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Here is my pitch for the books I want to use as a touchstone during the conference.

My two fiction books will be Beautiful Music for Ugly Children by Kirstin Cronn-Mills and I Am J by Cris Beam. Both of these are coming-of-age stories about transgender teens, which is also true of my novel. Both are believably structured and plotted, with well-rounded characters and a compelling plot. Beautiful Music is particularly captivating, with plot elements that keep the reader riveted to the page, and I Am J has complex characters with equally complex reactions, stemming from events in their own lives not directly related to the plot, and yet identifiable ones. All of these are tricky qualities to create, and ones I hope to emulate. My craft book will be 20 Master Plots and How to Build Them by Ronald B. Tobias. Plot and structure is one of my weaknesses as a writer, and the book contains both six chapters on plots in general, how they work, and how to work with them, and a specific chapter on the Maturation plot, which fairly closely follows my story. Amazon reviews assure me that this is not a cut-and-paste type of book, but rather a set of guidelines on how to bring out the best in any given plot, and also that the book acknowledges the existence of books that mix these plots. Since I will be working in ******’s course to look at the overall plot of the book before I’ve written it all, I thought it would be important to study plot first.

I looked at all of the books next to each other, and it was an easy decision. I Know Very Well How I Got My Name and Refuse are just a little too far off the path, and The Best Boy Ever Made had a few too many plot holes, although I'm glad I read them and I still think having done so will be helpful in the process.
Still in progress/yet to read:

• Queer Ricans: Cultures and Sexualities in the Diaspora (Cultural Studies of the Americas) (online)
• Sirena Selena vestida de pena (in Spanish)
• Real Man Adventures (not at our local library)
• Tango: My Childhood, Backwards and in High Heels (not at our local library)
• The Lives of Transgender People (not at our local library)
• Transition: The Story of How I Became a Man (audiobook)
• Transgender Voices: Beyond Women and Men (online)

As you can see, all of these are a little harder to just zip through for one reason or another--it's just harder for me to read online or listen to an audiobook. I get bored much faster, even if the book is fascinating--it's about being able to curl up with a book in my hands. I'm also not sure I'm going to get anything out of a book written in Spanish--although I'm good enough to read the newspaper, there's a significant difference in vocabulary size in literature. So these reviews aren't going to come as quickly as you might hope. Hope you'll keep reading--the fact that some people are actually interested in this is helping me stay motivated.