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| defector autostraddle: Dyke (geology) Sabrina Imbler, 2020 Through intertwined threads of autofiction, lyric science writing, and the tale of a newly queer Hawaiian volcano, Sabrina Imbler delivers a coming out story on a geological time scale. This is a small book that tackles large, wholly human questions--what it means to live and date under white supremacy, to never know if one is loved or fetishized, how to navigate fierce desires and tectonic heartbreak through the rise and eventual eruption of a first queer love. When two galaxies stray too near each other, the attraction between them can be so strong that the galaxies latch on and never let go. Sometimes the pull triggers head-on wrecks between stars--galactic collisions--throwing bodies out of orbit, seamlessly into space. Sometimes the attraction only creates a giant black hole, making something whole into a kind of missing. In vivid, tensile prose, Dyke (geology) subverts the flat, neutral language of scientific journals to explore what it means to understand the Earth as something queer, volatile, and disruptive. |
| defector autostraddle: Fools In Love Rebecca Barrow, Gloria Chao, Mason Deaver, Sara Farizan, Claire Kann, Malinda Lo, Hannah Moskowitz, Natasha Ngan, Lilliam Rivera, Laura Silverman, Amy Spalding, Rebecca Kim Wells, Julian Winters, 2021-12-07 Join fifteen bestselling, award-winning, and up-and-coming authors as they reimagine some of the most popular tropes in the romance genre. Fake relationships. Enemies to lovers. Love triangles and best friends, mistaken identities and missed connections. This collection of genre-bending and original stories celebrates how love always finds a way, featuring powerful flora, a superhero and his nemesis, a fantastical sled race through snow-capped mountains, a golf tournament, the wrong ride-share, and even the end of the world. With stories written by Rebecca Barrow, Ashley Herring Blake, Gloria Chao, Mason Deaver, Sara Farizan, Claire Kann, Malinda Lo, Hannah Moskowitz, Natasha Ngan, Rebecca Podos, Lilliam Rivera, Laura Silverman, Amy Spalding, Rebecca Kim Wells, and Julian Winters this collection is sure to sweep you off your feet. |
| defector autostraddle: Get Jiro: Blood and Sushi Anthony Bourdain, Joel Rose, 2015-10-27 Acclaimed chef, writer and television personality, Anthony Bourdain, and Joel Rose (Kill The Poor) return for the follow-up to their #1 New York Times bestseller GET JIRO! In a prequel to The New York Times best-selling comic from renowned chef Anthony Bourdain (CNN’s Parts Unknown), Jiro is a young man learning his craft. The son of one of Tokyo’s most powerful gangsters, he is torn between his father’s plans for him and his own desire to master the art of sushi. The family is making a bold move in the Tokyo underworld, and if Jiro isn’t going to get with the program, his half-brother Ichigo is more than happy to step in and do the dirty work. This bloody take on a classic crime and revenge tale adds an irreverent sense of humor and a futuristic vision of foodie culture, all with a flavor only Anthony Bourdain can cook up. Co-written by Joel Rose (The Blackest Bird) with art by Alé Garza (Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day) and José Villarrubia (Promethea, BATMAN: YEAR 100). |
| defector autostraddle: The Last True Poets of the Sea Julia Drake, 2019-10-04 Fans of Far from the Tree, We Are Okay and Emergency Contact will love this epic, utterly unforgettable contemporary novel about a lost shipwreck, a missing piece of family history, and weathering the storms of life. The Larkin family isn't just lucky—they persevere. At least that's what Violet and her younger brother, Sam, were always told. When the Lyric sank off the coast of Maine, their great-great-great-grandmother didn't drown like the rest of the passengers. No, Fidelia swam to shore, fell in love, and founded Lyric, Maine, the town Violet and Sam returned to every summer. But wrecks seem to run in the family: Tall, funny, musical Violet can't stop partying with the wrong people. And, one beautiful summer day, brilliant, sensitive Sam attempts to take his own life. Shipped back to Lyric while Sam is in treatment, Violet is haunted by her family's missing piece—the lost shipwreck she and Sam dreamed of discovering when they were children. Desperate to make amends, Violet embarks on a wildly ambitious mission: locate the Lyric, lain hidden in a watery grave for over a century. She finds a fellow wreck hunter in Liv Stone, an amateur local historian whose sparkling intelligence and guarded gray eyes make Violet ache in an exhilarating new way. Whether or not they find the Lyric, the journey Violet takes—and the bridges she builds along the way—may be the start of something like survival. Epic, funny, and sweepingly romantic, The Last True Poets of the Sea is an astonishing debut about the strength it takes to swim up from a wreck. |
| defector autostraddle: Swords of Sorrow Gail Simone, Mairghread Scott, Leah Moore, Nancy A. Collins, G. Willow Wilson, Erica Schultz, Emma Beeby, Marguerite Bennett, Mikki Kendall, 2016 Dynamite's fiercest females appear in a massive genre-spanning crossover event featuring an all-star line-up of female authors! The ultimate pulp adventure features Vampirella, Dejah Thoris, Red Sonja, Purgatori, Lady Demon, Chastity, Jungle Girl, Jennifer Blood, Kato, Lady Zorro, and many, many more! Villains and heroes from a dozen worlds and eras face off against a legendary evil that threatens all their homelands--Amazon.com. |
| defector autostraddle: Mostly Dead Things Kristen Arnett, 2020-04-21 The celebrated New York Times Bestseller A Best Book of the Year pick at the New York Times, NPR, The New Yorker, TIME, Washington Post, Oprahmag.com, Thrillist, Shelf Awareness, Good Housekeeping and more. What does it take to come back to life? For Jessa-Lynn Morton, the question is not an abstract one. In the wake of her father’s suicide, Jessa has stepped up to manage his failing taxidermy business while the rest of the Morton family crumbles. Her mother starts sneaking into the taxidermy shop to make provocative animal art, while her brother, Milo, withdraws. And Brynn, Milo’s wife—and the only person Jessa’s ever been in love with—walks out without a word. It’s not until the Mortons reach a tipping point that a string of unexpected incidents begins to open up surprising possibilities and second chances. But will they be enough to salvage this family, to help them find their way back to one another? Kristen Arnett’s breakout bestseller is a darkly funny family portrait; a peculiar, bighearted look at love and loss and the ways we live through them together. |
| defector autostraddle: Past Lives, Future Bodies K-Ming Chang, 2018 Poetry. Asian & Asian American Studies. Women's Studies. LGBTQIA Studies. In her debut short collection, poet Kristin Chang bursts onto the page and into our consciousness like a dazzling, dizzying uproar: I suck / until my teeth riot / with rot & I have nothing / left in my mouth to keep / quiet. Quiet Chang's speakers are not. In these nineteen poems, the body is personal and communal, hunter and hunted: My mother says / women who sleep with women / are redundant: the body symmetrical / to its crime. Between your knees / I mistake need for belief / in a father figure: once, we renamed / our fathers by burning them / out of our bodies, smoking the sky / into meat. PAST LIVES, FUTURE BODIES is a knife-sharp and nimble examination of migration, motherhood, and the malignant legacies of racism. In this collection, family forms both a unit of survival and a framework for history, agency, and recovery. Chang undertakes a visceral exploration of the historical and unfolding paths of lineage and what it means to haunt body and country. These poems traverse not only the circularity of trauma but the promise of regeneration--what grows from violence and hatches from healing--as Chang embodies each of her ghosts and invites the specter to speak. Kristin Chang wields the line break like a sword cutting through dimensions of reality and language. Each break offers another surprise gut-punch or gutting grace on the other side as these fiercely sharp poems turn and turn, Chang never faltering to rise to the occasion of these blood-filled verses. Chang, quite simply, can write her ass off. I read these poems and I feel like I'm discovering poetry all over again. Chang makes a spell rise from every wound, and I'm caught all the way up in this magic. Kristin Chang is one of the best emerging writers out there, and this chapbook is one step into a career we will all be transformed by. PAST LIVES, FUTURE BODIES couldn't be a better way to be introduced to your new favorite poet. It's Kristin's world, thank God we're reading in it.--Danez Smith Kristin Chang's PAST LIVES, FUTURE BODIES is full of mouths swallowing food, language, home, memory, and bodily desires to finally arrive at explosive demonstrations of what happens when the unspeakable is uttered and shouted. Each poem shows the process of turning a painful reflection on history, sexuality, race, family, and nation into a prismatic object of beauty. We are lucky to witness Chang's use of silence as a productive narrative frame.--Emily Jungmin Yoon In PAST LIVES, FUTURE BODIES, Kristin Chang's knotty examination into the complexities of intergenerational relationships, we come to understand the fraught nature of both the known and the unknown. These meditations on family, pain, and the ways we communicate untangle the threads of what it means to love those who have hurt us. Chang writes, 'Every language has different / words for the same want,' and the poems in this collection stunningly reveal those words and leave us wanting for more.--Eloisa Amezcua |
| defector autostraddle: A Map of Home Randa Jarrar, 2008-09-02 Nidali, the rebellious daughter of an Egyptian-Greek mother and a Palestinian father, narrates the story of her childhood in Kuwait, her teenage years in Egypt (to where she and her family fled the 1990 Iraqi invasion), and her family's last flight to Texas. Nidali mixes humor with a sharp, loving portrait of an eccentric middle-class family, and this perspective keeps her buoyant through the hardships she encounters: the humiliation of going through a checkpoint on a visit to her father's home in the West Bank; the fights with her father, who wants her to become a famous professor and stay away from boys; the end of her childhood as Iraq invades Kuwait on her thirteenth birthday; and the scare she gives her family when she runs away from home. Funny, charming, and heartbreaking, A Map of Home is the kind of book Tristram Shandy or Huck Finn would have narrated had they been born Egyptian-Palestinian and female in the 1970s. |
| defector autostraddle: Blood Box Zefyr Lisowski, 2019-10-29 Poetry. LGBTQIA Studies. BLOOD BOX, the deliciously haunting debut short collection from poet Zefyr Lisowski, takes us inside the infamous 1892 axe murders of Abby and Andrew Borden through twenty-six wide-ranging, stylistically experimental persona poems. Lisowski re-introduces us to mythologized spinster Lizzie Borden as we've never seen her before: a girl wielding an axe, yes, but also a girl trapped--in the boxes of age, of hunger, of loneliness, of blame. Lizzie, who was acquitted of the double murder of her father and stepmother, yet continues to haunt our cultural psyche over a hundred years later. Even now, Violence dances with us like ghosts. In these pages, the notorious crime and its cast of characters serve as a jumping-off point for a textured exploration of inherited violence, queer intimacy, and the way family can be another geometry, another violence too. BLOOD BOX is Lizzie's story, but it's also the story of grief, of selfhood, of trans and queer becoming. Lisowski's Lizzie Borden is as sweet, sad, spooky, and haunted as a girl with an axe ever can be. If it is possible to queer a murder, Lisowski does it here, wearing the persona mask of Lizzie Borden, the familiar familicidal subject of too many jokes and skipping rhymes. Swinging non-chronologically from branch to blood-stained branch through the convoluted and uncertain history of the Borden murders, Lisowski discovers a kind of friend in Lizzie. These poems, sometimes quiet and demure, sometimes sung confession, sometimes full of hot desire. Each poem a pear, uniquely flavored, hanging barely from a tree in the balmy wet air of a New England summer. Inventive, sexy, self-aware to an almost dangerous degree, Lisowski applies layer after layer of powder foundation, demanding: 'Look at me: I wear / my suffering on my skin. I wear my skin / on top of my other skin.'--Chase Berggrun Zefyr Lisowski's BLOOD BOX is as much ouroboros as box, employing a circular structure to revisit the famous Fall River murders from alternating perspectives. Bookended by Lizzie Borden's voice, the collection shimmers with uncanniness as Lisowski channels the dead. The result is an exquisitely constructed danse macabre that shifts between reportage and invention, avowal and disavowal--an assembly of voices tethered together by a grisly loss. Moving us between the ghastliness of a father who 'twisted the heads off pigeons' to the radiant beauty of a 'pear tree's bright plumage,' BLOOD BOX is disturbing, dazzling, and riveting.--Simone Muench Zefyr Lisowski's BLOOD BOX fearlessly excavates the secret and multiple lives (longings and regrets) of Lizzie Borden and her family. Mysterious and evocative, terrifying and tender, this is a powerful voice singing praise and elegy within the same breath, pressing against the world's constraints to dream flight.--Ching-In Chen Dealing in secrets, Zefyr Lisowski's BLOOD BOX stands at the threshold of a violent domestic silence. Unknowability generates a hybrid text of multiple methodologies, all of which circle around its empty center. Lisowski writes, 'The God I know / lives behind a locked door, and only hoards / His good things. If He has children, / He beats them without fail. If He has neighbors, / He chops apart their houses. Tell me, / who wouldn't believe.' The fear that characterizes coloniality haunts the Borden family, trapping them in a labyrinthian coffin, where death generates death in a way that is neither spectacular nor foreign. The brilliance of this text lies in its guilty blood, housed in grayscape littered with the familial.--Raquel Salas Rivera |
| defector autostraddle: Crying the News Vincent DiGirolamo, 2019 Crying the News: A History of America's Newsboys is the first book to place newsboys at the center of American history, analyzing their inseparable role as economic actors and cultural symbols in the creation of print capitalism, popular democracy, and national character. DiGirolamo's sweeping narrative traces the shifting fortunes of these little merchants over a century of war and peace, prosperity and depression, exploitation and reform, chronicling their exploits in every region of the country, as well as on the railroads that linked them. |
| defector autostraddle: The Queen Of The Night Alexander Chee, 2016-02-02 NATIONAL BESTSELLER, New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and a Best Book of the Year from NPR, Boston Globe, BuzzFeed, and others. The mesmerizing story of one woman's rise from circus rider to courtesan to world-renowned diva—a brilliant performance (Washington Post). The Queen of the Night tells the captivating story of Lilliet Berne, an orphan who left the American frontier for Europe and was swept into the glamour and terror of Second Empire France. She became a sensation of the Paris Opera, with every accolade but an original role—her chance at immortality. When one is offered to her, she finds the libretto is based on her deepest secret, something only four people have ever known. But who betrayed her? With epic sweep, gorgeous language, and haunting details, Alexander Chee shares Lilliet’s cunning transformation from circus rider to courtesan to legendary soprano, retracing the path that led to the role that could secure her reputation—or destroy her with the secrets it reveals. “It just sounds terrific. It sounds like opera.”—The New Yorker “Sprawling, soaring, bawdy, and plotted like a fine embroidery.”—NPR |
| defector autostraddle: This Is How We Fly Anna Meriano, 2020-12-15 *Truly enchanting.--Kirkus Reviews (starred review) A loose retelling of Cinderella, about a high-school graduate who--after getting grounded for the whole summer--joins a local Quidditch league and finds her footing, perfect for fans of Dumplin', Fangirl, and everyone who's read and adored Harry Potter. 17-year-old vegan feminist Ellen Lopez-Rourke has one muggy Houston summer left before college. She plans to spend every last moment with her two best friends before they go off to the opposite ends of Texas for school. But when Ellen is grounded for the entire summer by her (sometimes) evil stepmother, all her plans are thrown out the window. Determined to do something with her time, Ellen (with the help of BFF Melissa) convinces her parents to let her join the local muggle Quidditch team. An all-gender, full-contact game, Quidditch isn't quite what Ellen expects. There's no flying, no magic, just a bunch of scrappy players holding PVC pipe between their legs and throwing dodgeballs. Suddenly Ellen is thrown into the very different world of sports: her life is all practices, training, and running with a group of Harry Potter fans. Even as Melissa pulls away to pursue new relationships and their other BFF Xiumiao seems more interested in moving on from high school (and from Ellen), Ellen is steadily finding a place among her teammates. Maybe Quidditch is where she belongs. But with her home life and friend troubles quickly spinning out of control--Ellen must fight for the future that she wants, now she's playing for keeps. Filled with heart and humor, Anna Meriano's YA debut is perfect for fans of Dumplin' and Hot Dog Girl. Praise for This is How We Fly: *Readers will find much to appreciate about Ellen's fresh, relatable journey to define herself on her own terms. --Publishers Weekly (starred review) A timely coming-of-age story with a unique Quidditch twist.--School Library Journal Anna Meriano's This is How We Fly is a delightful treat of a book that will make you want to grab your broom and go! A story of a young woman at a crossroads summer, this tale tackles the growing pains of late adolescence - family struggles, changing friendships, new crushes - with so much grace and heart. See you on the pitch! - Jennifer Mathieu, author of The Liars of Mariposa Island and Moxie This is How We Fly breathes new life into a sport and retelling we think we know and lets them bake beneath the Texas sun. Anna Meriano has written one of the most authentic teen voice I've read in years.--Nina Moreno, author of Don't Date Rosa Santos This is How We Fly is, at its heart, about fierce friendships, flirty beaters, and firsts. Anna Meriano takes the magical fairytale of Cinderella and gives it a bookish twist. Ellen is an existential crisis on a broom and I love her. - Ashley Poston, National Bestselling Author of Geekerella Meriano adeptly weaves questions of identity, friendship and family into this delightful summer tale about the thrilling world of club Quidditch. At times both hilarious and heartbreaking, this incredible story is sure to leave you flying high.--Jennifer Dugan, author of Hot Dog Girl and Verona Comics |
| defector autostraddle: And They Lived . . . Steven Salvatore, 2022-03-08 From the author of Can't Take That Away comes a sex-positive, fairytale-inspired YA novel that celebrates first love and self-acceptance, perfect for fans of What If It's Us. My heart didn't stand a chance. I loved it from once upon a time all the way to its joyfully complex ever after. - New York Times bestselling author Becky Albertalli A jolt of lightning to my soul. The characters are so bright, the emotion is so vibrant, and the love is exquisitely electric. - Jason June, author of Jay's Gay Agenda Chase Arthur is a budding animator and hopeless romantic obsessed with Disney films and finding his true love, but he's plagued with the belief that he's not enough for anyone: he's recovering from an eating disorder and suffers from body dysmorphia fueled by his father, and can't quite figure out his gender identity. When Chase starts his freshman year of college, he has to navigate being away from home and missing his sister, finding his squad, and contending with his ex-best friend Leila who is gunning for the same exclusive mentorship. If only he can pull together a short for the freshman animation showcase at the end of the semester. Then Chase meets Jack Reid, a pragmatic poet who worships words and longs to experience life outside of his sheltered world. But Chase throws everything into question for Jack, who is still discovering his sexual identity, having grown up in close-knit conservative family. Jack internalized a lot of homophobia from his parents and childhood best friend, who unexpectedly visit campus, which threatens to destroy their relationship. Chase will have to learn to love--and be enough for--himself, while discovering what it means to truly live. |
| defector autostraddle: Crownchasers Rebecca Coffindaffer, 2020-09-29 A deadly race across 1,001 planets will determine more than just the fate of the empire. This explosive first book in a duology jam-packed with tension and thrills is perfect for fans of The Hunger Games, Aurora Rising, and Three Dark Crowns. Alyssa Farshot has spent her whole life trying to outrun her family legacy, even leaving behind the Kingship and her uncle, the emperor, for a life of exploring. But when her dying uncle announces a crownchase—a search for the royal seal hidden in the empire that will determine the next ruler—Alyssa is thrust into her greatest, most dangerous adventure yet. |
| defector autostraddle: How To Write An Autobiographical Novel Alexander Chee, 2018-04-17 Named a Best Book of 2018 by New York Magazine, the Washington Post, Publisher's Weekly, NPR, and Time, among many others, this essay collection from the author of The Queen of the Night explores how we form identities in life and in art. As a novelist, Alexander Chee has been described as “masterful” by Roxane Gay, “incendiary” by the New York Times, and brilliant by the Washington Post. With his first collection of nonfiction, he’s sure to secure his place as one of the finest essayists of his generation as well. How to Write an Autobiographical Novel is the author’s manifesto on the entangling of life, literature, and politics, and how the lessons learned from a life spent reading and writing fiction have changed him. In these essays, he grows from student to teacher, reader to writer, and reckons with his identities as a son, a gay man, a Korean American, an artist, an activist, a lover, and a friend. He examines some of the most formative experiences of his life and the nation’s history, including his father’s death, the AIDS crisis, 9/11, the jobs that supported his writing — Tarot-reading, bookselling, cater-waiting for William F. Buckley — the writing of his first novel, Edinburgh, and the election of Donald Trump. By turns commanding, heartbreaking, and wry, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel asks questions about how we create ourselves in life and in art, and how to fight when our dearest truths are under attack. Named a Best Book by: Time, Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Wired, Esquire, Buzzfeed, New York Public Library, Boston Globe, Paris Review, Mother Jones,The A.V. Club, Out Magazine, Book Riot, Electric Literature, PopSugar, The Rumpus, My Republica, Paste, Bitch, Library Journal, Flavorwire, Bustle, Christian Science Monitor, Shelf Awareness, Tor.com, Entertainment Cheat Sheet, Roads and Kingdoms, Chicago Public Library, Hyphen Magazine, Entropy Magazine, Chicago Review of Books, The Coil, iBooks, and Washington Independent Review of Books Winner of the Publishing Triangle's Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction * Recipient of the Lambda Literary Trustees' Award * Finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay * Finalist for a Lambda Literary Award for Gay Memoir/Biography |
| defector autostraddle: She Gets the Girl Rachael Lippincott, Alyson Derrick, 2022-04-05 She’s All That meets What If It’s Us in this New York Times bestselling hate-to-love YA romantic comedy from the coauthor of Five Feet Apart Rachael Lippincott and debut writer Alyson Derrick. Alex Blackwood is a little bit headstrong, with a dash of chaos and a whole lot of flirt. She knows how to get the girl. Keeping her on the other hand…not so much. Molly Parker has everything in her life totally in control, except for her complete awkwardness with just about anyone besides her mom. She knows she’s in love with the impossibly cool Cora Myers. She just…hasn’t actually talked to her yet. Alex and Molly don’t belong on the same planet, let alone the same college campus. But when Alex, fresh off a bad (but hopefully not permanent) breakup, discovers Molly’s hidden crush as their paths cross the night before classes start, they realize they might have a common interest after all. Because maybe if Alex volunteers to help Molly learn how to get her dream girl to fall for her, she can prove to her ex that she’s not a selfish flirt. That she’s ready for an actual commitment. And while Alex is the last person Molly would ever think she could trust, she can’t deny Alex knows what she’s doing with girls, unlike her. As the two embark on their five-step plans to get their girls to fall for them, though, they both begin to wonder if maybe they’re the ones falling…for each other. |
| defector autostraddle: Beyond the Ruby Veil Mara Fitzgerald, 2020-10-13 A dark, queer YA fantasy that's perfect for fans of the Three Dark Crowns series. After Emanuela Ragno kills the one person in Occhia who can create water, she must find a way to save her city from dying of thirst. Emanuela Ragno always gets what she wants. With her daring mind and socialite schemes, she refuses to be the demure young lady everyone wants her to be. In her most ambitious move yet, she's about to marry Alessandro Morandi, her childhood best friend and the heir to the wealthiest house in Occhia. Emanuela doesn't care that she and her groom are both gay, because she doesn't want a love match. She wants power, and through Ale, she'll have it all. But Emanuela has a secret that could shatter her plans. In the city of Occhia, the only source of water is the watercrea, a mysterious being who uses magic to make water from blood. When their first bruise-like omen appears on their skin, all Occhians must surrender themselves to the watercrea to be drained of life. Everyone throughout history has given themselves up for the greater good. Everyone except Emanuela. She's kept the tiny omen on her hip out of sight for years. When the watercrea exposes Emanuela during her wedding ceremony and takes her to be sacrificed, Emanuela fights back ... and kills her. Now Occhia has no one to make their water and no idea how to get more. In a race against time, Emanuela and Ale must travel through the mysterious, blood-red veil that surrounds their city to uncover the secrets of the watercrea's magic and find a way to save their people -- no matter what it takes. |
| defector autostraddle: Take the Mic: Fictional Stories of Everyday Resistance Jason Reynolds, Samira Ahmed, L. D. Lewis, Ray Stoeve, Laura Silverman, Sofia Quintero, Keah Brown, Darcie Little Badger, Yamile Saied Méndez, Bethany C. Morrow, 2019-10-01 A young adult anthology featuring fictional stories of everyday resistance. You might be the kind of person who stands up to online trolls.Or who marches to protest injustice.Perhaps you are #DisabledAndCute and dancing around your living room, alive and proud.Or perhaps you are the trans mentor that you wish you had when you were younger.Maybe you call out false allies, or stand up to loved ones. Maybe you speak your truth and drop the mic, or maybe you take it with you when you leave.This anthology features fictional stories--in poems, prose, and art--that reflect a slice of the varied and limitless ways that readers like you resist every day. Take the Mic's powerful collection of stories features work by literary luminaries and emerging talent alike, including Newbery-winner Jason Reynolds, New York Times bestseller Samira Ahmed, anthologist and contributor Bethany C. Morrow, Darcie Little Badger, Keah Brown, Laura Silverman, L.D. Lewis, Sofia Quintero, Ray Stoeve, Yamile Mendez, and Connie Sun, with cover and interior art by Richie Pope. |
| defector autostraddle: Him, Me, Muhammad Ali Randa Jarrar, 2016 With acerbic wit and tenderness, these often otherworldly stories capture the lives of Arab women across myriad geographies and circumstances. |
| defector autostraddle: The Disasters M. K. England, 2018-12-18 The Breakfast Club meets Guardians of the Galaxy in this YA sci-fi adventure by debut author M. K. England. Hotshot pilot Nax Hall has a history of making poor life choices. So it’s not exactly a surprise when he’s kicked out of the elite Ellis Station Academy in less than twenty-four hours. But Nax’s one-way trip back to Earth is cut short when a terrorist group attacks the Academy. Nax and three other washouts escape—barely—but they’re also the sole witnesses to the biggest crime in the history of space colonization. And the perfect scapegoats. On the run, Nax and his fellow failures plan to pull off a dangerous heist to spread the truth. Because they may not be “Academy material,” and they may not even get along, but they’re the only ones left to step up and fight. Full of high-stakes action, subversive humor, and underdogs becoming heroes, this YA sci-fi adventure is perfect for fans of Illuminae, Heart of Iron, or the cult classic TV show Firefly and is also a page-turning thrill ride that anyone—not just space nerds—can enjoy. |
| defector autostraddle: That Way Madness Lies Dahlia Adler, 2021-03-16 In That Way Madness Lies, fifteen acclaimed writers put their modern spin on William Shakespeare’s celebrated classics! “From comedy to tragedy to sonnet, from texts to storms to prom, this collection is a knockout.” —BuzzFeed.com West Side Story. 10 Things I Hate About You. Kiss Me, Kate. Contemporary audiences have always craved reimaginings of Shakespeare’s most beloved works. Now, some of today’s best writers for teens take on the Bard in these 15 whip-smart and original retellings! Contributors include Dahlia Adler (reimagining The Merchant of Venice), Kayla Ancrum (The Taming of the Shrew), Lily Anderson (As You Like It), Melissa Bashardoust (A Winter’s Tale), Patrice Caldwell (Hamlet), A. R. Capetta and Cori McCarthy (Much Ado About Nothing), Brittany Cavallaro (Sonnet 147), Joy McCullough (King Lear), Anna-Marie McLemore (Midsummer Night’s Dream), Samantha Mabry (Macbeth), Tochi Onyebuchi (Coriolanus), Mark Oshiro (Twelfth Night), Lindsay Smith (Julius Caesar), Kiersten White (Romeo and Juliet), and Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka (The Tempest). |
| defector autostraddle: Briar Girls Rebecca Kim Wells, 2022-11-15 Lena has a secret: the touch of her skin can kill ... But after a devastating mistake, she and her father are forced to flee to a village near the Silence, a mysterious forest with a reputation for luring people into the trees, never to be seen again ... Until the night an enigmatic girl stumbles out of the Silence ... Miranda ... is on a quest to wake a sleeping princess believed to hold the key to liberating the Gather from its tyrannical ruler and she offers Lena a bargain. If Lena assists her on her journey, Miranda will help her break the curse-- |
| defector autostraddle: The Honeys Ryan La Sala, 2022-08-18 When Mars Matthias loses his sister Caroline under horrific circumstances, it propels him to learn all he can about the once-inseparable sibling who'd grown tragically distant. Mars's gender-fluidity means he's often excluded from the traditions - and expectations - of his politically-connected family, including attendance at the prestigious Aspen Conservancy Summer Academy where his sister devoted so much of her time. But with his grief still fresh, he insists on attending in her place. The setting may be pristine and sun-drenched, but there's an undercurrent of tension buzzing ominously. Mars seeks out his sister's old friends: a group of girls dubbed the Honeys, named for the beehives they maintain behind their cabin. They are beautiful and terrifying - and Mars is certain they're connected to Caroline's death. But the longer he stays at Aspen, the more the sweet mountain breezes give way to hints of decay. Mars's memories begin to falter, bleached beneath the relentless summer sun. Something is hunting him in broad daylight, toying with his mind. If Mars can't find it soon, it will eat him alive... Heathers meets Midsommer |
| defector autostraddle: Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls T Kira Madden, 2024-07-25 'Utterly gorgeous' Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies 'Sad, funny, juicy and prickly with deep and secret thoughtful places' Mary Gaitskill, author of This is Pleasure _____ As a child, Madden lived a life of extravagance, from her exclusive private school to her equestrian trophies and designer shoe-brand name. But under the surface was a wild instability. The only child of parents continually battling drug and alcohol addictions, Madden confronted her environment alone. Facing a culture of assault and objectification, she found lifelines in the desperately loving friendships of fatherless girls. With unflinching honesty and lyrical prose, spanning from 1960s Hawai'i to the present-day struggle of a young woman mourning the loss of a father while unearthing truths that reframe her reality, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls is equal parts eulogy and love letter. It's a story about trauma and forgiveness, about families of blood and affinity, both lost and found, unmade and rebuilt, crooked and beautiful. |
| defector autostraddle: Beyond Rosie the Riveter Donna B. Knaff, 2014-01-10 The iconic bicep-flexing poster image of Rosie the Riveter has long conveyed the impression that women were welcomed into the World War II work force and admired for helping free a man to fight. Donna Knaff, however, shows that Rosie only revealed part of the reality and that women depicted in other World War II visual art-both in the private sector and the military-reflected decidedly mixed feelings about the status of women within American society. Beyond Rosie the Riveter takes readers back to a time before television's dominance, to the golden age of print art and its singular power over public opinion. Focusing specifically on instances of female masculinity when women entered previously all-male fields, Knaff places these images within the context of popular discussions of gender roles and examines their historical, cultural, and textual contexts. As Knaff reveals, visual messages received by women through war posters, magazine cartoons, comic strips, and ads may have acknowledged their importance to the war effort but also cautioned them against taking too many liberties or losing their femininity. Her study examines the subtle and not-so subtle cultural battles that played out in these popular images, opening a new window on American women's experience. Some images implicitly argued that women should maintain their femininity despite adopting masculinity for the war effort; others dealt with society's deep-seated fear that masculinized women might feminize men; and many reflected the dilemma that a woman was both encouraged to express and suppress her sexuality so that she might be perceived as neither promiscuous nor lesbian. From these cases, Knaff draws a common theme: while being outwardly empowered or celebrated for their wartime contributions, women were kept in check by being held responsible for everything from distracting male co-workers to compromising machinery with their long hair and jewelry. Knaff also notes the subtle distinctions among the images: government war posters targeted blue-collar women, New Yorker content was aimed at socialites, Collier's addressed middle-class women, and Wonder Woman was geared to young girls. Especially through its focus on visual arts, Knaff's book gives us a new look at American society decades before the modern women's rights movement, torn between wartime needs and antiquated gender roles. It provides much-needed nuance to a glossed-over chapter in our history, charting the difficult negotiations that granted-and ultimately took back-American women's wartime freedoms. |
| defector autostraddle: Out on Good Behavior Dahlia Adler, 2016-04-12 Frankie Bellisario knows she can get anyone she sets her sights on, but just because she can doesn't mean she should-not when the person she's eyeing is Samara Kazarian, the daughter of a southern Republican mayor. No matter how badly Frankie wants to test her powers of persuasion, even she recognizes some lines aren't meant to be crossed. But when Frankie learns she's been on Samara's mind too, the idea of hooking up with her grows too strong to resist. Only Sam's not looking for a hookup; she wants-needs-the real thing, and she's afraid she'll never find it as long as Frankie's in her head. Forced to choose between her first relationship and losing the girl who's been clawing her way under her skin, Frankie opts to try monogamy...under her own condition: 30 days of keeping things on the down low and remaining abstinent. If she fails as hard at girlfriending as she's afraid she might, she doesn't want to throw Samara's life into upheaval for nothing. But when neither the month nor Frankie's heart go according to plan, she may be the one stuck fighting for the happily ever after she never knew she wanted. |
| defector autostraddle: The (Un)Popular Vote Jasper Sanchez, 2021-06-01 Red, White, & Royal Blue meets The West Wing in Jasper Sanchez’s electric and insightful #ownvoices YA debut, chronicling a transmasculine student’s foray into a no-holds-barred student body president election against the wishes of his politician father. Optics can make or break an election. Everything Mark knows about politics, he learned from his father, the Congressman who still pretends he has a daughter and not a son. Mark has promised to keep his past hidden and pretend to be the cis guy everyone assumes he is. But when he sees a manipulatively charming candidate for student body president inflame dangerous rhetoric, Mark risks his low profile to become a political challenger. The problem? No one really knows Mark. He didn’t grow up in this town, and his few friends are all nerds. Still, thanks to Scandal and The West Wing, they know where to start: from campaign stops to voter polling to a fashion makeover. Soon Mark feels emboldened to engage with voters—and even start a new romance. But with an investigative journalist digging into his past, a father trying to silence him, and the bully frontrunner standing in his way, Mark will have to decide which matters most: perception or truth, when both are just as dangerous. “Mind-bogglingly good. This is a novel that every teen needs.” —Kacen Callender, author of Felix Ever After Charming, stunning, and unapologetically queer. —Mason Deaver, bestselling author of I Wish You All the Best and The Ghosts We Keep |
| defector autostraddle: That Inevitable Victorian Thing E. K. Johnston, 2018-10-23 In a near-future Toronto where the British Empire never fell, Helena, August, and Margaret are caught off-guard by the discovery of a love so intense they are willing to change the course of the monarchy to keep it. |
| defector autostraddle: Be Dazzled Ryan La Sala, 2024-02-06 When I see him, I see us. How we came together, what we created, what we ruined. The only way to understand how we fell apart is to understand what we were made of in the first place. Raffy can make anything. He can bedazzle, sew, stitch, drape, and turn the most ordinary objects into fabulous costumes. This year he is determined to win the biggest cosplay competition in Boston. There's only one small problem... Raffy's ex-boyfriend, Luca, is his main competition. Last year Luca and Raffy made the perfect team after serendipitously meeting in the rhinestone aisle at the local craft store--or at least Raffy thought they did. But Luca's fear of coming out to his family and Raffy's insistence on perfection when it came to their art, caused their relationship to crash and burn. And Raffy has finally picked up the pieces and is determine to have the major comeback he knows he deserves. But when Raffy ends up partnering with Luca on his most ambitious build yet, he'll have to juggle unresolved feelings for the boy who broke his heart and his own self-doubt as he works to get everything he's ever wanted...and maybe the boy too. Praise for Be Dazzled: A sequin-filled romance that's also a love letter to the craft and creativity of cosplay.--Publishers Weekly (STARRED REVIEW) A charming, geeky love story filled with all the con drama readers could wish for.--Kirkus Reviews A crafty queer romance about self-acceptance, and a delightful addition to YA collections.--School Library Journal Heartfelt and hilarious, Be Dazzled is an artfully crafted ode to teen ambition and first love. From the book's charming cast to Raffy's quick-witted voice, La Sala's contemporary debut simply dazzles.--Phil Stamper, bestselling author of The Gravity of Us |
| defector autostraddle: The Sound of Stars Alechia Dow, 2021-12-07 Can a girl who risks her life for books and an Ilori who loves pop music work together to save humanity? A beautiful and thrilling debut novel for fans of Marie Lu and Veronica Roth. When a rebel librarian meets an Ilori commander... Two years ago, a misunderstanding between the leaders of Earth and the invading Ilori resulted in the death of one-third of the world's population. Today, seventeen-year-old Ellie Baker survives in an Ilori-controlled center in New York City. All art, books and creative expression are illegal, but Ellie breaks the rules by keeping a secret library. When young Ilori commander M0Rr1S (Morris) finds Ellie's illegal library, he's duty-bound to deliver her for execution. But Morris isn't a typical Ilori...and Ellie and her books might be the key to a desperate rebellion of his own. Praise for The Sound of Stars This book has everything! --Joelle Charbonneau, New York Times bestselling author of The Testing and Verify Alechia Dow is an incredible new voice. --Saundra Mitchell, author of The Prom novel and editor of All Out and Out Now Stunning. --K. Ancrum, author of The Wicker King |
| defector autostraddle: Far From You Tess Sharpe, 2014-04-08 For fans of Holly Jackson and Courtney Summers, Far From You is an emotionally raw, achingly beautiful novel of murder, addiction, love—and justice. The truth won't let her go. Sophie Winters nearly died. Twice. The first time, she's fourteen, and escapes a near-fatal car accident with scars, a bum leg, and an addiction to Oxy that'll take years to kick. The second time, she's seventeen, and it's no accident. Sophie and her best friend Mina are confronted by a masked man in the woods. Sophie survives, but Mina is not so lucky. When the cops deem Mina's murder a drug deal gone wrong, casting partial blame on Sophie, no one will believe the truth: Sophie has been clean for months, and it was Mina who led her into the woods that night for a meeting shrouded in mystery. After a forced stint in rehab, Sophie returns home to a chilly new reality. Mina's brother won't speak to her, her parents fear she'll relapse, old friends have become enemies, and Sophie has to learn how to live without her other half. To make matters worse, no one is looking in the right places and Sophie must search for Mina's murderer on her own. But with every step, Sophie comes closer to revealing all: about herself, about Mina---and about the secret they shared. |
| defector autostraddle: Love and Other Natural Disasters Misa Sugiura, 2021-06-08 Nozomi Nagai and her brother Max are in San Francisco to live and work for their uncle Stephen for the summer as interns at an art museum. There she meets the perfect girl: Willow. When Willow enlists Nozomi to pose as her new girlfriend to make her ex jealous, Nozomi has a master plan of her own: turn their fauxmance into something real. As the lies pile up, it's not long before Nozomi's schemes take a turn toward disaster-- and maybe a chance at love she didn't plan for. -- adapted from jacket and perusal of book. |
| defector autostraddle: Aces Wild Amanda DeWitt, 2023-09-05 What happens in Vegas when an all-asexual online friend group attempts to break into a high-stakes gambling club? Shenanigans ensue. Some people join chess club, some people play football. Jack Shannon runs a secret blackjack ring in his private school’s basement. What else is the son of a Las Vegas casino mogul supposed to do? Everything starts falling apart when Jack’s mom is arrested for their family’s ties to organized crime. His sister Beth thinks this is the Shannon family’s chance to finally go straight, but Jack knows that something’s not right. His mom was sold out, and he knows by who. Peter Carlevaro: rival casino owner, mobster, and jilted lover. Gross. Jack hatches a plan to break into Carlevaro’s inner sanctum and find what he’s holding over his mom’s head, but Jack’s going to need help. He recruits his closest friends, his online asexual support group, to form his team. All he needs to do is infiltrate a secret high stakes gambling club, save his mom, and dodge any dark secrets about his family he’d rather not know, while hopelessly navigating what it means to be in love while asexual. Easy, right? |
| defector autostraddle: Handbook for Hands that Alter as We Hold Them Out Kate Schapira, 2016 Poetry. A spell that works every time isn't a spell, yet a potent text may reliably reveal a state in which the unknown works in us as elixir, marking, remaking us. Make no mistake, these words are alive like a million mouths of velvet. Open this book and simultaneously open your consciousness to murky spore printed technology for speaking with the dead, the wayward, omens, bed-burnt ignorance and women with extra heads. Schapira's adroit visceral poems delve courageously into empathetic ecology, mixing rot with root-lightning and unveiling hidden realms, which like rich soil provide necessary gestational darkness. Who will you be when you finish reading this book? You may leave your heart or swallow it again. Laynie Browne |
| defector autostraddle: Can't Buy My Love Jean Kilbourne, 2012-06-26 When was the last time you felt this comfortable in a relationship? -- An ad for sneakers You can love it without getting your heart broken. -- An ad for a car Until I find a real man, I'll settle for a real smoke. -- A woman in a cigarette ad Many advertisements these days make us feel as if we have an intimate, even passionate relationship with a product. But as Jean Kilbourne points out in this fascinating and shocking exposé, the dreamlike promise of advertising always leaves us hungry for more. We can never be satisfied, because the products we love cannot love us back. Drawing upon her knowledge of psychology, media, and women's issues, Kilbourne offers nothing less than a new understanding of a ubiquitous phenomenon in our culture. The average American is exposed to over 3,000 advertisements a day and watches three years' worth of television ads over the course of a lifetime. Kilbourne paints a gripping portrait of how this barrage of advertising drastically affects young people, especially girls, by offering false promises of rebellion, connection, and control. She also offers a surprising analysis of the way advertising creates and then feeds an addictive mentality that often continues throughout adulthood. |
| defector autostraddle: The Rise of Illiberalism Thomas J. Main, 2021-10-01 How a more positive form of identity politics can restore public trust in government Illiberalism, Thomas Main writes, is the basic repudiation of liberal democracy, the very foundation on which the United States rests. It says no to electoral democracy, human rights, the rule of law, toleration. It is a political ideology that finds expression in such older right-wing extremist groups as the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacists and more recently among the Alt-Right and the Dark Enlightenment. There are also left-of-center illiberal movements, including various forms of communism, anarchism, and some antifascist movements. The Rise of Illiberalism explores the philosophical underpinnings of this toxic political ideology and documents how it has infiltrated the mainstream of political discourse in the United States. By the early twenty-first century, Main writes, liberal democracy’s failure to deal adequately with social problems created a space illiberal movements could exploit to promote their particular brands of identity politics as an alternative. A critical need thus is for what the author calls “positive identity politics,” or a widely shared sense of community that gives a feeling of equal importance to all sectors of society. Achieving this goal will, however, be an enormous challenge. In seeking actionable remedies for the broken political system of the United States, this book makes a major scholarly contribution to current debates about the future of liberal democracy. |
| defector autostraddle: Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas After Reconstruction Nell Irvin Painter, 1992-05-17 The first full-length scholarly study of this migration and of the forces that produced it.—David H. Donald, New York Times Book Review The first major migration to the North of ex-slaves. |
| defector autostraddle: Into the Midnight Void Mara Fitzgerald, 2022-01-25 Fans of Holly Black and Kendare Blake will obsess over the conclusion to this deliciously dark YA fantasy duology! Emanuela has finally gotten what she's always wanted. Since escaping her catacomb prison, she's become the supreme ruler of everything under the veils. Finally, she has the power to throw aside senseless, old traditions and run things exactly the way they should be. But when cracks in her magic start to show, Emanuela begrudgingly allies herself with her enemies, including her frustratingly alluring archnemesis, Verene. Together, they discover deeper truths about the mysterious blood magic Emanuela and Verene both wield. There is a higher, otherworldly authority outside the veils, and in order to save Occhia and the other realms, Emanuela may just have to rip another crown off someone's head. |
| defector autostraddle: Hattie McDaniel Jill Watts, 2007-02-06 Hattie McDaniel is best known for her performance as Mammy, the sassy foil to Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind. Though the role called for yet another wide–grinned, subservient black domestic, McDaniel transformed her character into one who was loyal yet subversive, devoted yet bossy. Her powerful performance would win her the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress and catapult the hopes of Black Hollywood that the entertainment industry ––after decades of stereotypical characters–– was finally ready to write more multidimensional, fully realized roles for blacks. But racism was so entrenched in Hollywood that despite pleas by organizations such as the NAACP and SAG ––and the very examples that Black service men were setting as they fought against Hitler in WWII–– roles for blacks continued to denigrate the African American experience. So rather than see her stature increase in Hollywood, as did other Oscar–winning actresses, Hattie McDaniel, continued to play servants. And rather than see her popularity increase, her audience turned against her as an increasingly politicized black community criticized her and her peers for accepting degrading roles. I'd rather play a maid then be a maid, Hattie McDaniel answered her critics but her flip response belied a woman who was herself emotionally conflicted about the roles she accepted but who tried to imbue each Mammy character with dignity and nuance. |
| defector autostraddle: Uncommon Charm Emily Bergslien, Kat Weaver, 2022-05-17 |
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