A collection of stories that celebrate the humour, darkness and depth of emotion of the queer and trans experience that’s not typically represented: liminal or uncertain identities, queer conception and queer joy.In this delightful debut collection of prize-wining stories, queer, gender-nonconforming and trans characters struggle to find love and forgiveness, despite their sometimes comic, sometimes tragic mistakes. In one story, a young lesbian tries to have a baby with her lover using an unprofessional sperm donor and a high-powered, rainbow-coloured cocktail. In another, a fifth-grader explores gender identity by dressing as an ox – instead of a matriarch – for a class Oregon Trail reenactment. Meanwhile a nonbinary person on the eve of top surgery dangerously experiments with an open relationship during the height of the COVID crisis. With insight and compassion, debut author Lydi Conklin takes their readers to a meeting of a queer feminist book club and to a convention for trans teenagers, revealing both the dark and lovable sides of their characters. The stories in Rainbow Rainbow will make you laugh and wince, sometimes at the same time.

A collection of stories that celebrate the humour, darkness and depth of emotion of the queer and trans experience that’s not typically represented: liminal or uncertain identities, queer conception and queer joy. In this delightful debut collection of prize-wining stories, queer, gender-nonconforming and trans characters struggle to find love and forgiveness, despite their sometimes comic, sometimes tragic mistakes. In one story, a young lesbian tries to have a baby with her lover using an unprofessional sperm donor and a high-powered, rainbow-coloured cocktail. In another, a fifth-grader explores gender identity by dressing as an ox – instead of a matriarch – for a class Oregon Trail reenactment. Meanwhile a nonbinary person on the eve of top surgery dangerously experiments with an open relationship during the height of the COVID crisis. With insight and compassion, debut author Lydia Conklin takes their readers to a meeting of a queer feminist book club and to a convention for trans teenagers, revealing both the dark and lovable sides of their characters. The stories in Rainbow Rainbow will make you laugh and wince, sometimes at the same time.

A collection of stories that celebrate the humour, darkness and depth of emotion of the queer and trans experience that’s not typically represented: liminal or uncertain identities, queer conception and queer joy.In this delightful debut collection of prize-wining stories, queer, gender-nonconforming and trans characters struggle to find love and forgiveness, despite their sometimes comic, sometimes tragic mistakes. In one story, a young lesbian tries to have a baby with her lover using an unprofessional sperm donor and a high-powered, rainbow-coloured cocktail. In another, a fifth-grader explores gender identity by dressing as an ox – instead of a matriarch – for a class Oregon Trail reenactment. Meanwhile a nonbinary person on the eve of top surgery dangerously experiments with an open relationship during the height of the COVID crisis. With insight and compassion, debut author Lydia Conklin takes their readers to a meeting of a queer feminist book club and to a convention for trans teenagers, revealing both the dark and lovable sides of their characters. The stories in Rainbow Rainbow will make you laugh and wince, sometimes at the same time.

A collection of stories that celebrate the humour, darkness and depth of emotion of the queer and trans experience that''snot typically represented: liminal or uncertain identities, queer conception and queer joy. In this delightful debut collection of prize-wining stories, queer, gender-nonconforming and trans characters struggle to find love and forgiveness, despite their sometimes comic, sometimes tragic mistakes. In one story, a young lesbian tries to have a baby with her lover using an unprofessional sperm donor and a high-powered, rainbow-coloured cocktail. In another, a fifth-grader explores gender identity by dressing as an ox instead of a matriarch for a class Oregon Trail reenactment.Meanwhile a nonbinary person on the eve of top surgery dangerouslyexperiments with an open relationship during the height of the COVID crisis. With insight and compassion, debut author Lydia Conklin takes their readers to a meeting of a queer feminist book club and to a convention for trans teenagers, revealing both the dark and lovable sides of their characters. The stories inRainbowRainbowwill make you laugh and wince, sometimes at the same time.

A suspenseful, wildly engaging novel following a musician spiraling in self-doubt and self-searching after a night – and a relationship – gone wrong.'A raw, emphatic novel of exceptional power' Carmen Maria Machado 'Takes your breath away' Katie KitamuraSongs of No Provenance tells the story of Joan Vole, an indie folk singer forever teetering on the edge of fame, who flees New York after committing a shocking sexual act onstage. With the threat of an internet storm looming over her, Joan seeks refuge at a writing camp for teenagers in rural Virginia, where she’s forced to question her own toxic relationship to artmaking – and her complicated history with a friend and mentee – while finding new hope in her students and a deepening intimacy with a nonbinary artist and fellow camp staff member.Lydi Conklin boldly explores kink, shame, queer appropriation, fame hunger, cancel culture, trans nonbinary identity and how to make art without ego, all the while asking how Joan might forge a new future for herself.Suffused with flashbacks to a musical underworld as seductive as it is seedy, Songs of no Provenance is a visceral, gutsy and profound debut novel about love, self-acceptance and clawing oneself to safety.

The essential annual guide to the newest voices in literatureBest Debut Short Stories celebrates the most promising short story writers today. Selected by a panel of distinguished judges, these eight stories are the 2025 winners of the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, which recognizes outstanding debuts published in literary magazines.Each story is accompanied by an introduction from the journal editor who first published it, providing insight about what’s exciting in fiction right now, and recognizing the vital work literary magazines do in nurturing new voices.

A collection of stories that celebrate the humour, darkness and depth of emotion of the queer and trans experience that’s not typically represented: liminal or uncertain identities, queer conception and queer joy.In this delightful debut collection of prize-wining stories, queer, gender-nonconforming and trans characters struggle to find love and forgiveness, despite their sometimes comic, sometimes tragic mistakes. In one story, a young lesbian tries to have a baby with her lover using an unprofessional sperm donor and a high-powered, rainbow-coloured cocktail. In another, a fifth-grader explores gender identity by dressing as an ox – instead of a matriarch – for a class Oregon Trail reenactment. Meanwhile a nonbinary person on the eve of top surgery dangerously experiments with an open relationship during the height of the COVID crisis. With insight and compassion, debut author Lydi Conklin takes their readers to a meeting of a queer feminist book club and to a convention for trans teenagers, revealing both the dark and lovable sides of their characters. The stories in Rainbow Rainbow will make you laugh and wince, sometimes at the same time.

A collection of stories that celebrate the humour, darkness and depth of emotion of the queer and trans experience that’s not typically represented: liminal or uncertain identities, queer conception and queer joy. In this delightful debut collection of prize-wining stories, queer, gender-nonconforming and trans characters struggle to find love and forgiveness, despite their sometimes comic, sometimes tragic mistakes. In one story, a young lesbian tries to have a baby with her lover using an unprofessional sperm donor and a high-powered, rainbow-coloured cocktail. In another, a fifth-grader explores gender identity by dressing as an ox – instead of a matriarch – for a class Oregon Trail reenactment. Meanwhile a nonbinary person on the eve of top surgery dangerously experiments with an open relationship during the height of the COVID crisis. With insight and compassion, debut author Lydia Conklin takes their readers to a meeting of a queer feminist book club and to a convention for trans teenagers, revealing both the dark and lovable sides of their characters. The stories in Rainbow Rainbow will make you laugh and wince, sometimes at the same time.

A collection of stories that celebrate the humour, darkness and depth of emotion of the queer and trans experience that’s not typically represented: liminal or uncertain identities, queer conception and queer joy.In this delightful debut collection of prize-wining stories, queer, gender-nonconforming and trans characters struggle to find love and forgiveness, despite their sometimes comic, sometimes tragic mistakes. In one story, a young lesbian tries to have a baby with her lover using an unprofessional sperm donor and a high-powered, rainbow-coloured cocktail. In another, a fifth-grader explores gender identity by dressing as an ox – instead of a matriarch – for a class Oregon Trail reenactment. Meanwhile a nonbinary person on the eve of top surgery dangerously experiments with an open relationship during the height of the COVID crisis. With insight and compassion, debut author Lydia Conklin takes their readers to a meeting of a queer feminist book club and to a convention for trans teenagers, revealing both the dark and lovable sides of their characters. The stories in Rainbow Rainbow will make you laugh and wince, sometimes at the same time.

A collection of stories that celebrate the humour, darkness and depth of emotion of the queer and trans experience that''snot typically represented: liminal or uncertain identities, queer conception and queer joy. In this delightful debut collection of prize-wining stories, queer, gender-nonconforming and trans characters struggle to find love and forgiveness, despite their sometimes comic, sometimes tragic mistakes. In one story, a young lesbian tries to have a baby with her lover using an unprofessional sperm donor and a high-powered, rainbow-coloured cocktail. In another, a fifth-grader explores gender identity by dressing as an ox instead of a matriarch for a class Oregon Trail reenactment.Meanwhile a nonbinary person on the eve of top surgery dangerouslyexperiments with an open relationship during the height of the COVID crisis. With insight and compassion, debut author Lydia Conklin takes their readers to a meeting of a queer feminist book club and to a convention for trans teenagers, revealing both the dark and lovable sides of their characters. The stories inRainbowRainbowwill make you laugh and wince, sometimes at the same time.

A suspenseful, wildly engaging novel following a musician spiraling in self-doubt and self-searching after a night – and a relationship – gone wrong.'A raw, emphatic novel of exceptional power' Carmen Maria Machado 'Takes your breath away' Katie KitamuraSongs of No Provenance tells the story of Joan Vole, an indie folk singer forever teetering on the edge of fame, who flees New York after committing a shocking sexual act onstage. With the threat of an internet storm looming over her, Joan seeks refuge at a writing camp for teenagers in rural Virginia, where she’s forced to question her own toxic relationship to artmaking – and her complicated history with a friend and mentee – while finding new hope in her students and a deepening intimacy with a nonbinary artist and fellow camp staff member.Lydi Conklin boldly explores kink, shame, queer appropriation, fame hunger, cancel culture, trans nonbinary identity and how to make art without ego, all the while asking how Joan might forge a new future for herself.Suffused with flashbacks to a musical underworld as seductive as it is seedy, Songs of no Provenance is a visceral, gutsy and profound debut novel about love, self-acceptance and clawing oneself to safety.

The essential annual guide to the newest voices in literatureBest Debut Short Stories celebrates the most promising short story writers today. Selected by a panel of distinguished judges, these eight stories are the 2025 winners of the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, which recognizes outstanding debuts published in literary magazines.Each story is accompanied by an introduction from the journal editor who first published it, providing insight about what’s exciting in fiction right now, and recognizing the vital work literary magazines do in nurturing new voices.