States of Being

For the last decade, Casey Plett has been a lodestar for many transgender writers. Her portrayal of unapologetically trans characters living unapologetically trans lives has opened a door for authors to slough off the impulse to write for a mostly cisgender audience. Plett’s fiction has, of course, received acclaim beyond her community, in large part because of her talent for rendering people and relationships, their tragedies and delights, with heartbreaking care. Her books present deep emotional struggles in prose that is artful and accessible, which exemplifies the fact that good writing from (and for) the margins has the capacity to build bridges for any reader bold enough to give it a chance.

Plett emerged onto the scene in 2014 with her debut collection, A Safe Girl to Love, which was followed in 2018 by Little Fish, a novel. There are many thematic similarities between her latest gathering of short stories, A Dream of a Woman, and the...