The theme of International Women’s Day 2020 is #EachForEqual: when individuals take steps towards a more equitable world, the collective impact of those actions can be hugely powerful.
This International Women’s Day we’re recommending five new or forthcoming books by women and non-binary people that, in line with this theme, “challenge stereotypes, fight bias, broaden perceptions, improve situations and celebrate women’s achievements.”
Corinne Manning‘s We Had No Rules, forthcoming in April, is described by publisher Arsenal Pulp Press as “a defiant, beautifully realized story collection about the messy complications of contemporary queer life. A young teenager runs from her family’s conservative home to her sister’s NY apartment to learn a very different set of rules. A woman grieves the loss of a sister, a “gay divorce,” and the pain of unacknowledged abuse with the help of a lone wallaby on a farm in Washington State. A professor of women’s and gender studies revels in academic and sexual power but risks losing custody of the family dog.”
Early reviews call We Had No Rules, Manning’s debut collection, “a powerful testament to the complexity of identity and desire” (Kirkus Reviews) and “exactly the kind of book the queer canon needs” (Literary Hub). Three words: Pre-order now!
my yt mama (Talonbooks) is Mercedes Eng‘s third collection of poetry, following up her BC Book Prize-winning Prison Industrial Complex Explodes. In it, Eng tackles racism and colonialism as the poems “document an education in white supremacist ideology that began in infancy and occurred everywhere: at home where the author lived with her white mother, 1261 kilometres away from her Chinese migrant father’s family; in public institutions such as the school, the library, and the museum that erase Indigenous peoples’ histories while producing the myth of the ‘vanishing Indians;’ and in the media and entertainment in which white supremacist beauty standards are constructed and reinforced.” A poetic hybrid of memoir and discourse, my yt mama is sure to challenge and illuminate. Available now: ask your local independent bookseller!
Forthcoming in May, Grandmother School (Orca Book Publishers) by Rina Singh and Ellen Rooney is bound to become an International Women’s Day classic for young readers. From the publisher: “Every morning, a young girl walks her grandmother to the Aajibaichi Shala, the school that was built for the grandmothers in her village to have a place to learn to read and write. The narrator beams with pride as she drops her grandmother off with the other aajis to practice the alphabet and learn simple arithmetic. A moving story about family, women and the power of education—when Aaji learns to spell her name you’ll want to dance along with her. Based on a true story from the village of Phangane, India, this brilliantly illustrated book tells the story of the grandmothers who got to go to school for the first time in their lives.”
Jean Barman is one of British Columbia’s preeminent historians, and On the Cusp of Contact: Gender, Space, and Race in the Colonization of British Columbia (Harbour Publishing) collects seventeen of her essays that all work to uncover stories that have gone untold and amplify the voices that have been left out of mainstream history based on race, class, and/or gender. Barman writes: “The ways in which we can redress the past are many and varied, and it is up to each of us to act as best we can.” With over thirty archival photographs and illustrations, On the Cusp of Contact (available later this month) makes these essays accessible and available to a broad audience for the first time.
BIG: Stories about Life in Plus-Sized Bodies (Caitlin Press) is an anthology edited by Christina Myers that chronicles the diverse experiences of “plus size women, non-binary and trans people in a society obsessed with thinness.” In it, 26 writers with a wide breadth of backgrounds “explore themes as diverse as self perception, body image, fashion, fat activism, food, sexuality, diet culture, motherhood and more.” One of Quill & Quire‘s Most Anticipated titles for Spring 2020. Get your copy today!