#own-voices — Public Fediverse posts

Ab jetzt ONLINE ✨
Bonustrack #6 – zum Fachtag von Wildwasser Bielefeld e. V.

Am 7. und 8. Mai 2026 fand der Fachtag von Wildwasser Bielefeld e. V. in Bielefeld statt. Oberthema war „ErMUTigung“. Felice und Hannah haben sich auf der Veranstaltung getroffen. Das Mikro war dabei.

https://vielesein.de/bonustrack-6-zum-fachtag-von-wildwasser-bielefeld-e-v

#Podcast #Traumafolgen #Roadtrip #OwnVoices #SharingIsCaring

We don't talk about grief, and yet the #neurodivergent community feels is acutely. This #nonfiction anthology explores grief in all its forms. #OwnVoices include authors who are #AuDHD and #ActuallyAutistic.

https://books2read.com/grief

💙📚♾️♿
#SpoonieAuthor

We don't talk about grief, and yet the #neurodivergent community feels is acutely. This #nonfiction anthology explores grief in all its forms. #OwnVoices include authors who are #AuDHD and #ActuallyAutistic.

https://books2read.com/grief

💙📚♾️♿
#SpoonieAuthor

We don't talk about grief, and yet the #neurodivergent community feels is acutely. This #nonfiction anthology explores grief in all its forms. #OwnVoices include authors who are #AuDHD and #ActuallyAutistic.

https://books2read.com/grief

💙📚♾️♿
#SpoonieAuthor

We don't talk about grief, and yet the #neurodivergent community feels is acutely. This #nonfiction anthology explores grief in all its forms. #OwnVoices include authors who are #AuDHD and #ActuallyAutistic.

https://books2read.com/grief

💙📚♾️♿
#SpoonieAuthor

We don't talk about grief, and yet the #neurodivergent community feels is acutely. This #nonfiction anthology explores grief in all its forms. #OwnVoices include authors who are #AuDHD and #ActuallyAutistic.

https://books2read.com/grief

💙📚♾️♿
#SpoonieAuthor

We don't talk about grief, and yet the #neurodivergent community feels is acutely. This #nonfiction anthology explores grief in all its forms. #OwnVoices include authors who are #AuDHD and #ActuallyAutistic.

https://books2read.com/grief

💙📚♾️♿
#SpoonieAuthor

We don't talk about grief, and yet the #neurodivergent community feels is acutely. This #nonfiction anthology explores grief in all its forms. #OwnVoices include authors who are #AuDHD and #ActuallyAutistic.

https://books2read.com/grief

💙📚♾️♿
#SpoonieAuthor

Yesterday I finished "Marshmallow and Jordan" by Alina Chau. It's an excellent cozy graphic novel about a friendship between a wheelchair-using athlete and a baby elephant in Indonesia. It's got lovely vibrant art, an interesting plot, and a final twist that fits nicely.

Not sure it's totally realistic about the accessibility of water polo, and it's not #OwnVoices but the author made what to me seems like a good effort to be both respectful and neither too-positive nor too-paternalistic about disability. Would be curious to hear the perspective of someone who use mobility aids about this of course.

#AmReading #ReadingNow

Just finished "Libertad" by Bessie Flores Zaldívar. An #OwnVoices novel about being queer in Honduras, both personally and politically, that grapples aptly with complicated questions of politics and belonging at a personal scale.

CW for domestic violence and lethal state repression.

It wasn't everything I'd hoped for from the cover, but my hopes weren't exactly reasonable and it *is* very good.

#AmReading #ReadingNow

Perfect gift for you or the young adult horse fan in your life.

https://books2read.com/walkingsummer/

💫 Strong female leads 🦄 Real disability rep 💔 Broken friendships 🌟 Unforgettable summer
#OwnVoices #WheelchairWarrior #YAFiction #HorseBook #GirlPower

💙📚♿♾️🐴

Perfect gift for you or the young adult horse fan in your life.

https://books2read.com/walkingsummer/

💫 Strong female leads 🦄 Real disability rep 💔 Broken friendships 🌟 Unforgettable summer
#OwnVoices #WheelchairWarrior #YAFiction #HorseBook #GirlPower

💙📚♿♾️🐴

Perfect gift for you or the young adult horse fan in your life.

https://books2read.com/walkingsummer/

💫 Strong female leads 🦄 Real disability rep 💔 Broken friendships 🌟 Unforgettable summer
#OwnVoices #WheelchairWarrior #YAFiction #HorseBook #GirlPower

💙📚♿♾️🐴

Perfect gift for you or the young adult horse fan in your life.

https://books2read.com/walkingsummer/

💫 Strong female leads 🦄 Real disability rep 💔 Broken friendships 🌟 Unforgettable summer
#OwnVoices #WheelchairWarrior #YAFiction #HorseBook #GirlPower

💙📚♿♾️🐴

Perfect gift for you or the young adult horse fan in your life.

https://books2read.com/walkingsummer/

💫 Strong female leads 🦄 Real disability rep 💔 Broken friendships 🌟 Unforgettable summer
#OwnVoices #WheelchairWarrior #YAFiction #HorseBook #GirlPower

💙📚♿♾️🐴

Perfect gift for you or the young adult horse fan in your life.

https://books2read.com/walkingsummer/

💫 Strong female leads 🦄 Real disability rep 💔 Broken friendships 🌟 Unforgettable summer
#OwnVoices #WheelchairWarrior #YAFiction #HorseBook #GirlPower

💙📚♿♾️🐴

Perfect gift for you or the young adult horse fan in your life.

https://books2read.com/walkingsummer/

💫 Strong female leads 🦄 Real disability rep 💔 Broken friendships 🌟 Unforgettable summer
#OwnVoices #WheelchairWarrior #YAFiction #HorseBook #GirlPower

💙📚♿♾️🐴

She doesn’t need your pity—she needs to get back in the saddle. . 🦽💥🐎

https://books2read.com/walkingsummer/

💫 Strong female leads 🦄 Real disability rep 💔 Broken friendships 🌟 Unforgettable summer
#OwnVoices #WheelchairWarrior #YAFiction #HorseBook #GirlPower

💙📚♿♾️🐴

#WritersCoffeeClub 17, What role does race play in your work?

Tough to answer this one. My #cyberpunk works feature a world in the near-to-mid future that just magnifies the extremes of capitalism to the point where the only primary discrimination is class-based. That's an oversimplification of course, but roughly accurate. There might be racial divides within corporations (which act as countries do now) but I don't explore it.

As a straight white man author I think it's important to recognize that non-white (and LGBTQ+) characters exist and do important things, but also not to co-opt the lived stories of their real-life counterparts for my own books.

In other words, I write non-white characters freely but I don't center struggles I haven't experienced and prefer to leave those to #ownvoices authors.

I'm known for my #queer #UrbanFantasy tales and a few #dystopian and #mmromance novels out through NineStar Press.

My website - http://kevinklehr.com
My Amazon page - https://www.amazon.com/stores/Kevin-Klehr/author/B00D010VPA
Recent projects - https://youtu.be/i293mf-CBhk?si=xqBKDJmA56KEtUdw & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HmEK7veZdo

#gay #ownvoices #author #writingcommunity

She doesn’t need your pity—she needs to get back in the saddle. . 🦽💥🐎

https://books2read.com/walkingsummer/

💫 Strong female leads 🦄 Real disability rep 💔 Broken friendships 🌟 Unforgettable summer
#OwnVoices #WheelchairWarrior #YAFiction #HorseBook #GirlPower

💙📚♿♾️🐴

She doesn’t need your pity—she needs to get back in the saddle. . 🦽💥🐎

https://books2read.com/walkingsummer/

💫 Strong female leads 🦄 Real disability rep 💔 Broken friendships 🌟 Unforgettable summer
#OwnVoices #WheelchairWarrior #YAFiction #HorseBook #GirlPower

💙📚♿♾️🐴

📚 Old School Indian by: Aaron John Curtis

Abe Jacobs is Kanien’kehá:ka from Ahkwesáhsne―or, as white people say, a Mohawk Indian from the Saint Regis Tribe. At eighteen, Abe left the reservation where he was raised and never looked back. He met the love of his life, started writing poetry, and began an open marriage.

No...

https://bookblabla.com/book/old-school-indian

@bookstodon

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #indigenousfiction #literaryfiction #ownvoices

When Two Stories Share the Same Ancestry — My Thoughts on Bochica

I just finished Bochica, and wow what a ride through atmosphere, ancestry, and slow-burn tension. Before getting into the review, I have to acknowledge something: as the author of The Ordinary Bruja (coming November 4), it would feel disingenuous not to point out how these two books could be literary cousins. They both carry the pulse of Gothic storytelling, generational secrets, and complicated mother-daughter legacies—but they tell those stories in completely different ways.

That’s the beauty of creation: two writers can start from similar soil and still grow wildly different blooms. Bochica proves that originality isn’t about inventing something new; it’s about execution, voice, and perspective.

What Worked for Me

The Gothic atmosphere was stunning—slowly unfurling, full of whispers and shadowed corners. The pacing felt intentional, letting tension simmer rather than explode. I love that the story respected its time period (1920s-1930s Colombia) while still speaking to modern readers. The themes of colonial legacy, Catholic repression, and women navigating power all felt grounded and authentic.

Antonia, the main character, resonated deeply with me. Some reviewers called her passive, but I saw her as a woman shaped by her era—reflective of a world and a faith still wrestling with equality and voice. As someone raised in a culture deeply entwined with Catholicism and patriarchy, that rang true. Her acknowledgment of her mother’s flawed “protection” and the book’s reckoning with white-savior ideology gave the story real weight.

What Didn’t Fully Click

There were two small things that pulled me out of the reading experience:

• Name inconsistency — Antonia shifted between calling her parents by first names and by “Mama” or “Papa.” It confused me more than once and disrupted the rhythm of her narration.
• A touch of modern language — The phrase “mental health” felt slightly anachronistic for the 1930s setting, though it didn’t ruin immersion.

And while I personally wanted a stronger crescendo near the end, I can appreciate the restraint. The ending matches the book’s deliberate pacing—quiet, reflective, and emotionally grounded.

The Reader Divide

Before finishing the book, I peeked at Goodreads reviews (curiosity got me), and the reception reminded me of what I’ve seen for The Ordinary Bruja: very polarized. You either love it or it doesn’t click. That’s the hallmark of art that dares to sit in discomfort. Bochica isn’t trying to please everyone—it’s trying to tell the truth in its own cadence.

It’s also a great reminder that reviews are subjective. I always check a reviewer’s history before deciding how much weight to give their opinion. Some readers docked stars for things that didn’t bother me at all, like tone or historical realism. For me, Bochica’s blend of realism and myth was exactly right.

Final Thoughts

Bochica is a haunting, beautifully written story for readers who crave slow-burn Gothic horror, historical depth, and emotional complexity. If you loved the tone and themes of Mexican Gothic but want something that feels more spiritually grounded in Latin American mythology, you’ll adore this one.

⭐ 4 stars — A deeply atmospheric, thought-provoking read that lingers long after the last page.

And if you find yourself craving a modern-day cousin to Bochica, with the same echoes of ancestral guilt and feminine power but set in contemporary Ohio—then pick up The Ordinary Bruja this November 1. Trust me, these two books are from the same spiritual lineage, and reading them together will make the magic even richer.

The Ordinary Bruja: Book One of Las Cerradoras Series – Johanny Ortega

Marisol Espinal has spent her life trying to disappear from her family’s whispers of magic, from the shame of not belonging, from the truth she refuses to face. She’s always wanted to be someone else: confident, capable, extraordinary.

But when strange visions, flickering shadows, and warnings written in her mother’s hand begin to stalk her, Marisol is forced to confront her deepest fear: what if she isn’t extraordinary at all? What if she’s painfully ordinary?

Yet Hallowthorn Hill doesn’t call to just anyone. And the more Marisol resists, the stronger its pull becomes. The past she’s buried claws its way back, and something in the mist is watching—waiting for her to remember.

If Marisol cannot face the truth about who she is and where she comes from, the same darkness that destroyed her ancestors will claim her, too.

Somewhere in the shadows, something knows her name.

And it’s time for Marisol to learn why.

Pre-order now

#BookReview #ColombianSetting #feministHorror #gothicFiction #historicalHorror #LatinAmericanLiterature #magicalRealism #OwnVoices #slowBurnRomance

She doesn’t need your pity—she needs to get back in the saddle. . 🦽💥🐎

https://books2read.com/walkingsummer/

💫 Strong female leads 🦄 Real disability rep 💔 Broken friendships 🌟 Unforgettable summer
#OwnVoices #WheelchairWarrior #YAFiction #HorseBook #GirlPower

💙📚♿♾️🐴

Day 19 (a bit late): Alice Oseman

As I said I've got 14 authors to fit into two days. Probably just going to extend to 30? But Oseman gets this spot as an absolute legend of queer fiction in both novel & graphic novel form, and an excellent example of the many truths queer writers have to share with non-queer people that can make everyone's lives better. Her writing is very kind, despite in many instances dealing with some dark stuff.

I started out on Heartstopper, which is just so lovely and fun to read, and then made my way through several of her novels. The one I'll highlight here which I think it's her greatest triumph is "Loveless", which is semi-autobiographical and was at least my first (but no longer only) experience with the "platonic romance" sub-genre. It not only helped me work through some crufty internal doubts about aro/ace identities that I'd never really examined, but in the process helped improve my understanding of friendship, period. Heck, it's probably a nice novel for anyone questioning any sort of identity or dealing with loneliness, and it's just super-enjoyable as a story regardless of the philosophical value.

To cheat a bit more here on my author count, I recently read "Dear Wendy" by Ann Zhao, which shouts out "Loveless" and offers a more expository exploration of aro/ace identities, but "Loveless" is a book with more heart and better writing overall, including the neat plotting and great pacing. I think there are also parallels with Becky Albertalli's work, though I think I like Oseman slightly more. Certainly both excel at writing queer romance (and romance-adjacent) stuff with happy endings (#OwnVoices wins again with all three authors).

In any case, Oseman is excellent and if you're not up for reading a novel, Heartstopper is a graphic novel series that's easy to jump into and very kind to its adorable main characters.

I think I've now decided to continue to 30, which is a relief, so I'm tagging this (and the next post that rounds out 20) two ways.

#20AuthorsNoMen
#30AuthorsNoMen

Finished "Lobizona" by Romina Garber. I have extremely mixed feelings about this book. It's a powerful depiction of the fear of living as an undocumented child/teen and it has interesting things to say about rejection, belonging, and the choice between seeking to be recognized for who you are and wanting you blend in enough to be accepted as normal. However, it's also an explicit homage to Harry Potter, and while it doesn't include antisemitic tropes or glorify slavery or even have any anti-trans sentiments I can detect, to me the magical school setup felt forced and I thought it would have been a better book had it not tried to fit that mould. Also, it would have been a super interesting situation to explore trans issues, and while it's definitely fine for it not to do that, the author's praise of Rowling's work has me wondering...

There's a sequel that I think could in theory be amazing, but given the execution of the first book, I think I'll wait a bit before checking it out. By putting her main character in opposition to both ICE in the human world and the magical authorities in the other world, Garber explicitly sets the stage for a revolution standing between her protagonist and any kind of lasting peace. But I'm not confident she's capable of writing that story without relying on some kind of supernatural deus ex machina, which would be disappointing to me, since "a better world if only possible through divine intervention" is an inherently regressive message.

Overall, #OwnVoices fantasy centering an undocumented immigrant is an excellent thing, and I've certainly got a lot of privilege that surely influences my criticism. However, #OwnVoices stuff has a range of levels of craft and political stances, and it can be excellent for some reasons and mediocre for others.

On that point, if anyone reading this has suggestions for fiction books grappling with borders and the carceral state, Is be happy to hear them.

#AmReading

Just finished "Thief of the Heights" written by Son M. and illustrated by Robin Yao. It's a very cool graphic novel about the illusions of meritocracy and loyalty to one's roots, with an interesting setting and better politics than most stuff out there, even if the plotting is a little rough and perhaps a bit too straightforward. The neat ending and reliance on heroism are themes I don't love in these kinds of tales, but I'm grateful for more stories in this category to exist in the first place, so I can't complain too much.

It's got disability, queer, and POC representation and some of that is #OwnVoices, which is cool, although those dimensions of the work aren't its focus.

#AmReading