If you want to skip all the preamble and go straight to the voting, you can find the form here.

Welcome to the inaugural year of the TFR Reader Choice Awards! This is our moment to look back on a fantastic 2024 and celebrate all of the amazing transfeminine books published this year and the authors who wrote them, from the most important perspective of all, the readers.

Transfeminine fiction has been historically excluded from consideration from most major awards, and even when they make the list, practically none of the nominations recognize or celebrate the indie and selfpub transfeminine publishing communities. By leaving every category open-ended for readers, our aim is to democratize the “formal award” process and the prestige that comes with it. In doing so, we hope to recognize not just the books with traditional industry legitimation, but the books which had the greatest impact across the board, no matter who wrote them or how they were published.

Our team at TFR knows how difficult it is to choose just one favorite book. That’s why for every category, we’re asking you to choose up to three favorites for consideration! We want there to be space for you not just to nominate the books you feel like you should nominate because of their name recognition, but the books you actually want to nominate.

We want there to be plenty of space to celebrate authors across the industry, not just the literary darlings of the crop. That’s why in addition to our marquee categories, we’ve also included two dozens smaller categories to recognize books and authors across a wide range of genres and roles. It’s a lot of categories, but that’s only because there’s a lot of great books to celebrate!

Without further ado, here’s a full list of the categories this year:

Marquee Awards

• Best Transfeminine Fiction 2024
• Best Transfeminine Nonfiction 2024
• Best Transfeminine Poetry 2024
• Best Transfeminine Debut 2024
• Author of the Year 2024
• Indie Press of the Year 2024

Book Awards

• Outstanding Contemporary Fiction 2024
• Outstanding Short Story 2024
• Outstanding Short Fiction Collection or Anthology 2024
• Outstanding TG/TF or Transition Fantasy 2024
• Outstanding Fantasy 2024
• Outstanding Science Fiction 2024
• Outstanding Romance 2024
• Outstanding Erotica 2024
• Outstanding Horror 2024
• Outstanding Historical Fiction 2024
• Outstanding Suspense/Mystery/Thriller 2024
• Outstanding Children’s/Young Adult 2024
• Outstanding Graphic/Comic 2024
• Outstanding Web Serial or Fanfiction 2024
• Outstanding Memoir 2024
• Outstanding Trans Theory 2024
• Outstanding Foreign Language or Translated Work 2024

Author Awards

• Breakout/Debut Author 2024
• Pillar of the Community 2024
• Up-and-Coming Author 2024
• Best Technical Prose or Craft 2024

Miscellaneous Awards

• Funniest Book of the Year 2024
• Best Character of 2024
• Best Transfeminine Representation by a Non-Transfeminine Author 2024
• Outstanding Editor or Agent 2024
• Outstanding Publication 2024
• Outstanding Reviewer 2024
• Outstanding Academic 2024

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While almost every category on this list has the same format – completely open, put down your top three choices – there is one category which works slightly different, and that’s Indie Press of the Year. Our editorial team has made the decision to recognize two indie presses for excellence and innovation over the past year, and we want to take a moment to introduce both nominees to you now.

tRaum Books

Location: Munich, Germany

Most Notable 2024 Release: Love/Aggression by June Martin

Website: https://traumbooks.com/

Why We Nominated Them: tRaum takes a unique approach to submissions, and it paid off with critically acclaimed title Love/Aggression this year. Of its acquisition, they wrote:

One of the things I love about our press is that we don’t do submissions. There’s no slush pile and no rejection letters: Great books just find us. I don’t know how, but they do. In the case of our 2024 spring release, LOVE/AGGRESSION, by June Martin—June had made a tweet sometime last year asking if anyone could recommend a press that would be interested in putting out her playfully bizarre cult-classic-in-the-making trans novel. Amongst the several presses tagged, we were one of them—the rest is history.

Love/Aggression may be a sterling example of daring and subversive literary fiction done right, but tRaum Books have been steadily publishing underground trans fiction for years in the micro-press model. They are in part reader-funded through their Patreon, and their delightful approach to indie publishing have garnered them our nomination.

Neon Hemlock Press

Location: Washington, DC, United States

Most Notable 2024 Release: Embodied Exegesis ed. Ann LeBlanc

Website: https://www.neonhemlock.com/

Why We Nominated Them: Neon Hemlock’s cyberpunk short story collection Embodied Exegesis is a milestone and a triumph in transfeminine science fiction, collecting the works of nineteen writers, including some of the most important contemporary voices in transfeminine speculative publishing. It continues and challenges a critical conversation ongoing since Sandy Stone interpolated Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto” and before, and promises a bright future for transfeminine science fiction as a genre.

But Neon Hemlock’s successes extend beyond the content of their work. Neon Hemlock’s Kickstarter model for funding their ambitious literary projects has enabled them to release an impressive diversity of novellas and short story collections, launching debut authors into publishing spheres for the first time and involving readers in the funding process. For those reasons, they have earned our nomination this year.

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Some general guidelines:

– The book must have been published in between December 1st 2023 and November 31st 2024.  We’ll push new titles from this Dec. to next year.

– All books must have been written by a self-identified transfeminine author.  They do NOT need to be about explicitly trans characters and themes.

– For author categories, authors with publications in the review period are preferred.

– For each question, you can submit THREE answers.  I will count each unique answer once.

– NO SELF-PROMOTION.  This is a moment to celebrate the work of your peers, not to market yourself.  Please don’t nominate yourself or your own book, or mobilize your entire social media platform to go and vote for you.

– VOTE ONCE.  What it says on the tin.

– Answer as many or as few as you want!  We want to hear from you regardless, even if you only have thoughts about one or two categories.

And that’s the jist! Voting will be open until December 27th, 2024 at 11:59pm, so don’t forget to make your voice heard!

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Introducing the December Trans Readathon!

But wait, there’s more!

If you’ve been paying attention to my Bluesky, then you may know that I’ve created a fun reading challenge for the month of December! The goal of the December Trans Readathon is to read a trans book every day – whether that’s the same book for thirty-one days or thirty-one books on the month is completely up to you. Every day you read a trans book, you can add a picture of its cover to its day on our #DecemberTransReadathon calendar:

Post about your reading triumphs on social media using the #DecemberTransReadathon hashtag!

I’ll be trying to read one book a day, and I hope you all will join me ❤