The small queer press is a continuous 2025 book club at The Pond aiming to uplift queer published works from smaller -mostly indie- presses focusing on diverse stories of LGBTQIA+ life and people.
The book club will run in 2-3 month cycles, each quarter focusing on a different press.
August through October we are exploring the works from Amethyst Editions. For September we are reading “Skye Papers” by Jamika Ajalon:
Twentysomething and restless, Skye flits between cities and stagnant relationships until she meets Scottie, a disarming and disheveled British traveler, and Pieces, an enigmatic artist living in New York. The three recognize each other as kindred spirits—Black, punk, whimsical, revolutionary—and fall in together, leading Skye on an unlikely adventure across the Atlantic. They live a glorious, subterranean existence in 1990s London: making multimedia art, throwing drug-fueled parties, and eking out a living by busking in Tube stations, until their existence is jeopardized by the rise of CCTV and policing.
In fluid and unrelenting prose, Jamika Ajalon's debut novel explores youth, poetry, and what it means to come terms with queerness. Skye Papers is an imaginative, episodic group portrait of a transatlantic art scene spearheaded by people of color—and of the fraught, dystopian reality of increasing state surveillance.
The Amethyst Editions imprint champions emerging queer writers who employ genre-bending narratives and experimental writing styles, and works that complicate the conversation around LGBTQ+ experiences beyond a coming out story.
Amethyst Editions was founded by artist and author Michelle Tea, and is an imprint under The Feminist Press. Read more about them here: https://www.feministpress.org/amethyst-editions-info
*no reader commitment!*
- read the book, or start reading it
- show up to the discussion
- no sign ups needed
- you can go to one, or some, or all
- book club is held monthly
- 2-3 month cycles highlighting a different queer press
- facebook events will be available
- the books are available at The Pond at a -10% discount
- the books are in english, mostly fiction
If you want to join the bookclub remotely, or track your reading for these books, you can joining the Storygraph challenge for funsies.