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2013: The Year in Lesbian/Bi Books

When wrapping up the year 2013 in the world of lesbian and queer literature, one word comes to mind: variety. It was a great year in non-fiction; graphic novels once again made their way to the forefront; heavy-hitter lesbian authors released new fiction, including Michelle Tea, Ali Liebegott and Jeanette Winterson; and straight authors increasingly took up the mantle of writing more and more queer characters into the mix. Non-fiction Transgender writer and activist Julia Serano published her first work since 2007’s Whipping Girl with Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive, published this fall from Seal Press. This is a topic that always needs more attention, and Julia Serano is the perfect person to do it. Queens of Noise: The Real Story of The Runaways by Evelyn McDonnell took an in-depth look at the too-short-lived female punk rock band of the 1970s that helped pave the way for the riot grrrls decades later. Including interviews with most of the former members of The Runaways, McDonnell documents well an important and perhaps overlooked portion of queer musical and social history. It seems there’s always at least a couple of outstanding memoirs each year in our world, and in 2013 two that stood out were Kelli Dunham‘s Freak of Nurture and Amber Dawn‘s How Poetry Saved My Life. Duham’s collection of essays is consistently funny and inspiringly optimistic, while Dawn’s tale, told through both poetry and prose, shows some of her darkest days hustling on the streets of Vancouver, BC, and how she scraped her way to a better life. Fiction & YA Michelle Tea, of Rent Girl and Sister Spit fame, has spent the last few years both delving into YA and returning to her Chelsea, Massachusetts roots, and she continued the trend with her release this year of Mermaid in Chelsea Creek, gorgeously published by McSweeney’s. Lemony Snicket blurbed it, and his words are always much better than mine could ever be: “The novel has everything terrific about Michelle Tea, with the grit and the wit and the girls in trouble loving each other fierce and true, and then it has all the juice of a terrific fantasy novel, with the magic and the creatures and the otherworldly sense of something lurking underneath each artifact of our ordinary lives.” Another Sister Spit alum, poet Ali Liebegott released the aching Cha-Ching!, which is, as Sarah Schulman put it, a “deeply romantic story about a fucked-up dyke, her pit bull, her search for love, her tenuous grasp on hope, a pretty girl and the literal spin of the wheel” as she makes her way from San Francisco to New York City, navigating her way through addiction and poverty. Susan Choi also got a lot of attention with My Education, a novel about graduate student Regina Gottlieb who gets too wrapped up not just in the life of her male professor, but also that of his wife. While Jeanette Winterson’s dark tale of witchcraft and lesbians in early 17th Century England, The Daylight Gate, was actually released in the UK last year, it had its first release in the States in 2013. Nicola Griffith, author of lesbian and feminist novels such as Ammonite and Slow River, came out with a sweeping historical novel of a kickass woman living in the Middle Ages, Hild, dealing with all the violence and ruthlessness of the age. Hild becomes an essential asset to her uncle, who’s plotting to overthrow the king. She acts as a “seer,” and how she chooses to use her power can have serious consequences. We also saw the conclusion of bisexual Reese Holloway’s alien adventures in Malinda Lo‘s Inheritance, sequel to her sci-fi thriller of last year, Adaptation, including seeing how things turned out with her dual love interests of Amber and David. While I loved these stories from Lo, along with a few other YA novels with lesbian protagonists, such as e.E. Charlton-Trujillo‘s Fat Angie, overall I felt like there were fewer blockbusters in this category this year than there were last year. Perhaps that’s because of statistics that Malinda Lo so wonderfully wrapped up about LGBT YA lit in 2013, where she found that cisgender male main characters were dominant, and also that mainstream publishers published less LGBT lit this year than last. She did even more number crunching in looking at trends over the last ten years, however, and those results were definitely brighter. Getting Graphic Nicole Georges graphic memoir Calling Dr. Laura actually encompassed way more than just her bouts of calling radio talk-show host Laura Schlessinger, whom she calls to talk about her mysterious dad, who she had always believed to be dead until her early 20s. But the book is also about growing up in general, falling in and out of love, and living lesbian life in Portland, Oregon. And of course, while Julie Maroh‘s Le bleu est une couleur chaude was published in France a few years ago, an English translation of Blue is the Warmest Color was published by Arsenal Pulp this year. And while issues surrounding the movie have been full of dramatics, the graphic novel is a moving coming of age tale of Clementine and the woman who changes her life, the magnetic, blue haired Emma. It also seems like we can’t go a year these days without some female-driven outrage in the world of comics: Last year, it was Gail Simone getting the boot from DC and Batgirl, after which she was soon reinstated. This year, it was the creative team behind Batwoman calling it quits after DC supposedly refused to allow Maggie and Kate Kane to get married. DC announced that gay writer Marc Andreyko would take the reigns, which felt promising, but as Heather Hogan reviewed the first issue with the new team, disappointment is actually what reigned instead. New Voices The breakout voice of the year was undoubtedly Imogen Binnie with her debut novel Nevada, published by Topside Press. This dark comedy follows the journey of punk transwoman Maria Griffith, living in New York City and dealing with the aftermath of discovering lies told by her girlfriend. Lebsians Written by Non-Lesbian Folk While gay men have frequently been protagonists or major characters in “mainstream” literature over the last few years, for whatever reason, lesbians have often been much less visible in works by non-queer authors. That began to change this year, most notably with We Are Water, the newest novel by big time author Wally Lamb, of She’s Come Undone fame. The event the plot revolves around is a lesbian marriage in Connecticut between Vivian Oh, who has split with her husband after 27 years of marriage and three children, and Viveca, the art dealer Vivian has fallen in love with. We Are Water is told from the points of view of varying family members who are connected with the couple, and traverses issues of family, class, and love. Another aquatically named big title this year was Bodies of Water by T. Greenwood, chronicling the life of a young housewife in the 1960s, Billie Valentine, whose drab existence is soon invigorated by the new family who moves in across the street–specifically by the mother, Eva. An affair follows that brings Billie true happiness for the first time in her life, but that also has long term impacts on both families. A completely different type of novel, Bombshell by James Reich was a feminist, political thriller about a world in nuclear meltdown. The protagonist is a Russian woman obsessed with Valerie Solanas, the radical feminist who died in the ’80s and was famous for her attempted assassination of Andy Warhol. She follows Solanas’ legacy across the US, carrying out acts against nuclear power plants while being pursued by CIA. Best of the Indies and Self-Published This is one area where I always feel that AfterEllen readers know more than I do, so I loved seeing all the books that were either self-published or released from smaller presses that were nominated for the Visibility Awards this year. The Gravity Between Us by Kristen Zimmer is considered “new adult,” another buzz phrase of 2013 that refers to a novel that fits in an area between YA and adult. Zimmer introduces us to Kendall Bettencourt, a young Hollywood star who moves her longtime best friend Payton to LA, so that she can have at least one person with her who knows who she really is. Except there’s one thing Payton knows that Kendall doesn’t: that she wishes Kendall was more than just her best friend. Exception to the Rule by Cindy Rizzo was another popular title, this romance being between two college freshman in Massachusetts who come from completely different worlds. This opposites-attract tale also includes glimpses into the often overlooked world of the LGBT homeless community. Other favorites this year included Playing My Love by Angie Peach and At Seventeen by Gerri Hill, as well as The Eternal Autumn by Cassandra Duffy, the second book of a series set in a witchy fantasy world full of “sinister beauty.” In the Less-Queer But Still Exciting Book World The Nobel Prize in Literature this year was award to a woman, which is always a reason to cheer. Canadian Alice Munro was awarded for being a master of the contemporary short story, the first female winner since Herta Muller in 2009. The prestigious Booker Prize was also given to a lady this year, Eleanor Catton, for her massive novel The Luminaries. Catton is also a mere 28 years old (in case you haven’t had an opportunity today to feel badly about yourself yet). Also, remember that time J.K. Rowling released a crime novel under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith? J.K. and Beyonce, pulling out all the stops with their surprises in the 2013. The Cuckoo’s Calling shot up the bestseller charts this summer after the big reveal, although it’s important to note that Robert Galbraith had already received positive reviews from establishments such as the New York Times before he was outed as J.K.

Coming in 2014 Books to look forward to in 2014 include rockstar Janet Mock‘s memoir, Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More, due out in February. It follows her adolescence in Hawaii to having sex-reassignment surgery at the age of 18 to her now extraordinary success in New York City. Irish-Canadian legend Emma Donoghue‘s new novel Frog Music will be released on April Fool’s Day in 2014, a lyrical mystery set in San Francisco in 1876. It tells the story of murdered Jenny Bonnet and her friend, burlesque dancer Blanche Beunon, who is determined to find her killer. Prolific lesbian YA author Julie Anne Peters will release her next tale of young lesbian woe with Lies My Girlfriend Told Me in June. If the title already sounds ominous, just wait: the protagonist discovers these lies after her girlfriend has died of sudden cardiac arrest. Another fantastic YA author, Nina LaCour, will have a new book in May, Everything Leads to You, that revolves around a young lesbian’s search for healthy, sustainable love in the world of Hollywood. And for Weetzie Bat and Francesca Lia Block fans, the magical author will have not just one but two new books next year, Teen Spirit in February and The Island of Excess Love in August. What have I missed? What were your favorite books or literary moments of 2013?

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