Rainbow Reading: A New Story Collection From Carmen Maria Machado Is Coming!

illustration by A. Andrews

Hi everyone! It’s Yashwina, back with my metal detector and everything I’ve dug up on the literary internet over the last couple weeks. I’d like to thank y’all for the warm welcome you’ve given this little column, and to extend my special appreciation for those of you who enjoyed the puns. It simply wouldn’t be a column from Yash Canter without some Trash Banter ;)

I’m having a great reading week; I have a copy of Manywhere sitting on the table next to me for when I finish my reread of Crybaby Butch (which I’m revisiting for a review I’m working on!) and I’ve also been dipping into Coming Out Under Fire periodically too — this history of queerness in the military during WWII is fascinating and surprising. It’s good things to read as far as the eye can see over here!

Alrighty, folks, let’s rumble. On this week’s Rainbow Reading, we’ve got:


Shelf Care: Reviews, Essays, and other Things of Note


Understanding the abundance and expansiveness of gender in history, to me suggests that there is a space for even more abundance and expansiveness in the future.

Morgan Thomas in their interview with Abeni about their debut short fiction collection, Manywhere


Autocorrect: Books content from the last couple weeks at Autostraddle!

It’s not technically about books per se but it’s my column and I’ll scream about how amazing AUTOSTRADDLE THEMED WORDLE is if I want to!


Rainbow Reading Superlikes:

This week, I’d like to shout out Megan of @booksnblazers — getting to exist on the same internet as Megan is a delight, and her wide-ranging interests combined with her commitment to queer voices make for a great range of recommendations. She curates some great collaborative Pride content in June, which led me to a handful of other amazing queer bookstagrammers who have brightened up my feed, and Megan also leads some amazing readalongs —who doesn’t love a gay book club?

I asked Megan about what she’s been reading lately, and she came through with an excellent recommendation: I ordered a copy of Love and Other Disasters right then and there.

That’s all she wrote, folks! If you’re a queer writer, particularly an early-career queer writer: I’d love to hear about the cool things you’re up to so that I can share links to your published essays, book reviews, short stories, poems, and longform features on LGBTQ+ topics! Please email me links for consideration at [email protected] with the subject line “Rainbow Reading Submission” — I’m an avid browser-tab-collector, and I especially want to hear from you if you’ve just landed your first publication or first major byline.

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!

Yashwina

Yashwina Canter is a reader, writer, and dyke putting down roots in Portland, Oregon. You can find her online at @yashwinacanter.

Yashwina has written 53 articles for us.

12 Comments

  1. well this is rapidly becoming the best part of my thursday!! thank you for collecting all these beautiful stories :)

  2. Put two of these books (A Snake Falls to Earth and Fire Becomes Her) on hold at my library before even finishing the post.

    I’m loving this column!

    Also, last week I happened across a 2020 Slate article about racism in the romance industry that introduced me to Black author Alyssa Cole. She seemed cool, but not quite relevant to this series until I saw that some of her books had queer heroines and that she identifies as pan/bi. I didnt think I was into romance, but I read her book How To Find a Princess and it was great—like fan fiction by a really talented author.

    • if there was ever a time for one of those iphone alert things, i think “new carmen maria machado announcement” would be it tbh

  3. At the youth media awards, Last Night at the Telegraph Club also swept, getting a Printz Honor, the Stonewall Book Award, and an APALA medal as well. (So well deserved!!)

    • YEEHAW YES IT DIIIIID! My love of Malinda and The Telegraph Club has been thoroughly documented here on AS haha, and i’m SO happy to see this book continuing to pick up the accolades and adoration it deserves!

  4. I was delighted to see the “If You Hate Mitch McConnell and Love Queer YA Fantasy, Read This Book” article was actually from my old college newspaper. Her column seems cool and now I want to go back and read more of her reviews

  5. YES NEW CARMEN MARIA MACHADO WE GONNA MAKE IT very excited to dive into a lot of what you’ve shared thank youuu

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