Literature & Fiction

Up-and-coming stage actress Margaret Shoard has just taken a bow as Lady Macbeth, the role she has always believed was destined for her. At home, she plays wife to her best friend Wesley, even if she doesn’t hold his sole attention romantically. After a public breakdown threatens all she holds dear, Margaret’s doctor prescribes her uppers—just a little help to get through the days.

As a rising actor, Kanin's body is his career. His identity. His life. All that is taken from him when he dies and is reborn as a bottle of ink. Now living as the heart of a magical glass servant, Kanin's new purpose is to perform a senile wizard's yard work—a role this world's magic system seems intent on enforcing. All that might have been manageable if a murderous shadow monster wasn't hunting his very soul. But he's not in it alone.

These piercing, surprising poems look to familial history, rituals of faith, and the natural world to explore how the intersecting cultures of Blackness and queerness relate to each other. As the collection evolves, the listener is challenged and empowered to seek expansiveness in spaces that have not previously been excavated, reckon with the complexities of interpersonal relationships, and explore memory as a catalyst for self-determination.

Scarlet Day, the magnetic lead singer of the all-female alt-rock band The Scarlet Begonias, is on the cusp of fame. Their first album just launched and they’ve landed a dream gig – performing on a luxury sapphic cruise to the Galapagos. To top it all off, during their first set on deck, she makes a connection with a mesmerizing woman in the crowd. Robin Barry is a solo traveler on a couples cruise, which has the potential to be painfully awkward. A veterinary researcher intent on focusing on the wildlife rather than the women, her plans change abruptly when she meets the sultry starlet.

When his mother dies after a lifetime of struggle, Sebastien is obsessed with finding the father he's never met—the commanding officer of a luxury liner. Posing as a member of the ship's crew, Sebastien becomes entangled in a revolt, leading him to uncover a disturbing secret about his identity.

From John Elizabeth Stintzi, the mind that created the daringly bizarre novel My Volcano, comes an electrifying collection of strange and dark tales. In the surreal, often precarious realities of Bad Houses, a doctor discovers a double-edged cure for the Ebola virus, a college student loses a different body part each time they return home for the summer, Midas's hairdresser strives to keep his secrets, and a young girl develops a fascination with the trolls who harvest her father's pumpkin patch. At once humourous and horrifying, these stories will inevitably take residence in your mind.

Raven Morales has always trusted her instincts. As the leader of The Flock, a covert group of mercenaries fighting to expose the world’s most dangerous secrets, she’s used to impossible odds and dangerous enemies. But when their latest mission to dismantle a human trafficking network connected to a powerful senator takes a deadly turn, Raven is faced with a new, insidious threat—one that might come from within her own team.

Pearl is a trans woman writer on the cusp of literary greatness... or so she thought until her agent informs her that her first book has sunken like a stone for its failure to "connect with normal people". Normal people. Heterosexual people. Cisgender people. Jaded from the knowledge that this industry rarely lets in people like her, Pearl comes up with a plan: write a commercial male/male romance. Except the market's all about authenticity these days, isn't it?

In the not too distant future Darcy Loras and Milah Johaness have been in a bi-coastal relationship for the last two years. Their relationship is perfect. They were friends for years before they started dating, they communicate so well because they talk all the time, and they can’t imagine their lives without each other. The only thing in their way is the distance. Now that’s a thing of the past! Instant teleportation has finally been unlocked and there is nothing standing in their way of being together. Or so they thought.

Jumping to alternate realities sounds great, if you're in control. But what if you're not? What if you're propelled away from the people and places you love the most in the blink of an eye? And what if these involuntary journeys happen because your neurochemistry is different, and your brain works differently? Beautiful, compassionate, and resourceful as she is, this is Rea's problem. A latina trans woman and an academic, she is beloved by a tight circle of friends, who fully accept her without knowing the cause of her disappearances.