30 New Publications in 2025 I Am Excited For

Over the past years my preview lists have become more and more extensive and putting together these kind of posts incredibly time consuming (so I never even did my list for the second half of 2024). So this year I decided to rein it in a little. There will be only one list – and I limit myself to 30 titles. That’s it. And it’s hard! My publication calendar for 2025 has got already 168 titles I am very interested in on it. But I widdled it down and I love this list I came up with. I will try though to once again post monthly upcoming publication posts on IG in my stories.

Fiction & Poetry

Kristen Arnett: Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One

Lesbian clowns and magicians? I am intrigued. I have also loved both of Arnett’s previous novels and especially her messy queer characters and the atmosphere she is able to create.

“Equal parts bravado, tenderness, and humor, and bursting with misfits, magicians, musicians, and mimes, Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One is a masterpiece of comedic fiction that asks big questions about art and performance, friendship and community, and the importance of timing in jokes and in life.”

Latif Askia Ba: The Choreic Period: Poems

I am also looking for new publications by disabled writers and this poetry collection which also plays with multiple languages by a Brooklyn based Senegalese American poet sounds fascinating.

“Latif Askia Ba—an acclaimed poet with Choreic Cerebral Palsy—honors all the things that arise from our unique choreographies. Meeting each reader with corporeal generosity, these poems create space to practice a radical reclamation of movement and the body. Together. In dialogue. In disability. At the bodega, in the examination room, on the move. “This way. My body looks like a dancing tattoo.” Here, the drum of the body punctuates thought in unexpected and invigorating time signatures.”

Nicola Dinan: Disappoint Me

I loved Dinan’s novel Bellies with all my heart and I appreciated the way she writes complex characters and relationships. Disappoint Me seems to follow in that vein.

“Max is thirty, a published poet and grossly overpaid legal counsel for a tech company. She’s living her best life! Or is she? The debris of years of dysphoria and failed relationships rattle around in her head. When she tumbles down the stairs at a New Year’s Eve party and wakes up in hospital alone, she decides to make some changes. First things first: a stab at good old-fashioned heteronormativity.”

Akwaeke Emezi: SỌMADỊNA

Surely one of my auto-buy authors. I deeply enjoy how Emezi explores different kind of genres and forms and consistently creates stunning and challenging works. This YA Igbo mythology and history inspired fantasy sounds once again really good.

“Somadina and her twin brother, Jayaike, are practically the same person: they finish each other’s sentences and make each other whole. When the twins come of age, their magical gifts begin to develop, but while Jayaike’s powers enchant, Somadina’s cause fear to ripple through her town.”

Sarah Fonseca and Octavia Saenz (eds.): The New Lesbian Pulp

Published by The Feminist Press this promises to be a wild, fun read.

“Lesbian pulp fiction thrived in the oppressive 1950s, telling subversive stories of lonely sapphic women who find connection, passion, and revenge. In The New Lesbian Pulp, editors Sarah Fonseca and Octavia Saenz revive the genre for today, layering nuance into classic tropes while dialing up the melodrama, romantic peril, and collateral damage.”

Saou Ichikawa (transl. by Polly Barton): Hunchback

Many people have already lauded this book, in particular fellow disabled writers. The book sounds very funny, very insightful and memorable.

“Born with a congenital muscle disorder, Shaka spends her days in her room in a care home outside Tokyo, relying on an electric wheelchair to get around and a ventilator to breathe. But if Shaka’s physical life is limited, her quick, mischievous mind has no boundaries: She takes e-learning courses on her iPad, publishes explicit fantasies on websites, and anonymously troll-tweets to see if anyone is paying attention (“In another life, I’d like to work as a high-class prostitute”). One day, she tweets into the void an offer of an enormous sum of money for a sperm donor. To Shaka’s surprise, her new nurse accepts the dare, unleashing a series of events that will forever change Shaka’s sense of herself as a woman in the world.”

Ann-Helén Laestadius (transl. by Rachel Willson-Broyles): Punished

I deeply loved Sámi author Laestadius’ previously translated novel Stolen (and also highly recommend the movie based in this book). Since I have finished reading that I have been looking forward for more of her work to be translated.

“In the 1950s near the Arctic Circle, seven-year-olds Jon-Ante, Else-Maj, Nilsa, Marge, and Anne-Risten are taken from their families. As children of Sámi reindeer herders, the Swedish state has mandated they attend a “nomad school” where they are forbidden to speak their native language. As the children visit home only sporadically, their parents know little about the abuse they face, much of it at the hands of the housemother, Rita. Those who dare to speak up are silenced.”

Mattie Lubchansky: Simplicity

Lubchansky’s last graphic novel called Boys Weekend made me laugh and shudder and ultimately cry. I expect nothing less from Simplicity (and the synopsis sounds absolutely wild).

“In 1977, a group called The Spiritual Association of Peers decamps to the woods of the Catskills, taking over an abandoned summer camp. They name their new home Simplicity. In 2081, scholar Lucius Pasternak, a fastidiously organized trans man, tries to keep his head down living in the New York City Administrative and Security Territory, which was founded after the formal dissolution of the United States in 2041. Then, he’s offered a job by the mayor, billionaire real estate developer Dennis Van Wervel, to complete an anthropological survey of the people of Simplicity for a history museum he’s financing. “

Leila Marshy: My Thievery of the People

The Philistine was my favourite novel by a Palestinan writer I read last year (it had been out for a few years already). It was queer and complex and atmospheric. The more excited I was when I found out Marshy has a new short story collection coming out this year.

“From the highways of Cairo to the outports of Newfoundland, the soul-crushing cubicles of Montreal city work and the birds and bees of the Quebec countryside, these brilliant short stories lay bare the workings of power and the small acts of both courage and compromise by which those on the margins defy them.”

Benedict Nguyễn: Hot Girls with Balls: A Novel

Sometimes I just need a very out-there synopsis/ blurb and a fun cover to be fully on board. And how couldn’t you be intrigued by this novel about trans women in the men’s volleyball league?

“Six is 6’7”, scheming to rejoin the starting lineup, and barely checks her phone. Green is 6’1”, always building her brand, and secretly jealous of her more famous girlfriend. They’re gutsy, gorgeous babes going where no Asian American trans woman has gone before: the men’s pro indoor volleyball league. Six and Green are… hot girls with balls.”

Esther Ifesinachi Okonkwo: The Tiny Things Are Heavier

First of all, I think the cover is pretty stunning. I hope it is indicative of the writing within the novel. If so, this should be a win.

“The Tiny Things are Heavier follows Sommy, a Nigerian woman who comes to the United States for graduate school two weeks after her brother, Mezie, attempts suicide. Plagued by the guilt of leaving Mezie behind, Sommy struggles to fit into her new life as a student and an immigrant. Lonely and homesick, Sommy soon enters a complicated relationship with her boisterous Nigerian roommate, Bayo, a relationship that plummets into deceit when Sommy falls for Bryan, a biracial American, whose estranged Nigerian father left the States immediately after his birth. “

Nnedi Okorafor: Death of the Author

I used to read every Okorafor novel (Lagoon is one of my alltime favourites), but have done so less in the previous year (always some other things with slightly higher priority). But this new novel sounds so incredibly fascinating I will certainly pick it up as soon as it comes out.

“Disabled, disinclined to marry, and more interested in writing than a lucrative career in medicine or law, Zelu has always felt like the outcast of her large Nigerian family. Then her life is upended when, in the middle of her sister’s lavish Caribbean wedding, she’s unceremoniously fired from her university job and, to add insult to injury, her novel is rejected by yet another publisher. With her career and dreams crushed in one fell swoop, she decides to write something just for herself. What comes out is nothing like the quiet, literary novels that have so far peppered her unremarkable career. It’s a far-future epic where androids and AI wage war in the grown-over ruins of human civilization. She calls it Rusted Robots.“

Eloghosa Osunde: Necessary Fiction

The blurb of this novel doesn’t give us too much but as I loved Osunde previous very queer, very wonderful novel Vagabonds!, it’s on my list.

“Across Lagos, one of Africa’s largest urban areas and one of the world’s most dynamic cities, Osunde’s characters seek out love for self and their chosen partners, even as they risk ruining relationships with parents, spouses, family, and friends. As the novel unfolds, a rolling cast emerges: vibrantly active, stubbornly alive, brazenly flawed. These characters grapple with desire, fear, time, death, and God, forming and breaking unexpected connections; in the process unveiling how they know each other, have loved each other, and had their hearts broken in that pursuit. “

Torrey Peters: Stag Dance

Not only a novel but also multiple short stories by Peters in one package? Yes, thank you! Detransition, Baby was a seminal novel, so I can’t wait to see what she does here.

“In Stag Dance, the titular novel, a group of restless lumberjacks working in an illegal winter logging outfit plan a dance that some of them will volunteer to attend as women. When the broadest, strongest, plainest of the axmen announces his intention to dance as a woman, he finds himself caught in a strange rivalry with a pretty young jack, provoking a cascade of obsession, jealousy, and betrayal that will culminate on the big night in an astonishing vision of gender and transition.”

Pier Vittorio Tondelli (transl. by Simon Pleasance): Separate Rooms

I haven’t read too much Italian queer literature yet and I love to dive into older queer literature, so this new edition of an Italian queer classic has me intrigued.

“Leo is an Italian writer in his thirties. Thomas, his German lover, is dead. On a plane to Munich, Thomas’ home town, Leo slips into a reverie of their meeting and life in Paris, nights in Thomas’ flat in Montmartre and a desperate, drug-induced flight through the forests of northern France that spells the end for Leo and Thomas’ languid, erotic life together. Leo travels to find anonymity. Structured in three musical movements, Separate Rooms is a story of ideal love, broken by absence and separation. When Thomas was alive, he and Leo had separate rooms in order to preserve the urgency of their passion. Now, Leo faces solitude, the impossible striving of memory to recreate life and the hostility of a prejudiced world. Separate Rooms, Tondelli’s last book, is a powerful novel of the strength of love and the trauma of death.”

Non Fiction

Sara Ahmed: No Is Not a Lonely Utterance: The Art and Activism of Complaining

I believe there is no one I quote more frequently than Sara Ahmed – from her thoughts on quotation as feminist praxis to the fact that the one pointing out the problem becomes a problem. The title of her newest book alone makes me feel seen. I am very ready for new wor by Ahmed in my life.

No blurb out yet.

Vivian Blaxell: Worthy of the Event

This is published by the wonderful Little Puss Press (an independent press run by two trans women). I have loved their books in the past and this one sounds equally good.

“Set against a backdrop of trans life that begins with her own transition in the 1960s, Vivian Blaxell takes us on a witty and expansive sweep through history, from Australia to Japan, to Hawai’i to Mexico, to heretofore unmapped regions of the mind. In seven devastatingly intelligent parts, her essay covers a vast range in time and space — from the arson of a Japanese temple to a transformative encounter with a coral reef, from Nietzsche and Hegel to Indigenous metaphysics, from a perplexing relationship with a beautiful man to the unknowable minds of animals. Fleshy and philosophical, searching and exalted, utterly distinctive and assured, Worthy of the Event belatedly establishes Vivian Blaxell as one of the major writers of her generation.”

John Birdsall: What Is Queer Food?: How We Served a Revolution

Two of my favourite topics: queerness and food. I have followed Birdsall for while and deeply enjoy his takes.

“Food in America and Europe has long been shaped, twisted, and upended by queer creatives. Beloved food writer John Birdsall fills the gap between the past and present, channeling the twin forces of criticism and cultural history to propel readers into the kitchens, restaurants, swirling party-houses, and humming interior lives of James Baldwin, Alice B. Toklas, Truman Capote, Esther Eng, and others who left an indelible mark on the culinary world from the margins. Queer food is brunch quiche à la Craig Claiborne, Richard Olney’s ecstatic salade composée, and Rainbow Ice-Box Cake from Ernest Matthew Mickler’s White Trash Cooking. It’s the intention surrounding a meal, the circumstances behind it, the people gathered around the table.”

Andrée Blouin: My Country, Africa: Autobiography of the Black Pasionaria

I have to admit I did not know about Blouin so far – but after reading the blurb I can wait to learn more about and from her.

“Andrée Blouin—once called the most dangerous woman in Africa—played a leading role in the struggles for decolonization that shook the continent in the 1950s and ’60s, advising the postcolonial leaders of Algeria, both Congos, Ivory Coast, Mali, Guinea, and Ghana. In this autobiography, Blouin retraces her remarkable journey as an African revolutionary. Born in French Equatorial Africa and abandoned at the age of three, she endured years of neglect and abuse in a colonial orphanage, which she escaped after being forced by nuns into an arranged marriage at fifteen. She later became radicalized by the death of her two-year-old son, who was denied malaria medication by French officials because he was one-quarter African.”

Omar El Akkad: One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This

The title alone seems very apt and so timely. I am interest to see what are the more in-depth points this book makes.

“As an immigrant who came to the West, El Akkad believed that it promised freedom. A place of justice for all. But in the past twenty years, reporting on the War on Terror, Ferguson, climate change, Black Lives Matter protests, and more, and watching the unmitigated slaughter in Gaza, El Akkad has come to the conclusion that much of what the West promises is a lie. That there will always be entire groups of human beings it has never intended to treat as fully human—not just Arabs or Muslims or immigrants, but whoever falls outside the boundaries of privilege. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This is a chronicle of that painful realization, a moral grappling with what it means, as a citizen of the U.S., as a father, to carve out some sense of possibility in a time of carnage.”

Ariel Gore: Rehearsals for Dying: Digressions on Love and Cancer

It’s been years since I read a novel by Ariel Gore (We Were Witches) and I still think about it regularily. This new memoir about her wive’s terminal cancer diagnosis looks like another deeply emotional and memorable read.

“Deena stepped out of the shower and opened her towel in the steam. “Does my breast look weird?” These words irrevocably change the lives of writer Ariel Gore and her wife. As they descend into a world of doctors and tests, medications and insurance, sickness and treatments and hope and pain and more, they discover just how little they truly knew—despite the awareness campaigns and hyper-visible pink ribbons—about the reality of breast cancer. Over the four years following Deena’s terminal diagnosis, Gore does what she always does, no matter how difficult or personal the subject: she writes about it. “

Jessica Horn: African Feminist Praxis: Cartographies of Liberatory Worldmaking

Horn is such an interesting feminist thinker with a lot of experience and I am seeing forward to dive deeper into her work.

“In a world in desperate need of new imaginaries, what can we learn from the movements and activists who have worked diligently to craft societies shaped by collective thriving? Commissioned by Sage Publishers, Jessica Horn’s new book African Feminist Praxis: Cartographies of Liberatory Worldmaking offers fresh insight into decades of African feminist organising to reconceptualise and remake the world. The book explores the animating principles of kinship, courage, pleasure, care and memory.”

Jamaica Kincaid: Putting Myself Together: Writing 1973-

I don’t feel there is much to say here. Always excited for Kincaid’s writing.

“This collection of Jamaica Kincaid’s nonfiction writings, from her early days at The New Yorker until now, amounts to a brilliant, hilarious, trenchant self-portrait of one of the most surprising and original writers we have. From the classic “Autobiography of a Dress” to her original thinking about the meaning of the garden, Kincaid writes about the world as she finds it, with her own quizzical, rapier-sharp response to reality that always takes the reader in new, life-enhancing directions.”

Giaae Kwon: I’ll Love You Forever: Notes from a K-Pop Fan

I have followed Kwon’s writing for years at this point and I have loved her beautiful writing on food and pop culture and the personal. I am not deeply into K-Pop, but I am sure that Kwon is an excellent guide and critic to learn more from.

“I’ll Love You Forever: Notes from a K-Pop Fan is a smart, poignant, constantly surprising essay collection that considers the collision between stratospherically popular music and our inescapably personal selves. Giaae Kwon delves into the global impact of K-pop artists, from H.O.T. to Taeyeon to IU to Suga of BTS, and reveals how each illuminated and shaped her own life.”

Elizabeth Lovatt: Thank You For Calling the Lesbian Line

Always interested in new-to-me aspects of queer and in particular lesbian history.

“In Thank You for Calling the Lesbian Line, Lovatt uncovers the lesbian history hidden in the pages of the Lesbian Line logbook, which captured calls from 1993 to 1998. With warmth and humor, she reimagines the voices of those who called and volunteered for the Lesbian Line, where a few stolen moments at a pay phone could turn into the courage to come out, find support, and imagine a happier future. In this mash-up of history, pop culture, and queer feminist theory, Lovatt boldly asks: What do we owe to our lesbian forebears? What informs lesbian identity? And how do we create a future for our community free from bias and division?”

Amara Moira (transl. by Amanda De Lisio and Bruna Dantas Lobato): (So What) If I’m a Puta?: Diaries of Transness, Sex Work, Desire

The Feminist Press will publish to books on sex work this year and both sound really good.

“Woven through Moira’s essays are reflections on transition, safe sex, desire, whorephobia, consent—in the grim context of Brazil’s record rates of violence against trans women. Ultimately, Moira writes to “give a voice to us prostitutes” and center trans sex workers in Brazil’s putafeminist movement, modeling a feminism that envisions inclusivity, safety, self-determination, and joy for us all. “

Imani Perry: Black in Blues

Perry’s biography of Lorraine Hansberry is one of my favourite biographies hands down. Since I read it I wanted to pick up more of Perry’s work but haven’t gotten to it yet. But Black in Blues sounds deeply fascinating (and possibly much needed entry to the canon of books on the colour blue).

“Throughout history, the concept of Blackness has been remarkably intertwined with another color: blue. In daily life, it is evoked in countless ways. Blue skies and blue water offer hope for that which lies beyond the current conditions. But blue is also the color of deep melancholy and heartache, echoing Louis Armstrong’s question, “What did I do to be so Black and blue?” In this book, celebrated author Imani Perry uses the world’s favorite color as a springboard for a riveting emotional, cultural, and spiritual journey—an examination of race and Blackness that transcends politics or ideology.”

Tourmaline: Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson

Of course, I know some of the basics about Marsha P. Johnson but I am now excited to learn so much more, especially through Tourmaline’s particular research and lense.

“Written with sparkling prose, Tourmaline’s richly researched biography Marsha finally brings this iconic figure to life, in full color. We vividly meet Marsha as both an activist and artist: She performed with RuPaul and with the internationally renowned drag troupe The Hot Peaches. She was a muse to countless artists from Andy Warhol to the band Earth, Wind & Fire. And she continues to inspire people today.”

Various: Owning It: Tales From Our Disabled Childhoods

With writers such as Imani Barbarin, Jen Campbell and Ilya Kaminsky involved, this promises to be a really lovely and insightful anthology.

“From navigating sports at school, to facing the confusion of getting given free stuff all the time, to juggling hospital trips alongside your social life, this anthology of firsthand experiences of childhood disability will be a welcome companion for disabled children. For non-disabled children it provides a welcome own-voice perspective and will help build empathy and understanding. A very powerful, much-needed book.”

David Wojnarowicz: Memories That Smell Like Gasoline

Another new editon I am excited for. This one includes a foreword by Ocean Vuong (who also has a new highly anticipated novel coming out this year).

“Here are David Wojnarowicz’s most intimate stories and sketches, from the full spectrum of his life as an artist and AIDS activist. Four sections—”Into the Drift and Sway,” “Doing Time in a Disposable Body,” “Spiral,” and “Memories that Smell like Gasoline”—are made of images and indictments of a precocious adolescence, and his later adventures in the streets of New York. Combining text and image, tenderness and rage, Wojnarowicz’s Memories That Smell like Gasoline is a disavowal of the world that wanted him dead, and a radical insistence on life..”