Welcome back to The Transfeminine Review! The overwhelming support over the last few days has been absolutely humbling; I’m so grateful to each and every one of you who followed us on social media, shared our first article, or sent us your wonderful book recommendations (and sometimes even the books themselves)!
This is the first post in our Casual Wednesdays series – the perfect time to take a break from the week, snuggle up in a cozy armchair with a great book, and chat together about trans literature. Today’s the day when we’ll be posting lower-effort content: whether that’s rec lists, reading blogs, or updates about the website, we’re hoping it’ll be nice and chill <3.
Today, I wanted to go over a bunch of the little details about this website that didn’t make the cut for our first post. So let’s go section-by-section and lay out some of our goals for the next few months of this project!
Update Schedule
My goal is to post once a week for this blog. Life is busy, though, and I might not always have an 8,000 word essay locked and loaded for the public consumption. So, rather than aiming to release one post at the same time each week, I’ve come up with a system where there are several possible slots for update days! There’ll be some weeks where we post updates in all three slots and some weeks when we’re on vacation. But the most important thing for our team is that the schedule will contain flexibility for me and my editors :))
Essay Sundays – Literary Criticism, Journalism, In-Depth Book Analyses. In other words, our ‘core’ content. Whenever we’ve got a big project in the works, you can bet that it’s gonna be a Sunday essay. Our primary goal with essays is to produce substantive analysis that creates new value and understandings for the community. I have no interest in copying information that you can easily find elsewhere – if that means it takes us a week or two longer to get an essay ready to print, then we’ll prioritize quality over quantity. Research takes a lot of work, and cutting corners is lame! But our hope is that any time you see a post on a Sunday, it’s something that you’ll know is worth reading.
Casual Wednesdays – Recommendation Lists, Reading Vlogs, Update Posts, etc. In other words, your ‘classic’ literary blog content. These essays will probably have less research and editing, and will be a more laid back examination of the work I’m doing, thoughts I’m having about my reading, casual updates about the industry and whatnot, etc. The day for the fun frivolous stuff we all enjoy reading after a long day’s work.
Guest Post Fridays – Guest Columns and Interviews. We want to hear from you too! I’m currently planning an interview series that’ll mostly focus on the industry and trans fiction as a trade. Additionally, if you enjoy writing literary criticism and you’re interested in writing a guest column or doing a guest interview for the blog, there’s potentially an opportunity to have your article posted here (more information on that below).
That’s the broader scope picture of what our update schedule’s going to look like. We’ve got a long list of planned articles, and I’ve mostly been letting the inspiration flow as it will (I’m a total discovery writer, can’t outline to save my life). That being said, this is a very tentative picture of what the next few updates will look like:
- Sunday, September 1st, 2024 – “How ‘Trans as Method’ Litcrit Fails Transfeminine Authors”
- Wednesday, September 4th, 2024 – Bookshelf Tour!!
- Sunday, September 8th, 2024 – “Folklore, Mythology, and the ‘Invention’ of the Trans Press: Transfeminine Publishing before the Internet”
- Sunday, September 15th, 2024 – Untitled fourth part of the “Methods and Scope” essay series about trans literature since the internet
That’s what we’ve got coming up in the immediate future! This isn’t everything we’ve got planned, just the stuff that’s concrete enough to put down on the calendar ahead of time. I hope you’re as excited for all of this as I am!
In the future, you can view information about our update schedule on our About page.
Guest Columns
Have a valuable perspective to add to the conversation? Do you know an obscure piece of transfeminine literary history that you think other people should know too? Are you an industry professional, an author, or an aspiring writer who’s looking for a byline? We’re interested in hearing from all of you. Pitch us your ideas!
Please note that all editorials for the time being will be on a volunteer basis only. I’m not making any money from this website – anything I pay would come out of my own pocket, and that’s not something I have the resources for right now. If we start a Patreon or something in the future, that might change, but for the moment, submitting an article would be unpaid work. I know there are a lot of trans writers out there who’ve got big ideas, and not a lot of platforms where they can share them and actually reach an audience where they can be heard. It’s one of my primary goals for this website to platform under-represented voices in trans publishing, so if you’ve got something to say about trans fiction and you’re interested in working pro bono with an editorial team to help get it out into the world, we would love to hear your ideas!
- What kind of articles are you looking for? The primary goal of this blog is to document the work and positionalities of transfeminine people within the publishing industry. That means that we’re primarily looking for article pitches about tropes, trends, genres, and publishing history. If you absolutely love an obscure book that most transfemmes have never heard of and you’ve got something interesting to say about it, we would be happy to hear that too. We are much more likely to greenlight your article about underground zines from the 1980s than we are your thinkpiece about Nevada. We would prefer articles about books written about transfeminine authors, but recognize that there are a lot of adjacent topics that might be of interest to our readers, including but not limited to transmasculine and non-binary fiction, depictions of transfemininity in cis fiction, and current topics and issues that affect the transfeminine community. What we’re not looking for is an article that essentially reads “Here’s how <insert-white-cishet-literary-classic> shaped my trans identity.” We’re also not interested in posting autobiographical content. Personal experience can be a great framing device, but the core point of the essay’s gotta be about trans literature or the publishing industry, not yourself. This extends to authors, no matter how well-known or famous.
- Are there any other constraints? We’re not going to publish anything NSFW. We’re also not going to publish fiction. That doesn’t mean we aren’t interested in the more taboo, erotic, or historically discriminated elements of trans fiction. However, it needs to have a SFW slant so we can publish it on this site.
- What would the editorial process look like? In general, my editors and I communicate using Discord. If you’ve got an article idea, first you’ll send us a pitch via email. If I greenlight the pitch, we’ll talk more about what your ideas are and how you want to cover them, what types of texts you would cite, etc. If we like what we hear, we’ll ask for an outline, then do another round of discussion and critique before we send you off to write the article. I work in very close collaboration with a community of people who have been talking, thinking, and researching throughout this whole project with me, and it’s a very collaborative intellectual project – we want to work with you to develop your ideas! If you’re not open to having a chatty group of well-educated trans women spitballing over every point you’re making and coming up with a bunch of cool new ideas, you probably won’t enjoy working with us very much lol.
- How do I submit an article idea? Great question. We are looking for article pitches, not for pre-written articles. You’re welcome to send in an article that’s already been written, but unless it’s been published already and you’re just interested in having it reprinted for a more concerntrated trans audience, we’re probably gonna take it through the editing process anyway. If you want to send an article pitch to us, please submit a summary of no more than 500 words to thetransfemininereview@gmail.com. In that summary, please include the topic of the article, any major texts you would want to discuss in the article, and a brief description of why you’re interested in the topic and why you think other trans readers might be too. Be aware that we’re definitely not going to greenlight every pitch we get – I’m only one person, after all.
- What about republishing/republished articles? We’re in total support of it! The Transfeminine Review won’t ask for anything but the rights to print the article on our website. All guest authors will retain full rights to publish or print wherever else they might please.
- I want to have my traditionally published essay/academic article/book review/industry update content on the topic of trans(feminine) literature republished on your website for exposure/a broader audience/public accessibility. Awesome! Shoot us an email and we can chat about how to fit your work in.
That’s about all for that. We’re interested in hearing what you come up with! Again, if you’re interested, you can email us at thetransfemininereview@gmail.com or message us on one of our various socials.
In the future, you can review all of this information on our Submissions page.
New & Upcoming Releases
AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS: I am going to start putting together an “Upcoming Releases” Page that contains a full list of all scheduled books releases coming in the immediate future. If you would like to have your book listed on the page, you should send the following information to thetransfemininereview@gmail.com for us to add it to the page:
- Author Name (must be a transfeminine author)
- Book Title
- Series information if not a standalone
- Publisher (Self-Published is fine)
- Edition (if applicable)
- Release date
- At least one piece of contact information for the author. Website, Twitter, Bluesky, Facebook, Tumblr, email, or anything of the like.
- OPTIONAL: Any press materials, book tour information, or other promotional materials are also welcome!
Your book MUST have a release date to go on this list! If your book’s release is delayed or postponed, please tell us about the new release date. Once a book is released, I will put it in the “Recent Releases” section, which I will clear out every six months. If you have a book that has been released since July 1st of 2024, and you are reading this article before 2025, you can also shoot me an email and I will add your book to the “Recent Releases” section. You must include all of the same information listed above if you want your book to be listed.
In the future, you can view our New & Upcoming Releases page here. Help us put it together!
Send Us Books!
If you’ve been poking around on our website, you may have noticed Bethany’s Masterlist, which is a complete list of every single book by a trans woman that I’ve personally read, and further that I’ve included a small review section where I share my brief thoughts about each book. Obviously I haven’t read everything! But books are expensive, and I read fast enough that keeping pace with my reading habits would cost me a pretty penny lol. I also may be pretty good at tracking new releases, but I definitely don’t catch everything and things fall through the cracks. Reading as many books as possible is integral to the success of this project, and I’m always on the hunt for underappreciated or underground works of trans fiction. So, if you’re a transfeminine author, the publisher of a transfeminine author, or just a kind spirit who wants me to read your favorite book, check out the information below!
For Authors and Publishers: If you would like to send me an ARC of your book, you must clearly state in the packaging/email that you are sending it as a review copy. Feel free to either email us an E-Pub or PDF or send us a print copy. Note that our aim is not to produce full reviews, but rather to document books and produce scholarly analysis. However, every book I read will receive a brief review on my spreadsheet (and possibly also Goodreads in the future; still unsure about that). Signatures are welcome.
For Readers: Feel free to mail me whatever books you want! I’ll happily receive and read your favorite book by a trans woman. Books that I have not already read would be preferred – you can check my masterlist for full information about the books I’ve read, the books I want, and the books I may not even be aware of yet. You can also email me books, but only if you have the rights to them, have found a publically accessible free copy online, or have purchased a gift e-book for me. DO NOT EMAIL ME PIRATED BOOKS OR I WILL BE VERY ANNOYED WITH YOU.
- thetransfemininereview@gmail.com
- P.O. Box 22329, Philadelphia, PA, 19110
In the future, you can view information about how to send in books on the Support Our Work page.
Join the Conversation!
If I haven’t said something in an article, don’t assume I know it! We would absolutely love to be made aware of any obscure or unknown information, texts, authors, missed concepts and opportunities, etc. Part of what we’re trying to do here is open up some of the barriers to access for information about transfeminine literature, and learning is and will always be a crucial part of that. If you’ve got an area of expertise, a research tip, or any other form of information that you think would contribute to something we’re discussing, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment on our articles or send us an email.
What did you think of our first article? Let us know down in the comments!
A Note of Gratitude
This has been a dream of mine since I was young, and I am overcome with joy to finally see all these years of hard work coming to fruition. I wanted to give a big, big shoutout to my amazing editors, Asti, Alyessa, and Korra, who have made this project possible, to Aidan for his wonderful Deleuze expertise on the last article, and also to everyone who’s come out to support our brand new project over the last few days. This community is amazing, and I’m so thankful to have people excited to read my writing. It’s my hope that over the coming weeks, months, and years, I can pay y’all back in the best way I know how – by having an absolute blast reading cool books by transfemmes and sharing my passion and excitement with the world at-large.
With love, Beth
NEXT WEDNESDAY: #2 – Bookshelf Tour!!
The Transfeminine Review 
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