I can’t seem to sit still. Earlier this week, I launched the Queer Book Weekly newsletter/blog to promote queer books across the genre spectrum. But today, I’m getting back to my spec-fic roots. There are two reading challenges taking place this year that I am participating in: Jae’s Sapphic Book Bingo and IHeartSapphFic’s Sapphic Reading Challenge.

Both are awesome, and Jae and IHS both do fantastic work promoting sapphic fiction. But the tropes/categories in both are very, very specific to contemporary romance, leaving speculative fiction authors squinting if they want their books to count in them. After seeing so many of my fellow sapphic spec fic authors bemoan how little room there is in either challenge for our sci-fi and fantasy books, I decided to do something about it. I plan on kicking things off on March 1st! Yet, I’ll be missing 2 months of the year, but c’est le vie. I’d rather not put this off until 2026 just to be able to say it ran “all year.”

I have no clue exactly what that will be. Will it be a bingo challenge? Will it be a “collect as many books in as many categories as possible” challenge? Will it look something like Sapphic September? I don’t know yet. But I have opened up submissions. If you have a science fiction or fantasy book strongly featuring an F/F, F/X, or any variation on the number of X’s and F’s, please submit it!

This reading challenge is TRANS INCLUSIVE. No transphobes allowed.

No genAI.

No ‘M/F-for-90%-of-the-book-the-last-minute-lesbians.’ No ‘but-the-protagonist-dated-a-woman-in-the-past-but-this-book-is-all-about-her-and-a-brooding-manly-fae-lord.’ The focus of this challenge is books featuring lesbian relationships. The F/F or F/X relationship must involve a protagonist, no 'This-book-is-primarily-M/M-but-there-are-lesbian-side-characters.’ Your F/F & F/X relationships can include bi women, pan women, non-binary women, etc, but for the duration of the book, they should be in a relationship with or pursuing a relationship with another woman, woman-adjacent, or non-binary character. Romance doesn’t have to be the focus, though.

All spice levels are allowed.

If you want to enter your book to be featured in this blog, please submit it here.

I am very excited to kick this off! Please help spread the world, fellow fans of F/F SFF.

I have set up a dedicated subdomain for this challenge! You can find everything you need to know and follow along at sapphicsff.daxmurray.com! It’s not pretty yet, but I’m working on it!

#LesSFFChallenge