LGBTQ fiction is having a boom right now. Novels about the queer community are filling the bookshelves of homes, libraries, and stores – information I find both moving and comforting, as it wasn't so long ago that it was still a challenge to find these books.
In the documentary film The Celluloid Closet (based on the must read non-fiction book by Vito Russo), the narrator explains, "Hollywood…taught straight people what to think about gays and gay people what to think about themselves."
The quote still regularly floats through my brain. It remains vitally important to have well-rounded portrayals of the queer community, because there are still assumptions and biases directed toward us even today. These LGBTQ fiction books are our stories – whether set in the U.S., Canada, the Northeast of England or South Africa – and they continue to educate, comfort and remind us.
