronto for many years before moving to Picton, Ontario.
Zoe is represented by Samantha Haywood.
THE GLOOM BETWEEN STARS by Piper CJ (Bloom Books)
Nox and Amaris learn their dreams of reunion come at an unspeakable cost. Passion and politics collide as the two young women learn to navigate an unknown future in the kingdom of Raascot. With new titles thrust upon them, Nox and Amaris find themselves more uncertain than ever of who they are meant to become—both to their people and to each other.
Humans, fae, and monsters are on the precipice of war, and time is running short in their search for answers. Victory will take more than just battles as alliances shift and new threats emerge. To have a chance at stopping their enemies, securing the continent’s succession, and uncovering the truth of their bond, the two women must find a way to break the curse on Raascot’s fae and face their fate once and for all…and hope that they survive it.
Piper C.J. is the author of the widely popular bisexual fantasy series THE NIGHT AND ITS MOON, published by Bloom Books in late 2022. THE NIGHT AND ITS MOON had also been previously sold to City Editions in France, Mondadori in Italy and Algaguara in Spain. She is a photographer, hobby linguist, and french fry enthusiast. She has an M.A. in Folklore and a B.A. in Broadcasting. With another series forthcoming, when Piper isn’t playing with her dogs, Arrow and Applesauce, she’s making Tik Toks for her 1 million followers, studying fairytales, or writing fantasy very, very quickly.
Piper CJ is co-represented by Carolyn Forde and Alexandra D’Amico.
OTHER BOYS by Damian Alexander (First Second)
In Other Boys, debut author Damian Alexander delivers a moving middle grade graphic memoir about his struggles with bullying, the death of his mother, and coming out.
Damian is the new kid at school, and he has a foolproof plan to avoid the bullying that’s plagued him his whole childhood: he’s going to stop talking. Starting on the first day seventh grade, he won’t utter a word. If he keeps his mouth shut, the bullies will have nothing to tease him about—right?
But Damian’s vow of silence doesn’t work—his classmates can tell there’s something different about him. His family doesn’t look like the kind on TV: his mother is dead, his father is gone, and he’s being raised by his grandparents in a low-income household. And Damian does things that boys don’t usually do, like play with Barbies instead of GI Joe. Kids have teased him about this his whole life, especially other boys. But if boys can be so cruel, why does Damian have a crush on one?
Damian Alexander is a cartoonist and storyteller who grew up in and around Boston. His first graphic novel, Other Boys, is based off his viral and award winning autobiographical webcomics. Damian’s illustrations and comic shorts can be found on The Trevor Project, Narratively, The Nib and others. He loves ghost stories, miniatures, and watching cartoons with his cats on sunny afternoons.
Damian is represented by Elizabeth Bennett.
SEX AND THE SINGLE WOMAN: 24 WRITERS REIMAGINE HELEN GURLEY BROWN’S CULT CLASSIC with an essay by Vanessa Friedman (Harper Perennial)
This fresh, voice-driven feminist anthology reimagines Helen Gurley Brown’s seminal work Sex and the Single Girl in time for its 60th anniversary, featuring twenty-four essays from acclaimed and bestselling authors, including Kristen Arnett, Morgan Parker, Evette Dionne, and Melissa Febos.
In May 1962, Helen Gurley Brown’s Sex and the Single Girl sent shockwaves through the United States, selling more than two million copies in three weeks. The future Cosmopolitan Editor-in-Chief’s book promoted the message that a woman’s needs, ambition, and success during her single years could actually take precedence over the search for a husband.
While much of Brown’s advice is outdated and even offensive by today’s standards, her central message remains relevant. In this exceptional anthology, Eliza Smith and Haley Swanson bring together insights from many of today’s leading feminist thinkers and writers to pay homage to Brown’s original work and reinterpret it for a new generation. These contributors provide a much-needed reckoning while addressing today’s central issues, from contraception and abortion (topics the publisher banned from the original) to queer and trans womanhood, racial double standards, dating with disabilities, sexual consent, singlehood by choice, single parenting, and more.
Written for today’s women, this revisionist anthology honors Brown’s irreverent spirit just as it celebrates and validates women’s sexual lives and individual eras of singlehood, encouraging us all to reclaim joy where it’s so often been denied.
Vanessa Friedman (she/her) is a queer dyke writer living in Portland, OR. She’s the community editor at Autostraddle and a teaching artist with 826NYC. She received her MFA in creative nonfiction from Sarah Lawrence College, and she is a Tin House Summer Workshop alum and a Hedgebrook Spring Retreat alum. Vanessa writes about friendship, home, loneliness, grief, sex, and the body; her work has been published in Autostraddle, Nylon, Catapult, Alma, Shape, among others, and her essay, “If I’m Lonely,” will be included in the as yet untitled anthology based on Helen Gurley Brown’s 1962 classic, Sex and the Single Girl, forthcoming from Harper Perennial in 2022. Vanessa is currently at work on her first novel. You can find her online at vanessapamela.com.
Vanessa is represented by Amanda Orozco.
ONE SUNNY AFTERNOON: A MEMOIR OF TRAUMA AND HEALING by Rowan Jette Knox (Viking)
For writer and human rights advocate Rowan Jetté Knox, the inspiring story of their family’s journey of love and acceptance, when both their child and partner came out as transgender one after the other, was the hopeful beginning to their new lives. Their tale, shared in her memoir Love Lives Here and embraced by readers everywhere, quickly found its way to the top of bestseller lists.
Yet in the spring of 2020, Rowan began to experience targeted attacks on social media, and they soon became the subject of a small but very vocal group that criticized their book’s success and their advocacy work. The intensity of the backlash grew and drove Rowan to contemplate suicide. But instead of taking their life, on one sunny afternoon, they went to the hospital to seek help.
One Sunny Afternoon is a searing testament to Rowan Jetté Knox’s extraordinary reckoning with their past and present, to find hope in their future. Triggered by the online harassment, they wade through their personal history and details the incidents of violence, addiction, and sexual assault that have haunted them. When Rowan eventually receives a diagnosis of Anxiety Disorder and Mood Disorder (also known as complex PTSD) and dedicates themself to recovery, they emerge with newfound strength, resiliency, and confidence.
One Sunny Afternoon is a profoundly moving and candid account of how trauma can shape us, but not define us, and reveals how even in our darkest moments—and on our most hopeless days—light can find its way in.
Rowan Jetté Knox is an award-winning journalist, writer, certified professional coach, and human rights advocate with a special focus on LGBTQ2+ rights and mental health. Love Lives Here: A Story of Thriving in a Transgender Family was a #1 bestseller, an Indigo Best Book of the Year and Staff Pick of the Month, and was chosen for the 2020 Canada Reads Longlist. Their work has been featured on the BBC, CBC, The Today Show, O Magazine, The Social, and The Marilyn Denis Show. They are a 2019 Chatelaine Woman of the Year, a 2020 Top 25 Women of Influence, and were chosen as one of 2020’s Most Influential Parents by Today’s Parent. Rowan lives in Toronto.
Rowan is represented by Samantha Haywood.
WHO NEEDS GAY BARS?: BAR-HOPPING THROUGH AMERICA’S ENDANGERED LGBTQ+ PLACES by Greggor Mattson (Redwood Press)
Gay bars have been closing by the hundreds. The story goes that increasing mainstream acceptance of LGBTQ+ people, plus dating apps like Grindr and Tinder, have rendered these spaces obsolete. Beyond that, rampant gentrification in big cities has pushed gay bars out of the neighborhoods they helped make hip. Who Needs Gay Bars? considers these narratives, accepting that the answer for some might, maybe nobody. And yet… Jarred by the closing of his favorite local watering hole in Cleveland, Ohio, Greggor Mattson embarks on a journey across the country to paint a much more complex picture of the cultural significance of these spaces, inside “big four” gay cities, but also beyond them. No longer the only places for their patrons to socialize openly, Mattson finds in them instead a continuously evolving symbol; a physical place for feeling and challenging the beating pulse of sexual progress.
From the historical archives of Seattle’s Garden of Allah, to the outpost bars in Texas, Missouri or Florida that serve as community hubs for queer youth―these are places of celebration, where the next drag superstar from Alaska or Oklahoma may be discovered. They are also fraught grounds for confronting the racial and gender politics within and without the LGBTQ+ community. The question that frames this story is not asking whether these spaces are needed, but for whom, earnestly exploring the diversity of folks and purposes they serve today. Loosely informed by the Damron Guide, the so-called “Green Book” of gay travel, Mattson logged 10,000 miles on the road to all corners of the United States. His destinations are sometimes thriving, sometimes struggling, but all offering intimate views of the wide range of gay experience in POC, white, trans, cis; past, present, and future.
Greggor Mattson, PhD, is an author and Professor of Sociology at Oberlin College & Conservatory where he teaches courses on sexuality, nightlife, and cities. He is the author of The Cultural Politics of European Prostitution Reform: Governing Loose Women (2016). His work has appeared in the Annual Review of Sociology, as well as in Slate, Literary Hub, Business Insider, and The Daily Beast.
Greggor is represented by Brenna English-Loeb.
I HOPE YOU’RE LISTENING by Tom Ryan (AW Teen)
In her small town, seventeen year-old Delia “Dee” Skinner is known as the girl who wasn’t taken. Ten years ago, she witnessed the abduction of her best friend, Sibby. And though she told the police everything she remembered, it wasn’t enough. Sibby was never seen again.At night, Dee deals with her guilt by becoming someone else: the Seeker, the voice behind the popular true crime podcast Radio Silent, which features missing persons cases and works with online sleuths to solve them. Nobody knows Dee’s the Seeker, and she plans to keep it that way.When another little girl goes missing, and the case is linked to Sibby’s disappearance, Dee has a chance to get answers, with the help of her virtual detectives and the intriguing new girl at school. But how much is she willing to reveal about herself in order to uncover the truth? Dee’s about to find out what’s really at stake in unraveling the mystery of the little girls who vanished.
Tom Ryan is the author of Keep This to Yourself, winner of the 2020 Crime Writers of Canada Award for Best YA Crime Book and the 2020 ITW Thriller Award for Best Young Adult Novel. He has also been nominated for the White Pine Award, the Stellar Award, and the Hackmatack Award. Two of Tom’s books have been Junior Library Guild selections, and his young adult novels were ALA Rainbow List picks in 2013, 2014, and 2020. In 2017 he was a Lambda Literary Fellow in Young Adult Fiction.
Tom is represented by Samantha Haywood and Amy Tompkins.
DRY LAND by B. Pladek (University of Wisconsin Press)
As the Great War rages across Europe, Rand Brandt, an idealistic young forester in the northwoods of Wisconsin, discovers a remarkable gift: his touch can grow any plant in minutes. Overjoyed, he dreams of devoting his life to conservation, restoring to its former glory a landscape devastated by lumbering. At night, Rand tests his powers, pushing his physical limits and revealing his secret only to his lover, Gabriel. But his frequent absences from camp don’t go unnoticed, and it isn’t long before Rand is drafted to grow timber for the war effort. Along with Gabriel, he’s shipped to France—though the army is a dangerous place for two men in love.
While at camp, Rand also realizes the true price of his gift: everything he grows withers and dies, leaving the soil empty of all living matter. Horrified, he throws himself into ever more self-destructive trials, buckling under the pressure of so many secrets. In order to survive, he must confront the terrifying possibility that his gift is actually a curse, upending everything he believes about nature, love, and himself.
B. Pladek is a writer and literature scholar based in Milwaukee, WI. His short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Strange Horizons, Slate Future Tense Fiction, The Offing, and elsewhere. He is Associate Professor of English at Marquette University and a 2018 graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop. His debut novel, DRY LAND, about a young forester who discovers he has a magical ability to grow plants, weaves together explorations of ecology, masculinity, and queerness, all set against a little-known period in US history, the birth of forestry during the first world war, is forthcoming from the University of Wisconsin Press (2023, world English). The novel asks how we hurt nature when we place ourselves outside it, and how we hurt ourselves when we believe love is something we must deserve.
B. is represented by Brenna English-Loeb.
AFTERSHOCK: A NOVEL by Alison Taylor (HarperCollins)
Nightmares still haunt Chloe thirteen years after a fatal tragedy led to the disintegration of her family. Her mother, Jules, has a busy tech career, a long history of chronic pain—and little time for Chloe. After Chloe drops out of university to travel for a year, Jules’s OxyContin dependency quickly worsens. Aftershock follows their parallel journeys: Jules struggles to regain control of her life, while Chloe, after a rocky visit with her estranged father in New Zealand, resolves to go off the map and spend some time alone, travelling. When Jules suddenly can’t find her daughter, the feeling is all too familiar. Mother and daughter will need to address old secrets and the emotional impact they have wrought before they can reconcile with each other, and, finally, with themselves.
Alison Taylor was fired from jobs as a babysitter, a chambermaid, a barista and a farm hand, before spending twenty years as a television editor in Toronto, Ontario. They have previously published in Exile Literary Quarterly and Broken Pencil Magazine, performed deadpan stand-up on various comedy stages and made several internationally screened experimental short films. They now live in Fredericton, New Brunswick with their partner and two bossy felines. Aftershock is their first novel.
Alison is represented by Samantha Haywood.
FALLING BACK IN LOVE WITH BEING HUMAN: LETTERS TO LOST SOULS by Kai Cheng Thom (Penguin Canada)
What happens when we imagine loving the people—and the parts of ourselves—that we do not believe are worthy of love?
Kai Cheng Thom grew up a Chinese Canadian transgender girl in a hostile world. As an activist, counselor, conflict mediator, and spiritual healer, she’s always pursued the same deeply personal mission: to embrace the revolutionary belief that every human being, no matter how hateful or horrible, is intrinsically sacred.
But then Kai Cheng found herself in a crisis of faith, overwhelmed by the violence with which people treated one another, and barely clinging to the values and dreams she’d built her life around: justice, hope, love, and healing. Rather than succumb to despair and cynicism, she gathered all her rage and grief and took one last leap of faith: she wrote. She wrote letters that were prayers, or maybe poems, or perhaps magic spells. She wrote to the outcasts and runaways she calls her kin. She wrote to flawed but nonetheless lovable men, to people with good intentions who harm their own, to racists and transphobes seemingly beyond saving. What emerged was a blueprint for falling back in love with being human.
Kai Cheng Thom is a writer, performance artist, and community healer. She is the author of the novel Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars, which was chosen by Emma Watson for her online feminist book club and shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award. Her poetry collection a place called No Homeland was an American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book, and her essay collection, I Hope We Choose Love, received a Publishing Triangle Award. She writes the advice column “Ask Kai: Advice for the Apocalypse” for Xtra.
Kai Cheng Thom is represented by Léonicka Valcius and Marilyn Biderman.
THE STORY OF US: A NOVEL by Catherine Hernandez (HarperAvenue)
Like many Overseas Filipino Workers, Mary Grace Concepcion has lived a life of sacrifices. First, she left her husband, Ale, to be a caregiver in Hong Kong. Now, she has travelled even farther, to Canada, in the hopes of one day sponsoring Ale and having children of their own.
But when she arrives in Toronto, she must navigate a series of bewildering and careless employers and unruly children. Mary Grace seeks new employment as a Personal Support Worker and begins caring for Liz, an elderly patient suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, whose health is as fragile as her rundown bungalow beside the Rouge River in Scarborough. While Mary Grace’s time with her charge challenges her conservative beliefs, she soon becomes Liz’s biggest ally, and the friendship that grows between them will turn out to be just as legendary as Liz’s past.
Beautifully narrated by the all-seeing eye of Mary Grace’s newborn baby, The Story of Us is a novel about sisterhood, about blood and chosen family, and about how belonging can be found where we least expect it.
Catherine Hernandez (she/her) is a queer woman of Filipino, Spanish, Chinese and Indian descent who married into the Navajo Nation. Her first novel, Scarborough, was a finalist for Canada Reads 2022, and the film adaptation, for which she wrote the screenplay, won eight Canadian Screen Awards. Her second novel, Crosshairs, was shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award.
Catherine is represented by Marilyn Biderman.
POLAR VORTEX by Shani Mootoo (Book*hug Press)
Some secrets never die…
Priya and Alexandra have moved from the city to a picturesque Countryside town. What Alex doesn’t know is that, in moving, Priya is running from her past—from a fraught relationship with an old friend, Prakash, who pursued her for many years, both online and off. Time has passed, however, and Priya, confident that her ties to Prakash have been successfully severed, decides it’s once more safe to establish an online presence. In no time, Prakash finds Priya and contacts her. Impulsively, inexplicably, Priya invites him to visit her and Alex in the country, without ever having come clean with Alex about their relationship—or its tumultuous end. Prakash’s reentry into Priya’s life reveals cracks in her and Alex’s relationship and brings into question Priya’s true intentions.
Are we ever free from our pasts? Can we ever truly know the people we are closest to? Seductive and tension-filled, Polar Vortex is a story of secrets, deceptions, and revenge.
Shani Mootoo was born in Ireland, grew up in Trinidad, and lives in Canada. She holds an MA in English from the University of Guelph, writes fiction and poetry, and is a visual artist whose work has been exhibited locally and internationally. Mootoo’s critically acclaimed novels include Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab, Valmiki’s Daughter, He Drown She in the Sea, and Cereus Blooms at Night. She is a recipient of the K.M. Hunter Artist Award, a Chalmers Arts Fellowship, and the James Duggins Mid-Career Novelist Award from the Lambda Literary Awards. Her work has been long- and shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the International DUBLIN Literary Award, and the Booker Prize. She lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario.
Shani is represented by Samantha Haywood.
WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN HERE: A QUEER MUSLIM MEMOIR by Samra Habib (Viking)
How do you find yourself when the world tells you that you don’t exist?
Samra Habib has spent most of their life searching for the safety to be themself. As an Ahmadi Muslim growing up in Pakistan, they faced regular threats from Islamic extremists who believed the small, dynamic sect to be blasphemous. From their parents, they internalized the lesson that revealing their identity could put them in grave danger.
When their family came to Canada as refugees, Samra encountered a whole new host of challenges: bullies, racism, the threat of poverty, and an arranged marriage. Backed into a corner, their need for a safe space–in which to grow and nurture their creative, feminist spirit–became dire. The men in Samra’s life wanted to police them, the women in their life had only shown them the example of pious obedience, and their body was a problem to be solved.
So begins an exploration of faith, art, love, and queer sexuality, a journey that takes them to the far reaches of the globe to uncover a truth that was within them all along. A triumphant memoir of forgiveness and family, both chosen and not, We Have Always Been Here is a rallying cry for anyone who has ever felt out of place and a testament to the power of fearlessly inhabiting one’s truest self.
Samra Habib (they/them) is a writer, photographer, and activist. As a journalist they’ve covered topics ranging from fashion trends and Muslim dating apps to the rise of Islamophobia in the US. Their writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, and The Advocate, and their photo project, “Just Me and Allah,” has been featured in Nylon, i-D, Vanity Fair Italia, Vice, and The Washington Post. Samra works with LGBTQ organizations internationally, raising awareness of issues that impact queer Muslims around the world. We Have Always Been Here is their first book.
Samra is represented by Samantha Haywood.
DEAD MOM WALKING: A MEMOIR OF MIRACLE CURES AND OTHER DISASTERS by Rachel Matlow (Penguin Canada)
Rachel Matlow’s eccentric mom, Elaine, never quite followed the script handed down to her. Her bold out-there-ness made it okay for Rachel to be their genderqueer self and live life on their own terms. But when Elaine decides to try to heal her cancer naturally, Rachel has to draw the line.
What ensues is a tug of war between logical and magical thinking, an odyssey through New Age remedies ranging from herbal tinctures and juice cleanses to a countryside ayahuasca trip, and a portrait of a mother and child who’ve never been physically closer or ideologically further apart.
In facing their inimitable mother’s death, Rachel has written a book bursting with life—the epic adventures and epic fails, the broken limbs and belly laughs. As hilarious as it is poignant, Dead Mom Walking is about writing the story of your life only to find out that life has other plans.
Rachel Matlow (she/her/they/them) was a long-time producer on the arts and culture program Q on CBC Radio, where she also worked on Spark and The Sunday Edition. Her audio documentary “Dead Mom Talking” won a 2016 Third Coast award and a 2017 Gabriel award. She has written for The Globe and Mail, National Post, and The Believer. She plays chess every weekend and is forever planning her next long-distance hike.
Rachel is represented by Samantha Haywood.