Writer and social commentator Roxane Gay launches her eponymous new imprint at Grove Atlantic with this novel about the love between two men in Nigeria amid the country’s culture of shame, secrecy and modern repression, written by award-winning Nigerian writer and queer liberation activist Somtochukwu.

A self-portrait of discovery both as a gay man and through a diagnosis of cerebral palsy, Leg is full of hilarious and heartfelt storytelling about family and forgiveness. Austin-based writer Marshall’s strange and deeply poignant comedic memoir style has been likened to David Sedaris. (June 13)

A memoir-in-essays, the queer Canadian ex-Jehovah’s Witness and author of four novels about gay life (including Shuck and Krakow Melt) reckons with the legacy of indoctrination and the role language played in it. The former believer probes his complicated past — growing up preaching door to door in Montreal and coming of age in New York — with vulnerability and humour.

In this stunner, the Booker Prize finalist (for Real Life) reimagines the classic weekend getaway scenario (think The Big Chill) about friendship and adult ambition through a group of gay 20-somethings at a crossroads in their lives. The group puts everything on the table: reproductive rights, class, race and life in general — via chapters told from different points of view.

From turn of the century female impersonators to La Cage Aux Folles to the hit adaptation of Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel Fun Home, this engaging cultural history of Broadway by the prolific theatre historian surveys the (often closeted) gay performers and productions who contributed to American theatre on and offstage.

Remember the notorious 2020 video of a white ‘Karen’ harassing a Black birdwatcher in New York’s Central Park, telling 911 she was being threatened? That birdwatcher was Cooper, a noted science writer (and former editor at Marvel Comics), whose memoir speaks to lessons learned from nature, inclusion and his adventures being a queer Black birdwatcher on expeditions around the world. Cooper is also now the host of National Geographic’s documentary series Extraordinary Birder. (June 13)

n an intimate memoir, the Oscar-nominated Canadian star (who became world-famous for his performance in Juno) shares the story of discovering his true self as a queer and trans person and then stepping out of his own internalized repression while at the height of fame, all while fielding both criticism and abuse from some of Hollywood’s most powerful players.

Publishing his first novel at 74, this coming-of-age debut by American-born, Toronto-based Childs (an acclaimed short story writer) spans four decades and takes place across Florida, Texas and AIDS-era San Francisco as it explores the legacy of trauma in a Texas family. The six linked sections are each told from a separate point of view.

The well-known pop-culture history YouTuber unearths what happened on screen (and behind the scenes) of TV’s most popular sitcoms and how they shaped public perceptions by introducing LGBTQ+ characters and plots. He begins with the secretive life of both the characters and cast from Bewitched, before moving on to chart cycles progress and backlash through sitcoms like All in the Family, Barney Miller, Cheers, The Golden Girls, Will & Grace and Modern Family.

A wry, unputdownable novel about being completely exposed online but socially isolated in contemporary queer life. Set in the near past of the 2019 Christmas holidays, a 10-day getaway with three queer couples from different generations (and of varying financial means) exposes clashing views on sexuality, gender and leads to insights and a lot of satire.

This book accompanies the exhibition project celebrating Toronto Pride from 1970 to the present day. Produced in collaboration with the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival and the Magenta Foundation, what has become one of the largest gatherings of the community and their allies in the world is showcased in photographs, posters, writing and ephemera selected from The ArQuives, Canada’s largest independent LGBTQ2+ archive with a national scope.

“I’ve never eaten a person, but today I might …” So begins this slim and wildly imaginative novel narrated by a hungry and forlorn queer mountain lion (yes really). Living beneath the Hollywood sign, the creature is the area’s protector, guarding homeless encampments and who — following a tragedy — leads the reader on a spellbinding lyrical tour of displacement and inequality. The Brooklyn-based author and director of literary journal Enter>text was inspired by P-22, the locally famous puma who lived in Los Angeles’s Griffith Park and became a viral sensation when he died last December.

During his time as a managing editor at Xtra, McCann covered the 2016 police sting operation that targeted gay and bisexual men having sex in Toronto’s Marie Curtis Park. Taking that as his starting point, McCann — now a human rights lawyer — uses the wider phenomenon of cruising as a lens to discuss legal, literary and social ideas around the taboo of sex in public.

Publishers Weekly calls this Glasgow writer’s buzzy debut about “a woman obscure to the world but radiant inside” revelatory. The erotically charged literary fiction about the transformative power of desire follows the secret cross-class love affair between the matron of an English boarding school (whose interior monologue narrates the story) and the headmaster’s coolly elegant wife. (June 20)

Those who enjoy a romp through centuries of classical literature, myth, history and pop culture will appreciate this witty and erudite cast of ancient and modern gay characters from Achilles and Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Doctor Who and Xena. It’s worth listening to the entertaining audiobook to hear the bestselling British historian and award-winning broadcaster bring them all to life himself.

Using characters from Beauty and the Beast and My Best Friend’s Wedding, as well as assorted drag queens, and mega stars like Ricky Martin and Antonio Banderas, the Los Angeles-based culture critic examines pop culture ideas around masculinity that shaped his identity as a gay man coming of age in Bogota, Colombia.

Boston socialite Agnes Carter makes a poor marriage choice in 1910 that jeopardizes her autonomy and financial independence. With richly descriptive prose and the central metaphor of glass, the family saga is a beautiful examination of queer identity and the way art and ancestry can be entwined as it follows the fallout of Agnes’s decision through three generations of descendants.

New York publishing icon Denneny, a founder of influential gay magazine Christopher Street and groundbreaking editor of LGBTQ+ books (including And the Band Played On, one of the most significant chronicles of the AIDS epidemic) died this spring at the age of 80. He leaves behind a final book: a cultural autobiography that traces the evolution of America’s queer community after the Stonewall riots of 1969.

The Brooklyn-based critic, who often writes on queerness and cinema, organizes his 100 entries in this idiosyncratic compendium chronologically, beginning with Weimar-era Different from the Others (which elicited protests in 1919 for its frank depiction of homosexuality) and Marlene Dietrich in Morocco to the work of Black gay filmmaker Marlon Riggs, recent comedy of manners Fire Island and deep cuts like the 2001 documentary Southern Comfort about an older trans man living with ovarian cancer. 

This accessible and colourfully illustrated tome honours queer history every day of the year. British writer Laney introduces readers to the likes of novelist E.M. Forster, pioneering drag queen Marsha P. Johnson and Queen frontman Freddie Mercury; even Canada’s own Schitt’s Creek co-creator Dan Levy gets an entry.

Civil rights and LGBTQ+ advocate Wolf, 34, a survivor of the hate-motivated 2016 Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando that killed 49 people and leader of the movement to end gun violence in America, shares his journey of growing up Black and queer in rural Oregon and the events that galvanized him into action. (July 1)