Award-winning young adult novels with LGBTQIA+, queer & trans characters.

“Powerful and empowering, with an optimistic message that we all need more of in our lives.”  – Kate Bornstein, author of Gender Outlaw

“[Being Emily] feels incredibly honest, and there are moments of joy, anger, and sorrow, laced together in a way that will make you cry and laugh along with the characters. It doesn’t shy away from the hardship but it also doesn’t make the claim that this hard stuff is all a trans person’s life is ever.” – YA Pride

“I was hooked by this deeply layered story! Nico is a lovable tour guide for exploring beyond the gender binary and brings an important perspective and voice for youth who do not ‘fit in the boxes.'” — Elyse Pine, MD,  Trans Youth Lead Physician, Gender JOY, Chase Brexton Health Care

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Invite Rachel to Speak

Dynamic, engaging, funny.

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For Classrooms & Book Clubs

Reading guides and background info.

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Book News & Events

  • stack of books on wooden shelf

    Receive Free LGBTQ+ Books

    To celebrate the upcoming release of Get Curious on May 19th, 2026, and to add more queer and trans joy into the world, I would like to offer folks the opportunity to receive free books! ...

  • The cover of Curious Minds, a group of people in discussion, and a book held in a lap

    Curious Minds Reading and Discussion Questions

    Here is a list of discussion questions for Curious Minds, intended for classrooms, book groups, scholars, or enthused readers. Following the questions are a few bonus exercises you can try out if you want to engage even more deeply with the text. ...

Books in the Classroom

Because Rachel’s books include issues of diversity, transgender lives, bullying, abuse and mental health, they’re ideal for classroom use.

Rachel’s books have been taught in college-level classrooms, including:

  • Ohio State University, Mansfield
  • University of Memphis
  • University of Wisconsin River Falls
  • University of Wisconsin Waukesha
  • Bridgewater State University
  • Metropolitan State University
  • Arcadia University
  • Vancouver Island University
  • George Mason University

New! Curious Minds

A group of LGBTQ+ college students find themselves, and a whole lot of trouble, as they search for a retired professor’s hidden, immensely valuable coin collection. Clues come from decoding classic lesbian and sapphic books—but in six years no one has found the treasure.

Second-generation lesbian Maze Lister planned to skip the treasure hunt. She’s read all the books—they’re in her moms’ library—and doesn’t need the money. But a late night spent with charismatic athlete Lys Neil changes her mind. The two of them bond over their neurodivergent minds, even though they handle their ADHD in sharply different ways.

Maze and Lys decide to compete in the treasure hunt together, but chance puts them on competing teams within a group of students just as determined as they are—and willing to bend the rules. Secret teams form, accusations fly, and everyone starts to learn much more about themselves than they bargained for. Can they decode the stories and find the prize before a malevolent classmate turns them against each other and takes the treasure for herself?

Being Emily

Winner 2013 Golden Crown Literary Award in Dramatic / General Fiction.
Winner 2013 Moonbeam Children’s Book Award in Young Adult Fiction – Mature Issues.
Finalist 2013 Lambda Literary Award

“Powerful and empowering, with an optimistic message that we all need more of in our lives. I’m thrilled to see this book is out in the world.” – Kate Bornstein, author of Gender Outlaw and A Queer and Pleasant Danger

They say that whoever you are it’s okay, you were born that way. Those words don’t comfort Emily, because she was born Christopher and her insides know that her outsides are all wrong.

They say that it gets better, be who you are and it’ll be fine. For Emily, telling her parents who she really is means a therapist who insists Christopher is normal and Emily is sick. Telling her girlfriend means lectures about how God doesn’t make that kind of mistake.

Emily desperately wants high school in her small Minnesota town to get better. She wants to be the woman she knows is inside, but it’s not until a substitute therapist and a girl named Natalie come into her life that she believes she has a chance of actually Being Emily.

A story for anyone who has ever felt that the inside and outside don’t match and no one else will understand…

In this new, expanded version you will find:

  • Updated language
  • Expanded and additional scenes
  • A new note from the author
  • A new introduction
  • Emily & Claire ten years later
  • The groundbreaking classic updated for our generation!