Rebecca Matte

In all categories:

• Stories of self-discovery & reinvention (particularly those that center gender and sexuality)

• Strong, realistic friendships that are valued as much as any romantic relationship

• Queer characters, particularly those with underrepresented identities (such as bi, pan, trans, ace)

• Jewish characters

• Diverse, complex characters (race, religion, ethnicity, background, sexuality, gender, etc)

• Stories from Deaf, chronically ill, or disabled authors

**I will not accept any stories that attempt to “cure” or “fix” a disability in an unrealistic way or through magical means

Romance

• Queer romance (particularly f/f, or featuring ace, bi, pan, or trans characters)

• All the tropes: friends to lovers, there was only one bed, grumpy/sunshine, coffee shop/library/bookstore, rivals to lovers, fake dating, marriage of convenience, slow burn, forced proximity. Basically, make me feel like I’m reading the most highly rated fanfic in a fandom.

• PINING. I love pining, particularly mutual pining. Slow burn & pining are my bread & butter, as someone on the ace-spectrum.

• Partners of protagonists with chronic illness or disability doing small things to make their lives easier without being asked (in a sweet, not patronizing way)

• Sub-genres:

  • contemporary

  • historical

  • rom-com

  • millennial/borderline New Adult

  • Fantasy

*I am not interested in stories featuring assault/noncon, cheating (by the main character), love triangles, or any sort of unbalanced power dynamic.

**Note: for a book to be romance, it must have a Happily Ever After.

Science Fiction/Fantasy

• I definitely lean more towards fantasy than sci-fi, but I am open to both.

• Fantasy/Romance — books like A Marvelous Light by Freya Marske, Winter’s Orbit by Evelina Maxwell, and A Strange & Stubborn Endurance by Foz Meadows

• Anything based in or inspired by Greek Mythology, Jewish history/folklore, the Victorian Era, Jacobian England, New York City, or Philadelphia

• Stories that make me feel like watching the new She-Ra — magical and colorful and diverse (color, size, shape, ability), and showing that strong women can be sweet and flowery or physically strong and powerful

• Stories that cleverly add magic to the real world, shedding light upon and capitalizing on existing inequalities and important issues

• Stories that ultimately believe that people are good — I don’t need anything saccharine or overly optimstic, darkness is okay and real. But I read for escapism, and I want to believe that evil does not exist for the sake of evil. (See, e.g. Game of Thrones Circe, who was bad but always understandable in acting for her children vs. Ramsay Bolton, who seemed to revel in random cruelty.)

• Books that feature a fully original world, or a world inspired by something other than medieval Europe

• Grounded characters & relationships; people who make me love them and want to follow them into the unknown.

  • Among my favorite all time characters are Royce & Hadrian from Michael Sullivan’s Riyria Revelations, Rin & Kitay from R. F. Kuang’s The Poppy Wars, and Inda/Jeje/Taumad/Evred from Sherwood Smith’s Inda.

• Pretty much any sub-genre, but NOT grimdark, horror, and paranormal.

Guidelines & Details