Dena Hankins is an American novelist and short story author, best known for queer and transgender erotic romance. Her short stories have been published in several erotica anthologies, including Best Lesbian Romance of the Year 2015 edited by Radclyffe. Hankins' work is part of a growing trend to feature queer romance that is outside of the "issues" books that were once more common. Publisher's Weekly called her novel Blue Water Dreams, featuring a love story between a queer cisgender woman and a transgender man, an "exciting debut", and Lambda Literary Review included Blue Water Dreams among "new and noteworthy" LGBT books. Literary blog Out in Print: Queer Book Reviews chose Blue Water Dreams for inclusion in its "Best of 2014" top ten list. The American Library Association found her book to be "well within the expectations of the romance genre, albeit with an aypical male lead." Hankins' second novel, Heart of the Lilikoi, features an erotic romance between a cisgender lesbian construction contractor and a masculine genderqueersolar energy scientist in the midst of sabotage, murder, and the Hawaiian sovereignty movement. Publisher's Weekly called Heart of the Lilikoi an "intriguing contemporary", "strong and satisfying" with "intensely vivid erotic encounters". Lysistrata Cove, published in September 2016, is a romance within a tale of high seas adventure while examining questions of artistic autonomy within the U.S. music industry. It includes a BDSM relationship between a trans masculine sea captain and a polyamorous queer superstar chanteuse.
Personal life
Hankins studied English Literature at the University of Washington Seattle, graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1998. The following year she bought a boat with her partner, photographer James Lane, and began living aboard full-time. The couple sailed their small craft from Seattle to San Francisco, then across the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii. After a year living in Kerala, India, they returned to the United States to purchase a new sailing vessel and traveled the East Coast of the United States from Virginia to Maine. A Cruising Editor for The Waterway Guide, Hankins is certified to sail and charter intracostal waterways with a 50-ton Master License by the United States Coast Guard. Hankins chronicled her "Around the World in 80 Years" traveling adventures as well as pieces from her growing body of literary work at her blog, Sovereign Nations. Before launching her writing career Hankins worked for eight years as a sex educator with Babeland, a Seattle-based feminist sex toy store. In 2001 she was featured on HBO's Real Sex #26 as a demo model for a Babeland cunnilingus workshop.
