Michelle Tea

In Spencer’s fantasies, the breezy, queer streets of Provincetown are utopia, a place where he can be free. And when a violent attack in his suburban Arizona schoolyard sends him to the hospital, he decides queer utopia can’t wait. One night, with the help of his best friend, the teenage witch Joy, he hitches a ride to find it. What follows is a cross-country road odyssey throughout the USA, taking Spencer from new moon rituals in Arizona canyons to Texas bus stations, from the luxe drag stages of Houston’s Montrose district to the jazz-soaked streets of New Orleans and beyond. This new novel from Michelle Tea tells the story, by turns raw, romantic, and sweet, of a sheltered boy taking his first leap into queer life, among all the complicated queers who live it.

The 25th anniversary edition of Michelle Tea''s classic coming-of-age story, now with a foreword by Maggie Nelson, award-winning author of The Argonauts''Hilarious, euphoric, perspicacious and punk - the book that showed so many of us how writing can be real'' Jeremy Atherton Lin, author of Gay Bar''One of the few truly life changing books I''ve encountered'' Torrey Peters, bestselling author of Detransition, BabyFleeing Tucson and her troublesome on-and-off ex-girlfriend, Michelle lands in queer San Francisco''s riotous underbelly, stumbling through her early twenties in a haze of nightlife, drug adventures, scams and a string of hookups, break-ups and make-ups. As butches and dykes spin in and out of her orbit, she considers the force and casual cruelty of their desires and her own. Heady, beer-sticky and brimming with life, Valencia is a sharply observed and piercingly funny chronicle of a year lived close to the bone. ''If you want to know how dangerous and great and awful it is to be a girl, you''ll scarf Valencia right up'' Eileen Myles, author of Chelsea Girls''Michelle Tea is an intoxicating writer, delivering sentences that land with the snap and force of a punch'' Guardian

Boyfriends masquerade as straight bros to have fun on an early internet porn site. Sex on Viagra; sex on acid. A lesbian bar sells out, turning barflies into doms for hire. In Spain, an exchange student lets two young men flip a coin to see who will have her. A stranger on a train. A collegiate lesbian ‘it’ couple. A trans woman bashes back. Post-apocalyptic punk crushes. Slut eras. An American intellectual in Austria fucks and talks attachment styles with a Viennese queer. A jaded Black queen ponders race, apps and what the sex we have says about us. Taking us from the awkwardness of middle school to the transcendence of a sex club, SLUTS: Anthology presents an inspiringly diverse collection of writing – fiction and non-fiction, pro and con, philosophical and compulsive – exploring the eternally controversial word. Whether an insult or badge of honor, an identity or a state of mind, SLUTS engages some of the hottest minds of the moment to riff on the subject, exploring the nature of desire and its cultural consequences, creating a collection bound to become a classic of sex writing. Featuring work by: DL Alvarez * Jeremy Atherton Lin * Vera Blossom * Chloe Caldwell * Cristy Road Carrera * Sam Cohen * Tom Cole * Lydia Conklin * jimmy cooper * Lyn Corelle * Jenny Fran Davis * Cyrus Dunham * Hedi El Kholti * Robert Gluck * Miguel Gutierrez * Gary Indiana * Taleen Kali * Cheryl Klein * Gabrielle Korn * Nate Lippens * Meredith Maran * Carta Monir * Amanda Montell * Carely Moore * Bradford Nordeen * Baruch Porras-Hernandez * Kamala Puligandla * Brontez Purnell * Liara Roux * Andrea Sands * Daviel Shy * Jen Silverman * Anna Joy Springer * Laurie Stone * McKenzie Wark & Zoe Whittal