Lesbrary Links: Queer Bookish TikTok, Medieval Lesbian Lit, and Books like “The Half of It”

I follow hundreds of queer book blogs to scout out the best sapphic book news and reviews! Many of them get posted on Tumblr and Twitter as I discover them, but my favourites get saved for these link compilations. Here are some of the posts I’ve found interesting in the last few weeks.

If you want to do some good in the world by getting LGBTQ picture books into pre-K to grade classrooms, support Pride and Less Prejudice! They use donations to send free age-appropriate book bundles to teachers who request them.

And for more ways to spend your money supporting queer books, LGBTQ Reads has a list of queer books available at various indie bookstores, complete with buy links! It couldn’t be easier to pick up some new to you authors while giving indie bookstores the support they need right now.

Looking to blow up your TBR pile/preorder list? Check out Sasha and Amber Read’s 2021 – The Year of Sapphic Excellency. There’s also Hsinju’s Lit Log’s 2021 Sapphic Releases from LGBTQ+ Indies for even more. If you can’t preorder all the titles you’re interested in, I recommend putting them in your Google Calendar and sending a reminder the day before. Then you can put it on hold at the library! That’s how I keep my library holds always maxed out.

Of course, if you want to be aware of queer books coming even further out, there’s LGBTQ Reads’s August Book Deal Announcements post, which includes books that may not be out for years.

If you’d rather check out new releases that are coming out soon, try Autostraddle’s 65 Queer and Feminist Books Coming Your Way in Fall 2020.

Now that you’ve spent all your money ordering and preordering books, you can get instant gratification with Book Riot’s 12 of the Best Queer Webcomics You Can Read For Free. I used to be a big webcomics fan, so this is reminding me that I should jump back in!

https://www.tiktok.com/@ellelillylew/video/6842134105900043526

Now I have to share the post that had me clicking the fastest: 15 TikTok Accounts That’ll Help You Dive Into LGBTQ+ Literature. I blame Pop Sugar for me now contemplating getting TikTok. No one told me there were queer book TikTokers!

YA Pride interviewed teenagers about how queer books have affected their lives at Teens Talk About LGBTQIAP+ YA. If you, like me, are over 25, you will feel old reading these. But either way, they are heartwarming, and include how some of these teens explored and discovered their identity through books.

Lambda Literary posted Queer Diaries Are Celebrations of a Secret History, which looks at the history of Lou Sullivan’s, Anne Lister’s, and Mary MacLane’s diaries–as well as a suggested queer diary reading list.

Reads Rainbow has a rapid-fire recommendation post of Sapphic YA Fantasy Recs, with the reasons you should read each pick.

The always-wonderful Casey wrote 8 Queer YA Novels With Coming of Age Hope to Relive Alice Wu’s “The Half of It”–and if you haven’t watched The Half of It on Netflix yet, run and do that first! I loved it. These books include: “falling in love through letter writing, figuring out your queer identity, keeping secrets, new friendships, small towns, and slowly getting to new your new girl crush.” Who can resist?

YA Pride’s The Path to Publication: Writing the Queer Black Girls of Cinderella Is Dead has Kalynn Bayron describe the obstacles to publishing Cinderella is Dead, including being told in writers’ groups that it wasn’t mainstream enough, while agents insisted the fairy tale retelling was overdone: “It’s not standard practice to reply to an agent at all, much less with the question, ‘How many of those reimaginings center BIPOC? And how many of them are also queer?'”

Fiona Zedde posted on Woman and Words Black LesBiQueer Books, Y’all!, highlighting some recent releases by Black queer women, including lots of romance and erotica recs!

Oprah Magazine has a list of 5 Best Audre Lorde Books to Read Right Now, because there’s never been a better time to read them. Speaking of Audre Lorde, Autostraddle’s Year of Our (Audre) Lorde continues with August’s New Spelling of My Name, which contemplates Zami and how it relates to Jehan’s own relationship with New York City.

The Atlantic’sThe Groundbreaking Female Artist Who Shaped Manga History, about Kuniko Tsurita, whose “Occupants” depicted a lesbian relationship, and who included gender noncomformity and queer coding in her work.

If you are a lesbian literature nerd like me, you will love this story that was posted on twitter: Resurfaced medieval tale has the most incredible queer plot twist. Explicitly queer medieval lit! With no real judgement of them!

Speaking of queer lit crit, did you know that one of the most popular board books of all time has a queer backstory? If you didn’t, you need to read Lambda Literary’s ‘Goodnight Moon’ and the Queer Love Story of the Great Green Room.

This post has the covers linked to their Amazon pages. If you click through and buy something, I might get a small referral fee. For even more links, check out the Lesbrary’s Twitter! We’re also on Facebook, Goodreads, Youtube and Tumblr.

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