2025: Book of poetry, essays, or a memoir by a queer, trans, and/or two-spirit author who is Black, Indigenous and/or part of the global majority
Book recommendations/suggestions for the Read, Seed, Water, Feed 2025 book challenge. Find your next book!
read, seed, water, feed book challenge - about prompt support posts
about prompt support posts
All of the prompt support posts (those that begin with "2025: Book written by...", for example) are organized similar to each other.
Each of these posts was created to support the Read, Seed, Water Feed book challenge on Storygraph that I am hosting. They were also created to support learning outside of the university, collective educational efforts, finding new authors to read, finding books, and more.
For each book challenge prompt, I will share the following sections:
- one or more slides with books I have read or am currently reading that I recommend for the prompt
- a list of additional books from my TBR (to-be-read) list for the prompt
- a text listing of the books that I shared in the slides
I might share one or more of the following in addition, depending on capacity and other factors:
- other supportive text as appropriate, such as countries included
- some quotes, notes, and/or reflections about one or more of the books
- links to other posts on the site where I discuss the books or prompt in more detail
I did many things to minimize hierarchy within these posts, and there will still be some things that might feel odd, such as split galleries of slides, which was a choice made to address current limitations in how the galleries work.
If interested, find bingo cards, more background on the prompts, and other reflections, on the Reading Challenge page and if on Storygraph, join the challenge.
Mostly, my goal for prompt support posts is to share books for each prompt, as suggestions and as examples. This section will be first on every post and may be skipped.
Thank you for reading.
Recommended Books
Books I've read or am currently reading that I recommend for this prompt.
Read, Seed, Water, Feed 2025 reading challenge prompt and description, showing books recommended that I have read or am currently reading. All recommended books are listed lower in the post in the section “Recommended Books in a List.”
More Books from my TBR List
For some prompts, I’m trying to diversify what I read; for others, deepening my knowledge while also growing my perspective. For some prompts, there are definitely more books on my to-be-read (TBR) list than the ones I share that I have read or am currently reading. Here are some of those books:
memoirs
- How We Fight For Our Lives (2019 by Saeed Jones
- Soldier: A Poet's Childhood (2002) by June Jordan
- This Arab Is Queer: An Anthology by LGBTQ+ Arab Writers (2022) edited by Elias Jahshan
- When They Tell You To Be Good (2022) by Prince Shakur
essays
- Among the Bloodpeople: Politics and Flesh (2013) by Thomas Glave
- Some of Us Did Not Die: New and Selected Essays (2003) by June Jordan
poetry
- Blood Orange (2023) by Yaffa As
- Build Yourself a Boat (2019) by Camonghne Felix
- Congo, Seen from the Heavens (2023) by Clanga
- full-metal indigiqueer: poems (2017) by Joshua Whitehead
- Living Room: New Poems (1985) by June Jordan
- Ossuaries (2010) by Dionne Brand
- Slingshot (2019) by Cyrée Jarelle Johnson
poetry and prose
- El Ghourabaa: A Queer and Trans Arab Collection of Oddities (2024) edited by Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch, Samia Marshy
- it was never going to be okay (2020) by jaye simpson
- Watchnight (2024) by Cyrée Jarelle Johnson
expansive traversal of existing genres & imagining of new forms
- Salvage: Readings from the Wreck (2024) by Dionne Brand
notes
I have tried to balance specificity and an expansive understandings of terms within this project, while also trying to minimize the use of acronyms. This category was/is more specific than expansive, and this is something I will try to approach differently in the future. Below I share what I identified as at least two concerns I had with what I had written as the category description and how I tried to mitigate the concerns:
- This category originally read "queer or trans author" and I've changed it to "queer, trans, and/or two-spirit author," which to me feels still not sufficiently inclusive. To me, this category is inclusive of all authors who are queer, trans, two-spirit, intersex, asexual, agender, or have any other identity or expression of gender that is non-cisgender and/or sexuality that is non-heterosexual.
- The category lists genres as "poetry, essays, or a memoir" and again, the intention wasn't to be limited but rather to be expansive of all of the ways in which authors interpret and expand these genres, while also recognizing that categorization is often applied externally, and sharing that my only intention is to help people find books in ways that make sense to them, wherever they are in their own journey and understanding. I have added language including "meditations," "poetry and prose," and also "expansive traversal of existing genres & imagining of new forms" as descriptors for what might be expected in a book I shared. These are not the only added descriptors that might apply. I will write more about the last descriptor separately.
This is a practice of writing, of working on communication, of trying to get out of my brain in words that others might understand, while sharing about books that both I appreciate and think could change how one perceives the world, in a way that makes life or survival for more people possible. Thank you for your understanding.
Recommended Books in a List
As a list, books I've read or am currently reading that I recommend for this prompt:
poetry
A Place Called No Homeland (2017) by Kai Cheng Thom
Alive at the End of the World (2022) by Saeed Jones
Crossfire: A Litany for Survival (2019) by Staceyann Chin
Postcolonial Love Poem (2020) by Natalie Díaz.
x/ex/exis: poemas para la nación/poems for the nation (2021) by raquel salas rivera, bilingual edition (Spanish and English)
memoirs
Another Word for Love: A Memoir (2024) by Carvell Wallace
The Cancer Journals (1980) by Audre Lorde
Miss Major Speaks: Conversations with a Black Trans Revolutionary (2023) by Miss Major Griffin-Gracy with Toshio Meronek
Punch Me Up to the Gods: A Memoir (2021) by Brian Broome
essays & meditations
A Burst of Light: and Other Essays (1988) by Audre Lorde
Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice (2018) by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
The Future Is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes and Mourning Songs (2022) by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984) by Audre Lorde
Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals (2020) by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
expansive traversal of existing genres & imagining of new forms
In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (2016) by Christina Sharpe
M Archive: After the End of the World (2018) by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Ordinary Notes (2023) by Christina Sharpe
letters
Falling Back in Love with Being Human: Letters to Lost Souls (2023) by Kai Cheng Thom
Get any/all of these books wherever you get your books.
Please support libraries however you can. Find out many ways to get involved in supporting libraries at Libraries for the People.
Please consider purchasing books when they are available from Workshops 4 Gaza's bookstore: Ordinary Notes (2023) by Christina Sharpe, Postcolonial Love Poem (2020) by Natalie Díaz, Salvage: Readings from the Wreck (2024) by Dionne Brand. When I share books that are available for purchase there at the time of posting, I will list them here after the link.
Thank you for reading.
