January’s Most Anticipated LGBTQIA+ Literature

Author: Edit Team

January 6, 2022

Readers, good morning and welcome back. Shake off those last dregs of Lang Syne daze caught in the rafters and rub away the indents on your nose, fresh from the heft of those numeral glasses, fashionably bold… It’s 2022, and you’ve made it aboard! Of course, each month brings a new beginning, but the first of the year, when the ripe sun drops into endlessly dark waters, is a potent time for re-evaluation, reflection, and course correction for the quiet nights to come. Have you your sexton and nightlamp, brave reader? Because we’ve laid out the treasure map for this month’s Most Anticipated LGBTQIA+ Literature, and like always, the tales of queer lit are vast and take many forms.

From a novel on twins doomed to fall to an ancestral curse, to a deep re-imagining of sissiness in our modern understandings of race and gender, to teen love between hockey players that’s literally too hot to handle, to poems textured with mountains and folkloric goddesses asking “what name / do you crown yourself,” this is the first chapter to a saga defined by ample brains, bravery, and dare we say… booty for all to share. 🗺 👑 📚 ✨

As always, enjoy the treasures, and if our list is missing an author or a book, or if you have a book coming out next month, please email us with the month of your publication date in the subject line.

P.S. Looking for even more books to read? Check out our Bookshop page with handy lists of previous award winners, finalists, authors featured in our May We Present series, and more!

Bio/Memoir

Crazy, Cracked, Warm, and Deep by Susan Clarke, Two Hummingbird Press
Damn Shame: A Memoir of Desire, Defiance and Show Tunes by David Pevsner, Random House Canada
High-Risk Homosexual by Edgar Gomez, Soft Skull
Lost & Found: A Memoir by Kathryn Schulz, Random House
People Change by Vivek Shraya, Penguin Canada

Fiction

All of You Every Single One by Beatrice Hitchman, Overlook Press
Call Me Cassandra by Marcial Gala and Anna Kushner, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux
Defenestrate by Renee Branum, Bloomsbury Publishing
Getting Clean with Stevie Green by Swan Huntley, Gallery Books
Go Back at Once by Robert Aickman, And Other Stories
Manywhere: Stories by Morgan Thomas, MCD
Perpetual West by Mesha Maren, Algonquin Books
A Previous Life by Edmund White, Bloomsbury Publishing
To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara, Doubleday

Nonfiction

And the Category Is…: Inside New York’s Vogue, House, and Ballroom Community by Ricky Tucker, Beacon Press
Outrageous!: The Story of Section 28 and Britain’s Battle for LGBT Education by Paul Baker, Reaktion Books
Queer Life, Queer Love by Matt Bates, Golnoosh Nour, and Sarah Beal, Muswell Press
Queering Law and Order: LGBTQ Communities and the Criminal Justice System by Kevin Leo Yabut Nadal, Lexington Books
Supporting Trans People of Colour: How to Make Your Practice Inclusive by Sabah Choudrey, Jessica Kingsley Publishers
To Look at the Sea Is to Become What One Is: An Etel Adnan Reader by Etel Adnan, Nightboat Books

LGBTQ Studies

Gendered Lives: Global Issues by Nadine T. Fernandez and Katie Nelson, State University of New York Press
Queer Adolescent Literature as a Complement to the English Language Arts Curriculum by Paula Greathouse and Henry Cody Miller, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Queer Data: Using Gender, Sex and Sexuality Data for Action by Kevin Guyan, Bloomsbury Academic
Sissy Insurgencies: A Racial Anatomy of Unfit Manliness by Marlon B. Ross, Duke University Press
Uncommon Sense: Jeremy Bentham, Queer Aesthetics, and the Politics of Taste by Carrie D. Shanafelt, University of Virginia Press

Romance

Always by Kris Bryant, Bold Strokes Books
D’Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding by Chencia C. Higgins, Carina Adores
Exes and O’s by Joy Argento, Bold Strokes Books
Love & Other Disasters by Anita Kelly, Forever
Paris Rules by Jaime Maddox, Bold Strokes Books
The Seductress Trap by Jac Sherry, Bella Books
Something Fabulous by Alexis Hall, Montlake
The Wedding Setup by Charlotte Greene, Bold Strokes Books
Wildflower Words by Sam Ledel, Bold Strokes Books

Mystery/Thriller

Act of Darkness by Francis King, Valancourt Books
Base Notes by Lara Elena Donnelly, Thomas & Mercer
Despite Chaos by Stacy Lynn Miller, Bella Books
Fadeout by Joseph Hanson, Soho Syndicate
Shadow Dancers by Suzie Clarke, Bold Strokes Books
Survivor’s Guilt by Robyn Gigl, Kensington Publishing Corporation

Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror

One Verse Multi by Sander Santiago, Bold Strokes Books
The Raven and the Banshee by Carolyn Elizabeth, Bella Books
Velocity by Gun Brooke, Bold Strokes Books

Young Adult Literature

Anything But Fine by Tobias Madden, Page Street Kids
The Bone Spindle by Leslie Vedder, Razorbill
Hopepunk by Preston Norton, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Icebreaker by A. L. Graziadei, Henry Holt & Company
In a Heartbeat by Markus Harwood-Jones, Lorimer Children & Teens
Into the Midnight Void by Mara Fitzgerald, Little, Brown Brown Books for Young Readers
The Love Code by Mette Bach, Lorimer Children & Teens
Love Somebody by Rachel Roasek, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux
Spin Me Right Round by David Valdes, Bloomsbury YA
The Temperature of Me and You by Brian Zepka, Disney-Hyperion
Walk this Way by Tony Correia, Lorimer Children &Teens

Children’s/Middle Grade Literature

Find Out About: Families by Mandy Archer, Rodale Kids
It’s a Hit! by Arin Cole Barth and Marika Barth, Flamingo Rampant
The Light of You by Trystan Reese, Biff Chaplow, and Van Binfa, Flamingo Rampant
The Lock-Eater by Zack Loran Clark, Dial Books
Love, Violet by Charlotte Sullivan Wild and Charlene Chua, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux
The Magic Shell by Jillian Christmas and Diana G. A. Mungaray, Flamingo Rampant
Noodin’s Perfect Day by Ansley Simpson and Rhael McGregor, Flamingo Rampant