October’s Most Anticipated LGBTQIA+ Literature

Too old to trick-or-treat, too young to die: we once again face that perennial conundrum as fall marches on, past a blink-and-you-miss-it stop for September. (Anyone else?)

Luckily, we’ve got plenty of new reads to immerse you in the holiday spirit while you snack on seasonal pumpkin-shaped editions of your favorite chocolate or candy. It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror is the perfect companion to any horror movie marathon, with essays from Carmen Maria Machado, Addie Tsai, and more. Lambda fellow Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya brings us Helen House, a lesbian ghost story of hauntings and grief. New in translation, Kevin Chen’s Ghost Town moves through time in the voices of living and dead years after a murder. Gabriel Mason Howell’s gorgeous Forget Me Not tells a poetic story of a group of young girls evading Death’s specter.

First we have thirty non-Halloween days, of course, and plenty of reads for any time of year. Check out 2018 Lambda fellow Sacha Lamb’s much-anticipated YA fantasy debut, When the Angels Left the Old Country, about an angel and a demon leaving their shtetl for Ellis Island. Elias Jahshan edits new memoir anthology This Arab Is Queer, bringing together the stories of eighteen queer Arab writers.

As always, if you have a book coming out soon, email us at editor@lambdaliterary.org for consideration in our upcoming lists.

• Dream Rooms by River Halen, Book*hug Press
• Faltas: Letters to Everyone in My Hometown Who Isn’t My Rapist by Cecilia Gentili, Little Puss Press
• The Family Outing by Jessi Hempel, HarperOne
• Heretic by Jeanna Kadlec, Harper
• Life in Every Breath: Ester Blenda: Reporter, Adventurer, Pioneer by Fatima Bremmer trans. Gloria Nneoma Onwuneme, Amazon Crossing
• Love from the Pink Palace: Memories of Love, Loss and Cabaret Through the AIDS Crisis by Jill Nalder, Wildfire
• Memories of a Gay Catholic Boyhood: Coming of Age in the Sixties by John D’Emilio, Duke University Press
• A Quiet Foghorn: More Notes from a Deaf Gay Life by Raymond Luczak, Gallaudet University Press
• README.txt by Chelsea Manning, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Spy Daughter, Queer Girl by Leslie Absher, Latah Books
• When They Tell You to Be Good by Prince Shakur, Tin House Books

• The Call-Out: A Novel in Rhyme by Cat Fitzpatrick, Seven Stories Press
• The Consequences: Stories by Manuel Muñoz, Graywolf Press
• Hugs and Cuddles by João Gilberto Noll, trans. Edgar Garbelotto, Two Lines Press
• Jade Is a Twisted Green by Tanya Turton, Rare Machines
• Last Night in Brighton by Massoud Hayoun, Darf Publishers
• Pacifique by Sarah L. Taggart, Coach House Books
• Pervatory by RM Vaughan, Coach House Books
• The Strange Inheritance of Leah Fern by Rita Zoey Chin, Melville House Publishing
• When We Were Sisters by Fatimah Asghar, One World

• The Future is Disabled by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Arsenal Pulp Press
• Hole Studies by Hilary Plum, Fonograf Editions
• It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror edited by Joe Vallese, Feminist Press
• Scenes from the Underground by Gabrielle Cholette and Jacob Pyne, trans. Elina Taillon, Arachnide Editions
• The Stranger Next Door: The Story of a Small Community’s Battle Over Sex, Faith, and Civil Rights; Or, How the Right Divides Us by Arlene Stein, Beacon Press
• This Arab Is Queer: An Anthology by LGBTQ+ Arab Writers edited by Elias Jahshan, Saqi Books
• Unsettling: Surviving Extinction Together by Elizabeth Weinberg, Broadleaf Books
• Faltas: Letters to Everyone in My Hometown Who Isn’t My Rapist by Cecilia Gentili, LittlePuss Press

• Black Disability Politics by Sami Schalk, Duke University Press
• Breathing Aesthetics by Jean-Thomas Tremblay, Duke University Press
• The LGBTQ+ Comics Studies Reader: Critical Openings, Future Directions edited by Alison Halsall and Jonathan Warren, University Press of Mississippi
• Queer Silence: On Disability and Rhetorical Absence by J. Logan Smilges, University of Minnesota Press

• Army of Lovers by K. M. Soehnlein, Bywater Books
• A Cutting Deceit by Cathy Dunnell, Bold Strokes Books
• The Laws of Magic by M. Ullrich, Bold Strokes Books
• Mistakes Were Made by Meryl Wilsner, St. Martin’s Griffin 
• On a Wing and a Chair by Louise McBain, Bella Books
• Paris Daillencourt Is About to Crumble by Alexis Hall, Forever
• Reforged by Seth Haddon, Blind Eye Books
• Season of Love by Helena Greer, Forever
• You’re a Mean One, Matthew Prince by Timothy Janovsky, Sourcebooks Casablanca

• Blackmail and Bibingka by Mia P. Manansala, Berkley Books
• Ghost Town by Kevin Chen, trans. Derryl Sterk, Europa Editions
• Last Chance Chicago Diana Digangi, Bywater Books
• Lavender House by Lev A. C. Rosen, Forge

• The Atlas Paradox by Olivie Blake, Tor
• Helen House by Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya, Burrow Press
• A House Unsettled by Trynne Delaney, Annick Press
• Into the Riverlands by Nghi Vo, Tor
• Màgòdiz by Gabe Calderon, Arsenal Pulp Press 
• Queer Little Nightmares: An Anthology of Monstrous Fiction and Poetry, edited by David Ly & Daniel Zomparelli, Arsenal Pulp Press 
• Pretend It’s My Body: Stories by Luke Dani Blue, Amethyst Editions
• The Runaway Restaurant by Tessa Yang, 7.13 Books
• The Story of the Hundred Promises by Neil Cochrane, Forest Avenue Press

• Anne of Greenville by Mariko Tamaki, Melissa de la Cruz Studio
• The Edge of Being by James Brandon, Nancy Paulsen Books
• The First to Die at the End by Adam Silvera, Quill Tree Books
• I Was Born for This by Alice Oseman, Scholastic Press
• In the Key of Dale by Benjamin Lefebvre, Arsenal Pulp Press 
• Instructions in Flesh by Marcus James, Candiano Books
• The Nightland Express by J. M. Lee, Erewhon
• Nothing Sung and Nothing Spoken by Nita Tyndall, Harperteen 
• The Sacrifice by Rin Chupeco, Sourcebooks Fire
• A Scatter of Light by Malinda Lo, Durron Books for Young Readers
• The Scratch Daughters: Volume 2 by H. A. Clarke, Erewhon
• The Restless Dark by Erica Waters, Harperteen
• When the Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Lamb, Levine Querido

• Anne: An Adaptation of Anne of Green Gables (Sort Of) by Kathleen Gros, Quill Tree Books
• Hazel Hill Is Gonna Win This One by Maggie Horne, Clarion Books
• The Last Hope in Hopetown by Maria Tureaud, Little Brown Books for Young Readers
• The Mother of a Movement: Jeanne Manford—Ally, Activist, and Co-Founder of PFLAG by Rob Sanders and Sam Kalda, Magination Press
• Nikhil Out Loud by Maulik Pancholy, Balzer & Bray/Harperteen
• Payden’s Pronoun Party by Blue Jaryn and Xochitl Cornejo, Page Street Kids
• Phoenix Gets Greater by Marty Wilson-Trudeau, Phoenix Wilson, and Megan Kyak-Monteith, Second Story Press
• Something Great by Jeanette Bradley, Levine Querido
• Where the Lost Ones Go by Akemi Dawn Bowman, Farrar Straus and Giroux
• The You Kind of Kind by Nina West and Hayden Evans, Princeton Architectural Press

• Almost Obscene by Raúl Gómez Jattin, trans. Katherine M. Hedeen and Olivia Lott, Cleveland State University Poetry Center
• A Brilliant Loss by Eloise Klein Healy, Red Hen Press
• Cut to Fortress by Tawahum Bige, Nightwood Editions
• The Empty Form Goes All the Way to Heaven by Brian Teare, Nightboat Books
• Inspector Inspector by Jee Leong Koh, Carcanet Press
• Keep Your Little Lights Alive: Poems After Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love and Others by John-Francis Quinonez, Write Bloody Publishing
• Oxblood by Nicole Caruso Garcia, Amble Muse Press
• Stemmy Things by Imogen Xtian Smith, Nightboat Books
• A Tinderbox in Three Acts by Cynthia Dewi Oka, BOA Editions
• We Are Mermaids by Stephanie Burt, Graywolf Press
• Whaddyacall the Wind? by Annie Rachele Lanzillotto, Bordighera Press

• Forget Me Not by Gabriel Mason Howell, Secret Acres
• Fruiting Bodies by Ashley Robin Franklin, Silver Sprocket
• Heartstrings: Melissa Etheridge and Her Guitars by Frank Marraffino and Melissa Etheridge, Z2 Comics
• It Took Luke: Overworked & Underpaid by Mark Bouchard and Bayleigh Underwood, Oni Press
• Thieves by Lucie Bryon, Nobrow