Author: Patricia Elzie

So much of DEI work consists of well-meaning people with privilege and power who do not know what to do and so they look to those of us in more marginalized groups and ask what to do, what to say, etc. The author runs a DEI consulting company with a Social Justice lens and helps companies/organizations do this work. This book is an absolute gift that focuses on laying the groundwork necessary for transformative DEI work as well as how to turn those good intentions into actual actions. I kept highlighting things and then I’d look and I’d practically have highlighted multiple pages.

There are so many stand-out discussions in this book but I’m going to call out a few that were really compelling. First, which is a recurring theme, is the idea of comfort and how some people with privilege conflate being uncomfortable with being unsafe. This shows up multiple times but there’s a whole amazing section asking what you’re willing to give up for this work. Are you willing to give up your comfort and call someone out on their racist joke? Are you willing to give up your seat at the table to allow space for someone from a marginalized group? Are you willing to pay more money to buy something from a small local business instead of a big corporation? Are you willing to give up sentimental things or traditions like gender-reveal parties or Dr.Seuss? Personally, I immediately thought of the death-grip that some folks have on a certain wizarding IP.

This book is going to make a lot of people uncomfortable. There were definitely parts that made me reflect and sit with my own discomfort, which reminds me of another section where she talks about “sitting with your feelings.” Now, if you have never gone to therapy or maybe even if you have, you may not actually know what “sitting with your feelings” entails or how to do it and she walks readers through it, which itself is worth the price of admission.

This is such an important, relevant, and necessary read.

To say this is satire about a racial awakening is an understatement. It’s utterly hilarious and also I pretty much cringed the entire time I read it. Our main character is Ingrid Yang, a Taiwanese American woman in her eighth year of her PhD and she still has no idea what her thesis even is. She has been researching the renowned Chinese American poet Xiao-Wen Chao but it’s hard to write anything about him that hasn’t been completely researched into the ground. He was faculty at Barnes University (where Ingrid is) and was a big deal. A large part of the reason she’s doing this PhD is because there is a professorial chair that is about to open up; so she can get a cozy faculty position as the next expert on Xiao-Wen Chao, yet she has no idea what the heck she is going to do her dissertation on.

The East Asian Studies department that Ingrid is in has very few Asian people and many, many white people. Her advisor, Michael, is a white man who has gone all-in on Chinese culture and doubles-down in his orientalism time and time again. Ingrid’s fiance, Stephen Greene, is a white man who has taught himself Japanese (doesn’t actually speak it) but has made himself into a literature translator.

They frequently explain Chinese culture to Ingrid repeatedly and really terribly because she is Taiwanese and they just lump her in with Chinese culture like it’s all the same. If you haven’t caught on, there are massive amounts of anti-Asian racism in this book and lots of the particularly insidious type where it’s people pretending to have a respect for a culture when they are actually fetishizing it. Ingrid herself has very firm ideas of the “right way” a woman should be, especially an Asian American woman, and the “wrong way.”

This book is full of some amazing characters. Through it, Ingrid awakens to her complicity in her own subjugation and the white supremacist trash fire that is academia. Highly recommend it!

This was absolutely one of the best books I read the year it came out. I’m going to be weirdly vague about this book because it is full of surprises and I don’t want to ruin the joy of reading it therefore, I’m just going to tell you some snippets about some of the characters and the location.

It takes place in the San Gabriel Valley in Southern California which is truly a magical place once you get past the surface and the author catches all the nuance of the eclectic yet weirdly harmonious vibe of many of the locations down there.

There is a donut shop with a huge frickin’ donut on top of it. It’s a Los Angeles / Southern California thing. If you know, you know: Giant. Donut. The head of the family that owns the shop is Lan Tran. The family is actually aliens, like, from space, who have escaped a big bad across the galaxy.

We also have Katrina Nguyen, a transgender teen who runs away from an abusive home in the San Francisco Bay Area and ends up in the San Gabriel Valley. She has very little to her name, some clothes, some estrogen, a beat-up made-in-China violin, and does sex work both via webcam and in person to make money to survive.

Finally we have Shizuka Satomi, a woman who had made a deal with the devil for some fame. She played the violin. Now, to escape damnation, she needs to take on seven violin students and deliver their souls to Hell. As of the start of this book, she has already delivered six and of course, they can’t just be any old self-taught violinist. She travels the world looking for the final student, the final soul.

Yes, music is the main theme of this book and the story hits all the right notes. There’s an adorable, awkward queer crush/dating type thing going on. There’s a young trans teen finding her voice and finding family. There’s wonderful descriptions of food. There is also a chapter that I’m borderline obsessed with where it’s just a description of violin repair.

If you have not yet read this book I am incredibly jealous because I wish I could read it again for the first time. Content warnings for racism, specifically anti-Asian racism, transphobia, discussion of suicide, sexism, sexual assault, and abuse.

This is an epic young adult best friends space adventure. If you liked the She-Ra and the Princesses of Power reboot, then Victories Greater Than Death might be for you.

Our teen protagonist, Tina, is actually a reincarnation of a phenomenal, brave, beloved alien. Tina is on Earth disguised as an earthling. When the story begins, she is waiting for the rescue beacon inside of her to light up. She knows that she is not an earthling and she knows that there are great plans for her but first, her beacon needs to light up. Once the beacon lights up, there are two things she is expecting to happen. First, the intergalactic space military crew that she belonged to will come searching for her; the plan is that they will bring her back to the spaceship and unlock her memories as the starship captain that she is supposed to be a reincarnation of. The other thing that happens when she lights up, though, is that the murderous terrifying aliens, the ones who killed her in the first place, will also see her beacon light up and immediately try to find her to murder her all over again.

Tina has shared all this information with her best friend, Rachel, and they’ve been waiting for this moment together for years. Rachel is with Tina when Tina’s beacon lights up, and as you can expect, all hell breaks loose.

One of the things I often find myself disappointed in with sci-fi is that some authors still seem stuck within earthling constructs, like binary gender or ways of relating to other beings. Anders does what I have hoped for forever and the non-earthlings are incredibly diverse and wonderful. Everyone introduces themselves with their pronouns including ones beyond the typical pronouns we use here on Earth. There is a wide range of characters who I frequently found myself rooting for. It’s queer and exciting and so much fun. I legitimately had a great time reading this book but remember, it’s the first in a trilogy so buckle in for a ride!

The second book, Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak, is out now, and the conclusion, Promises Stronger Than Darkness, is slated for an April release.

April French is a regular at Frankie’s, a BDSM club in Austin. Everyone knows April: she is the welcome wagon and the person who makes sure things get done and that everyone feels safe.

April is also a trans woman dealing with a lot of self-doubt. She doesn’t really think she deserves a happily-ever-after so she’ll have a string of short sexual relationships, but she is always very protective of her heart. She is very much the type to think that “no expectations, no disappointments” is an acceptable way to live in the world. In the meantime, she’ll be sweet and friendly and likable and never ask for anything, only give.

Dennis Martin is new to Austin. He just moved there from Seattle to take a job as a Chief Technology Officer. He doesn’t really need to work because he made millions and millions of dollars at a start-up. He doesn’t really tell anyone, though. His best friend, Jason, is also an undercover millionaire. Jason lives in Austin and Dennis is staying with him while the contractor he hired finishes his house. Jason is the one who let Dennis know about Frankie’s, a local kink club he frequents.

Yes, this is a BDSM romance but it is unexpectedly tooth-meltingly sweet. BDSM is so often portrayed in books or film as this very serious, intense, painful, activity that people do with each other but in reality, more often than not, it’s full of laughter and jokes and sarcasm. There’s a reason we refer to it as “playing” and the author really gets that.

I was really rooting for these characters the whole way through this book even though there were definite times when they were both being absolute chuckleheads. It’s definitely on my list of must-read romances.

Finch Kelly is a transgender teen in Olympia, Washington and he is obsessed with getting into Georgetown University so that he could be in Washington, D.C. and become the first transgender congressman. Finch’s parents are trying to convince him to stay in Washington state because there is no way they can afford to send him to Georgetown. Finch’s dad doesn’t work and his mom makes very little money as a journalist for a local paper that always seems on the brink of going under.

Finch is shoving the money part out of his mind and is focusing on getting into Georgetown in the first place. He and his friend Jonah are the stars of their high school debate team and Finch sees this as his ticket into the school. He figures if they win the state championship and then the nationals, there’s no way that Georgetown can turn him down.

Finch is also going through a bit of a crisis interpersonally. He isn’t really out as trans to most people. His family knows, his best friend/ex-girlfriend knows, and Jonah, his debate partner, knows. Jonah is cisgender and gay and in the “perfect” relationship with Bailey. Bailey is the star of the school’s theatre department and desperately wants to go to Juilliard. In fact, Bailey got to pick this year’s musical that he is starring in, Perfectly Modern Millie which he’s gender-flipped to be Perfectly Modern Billie.

As I mentioned, Finch is in a bit of a crisis because he’s starting to have squishy feelings for Jonah but at the same time he is very adamant about not being gay himself. So he figures that these feelings must be anxiety and he shoves them down repeatedly. Anyway, he has the national debate championship to worry about. The topic for the national debate championship is: “This House would allow transgender students in public schools to use the bathroom facilities of their choice.”

Just in case you don’t know how high school debate works, in competition, you have to take turns arguing each side. For and against. So, in order to have his best shot at getting into his dream school and dream life, Finch is going to have to argue against his own humanity.

This book was really anxiety-inducing but also cute, funny, and lovely and I highly recommend it.

This is the first book in N. K. Jemisin’s Great Cities Duology and it picks up right at the end of the author’s short story titled “The City Born Great,” which is in Jemisin’s short story collection titled How Long ‘Til Black Future Month? In “The City Born Great,” the city of New York is born. Not settled, colonized, or created but born in that it becomes alive as a living, breathing thing. There is an avatar for the city who themself is New York.

But some evil is trying to kill the city before it fully comes to life and there is a battle where the avatar wins but is badly injured. When the avatar is injured, the city itself is injured. Buildings crumble and bridges collapse. The city of São Paolo — that is, the avatar and person São Paolo — was supposed to be helping New York be born and it goes wrong. That is the story of “The City Born Great.” This novel includes it as a prologue and the rest of the story begins there.

New York’s primary avatar (the injured one) is not the only avatar out there. Each of the five boroughs, Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island, also have avatars. Do they know what they are? Eventually. Do they know what they’re doing? Not really, but that’s some of the fun. Each of the avatars for the boroughs has a really strong personality and I love them all so much. Well, almost all of them.

The evil that is trying to kill New York is personified in a number of ways but it is a clear metaphor for gentrification. As a person who lives in a city that has many pockets of gentrification myself, some of the scenes were horrifying. This is not just because of everything awful about gentrification, but in the book there are tentacled creatures taking over bodies, paintings that drive onlookers insane, and really triggering racism from outright aggressive to microaggressions.

All of the boroughs are going to have to find each other and work together to save the city and there are so many times when it seems utterly impossible. This book is incredibly fun and the second book in the duology, The World We Make, just came out in November!

Tricia Hersey is the founder of The Nap Ministry and she wants us all to rest. She believes that liberation does not come from exhaustion; that burnout is not our path to freedom. Much of Tricia Hersey’s movement is rooted in capitalism’s tie to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Enslaved Africans and eventually enslaved Black people were not allowed to rest much less have leisure, to daydream, or to imagine a better future.

This ministry is the antithesis of productivity and the opposite of grind culture. Hersey doesn’t want us to hustle. She wants us to lie down and to divest completely from productivity culture, capitalism, and the addictive machine that is social media. Rest is Resistance is not only about avoiding the urge to fill every moment with productivity, but also having rest for rest’s sake. That is the part that utterly blew my mind: to rest without the goal of then having more energy to do more. Not resting to fill your empty cup to just pour yourself out again for other people. The author wants you to break the cup. Just naps and daydreams and not taking part in the attention economy.

Hersey makes it very clear that rest is not a privilege and it is not something to be earned. We all deserve rest by merely existing. She addresses the folks who are saying “If I rest then I can’t pay the bills and feed my family.” She’s been there. In fact, that is where she was when she began the Nap Ministry.

After the preface and introduction, the book is broken into four main parts and each is a call to action: Rest, Dream, Resist, and Imagine.

This is an absolutely phenomenal book and if you think it’s not for you because you’re not Black, I promise, it’s for you. If you are living under capitalism, if you are on social media, if you are tired not only physically but emotionally, psychologically, spiritually tired, this book is for you.

In the introduction, the author dissects white supremacy and details some of the ways in which it works according to design. White supremacy is not a broken system. The system is absolutely working as intended. In discussing the title and the thesis of the book, Oluo makes it incredibly clear (because there are always people who are going to play ignorant) that no, she is not arguing that every white man is mediocre or that any race or gender is predisposed to mediocrity; however, our society focuses on preserving white male power regardless of skill or talent. She calls us all in to examine the complacency throughout society that maintains this system.

This book explores and interrogates things that have been normalized in the U.S. like some men’s obsession with cowboys and westerns or the obsession with American football. I learned a staggering amount of history from this book. The chapter on cowboys and Buffalo Bill in particular left me speechless. I know I am not the only one who has a father, uncle, in-law, or grandfather who romanticizes cowboys and westerns. This chapter hit really close to home and has shed some light on many things that I thought I was familiar with.

Oluo writes about the centering of white men in social justice movements including but not limited to Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. She talks about the assault on higher education and how as soon as people of color were allowed to attend universities, suddenly sentiments around higher education took a dive.

This book is so extraordinarily good and necessary. It is a phenomenal read and it’s definitely one you will want to read as a book club pick or at least get a copy for a spouse or friend so that you can discuss it because believe me, there is a lot to talk about and contemplate after digesting this hard-to-swallow book.

If you are reading this newsletter I know I am preaching to the choir when talking about the importance of storytelling and the profound connections that can be born from a well-crafted tale. The folks at The Moth know this very, very well. The Moth is a storytelling experience that has live shows, The Moth radio hour, a podcast, and workshops. This book gathers the core of The Moth’s storytelling wisdom and knowledge and makes it available to all of us and as both a writer and a person who loves a good story, I cannot stress how invaluable this is.

This was a phenomenal read as it was not only theory and practical advice on craft but heavy doses of examples in the forms of stories that have been told at events put on by The Moth. The stories and snippets of stories shared in this book will make you laugh, cry, hope, cringe, break your heart wide open, and more. The lessons in this book are for everyone because we all, in some way, have to be storytellers at some point whether we are writers, work in marketing, have a job interview, have a speech to give, have a toast to make, have a presentation due, and myriad of other things we do that people may not think of as storytelling but they very much are.

This is a book I listened to on audiobook and I also own a hardcover copy so that I could highlight particular parts that I have returned to again and again. It is both a great read and a great gift and I cannot recommend it enough.