Transatlantic Agency has always been proud to recognize and celebrate Pride Month, and is excited to share just a few of our tremendous LGBTQIA+ clients books as recommended reading for this month, and all year long!
Pride Month is celebrated in Canada and the US each year during the month of June (as well as during many other months all around the world) to honor the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Manhattan. The Stonewall Uprising was a tipping point for the Gay Liberation Movement in the United States.
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.
“Burst down those closet doors once and for all, and stand up and start to fight.” – Harvey Milk
Here are just a few titles from our clients that we recommend you add to your #tbrlist this month:
BROWN AND GAY IN LA by Anthony Ocampo (NYU Press)
The stories of second-generation immigrant gay men coming of age in Los Angeles.
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.
Anthony is represented by Amanda Orozco.
DINNER ON MONSTER ISLAND by Tania De Rozario (Harper Perennial)
In this unusual, engaging, and intimate collection of personal essays, Lambda Literary Award finalist Tania De Rozario recalls growing up as a queer, brown, fat girl in Singapore, blending memoir with elements of history, pop culture, horror films, and current events to explore the nature of monsters and what it means to be different.
Tania is represented by Amanda Orozco.
MAGICAL/REALISM by Vanessa Angélica Villarreal (Tiny Reparations Books PRH)
A brilliant, singular collection of essays that looks to music, fantasy, and pop culture—from Beyoncé to Game of Thrones—to excavate and reimagine what has been disappeared by migration and colonialism.
In Magical/Realism, Villarreal crosses into the erasure of memory and self, fragmented by migration, borders, and colonial and intimate violence, reconstructing her story with pieces of American pop culture, and the music, video games, and fantasy that have helped her make sense of it all.
Vanessa Angélica is represented by Amanda Orozco.
WHO NEEDS GAY BARS? By Greggor Mattson (Redwood Press)
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 America: POC, white, trans, cis; past, present, and future.
Greggor is represented by Brenna English-Loeb.
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.
B. is represented by Brenna English-Loeb.
BODY’S A BAD MONSTER by Rowan Perez (Andrews McMeel) Publishing September 24, 2024
In Body’s a Bad Monster, our narrator shares—sometimes voluntarily, sometimes reluctantly—their voice with a dissociative state called “Mouse”; Mouse and the narrator take turns inhabiting the “body” to tell the story of three monumental relationships in the narrator’s life as they unravel over time. Readers are guided along as Mouse moves in and out of love, pain, heartbreak, and redemption.
Rowan is represented by Amanda Orozco.
HOW TO FUCK LIKE A GIRL by Vera Blossom (Dopamine Books)
A cheeky how-to guide, as raunchy as it is heartfelt, from a bright new literary voice.
A bold and vulnerable collection from a new, young voice, How to Fuck Like a Girl is a daring mash-up of pillow book, grimoire, and manifesto by writer Vera Blossom. From hooking up to trans witchcraft, petty crime, capitalism, friendships, divorce, and survival, Blossom brings wit and melancholy, grandeur and smarts, debuting a bright literary voice as raunchy as it is heartfelt. A cheeky how-to guide that earnestly asks if it is possible to fuck oneself into girlhood, How to Fuck Like a Girl is a cult classic in the making.
Vera is co-repped by Amanda Orozco and Laura Cameron.
THE DEER AND THE DRAGON by Piper CJ (Bloom Books)
Marlow needs to believe she’s crazy. The alternative would mean embracing the gift―or curse―shared by her mother and grandmother: she can see angels and demons, including a dark and haunting entity who’s been with Marlow her entire life. At least, she believes that’s all he is until a fae from the Nordic pantheon strolls into her life and informs her that she’s been sharing a bed with the Prince of Hell.
A Prince who’s now gone missing.
Before she knows it, Marlow is deeply entangled in a centuries-old war, stumbling straight into a battleground between mighty beings of myth and legend from powerful pantheons around the world. And who will come out on top may just depend on her and the love she never dared to believe in.
Piper is co-repped by Carolyn Forde and Alex 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 aren’t supposed 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 is represented by Elizabeth Bennett.
HALFWAY TO SOMEWHERE by Jose Pimienta (Random House Graphics)
New school, new country, but only half a family?! Embark on a coming of age journey with a middle school teen navigating their parent’s divorce while moving to a new country in this stunning graphic novel.
Jose Pimienta’s stunningly illustrated and thought provoking middle graphic novel is about exploring identity, understanding family, making friends with a language barrier, and above all else, learning what truly makes a place a home.
Jose is represented by Elizabeth Bennett.
PERFECT LITTLE ANGELS by Vincent Anioke (Arsenal Pulp Press)
A beautifully imagined story collection set largely in Nigeria that explores themes of masculinity and repressed desires through the lens of (un)conditional love
In this stunning debut story collection set largely in Nigeria, questions abound: What happens when we fall short of society’s – and our own – expectations? When our personal desires conflict with the duties we are bound to? The characters in Perfect Little Angels confront these dilemmas and more in these brilliantly imagined tales.
Vincent is represented by Carolyn Forde.
LATE SEPTEMBER by Amy Mattes (Nightwood Editions)
In the summer of 2000, Ines, a grief-stricken skateboarder beginning to explore her sexuality, leaves behind her sheltered hometown on a Greyhound bus bound for Montreal. In awe of the city’s vibrancy, and armed with a journal and a Discman, Ines sets out to find a new way, befriending April, a latex-loving goth who gets her a job as a cam-girl. In the midst of a bar fight Ines meets Max, a magnetic skateboarder, whom she quickly falls for.
As summer fades to fall Ines tries to uphold the bliss of their intoxicating summer, realizing that while she has escaped the confines of her small-town life, she cannot escape her past. The city changes and their romance darkens as Ines learns that Max is experiencing mental health challenges, all while a regular at the cam studio gets threateningly close. Ines learns that loving herself first requires trial and error—and that love is not always an innocent word.
Amy is represented by Carolyn Forde.
THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE by Allyson McOuat (ECW Press)
From Allyson McOuat, author of the popular 2020 New York Times Modern Love essay “The Ghost Was the Least of Our Problems,” comes her debut essay collection.
In a series of intimate and humorous dispatches, McOuat examines her identity as a queer woman, and as a mother, through the lens of the pop culture moments in the ’80s and ’90s that molded her identity. McOuat stirs the ingredients required to conjure an unsettled spirit: the horrors of pregnancy and motherhood, love and loss, the supernatural, kaleidoscopic sexuality, near-miss experiences, and the unexplained moments in life that leave you haunted.
Allyson is represented by Carolyn Forde.
THE DAWN AND ITS LIGHT by Piper CJ (Bloom Books)
An addictive fantasy romance from TikTok sensation Piper CJ, and the explosive finale to The Night and Its Moon. Nox and Amaris must fight once and for all to protect their people, their future, and each other.
If Nox and Amaris are ever to have the life together they’ve always hoped for, they will have to use all the power and strength within them to protect their continent. When powerful enemies from Sulgrave wielding unspeakable access to magic threaten to shatter their world for good, they must join with Raascot’s military, the reevers, and an unlikely ally from the mountains to have any hope of saving their kingdoms. Together, their forces press north across deadly wastelands, facing unknowable threats, impossible battles…and new questions of what their fate truly holds.
Their entire lives have been building toward this moment. Caught between faith and frenzy, questions and identity, love and lust, past and present, Nox and Amaris must fight once and for all to protect their people, their future, and each other.
Piper is represented by Carolyn Forde and Alex D’Amico.
ONE SUNNY AFTERNOON by Rowan Jette Knox (Viking)
From the bestselling author of Love Lives Here, a deeply personal memoir about facing life-long trauma head-on, and bravely healing the scars that endure.
For writer and human rights advocate Rowan Jetté Knox, the inspiring story of his family’s journey of love and acceptance, when both his child and partner came out as transgender one after the other, was the hopeful beginning to their new lives. Their tale, shared in Rowan’s memoir Love Lives Here and embraced by readers everywhere, quickly found its way to the top of bestseller lists.
One Sunny Afternoon is a profoundly moving and candid account of how trauma can shape us rather than define us, and reveals how even in our darkest moments—and on our most hopeless days—light can find its way in.
Rowan is represented by Samantha Haywood.
A SEASON IN CHEZGH’UN by Darrel McLeod (Douglas & McIntyre)
A subversive novel by acclaimed Cree author Darrel J. McLeod, infused with the contradictory triumph and pain of finding conventional success in a world that feels alien.
James, a talented and conflicted Cree man from a tiny settlement in Northern Alberta, has settled into a comfortable middle-class life in Kitsilano, a trendy neighbourhood of Vancouver. He is living the life he had once dreamed of—travel, a charming circle of sophisticated friends, a promising career and a loving relationship with a caring man—but he chafes at being assimilated into mainstream society, removed from his people and culture.
Darrell is represented by Carolyn Forde.
WORM AND CATERPILLAR ARE FRIENDS by Kaz Windness (Simon & Schuster/Little Simon)
Worm and Caterpillar are friends—best friends. Worm loves how they are just alike, but Caterpillar has a feeling there is a big change coming. Then Caterpillar disappears for a while and comes back as Butterfly. Will Butterfly and Worm still be friends?
Ready-to-Read Graphics books give readers the perfect introduction to the graphic novel format with easy-to-follow panels, speech bubbles with accessible vocabulary, and sequential storytelling that is spot-on for beginning readers. There’s even a how-to guide for reading graphic novels at the beginning of each book.
Kaz is represented by Tim Travaglini.
FALLING BACK IN LOVE WITH BEING HUMAN by Kai Cheng Thom (Penguin Canada // Dial Press)
Kai Cheng Thom grew up a Chinese Canadian transgender girl in a hostile world. As an activist, psychotherapist, 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 viciousness with which people treated one another, and barely clinging to the values and ideals 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. Whether prayers or spells or poems—and whether there’s a difference—she wrote to affirm 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 is co-repped by Marilyn Biderman and Léonicka Valcius.
WILD FAILURE: STORIES by Zoe Whittall (Ballantine Books)
In Wild Failure bestselling novelist Zoe Whittall’s debut collection of poetic fiction contends with the meaning of desire for both intimacy and danger in a world that devalues queer femininity.
In “Oh, El” a dominant woman can’t stop herself from toying with the tender heart of her co-worker. The title story, “Wild Failure” is a doomed love story between an agoraphobic and a wilderness hiker. In “Half Pipe” a teen girl’s heterosexual ambivalence results in chaos at a skate park. A group of idealistic roommates find themselves the subject of a true crime podcast in “Murder at the Elm Street Collective House.” In “The Sex Castle Lunch Buffet” a woman reflects on her brief stint at a 90s strip club after she learns of the death of a former client.
Whittall’s characters navigate shame, attachment, and disconnection in this collection of outsider stories, which were inspired by the new narrative movement.
Zoe is represented by Samantha Haywood.
BEHIND YOU by Catherine Hernandez (HarperCollins Canada)
Catherine Hernandez’s most gripping and affecting novel yet, Behind You is inspired by a horrifying chapter in Canadian history and follows fictional characters terrorized by a fictional perpetrator.
Weaving back and forth in time, Behind You, is a moving story of one girl’s resilience into adulthood and a chilling portrayal of the insidiousness if rape culture. It daringly turns the Whodunit genre on its head by asking the question “Who hasn’t done it?” As in, who has not been complicit in sexual harm?
Catherine is represented by Samantha Haywood.
CRYING WOLF by Eden Boudreau (Book*hug Press)
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 is represented by Samantha Haywood.
STILL MY TESSA by Sylv Chiang
Evelyn is worried about Tessa. Tessa doesn’t want to play the same games they used to play together, but Evelyn is determined to find new ways to connect with her older sibling. And she is also learning to see Tessa as non-binary and using new pronouns for them. Evelyn learns quickly that it isn’t hard. and helps others see that too.
Through the course of this heartfelt story, Evelyn reaffirms her connection to her sibling and shows those around them how to make the effort to support Tessa — with love.
Back matter includes information on gender and ways to be a kind and effective ally.
Sylv is represented by Amy Tompkins.
RECOMMENDED READING by Paul Coccia (Zando Young Readers/Bittersweet Books) Publishing January 28, 2025
In this opposites-attract YA rom-com inspired by Emma, a failed romantic gesture puts a damper on a queer teen bookseller’s summer of book matching and matchmaking until a handsome lifeguard and romance skeptic waltzes into his bookstore. Sometimes you get a second chance at happily ever after when you least expect it . . .
Curvaceous, clever, and an avid reader, seventeen-year-old Bobby Ashton never misses a main character moment. So when it comes to asking out his crush, he plans a romantic gesture grand enough to go down in local history. Unfortunately, though, his extensive knowledge of every rom-com trope ever doesn’t prepare him for how tragically he misreads the situation. Suddenly Bobby’s very public romantic gesture turns into an ordeal so embarrassing it could be a villain origin story.
Paul is represented by Amy Tompkins.
AN EVENING WITH BIRDY O’DAY by Greg Kearney (Arsenal Pulp Press)
A funny, boisterous, and deeply moving novel about aging hairstylist Roland’s childhood friendship with Birdy O’Day, whose fevered quest for pop music glory drives them apart.
Roland Keener is an aging hairstylist who’s lived and worked in Winnipeg all his life. He’s more or less content with the quiet and predictable days he shares with his partner of twenty-five years, Tony. That is, until he hears that Birdy O’Day – washed-up music icon and Roland’s childhood best friend and first love – is playing his first concert in Winnipeg since fleeing decades earlier.
A funny and poignant novel about hero worship, heartbreak, and queer survival, An Evening with Birdy O’Day will remind you that you can never go home again – even if you never left it in the first place.
Greg is represented by Samantha Haywood.