Find Your Next Fave

Bracket structure and Seeding

Submissions: Brackets will be submission-based via google form. Submissions will run for one week before we start the bracket. You may submit as many qualifying books as your heart desires. Brackets will be as long and as large as they need based on number of submissions. (unless submissions get TOO intense and I regret saying this and need to come up with a Plan B so that a single tournament doesn’t take a year)

Seeding: Brackets will be seeded according to how many people have marked it read on Goodreads (as it's the most easily measurable quantitative metric). For a series, I will use the read number only on the first book in the series, so that it won’t be impacted based on length of series vs a standalone book etc. Then, I use challonge.com to seed that list according to March Madness format (1-vs-32, 2-vs-31, etc)

I chose to take the read numbers from Goodreads instead of Storygraph because a. Goodreads simply has larger numbers and b. I noticed a recency bias on Storygraph, where books over 10 years old drastically dropped in seed order if I used Storygraph numbers, whereas year of publication isn't a significant factor if I take the numbers from Goodreads

Polls will always run for one week

Explain the tournament categories!

Queer fiction free-for-all: any and all queer fiction, regardless of genre, year of publication, or age category (e.g., adult, YA, middle-grade) Queer nonfiction: any and all queer nonfiction (including memoir, history, etc) Queer fantasy: any queer fiction in the fantasy genre includes any fantasy subgenre (secondary world, primary world, etc) and any age category (adult, YA, middle-grade, etc) Queer historical fiction: queer fiction by a modern author set in a historical time period may include intersecting genres (e.g., historical romance, historical fantasy that isn’t secondary world, alternate history) and any age category Queer books from history: any work that was not written in the last several decades but that contains queer elements by necessity, what “counts” as a queer book in this category is more broad and includes subtext or texts with notable queer interpretations Queer adult SFF spotlight: any queer scifi or fantasy book in the adult publishing category (i.e., not YA or middle-grade)

What “counts” as a queer book?

I’m not going to get overly prescriptive, but: For modern books, something that features queer characters/perspectives/themes in a significant or substantive way. For older texts, something that has queer subtext or a notable queer interpretation.

My guiding principle is: if someone is looking for queer books in a particular genre, would they be satisfied with this book as actually fulfilling that promise?

What about [insert] identity?

Yes. This blog is fully and broadly inclusive of all queerness, including ace- and arospec, polyamory, the spectrum of nonbinary and trans identities, and so forth.

The only thing not welcome is policing or dictating others’ identities

Can a book be submitted to multiple brackets?

Yes! A book can be submitted to as many different tournament categories as you like, as long as it fits the criteria.

If a tournament is running for the (second, third, etc) time, books that were previously submitted may be submitted again.

Can the same book win multiple brackets?

A book can win multiple tournament categories, but it can only win each tournament category once.

For example, if a book wins the fiction free-for-all tournament, it is still eligible to compete and win the fantasy bracket.

However, if we’re running the fiction free-for-all tournament again, then the previous winners of the fiction free-for-all tournament are ineligible for that category only.

What about a book series? Do we submit the series as a whole or the individual books?

Generally speaking, please submit the series as a whole (e.g., “the [ ] series”) rather than submitting book 1, book 2, etc separately.

However, there are times when books are published/listed as a “series” but the books are not at all interconnected and do not have an overarching plot or follow the same general characters (eg, some romance “series”). In these cases, it may make more sense to submit individual books.

Why these specific categories/will you do [other genre] tournaments?

Possibly. These categories are the genres that I read most, so these are the brackets that will be most enjoyable for me to run. I may consider other genres or themed brackets, but I may also keep it to my preferred genres to make the behind-the-scenes work worthwhile to me personally

(also if you feel inspired and want to run a tournament for another genre/category, that's awesome, please @ me so I can reblog and boost it!)

Thoughts on propaganda?

There will be an optional text box on the submission form where you can add propaganda if you choose

If you want to add propaganda DURING the poll itself, please feel free to reblog or reply to comment your thoughts!

Commenting or replying directly on the post is preferable to sending me an ask with propaganda for two reasons: 1. I may not be rigorously checking this blog while each round is in progress and 2. this keeps all the info/propaganda together in one place, which I think makes it easier for voters to peruse and consider

Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H.

A queer hijabi Muslim immigrant survives her coming-of-age by drawing strength and hope from stories in the Quran in this daring, provocative, and radically hopeful memoir.

When fourteen-year-old Lamya H realizes she has a crush on her teacher—her female teacher—she covers up her attraction, an attraction she can't yet name, by playing up her roles as overachiever and class clown. Born in South Asia, she moved to the Middle East at a young age and has spent years feeling out of place, like her own desires and dreams don't matter, and it's easier to hide in plain sight. To disappear. But one day in Quran class, she reads a passage about Maryam that changes everything: when Maryam learned that she was pregnant, she insisted no man had touched her. Could Maryam, uninterested in men, be . . . like Lamya?

From that moment on, Lamya makes sense of her struggles and triumphs by comparing her experiences with some of the most famous stories in the Quran. She juxtaposes her coming out with Musa liberating his people from the pharoah; asks if Allah, who is neither male nor female, might instead be nonbinary; and, drawing on the faith and hope Nuh needed to construct his ark, begins to build a life of her own—ultimately finding that the answer to her lifelong quest for community and belonging lies in owning her identity as a queer, devout Muslim immigrant.

This searingly intimate memoir in essays, spanning Lamya's childhood to her arrival in the United States for college through early-adult life in New York City, tells a universal story of courage, trust, and love, celebrating what it means to be a seeker and an architect of one's own life.

Nonfiction, memoir

Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-first Century, edited by Alice Wong

One in five people in the United States lives with a disability. Some disabilities are visible, others less apparent—but all are underrepresented in media and popular culture. Now, just in time for the thirtieth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, activist Alice Wong brings together this urgent, galvanizing collection of contemporary essays by disabled people.

From Harriet McBryde Johnson’s account of her debate with Peter Singer over her own personhood to original pieces by authors like Keah Brown and Haben Girma; from blog posts, manifestos, and eulogies to Congressional testimonies, and beyond: this anthology gives a glimpse into the rich complexity of the disabled experience, highlighting the passions, talents, and everyday lives of this community. It invites readers to question their own understandings. It celebrates and documents disability culture in the now. It looks to the future and the past with hope and love.

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde

A collection of fifteen essays written between 1976 and 1984 gives clear voice to Audre Lorde's literary and philosophical personae. These essays explore and illuminate the roots of Lorde's intellectual development and her deep-seated and longstanding concerns about ways of increasing empowerment among minority women writers and the absolute necessity to explicate the concept of difference—difference according to sex, race, and economic status. The title Sister Outsider finds its source in her poetry collection The Black Unicorn (1978). These poems and the essays in Sister Outsider stress Lorde's oft-stated theme of continuity, particularly of the geographical and intellectual link between Dahomey, Africa, and her emerging self.

Nonfiction, essay collection, sociology

Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen

An engaging exploration of what it means to be asexual in a world that's obsessed with sexual attraction, and what we can all learn about desire and identity by using an ace lens to see the world

What exactly is sexual attraction and what is it like to go through the world not experiencing it? What does asexuality reveal about consent, about compromise, about the structures of society? This exceedingly accessible guide to asexuality shows that the issues that aces face—confusion around sexual activity, the intersection of sexuality and identity, navigating different needs in relationships—are conflicts that all of us need to address as we move through the world.

Through interviews, cultural criticism, and memoir, ACE invites all readers to consider big-picture issues through the lens of asexuality, because every place that sexuality touches our world, asexuality does too.

Journalist Angela Chen uses her own journey of self-discovery as an asexual person to unpretentiously educate and vulnerably connect with readers, effortlessly weaving analysis of sexuality and societally imposed norms with interviews of ace people. Among those included are the woman who had blood tests done because she was convinced that "not wanting sex" was a sign of serious illness, and the man who grew up in an evangelical household and did everything "right," only to realize after marriage that his experience of sexuality had never been the same as that of others. Also represented are disabled aces, aces of color, non-gender-conforming aces questioning whether their asexuality is a reaction against stereotypes, and aces who don't want romantic relationships asking how our society can make room for them.

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

Endorsement from submitter: "Carmen Maria Machado’s memoir In the Dream House is the best book I have ever read. It’s, in fact, my very favorite book. It’s a memoir about interpersonal partner violence and abuse in sapphic relationships. Machado frames her abusive relationship as “Dream House.” Each chapter is the “Dream House” told through the framing of a literary device. The Dream House as a limerick, as the erotic, as a choose your own adventure. It is a piece of remarkable writing and functions not only as a memoir but a piece of queer theory and an analysis of sex, desire, abuse, and trauma through a unique lens. It is the book that made me want to write again, it’s one of the books that fundamentally changed me as I am. I cannot recommend it enough."

For years Carmen Maria Machado has struggled to articulate her experiences in an abusive same-sex relationship. In this extraordinarily candid and radically inventive memoir, Machado tackles a dark and difficult subject with wit, inventiveness and an inquiring spirit, as she uses a series of narrative tropes—including classic horror themes—to create an entirely unique piece of work which is destined to become an instant classic.

Nonfiction, memoir, experimental

Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-first Century, edited by Alice Wong

One in five people in the United States lives with a disability. Some disabilities are visible, others less apparent—but all are underrepresented in media and popular culture. Now, just in time for the thirtieth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, activist Alice Wong brings together this urgent, galvanizing collection of contemporary essays by disabled people.

From Harriet McBryde Johnson’s account of her debate with Peter Singer over her own personhood to original pieces by authors like Keah Brown and Haben Girma; from blog posts, manifestos, and eulogies to Congressional testimonies, and beyond: this anthology gives a glimpse into the rich complexity of the disabled experience, highlighting the passions, talents, and everyday lives of this community. It invites readers to question their own understandings. It celebrates and documents disability culture in the now. It looks to the future and the past with hope and love.

Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H.

A queer hijabi Muslim immigrant survives her coming-of-age by drawing strength and hope from stories in the Quran in this daring, provocative, and radically hopeful memoir.

When fourteen-year-old Lamya H realizes she has a crush on her teacher—her female teacher—she covers up her attraction, an attraction she can't yet name, by playing up her roles as overachiever and class clown. Born in South Asia, she moved to the Middle East at a young age and has spent years feeling out of place, like her own desires and dreams don't matter, and it's easier to hide in plain sight. To disappear. But one day in Quran class, she reads a passage about Maryam that changes everything: when Maryam learned that she was pregnant, she insisted no man had touched her. Could Maryam, uninterested in men, be . . . like Lamya?

From that moment on, Lamya makes sense of her struggles and triumphs by comparing her experiences with some of the most famous stories in the Quran. She juxtaposes her coming out with Musa liberating his people from the pharoah; asks if Allah, who is neither male nor female, might instead be nonbinary; and, drawing on the faith and hope Nuh needed to construct his ark, begins to build a life of her own—ultimately finding that the answer to her lifelong quest for community and belonging lies in owning her identity as a queer, devout Muslim immigrant.

This searingly intimate memoir in essays, spanning Lamya's childhood to her arrival in the United States for college through early-adult life in New York City, tells a universal story of courage, trust, and love, celebrating what it means to be a seeker and an architect of one's own life.

Nonfiction, memoir

Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity by C. Riley Snorton

The story of Christine Jorgensen, America’s first prominent transsexual, famously narrated trans embodiment in the postwar era. Her celebrity, however, has obscured other mid-century trans narratives—ones lived by African Americans such as Lucy Hicks Anderson and James McHarris. Their erasure from trans history masks the profound ways race has figured prominently in the construction and representation of transgender subjects. In Black on Both Sides, C. Riley Snorton identifies multiple intersections between blackness and transness from the mid-nineteenth century to present-day anti-black and anti-trans legislation and violence.

Drawing on a deep and varied archive of materials—early sexological texts, fugitive slave narratives, Afro-modernist literature, sensationalist journalism, Hollywood films—Snorton attends to how slavery and the production of racialized gender provided the foundations for an understanding of gender as mutable. In tracing the twinned genealogies of blackness and transness, Snorton follows multiple trajectories, from the medical experiments conducted on enslaved black women by J. Marion Sims, the “father of American gynecology,” to the negation of blackness that makes transnormativity possible.

Revealing instances of personal sovereignty among blacks living in the antebellum North that were mapped in terms of “cross dressing” and canonical black literary works that express black men’s access to the “female within,” Black on Both Sides concludes with a reading of the fate of Phillip DeVine, who was murdered alongside Brandon Teena in 1993, a fact omitted from the film Boys Don’t Cry out of narrative convenience. Reconstructing these theoretical and historical trajectories furthers our imaginative capacities to conceive more livable black and trans worlds.