Topside Press

Last updated

Topside Press was an independent publisher of trans and feminist literature based in Brooklyn, New York that operated from 2011 to 2017. The press published fiction, memoirs, short story collections, poetry, and non-fiction (under the imprint, Topside Signature [1] ) by trans authors, for trans readers, and about trans characters. It is often credited as an important contributor to the "trans literary renaissance." [2]

Contents

Topside Press’s list included novels such as Nevada by Imogen Binnie, which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for transgender literature and was rereleased by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2022, and A Safe Girl to Love by Casey Plett, which won a Lambda Literary Award.

Topside Press
StatusDefunct
Founded2011
Defunct2017
Headquarters locationBrooklyn, New York
Publication typesBooks
Fiction genres Transgender Literature
Imprints
  • Topside Signature
  • Topside Heliotrope

Overview

Topside Press was founded by Tom Léger, Riley Macleod, Julie Blair, and Red Durkin after they were turned away by larger publishing companies that claimed that the market for trans literature was too limited. [1] The four had previously overseen the trans writing blog PrettyQueer.com. [3] In line with the message for their blog, Topside Press worked to promote “authentic transgender narratives” through publishing works by, for, and about trans people. [4]

Topside's first publication was a collection of short stories titled The Collection: Short Fiction from the Transgender Vanguard (October 2012), edited by Léger and Macleod, featuring stories by Imogen Binnie, Carter Sickels, Ryka Aoki, and Casey Plett, among others. [5] The Collection went on to win a Lambda Literary Award and has become a teaching text in college courses dealing with trans literature. [6] [7]

In March 2013, Topside published the first edition of Binnie’s Nevada, a “cult classic” of trans literature rereleased by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2022 and credited with contributing to the "golden age of trans literature." [8]

In the summer of 2016, Topside hosted its inaugural Trans Women’s Writing Workshop, taught by writer and activist Sarah Schulman and Plett, at Brooklyn College. [9] [10]

The press released its last book in August 2017, a collection of speculative fiction short stories titled Meanwhile, Elsewhere: Science Fiction & Fantasy from Transgender Writers and edited by Plett and Cat Fitzpatrick. [11] The anthology was reprinted in 2021 by the independent feminist publisher LittlePuss Press, which was founded by the anthology's two editors. [12]

By 2017, the press had expanded to include two additional imprints: Topside Heliotrope, which focused on trans poetry, and Topside Signature, which focused on trans nonfiction. [1] [13]

Shortly after the release of the last book, the press disbanded due to “internal disputes between founders.” [14] [15] Since then, the press has been criticized for dominating the trans literary fiction scene, for acting as a gatekeeper for trans literature, and for publishing more well-educated white trans authors than trans authors of color. [14] [16] At the same time, the press is credited with contributing to the “trans literary renaissance." [2] [9] [17]

During its five-year run, the press was awarded four Lambda awards and nominated for two more. [14]

Topside Test

Similar to the Bechdel test the owners of Topside came up with a set of criteria to establish if a story was transgender or just featured a trans character. [18]

Does the book include more than one trans character?

Do they know each other?

Do they talk to each other about something besides a transition-related medical procedure? [19] [10]

Notable Titles and Awards

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dayne Ogilvie Prize</span> Canadian literary award

The Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ Emerging Writers is a Canadian literary award, presented annually by the Writers' Trust of Canada to an emerging Canadian writer who is part of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer community. Originally presented as a general career achievement award for emerging writers that considered their overall body of work, since 2022 it has been presented to honor debut books.

Transgender studies, also called trans studies or trans* studies, is an interdisciplinary field of academic research dedicated to the study of gender identity, gender expression, and gender embodiment, as well as to the study of various issues of relevance to transgender and gender variant populations. Interdisciplinary subfields of transgender studies include applied transgender studies, transgender history, transgender literature, transgender media studies, transgender anthropology and archaeology, transgender psychology, and transgender health. The research theories within transgender studies focus on cultural presentations, political movements, social organizations and the lived experience of various forms of gender nonconformity. The discipline emerged in the early 1990s in close connection to queer theory. Non-transgender-identified peoples are often also included under the "trans" umbrella for transgender studies, such as intersex people, crossdressers, drag artists, third gender individuals, and genderqueer people.

The 25th Lambda Literary Awards were held on June 3, 2013, to honor works of LGBT literature published in 2012.

Jeanne Thornton is an American writer and copublisher of Instar Books and Rocksalt Magazine. She has received the Judith A. Markowitz Award for Emerging LGBTQ Writers. Anthologies to which she has contributed to have won a Lambda Literary Award and a Barbara Gittings Literature Award. Works she has written and edited have been finalists for Lambda Literary Awards for Debut Fiction, Transgender Fiction, and Graphic Novel. Her 2021 novel Summer Fun is a one-sided epistolary novel consisting of letters from a transgender woman in New Mexico to a fictional musician based on Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys; it won the 2022 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fiction.

Casey Plett is a Canadian writer, best known for her novel Little Fish, her Lambda Literary Award winning short story collection, A Safe Girl to Love, and her Giller Prize-nominated short story collection, A Dream of a Woman. Plett is a transgender woman, and she often centers this experience in her writing.

<i>Nevada</i> (Binnie novel) 2013 novel by Imogen Binnie

Nevada: A Novel is the debut novel from author Imogen Binnie, released by Topside Press in 2013. Nevada follows the story of Maria Griffiths, a trans woman living in Brooklyn, who embarks on a road trip headed towards the West Coast where she meets James, a Walmart employee questioning his gender. The novel was not an initial success, but gained an online following. In the years following its release, it has been credited by literary critic Stephanie Burt as having starting a transgender literary movement and inspiring authors such as Torrey Peters and Casey Plett.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ryka Aoki</span> American author

Ryka Aoki is an American author of novels, poetry, and essays. She teaches English at Santa Monica College and gender studies at Antioch University.

Imogen Binnie is an American transgender novelist and screenwriter who made her debut with the publication of Nevada in 2013.

Kai Cheng Thom is a Canadian writer and former social worker. Thom, a non-binary trans woman, has published four books, including the novel Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl's Confabulous Memoir (2016), the poetry collection a place called No Homeland (2017), a children's book, From the Stars in The Sky to the Fish in the Sea (2017), and I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl's Notes from the End of the World (2019), a book of essays centered on transformative justice.

Gwen Benaway is a Canadian poet and activist. As of October 2019, she was a PhD candidate in the Women & Gender Studies Institute at the Faculty of Arts & Science at the University of Toronto. Benaway has also written non-fiction for The Globe and Mail and Maclean's.

Ellen J. Levy is an American writer and academic who was an associate professor of English at Colorado State University before retiring from this role. Her collection of short stories, Love, In Theory, was published in 2012, and her first novel, The Cape Doctor, in 2021 to positive reviews.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kacen Callender</span> Saint Thomian author (born 1989)

Kacen Callender is a Saint Thomian author of children's fiction and fantasy, best known for their Stonewall Book Award and Lambda Literary Award—winning middle grade debut Hurricane Child (2018). Their fantasy novel, Queen of the Conquered, is the 2020 winner of the World Fantasy Award, and King and the Dragonflies won the 2020 National Book Award for Young People's Literature and the 2021 Lambda Literary Award for Children's and Young Adult Literature.

Mennonite literature emerged in the mid-to-late 20th century as both a literary movement and a distinct genre. Mennonite literature refers to literary works created by or about Mennonites.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Torrey Peters</span> American author

Torrey Peters is an American author. Her debut novel, Detransition, Baby, has received mainstream and critical success. The novel was nominated for the 2021 Women’s Prize for Fiction.

<i>Everyone on the Moon Is Essential Personnel</i> 2020 short story collection

Everyone on the Moon Is Essential Personnel is a short story collection by Julian K. Jarboe. Jarboe's first collection, it was published in March 2020 by Lethe Press. The stories in the collection relate to the human body, depicting both embodiment in and alienation from it; they address various additional themes and use genres including fairy tale, body horror, and mid-apocalypse stories. Most characters in the collection are queer.

The Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Literature is an annual literary award, presented by the Lambda Literary Foundation, that awards books with transgender content. Awards are granted based on literary merit and transgender content, and therefore, the writer may be cisgender. The award can be separated into three categories: transgender fiction, transgender nonfiction, and transgender poetry, though early iterations of the award included categories for bisexual/transgender literature, transgender/genderqueer literature, and transgender literature.

<i>Little Fish</i> (novel) 2018 novel by Casey Plett

Little Fish is a novel by Casey Plett, published May 1, 2018 by Arsenal Pulp Press. Centring transgender characters in Plett's hometown of Winnipeg, the book won the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fiction in 2018.

Histories of the Transgender Child is a 2018 transgender studies book by the transgender author and academic Jules Gill-Peterson. The book is an exploration of transgender childhood in the United States throughout the twentieth century. It received the 2019 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction and the 2018 Children's Literature Association Book Award.

Bryn Kelly (1980–2016) was an American writer, artist, performer, and community organizer. Kelly has shown work at New Museum and performed in conjunction with Visual AIDS and in Art in the Age of Aquarius at the Whitney Museum of American Art. She was a member of the Femme Collective, participated in Baltimore's 2012 Femme Conference, and was a cofounder of Theater Transgression, a transgender multimedia performance collective. Her writing and writing performances have appeared in Original Plumbing, Manic D Press, the National Queer Arts Festival, PrettyQueer.com, and EOAGH, A Journal of the Arts, amongst others.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Kerr, Theodore (2013-04-22). "In Conversation with Topside Press: Tom Léger, Julie Blair, Red Durkin, and Riley MacLeod". Lambda Literary. Retrieved 2022-06-26.
  2. 1 2 Plett, Casey (2022-05-31). "The Novel That Started the Trans Literary Revolution". Harper's BAZAAR. Retrieved 2022-06-26.
  3. ↑ Binnie, Imogen (2022-05-04). "Notes on Nevada: Trans Literature and the Early Internet". The Paris Review. Retrieved 2022-06-26.
  4. ↑ "Trans Women Share Writing Summer Book Tour". www.advocate.com. 2014-06-19. Retrieved 2022-06-26.
  5. ↑ "'The Collection: Short Fiction from the Transgender Vanguard' edited by Tom Léger and Riley MacLeod". Lambda Literary. 2012-09-30. Retrieved 2022-06-26.
  6. 1 2 "Previous Winners". Lambda Literary. Retrieved 2022-06-26.
  7. ↑ Currah, Paisley; Stryker, Susan (2015-08-01). "General Editors' Introduction". TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. 2 (3): 365–366. doi: 10.1215/23289252-2926328 . ISSN   2328-9252.
  8. ↑ "Review: Imogen Binnie's Much Awaited Reprint of 'Nevada' in the Golden Age of Trans Literature". Observer. 2022-06-14. Retrieved 2022-06-26.
  9. 1 2 "Almost All Stories About Trans Women Are Written By Cisgender Authors". Bitch Media. Retrieved 2022-06-26.
  10. 1 2 Marvin, Amy (2022-02-01). "Short-Circuited Trans Care, t4t, and Trans Scenes". TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. 9 (1): 9–27. doi:10.1215/23289252-9475481. ISSN   2328-9252. S2CID   247409228.
  11. ↑ "Casey Plett on truth, fiction, and the illusion of community - Quill and Quire". Quill and Quire - Canada's magazine of book news and reviews. 2021-08-17. Retrieved 2022-06-26.
  12. ↑ "Casey Plett and Cat Fitzpatrick team up to launch new feminist publisher LittlePuss Press – That Shakespearean Rag". 15 July 2021. Retrieved 2022-06-26.
  13. ↑ "In Review: Bess on Fitzpatrick". Ghost Ocean. Retrieved 2022-06-26.
  14. 1 2 3 Cugini, Eli (2021-09-15). "The troubled golden age of trans literature" . Retrieved 2022-06-26.
  15. ↑ Spielberger, Daniel (2022-06-07). "How Imogen Binnie's 'Nevada' Influenced a Generation of Trans Writers". W Magazine. Retrieved 2022-06-26.
  16. ↑ Beedle, Heidi (17 February 2021). "Opinion: A conversation with Torrey Peters, author of "Detransition, Baby"". Colorado Springs Indy. Retrieved 2022-06-26.
  17. ↑ "The Literary Renaissance of Trans Women Writers". Bitch Media. 28 November 2014. Retrieved 2022-06-26.
  18. ↑ Deshane, Evelyn (2019), Ransom, Amy J.; Grace, Dominick (eds.), "Crossing the (Trans)Gender Bridge: Exploring Intersex and Trans Bodies in Canadian Speculative Fiction", Canadian Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror, Studies in Global Science Fiction, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 203–218, doi:10.1007/978-3-030-15685-5_12, ISBN   978-3-030-15684-8, S2CID   190191475 , retrieved 2022-06-29
  19. ↑ Léger, Tom (2010). Is There A Transgender Text in This Class?. New York: Topside Press.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.