Tourmaline Books In Order

Publication Order of Children's Books

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Tourmaline is a successful published author, artist, editor, writer, and activist. She was born in 1983 and is formerly known as ‘Reina Gossett’. She is transgender and identifies as queer.

She is known for her work in transgender activism and economic justice through work with Critical Resistance, Sylvia Rivera Law Project, and Queers for Economic Justice.

Tourmaline was born on July 20, 1983. She grew up in Massachusetts in a very political family. Her mother was a union organizer, her father was a self-defense instructor and anti-imprisonment advocate, and her sibling does AIDS activism and anti-HIV criminalization work.

In 2002 the author moved to NYC to attend Columbia University, graduating with her B.A. in Comparative Ethnic Studies. She also taught creative writing classes at Rikers through the school program Island Academy.

Tourmaline has been part of different organizations for activism, serving as a Membership Coordinator for Queers for Economic Justice and was a Director of Membership at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project. She has been a featured speaker at GLAAD and has spoken about transgender issues. She has worked on prison abolition, promoting a video series called No One is Disposable and organizing a campaign to prevent the NYC Department of Corrections building a jail in the Bronx.

The author has also worked as a community historian for drag queens and transgender people around the Stonewall Inn Rebellion. She was featured in Brave Spaces: Perspectives on Faith and LGBT Justice, produced by Mark Smolowitz and viewed as a Human Rights Campaign event.

Tourmaline also edited a book Trap Door in 2017, part of a MIT Press series titled ‘Critical Anthologies in Art and Culture’. She was given a BCRW Activist Fellowship in 2013 for the work that she did on trans justice and prison abolition, which also served to help support her efforts in documenting and elevating the histories and legacies of trans women of culture. She was also the 2016-2018 Activist-in-Residence at Barnard Center for Research on Women.

Tourmaline has also worked in film, working on the Taking Freedom Home film by Kagendo Murungi in 2010. She directed her first film in 2016, The Personal Things, and won a Queer Art Prize for her work on it in 2017. She has also worked on Mudbound, a Golden Globe-nominated film, serving as an assistant director.

She also co-produced the film STAR People Are Beautiful People, a 2009 movie that was co-produced with Sasha Wortzel. She would also co-produce Happy Birthday, Marsha! with Wortzel, which covers the life of activist Martha P. Johnson.

In 2017, her work was featured in New York at the New Museum in the exhibition Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon. Her 2019 film Salacia about Mary Jones was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in 2020 for its permanent collection.

She created a self-portrait titled Summer Azure in 2020, which would go on display a year later at the Getty Museum. The work was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2021 along with another of Tourmaline’s work to be featured in Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room. In 2020, she was one of five artists requested to come up with a new type of monument that became Nanny Goat Hill Pleasure Gardens, an anti-monument. In 2021, she was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Today she lives in New York City.

One Day in June: A Story Inspired by the Life and Activism of Martha P. Johnson is a children’s book written by Tourmaline and illustrated by Charlot Kristensen. This is a picture book that educates and informs while also providing beautiful, vibrant illustrations.

Martha P. Johnson was a Black trans woman and an activist. She played a big part in the Stonewall Riots that led up to Pride month and is the featured ‘character’ in this story by the artist Tourmaline.

She tells kids that they can ‘sparkle, shimmer, shine’, just the way that Martha did. This picture book takes place on a hot day during the summer, where New York is buzzing all over like a beehive. All over New York, people embrace the spirit of the activist Martha in everything that they do.

Told through the point of view of an old friend and full of colorful art, this is a joyful story that truly shows just how much of an impact that Martha P. Johnson had on NYC. This builds up to a convergence in 2020, where activists came together from all of the boroughs to rally in support of Black trans lives. The spirit of Martha lives on in this fantastic book made for younger readers but that can be enjoyed by anyone. Check out One Day in June to find out more.

Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Martha P. Johnson is a 2025 work written by Tourmaline. This is a national bestseller that was featured in The New York Times’ Nonfiction to Read This Spring. Whether you’ve been looking for something informative to read on your own or need a new book for your upcoming book club, this is a great read that focuses on the life and impact of Martha P. Johnson, the famous revolutionary activist.

Readers will get the chance to learn more about this important historical figure from Tourmaline, who is considered a wealth of knowledge on the subject. Janet Mock of Allure calls her ‘the preeminent and foremost scholar on Martha P. Johnson’ and says ‘To us, Tourmaline is the expert’.

She is associated with LGTQIA+ history as one of its most important figures and this book delves richly into her story, impact, and legacy. The story goes that Martha threw the first brick at the Stonewall Uprising in 1969, and after that picked up a piece of the broken mirror so that she could fix her makeup.

She was a Black transgender activist who was part of and also represented the struggle and beauty of the early gay rights movement. The work that she did during that time helped to create the progress that is seen today in what is the first definitive record of this incredible person’s life.

This biography brings Marsha to life both as an activist and artist and shows how her legacy continues to inspire to this day. Well researched and fascinating, check out her story for yourself by getting a copy of Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Martha P. Johnson by Tourmaline.