Tag Archives: queer books

Link Round Up: December 16 – 21

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MandOForever  dyke-the-halls   lieswetellourselves

AfterEllen posted How to Have a Very Lesbian Christmas.

Babbling About Books posted Announcing the 2015 Lesbian Fiction Appreciation Event! (#LFAE2015).

GayYA posted

primarystein  missedher   badfeminist

Women and Words has been celebrating their holiday hootenanny! (Giveaways every day!)

Ivan Coyote was written about at ZY.

Catherine Lundoff posted On LGBT Science Fiction and Fantasy 2000-2010 (Part 2).

Bad Feminist: Essays by Roxane Gay was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

Primary Stein: Returning to the Writings of Gertrude Stein edited by Janet Boyd and Sharon J. Kirsch was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

This post, and all posts at the Lesbrary, have 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.

Link Round Up: December 8 – 14

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NoStraightLines   dogsofwar   SpitandPassion

Autostraddle posted Lez Liberty Lit #61: Snowing Pages.

Elisa posted 2014 Rainbow Award Winners.

GLBT Reviews posted

acupofwaterundermybed   zami   lieswetellourselves

Lambda Literary posted

Malinda Lo posted 2014 LGBT YA by the Numbers and A Holiday Gift Guide to My Books.

Robin Talley was interviewed at R U Coming Out.

“Outhouse library: a new home in Dublin for LGBT literature” was posted at Irish Times.

seasonsmeetings   mara   justgirls

Love Enough by Dionne Brand was reviewed at Lindy Reads and Reviews.

Season’s Meetings by Amy Dunne was reviewed at Far Nerdy and Lesbian Reading Room.

Just Girls by Rachel Gold was reviewed at I’m With Geek.

Somewhere To Run by Anna Goldman was reviewed at The Rainbow Hub.

Under a Falling Star by Jae was reviewed at Lambda Literary.

An American Queer: The Amazon Trail by Lee Lynch was posted at GLBT Reviews.

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters was reviewed at Lindy Reads and Reviews.

Year of the Monsoon by Caren Werlinger was reviewed at C-Spot Reviews.

Mara by Brian Wood was reviewed at crunchings & munchings.

This post, and all posts at the Lesbrary, have 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.

Danika reviews Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme edited by Ivan Coyote and Zena Sharman

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I’ve been a fan of Ivan Coyote for years, so I had high expectations for this collection. It absolutely delivered.

It’s hard to sum up Persistence other than using its own subtitle. It contains a huge array of different kind of butches and femmes (and a futch, and some switches, and…), embodied by many different genders and sexualities.

The writing it top-notch, and there are a lot of big names:  Ivan Coyote, Jewelle Gomez, S. Bear Bergman, Joan Nestle, Sinclair Sexsmith… The content ranges from academic essays to poem and short stories. Some are incredibly personal, and some are political declarations. I really appreciated the amount of essays that approached how race intersects with butch/femme, and a few that also address class.

If I could guarantee one thing, it’s that at least one entry in this collection will piss you off. There are opinions all over the spectrum in this collection, and there is a lot to be debated. For example: do butch and femme constitute each other, or can you be a butch without a femme and vice versa? Are femmes more privileged by having “passing privilege”, or are they invisibilized, or are people just not looking hard enough for femmes? Is the concept of “butch” too tied to whiteness to be used in an antiracist way? Can other sexualities and genders by butch or femme, or only lesbians? Where do butch and femme fit into the trans spectrum, or vice versa, or are they unconnected? It is the trans questions that are particularly divisive. But I think this range is the strength of the collection: it is a good attempt to encapsulate a broad-ranging community that is entirely in flux. And the voices are strong, so even the essays that were actively angering me were still compelling.

I definitely recommend Persistence, even (especially?) if you’re not butch or femme or know very little about butch and femme. It is an important part of the queer community as a whole today, and lesbian history as well. There are quite a few contributors that I will now be seeking out in a longer format.