Book Giveaway by Karla Marie Sweet, author of False Idols
and a stack of book recommendations from the community!
Friends, I’ve got some pretty exciting news to share with you. Karla Marie Sweet, from The Ampersand by Karla Marie Sweet here on substack, and author of the recently published False Idols, is sharing a super cool giveaway, and you’re invited! Below are the details for you to participate.
Join this giveaway by:
subscribing to The Ampersand by Karla Marie Sweet (she’s cool!!)
subscribing to TransFriend (I mean, you’re already here, so that’s easy)
comment on this post with a sentence describing your writing, a story you have in mind, or a world or theme you want to explore
That’s it! Really, it’s that simple!
Winners will be selected by Karla on Friday, September 26th.
To get to know a little more about Karla and what she stands for, I invite you to read this article she wrote earlier in the year. This is precisely the kind of discourse I want to see more of in the world—cis voices sharing, uplifting, and validating trans lived experiences, caring deeply about our shared autonomy, and standing with us regardless of the cost.
False Idols presents a similar opportunity to incorporate trans identities and visibility into the world of published fiction from a queer author who understands why this matters. In Karla’s own voice:
"It's exciting to see how so many readers have connected to Veronica, a trans woman and a key character in FALSE IDOLS. As a cis ally who has been privileged enough to have the time and space to write a novel, I feel a very strong sense of responsibility to write trans characters into my work in order to authentically reflect the world as I see it. But it's so much better when trans people get to tell their own stories. There are so many barriers that make it incredibly hard for trans writers to break through - from industry prejudice to having to work extra hours to afford gender affirming care (which obviously restricts writing time). I'm hoping I can help in some way by demystifying the route to getting a book published."
As I’ve gotten to know Karla, I feel a sense of growing hope that I really need right now. Most of you likely know that I’ve recently created a publishing company—GenderWild Press—specifically addressing the lack of transgender, intersex, nonbinary, and genderqueer authors in the world of published books. But we also desperately need allies to bring our lives into their stories, too. We don’t live in exclusion and isolation, nor should mainstream stories be written without us. This is a delicate balance to hold, and it takes time and courage to address it. A thousand thank yous to Karla for standing proudly with this community in doing that very work.
Maybe you’re wondering how all of this came about, and the origin story is worth the time to tell. It also gives me the opportunity to shout out another fellow writer and book-lover here on substack, Hazel, who manages a couple of great publications including BookStack!
BookStack ran a pride giveaway back in June of this year, and I won! Well, okay, there were other winners, too, but I felt pretty awesome with a bookshop.org gift certificate in my name. I never win anything. Seriously. You know how Crack Jack boxes have a prize every time? I was the kid who could get a box with no prize inside. But BookStack broke my unlucky streak and left me with one burning question: What new/undiscovered/very queer book should I spend that money on?
I reached out to the community with a note and asked for suggestions. There were so many good books to choose from I hardly knew where to start!
Top recommendations:
How Far the Light Reaches, by Sabrina Imbler (And wow, review forthcoming for this one. I picked it up at my local library, and I think I need to own it. What a lovely find, and thank you, Kelley Clink (they/she)!)
The Girl Who Was Convinced Beyond All Reason That She Could Fly, by Sybil Lamb (I’m on a waiting list… But thank you for the friendly nudge, Wake Lloire!)
The Name-Bearer, by Natalia Hernandez (The cover of this book is gorgeous, and we definitely need more queer Latinx stories to love. My copy is already on its way, thanks to Abookishlilghost 👻📚!)
Gender Queer, by Maia Kobabe (which I already own but cannot recommend highly enough, and thank you, Amy McGrath!)
We Have Always Been Here, by Samra Habib, and also Giovanni’s Room, by James Baldwin (neither of which I have read, both of which are on my TBR list, many thanks to Clare Egan!)
The Bones Beneath my Skin, by TJ Klune (This one is waiting for me at the library right now… Thank you, Kate Brennan, for the rec and the wonderful back story about the book!)
The Lilac People: A Novel, by Milo Todd (What a complete mystery to have never heard of this one! Thank you, Jude Jones (they/them)!)
Anything ever written by Andrea Gibson (Yes, yes, yes, and I’m also not ready to cry and face that grief just yet, but I’ll get there. Thank you, Ingrid Wagner Walsh!)
As You Prefer, by Cie Gives (and it must be good if Hazel from BookStack says so!)
And as I looked up each of these books and waited for more comments to roll in, I stumbled across this incredible post by Karla Marie Sweet about seeing her book in the bookstore that day, and I simply fell in love with the notion of getting to know a brand-new author in the midst of her first published book showing up.
To quote her post from that day, specifically talking about the challenges of being a writer in theater, film, and TV…
The issue is that there are so few opportunities in the UK, especially for people from backgrounds like mine. … while off-screen representation of some groups in the UK has improved, representation of Black, African, Caribbean or Black British contributors in senior roles actually declined and remains below workforce averages.
I’m also a queer, neurodiverse woman from a low income background and I’m aware official Diamond data does not yet report on the precise intersection I belong to. What I do know, however, is that on peak-time UK TV in 2021–22, only around a third of writers were women, about one in eight were from global majority backgrounds, one in ten were disabled and roughly one in five were from the LGBTQ+ community. Class data is not tracked for writers but only a quarter of the screen workforce comes from lower income backgrounds. This means the overlap of all of these groups is vanishingly small and there is almost no one like me actually getting to do the thing I want to do.
And that, my friends, really hit home for me. While I agree that the literary world is likely better than the world of film and television, we know all too well that there are still significant barriers to marginalized, intersectional voices in this landscape. I had set out to find a very queer book, and here they all were, circling around me, reminding me that it’s possible to find them if you just ask loudly enough. No, I cannot possibly buy all of them—I’m a working-class dad, after all—but I can still read them, share them widely, review some of them so that you know more about the ones that I really connected with, and lift up their authors.
Karla, like so many authors I have met here on substack, isn’t just climbing the ladder for herself. She’s reaching a hand down to those of us behind her and helping us find the way, too. That’s exactly the right thing to celebrate, and I’m very proud to uplift Karla’s voice.
Many thanks to you, Karla, for writing a brilliant book, for showing up for this community, and for continuing to care about the other authors working hard to get their voices heard.
You can also buy a copy of Karla’s book, False Idols, from a handful of places, all linked here!
Please consider subscribing to Karla’s publication, order a copy of her book, and leave a comment below if you’d like to be entered in this giveaway. To all of the friends here who are aspiring authors, keep writing, and keep showing up as yourselves. We need your stories, and someday you’ll be the author of a book that one of us recommends.
Your trans friend, Robin
 | A guest post by
|