Tomas Moniz

In this "tender and open-hearted novel," (Nina LaCour, author of Yerba Buena) Tomas Moniz-a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway and Lambda Literary awards-delivers a commanding new story about the power of friendship, community, and the families we create for ourselves.Efren "Chino" Flores has just moved back to the Bay Area from Seattle, jumping from sublet to sublet. In Washington, he was an adored middle school biology teacher with a loving wife, and a child on the way-that is, until a stunning loss upended his life. Now he's working temp jobs, terrified of commitment, and struggling to put himself back out into the world.But there to nurture Chino is a coterie of new and old friends and lovers who form a protective web around him. Closest to him are Metal Matt, a red-haired metalhead with a soft spot for Courtney Love and a rangy dog named Sabbath, and Mike and Kay, a couple whose literary edge is matched only by the success of their secret OnlyFans account. As Chino begins to date more men and women-and to open himself up again to love-his bonds with those around him grow both rich and profound. Like a fern blooming in the wake of a forest fire, new life comes after even the most devastating upheaval.With gorgeous, heartrending detail and a seemingly infinite catalogue of tender, unexpected interactions, Tomas Moniz has created a striking mosaic of desire and belonging. An anthem to both queer and platonic love, All Friends Are Necessary evinces the wonder of friendship and the joy of giving yourself up to the essential force of community."Vibrant, alive, and absolutely devastating in its beauty, All Friends Are Necessary is like a late-night phone call with your best friend-exuberant, confessional, and above all, honest."-Chelsea Bieker, author of Godshot and Madwoman

In this joyous, big-hearted novel, Tomas Moniz-a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway and Lambda Literary awards-delivers a commanding new story about the power of friendship, community, and the families we create for ourselves.Efren "Chino" Flores has just moved back to the Bay Area from Seattle, jumping from sublet to sublet. In Washington, he was a beloved middle school biology teacher with a loving wife, and a child on the way until a stunning loss changed his life. Now, he's working temp jobs, terrified of commitment, and struggling to put himself back out into the world.But there to nurture Chino is a coterie of new and old friends and lovers who form a protective web around him. Closest to him are Metal Matt, a red-haired metalhead with a soft spot for Courtney Love and a rangy dog named Sabbath, and Mike and Kay, a couple whose literary edge is matched only by the success of their secret OnlyFans account. As Chino begins to date more men and women-and to open himself up again to love-his bonds with other people grow both rich and profound. Like a fern blooming in the wake of a forest fire, new life comes after even the most devastating upheaval.With gorgeous, heart-rending detail and a seemingly infinite catalogue of tender, unexpected interactions, Tomas Moniz has created a striking mosaic of desire and belonging that will appeal to fans of Garth Greenwell, Jaquira Díaz, and Patricia Lockwood. An anthem to both queer and platonic love, All Friends Are Necessary evinces the wonder of friendship and the joy of giving yourself up to the essential force of community.

Big Familia follows Juan Gutiérrez, a self-employed single father, as he navigates a tumultuous year of inescapable change. His daughter, Stella, is on the verge of moving away to college; his lover, Jared, is pressing him for commitment; and his favorite watering hole—a ramshackle dive presided over by Bob the Bartender—is transforming into a karaoke hotspot. The story is set in a neighborhood that is also changing, gentrification inciting the ire of the established community. Upon the unexpected death of one of the bar’s regulars, Juan is sent reeling, and a series of upheavals follow as he both seeks and spurns intimacy, pondering the legacy of distant parents and a failed marriage and grappling with his sexuality—all the while cycling and dating, drinking at Nicks Lounge, and parenting a determined and defiant child-become-woman. When his incarcerated father dies and Stella reveals she’s pregnant, Juan is forced to examine the emotional bonds that both hold and hinder him, to reassess his ideas of commitment, of friendship, of love. His encounters with various characters—his mother, his ex-wife, a middle-aged punker, an aspiring acupuncturist, a dapper veteran—lead Juan to the realization that he himself must change to thrive. This is a story of making family and making mistakes, of rending and of mending. As a Latinx queer father with a mixed-race daughter, Juan exemplifies the ways identity connects and divides us. With wit, insight, and tenderness, Big Familia explores the complexities of desire, devotion, and the mysteries of the heart.

Collaboration playfully explores the various ways we work and play with one another and the world around us. Dancing between poetry and narrative, the story rhythmically demonstrates how collaboration shapes our lives. Designed so that parents and children can discuss how the words and watercolor illustrations come together to conjure each idea, and how each image is "both the sum of its parts and a new thing entirely." Bilingual edition. Colaboracion alegremente explora las diversas maneras en que trabajamos y jugamos el uno con el otro y con el mundo que nos rodea. Bailando entre la poesia y la narrativa, el cuento explora ritmicamente las formas infinitas que la colaboracion moldea a nuestras vidas.. Esta disenado para que los padres y los ninos puedan discutir como las palabras y las ilustraciones de acuarela se unen para evocar cada idea, cada imagen es "tanto la suma de sus partes y una completamente nueva cosa." Edicion bilingue.

Combining the best of the award-winning magazine "Rad Dad" and the Daddy Dialectic blog, this compilation features the best essays written for fathers by a multitude of dads from different walks of life. Bestselling authors, writers, musicians, and others collaborate on this collection that focuses on some of the modern complexities of fatherhood. Touching on topics such as the brutalities, beauties, and politics of the birth experience; the challenges of parenting on an equal basis with mothers; the tests faced by transgendered and gay fathers; the emotions of sperm donation; and parental confrontations with war, violence, racism, and incarceration, this anthology leaves no stone unturned in the discussion of being a dad. Contributors include: Steve Almond, Jack Amoureux, Mike Araujo, Mark Andersen, Jeff Chang, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Jeff Conant, Jason Denzin, Cory Doctorow, Craig Elliott, Chip Gagnon, Keith Hennessy, David L. Hoyt, Simon Knapus, Ian MacKaye, Tomas Moniz, Zappa Montag, Raj Patel, Jeremy Adam Smith, Jason Sperber, Burke Stansbury, Shawn Taylor, Tata, Jeff West, and Mark Whiteley.

As Rad Dad editor Tomas Moniz says in issue 19's first essay, Parenting has taught me a lot about dealing with things I d rather not deal with. This is the Rad Dad heavy topics issue; its pages are concerned with talking to your kids about topics you might shy away fromimportant issues like racism, sexism, death, domestic violence, police brutality, and environmental crisis. Rad Dad is, as always, about communication, about not shutting off when your kids need help making sense of the things happening around them. And sometimes that's the hardest partwhen you yourself are fighting to make sense of a changing terrain. Says Tomas in the zine's intro, For my family, there was violence in our neighborhood as a number of young men were killed, friends of ours were assaulted in their homes, domestic violence happened in a family we were close to. Suddenly, it seemed I was just trying to keep up with things?let alone talk about them with my kids. But they were listening; they were witnesses to it all and witnesses to how we, the adults in their lives, reacted. The psychic landscape this issue navigates can be harrowing but Rad Dad retains the loving, constructive light of positivity and forward motion it has cultivated since issue 1. This is important readingvital stuff for parents and nonparents alike."

In his biggest issue ever, Tomas continues to focus on anarchism and parenting. Our trusty editor zeroes in on sex and love this time aroundtalking to his son about internet pornography, a disturbing story of a single mother who is fetishized as such, a few people's stories of polyamory and non-monogamy, a troubled tale of nude photos of children, a sad story about anarchist mentalities driving a wedge between a mother and her anarchist community, Dani Burlison bribes her daughter not to kiss a boy until she's 18, kids learning violencefrom Star Wars, and an interview with Dr. Chris White about teaching sex education to sex educators."