Trans life past, present and future is explored in this kaleidoscopic follow-up to the Women's Prize-nominated Detransition, Baby Deep in the forest, a group of restless lumberjacks working an illegal logging outfit plan a winter dance that some will volunteer to attend as women; the broadest, strongest axeman finds himself caught in a rivalry with a pretty, young jack that culminates in jealousy, betrayal and an astonishing spectacle of transition. Meanwhile, in other times and places, the gender apocalypse is brought about by an unstable ex-girlfriend; an illicit boarding-school romance surfaces intrigue and cruelty; and a Las Vegas party weekend turns dark when a young crossdresser must choose between a thrilling mystery man or a veteran trans woman offering unglamorous sisterhood. In this quartet of tales, Torrey Peters' keen eye for the rough edges of desire reveals fresh possibilities. Acidly funny, boldly inventive and breathtaking in scope, Stag Dance provokes and unsettles, inspires and delights.

America’s beloved Julia Alvarez returns to her first form, poetry, in her latest collection, with scintillating poems drawn from across her life like stars from the skyAs I approach the closing stanzas of a long life practicing my craft, I feel the need to collect the many loose poems I've been writing into a book that follows the many incarnations and voices of my writing selves over the years. Each of the poems included here are visitations from writing selves of the past and present that still have something to say to me and, I hope, to my readers, Julia Alvarez tells us.In these poems, Alvarez traces her life gently, a fingertip following lines on a page, through memories of her childhood in the Dominican Republic, a dictatorship dramatically survived, the smell of sancocho and sofrito, tías and the sisters who forged her, her move to America and the challenges of learning English, the search for mental health and beauty, redemption, and success. We meet her grandchild and her mother, her lovers, and the homes where she grew up and into the formidable writer read in thousands of classrooms across America today. In these poems, her wisdom is as clear and beautiful as the light that shines through crystal and yet grounded through form and the substance of self-knowing.Told with a storyteller’s intimacy and the comfort of a warm hearth, here is a master writer’s reflection on family, aging, love, the body, having a voice, and the very act of poetry itself, experienced across the arc of decades—a collection of searching for an artistic voice, for the author’s very essence, until, “the way it sometimes we arrive / where we were promised, belong to / what we longed for in ourselves, each other.”

Miri thinks she has got her wife back, when Leah finally returns after a deep-sea mission that ended in catastrophe. It soon becomes clear, though, that Leah is not the same. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was they were supposed to be studying before they were stranded on the ocean floor, Leah has brought part of it back with her, onto dry land and into their home. Moving through something that only resembles normal life, Miri comes to realize that the life that they had before might be gone. Though Leah is still there, Miri can feel the woman she loves slipping from her grasp. Our Wives Under The Sea is the debut novel from Julia Armfield, the critically acclaimed author of Salt Slow. It’s a story of falling in love, loss, grief, and what life there is in the deep deep sea.

Discover this creepy, charming monster-slaying fantasy romance—from the perspective of the monster—by Nebula Award-winning debut author John Wiswell Shesheshen has made a mistake fatal to all monsters: she's fallen in love. Shesheshen is a shapeshifter, who happily resides as an amorphous lump at the bottom of a ruined manor. When her rest is interrupted by hunters intent on murdering her, she constructs a body from the remains of past meals: a metal chain for a backbone, borrowed bones for limbs, and a bear trap as an extra mouth. However, the hunters chase Shesheshen out of her home and off a cliff. Badly hurt, she’s found and nursed back to health by Homily, a warm-hearted human, who has mistaken Shesheshen as a fellow human. Homily is kind and nurturing and would make an excellent co-parent: an ideal place to lay Shesheshen’s eggs so their young could devour Homily from the inside out. But as they grow close, she realizes humans don’t think about love that way. Shesheshen hates keeping her identity secret from Homily, but just as she’s about to confess, Homily reveals why she’s in the area: she’s hunting a shapeshifting monster that supposedly cursed her family. Has Shesheshen seen it anywhere? Eating her girlfriend isn’t an option. Shesheshen didn’t curse anyone, but to give herself and Homily a chance at happiness, she has to figure out why Homily’s twisted family thinks she did. As the hunt for the monster becomes increasingly deadly, Shesheshen must unearth the truth quickly, or soon both of their lives will be at risk. And the bigger challenge remains: surviving her toxic in-laws long enough to learn to build a life with, rather than in, the love of her life.