Welcome to Litsy!

A lovely collection. I especially liked the poems to or from the perspective of Frida Kahlo, as well as ones that had images of west coast nature. I have a feeling I missed a number of references. The ones I did get really accentuated the poem's meaning: for example, there's one poem titled "All the Beyoncés and Lucy Lius" after the Outkast song. For bi/queer women of colour representation in poetry this book is especially interesting.

I admired but didn't always love this collection of short fiction, including flash fiction as well as more traditional length short stories. K-Ming Chang's writing is so unique, full of strange and beautiful images and ideas, which the book focuses on more than character or plot. Her style feels more akin to poetry than fiction, especially the flash fiction which was my favourite. The stories are surreal, dark, sexy, queer, deeply weird.

"I did not know how to explain this stubborn love that I staggered under, iridescent, veined with a terrible grief, grief for the ways [my parents'] lives had been compost for my own."

#QueerBooks #AsianBooks

WOW WOW WOW the first story in here, "Auntland," is jaw dropping good
#QueerBooks #LGBTQ #AsianBooks

A truly incredible collection of poetry. Themes include queer love and desire; pop culture; immigration; racism and being othered; pets and plants; diaspora; myth and folklore; parenthood and childbirth. Intertextual in nature, the poems are delightfully and fiercely innovative in their form, style, and word play. (One is a crossword puzzle!) Her word choice is often uncanny, making mundane words strange and wonderful in their unexpected use.

A fascinating, moving, and beautifully written memoir. Cambodian American journalist Putsata Reang writes with compassion and nuance about her complicated relationship with her mother. Her mom saved her life as a baby as they escaped the genocide and Put tries to be the perfect Cambodian daughter to repay the debt. But she's gay, which makes that impossible. Her own story as a journalist working all over the world is as fascinating as her mom's.

An incredible story: meticulous threads of plotlines, endearing and complex characters, unique mix of genres, and sensory prose that delights equally in food and music. It's part trans girl musician runaway tale, part alien adventure on earth, part older Asian sapphic love story, and part Faustian epic about selling your soul for musical success. Its tone is joyful and hopeful, despite being upfront about transmisogyny. Delightful, surprising.

Kumiko is a bisexual Japanese Canadian woman in her 70s who is stubborn, quirky, and independent. After escaping her longterm care home, she sets up in an East Van apartment only to find death has come too early. She intends to fight it, sometimes literally like with a vacuum cleaner. I LOVED Kumiko, a wonderfully rich depiction of a BIPOC queer elder. Gorgeous, expressive art and complex questions about death, mortality, and a life well lived.

Exciting #BookMail! David Ly's first collection of poetry!!

"Tenderness, toxic masculinity, nuances of queer love, and questions of race and identity mix in Ly's poetry, casting a spell that enters like 'a warm tongue on a first date.'" ??

Blurbed by two of my favourite authors, Kai Cheng Thom and Vivek Shraya!

#QueerBooks #LGBTQBooks #LGBTQ #Poetry #QTPOC #AsianBooks #CanLit

Next up! From the flyleaf: “Fifteen acclaimed authors reimagine tales from their own East and South Asian cultures.” #ownvoices