We are joined by writer, filmmaker and artist Miranda July on this episode of Bookshelfie. From winning the Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival to the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, Miranda shares her life as a writer, filmaker and woman through her top 5 picks. Read on to see her choices and listen to the full episode here.

I grew up reading Lynda Barry and now my child is obsessed with her which is very satisfying. This particular book helped me in a creatively dark time after promoting my first movie.

Read this while writing All Fours. That I stayed interested in the minutia of the narrator’s romantic fixation, that this serious woman felt it was a worthwhile thing to write a book about — both these things gave me a lot of room and confidence for writing the first half of my novel.

The twenty year-old, scrappy, butch narrator of this queer classic could be a good friend to so many young transmasc people I know. I think there is a generational handing down of lore that sometimes doesn’t happen in the queer community because the books literally go out of print.

This is about a very tricky father-daughter relationship. I’ll try not to reveal too much about my own relationship with my father but suffice to say I burst into tears when an ad comes on where the dad is beaming with pride in his daughter or even just being nice to her in an easy going way. I was ready for a story that wasn’t like that.

What most of us think sex consists of is surprisingly limited given how long sex has existed and how much pain and distance the territory of sex can generate even between two consenting (even perhaps married) adults. I’m not talking about sex toys or lingerie, more what is it, for you specifically? What could it be? I think that’s about to change and the change will come from trans people. This book is for therapists trying with trans clients, but anyone can read it and have their world flipped.

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