In Book News & Events

Previews from the New Being Emily

By Rachel Gold

We're less than two weeks to the launch of the new edition of Being Emily! I'm super excited. I got to add about 25% more content to the original story, plus there's a whole new epilogue (set 10 years after the original story), and there's a great intro. You can pre-order the new Being Emily from the Bella Books site: eBook (DRM-free, multiple formats): https://www.bellabooks.com/product/9781594935985e/ Paperback: https://www.bellabooks.com/product/9781594935985/ You can start to preview the new content now on these sites: The Seattle Lesbian is featuring an excerpt from Stephanie Burt's introduction: http://theseattlelesbian.com/harvard-professor-introduces-classic-trans-young-adult-novel/ Lesbian.com features part of one of the new scenes between Emily & Claire: http://www.lesbian.com/classic-trans-young-adult-novel-updated-for-2018/ Epochalips has another new scene of Emily & Claire that follows from the one above: http://www.epochalips.com/2018/04/trans-girl-classic-being-emily-gets-updated/ (Don't worry, you're not reading all the new stuff ahead of time if you read those, in total I added about six full scenes and extended more.) The Bella Books blog has a post I wrote about comic book characters, including why there's more Starfire and some Warlock in the new Being Emily: http://blog.bellabooks.com/2018/04/author-rachel-gold-on-queerness-and-transness-in-comic-books.html And Lesbian News printed an article I wrote in a lovely four-page spread, photos below: If you've got questions about the new edition that you're hoping I'll answer, please leave them in the comments below or on Facebook or Twitter.

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May 4, 2018
In Book News & Events

Being Emily Revised Edition out in May

By Rachel Gold

If you haven't read the great interview between me and Stephanie Burt on YA Pride, go read it! Editing and rewriting parts of a book that's already published was a lot harder than I expected. I wanted to keep everything that readers have loved and add new material in a way that didn't clash with the original. This new version is over 20,000 words (about 25%) longer than the original. Some of the changes were single words. For example, the first version has the word "transsexual" 59 times. In the revised edition, it's largely been replaced with transgender and trans; it only appears 5 times. Some changes were additional paragraphs or parts of scenes that I rewrote to update and make them more clear. And I've added entirely new scenes, mostly toward the end, to enhance the existing plot. As you can see from the YA Pride piece, we kept the front cover, adding the awards seals and the news that Stephanie wrote a new intro. (She also helped immensely with the edits and is a lot of fun to work with.) We designed a new back cover and added an image of Emily. I love the idea that after six years of the book being in print,

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January 26, 2018
In Book News & Events

Exciting October events!

By Rachel Gold

QUEER YA with Second Story & Queer Voices — Oct. 8 @ 2 p.m. Second Story Reading Series, in collaboration with Queer Voices Reading Series, will host a QUEER YA event on Sunday, October 8th at 2pm at The Loft Literary Center. The event will feature readings by local LGBTQ authors, a panel discussion, and book sales by Addendum Books. Author Molly Beth Griffin (Silhouette of a Sparrow) will read from Either/Or, a young adult novel in progress, as part of a 2017 Minnesota Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant. Readers will include Rachel Gold (Nico & Tucker), dc edwards (Bright City), Brian Farrey (With Or Without You), Laura Bradley Rede (Kissing Midnight), Junauda Petrus (“Sweetness of Wild”), and David LaRochelle (Absolutely Positively Not). Ally authors Steve Brezenoff (Brooklyn Burning), Juliann Rich (Gravity), and Kirstin Cronn-Mills (Beautiful Music for Ugly Children) will then join the readers for a panel discussion and Q&A moderated by Vee Signorelli of GayYA.org. A reception and book signing will follow the program. For more info: https://www.facebook.com/events/681836998671631 Barnes & Noble Bookfair & Author Reading for National Coming Out Day — Oct. 10 @ 7 p.m. Join local authors Rachel Gold, Juliann Rich and Nancy Hedin, along with staff fromRECLAIM, to hear exciting fiction and join

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October 6, 2017
In Book News & Events

Fall Reading Events

By Rachel Gold

Want to hear me read from my new book Nico & Tucker? If you’re in the Twin Cities, you have three great event options: Boneshaker Books: Queer Your Reading — Sept. 15 6 p.m. at 2002 23rd Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55404 http://www.boneshakerbooks.com/Rachel-Gold-Catherine-Lundoff-Queer-Reading Cosplay, werewolves, chocolate and local authors! Join Rachel Gold and Catherine Lundoff for an evening of reading, book signing and shenanigans. Also chocolate and cookies! Award-winning YA author Rachel Gold will be reading from her new novel, Nico and Tucker, a very queer love story about gender, bodies, healing, and knowing who you really are. Award-winning fantasy and horror author Catherine Lundoff will be reading from her menopausal werewolf novel, Silver Moon. The Loft hosts:QUEER YA with Second Story & Queer Voices — Oct. 8 2-4 p.m., 1011 Washington Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55415 https://www.facebook.com/events/681836998671631/ Fantastic lineup of authors soon to be announced! Join us for readings, a lively panel and author signings. Barnes & Noble: National Coming Out Day — Oct. 10 7 p.m., 2100 Snelling Ave, St Paul, MN 55113 The Roseville B&N is hosting a National Coming Out Day benefit for Reclaim. Join me and other readers—and tell us your coming out story too! Check back for more details on the October events. I hope to see you soon!

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August 31, 2017
In Book News & Events

Nico & Tucker Launch Day!

By Rachel Gold

I really wanted to post a video of me reading chapters 1 & 2 for launch day, but I woke up with some kind of funky virus. I am just not going to look as happy on video as I'd like. So bear with me and I'll update later this week with the live reading. In the mean time, have you read the awesome interview on Huffington Post? If you have, I'd love to know your thoughts about other ways to describe/communicate nonbinary genders, especially to people who are well inside the binary. Also my editor and Lesbian Literary All-Star Katherine V. Forrest said wonderful things on Facebook (reprinted here with her permission) about how people need more literature from the second half of the LGBTQIA+ acronym. I do have some copies available to donate to libraries and queer & trans centers, so please comment to me here, on FB or Twitter if you know of a place that could use some Nico & Tucker. Katherine wrote: Many of you know I’ve worked as an editor as well as a writer for the past three decades. I’ve edited many of our finest writers, including a couple of our great ones—Jane Rule, Isabel Miller. I’ve

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May 16, 2017
In Book News & Events

Macalester Lavender Graduation 2017 Speech

By Rachel Gold

Yesterday I had the privilege of being invited to speak at Macalester College's 2017 Lavender Graduation ceremony. Yes, my alma mater is so cool that they have a graduation just for the LGBTQIA+ students — and there are so many graduating queer and trans students that they had to curl all the way around the stage. There were more students standing up in that graduation ceremony than there were in the entire queer and trans student group when I was at Mac. It was an emotional and beautiful ceremony with a lot of great speakers. But I don't have the text of what they said, so here's what I said to the LGBTQIA+ graduating class of 2017: Thank you, it's a delight to get to speak to you. Just so you know, when I chose to come to Mac in 1989, it was because the queer and trans student group was bigger than the football team. I'm glad to see Mac has carried on that proud tradition. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m the author of four queer & trans young adult novels. Including Being Emily, the first YA novel to tell the story of a trans girl from her

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May 11, 2017
In Book News & Events

Help me pick an author photo

By Rachel Gold

With the launch of Nico & Tucker happening mid-May, I decided it was time for a haircut and author photos that more accurately represent me. You can see my current photo on the home page of this site or the about page. It's a really good photo! And it rocks my super-Jewish hair. But it also makes me look very "woman." I still plan to use that one any time I need to infiltrate a bastion of conservativeness. But now I get to rock a new photo! I enlisted the very expert help of Anna Min from Min Enterprises Photography. Her event photography has included a lot of high profile local queer and trans events, so I figured we'd easily be on the same page about the  photo I was looking for. We had a fun time trying different locations in her building. From that set of photos there are three that would work well as author photos. I'm looking for the photo that combines nonbinary and lesbian, gamer and reader, thoughtful and silly. Please feel free to let me know which you think would be my awesomest author photo in the comments below or via Facebook or Twitter. Photo #1 is the one

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April 26, 2017
In Book News & Events

Finding the ideal nonbinary pronoun for fiction

By Rachel Gold

I’ve been working on the Just Girls sequel and playing with some science fiction, so I’m obsessing about nonbinary pronouns. In the Just Girls sequel, I’m using the pronoun “yo” for Nico. (Or, rather, Nico’s using that pronoun for yoself, but when I say that my characters talk to me, people give me odd looks.) But I wanted to try some additional pronouns in case I like something better. “They/them” pronouns in the singular is becoming more and more popular in spoken use, but it’s tougher in fiction. For example in this dialogue: “Their new jacket looks great! Did they make it themself? “It’s from their parents. They gave it to them for their birthday.” I find that last sentence very frustrating. I’m a big fan of “they/them” applied to individuals, but I’m an even bigger fan of clarity and ease of reading. In my experience, “they/them” works much better in spoken use than in fiction. I was hoping to get around it by using Spivak or Elverson pronouns, which are the “they/them” set without the “th”: ey/em/eir/eirs/emself. These pronouns are not as easy to write with as I want them to be. It’s possible this is because I’m spoiled by the ease of yo/yos. Let

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December 14, 2016
In Book News & Events

Non-binary biology

By Rachel Gold

 "I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means.” — Joan Didion At the Solcana event for Reclaim on Nov. 5, we were talking about how writing helps us understand ourselves. For me, writing My Year Zero helped me articulate feelings about my gender. In the novel, the main character, Lauren, is writing a science fiction story online with friends. Her character in the story turns out not to be human-like person, but rather a self-aware community of microscopic robots (nanites) that can take any form. That’s how I feel about my gender — and I thought that was unusual, but maybe not so much. More and more, modern science is demonstrating that if there exist ideal “male” and “female” sexes, they’re blended in nearly all people. Consider …. The human body is made up of around 30 trillion cells and about 40 trillion bacteria living mainly in the digestive tract. For details: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/01/160111-microbiome-estimate-count-ratio-human-health-science/ Of those 30 trillion cells in the human body, it’s possibly (maybe even likely) that there are variations in the DNA that we’d consider to be different sexes. Most simply, people can carry both XX and XY DNA in their

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November 16, 2016
In Book News & Events

The importance of being out

By Rachel Gold

Last night at the pre-National Coming Out Day event at the Roseville Barnes & Noble, we talked about whether coming out is still important. The consensus: absolutely. We need to see people like us having good lives so we know what’s possible. And since humans have a strong need for belonging, the ability to be around people who share our identities can be profoundly healing and supportive of our growth. I came out as lesbian when I was 14-16 (it was a process). At the time culturally there was a lot less support than there is today and I spent immense energy fighting for this identity. I was talking to a friend recently about how, if we have multiple identities, one can really come to the front and take all the negativity and all our energy. That’s been true for me with my lesbian identity. I’m still super out and proud about it, but in honor of the day, here’s what else I’m out about: My gender is non-binary/gender fluid. Yes, I can be non-binary and lesbian for a variety of reasons including: I often choose to stay in the girl/woman gender space in public to expand the ideas of what’s possible for

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October 11, 2016