Alaina Leary

September, for the first time in many years, wasn’t the start of any new beginnings. I’ve been in some form of school — general education in public schools, then an undergraduate degree, and then a graduate degree — since I was in preschool.

"Writing about trauma or difficult experiences doesn’t repair that trauma,” said Melanie. “It doesn’t make it go away. But I kept hearing what a transformative thing it was for [the memoirists] to shape these stories into something that they could be proud of.”

I told Winnie that I was queer before I told anyone human—late at night, in my room, after writing it down in my journal. “You won’t stop loving me if I’m gay, will you?” I asked him. He replied with his signature loud meow.

I have a lifetime of momless moments ahead of me, but I’ve prepared for those since her death. What I hadn’t prepared for was that I’d have to celebrate one of those milestones on a day that I typically spend in mourning.

In the aftermath of my rape, I became an activist for ending rape culture. And I quickly found that even in feminist circles, disability was often left out of the conversation completely.

If you’re looking for a Pride Month reading list, or just want to get more LGBTQ+ books on your radar this year, here are a few worth checking out.

Remembering to do things isn’t exactly my strong suit, so I need to actively plan so that my partner isn’t the only one making lists, cleaning the dishes, and checking that our bills are paid on time.

Halloween can be an autistic person’s worst nightmare with the sensory overload. Yet, I'm autistic and Halloween is my favorite time of year.

We think of holidays and big moments first when we think about death. What we don’t talk about are the little moments in between, like surviving Autumn.

Diverse genre fiction shares a lot in common with diverse literature, in that a lot of the challenges are the same. We still have to ask a lot of questions about who gets to tell what stories, what kinds of books and authors are published, what it means to get it right, and who is on staff at the publishing houses that produce genre fiction.