International Transgender Day of Visibility Book List
In recognition of the International Transgender Day of Visibility, Read Alberta has compiled a list of Alberta-published books that centre and celebrate trans voices and experiences.
MUSTER POINTS
By Lucas Crawford
Muster Points is a frank discussion of desire, nostalgia, mental illness, and health from a professor with one foot kicking the ivory tower and both feet sloshing in all the sundry fluids of queer sex and depression. These poems bring us on a trans boy’s trips through the shard-sharp ruins of heterosexual marriages, into weird rural masculinities and their fraught survival, into regret and recovery, durability and desire.
Lucas Crawford 
Published: Jun 15, 2023 by University of Calgary Press
ISBN: 9781773854533
IN THE DEFENSE OF LIBRARY
By Keith Maillard
It’s 1964, and the students at Merida University in Ohio can sense that something is brewing — the campus is rippling with undercurrents of anger and alienation. As they work to make sense of the rapidly shifting cultural and ideological climate, the four main characters of In the Defense of Liberty are also consumed by their own personal dramas.
Keith Maillard 
Published: May 01, 2023 by Freehand Books
ISBN: 9781990601415
Available as an accessible eBook
TRANSCRIBING MOONLIGHT
By Skylar Kay
Transcribing Moonlight is a collection of autobiographical haibun which outlines the life of a trans woman from December 2018 to December 2019. The form of the journal itself is traditional for haibun; while experimental at times, the haibun pay attention to the physical world and are therefore able to capture the changing seasons, moons, and phases of the narrator’s life.
Skylar Kay 
Published: by Frontenac House Ltd.
ISBN: 9781989466346
NEXT TIME THERE’S A PANDEMIC
By Vivek Shraya
In Next Time There’s a Pandemic, artist Vivek Shraya reflects on how she might have approached 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic differently, and how challenging and changing pervasive expressions, attitudes, and behaviours might transform our experiences of life in—and after—the pandemic. With generosity, Shraya captures the dissonances of this moment, urging us to keep showing up for each other so we are better prepared for the next time…and for all times.
Vivek Shraya 
Published: Mar 01, 2022 by University of Alberta Press
ISBN: 9781772126051
Available as an accessible eBook
LIVINGSKY
By Anthony Bidulka
Merry Bell needed to get out of Vancouver. Fast. Returning to her home town of Livingsky, Saskatchewan was a desperate step. Living with plenty of secrets, but no money, friends, or place to live during a prairie winter, all while trying to start her own PI business proves to be more of a challenge than she imagined. With a first case that quickly turns more dangerous than it first appeared, Merry must deal with a dodgy client, the murder of the surgeon who performed her gender affirming surgery, and more than one mysterious stranger.
Anthony Bidulka 
Published: Jun 01, 2023 by Stonehouse Publishing
ISBN: 9781988754475
THE MELTING QUEEN
By Bruce Cinnamon
Every year since 1904, when the ice breaks up on the North Saskatchewan River, Edmonton has crowned a Melting Queen—a woman who presides over the Melting Day spring carnival and who must keep the city’s spirits up over the following winter. But this year, something has changed: a genderfluid ex-frat brother called River Runson is named as Melting Queen. As River’s reign upends the city’s century-old traditions, Edmonton tears itself in two, with progressive and reactionary factions fighting a war for Edmonton’s soul. Ultimately, River must uncover the hidden history of Melting Day, forcing Edmonton to confront the dark underbelly of its traditions and leading the city into a new chapter in its history.
Bruce Cinnamon 
Published: Apr 01, 2019 by NeWest Press
ISBN: 9781988732503
Available as an accessible eBook
OTHERS OF MY KIND
By Alex Bakker, Rainer Herrn, Michael Thomas Taylor, Annette F. Timm
From the turn of the twentieth century to the 1950s, a group of transgender people on both sides of the Atlantic created communities that profoundly shaped the history and study of gender identity. Others of My Kind draws on archives in Europe and North America to tell the story of this remarkable transatlantic transgender community. This book uncovers threads of connection between Germany, the United States, and the Netherlands to discover the people who influenced the work of authorities like Magnus Hirschfeld, Harry Benjamin, and Alfred Kinsey not only with their clinical presentations, but also with their personal relationships.
Alex Bakker, Rainer Herrn, Michael Thomas Taylor 
Published: Oct 30, 2020 by University of Calgary Press
ISBN: 9781773851211
GOTHIC TALES OF HAUNTED FUTURES
Ed. by S.M. Beiko
With stories spanning time, galaxies, and spirits, Gothic Tales of Haunted Futures features 17 original stories, casting the indelible themes of gothic romance forward in time, to imagined futures and tomorrow’s afterlives. While we think the entire collection is a must-read, we highly recommend the story about trans vampires’ lives intertwining in cyber-goth Paris.
Published: Oct 21, 2020 by Renegade Arts Entertainment
ISBN: 9781989754030
Available as an accessible eBook
“No Definition of Alberta Culture is complete without recognizing the herculean efforts of Alberta publishers to bring the prodigious talents of Canadian writers to eager readers everywhere.”
~ Steve Budnarchuk, Audreys Books