Coming February 2026
🎉
Coming February 2026 🎉
Staying Power
On Queerness, Inheritances, and the Families We Choose
Coming February 2026 from Arsenal Pulp Press
A remarkably frank memoir about interdependence, grieving, and parenting as a queer femme that doesn't leave out the messy or the erotic.
Staying Power, Zena Sharman's memoir in essays, is a beautiful and honest journey of care work, grief, parenting, and chosen family in the wake of intergenerational trauma. Exploring the lessons and inheritances of being raised by survivors of complex traumas, the book challenges the notion that one must be healed in order to parent well and celebrates the transformative power of queer family-making beyond gay marriage and assimilation into the nuclear family.
The book, which recounts the author's experiences of raising three children in a four-parent queer family, asks, "If leaving has helped you survive, how do you learn to stay?" Sharman finds answers in queer kinship, femme erotics, leatherdyke lineages, and the radical possibilities inherent in doing motherwork outside of motherhood, recognizing that sometimes you fight the thing you want most.
Staying Power is a moving, deeply personal account of one person's journey of unlearning independence through an experiment in queer collective care.
Please support your local independent bookstore and request that your public library add this title to their collection.
Also available at: Bookshop.org | IndieBound | Barnes & Noble
To request media or desk copies of Staying Power, please contact Cynara Geissler, director of marketing and publicity at Arsenal Pulp Press: cynara[at]arsenalpulp[dot]com.
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“This book is a portal; prepare to be transformed.”
—Hannah McGregor, author of Clever Girl: Jurassic Park and A Sentimental Education
Praise for Staying Power
“As innovative in form as it is in content, Staying Power is an intricately constructed memoir in essays that pushes against the familiar contours of life-writing, just as the queer communities at its heart push against the familiar contours of family-making. This book is a portal; prepare to be transformed.”
—Hannah McGregor, author of Clever Girl: Jurassic Park and A Sentimental Education
“Staying Power stands as both testament to queer resilience and celebration of the families we choose. With femme brilliance and emotional intelligence, Sharman offers a guide to building a life centered on care and community.”
—Ariel Gore, author of Rehearsals for Dying and The End of Eve
“If you've ever been born to run but are trying to figure out how to grieve, love, and stay, this book is for you.”
—Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, author of The Future Is Disabled and Care Work
Pre-order Staying Power
Pre-order Staying Power to support independent publishing, help the book reach more readers, and get your copy before it hits the shelves!