The authors of PROUD reveal their recommendations of LGBTQ+ lit!
For this post, I asked Stripes for some recommendations of books that some of the authors featured in the anthology would recommend to readers looking for some more LGBTQ+ to read and boy did they deliver! So get something to take notes on because you'll want to jot down some of these amazing titles they came up with! I'm adding a bunch of them to my own list!
1) What was the Queer book or poem you connected with personally as a young reader and why did it connect with you?
Simon James Green: BEAUTIFUL THING by Jonathan Harvey. It’s not actually a novel, it was originally a play, and then later a film. It’s about two teenage boys growing up on a council estate in South London, and it was written in the 90s. The dialogue is so real, and the story is so tender and, indeed, beautiful. You can buy the script (and you can watch the film) and I’d highly recommend it.
Michael Lee Richardson: Recently, Casey Plett’s Little Fish, about a trans woman finding out that her religious grandfather might also have been trans. Casey Plett is so good at character, and this book - her first novel - is so sharp and honest and witty.
Karen Lawler : My Real Children by Jo Walton - an alternate history title that follows its main character through two different versions of post-WW2 history (neither matches ours) and two versions of her life. In one she finds love, but the world is much worse than the one we know. In the other she finds heartbreak, but we have colonies on the moon. I was particularly moved by the questions it raised about individual happiness vs collective good, inevitability and the ways in which small actions can have huge consequences.
Moïra Fowley-Doyle: Kissing the Witch by Emma Donoghue -- a collection of queer fairytale retellings that I first read & fell in love with at 14
Cynthia So: Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World by Ashley Herring Blake. A 12-year-old girl has a crush on another girl and realises she likes girls - I realised I was queer at about the same age!
2) Share a current book that you think someone who enjoys your story in PROUD would like to read next.
Simon James Green: Check out FLYING TIPS FOR FLIGHTLESS BIRDS by Kelly McCaughrain, RUNNING WITH LIONS by Julian Winters, OUT OF THE BLUE by Sophie Cameron, and JACK OF HEARTS by L.C. Rosen.
Michael Lee Richardson: Simon James Green’s books, Noah Can’t Even and Noah Could Never, are fab! There should be more funny books about GBT boys.
Moïra Fowley-Doyle: Ask the Passengers by AS King -- a gorgeous contemporary YA with a dash of magic realism about a queer teen girl figuring herself out
Cynthia So: Picture Us in the Light by Kelly Loy Gilbert, a contemporary realistic story about a Chinese-American boy who's an artist and in love with his best friend.
Karen Lawler: Simon vs the Homosapien Agenda. Contemporary gay teen romance for the win.
3) What Queer books do you love?
Simon James Green: BOY MEETS BOY by David Levithan. The final line of that book is probably my favourite final line, ever.
Michael Lee Richardson: I’m hoovering up Alice Oseman’s books at the moment - so much stuff about queer friendships and relationships and fandom and internet culture - love ‘em!
Moïra Fowley-Doyle: Jeanette Winterson has been one of my favourite authors since my secondary school English teacher lent me her copy of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit after I wrote a short story in class when I was fifteen about two girls falling in love. Every copy of her books I have has been heavily underlined by me at various ages since.
Cynthia So: The Miseducation of Cameron Post by emily m. danforth!
Karen Lawler: Sarah Waters and more specifically Fingersmith are my favourites. Fingersmith has it all - a brilliant, pacey, surprising plot, excellent and well-developed characters, a historical setting that completely comes alive, and a hot lesbian romance.
Author Bios:
Simon James Green is an author and screenwriter. His debut YA novel, Noah Can’t Even, was published by Scholastic in May 2017, followed by the sequel, Noah Could Never, in June 2018. The books have also been optioned for TV by Urban Myth Films. Simon’s screen credits include co-writing feature-length rom-com Rules of Love (BBC), and a short stint directing Hollyoaks (C4).
Michael Lee Richardson is a writer and youth worker from Glasgow. As a screenwriter he has written comedy for CBBC and BBC Alba. His original work has been shortlisted for BBC Scotland’s Frank Deasy Award and the BAFTA Rocliffe Comedy Award, and his young adult comedy ‘Real Life Experience’ was ‘highly commended’ for BBC Writersroom’s Trans Comedy Award. In 2015 he won the Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award in the Children and Young Adult category. As a youth worker, he set up and ran Trans Youth Glasgow, part of LGBT Youth Scotland. He currently works for LEAP Sports Scotland on Trans Team, a project aimed at encouraging transgender young people to engage with sport and outdoor activities. www.hrfmichael.co.uk
Karen Lawler is an American living in London with her awesome wife and extremely cute dog Buffy. She loves reading, especially sci-fi, fantasy, YA, and historical non-fiction, and she funds her book habit by working in children’s publishing. She loves a good teen movie (10 Things I Hate About You is the best and she will fight you on that). This is the first time her writing has appeared in print.
Moïra Fowley-Doyle is the author of The Accident Season, which was shortlisted for the 2015 Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, and Spellbook of the Lost and Found, which was shortlisted for the 2017 Irish Book Awards. Moïra is half- French, half-Irish and lives in Dublin with her husband, two daughters and two cats.
Cynthia So is bisexual and proud to be queer. She is Chinese, born in Hong Kong and now living in London. She studied Classics at university. Her writing has appeared in speculative fiction magazines including Anathema: Spec from the Margins, which publishes work by queer people of colour.
