EXPLORE MY WRITING

Books


Transforming possibilities for our relationships, our communities, and our systems of care

A woman with curly white hair standing outdoors in sunlight, with trees and grass in the background.

Stories for change 


My writing asks how we care for each other and how we create change—in ourselves, our relationships, our communities, and our health systems. Since publishing my first book in 2011, I’ve been dedicated to making work that centres queer stories and grows our capacity to imagine who we can be and what we can build together in service of more liberated futures.

Staying Power

On Queerness, Inheritances, and the Families We Choose

Book cover titled 'Staying Power' by Zena Sharman, featuring a pastel abstract background with shades of pink and purple.

Coming
February 2026


Staying Power, a memoir-in-essays about interdependence, grieving, and parenting as a queer femme, is my most honest and personal book.

It tells the story of being raised by a mother driven to break cycles of violence in our family, and the trauma archive I inherited when she died. Staying Power explores the lessons and inheritances of being raised by survivors of complex traumas, challenging the notion that one must be healed to parent well.

My memoir is an account of who grief enabled me to become after I took a sideways journey into parenthood with not one, but three, people. Staying Power celebrates the transformative power of queer family-making beyond gay marriage and assimilation into the nuclear family.

Coming February 2026 from Arsenal Pulp Press, Staying Power is available for pre-order now.

Book cover for "The Care We Dream Of" by Zena Sharman, featuring colorful illustrations of plants and berries with a large, bright moon in the background. Subtitle reads "Liberatory & Transformative Approaches to LGBTQ+ Health" and mentions Zena Sharman as the editor.

The Care We Dream Of

Liberatory and Transformative Approaches to LGBTQ+ Health


(2021) Published by Arsenal Pulp Press

The Care We Dream Of offers possibilities—grounded in historical examples, present-day experiments, and dreams of the future—for more liberatory and transformative approaches to LGBTQ+ health and healing. It challenges readers to think differently about LGBTQ+ health and asks what it would look like if our health care were rooted in a commitment to LGBTQ+ people’s flourishing and liberation.

Book cover titled 'The Remedy: Queer and Trans Voices on Health and Healthcare,' edited by Zena Sharman. Features an illustrated plant with green leaves and red flowers, with a background of a botanical grid and shadowy figures, ornate borders, and decorative elements.

The Remedy

Queer and Trans Voices on Health and Health Care


(2016) Published by Arsenal Pulp Press

Winner of the Lambda Literary Award for best anthology, 2017.

The Remedy is an anthology of writing by queer and trans people on their health care experiences and challenges. It also features essays by health care providers, activists, and leaders. Both exceptionally moving and an incendiary call-to-arms, The Remedy is a must-read for anyone—gay, straight, trans, and otherwise—passionately concerned about the right to equitable health care for all.

Digital illustration of a person with short dark hair, pink lipstick, and a blue shirt, holding a pink cigar. Text on the image reads 'Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme'. It is edited by Ivan E. Coyote and Zena Sherman.

Persistence

All Ways Butch and Femme


(2011) Published by Arsenal Pulp Press

Named a Stonewall Honor Book by the American Library Association, 2012
Lambda Literary Award Finalist for Best Anthology, 2012

Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme is a raucous, insightful, sexy, and sometimes dangerous look at what the words butch and femme can mean in an ever-shifting gender landscape, with one eye on the past and the other on what is to come.