![]() Her debut collection, Ayiti, explores the Haitian diaspora through fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. And their upcoming novel, The Death of Vivek Oji, comes out later this year. Pet explores the realities of a society striving for peace to the point of willfully ignoring the monsters in their midst, all from the perspective of a young trans girl. Freshwater is the surreal story of a Nigerian woman living with fractured selves and was nominated for the Lambda Literary Award. Their books have haunted and amazed me, and I’m sure they will you, too. Akwaeke Emeziįrom fabulist literary fiction to young adult fantasy, Akwaeke Emezi has a voice like no other writer today. Several of the books and novellas in the series feature queer characters and stories, including Once Ghosted, Twice Shy (a prince’s assistant and a jewelry maker get a second chance) A Prince on Paper (the underestimated cousin of the new Princess of Thesolo and the bisexual step-prince of Liechtienbourg go from side eye to heart eyes), and Can’t Escape Love (a nerdy bi businesswoman and puzzle-obsessed designer make a deal and wind up falling for each other in the process). Alyssa ColeĪlyssa Cole is the author who got me into romance with her incredible Reluctant Royals series, about a group of friends and the royals they become inexplicably mixed up with. Whether exploring adolescence-as in Another Brooklyn-memory and generational identity-as in Red at the Bone-or recounting her own childhood-as in Brown Girl Dreaming-Woodson’s remarkably insightful and tactile writing brings her stories to life in a way unlike any other. Queer identity is intrinsic to Woodson’s work, as is the beautiful, lyrical prose she’s well known for. Jemisin’s excellent short story collection How Long Til Black Future Month? and fantasy series The Fifth Season also feature incredible characters, queer and otherwise. ![]() Her most recent hit The City We Became, about the living avatars of New York City and its boroughs, includes multiple queer characters fighting hard to save the city they love. Jemisin for her incredible work in SFF (unless you either live under a rock or eschew sci-fi and fantasy altogether) but her writing also often includes powerful queer story lines. Most of their books explore queer identity in some way- Hurricane Child, This is Kind of an Epic Love Story, King and the Dragonflies-and explore heartfelt stories of identity and belonging. Their newest book, Felix Ever After, is a story about a queer, black, trans teen looking for his own happily ever. Kacen Callender is a powerhouse of today’s queer fiction, writing books spanning from middle grade and YA to adult. From joyful stories about queer Black girls to memoirs of what it means to be Black and gay, these authors present incredible and affirming stories to read now or anytime. They include some of my personal favorites, some classics, and some on my TBR that I still really need to get around to, because I have over 1,000 books on my Goodreads Want-To-Read shelf (bet you can relate). And these 20 Black authors of LGBTQ books are a great place to start, exploring experiences, both fictional and non, of what it means to be queer and Black. It widens your worldview, helps you reevaluate ingrained biases and beliefs, and, hopefully, exposes you to incredible new authors and books you might not have discovered if you only ever explored stodgy old lists of classics featuring solely straight cis white authors. Diversifying your bookshelf is incredibly important. With Pride Month in the rearview mirror, it’s also a great time to reexamine your TBR and your bookshelves-make sure the books you’re reading don’t solely reflect one identity, whether one portion of the LGBTQ community or mostly white authors. What about nonbinary authors? Black queer authors? Disabled authors? Neurodivergent authors? Queer experiences, for example, don’t necessarily look the same for any two people-especially if one of them is white and another Black. But is it really? Because it’s easy to miss the intersection of identities-or miss certain identities entirely-if you accept that as enough. Beyond that, though, I think it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking you’re doing enough, or reading widely enough, if you’re reading books that are non-white or non-straight or non-male. What it means is simple: evaluate the kinds of books you’re reading and make sure they aren’t all reflecting a white, western-AKA colonizer-point of view. The phrase “decolonize your bookshelf” has come into common reader vernacular in recent years.
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