Nuclear Family (2022) Joseph Han "Joseph Han's Nuclear Family is a moving exploration of the losses we inherit, the continual violence of borders, and the embodiedness of history. He shows us that what is so powerful and resurrective about mythmaking is not that it provides an escape from our world but that it allows us to see the deeper truths of it, to give agency to the buried, and to shape possibility across space and time and generations. Han writes with incredible empathy for the living and the dead, subverting borders of all kinds to illuminate intergenerational dynamics, labor, and the living marrow of memory."
Little Foxes Took Up Matches (2022) Katya Kazbek "Katya Kazbek's Little Foxes Took Up Matches is a stunning and transformative novel that shows us the playful possibility and subversive quality of queer myth-making. With humor, heart, and expansiveness, Kazbek forges a new language to belong inside and reinvents storytelling. This book will swallow you and shelter you. It's pure magic and will rearrange you from the inside-out."
Manywhere (2022) Morgan Thomas "Manywhere is a kaleidoscopic collection that imagines queer pasts, presents, and futures with empathy, transformative language, and brilliant craft. Each story contains an expansive sense of history, place, and possibility. Morgan Thomas' innovative storytelling creates queer lineages and a stunning plurality of voices, showing us that a collection can also be a community."
Ghost Forest (2021) Pik-Shuen Fung "Like a Chinese ink painting, every line in Pik-Shuen Fung’s Ghost Forest is full of movement and spirit, revealing the resilient threads of matrilineal history and the inheritance of stories and silences. With humor, compassion, and clear-eyed prose, Fung reminds us that grief, memory, and history are never linear but always alive. Fung writes about the questions we forget to ask, the stories that are hidden from us, and the complex acts of care at the core of family. She reminds us that what is unspoken is never lost. Ghost Forest is an intimate act of recording and reckoning. It trusts us to listen. It shows us all the languages for love."
Transmutation (2021) Alex DiFrancesco "Transmutation is an innovative, magical collection about all the things that pulse with possibility: love in all forms, belonging, reckoning, and reclamation. Each sentence is a gem, multi-faceted and full of light. Alex DiFrancesco has the kind of imagination that saves lives."
The Chosen and the Beautiful (2021) (The Chosen and the Beautiful) Nghi Vo "The Chosen and the Beautiful is gorgeous and gripping, shining with language that shows us all the facets and dangers of yearning. Nghi Vo subverts and expands the possibilities of an American story, and magic is in the marrow of every sentence. I'm in awe of this book's expansive imagination and its exploration of what it means to discover desire, make your own myths, and define your belonging."
