30 Trans Authors You Should Be Reading

In no particular order. For no particular reason.

Tor.com Publishing

1. JY Yang

Yang is a Singaporean author who has written a series of fantastic novels, the Tensorate series, which starts with The Black Tides of Heaven. They have also published a number of short works, one of which you can read on Tor.com, in case you’d like to try their style before you dive in.

2. Yoon Ha Lee

Lee has written a space-opera trilogy, Machineries of Empire, which starts with Ninefox Gambit, as well as a “middle-grade Korean mythology space opera” (his words) titled Dragon Pearl, published by the Rick Riordan Presents imprint from Disney-Hyperion. He’s also one of the coauthors on The Vela, a Serial Box–published space opera, and his collection of short stories as a follow-up to the Machineries of Empire, Hexarchate Stories, came out in June of this year. Here’s one of his short stories, free to read or listen to in Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

3. Mason Deaver

Deaver’s debut, I Wish You All the Best, is a contemporary YA novel featuring a nonbinary protagonist, written by a nonbinary author. They are currently working on a second novel, The Ghosts We Keep, which also features a nonbinary protagonist and is expected in 2020.

Check out the visible top-surgery scars! Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins

4. Kacen Callender

Callender, born and raised in the US Virgin Islands, has written across the age span: a magical-realism-style middle-grade novel, Hurricane Child; a contemporary YA novel, This Is Kind of an Epic Love Story; and an adult fantasy novel, Queen of the Conquered. A second middle-grade novel, King and the Dragonflies, will be released in February of 2020, and a second YA novel, Felix Ever After, is due in May of 2020. (For that matter, Queen of the Conquered is labeled book one, so hopefully we’ll find out about book two soon.)

5. Rivers Solomon

Solomon’s debut novel, An Unkindness of Ghosts, is a hard-hitting novel about colonialism and slavery with a queer autistic protagonist, set on a generation ship. Their second work, a novella entitled The Deep, was inspired by a song by clipping (Daveed Diggs, of Hamilton fame). They were also a cowriter on The Vela, the Serial Box space opera, along with Yoon Ha Lee, above. You can read one of their short stories on Tor.com.

6. Cole McCade

McCade has written a lot of books, and right now he’s in the middle of the second season of Criminal Intentions, his serialized story about Malcolm Khalaji and Seong-Jae Yoon, police detectives in Baltimore. If you like Law & Order: SVU or Criminal Intent but wish it were more diverse and queer, check out this series. Season 1, episode 1 is called “The Cardigans.“

RoAnna Sylver

7. RoAnna Sylver

Sylver’s Chameleon Moon usually tops lists of queer and neurodiverse hopepunk works, but they have also recently released a long interactive fiction book called Dawnfall with Choice of Games‘s new romance imprint, Heart’s Choice. You can play it for free, once, with ads, or you can pay the fee and replay innumerable times. The story has pirates, mood-ring elves, and bird-creatures, among other things.

8. May Peterson

A busy editor and sensitivity reader, Peterson has recently released her first novel, Lord of the Last Heartbeat, from Carina Press, and it’s getting rave reviews for its love story, its depiction of grief, and the author’s sheer skill with voice.

Cover design by Hannah Zayit. Xan West

9. Xan West/Corey Alexander

In addition to being an amazing educator on queer, trans, and kink issues, West has just released a full-length novel, Eight Kinky Nights, a f/f Chanukah romance. If you’d like something shorter, they also have Their Troublesome Crush, a novella with some similar themes (kink, foodies), and Nine of Swords, Reversed, a novelette with speculative elements.

10. Charlie Jane Anders

Anders’s recent novel All the Birds in the Sky is an ecospeculative story that’s all too relevant these days, and her most recent, The City in the Middle of the Night, features a tidally locked planet. She’s also released a collection of short stories and a novella, and you can also hear her on the podcast Our Opinions Are Correct.

11. Sarah Gailey

Author of the American Hippo books (River of Teeth, Taste of Marrow), the recent Magic for Liars (set at a magical boarding school), and the upcoming Upright Women Wanted (February 2020) and When We Were Magic (March 2020), Gailey has been busy. They are also busy making up new recipes and posting very entertaining threads about them on Twitter. You can also read their short story “Stet” on Fireside Fiction.

12. Caitlín R. Kiernan

Kiernan has been publishing fiction since 1995 and, apparently, paleontology papers since 1988. She has won a dozen or so awards, including the Locus, Bram Stoker, and World Fantasy awards, and she has been nominated for so many that Wikipedia only includes a partial list on her personal page. She writes primarily dark fantasy and horror, but her most recent publication, released December 18th of this year, was a scientific paper entitled “Asmodochelys parhami, a new fossil marine turtle from the Campanian Demopolis Chalk and the stratigraphic congruence of competing marine turtle phylogenies,” coauthored with Andrew D. Gentry and Jun A. Ebersole. For something more fictional, try her classic novel Silk.

13. K. M. Szpara

Author of the compelling Hugo-nominated novelette “Small Changes over Long Periods of Time,” Szpara’s also got a novel coming out early next year, Docile, with the tagline of “There is no consent under capitalism.” He’s also well known for having amazing nails and an adorable small dog (and, apparently, for attending Hanson concerts).

Ninestar Press

14. Brooklyn Ray

Brooklyn Ray’s primary series is the Port Lewis Witches, about a bunch of magical creatures and humans in Washington state.They also edited and contributed to a nonbinary sci-fi/fantasy anthology, Behind the Sun, Above the Moon, that just had a cover release on December 19.

15. Margaret Killjoy

Author of The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion and The Barrow Will Send What it May, Killjoy is also a musician who releases albums as Feminazgul (Middle Earth-–themed black metal) and Nomadic War Machine (spooky queer dance music). If that doesn’t have you sold on her work, try “Into the Gray,” a short story about a mermaid and a thief you can read online.

16. Kaelan Rhywiol

Rhywiol’s Ace Assassins series, starting with Blood-Bound and continuing with the just-completed Soulbound, features queer, kinky, polyamorous assassins in a setting full of Welsh mythology. Xie has also written a novella about mothmen (no, really) and the serialized science-fantasy work Ilavani, which has an autistic lead character.

17. Anna Zabo

Zabo has written rock ’n’ roll romance (the Twisted Wishes series), paranormal romance (Close Quarter), and erotic romance (the Takeover series), and rumor has it that they may be working on a hockey romance. (They’re a Pens fan.) They also have a story in Behind the Sun, Above the Moon.

Feiwel and Friends

18. Anna-Marie McLemore

McLemore has written several magical-realism novels with queer and trans characters, using elements not only from their own Latinx heritage but also from other Western fairy tales. Blanca & Roja has elements from “Snow White and Rose Red”; January 2020’s Dark and Deepest Red is a retelling of “The Red Shoes.” All of their books are lush and beautiful and come highly recommended, including When the Moon Was Ours, longlisted for the 2017 National Book Award in Young People’s Literature.

19. MK England

Author of The Disasters—described as The Breakfast Club meets Guardians of the Galaxy—England also has a YA futuristic fantasy heist novel called Spellhacker coming out in January of 2020. They are a huge Star Wars fan as well as a D&D nerd, and if you preorder Spellhacker, you can get a sticker that says “Badass Illegal Funtimes.” Worth it!

20. Alex Wells/Acks

Acks has written two novels as Alex Wells, Hunger Makes the Wolf and Blood Binds the Pack, featuring badass anticapitalist biker gangs and interstellar travel, and two collections of stories, Murder on the Titania and Other Steam-Powered Adventures and Wireless and More Steam-Powered Adventures (published by Minneapolis’s Queen of Swords Press), as Alex Acks. They’re also (in)famous for a couple of articles about Tolkien’s map design, written from the perspective of a geologist.

Ana Mardoll

21. Ana Mardoll

In addition to two urban-fantasy novels (Poison Kiss and Survival Rout) about magical folks returning from portal worlds, a short-story collection centering trans and nonbinary folks and magical prophesies (No Man of Woman Born), and a whole bunch of recaps of everything from C. S. Lewis books to wretched Netflix movies, Mardoll has also written a collection of essays on writing transgender and nonbinary characters in speculative fiction, titled Transcending Flesh. Xie also has very adorable cats.

22. Ennis R. Bashe

Bashe has written a number of novellas in various speculative genres, including a f/f Tam Lin retelling (With Roses in Their Hair), a superhero story (To Stand In the Light), alternate history (the f/f Graveyard Sparrow), and f/f teenage witches at a boarding school (Bluebell Hall). This is in addition to an impressive list of poems, short stories, interactive fiction, and games.

23. Keffy R. M. Kehrli

Founder of the magnificent podcast GlitterShip, which features LGBTQ+ short fiction, Kehrli has also published a fair amount of short fiction in the last decade while working on his PhD in genetics. Try “HELP FUND MY ROBOT ARMY,” published in Lightspeed magazine and then turned into the core of its own anthology.

24. Susan Jane Bigelow

Bigelow is a political columnist, a librarian, and a cat owner in addition to having published two series of novels, the Extrahuman Union series and the Grayline Sisters series. She’s also published a standalone novel, The Demon Girl’s Song, and a good number of short stories. Try “The Day after the Red Warlock of Skull Top Mountain Turned Everyone in Beane County into Pigs,” published in Fireside magazine.

25. R. B. Lemberg

R. B. Lemberg, sociolinguist, immigrant, poet, and professor, has been writing in their Birdverse for a number of years, and the cover for their novella The Four Profound Weaves was just revealed. The novella doesn’t come out in September 2020, but if you’d like a taste of the Birdverse, try “The Book of How to Live,” a novelette about academia and magic users and those without magic.

26. Karen C. Klein

Klein is an author of several different subgenres of speculative fiction: The Mages’ Guild Chronicles, set in a magical Los Angeles and Chicago; True Love Bites, a steampunk vampire novella; the School of Brides stories, set on the New New Yorke Space Station; and Redd’s Hoodie, a fairy-tale retelling, among others. There’s definitely something for everyone among their works!

Cover art by Elizabeth Leggett, design and typography by Matthew Bright of Inkspiral Design. Lethe Press

27. Bogi Takács

Takács edited volumes 2, 3, and 4 of Transcendant: The Year’s Best Transgender Speculative Fiction and has a QUILTBAG+ Speculative Classics column on Tor.com, in addition to all of their fiction and poetry writing credits. Recently, e published a short story collection, The Trans Space Octopus Congregation.

28. Amy Rose Capetta

Writing with their partner, Cori McCarthy, Capetta has completed a duology of Arthurian space fantasy, Once & Future (published in March 2019) and Sword in the Stars (forthcoming April 2020). On their own, they wrote the Italian nonbinary fantasy The Brilliant Death and its sequel, The Storm of Life, coming January 2020. You can read one of their short stories, “Honey and Cold Stars,” about faeries and climate change and queer girls kissing, online.

29. Chelsea M. Cameron

Cameron came out to herself and then the entire internet in 2015, and she has decided to write only queer books from here on out. Her latest, Didn’t Stay in Vegas, is clearly the f/f got-drunk-and-got-married-in-Vegas-and-then-stayed-married romance novel that we all needed. She also reassures us that the book has an adorable puppy in it.

30. Alex Gino

The only strictly middle-grade fiction author on this list, Gino won the Lambda Literary Award and the Stonewall Award from the American Library association for their first book, George. A companion book, Rick, is due in April of 2020, and while you wait, they have also published You Don’t Know Everything, Jilly P!

Are any of these authors new to you? Which books are you going to read first?