Ally's Shelf on 100 Days of Queer Fantasy + Cozy Recs

Do you love romance but feel intimidated by long fantasy series? Are you looking for diverse queer representation beyond the typical male/male romances? This episode of We Read Smut is your cozy guide! I'm joined by Ally of Ally's Shelf, the creator of the viral "100 Days of Queer Fantasy" series, to discuss how to dive into fantasy without the huge commitment. We cover amazing standalone and interconnected series recommendations, the definition of cozy fantasy, and how Ally uses her reading to track diversity across sapphic, asexual, and achillean representation.

Ally is a queer and disabled bookstagrammer who strives to promote BIPOC, queer, disabled, and indie voices in literature. From adult to YA, series to standalone, cozy to epic, she'll read just about any fantasy book you recommend. Her content consists of book reviews, short form videos, challenges, readathons, and book recommendations, but her favorite part is her yearly "100 Days of Queer Fantasy Series." In addition to her own Instagram she is a writer for Readin' Magazine. When she's not reading, you can find her gaming with her husband, hanging out with her four cats, or making music.

Key Takeaways

• Cozy Fantasy is Your Entry Point: If high stakes and world-saving epics overwhelm you, cozy fantasy is the solution. These books focus on mundane life, like an adventurer opening a coffee shop (like Legends and Lattes), rather than complex world-building.
• Standalones for the Commitment-Phobe: Stop worrying about starting a seven-book saga! Look for fantasy standalones or interconnected series (where books can be read in any order) to ease yourself into the genre.
• The Nuance of Queer Representation: Ally ensures her reading goes beyond surface-level representation by tracking specific identities, including sapphic (femme-presenting love stories), achillean (male-presenting love stories), and the asexual spectrum (ace, aro, demi).
• How to Score ARCs/ALCs: Learn Ally's best strategies for getting advanced reader copies (ARCs) and advanced listener copies (ALCs), including using NetGalley, applying through indie authors' Google Forms, and signing up for author newsletters.

It's time to read for a window and a mirror by exploring diverse identities across all genres! If you're ready to start your queer fantasy journey, check out Ally's series on Instagram or TikTok by searching Ally's Shelf.

CONNECT WITH Ally:

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Transcript

Alesia Galati 0:00

What does 100 days of queer fantasy look like? That is what we're talking about today with Allie of Allie's Shelf. And I am so excited for this conversation. I think that I realized like halfway through that I actually do read fantasy, but more paranormal fantasy monsters, etc., rather than what I tend to think of as fantasy, which is romancey. I think those big, long, drawn-out adventures that are seven books long that I'm not interested in reading. So if that is what you feel like, this episode is still for you, I promise. Ellie gives some great recommendations on books that are cozy fantasy if you want to get started, but also are not entire series. Instead, they're single books or interconnected series that you can read or start anywhere in the series. So whether you like fantasy or not, this is definitely going to be a great conversation. Listener discretion is advised. This podcast contains mature content intended for adult audiences only. Hello, Allie. I'm so excited to have you on the podcast. If you could start by telling everyone a bit about your reading journey.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

And so I started reading less and less for fun. So just stopped, not really ever stopped reading, but stopped reading in as when I got older getting into high school. And then of course, my undergrad degree and my grad degree did not read for fun at all because everything was just so busy. So I decided after I was about six months out from getting my master's degree, and I was like, I want to get back into reading. And this was around, I think, like the fall of 2021. No, that was my undergrad. It was the fall of 2023. The fall of 2023 was when I was really just like, I want to get back into reading. And I had TikTok, I started to see things about book talk and everything like that. And that kind of kick-started my reading journey again.

Alesia Galati 2:22

Definitely have this, and I don't know if it's just like life of kind of works that way. But I feel like a lot of people, when they share their story, it's like I love to read when I was a kid, and then like college happened, and then I didn't read for fun at all, and then I got back into it. And I feel like that's college does such a disservice for reading for fun.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

It does. There's just there's no time, and then what you are reading is not anything that you went to comp it's just textbooks and yeah.

Alesia Galati 2:57

So true. And I love that you said that you were like the kid reading at the table. I was the kid who like would read like under the covers with a flashlight because I was supposed to be asleep. And I remember one time, I actually told my husband this story just the other day. I remember one time I had the blanket over the nightlight that was plugged in right next to my bed. This is a fire hazard, guys. Okay, so like don't let your kids do this. Please don't do this. And it like the it melted the plastic. Like it could have started a fire, and it would have started a fire, and thankfully it did not. But like, crazy stuff of like just trying to get those books in to read them anytime that I possibly could. So I love that. So we're gonna get into something that I'm gonna try into season three, but for these last two episodes of season two, gonna see how you guys feel about it. Let us know in the comments, YouTube comments, Spotify comments on this episode, or you can send me a DM on Instagram. And this segment is taking bookish hot takes and then giving our thoughts and opinions on them together. And so today's, I'm not gonna read it exactly because then you can go search it. But today is that this person wants to share negative reviews and that if they share them, they share them in the author's DM, but they give a positive review online because opinions are subjective. So let's go ahead and get started. What are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_01 4:32

Oh my god, I have so many thoughts on this. First off, I know that there are some people who don't ever like to post like negative reviews, especially if that's just not their jam. Like sometimes reviewers online, they're just like, I'm just gonna talk about the books I like. And if I read a book and I don't like it, I'm just not gonna talk about it, which is totally valid. I'm in the camp of I'm just going to post my book review and I'm gonna do it honestly for every book. So even if I rated it one star, which I typically don't do because I just DNF it instead. Right. But even if I rate it low, I will still tell people like here's what didn't work for me, but I still won't like rate everything unless it's like truly problematic. So I'd like to just put everything up in into my atmosphere, but it's very interesting that you would hate a book and then pretend you liked it online. That's yeah.

Alesia Galati 5:25

Yeah, that's really weird. Also, the idea of sending a DM to an author and giving your opinion that it was bad. Stay out of author's DMs with that first of all.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

Please. Oh my gosh. I this actually brings up a story that I have. I am pretty good friends with an author who has a book coming out next year. And there was a person in her DMs that was like hyping up, like just responding to stories, like hyping up the book. Oh my gosh, I can't wait to read this. And then they got an arc and they were like, oh my gosh, it's so great. This is so awesome! Like in the author's DMs. It's like the opposite. And then they went and they posted a terrible review for it and tagged her in it there, and yeah, it's just like the complete opposite. And I don't know which one is worse. It's pretending it like you liked it and then secretly hating it towards the author's face, or pretending you like it towards the author's face and then coming out publicly and saying you hated it.

Alesia Galati 6:21

Whoa, like that, what a mess of like choices. Yeah, you made some choices, they were not great.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Very interesting choices of free will.

Alesia Galati 6:34

That is wild. Like, I can't and like I understand being like a new bookish person or being new in this space and being like, hey, I've never rated or reviewed books before, and I think this book is three stars, and I think three stars is fine, and like tagging the person, not realizing like, hey, this is not really the quote unquote etiquette of bookish. Because like I remember when I first started, I would rate books three stars if they were like good, like they were good. If I would read it again, it was a five, but then I realized I don't read books again, and then I was like, we need to change the ratings on this. But three was good, four was better, and five was best. So like a three star was fine for me to be like, hey, I rated this three stars and I tagged the author. But that's when you first get started. But to like actually be in someone's DMs raving about it and excited and hyping them up, and then to tag them in a negative review is just yeah, that's yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

The author has a no DM policy now. They were like, I'm not going to be responding to any DMs unless we're mutuals now. And I'm like, that's probably a really good policy.

Alesia Galati 7:48

Yeah, you'd have to make a decision on like how you want to set boundaries at that point, right? To protect yourself, to protect your space, your mental health, etc. Because once you put the book out of the world, it belongs to everyone, but you still created it, like it's still your thing that you created. So yeah, I definitely can understand that. Oh, it's so interesting. But yeah, let's not be in people's DMs.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

Yeah, don't DM the author unless it was like a five-star. Even sometimes authors don't even want you to tell them if they're five stars. And post honestly, I guess.

Alesia Galati 8:24

Yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong with posting honestly, right? Like, I've definitely done like mini reviews of the month, and like, here's some three stars, here's what I liked or didn't really like, and here's why it was three stars, here's a two-star, here was the DNF that I had, and here's why. For the most part, it's just vibes, though. That's why I don't do reviews on this podcast. I'm like, that book was great, the vibes were there, loved it. Five stars. Like, I just I've just changed the way that I review. But today we're gonna be talking about queer fantasy, which is not a genre that I tend to read. I definitely read queer and I read diverse throughout the year for that aspect, but fantasy is just not a genre I like a lot. And my main reason and gripe with fantasy, and hopefully you can give me recommendations that can help with this, is and I actually said this to authors that were local at an event, they were like, Do you like romantic? And I was like, How many books is it? Because like I don't care enough about any characters, and I actually said this, I don't care enough about any characters to read more than one book about them.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

I just don't. That is honestly valid. I have read a lot of standalones. I currently I was looking at my like story graph data the other day, and I was like, oh my gosh, I have 20 series that I've started and just haven't finished. So I totally get that, and they can be very daunting, especially like the ones when you get four or five. Yeah. I love a good duology though. Sometimes I just want a little bit more, but that's good enough.

Alesia Galati 10:06

Yeah, yeah, and I feel like that's my max, but it has to be out though. I need to be able to go from one to the next. I can't wait six months to a year for the next book.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

I think standalones are always good, duologies are always good. Sometimes what we get in the fantasy world, I I think it happens in romance too, where it's like you get a set of books, but they can be read in any order because they're just surrounded, like they're in one universe, or like they're surrounding one like specific location. And that happens in fantasy too. I have one of my other good author friends, Jen Callagon, she has uh three books that are all queer, and they're set in the town of Aermount, but you can read them in every order. Or Nivo's novellas, The Singing Hill Cycle, they're really short novellas, and they're independent stories, but they all happen around the same universe, and then you can read them in any order. And I really like those two.

Alesia Galati 11:02

Yes, I love in especially like in I read predominantly romance, and so I love when the series isn't interconnected but standalones, right? So, like, then I actually am fine reading five books in a series because I can go through each different couple and like see the little cameos of the previous couples and like what they're doing, and so I do like those, but yeah, the idea of a full series about two people. I don't even watch TV shows for this exact reason because I'm like, give me two hours, I'm fine with two-hour movies and then be done. Like, I just want to be done with you, and so it's quite interesting. But you did this project, I want to say it was over the summer, but maybe spring into summer. Starts in on June 1st. Okay, so yeah, you did that where it was 100 days of queer fantasy. Tell me a little bit about how you came up with the idea and what you were thinking going into it, and then how you got started.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Yeah, so I started making book content on TikTok in 2024. I I Instagram wasn't my thing yet. It's currently like my main thing. It feels a lot better for me at the current moment. And so I was like, one of the things that I wanted to do to elevate my TikTok content, I guess, is to do like a series because that is like one of the suggestions when you first start making content. Is if you can focus on like a specific thing or a specific theme for a little bit, you can start to figure out how to edit or figure out like your kind of like content style and things like that. So I was like, I want to do a series, and it was coming up to Pride Month, and I was like, I could do 30 days of queer fantasy because that's what I gravitate towards. And then I was like, I don't want anyone to think that I'm being like really performative by just doing it in the month of June. So what if I did a hundred? I know it's it was it's a leap, but that's that was my thought process, and so I was like, Yeah, I'm gonna do a hundred days of queer fantasy, and so I started that actually in 2024 on my TikTok, and then I did it again this year.

Alesia Galati 13:14

Yeah, wow, it's definitely a choice. I'm like, I don't know that I could do any, and you like did it regularly and consistently, and that idea of doing that is oh my goodness, so much work.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

The goal is just every day, it's just one career fantasy recommendation, and so a portion of it is like pre-filming. I did a lot more pre-filming this year than I did last year because there were days in 2024 that it would be like 8 p.m. and I'm like, oh my gosh, I haven't yet filmed today. But this year I have a little bit better of a space to a little bit better of a phone. My last phone finally just quit, and so the camera's a little bit better too. And so I was able to kind of you know batch film, and that has definitely helped this year.

Alesia Galati 14:05

Yeah, I can imagine batching would have to be like if I ever did 100 days of anything, I'd have to batch record like 10 days at a time in order to do that. I yeah, wow, amazing. What was one of the things that maybe surprised you most? Maybe it was feedback or maybe something you learned about yourself in doing that.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

Yeah, I don't really know if there was anything super surprising. I definitely learned how hard it was very quickly. And I guess that in itself, it wasn't like necessarily surprising, but it was like, oh my gosh, what have I done to myself? And I've just seen that people really enjoy it. I find people that are like, oh my gosh, it's day 60. I can't believe I haven't found you yet, and then I'll go and they've spammed my notifications with like, you know, they've gotten through every single one of them. And so I think it's I think it's really interesting that even though I'm like making content every day, even though I'm making content throughout the year, that for somebody it's like their first time getting like diverse and queer fantasy recommendations on their feed. And that to me is I guess the most surprising part is that there are people that are still finding it for the first time, and that's so exciting.

Alesia Galati 15:22

Yeah, that is really exciting, and I'm pretty sure that's what like I guess saw you in my I don't guess for you page is not the right way to say it, but like in the reels or whatever that are on Instagram.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

I think they call it is it the explore page? Something like that. Yeah, I don't know.

Alesia Galati 15:40

Y'all know what I'm talking about. So that page where I was looking at, like just scrolling through reels, and I had seen you come up, or maybe someone had shared the video that you did, or something happened, and I was like, definitely not on day one at that point. Like you were like well into it, and I was like, this is really cool. A hundred is a lot. That was like literally the first two thoughts that I had was like, this is so cool. But I love that you like took a topic and also put a spin on it that I think a lot of us content creators might not always choose to do because we think, hey, maybe I'm alienating people, or maybe people might not be interested in it. But I feel like the more that we're like, no, here's what's important to me, and here are the books that I like to read and just own that, then the more we can attract the right types of people. Did you find that was what worked for you?

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Yeah, I think so. And a lot of times, I mean it's it's definitely a series where I haven't had a big viral moment or anything, right? It's consistently watched based off of this past summer, and there'll just be like four people that follow me on that one, or six people that follow me this one, or nobody that follows me in that one or one. And so it is really interesting to see that like consistency of like just people finding it for the first time and just appreciating seeing these types of books. I definitely try to keep it as diverse as I can. I have a master spreadsheet that I have that tells me like what subgenre of fantasy is, if it's like indie or trad pub. I've always tried to keep it more than 50% BIPOC authors. I've always tried to make sure I'm finding disability rep. I'm keeping track of the exact like queer representation it is because I don't want it just to all be one specific kind of queer rep. I want it to be diverse and that way as well. I try for sure.

Alesia Galati 17:32

Yeah, which I think people who are maybe just readers and following us bookish content creators don't realize the level of work that those of us who read and promote diversely actually put in. Like the amount of like sometimes it's like a part-time job. It can be.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

It can't be. And I've started as we're approaching 2026, as we keep seeing like acquisition announcements and like cover reveals and everything. Like, I have started the master spreadsheet for 2026. Like, I've started okay, yes, I have seen that one on my feed, I'm gonna add it. Don't know exactly everything about it yet, but that's gonna be on my radar for next year.

Alesia Galati 18:12

Oh, that is cool. So for the ones that and I didn't watch all 100 to caveat this question, but for the ones that you have one, have you read all of them? And then for the maybe if you didn't, for the ones that you did read, did you like give them a quick rating or review in the video?

SPEAKER_01 18:34

I definitely haven't read all of them. I have not read 200 queer fantasy books in the past two years. That would be so many, and I think that would be great, but unfortunately, I do not have the time to do that. So I and also by not making myself like read them all before I put them in the series, I'm also making sure that I recommend maybe books that are queer fantasies that I'm not gonna gravitate towards too. I'm not the biggest fan of like dark fantasy, and they're just like also some like a megaverse I haven't really delved into as well. And so I might like those books, but I just haven't read them yet. And the ones I do read, I think in the in my 2024 season, I did say if I liked it, and if I read it and I liked it, I think this year, I think this year I did the toss-up. If I read it and really liked it, I would say that. And then if I read it and it just wasn't like my cup of tea, I'm pretty sure I like wouldn't say anything. Because they're like, I do plan them out, and then I might read it before I film it, and like I end up either not really liking it or DNFing it, and I'm still gonna keep it there because it's still a queer fantasy book that someone is going to really enjoy. It's just not like my thing, and so yeah.

Alesia Galati 19:48

Yeah, that definitely makes sense. I know when I do like roundups, I have not read every single book in the roundup. I've read a pretty decent amount of them where I feel comfortable with it, or maybe I have friends who have said, hey, these are the tropes for these, where I feel good about it, but for the most part, it's not I have not read every single one. And I don't anticipate that I will read every single one because some of the roundups I do, I'm like, okay, here are all the sports romance. I don't like sports romances. Like, I maybe read five in a year and I read 250 books a year. So, like, it's not happening that I'm gonna read a bunch of the sports ones that I recommend. But hey, this one's a basketball one, so here you go. Now, you've mentioned before the different subgenres within fantasy. Can you give those to us for people who are like, all right, I'm new to all of this?

SPEAKER_01 20:43

I will give you the ones that are on my brain. I will not give them all because I do not claim to be an expert in the subgenres of fantasy for sure. There is and I'm also not gonna lie, I sometimes don't know the exact difference between some of the genres, but there's like epic fantasy, there's low and high fantasy, which always confuses me, so I have to go look it up. But then there are subgenres like a megaverse. If a book is considered like more of a dark fantasy, I will write, I will put that in because that usually means that I let me start with this. I don't typically say like the subgenre in my video. I'm just keeping track in my head. Unless it's like super important, like if it is an a megaverse book, I'm gonna be saying that. If it is really marketed as being a romanticy instead of just a fantasy with romance, I'm going to say that in my video. But I'm not always going to be like, here's the exact subgenres they fit in. Some of the ones I keep track of is if it's cozy, YA is not really a subgenre, but I do keep track of that. Epic fantasy, hilo fantasy, gas lamp fantasy, which is just mostly based on vibes. Like, is it kind of like this eerie kind of atmospheric vibes? And then like contemporary fantasy, which is usually just it's set in our like kind of Dan A. As opposed to a different world. That's typically what contemporary fantasy is. So those are kind of the subgenres that come to mind.

Alesia Galati 22:07

Yeah, I think that people definitely get it confused. I know. I get it confused. That's okay. I was having a conversation with my husband the other day, and he's like, you know, like Game of Thrones times. And I'm like, first of all, what the heck are you talking about? Because Game of Thrones is high fantasy. It's a completely different world, completely different setting. That has never happened for real life. He means the Middle Ages. And I'm like, that's my brain is gonna throat punch you. Like, I can't handle you conflating the two.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

It's definitely confusing. And then you have, I feel like, low fantasy and contemporary fantasy, and then like sometimes like urban fantasy, like those all there's so much gray area in terms of subgenres, that's why I typically only mention it if it's like heavily marketed in that, if it's mentioned in the blurb, if it's mentioned in like trope maps, or if it's like if it's a very specific subgenre, like dark romantic, omega verse, cozy, things like that.

Alesia Galati 23:12

If someone is like, alright, I want to try this fantasy thing, where do you recommend? Like, maybe they haven't read a lot of maybe they read a lot of romanticy, but they haven't read a lot of queer fantasy at all. And so, if we're thinking about like maybe what are five authors that you're like, these people have really great queer representation and also write fantasy.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

It's hard to give a book of recommendation that's not personally tailored. Right. I always think that novellas are really good at dipping your toes into fantasy because typically, if a novella is written well, like you're not gonna be loaded on with world building. Like you it's gotta flow a little quicker, right? It's not gonna be this long, drawn out thing. I think that cozy fantasies are also a really good place to start if you're just getting into fantasy, because once again, they're not as focused on like everything in the world, they're more focused on like individual stories for the most part.

Alesia Galati 24:13

What do you mean by cozy fantasy?

SPEAKER_01 24:16

Cozy fantasy, it's it is an interesting thing to define because when you speak generally on the internet, someone's going to find something, someone's gonna comment. That's not cozy or that's not here's my exception. When you think of cozy fantasy, it really started with Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldry. That was like the first cozy fantasy that we started labeling as cozy fantasy. I don't remember when it was published, it was before I started picking up books again. But it's this kind of like general idea as opposed to like having these high-stakes worlds where you have like the chosen one and like you're saving the world, and there's people dying, and like you've all of this, it's focusing on more of the like mundane life. So Legends and Lattes is about this adventure settling down and opening up a coffee shop. Like they're saying, I'm done with that adventuring life, I'm gonna open up a coffee shop, and that's like the vibe for a cozy fantasy. I think that if I was gonna give five recommendations, I really like SL Rowland's cozy fantasy books. They're very similar vein, adventures, they're starting a new life or they're moving to a different town. I like his because they're also, once again, in that group of there's three or four in the series. I think there's three, but then you could read them in any order because it's just about that world. I mentioned my friend Jen Cognon. She also writes those cozy fantasy books that are once again like interconnected standalones. I think that Legends and the Lattes was not my most favorite cozy fantasy, but I know a lot of people love them, and so Travis Baldry is another good author to watch. I personally am excited to read, I have an arc and I need to read it, Destin J. Munden's newest book, which is Recipes for an Unexpected Afterlife that just came out with Bindery Books. That's a cozy fantasy. There's an indie author that I really like, and her name is Raquel Rayland, and she's about to come out with her another book, and it's gonna be a cozy fantasy, and it's her first cozy fantasy, and I'm so excited to back the Kickstarter and read it. Like I am I am so excited for this one. Yeah, those are like the names that come to mind when I think about cozy fantasies so far.

Alesia Galati 26:26

Yeah, and like people getting started. I think cozy is a good idea, just very low stakes, you don't need a ton of world building. I think that that might be something too that sometimes people can get lost in is the world building. It's like I can't really imagine what this looks like. And now that I'm actually thinking about it, I know paranormal sometimes can get conflated with fantasy. See, I count it as fantasy.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

Right. I have a very broad definition. I've honestly I've put some sci-fi books in my 100 days of queer fantasy series with being like, oh my gosh, I hope someone doesn't find this and just completely berate me for including sci-fi. But I think it counts. Like I have a such a very broad definition of fantasy, I don't think it really needs to be like that limited. Paranormal romance, that's like a romanticy or a fantasy book to me. And I know that there are some romances that are marketed as romance, but then they have like fantasy elements. So that works for me.

Alesia Galati 27:22

Like I think like witches, monsters, we just the left Halloween fall season-ish. I'm still totally in it. And so, like, lots of vampires and werewolves. I read a ton of monster romances, and so like I'm even thinking, I feel like Ash Raven, who we interviewed, they have a ton of monster romances, and there are queer ones in there as well. So those are good ones. If people are like, I like monster fantasy, then there you go. Go check out Ash Raven's episode for that. But yeah, I guess not everyone, but the majority of readers who read romanticity, I feel like tend to take over the genre of fantasy, especially in like the romance reader space. And so my brain sometimes like says, oh well, that's fantasy, not the other stuff that I read. But yeah, I I am a slut for sci-fi. I love sci-fi. So I might have to go check out those sci-fi recommendations. Don't tell us which ones, I will find them.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

Okay, I will. There's only two or three, because like I am like one day someone's gonna be like, This is not fantasy, and I'm gonna be like, it's my series. Right. So I'm gonna recommend it. I just think if we're out in space, if we're in a galaxy that's completely made up, like that's fantasy. It's gotta be like so.

Alesia Galati 28:52

Something. Yeah. Something anything with aliens, I am down, especially with diverse human characters. I love that. I'm always down for that. You mentioned arcs that you've gotten. So for people who are like, I would love to get for the uninitiated advanced reader copies or ALC's advanced listen listener copies of these fantasy books. Where do you get yours or where do you recommend that people check out to get some?

SPEAKER_01 29:22

I get most of my arcs through NetGalley. And if you're not aware, NetGally is this website. You can like every you can just get like a free account. You put on your profile. This is where review books, like I have mine, like my Instagram and my story graphs linked, and you put a little, this is the books I take to read, and you can see this whole database of books that are coming out. Publishers or people who are self-publishing pay Net Gala to have their book on for a certain amount of time, and you can request them, and the publisher or the person or the marketing team or whatever will go through and you can get approved for them, or sometimes you can get denied. If you're trying to get a Berkeley arc, I'm so sorry, you'll probably get denied.

Alesia Galati 30:04

You have to sign up for their programs. I'll have stuff for that. That's they have some new stuff coming up in, so keep a lookout for that. I'll actually I'll send you a DM when that stuff comes out because especially if you are part of the BIPOC or LGBTQIA plus community, they have special things every quarter, and I know they're adjusting some things next year, but they have special quarterly things that you can pitch for, and everyone I've pitched on that I've gotten. So there are ways you just you gotta be in the notes.

SPEAKER_01 30:37

The good thing is that Berkeley is mostly romance, and while there are fantasy elements and fantasy books that do come from Berkeley, the majority of the ones that like I'm seeking out are not Berkeley because they're just like notorious in the book world for being like, Yep, you're not getting it. You're not getting it. It's like the opposite, they're handing out denials instead of approvals. So, anyways, you can request on there, and that's really how I started getting arcs. I also have I started getting arcs, physical arcs, specifically from page street YA by just like shooting my shot. I had like realized that there were a lot of books that I loved that were from this specific publisher. And so one day I was like on Instagram, I like put them in my story and was like, oh my gosh, you want to send me an arc? And they actually did. And like they've kept doing it, and now I get their like influencer sign up for which arcs you want to get. So those are my like my main ones that I get. I know that if you a lot of times indie authors, like people who are self-publishing as opposed to going through an independent publisher, but if someone's self-publishing, they'll often have Google forms. So if you follow an author on Instagram, on threads, on TikTok, or whatever, they will typically have ARC applications. And you can just go through, usually they'll just ask for like your name, your email, the address if they're sending a physical ARC. Sometimes people who self-publish don't have the means to send physical arcs, and so you'll just give them the information that you want, and you can submit with their form, and the author can just go through and select from there, and then you might get an email, you might get something sent. So that's how I like really just keep on to any arcs from indie publishers.

Alesia Galati 32:22

Yeah, those are all such great ideas. Some of the ones, other ones that come to mind as you were talking was signing up for authors' newsletters, because they always have something in there that's like, hey, this is a free version, or here's an early copy for my subscribers, or here sign up for the arcs. Also noting that you don't have to have a bookstagram to do this stuff. Like it could literally just be that you review on Goodreads down with Goodreads or Story Graph. We like Story Graph, right? You could be reviewing anywhere and show that, like, hey, I review books in these places and they'll still approve you. For NetGalley, those read now books are great if you're just getting started and you're like, I want to show that I read and review books, but maybe I don't want to have any other place that I'm reviewing them. That's always an option. And then subscribing, and again, this is more of a paid option, but if you want to financially support, especially indie authors, if they have a Patreon, you can almost always get they'll be like, here's the book that I wrote this month. Here you go, Patreon users. And so I found that that's one of the best ways to get early copies of books or free books. I say free, but I pay for them. But it's girl math. I didn't pay for them right now. Those are all the places that I was thinking about as we were talking through that. There's so many ways to get free books or to get early copies of books. We don't need to pirate. That's not what we do. It's not okay. So thank you for giving those ideas for us. So you mentioned that you, when you did the hundred days, that you have these different diversity within queer rep, which I think is so extremely important, especially when we see the feticization of especially gay romance, male-male romances in the queer space, and especially women in writing those. And so when we talk about that, what do you mean by the diversity within the queer rep?

SPEAKER_01 34:33

I really like to the best I can make sure that I'm hitting so many different queer identities when I'm doing my series and also just trying in my personal reading as well. So I keep track of if a book is sapphic. So that's not specifically lesbians. It could be if it's sapphic is a femme-presenting person falling in love with another femme-presenting person that could technically be a non-binary person and a woman that could be a bisexual person and a lesbian, that's what we mean by sapphic. The flip side of that with uh male presenting and male presenting, what we call that Achillean, it's just a little bit more, a little bit more diverse because you can instead of having a gay man and a gay man, you could have, again, you could have a polyamorous triad with three men, like all of that kind of things. So I take if it's sapphic, I take note of that. If it's Achillean, they're all different kinds of representations in terms of gender and sexuality. I think a lot of times when we think about queer fantasy, we're thinking a lot about like romanticy or romance stories in a fantasy because a lot of times people will equate the queer identity with the spice that's happening on the page, whether or not like they're having sex or in like YA if they fall in love. But then you have other things like gender identity. If there's a trans man character or a non-binary main character, you have the asexual spectrum where someone's ace, or maybe they're aromantic and they only have queer platonic relationships, or maybe they're demisexual. I know that a lot of times there are some people that don't know a book is queer because on the front they picture a like a male presenting person and a female presenting person, and it might just be that both of them are bi. So it's like a straight-passing relationship almost, or maybe one of them is demisexual, where they just take a little bit longer to feel the sexual attraction. So there's all kinds of different rap that I seek. And the interesting thing I think is for the most part, when I do my research, when I'm looking at fantasy, specifically outside like the realms of what is marketed as like romance with fantasy elements, but something that's marketed as fantasy, I see a lot more sapphic representation than I do Achilleon, which I think in the romance side is flipped, right? Like people are always like, Oh, I want Sapphic books, oh I want Sapphic books. And as I'm like looking and researching for queer fantasy books to add to my series, I like get so many sapphic books that I'm like, I'm gonna find I like I'm looking for the Achillion, which I think is really interesting. And then of course, the more diverse you try to get with your queer rep, the more niche, I guess. Niche is not right the right answer, but like there's not a lot of intersex representation in fantasy books. I didn't have any books in my 2025, like in this year's 100 days of queer fantasy that featured an intersex main character or an intersex author, because the only one I know of is Rivers Solomon, who one of their books, I don't remember exactly which one, has an intersex character in it. And that's the only really like true queer fantasy book with an intersex representation that I know of, and I'm always like looking for more, but sometimes within the like marginalization of queer identities, there are even more sub-marginalizations, so it's just been really interesting to see all of that.

Alesia Galati 38:02

Yeah, wow, that is so interesting. I think that when we say we read diversely, it is so important that we're reading across all the letters, right? All the BIPOC, all of the LGBTQIA plus, all of that, different disabilities as well. It's so important. And I like that you did mention the maybe it's an asexual couple and it's a queer platonic relationship. And I actually read my first queer platonic romance this year, and I found it really interesting. And just what book was it? It was by Margarita Shala, who's also on the podcast, and it is called Blanket Forts and Hurricanes. Hurricanes and blanket forts, something like that. That means you can go watch the episode to make sure she's correct. Yes, exactly. Go watch the episode, make sure that I am correct. And I know that Margarita, we for that episode, we talked about asexuality and aromanticism and how they can be conflated, but they are different. And then like diving deeper into that. And Zay gave so many like things that like really blew my mind that I hadn't even realized. So, yeah, definitely go check that episode out. We'll have if you're watching YouTube, it'll be up in the upper right corner linked out to that. So you can go right over. And we'll also have it linked in the show notes and the YouTube description as well for anyone doing other things. But I think that it is so important. We're reading across diversely and across all of the identities, the disabilities. Like you mentioned briefly, it's really important that we don't just read for a mirror, but we read for a window as well to see the world that's truly reflected around us. And I think that it creates more empathy within us for people who are different from us. So, Allie, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much for being on. Where can people find you, get to know you, lightly, socially stock you, et cetera?

SPEAKER_01 40:10

So I can be found on most corners on the internet under Allie's Shelf and some sort of iteration of underscores depending on the app. But I'm mostly active on my Instagram right now with just at Ali's Shelf. And that's where I'm I'm hanging out right now.

Alesia Galati 40:24

Awesome. And I highly recommend going and following Allie. I will also have your Instagram linked in the show notes. Like I said, for anyone who needs those links, we got you. Make it super easy. Just click the link below. All right, Allie. Thank you so much for being on. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 40:41

Yeah, thank you. Thank you, thank you.