Dena Hankins (born 1975) 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.[1] 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”,[2] and Lambda Literary Review included Blue Water Dreams among “new and noteworthy” LGBT books.[3] Literary blog Out in Print: Queer Book Reviews[4] 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.”[5]