Category: Uncategorized

The Covert Captain: Or, A Marriage of Equals –  by Jeannelle M. Ferreira

copperbadge:

strangeselkie:

It’s HEEEEEERE! 
My new book is live. It’s a Regency romance! With lesbians! Perfect for light weekend reading! 

I am DOPILY EXCITED to share this with you. It’s a long time coming. Also, I love the cover.

This is the book I reblogged about last week that people were interested in – the ebook is now out! (The print book takes longer.) 

The Covert Captain

Nathaniel Fleming, veteran of Waterloo, falls in love with his Major’s spinster sister, Harriet. But Nathaniel is not what he seems, and before the wedding, the truth will out…

Eleanor Charlotte Fleming, forgotten daughter of a minor baronet, stakes her life on a deception and makes her name—if not her fortune—on the battlefield. Her war at an end, she returns to England as Captain Nathaniel Fleming and wants nothing more than peace, quiet, and the company of horses. Instead, Captain Fleming meets Harriet. Harriet has averted the calamity of matrimony for a decade, cares little for the cut of her gowns, and is really rather clever. Falling in love is not a turn of the cards either of them expected. Harriet accepts Captain Fleming, but will she accept Eleanor? Along the way, there are ballrooms, stillrooms, mollyhouses, society intrigue, and sundering circumstance.

I haven’t read it in final form yet (I’m off to buy it in a moment) but I got to read some of the initial draft a while ago, and I really enjoyed it. I can safely vouch for the quality of its prose! 🙂

The Covert Captain: Or, A Marriage of Equals –  by Jeannelle M. Ferreira

ya-pride:

{Image Description: On a red background, a white speech box reads “Love, Simon”, and white letters read “What LGBTQIAP+ YA Book Do You Want To See Adapted Next?”. Two black hearts are in the left bottom corner.}

LOVE, SIMON is officially out in the world today! We’re so beyond excited to see many more LGBTQIAP+ YA books adapted for film and tv in the coming years. What book(s) do you want to see adapted next? 

Autoboyography is very close to my heart as a queer ex-Mormon, but I fear it’s too close in content to Simon in some ways for a studio to consider it. Which sucks.

I think Juliet Takes a Breath is a really important book and has a lot to say, not just about queerness, but about feminism and race and how these things intersect. I think it’s got a lot to connect and relate to and think about, much like movies like Better Than Chocolate did for 90s kids like me. I know it’s probably more NA than YA, but that’s my pick. If kids can read about murder and drugs in het books without it being challenged, they can read about intersectional feminism in queer books.

a-wlw-reads:

a-wlw-reads:

Hey tumblr so I need your help! My school always had one of those “Read Across America” maps with young adult novels or romances or whatever (evidently, I’m American) but I’ve never seen anything comparable for wlw. I’ve tried to rely on my memory and on other people’s recs but I’m only (exactly) halfway through. Any suggestions to fill in these missing states? I’ve tried to avoid stories that take place across multiple locations. Or offer more options for the ones I already have, the more the merrier.

Alabama : Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flag

Alaska :

Arizona : The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver

Arkansas :

California : Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour, Honey Girl by Lisa Freeman, Frog Music by Emma Donoghue, The Necessary Hunger by Nina Revoyr, Under the Lights by Dahlia Adler, The Butch and the Beautiful by Kris Ripper, As La Vista Turns by Kris Ripper, Far From Home by Lorelie Brown, Take Me Home by Lorelie Brown, Valencia by Michelle Tea, Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain by Portia de Rossi

Colorado : Marionette by T.B. Markinson, Sleight of Hand by Mark Henwick, Snow Falls by Gerri Hill

Connecticut : Pages for You by Sylvia Brownrigg, Patience & Sarah by Isabel Miller

Delaware :

Florida : Breathing Underwater by Lu Vickers, Roller Girl by Vanessa North

Georgia : Georgia Peaches and Other Forbidden Fruit by Jaye Robin Brown, The Color Purple by Alice Walker, The Blue Place by Nicola Griffith

Hawaii : Razor Wire by Lauren Gallagher

Idaho : Ship It by Britta Lundin, Her Hometown Girl by Lorelie Brown

Illinois : Coffee Will Make You Black by April Sinclair

Indiana : Tessa Masterson Will Go to Prom by Emily Franklin and Brendan Halpin

Iowa : A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley, Moo by Jane Smiley

Kansas : Far From Xanadu by Julie Anne Peters, Like Me: Confessions of a Heartland Country Singer

Kentucky : Run by Kody Keplinger

Louisiana : Her Name in the Sky by Kelly Quindlen

Maine : Style by Chelsea Cameron

Maryland : Every Day by David Levithan

Massachusetts : Mermaid in Chelsea Creek by Michelle Tea, Map of Ireland by Stephanie Grant, Heart of Brass by Morven Moeller

Michigan : The Liberators of Willow Run by Marianne K. Martin, The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

Minnesota : Sister Mischief by Laura Goode, My Year Zero by Rachel Gold, Bend by Nancy Hedin

Mississippi : Ramona Blue by Julie Murphy

Missouri : Deliver Us from Evie by M.E. Kerr, Heart of the Game by Rachel Spangler

Montana : The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth, Innocent Hearts by Radclyffe, Storms by Gerri Hill

Nebraska : Not Otherwise Specified by Hannah Moskowitz, Over You by Amy Reed

Nevada : Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee, Desert of the Heart by Jane Rule

New Hampshire : 

New Jersey : The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

New Mexico : Beauty of the Broken by Tawni Waters

New York : Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova, Annie On My Mind by Nancy Garden, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde, Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown, We Are Okay by Nina LaCour, Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg, Thaw by Elyse Springer, Heat Wave by Elyse Springer, Inferno (A Poet’s Novel) by Eileen Mills, The Girl at Midnight by Melissa Grey, Drag King Dreams by Leslie Feinberg

North Carolina : The Ada Decades by Paula Martinac

North Dakota : The Murdered Family by Vernon Keel

Ohio : Fat Angie by E.E. Charlton-Trujillo, Taking the Long Way by Lily R. Mason, The Last Place You Look by Kristen Lepionka

Oklahoma : Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, Tumbleweed Fever by L.J. Maas

Oregon : Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera, Forgive Me If I’ve Told You This Before by Karelia Stetz-Waters

Pennsylvania : Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown

Rhode Island : The Red Tree by Caitlín R. Kiernan

South Carolina : Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison

South Dakota :

Tennessee :

Secret City by Julia Watts,

If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo, South of Sunshine by Dana Elmendorf

Texas : Forgetting the Alamo, Or, Blood Memory by Emma Pérez, Santa Olivia by Jacqueline Carey, The Unraveling of Mercy Louis by Keija Parssinen, Gulf Breeze by Gerri Hill

Utah : Saving Alex by Alex Cooper

Vermont :

Virginia : As I Descended by Robin Talley, Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley, Jericho by Ann McMan

Washington : The Edge of Nowhere by Elizabeth George, Dreadnought by April Daniels, About A Girl by Sarah McCarry, Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear, Stuck Landing by Lauren Gallagher

Washington, D.C : Madam President by Blayne Cooper and T. Novan

West Virginia : The Winter Triangle by Nikki Woolfolk

Wisconsin :

Wyoming :

It’s been a while since I made a bunch of changes but we’ve almost got the entire East Coast now! Plus several additional new recommendations to states that were already filled in. And for the rest of the non-US world, I’ve got something coming 😉 Stay tuned!

Alaska: Before I Let Go by Marieke Nijkamp

This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson

So, pretty much, don’t read this? I started out reading it and thought, wow, this has not aged well, and then I read the verso, which said the date of publication was… four years ago. Which was pretty much when my internal voice went, ‘Oh… no. This is going to get worse, isn’t it?’. Spolier: it did.

Did not finish. Really exclusionary of pretty much anyone but cis gay males, pretty much every quote on bisexuality is about not liking labels or actually identifying as something OTHER than bi, either because of being being mislabeled or discriminated against (page 27-28), gender essentialist ‘lesbians like vaginas’ ‘gay men like… big hairy men with big willies’ ‘penis? check! …gay men are.. male’(page 51), ‘lesbians like vaginas’ (page 67), transphobic (so many pages), ‘intersex is not so much an identity, as you can’t really choose it’ (page 37), conflates homophobia and transphobia as basically the same thing without mentioning the transphobia rampant in the broader queer community (pages 72-92). Noped out after genuine anti-semitism on page 111 ‘Not being funny, but these guys (Jewish people) kinda started it’ (about religious homophobia).

To eliminate any confusion bout the author’s name, the author came out as transgender after publication, so the first name on the cover is one that shares the initial J with the author’s preferred name, Juno. My reaction to discovering this development was thinking that I really hope Juno works through the utterly pervasive transphobia that is inescapable in this work. Carrying that is toxic. But the fact that the author has come out as transgender doesn’t make this work any less transphobic. In fact, it’s worse, because it makes it harder to argue the damage this book can do when it’s coming from a now-out transgender person, something I will be doing with my library system shortly.

In summary – this book would have been revolutionary ten or fifteen years ago, because nothing like this existed. It still would have been toxic. Time and correct terminology has moved on, but at its core, this would have always been a work that placed more emphasis on trying to be crude and cool to appeal to young people, which is a tragic mistake. Anything that tries this hard is never going to be cool in the eyes of a teenager. Add to that the spadefuls of misinformation, glossing over of history and hate crimes, erasure, exclusion, and casual super gross misogyny for the sake of jokes (‘Lesbians like vaginas. They don’t even want blokes watching. I KNOW, how INCONSIDERATE.’ – page 67), and this is a book that doesn’t even come close to matching the promise of its beautiful, bold, inclusive, balanced cover.

spockslash:

Our mom, Dee, Fandom Grandma, wrote this for you and asked that we share it after her passing.

Oh my darlings. My fandom friends, my fandom family.

This is a difficult message to write.

It has become clear that treatment can no longer help me battle the cancer that has invaded my body, and it’s time to prepare myself to say goodbye to those I love.

That includes all of you.

I have struggled mightily with how I should do this.  Should I tell you now, so you will not be blindsided by my passing?  Would telling you burden you unnecessarily ahead of time?  I don’t want you to worry about me. I want my last few months or weeks to be an opportunity to give as much love and kindness as I can, to cheer on your wonderful fan art and writing, to share as many memories of the early days of fandom as I am able, and to enjoy the fun I have in being with you.

So after much thought, I’ve decided to ask my children to let you know of my passing when it happens. If I hurt anyone with the suddenness of that announcement, I hope you can forgive me and know that I meant well by this decision.

I hope you know that you have enriched my life immensely in what turn out to be my final months. What fun it has been to be a fan among fans again!  I feel so lucky to have discovered modern fandom and this community when I did. You have taught me so much. You’ve impressed me, moved me, made me laugh, and brought a whole lot of happiness to my days.

I hope you know how honored I feel to have been embraced by you as your Fandom Grandma and your friend. It’s humbling  to be given this opportunity to care so openly, so freely. I am touched by this, daily, more than I can say.

I know that some of my adopted family here are not in happy family situations in their off-screen lives. It troubles me that I will not have further opportunity to tell you how special you are, how unique, how precious.  That you are worthy of love and happiness.  Please know that wherever I am, my caring about you and believing in you will still go on.

Dear beautiful hearts — and that means every one of you — please be kind to yourselves. And to each other. Please, please keep fandom a place where we are welcoming to newcomers.  Where we value each other, even if we don’t agree on specific ideas.  

And please go on enjoying fandom, as long as it is meaningful and positive for you. I hope many of you will be fandom grandparents to the generations that will follow! Please keep writing and creating art. Keep our traditions alive. I’m passing the torch of this historic fandom on to you now. 

You are amazing. I love you. I know you will make me proud.