#Annie on My Mind

[merp-blerp]

Happy Pride to my random niche sapphic ships that never get any canon and/or fanon content about them and always end up my favs (yeah, I’m cursed, what about it?)

[queer-media-tourney]

[shorthairedbrownqueer]

Petition to get publishers to release closeted friendly versions of queer books with like puppies on them 🥲🌈

[contortedmind]

Despite the fact that I watched dead poets society and enjoyed it, I find my opinion about poems remaining the same.

I really HATE poems. Something about them has always seemed so pretentious and people tend to try too hard to make a meaning out of nothing. Recently though, I have found a few poems (some might just be short little writings, I dont know if they count as poems.) that I don't hate.

Here are the favorite poems of someone who despises poetry:

Someone please tell me how to arrange pictures nicely on mobile lmao.

[bluedalahorse]

Vacation - (Stella x Fredrika)

Thank you for your request! I’ve never had a chance to write stedrika before. I thought about their New York trip and decided to have them interact with one of my favorite books by Nancy Garden, hope that’s okay.

Tagging @youngroyals-events because this drabble challenge was their brainchild.

Letters From Annie and Liza (link to AO3)

Read any novel in English this summer. An assignment from another teacher, before Hillerska. Fredrika chooses Annie on My Mind and wonders, later, why it made her chest ache.

Until Stella kisses her.

Fredrika rereads Annie and Liza’s love story en route to New York. A plan takes shape in her mind. A date, copied from the book. It’s the kind of sincerity neither she nor Stella easily expresses.

Her stomach tightens as they enter the Cloisters. What if…?

Then, standing before of the unicorn tapestries, Stella breathes out:

“…so beautiful.”

Maybe they can wear their hearts openly after all.

[haveyoureadthisqueerbook]

[whilereadingandwalking]

First, a quick spoiler: this book is groundbreaking because it was a YA novel featuring two queer girls who get a happy ending. I know, I'm sorry to spoil it, but it's vital. In our age of blossoming queer YA contemporary, it's important to see why Annie on My Mind was so important, and so controversial, given a past where the only gay books permitted were those with unhappy endings.

In this book by Nancy Garden, two girls from across New York City meet at the Met and begin to have feelings that they don't, at first, understand. And when they are caught, their academic careers, friendships, and family relationships are all put at stake. This novel is simple, and to those who grew up with all kinds of queer novels around, it might feel outdated. It reads as historical fiction, with the sheer shockwave the adults in the book feel at finding lesbianism in their elite school. But there's nothing wrong with that, and it's a great book about a time when queerness was ok if it was just experimenting, or secret, or hidden, and where two girls are determined not to let go of each other, no matter the cost. A really good, quick read about coming-of-age queer and finding acceptance within yourself.

Content warnings for outing, homophobia, lesbophobia, ableism.

[shutuplook]

[artemismatchalatte]

Looking for a good read about or by sapphic women or gay/bi men?

Look no further! I gave all these books 4 or 5 stars when I read them. 

Lesbian and bisexual women (subject and author): 

Two or three things I know for sure by Dorothy Allison (lesbian memoir)

My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness by Kabi Nagata (graphic novel, lesbian memoir)

The Sealed Letter by Emma Donahue (historic fiction, bisexual woman and lesbian wlw relationship)

Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabi Rivera (ya contemporary, lesbian mc)

Fried Green Tomatoes at The Whistlestop Cafe by Fannie Flagg (historic fiction, butch/femme wlw)

Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden (ya lesbian classic)

The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall (historic fiction, lesbian classic)

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid (historic fiction, bisexual woman and lesbian wlw relationship)

Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo and Me by Ellen Forney (graphic novel, memoir- even though it’s mainly about bipolar disorder mostly she is bisexual and it’s mentioned in the novel)

Lesbian or Bisexual Woman author (not necessarily an LGBT subject): 

Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse and A Room of One’s Own all by Virginia Woolf (bisexual author)

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (bisexual author)

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters (lesbian author)

The Yellow Wallpaper (and other stories) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (bisexual author)

The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls by Emilie Autumn (bisexual author)

Passing by Nella Larsen (bisexual author)

Transgender Topics: 

Female Husbands: A Trans History by Jen Manion (LGBT history- only concerns relationships between historic AFAB couples and AFAB people who lived as men for many reasons- wider career opportunities and being able to marry a woman were the two most common reasons cited across all stories chronicled) 

Gay Men and Bisexual Men (subject and/or author): 

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (historic fiction, Greek Myths)

Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin (gay author, essays on race in America)

Boy meets Boy by David Leviathan (ya contemporary mlm romance)

If We were Villains by M. L. Rio  (ya, dark academia, mystery)

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee (historic fiction, bisexual mlm, ya) The two sequels also have more lgbt characters. 

[queer-book-character-tournament]

Book names + authors under the cut

Annie Kenyon/Liza Winthrop- Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden

Marshall Seo/Benedikt Montagov- These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong

Rosemary Harper/Sissix Seshkethet- The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Jack/August- The Wicker King by K Ancrum

[groovy-lady]

Woooo I got The Green Witch’s Guide to Herbal Magick: A Handbook of Green Hearthcraft and Plant-Based Spellcraft by Annabel Margaret and I ordered the lesbian novel Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden!! I tried to find Sappho’s poetry, but I’ll have to order that from Amazon.

[queer-media-tourney]

[lovers-instead]

Sapphic YA Book Rec: Good Moon Rising by Nancy Garden

1996 follow-up to Annie on My Mind, this time featuring 2 girls who compete for the lead role in their high school theater department.

Links to download:

Internet Archive (to borrow)

Anna's Archive

Singlelogin.re

LibGen

[lgbtqreads]

YA eBooks on Sale for Under $4

[mccoppinscrapyard]

JOMP Book Photo Challenge July

Day 18: Well-Loved

My collection of old-school mass-market paperbacks! I got all of them (with the exception of Annie on My Mind) from a local used bookstore.

[quotation--marks]

It is important! I wanted to shout; it was as if she’d suddenly betrayed me - the one person on the board I’d really trusted and who I thought I had understood. I knew she was trying to be fair to everyone, not just to me, but, oh, God, I wanted to stand up and shout: No one had any influence on us! Ms. Stevenson and Ms. Widmer had nothing to do with it. What we did, we did on our own; we love each other! Can’t anyone understand that? Please - can’t someone? We love each other - just us - by ourselves. 

Nancy Garden, Annie on my Mind