Rainbow Rainbow

This story collection follows queer, trans, and gender-nonconforming characters as they look for love and connection. Its stories take in humor, darkness, and strong feeling, and they focus on queer life in ways fiction often overlooks. The people here are not defined by doubt about who they are. Instead, the book turns to queer people having children and to the everyday pleasures of queer life, all set against the pressures of the present day.

In one story, a nonbinary writer about to have top surgery begins a risky affair during the COVID pandemic. In another, a lesbian couple asks a close friend to be their sperm donor and tries to win him over with a strong, brightly colored cocktail. A lonely office worker who is working through questions about gender takes their nephew to a convention for trans YouTube creators. In the middle of a Midwestern winter, a librarian struggling with sex addiction leans on her pet ferrets to avoid a relapse at a chaotic college fair.

This debut collection by Lydia Conklin was longlisted for The Story Prize and the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection. It moves between the dark and the tender sides of being human.