December’s Most Anticipated LGBTQ Books

Author: Sydney Heidenberg

December 3, 2020

December’s here. The end of the cycle. It is always important to take a moment and reflect as the year comes to an end, and it is all the more necessary to do so after a whirlwind year such as 2020.

December is like reaching the last page of an addicting novel and being left on a cliff-hanger. Some storylines were nicely tied up, other questions still remain unanswered, and you start prophesizing about the sequel. You accept the completion of this part of the story, yet look forward to where it’ll take you next.

Take this final month of the year to reflect on everything you have seen and experienced. Take it all in, and allow yourself to be refreshed and ready to embrace the new year. Take a breath, read a book, and prepare yourself.

December’s anticipated LGBTQ+ books are here for you.

Take an exhilarating trip into the future with the Black queer-centered collection Black Futures. Edited by Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham, Black Futures offers “images, photos, essays, memes, dialogues, recipes, tweets, poetry, and more–to tell the story of the radical, imaginative, provocative, and gorgeous world that Black creators are bringing forth today.”

If you’d like to take a moment to reflect, The Freezer Door by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore “records the ebb and flow of desire in daily life” and questions what it is to belong. Flip through The Drag Explosion, a collection of photos by Linda Simpson from the 1980s and 90s, “a tribute to a golden age” of the drag scene.

Embrace and remember history in the wake of World AIDS Day with The Storm: One Voice From the AIDS Generation by Christopher Zyda, a memoir of living through the epidemic in Los Angeles during the 80s and 90s. Discover the work of Ruth Coker Burks in All the Young Men, the telling of the bonds she made as a nurse for HIV/AIDS patients at the beginning of the crisis. Or grapple with the resilience and struggle wrought by the AIDS epidemic in the new fiction title As If Death Summoned by Alan Rose. Rose’s novel “testifies to the power of grief to erode a life, and–for those who can find a way through their grief–the power to rebuild and renew it.”

Face your fears with a chilling contemporary queer ghost story, one that mixes the threat of gentrification with supernatural unrest. Sam J. Miller’s The Blade Between explores “a rapidly changing city in upstate New York and the mysterious forces that threaten it.”

Refresh yourself with a modern retelling of Sophocles’ Antigone with Tiny by Mairead Case, a journey that delves into mourning and understanding grief. Go on a journey of self-discovering with The Ballad of Ami Miles by Kristy Dallas Alley. Read of a dystopian future, resistance, and a heroic drag queen in Crosshairs by Catherine Hernandez.

Give poetry a try with Wound from the Mouth of a Wound by Torrin A. Greathouse, a nod to persistence and a collection that “teaches us that fragility is not synonymous with flaw.” Kopano Maroga’s debut of Jesus Thesis and Other Critical Fabulations: Poems is an introspective anthology that works alongside Christian myth so they may emerge “reborn.”

There is so much unknown waiting for us in 2021. Whether you are looking to reflect on the year, or refresh yourself and prepare for the new year, there is something waiting for you in this month’s releases. Look through these new arrivals, and find what it is you need to close out the year.

If our list is missing an author or a book, or if you have a book coming out next month, please email us.

Fiction

As If Death Summoned by Alan Rose, Amble Press /Bywater Books
Crosshairs by Catherine Hernandez, Atria Books
Do Not Feed the Bear by Rachel Elliot, Tinder Press
Kill a Man by Steve Orlando and Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Aftershock Comics
Love, the Magician by Brian Bouldrey, Requeered Tales (Reprint)
Martha Moody: a novel by Susan Stinson, Small Beer Press (Reprint)
Rising Out by M. Azmitia, West 44 Books
Riverrun by Danton Remoto, Penguin Random House Sea
Severed by Ignacio Lopez, 53rd State Press
Slaying Dragons by McGee Matthews, Stone Soup Community Press
These Bodies by Morgan Christe, Tolsun Books,
Tiny by Mairead Case, Featherproof Books
Water Sports; Or Insignificant White Boys by Jeremy O. Harris, 53rd State Press

Nonfiction

All the Young Men by Ruth Coker Burks with Kevin Carr O’Leary, Grove
Coming Out: Insights and Tips for Teenagers by Kezia Endsley, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
The Drag Explosion by Linda Simpson, Domain Books
Towards a Theology of Same-Sex Marriage: Squaring the Circle by Clare Herbert, Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Black Futures edited by Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham, Penguin Random House

LGBTQ Studies

A Comprehensive Guide to Intersex by Jay Kyle Petersen, Jessica Kingsley Publishers
A Queer History of Adolescence: Developmental Pasts, Relational Futures by Gabrielle Owen, University of Georgia Press
Bread and Roses: Gender and Class Under Capitalism by Andrea D’Atri, Pluto Press
Decolonizing Queer Experience: LGBT+ Narratives from Eastern Europe and Eurasia by Emily Channell-Justice, Lexington Books
Drag Queens and Beauty Queens: Contesting Femininity in the World’s Playground by Laurie Greene, Rutgers University Press
Gender, Sexuality, Decolonization: The Invisible South Asia by Ahonaa Roy, Routledge Chapman & Hall
Good White Queers?: Racism and Whiteness in Queer U.S. Comics by Linke Kai, Transcript Publishing
LGBTQ Culture: The Changing Landscape by Bruce E. Drushel, Routledge
Modernism and the Idea of the Crowd by Judith Paltin, Cambridge University Press
Streetwalking: LGBTQ Lives and Protest in the Dominican Republic by Ana-Maurine Lara, Rutgers University Press
Producing the Archival Body by Jamie A. Lee, Routledge
Sexualities and Society: An Introduction by Megan Todd, Sage Publications Ltd
Singing Out: Gala Choruses and Social Change by Heather MacLachlan, University of Michigan Press
Wild Visionary: Maurice Sendak in Queer Jewish Context by Golan Y. Moskowitz, Stanford University Press

Bio/Memoir

A Dutiful Boy: A Memoir of a Gay Muslim’s Journey to Acceptance by Mohsin Zaidi, Square Peg
American Exxxtasy My 30-Year Search for a Happy Ending by John Amero, FAB Press
Reflections of My Life by Paul Kuypers, Koehler Books
Sometimes You Have to Lie: The Life and Times of Louise Fitzhugh, Renegade Author of Harriet the Spy by Leslie Brody, Seal Press
The Cruising Diaries: Expanded Edition by Brontez Purnell, Silver Sprocket
The Freezer Door by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Semiotext(e)
The Storm: One Voice From the AIDS Generation by Christopher Zyda, Rare Bird Books
To Be a Gay Man by Will Young, Virgin Books
Tom of Finland: Made in Germany by Durk Dehner and Michael P. Hartlebe, Skira

Romance

All I Want for Christmas by Georgia Beers, Maggie Cummings, and Fiona Riley, Bold Strokes Books
Heart of the Storm by Nicole Stiling, Bold Strokes Books
In the Absence of Men by Philippe Besson, Vintage Classics
Jackpot by Cade Haddock Strong, Bella Books
Love Changes Everything by Jaime Maddox, Bold Strokes Books
Maybe Charlotte by Louise McBain, Bella Books
Not This Time by MA Binfield, Bold Strokes Books
Party Favors by Erin McLellan, Erin McLellan
School of Fish by Amy Lane, Dreamspinner Press
The Found Jar by Jaycie Morrison, Bold Strokes Books
16 Steps to Forever by Georgia Beers, Bold Strokes Books