What happens when we imagine loving the people--and the parts of ourselves--that we do not believe are worthy of love? A transformative collection of intimate and lyrical love letters that offer a path toward compassion, forgiveness, and self-acceptance. "Required reading."--Glennon Doyle Kai Cheng Thom grew up a Chinese Canadian transgender girl in a hostile world. As an activist, psychotherapist, conflict mediator, and spiritual healer, she's always pursued the same deeply personal mission: to embrace the revolutionary belief that every human being, no matter how hateful or horrible, is intrinsically sacred. But then Kai Cheng found herself in a crisis of faith, overwhelmed by the viciousness with which people treated one another, and barely clinging to the values and ideals she'd built her life around: justice, hope, love, and healing. Rather than succumb to despair and cynicism, she gathered all her rage and grief and took one last leap of faith: she wrote. Whether prayers or spells or poems--and whether there's a difference--she wrote to affirm the outcasts and runaways she calls her kin. She wrote to flawed but nonetheless lovable men, to people with good intentions who harm their own, to racists and transphobes seemingly beyond saving. What emerged was a blueprint for falling back in love with being human.

Falling Back in Love with Being Human: Letters to Lost Souls

Self-Help

Thom, Kai Cheng

Motivational

Dial Press Trade Paperback

Fiction. LGBTQIA Studies. Asian and Asian American Studies. Young Adult. FIERCE FEMMES AND NOTORIOUS LIARS: A DANGEROUS TRANS GIRL'S CONFABULOUS MEMOIR is the highly sensational, ultra-exciting, sort-of true coming-of-age story of a young Asian trans girl, pathological liar, and kung-fu expert who runs away from her parents' abusive home in a rainy city called Gloom. Striking off on her own, she finds her true family in a group of larger-than-life trans femmes who live in a mysterious pleasure district known only as the Street of Miracles. Under the wings of this fierce and fabulous flock, the protagonist blossoms into the woman she has always dreamed of being, with a little help from the unscrupulous Doctor Crocodile. When one of their number is brutally murdered, she joins her sisters in forming a vigilante gang to fight back against the transphobes, violent johns, and cops that stalk the Street of Miracles. But when things go terribly wrong, she must find the truth within herself in order to stop the violence and discover what it really means to grow up and find your family.

Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl's Confabulous Memoir

Literature & Fiction

United States

Metonymy Press

Drawing on high fantasy and other genres of fantasy writing, this is the first anthology by trans femme authors to explore the realms of magic, supernatural beings, and alternative universes. Enter worlds of wonder where trans femmes are powerful heroines, sorceresses, and warriors fighting against dark forces in vivid magical worlds. With celebrated writers like Kai Cheng Thom, Casey Plett, and Gwen Benaway, this anthology will transform the landscape of fantasy and offer radical portals into excitement, danger, and transformation.

Maiden, Mother, Crone: Fantastical Trans Femmes: Kickstarter Edition

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Benaway, Gwen

Sturges, Lilah

McDaniel, Alexa Fae

Bemis, Kylie Ariel

Mellor, Ellen

Wasserstein, Izzy

Vest, Audrey

Frasier, Crystal

Plett, Casey

Fantasy

Independently published

This extraordinary poetry collection journeys to the place where forgotten ancestors live and monstrous women roam—and where the distinctions between body, land, and language are lost. In these fierce yet tender narrative poems, Thom draws from both memory and mythology to create new maps of gender, race, sexuality, and violence. Descended from the traditions of oral storytelling, spoken word, and queer punk, Thom's debut collection is evocative and unforgettable.
Kai Cheng Thom is a trans writer and performance artist whose work has been published in Buzzfeed, Autostraddle, Asian American Literary Review, and xoJane. She writes regularly for Everyday Feminism.

A Place Called No Homeland

Poetry

Arsenal Pulp Press

In the magical time between night and day, when both the sun and the moon are in the sky, a child is born in a little blue house on a hill. And Miu Lan is not just any child, but one who can change into any shape they can imagine. The only problem is they can’t decide what to be: A boy or a girl? A bird or a fish? A flower or a shooting star? At school, though, they must endure inquisitive looks and difficult questions from the other children, and they have trouble finding friends who will accept them for who they are. But they find comfort in the loving arms of their mother, who always offers them the same loving refrain: “whatever you dream of / i believe you can be / from the stars in the sky to the fish in the sea.”
In this captivating, beautifully imagined picture book about gender, identity, and the acceptance of the differences between us, Miu Lan faces many questions about who they are and who they may be. But one thing’s for sure: no matter what this child becomes, their mother will love them just the same.
Kai Cheng Thom is a writer, performance artist, and psychotherapist in Toronto. Her first poetry book, a Place Called No Homeland, was published in 2017.
Kai Yun Ching is a community-based organizer, educator, and illustrator in Montreal.
Wai-Yant Li is a ceramics artist and illustrator in Montreal.

From the Stars in the Sky to the Fish in the Sea

Ching, Kai Yun

LGBTQ+ Books

What can we hope for at the end of the world? What can we trust in when community has broken our hearts? What would it mean to pursue justice without violence? How can we love in the absence of faith? In a heartbreaking yet hopeful collection of personal essays and prose poems, blending the confessional, political, and literary, Kai Cheng Thom dives deep into the questions that haunt social movements today. With the author’s characteristic eloquence and honesty, I Hope We Choose Love proposes heartfelt solutions on the topics of violence, complicity, family, vengeance, and forgiveness. Taking its cues from contemporary thought leaders in the transformative justice movement such as adrienne maree brown and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, this provocative book is a call for nuance in a time of political polarization, for healing in a time of justice, and for love in an apocalypse.

I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl’s Notes from the End of the World

Biographies & Memoirs

The heart-rending story of Laika, the brave canine space traveller. By two of the co-creators of the acclaimed children's book From the Stars in the Sky to the Fish in the Sea: the moving and beautifully told story of Laika, the dog who learned the names of the stars. Laika is an orphaned stray dog who lives in the streets of Moscow in the 1950s in the then Soviet Union. Although she is loved by her pack, Laika longs to one day learn the names of the stars, since she knows that all dogs become stars when they die - including her parents. One day, a Russian scientist named Vlad offers Laika the chance to travel to the stars by helping him with an important experiment, an event that will change the entire world. Part fable, part dog story, part history lesson, the story of Laika's brave and loving heart will captivate young and older readers alike, offering important lessons about world peace, science, and the deep bonds between humans and every other creature with whom we share the planet.

For Laika: The Dog Who Learned the Names of the Stars

Children's Books

Animals

Maiden, Mother, and Crone: Fantastical Trans Femmes is a Bedside Press anthology of new fantastical short fiction by trans women and trans feminine writers curated by celebrated poet and author Gwen Benaway. Drawing on high fantasy and other genres of fantasy writing, Maiden, Mother, and Crone is the first anthology by trans femme authors to explore the realms of magic, supernatural beings, and alternate universes. Enter a universe of wonder where trans femmes are powerful heroines, sorceresses, and warriors fighting against dark forces in vivid magical worlds. Created by celebrated trans femme writers this anthology will transform the landscape of fantasy fiction and offer radical portals into excitement, danger, and transformation.

Maiden, Mother, Crone: Fantastical Trans Femmes

Product Description Maiden, Mother, and Crone: Fantastical Trans Femmes is a Bedside Press anthology of new fantastical short fiction by trans women and trans feminine writers curated by celebrated poet and author Gwen Benaway. Drawing on high fantasy and other genres of fantasy writing, Maiden, Mother, and Crone is the first anthology by trans femme authors to explore the realms of magic, supernatural beings, and alternate universes. Enter a universe of wonder where trans femmes are powerful heroines, sorceresses, and warriors fighting against dark forces in vivid magical worlds. Created by celebrated trans femme writers this anthology will transform the landscape of fantasy fiction and offer radical portals into excitement, danger, and transformation. Review BOOKLIST -- This overall solid anthology should help satisfy the INCREASING demand for #OwnVoices writing, particularly by and for trans women.PUBLISHERS WEEKLY -- This anthology offers trans readers opportunities to see themselves represented and cis readers to see trans characters centered as heroes.BOOKLIST -- This overall solid anthology should help satisfy the INCREASING demand for #OwnVoices writing, particularly by and for trans women.

Comics & Graphic Novels

Gwynception

Graphic Novels

Bedside Press

Zubaan

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Books by Thom, Kai Cheng