35 books for Pride month by writers in Canada
June is Pride Month. To celebrate, we've curated a list of the latest fiction, nonfiction, poetry and comics by 2SLGBTQ+ writers in Canada to read throughout the year.
Coexistence by Billy-Ray Belcourt
Complex Indigenous lives intersect in the stories that make up Coexistence. Stretching across Canadian prairies and the west coast, we travel to reserves, university campuses and lodgings of old residential schools to meet characters learning to live with and love one another and accept the realities of the past, present and future happening together all at once.
Billy-Ray Belcourt is a writer from Driftpile Cree Nation in Alberta. His first novel is A Minor Chorus. His debut collection of poetry, This Wound is a World, is unapologetically Indigenous and queer at the same time. Belcourt won the 2018 Griffin Poetry Prize for This Wound is a World. The collection also won the 2018 Indigenous Voices Award for most significant work of poetry in English and was a finalist for the 2018 Governor General's Literary Award for poetry.
Bad Cree by Jessica Johns
Bad Cree is a horror-infused novel that centres around a young woman named Mackenzie, who is haunted by terrifying nightmares and wracked with guilt about her sister Sabrina's untimely death. The lines between her dreams and reality start to blur when she begins seeing a murder of crows following her around the city. With her dreams intensifying and getting more dangerous, Mackenzie must confront a violent family legacy and reconcile with the land and her community.
Jessica Johns is a queer nehiyaw aunty with English-Irish ancestry and a member of Sucker Creek First Nation. Johns won the 2020 Writers' Trust Journey Prize for the short story Bad Cree, which evolved into the novel of the same name. Bad Cree also won the MacEwan Book of the Year prize. Bad Cree was championed by Dallas Soonias on Canada Reads 2024. Johns is currently based in Vancouver.
Crash Landing by Li Charmaine Anne
In the summer of 2010, Jay Wong is desperate to make some worthy memories before her senior year comes to close, whether that be landing a kickflip or meeting someone new. Enter Ash Chan with a skateboard, a secret and a competition they need Jay's help filming a submission for. Crash Landing tells Jay's story as she navigates her immigrant community in Vancouver and a newfound friendship that's becoming something more.
Li Charmaine Anne is a writer with a BFA from the University of British Columbia in creative writing and English literature. Crash Landing is their debut novel.
Gay Girl Prayers by Emily Austin
Gay Girl Prayers is a poetry collection that reclaims Catholic prayers and passages from the Bible to empower young women and members of the LGBTQIA+ community. At once sassy and funny, this book celebrates cultural and societal differences.
Emily Austin is an Ottawa-based writer. Her debut novel, Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead, was longlisted for The Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour and shortlisted for the Amazon First Novel Award and the Ottawa Book Award. Austin is also the author of the novel, Interesting Facts About Space and she is a juror for the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize.
Learned By Heart by Emma Donoghue
Learned by Heart is a riveting account of the boarding school romance between Anne Lister, a brilliant and headstrong troublemaker, and Eliza Raine, an orphaned heiress banished from India to England. The novel draws on Lister's secret journal and extensive research to craft the long-buried stories.
Learned by Heart was shortlisted for the 2023 Writers' Trust Atwood Gibson Prize.
Donoghue is an Irish Canadian writer known for her novels Landing, Room, Frog Music, The Wonder, The Pull of the Stars and the children's book The Lotterys Plus One. Her novel Room was adapted into a critically acclaimed film starring Brie Larson.
Cheryl by Jillian Fleck
In the graphic novel, Cheryl, by Jillian Fleck, the protagonist is about to embark on a journey of self-discovery after recently coming out as a lesbian. As Cheryl struggles to shake the internalized homophobia and recover from childhood trauma, she falls deeper and deeper down a toxic New Age wellness rabbit hole. Now she has to look inward for the answers about what's really going on with her and how to fix it.
Jillian Fleck is a multidisciplinary artist and comic creator from Calgary. Their work has been featured in various anthologies and publications. Their previous graphic novel is Lake Jehovah.
Behind You by Catherine Hernandez
Alma's life as a film editor for a corny true crime series with her wife and teenage son seems comfortable and safe. But when Infamous' latest episode features the Scarborough Stalker — who terrorized Alma's own neighborhood when she was a girl — Alma realizes what she's long held in around consent to stop her young son from making terrible choices toward his own girlfriend. Unfolding in two timelines, Behind You challenges and dissects rape culture and champions one girl's resilience into adulthood.
Catherine Hernandez is a Canadian writer, author and playwright. She is the author of several books, including the novels Scarborough and Crosshairs and the children's books I Promise, M is for Mustache and Where Do Your Feelings Live?. She is also the creator and star of the Audible Original sketch comedy podcast Imminent Disaster. Scarborough was championed by actor Malia Baker on Canada Reads 2022. It was also adapted into a feature film that premiered at TIFF in 2021. CBC Books named her a writer to watch in 2017.
Oddbird's Chosen Family by Derek Desierto
Oddbird's Chosen Family is a colourful picture book about Oddbird, who has always been by himself. As he longs for a family, his friends organize a fun-filled surprise for him and Oddbird takes note of those already in his life that make him happy.
Oddbird's Chosen Family is for ages 2 to 5.
Derek Desierto is a children's book illustrator based in Vancouver. He is also the illustrator of Juno Valentine and the Magical Shoes.
I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together by Maurice Vellekoop
I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together depicts author Maurice Vellekoop's intense childhood and difficult young adulthood as a young gay person in a strict Christian household. Set in Toronto from the 1970s, Vellekoop begins to see his relationships with his mother and father fracture. As he ventures out on his own, he explores his passion for art and is set on finding romance, but is met with violent attacks and the anxiety surrounding the AIDS era. I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together shows an artist's personal journey to self-love and acceptance.
Vellekoop is a Toronto-born writer and artist. He has been an illustrator for the past three decades, including for companies like Air Canada and Bush Irish Whiskey. He is also the author of A Nut at the Opera.
The Friendship Study by Ruby Barrett
Jesse Logan is struggling to find himself after an injury stops him from being a firefighter. Lulu Banks wears her heart on her sleeve and is reeling from a big breakup. In The Friendship Study, Jesse and Lulu cross paths again when they are paired up for a paid psychological study with one rule: no romance. As the tension between them grows, can they find a way to explore their connection and move on from their pasts?
Ruby Barrett is a writer based in Ottawa who writes romances about big feelings. She is also the author of Hot Copy and The Romance Recipe.
So Long, Sad Love by Mirion Malle, translated by Aleshia Jensen
In So Long Sad Love Cleo is hurt to find out her boyfriend may not be the man she thought he was and she doesn't know if she can trust him moving forward. As the life they built together comes apart at the seams, Cleo rediscovers her identity as an artist and explores romantic relationships with other women.
Mirion Malle is a French cartoonist and illustrator who lives in Montreal. She has published three books. The League of Super Feminists was her first book translated into English and was nominated for the 2020 Prix Jeunesse at the Angoulême International Comics Festival. Her book This is How I Disappear was a finalist for the 2022 Governor General's Literary Award for French-to-English translation.
Aleshia Jensen is a French-to-English literary translator and former bookseller. Her translations include Explosions, written by Mathieu Poulin, which was a finalist for the 2018 Governor General's Literary Award for translation. Jensen lives in Montreal.
Most of All the Wanting by Amanda Merpaw
Queer desires, grief and political upheaval are all explored in the poetry collection Most of All the Wanting. Merpaw delves into intimate reflections and verse following a divorce; asking questions of the self in a time of great change.
Amanda Merpaw is a Franco-Ontarian writer, editor and educator currently based in Toronto. Her work has been published in Arc Poetry Magazine, Room and the Literary Review of Canada. Most of All the Wanting is her first book.
Dandelion Daughter by Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay
Dandelion Daughter is an autobiographical novel of author Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay's young life as a trans person who felt isolated, scared and trapped in the wrong body. The novel chronicles her coming-of-age story, including first loves, struggling with gender identity and conversation about the decision to transition, all while her parents' marriage was failing and she faced the alienation that comes with being discriminated against in society.
Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay is a writer, actress, model and trans activist. Her other books include the poetry collections Le Ventre des volcans and Les secrets de l'origami, and La voix de la nature, a book for young adults.
Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch is a mixed-race Arab poet from Montreal. Their work has appeared in The Best Canadian Poetry, The Puritan and The New Quarterly. They were longlisted for the 2019 CBC Poetry Prize for Nancy Ajram Made Me Gay.
Still My Tessa by Sylv Chiang, illustrated by Mathias Ball
Still My Tessa is a book about practicing with pronouns and accepting people for who they are. Evelyn is worried about Tessa — they don't want to play the same games they used to play together anymore. Determined to find new ways to connect with her older sibling, she learns to see Tessa as a non-binary person by practicing using new pronouns for them.
Still My Tessa won the 2024 edition of CBC Kids Reads. It was championed by Gary the Unicorn during the second edition of 'Canada Reads for kids.'
Still My Tessa is for ages 3 to 8 and is out now.
Sylv Chiang is a teacher and a children's book author. She also wrote the middle-grade series, Cross Ups, which includes the books Rising Star, Anyone's Game and Tournament Trouble. Still My Tessa is Chiang's first picture book. She grew up in Toronto and now lives in Pickering, Ont.
Mathias Ball is a trans-identified illustrator from Goderich, Ont. Other picture books they've illustrated include Every Body Is a Rainbow by Caroline Carter and What If Bedtime Didn't Exist? by Francine Cunningham.
Bird Suit by Sydney Hegele
Unbeknownst to the tourists who flock to Port Peter every summer for peaches and sun, the bird women live in a meadow beneath the lake and offer their children to the Birds on the cliffs. Strangely, the Birds do not take Georgia Jackson. 20 years pass to find Georgia entangled with a man named Arlo, who turns out to be her mother's ex. So begins a complicated matrix between Georgia, Arlo, his wife Felicity and their son Isaiah. Bird Suit probes issues of grief, faith, sex and love in the sticky, peach-filled heat of summer.
Sydney Hegele is a writer living in Toronto. Their story The Bottom was shortlisted for The Malahat Review's 2020 Open Season Awards. They have been published in American Chordata, Thorn Literary Magazine and other literary journals. Their debut book The Pump won the 2022 ReLit Award for short fiction.
A Cure for Drowning by Loghan Paylor
In The Cure for Drowning, Kit McNair was born Kathleen to an Irish farming family in Ontario and, a tomboy in boy's clothes, doesn't fit in with the expectations of a farmgirl set out for them. When Rebekah, a German-Canadian's doctor's daughter comes to town, she, Kit and Kit's older brother Landon find themselves in a love triangle which tears their families apart. All three of them separate and join different war efforts but all eventually return home — and they'll have to move forward from their challenging and storied past.
Loghan Paylor is an Ontario-born author currently based in Abbotsford, B.C. They have an MA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia and their short fiction and essays have previously appeared in publications including Room and Prairie Fire. The Cure for Drowning, is their debut novel.
On Community by Casey Plett
Casey Plett writes about the implications of community as a word, an idea and a symbol in the book-length essay On Community. Plett uses her firsthand experiences to eventually reach a cumulative definition of community and explore how we form bonds with one another.
Plett is the author of A Dream of a Woman, Little Fish and A Safe Girl to Love. She is a winner of the Amazon First Novel Award, the Firecracker Award for Fiction and a two-time winner of the Lambda Literary Award. Her work has also been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Plett splits her time between New York City and Windsor, Ont.
Night of the Living Zed by Basil Sylvester & Kevin Sylvester
Night of the Living Zed is the middle-grade sequel to The Fabulous Zed Watson!. The smart and sleuthing best friend duo, Zed and Gabe are back and on the hunt to crack another cryptic case. The Glydebourne Manor was once home to a great opera designer and is hosting a ghoulish challenge — solve the puzzles in each room before midnight over three days. Can Zed and Gabe conquer their fears and win the prize money for their friends' wedding?
Night of the Living Zed is for ages 8 to 12.
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Basil Sylvester is judging the First Page student writing challenge — and wants you to get creative!
Basil Sylvester is a non-binary writer based in Toronto. Their father, Kevin Sylvester, is a broadcaster and the award-winning illustrator and writer of middle-grade books such as the Neil Flambé Capers series and the MiNRS space adventure series.
West of West Indian by Linzey Corridon
West of West Indian is a poetry collection that explores the Queer Caribbean experience, both the pain and pleasure, as an individual and a collective. It dives into themes of love and autonomy using language that is often used to unsettle queer life.
Linzey Corridon is a writer and educator. He was born in the Caribbean and he now lives in Canada.
Into the Bright Open by Cherie Dimaline
Into the Bright Open is a queer YA reimagining of The Secret Garden. When Mary Lennox becomes an orphan at 15 years old, she is sent from her home in Toronto to the wilderness of the Georgian Bay to live with her uncle. Mary is settling into her new life when one night she finds her cousin Olive, who has been medicated and hidden away in an attic room. Mary and Olive become instant friends and, along with a Métis girl named Sophie, set out to try and free Olive. Then one day, they stumble upon a long-forgotten and overgrown garden.
Into the Bright Open is for ages 13 and up.
Cherie Dimaline is a Métis author best known for her YA novel The Marrow Thieves, which was named one of Time magazine's top 100 YA novels of all time and was championed by Jully Black on Canada Reads 2018. Her other books include VenCo, Red Rooms, The Girl Who Grew a Galaxy, A Gentle Habit, Empire of Wild and Funeral Songs for Dying Girls.
Perfect Little Angels by Vincent Anioke
Perfect Little Angels is a short story collection set mostly in Nigeria, pondering questions of expectation, desire and duty among its various characters. From boarding school tensions to secret rendezvous between lovers in a hill, the stories explore masculinity, religion, othering, queerness, love and self-expression.
Vincent Anioke was born and raised in Nigeria and now lives in Waterloo. Ont. He has been a finalist for the 2023 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers and the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, and won the Austin Clarke Fiction Prize in 2021. His short story Leave A Funny Message At The Beep was longlisted for the 2024 CBC Short Story Prize. His story Utopia was longlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize twice, in 2021 and 2023. His work has been featured in SmokeLong Quarterly, The Rumpus, The Masters Review and Passages North.
Broughtupsy by Christina Cooke
In the novel Broughtupsy, the death of her brother brings Akúa home to Jamaica after a decade. There, she struggles to reconnect with her estranged sister while they spread his ashes and revisit landmarks of their shared childhood. A chance meeting with a stripper named Jayda forces Akúa to reckon with her queerness, her homeland, her family and herself over two life-changing weeks.
Christina Cooke is a Jamaican Canadian writer based in New York City. Her work has appeared in publications such as The Caribbean Writer, Prairie Schooner and Epiphany: A Literary Journal. She has won the Writers' Trust M&S Journey Prize and Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award. Broughtupsy is her debut novel.
Those Pink Mountain Nights by Jen Ferguson
Those Pink Mountain Nights is a YA novel set in Alberta that follows three teenagers — Berlin, Cameron and Jessie — who are brought together by working at Pink Mountain Pizza. A possible sighting of Kiki, Cameron's cousin who disappeared five months earlier, sets off a course of events over one week in their small, snowy town that will alter all their lives. Those Pink Mountain Nights explores topics such as Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, mental health and sexuality.
Those Pink Mountain Nights is for ages 13 and up.
Jen Ferguson is a YA author, activist and academic of Michif/Métis and Canadian settler heritage, based in Los Angeles. Ferguson has a PhD in English and creative writing. Her debut novel, The Summer of Bitter and Sweet, won the 2022 Governor General's Literary Award for young people's literature — text.
Crooked Teeth by Danny Ramadan
Crooked Teeth is Danny Ramadan's memoir that refutes the oversimplified refugee narrative and transports readers on an epic and often fraught journey from Damascus to Cairo, Beirut and Vancouver. Told with nuance and fearless intimacy about being a queer Syrian-Canadian, Crooked Teeth revisits parts of Ramadan's past he'd rather forget.
Ramadan is a Vancouver-based Syrian-Canadian author and advocate. His debut novel The Clothesline Swing was longlisted for Canada Reads in 2018 and his second novel The Foghorn Echoes won a Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction.
Asking for a Friend by Ronnie Riley
In the middle-grade novel Asking for a Friend, Eden Jones would prefer to pretend to have friends rather than pushing their social anxiety to make real ones. Eden has told their mom that three of their classmates, Duke, Ramona and Tabitha, are their friends at school. When Eden's mom invites them all over, Eden is forced to actually talk to them. Asking for a Friend is a story of queer joy and the messy but beautiful parts of friendship.
Ronnie Riley is a middle-grade writer based in Toronto. Their first book was Jude Saves the World.
Dinner on Monster Island by Tania De Rozario
In her book Dinner on Monster Island, Tania De Rozario looks at her experiences growing up in Singapore and how she often felt monstrous and othered as a queer, brown, fat girl. The essays recount traumatic life events such as getting gay-exorcized at age 12 and connects them with elements of history, pop culture and horror films.
De Rozario is a Vancouver-based writer and artist whose other books include Lambda Literary Award finalist And The Walls Come Crumbling Down and Tender Delirium.
Roaming by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki
Roaming is a YA graphic novel that follows best friends Zoe and Dani on a trip to New York City during their first year of college. As a queer romance blossoms between Zoe and Dani's classmate Fiona — who tags along — friendships get put to the test and all three girls learn more about who they are.
Jillian Tamaki is a Toronto-based cartoonist, illustrator and educator. With her cousin Mariko Tamaki, she co-created the YA graphic novel Skim, which won the Governor General's Literary Award for young people's literature — text. Another collaboration, This One Summer, won the Governor General's Literary Award for young people's literature — illustration.
Mariko Tamaki is a writer based in Oakland, California. Her other books include the YA novels (you) Set Me On Fire and Saving Montgomery Sole. She's also the author of many superhero comics for DC Comics, Darkhorse and Marvel.
Terrarium by Matthew Walsh
Terrarium is a poetry collection that explores queer identity and depression using a conversational writing style. Raw, confessional and often messy, the voice has a quality of intimacy and shared secrets.
Matthew Walsh is a poet known for their debut book These are not the potatoes of my youth, which was a finalist for the Trillium and Gerald Lampert Awards. Walsh has previously contributed poetry to publications like The Malahat Review and Arc. Walsh was named a 'writer to watch' by CBC Books in 2019. They are now based in Toronto.
Empty Spaces by Jordan Abel
Empty Spaces is a reimagining of James Fenimore Cooper's 19th-century text The Last of the Mohicans from a modern urban perspective. Jordan Abel explores what it means to be Indigenous without access to familial territory and complicates popular understandings about Indigenous storytelling.
Abel is a Nisga'a writer from British Columbia. He is also the author of the poetry collections The Place of Scraps, Un/inhabited and Injun. In 2017, he won the Griffin Poetry Prize for Injun.
The Winter Knight by Jes Battis
In The Winter Knight, Jes Battis reimagines the King Arthur legends as a modern, queer detective. These days, the Knights of the Round Table live in Vancouver. When one of them turns up dead, Hildie, the lead investigator, is determined to find the murderer. On her list of suspects are Wayne, an autistic reincarnation of a medieval figure trying to keep up with modern times, and Burt, Wayne's love interest. To solve the case, Hildie will have to come up against some powerful adversaries, including knights, runesmiths and a beast hunting people's dreams.
Battis is a queer autistic writer and teacher at the University of Regina, splitting their time between the prairies and the west coast. They wrote the Occult Special Investigator series and Parallel Parks series. Battis' first novel, Night Child, was shortlisted for the Sunburst Award. The Winter Knight was on the Canada Reads 2024 longlist.
Apocalypse Child by Carly Butler
In Apocalypse Child, Carly Butler recounts growing up in 1990s Montana and moving to the Canadian wilderness at a young age due to her mother's belief in the Evangelical Christian end of the world. Isolated in the woods, her life shifts to learning survival techniques based on religious doctrine and conspiracy theories.
The book explores Butler's resilient journey dealing with the end of the world that never came, motherhood and the development of her queer, Mexican-Indigenous identity.
Butler is a B.C.-based author who has written for Loose Lips Magazine. She has been a babysitter, birth doula, barista and house cleaner and identifies as a bisexual Indigenous woman with roots in Mexico.
Funeral Songs for Dying Girls by Cherie Dimaline
Dimaline explores grief and haunting in her newest young adult novel, Funeral Songs for Dying Girls. Winifred has lived in an apartment above the Winterson Cemetery office with her father all her life. On the verge of its closure, rumours start spreading that the cemetery is haunted and Winifred begins to question everything she knows about life, love and death.
Funeral Songs for Dying Girls is for ages 14 and up.
Cherie Dimaline is a bestselling Métis author best known for her YA novel The Marrow Thieves. The Marrow Thieves, was named one of Time magazine's top 100 YA novels of all time and was championed by Jully Black on Canada Reads 2018. Her other books include VenCo, Red Rooms, The Girl Who Grew a Galaxy, A Gentle Habit and Empire of Wild.
Portrait of Body by Julie Delporte
In Portrait of a Body, Julie Delporte examines her life experiences and trauma in an attempt to answer the haunting questions she has about her gender and sexuality. The book focuses on the journey inward to heal oneself and live more authentically.
Julie Delporte is a comic creator and poet based in Montreal. Her other books include This Woman's Work, Everywhere Antennas and Journal.
Helge Dascher is a frequent translator of comic books. She's also translated many of Guy Delisle's titles, Aya by Marguerite Abouet and Clément Oubrerie, White Rapids by Pascal Blanchet and Paul at Home by Michel Rabagliati.
Karen Houle used to be a Professor of Philosophy but now she is a full-time Earth worker-activist and a sometimes translator.
Circle of Love by Monique Gray Smith, illustrated by Nicole Neidhardt
In Circle of Love, young Molly spends the day at the intertribal community centre where they're preparing for a feast. She introduces readers to the people she knows and loves, including her grandmother and her grandmother's wife, her uncles and their baby, her cousins and her cherished friends. Throughout, Molly explains how at the centre, everyone is welcome and "love is love."
Circle of Love is for ages 4 to 8.
Monique Gray Smith's many other books include the novels Tilly: A Story of Hope and Resilience and Tilly and the Crazy Eights, the picture books When We Are Kind and My Heart Fills with Happiness.
Neidhardt is Diné (Navajo) of Kiiyaa'áanii clan and works in a variety of media, including book illustration, mylar stenciling, installation and mural painting and design.
Ordinary Notes by Christina Sharpe
Ordinary Notes reflects on questions about Black life in the wake of loss. Christina Sharpe brings together the past and present realities with possible futures to construct a portrait of everyday Black existence. The book touches on language, beauty, memory, art, photography and literature.
Ordinary Notes won the 2023 Writers' Trust Hilary Weston Prize for nonfiction.
Sharpe is a writer and professor. She is also the author of In the Wake: On Blackness and Being and Monstrous Intimacies: Making Post-Slavery Subjects. Sharpe is the Canada Research Chair in Black Studies in the department of humanities, at York University, in Toronto. Sharpe is a juror for the 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize.
