Advertise on podcast: This Queer Book Saved My Life

Today we meet Alvin Orloff and we’re talking about the queer book that saved his life: The Naked Civil Servant by Quentin Crisp. Alvin Orloff began writing in 1977, penning lyrics for the Blow Dryers, an early San Francisco punk band. He spent the 1980s working as a telemarketer and exotic dancer while concurrently attending UC Berkeley and performing with the Popstitutes. In 1990, he and his bandmates founded Clubstitute, a floating queer cabaret devoted to the ideal of cultural democracy that featured spoken word, theater, drag, and musical acts. He has published four novels: I Married an Earthling, Gutter Boys, Why Aren't You Smiling, and Vulgarian Rhapsody, along with a memoir, Disasterama, which was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award. He lives in San Francisco and is the proprietor of Fabulosa Books. In The Naked Civil Servant, it's 1931 and gay liberation was not a movement--it was simply unthinkable. But in that year, Quentin Crisp made the courageous decision to "come out" as a homosexual. This exhibitionist with the henna-dyed hair was harrassed, ridiculed and beaten. Nevertheless, he claimed his right to be himself--whatever the consequences. The Naked Civil Servant is both a comic masterpiece and a unique testament to the resilience of the human spirit. Quentin Crisp was a raconteur, author, and performer born on Christmas Day in 1908. Her memoir The Naked Civil Servant was adapted into a 1975 film starring John Hurt. Please note: We want to acknowledge that we misgendered Quentin in part of the episode, until Alvin corrected the record and we apologize for this. It was at 90 years old, in her final book, The Last Word, that Quentin came out as transgender. Connect with Alvin website: fabulosabooks.com website: alvinorloff.com Our Bookshop Visit our Bookshop for new releases, current bestsellers, banned books, critically acclaimed LGBTQ books, or peruse the books featured on our podcasts: bookshop.org/shop/thisqueerbook Buy your copy of The Naked Civil Servant here: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9780141180533 Become an Associate Producer! Become an Associate Producer of our podcast through a $20/month sponsorship on Patreon! A professionally recognized credit, you can gain access to Associate Producer meetings to help guide our podcast into the future! Get started today: patreon.com/thisqueerbook Credits Host/Founder: John Parker Executive Producer: Jim Pounds Associate Producers: Archie Arnold, K Jason Bryan and David Rephan, Bob Bush, Natalie Cruz, Troy Ford, Jonathan Fried, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, Sean Smith, and Karsten Vagner Patreon Subscribers: Stephen D., Stephen Flamm, Ida Göteburg, Thomas Michna, Sofia Nerman, and Gary Nygaard. Creative and Accounting support provided by: Gordy Erickson Quatrefoil Library Quatrefoil has created a curated lending library made up of the books featured on our podcast! If you can’t buy these books, then borrow them! Link: https://libbyapp.com/library/quatrefoil/curated-1404336/page-1 Support the show

Today we meet Jeff Copeland and we’re talking about the queer book that saved his life: Miss Rona by Rona Barrett. Jeff is the author of Love You Madly, Holly Woodlawn and co-author with Holly Woodlawn of Low Life in High Heels: The Holly Woodlawn Story. An Emmy award nominee, he worked for nearly thirty years for a variety of TV Networks and film studios, including Discovery, Animal Planet, HGTV, ABC, FOX, and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. In Miss Rona, Rona Barrett charts her life from childhood and her struggle with a degenerative hip disease while organizing fan clubs for musicians. From there, she charts her rise as a gossip columnist and ultimately entertainment journalist. Connect with Jeff facebook: @jeff.copeland.982 instagram: @loveyoumadlyhollywoodlawn youtube: @loveyoumadlyhollywoodlawn Our Bookshop Visit our Bookshop for new releases, current bestsellers, banned books, critically acclaimed LGBTQ books, or peruse the books featured on our podcasts: bookshop.org/shop/thisqueerbook Miss Rona is not available on Bookshop.org. Please check with your local bookstore or a used book retailer. Buy your copy of Love You Madly, Holly Woodlawn here: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9781627311595 Become an Associate Producer! Become an Associate Producer of our podcast through a $20/month sponsorship on Patreon! A professionally recognized credit, you can gain access to Associate Producer meetings to help guide our podcast into the future! Get started today: patreon.com/thisqueerbook Credits Host/Founder: John Parker Executive Producer: Jim Pounds Associate Producers: Archie Arnold, K Jason Bryan and David Rephan, Bob Bush, Natalie Cruz, Troy Ford, Jonathan Fried, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, Sean Smith, and Karsten Vagner Patreon Subscribers: Stephen D., Stephen Flamm, Ida Göteburg, Thomas Michna, Sofia Nerman, and Gary Nygaard. Creative and Accounting support provided by: Gordy Erickson Quatrefoil Library Quatrefoil has created a curated lending library made up of the books featured on our podcast! If you can’t buy these books, then borrow them! Link: https://libbyapp.com/library/quatrefoil/curated-1404336/page-1 Support the show

How do I be a lesbian, and a writer, at the same time? Today we meet Kim van Alkemade and we’re talking about the queer book that saved her life: Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. Kim is the author of the novels Orphan 8, Bachelor Girl, and Counting Lost Stars. Her forthcoming novel Upstate comes out October 27. Her books have been translated into eleven languages. After a career teaching writing at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, she now works at aån independent bookstore in Saratoga Springs, New York, where she lives with her partner, their rescue dog, and two feisty backyard chickens. In Fingersmith, Sue Trinder is an orphan, left as an infant in the care of Mrs. Sucksby, a "baby farmer," who raised her with unusual tenderness, as if Sue were her own. One day, the most beloved thief of all arrives—Gentleman, an elegant con man, who carries with him an enticing proposition for Sue: If she wins a position as the maid to Maud Lilly, a naïve gentlewoman, and aids Gentleman in her seduction, then they will all share in Maud’s vast inheritance. But no one and nothing is as it seems in this Dickensian novel of thrills and reversals. Sarah Waters is the author of several novels, including the New York Times–bestselling The Paying Guests. She has been short-listed for the Man Booker Prize three times. Granta named her of their best young British novelists. She lives in London. Connect with Kim website: kimvanalkemade.com threads: @kimvanalkemade instagram: @kimvanalkemade facebook: @kimvanalkemade Our Bookshop Visit our Bookshop for new releases, current bestsellers, banned books, critically acclaimed LGBTQ books, or peruse the books featured on our podcasts: bookshop.org/shop/thisqueerbook Buy your copy of Fingersmith here: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9781573229722 Buy your copy of Upstate here: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9780063438033 Become an Associate Producer! Become an Associate Producer of our podcast through a $20/month sponsorship on Patreon! A professionally recognized credit, you can gain access to Associate Producer meetings to help guide our podcast into the future! Get started today: patreon.com/thisqueerbook Credits Host/Founder: John Parker Executive Producer: Jim Pounds Associate Producers: Archie Arnold, K Jason Bryan and David Rephan, Bob Bush, Natalie Cruz, Troy Ford, Jonathan Fried, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, Sean Smith, and Karsten Vagner Patreon Subscribers: Stephen D., Stephen Flamm, Ida Göteburg, Thomas Michna, Sofia Nerman, and Gary Nygaard. Creative and Accounting support provided by: Gordy Erickson Quatrefoil Library Quatrefoil has created a curated lending library made up of the books featured on our podcast! If you can’t buy these books, then borrow them! Link: https://libbyapp.com/library/quatrefoil/curated-1404336/page-1 Support the show

This book told me I was not alone and it set me on a journey of queer lit. Today we meet Greg Howard and we’re talking about the queer book that saved his life: A Boy's Own Story by Edmund White. Greg’s critically acclaimed, debut middle-grade novel The Whispers was nominated for an Edgar Award and was named a Best Book of 2019 by Advocate Magazine. His second middle-grade novel Middle School’s a Drag, You Better Werk! was an Amazon Teacher’s Pick. The Visitors, his third middle-grade offering, was a 2022 New York Public Library Best Book. Also, the author of the young adult novel Social Intercourse, Greg’s new middle-grade book, The Travelers, just came out on August 25, 2026. In A Boy's Own Story, the unnamed narrator of Edmund White’s first autobiographical novel finds solace in literature, works of art, and his own fantastic imagination. Lyrical and poignant, A Boy’s Own Story—the first of a trilogy, followed by The Beautiful Room Is Empty and The Farewell Symphony—is an American literary treasure that became an instant classic upon publication for its pioneering portrayal of homosexuality. Connect with Greg website: greghowardbooks.com bluesky: @greghowardbooks.bsky.social instagram: @greghowardbooks facebook: @greghowardbooks Our Bookshop Visit our Bookshop for new releases, current bestsellers, banned books, critically acclaimed LGBTQ books, or peruse the books featured on our podcasts: bookshop.org/shop/thisqueerbook Buy your copy of A Boy's Own Story here: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9780143114840 Buy your copy of The Travelers here: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9780593111918 Become an Associate Producer! Become an Associate Producer of our podcast through a $20/month sponsorship on Patreon! A professionally recognized credit, you can gain access to Associate Producer meetings to help guide our podcast into the future! Get started today: patreon.com/thisqueerbook Credits Host/Founder: John Parker Executive Producer: Jim Pounds Associate Producers: Archie Arnold, K Jason Bryan and David Rephan, Bob Bush, Natalie Cruz, Troy Ford, Jonathan Fried, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, Sean Smith, and Karsten Vagner Patreon Subscribers: Stephen D., Stephen Flamm, Ida Göteburg, Thomas Michna, Sofia Nerman, and Gary Nygaard. Creative and Accounting support provided by: Gordy Erickson Quatrefoil Library Quatrefoil has created a curated lending library made up of the books featured on our podcast! If you can’t buy these books, then borrow them! Link: https://libbyapp.com/library/quatrefoil/curated-1404336/page-1 Support the show

This book opened a door and no one could ever close that door again. Today we meet Patrick Doyle and we’re talking about the queer book that saved his life: Our Lady of the Flowers by Jean Genet. PLEASE NOTE: This is an explicit book and so our episode is too. There is strong sexual content. Patrick Doyle writes queer fiction, ranging from romance to mystery to thrillers and science fiction to just plain fiction. His stories depict gay men facing the challenges of living and loving in today's world. His previous novels include Pierre and Bill, Beau's Dilemma, and Jordi's Day. His latest novel, Bill & The Kid: A Queer Family. A Troubled Child. A Secret. A Crime comes out on October 1, 2026. Our Lady of the Flowers is considered Genet's masterpiece. It is a lyrical portrait of the criminal underground of Paris and the thieves, murderers and pimps who occupied it. Genet approached this world through his protagonist, Divine, a male transvestite prostitute. In the world of Our Lady of the Flowers, moral conventions are turned on their head. Sinners are portrayed as saints and when evil is not celebrated outright, it is at least viewed with a benign indifference. Connect with Patrick website: patrickdoylewrites.com goodreads: @Patrick_Doyle Our Bookshop Visit our Bookshop for new releases, current bestsellers, banned books, critically acclaimed LGBTQ books, or peruse the books featured on our podcasts: bookshop.org/shop/thisqueerbook Buy your copy of Our Lady of the Flowers here: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9780802130136 Become an Associate Producer! Become an Associate Producer of our podcast through a $20/month sponsorship on Patreon! A professionally recognized credit, you can gain access to Associate Producer meetings to help guide our podcast into the future! Get started today: patreon.com/thisqueerbook Credits Host/Founder: John Parker Executive Producer: Jim Pounds Associate Producers: Archie Arnold, K Jason Bryan and David Rephan, Bob Bush, Natalie Cruz, Troy Ford, Jonathan Fried, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, Sean Smith, and Karsten Vagner Patreon Subscribers: Stephen D., Stephen Flamm, Ida Göteburg, Thomas Michna, Sofia Nerman, and Gary Nygaard. Creative and Accounting support provided by: Gordy Erickson Quatrefoil Library Quatrefoil has created a curated lending library made up of the books featured on our podcast! If you can’t buy these books, then borrow them! Link: https://libbyapp.com/library/quatrefoil/curated-1404336/page-1 Support the show

We have such an issue with: what should we educate children with? Today we meet Dr. Helen Webberley and we’re talking about the queer book that saved her life: My Daddies! by Gareth Peter. And Gareth joins us for the conversation! Dr. Webberley is a doctor, gender specialist, and medical educator with years of experience across medicine, science, sexual health, and gender identity. In 2015, Dr. Webberley supported a young trans boy who had been left without care by UK's National Health System. That’s when she founded GenderGP. The small medical service quickly became a lifeline for trans people across the UK and beyond. Now, her goals include developing training for healthcare professionals, improving legal protections for the trans community, and championing a global shift towards patient-led, rights-based models of care. Gareth Peter has had a career as a composer and lyricist for theater, with his songs performed on stage by West End and Broadway voices across the United Kingdom and internationally. He founded the Broadway School of Performing Arts, a part-time theater school, in 2004. In 2018, he was a top-ten Penguin Random House Write Now finalist. Recent books include a series with Scholastic titled This Book is Full Of, including This Book Is Full of Unicorns and this Book Is Full Of Bunnies. Gareth lives in Nottingham with his partner and his two wonderful adopted children. My Daddies! is a funny, heartfelt picture-book celebrating same-sex parents and shared story time, perfect for introducing children to the different kinds of family in the world today. Connect with Dr. Webberley and Gareth Dr. Webberley's website: helenwebberley.com GenderGP: gendergp.com Gareth's website: storywise.uk/gareth-peter Instagram: @gareth.peter Our Bookshop Visit our Bookshop for new releases, current bestsellers, banned books, critically acclaimed LGBTQ books, or peruse the books featured on our podcasts: bookshop.org/shop/thisqueerbook Buy your copy of My Daddies! here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/314591/my-daddies-by-peter-gareth/9780241405772 Become an Associate Producer! Become an Associate Producer of our podcast through a $20/month sponsorship on Patreon! A professionally recognized credit, you can gain access to Associate Producer meetings to help guide our podcast into the future! Get started today: patreon.com/thisqueerbook Credits Host/Founder: John Parker Executive Producer: Jim Pounds Associate Producers: Archie Arnold, K Jason Bryan and David Rephan, Bob Bush, Natalie Cruz, Troy Ford, Jonathan Fried, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, Sean Smith, and Karsten Vagner Patreon Subscribers: Stephen D., Stephen Flamm, Ida Göteburg, Thomas Michna, Sofia Nerman, and Gary Nygaard. Creative and Accounting support provided by: Gordy Erickson Quatrefoil Library Quatrefoil has created a curated lending library made up of the books featured on our podcast! If you can’t buy these books, then borrow them! Link: https://libbyapp.com/library/quatrefoil/curated-1404336/page-1 Support the show

As a kid I always wondered where do I belong? Today we meet Mario Elías and we’re talking about the queer book that saved his life: The Color of Summer by  Reinaldo Arenas. Mario Elías is a multidisciplinary artist of Cuban and Syrian descent based in Chicago. His work spans fiction, nonfiction, photography, painting, and printmaking. His book Queering the Male Gaze reimagined masterpieces of the classical and modern canon through essays and self-portraiture, exploring often-overlooked queer and female figures who shaped them. He is the founder of The KindaSuper Project, a philanthropic initiative offering free photography and video services to underserved communities. His debut novel Beloved Disciples just came out earlier this spring. The Color of Summer is a Rabelaisian tale of survival by wits and wit and ultimately a powerful and passionate story about the triumph of the human spirit over the forces of political and sexual repression. This novel is the fulfillment of author Reinaldo Arenas' life's work, the Pentagonía, a five-volume cycle of novels that is his "secret history of Cuba." Reinaldo Arenas was born in Cuba in 1943. In 1980, he was one of 120,000 Cubans who arrived in the United States on the Mariel boatlift. Arenas settled in New York where he lived until his death from AIDS ten years later. His extraordinary memoir, Before Night Falls, was named one of the fourteen "Best Books of 1993" by the editors of The New York Times Book Review and has now been made into a major motion picture. Connect with Mario Elías website: kindasuper.com instagram: @kindasupermario Our Bookshop Visit our Bookshop for new releases, current bestsellers, banned books, critically acclaimed LGBTQ books, or peruse the books featured on our podcasts: bookshop.org/shop/thisqueerbook Buy your copy of The Color of Summer: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9780140157192 Buy your copy of Beloved Disciples: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9781612943374 Become an Associate Producer! Become an Associate Producer of our podcast through a $20/month sponsorship on Patreon! A professionally recognized credit, you can gain access to Associate Producer meetings to help guide our podcast into the future! Get started today: patreon.com/thisqueerbook Credits Host/Founder: John Parker Executive Producer: Jim Pounds Associate Producers: Archie Arnold, K Jason Bryan and David Rephan, Bob Bush, Natalie Cruz, Troy Ford, Jonathan Fried, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, Sean Smith, and Karsten Vagner Patreon Subscribers: Stephen D., Stephen Flamm, Ida Göteburg, Thomas Michna, Sofia Nerman, and Gary Nygaard. Creative and Accounting support provided by: Gordy Erickson Quatrefoil Library Quatrefoil has created a curated lending library made up of the books featured on our podcast! If you can’t buy these books, then borrow them! Link: https://libbyapp.com/library/quatrefoil/curated-1404336/page-1 Support the show

I had never discovered a queer character who didn't die at the end. This book changed that. Today we meet Gregory A. Kompes and we’re talking about the queer book that saved his life: Maurice by E.M. Forster Gregory is founder of The Writer Workshop and an award winning, bestselling author of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. He’s the author of Shards, as well as the Broadway series that includes Flash Mob, The Middle Man, Tamburlaine, Obsequies, and Busker. Become a VIP Reader at https://kompes.com. Maurice is set in the elegant Edwardian world of Cambridge undergraduate life and introduces us to Maurice Hall when he is fourteen. We follow him through public school, then Cambridge University, and finally into his father's firm. In a highly structured society, Maurice is a conventional young man in almost every way--except that he is homosexual. Maurice was ahead of its time in its theme and in its affirmation that love between men can be happy E. M. Forster was one of the major novelists of the first half of the twentieth century. He was born in 1879 and educated at Cambridge. His other novels include A Room with a View, Howards End, and A Passage to India. Connect with Gregory A. Kompes website: kompes.com bluesky: @gregoryakompes.bsky.social instagram: @GregoryAKompes Our Bookshop Visit our Bookshop for new releases, current bestsellers, banned books, critically acclaimed LGBTQ books, or peruse the books featured on our podcasts: bookshop.org/shop/thisqueerbook Buy your copy of Maurice: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9780393310320 Buy your copy of Shards: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9798995967408 Become an Associate Producer! Become an Associate Producer of our podcast through a $20/month sponsorship on Patreon! A professionally recognized credit, you can gain access to Associate Producer meetings to help guide our podcast into the future! Get started today: patreon.com/thisqueerbook Credits Host/Founder: John Parker Executive Producer: Jim Pounds Associate Producers: Archie Arnold, K Jason Bryan and David Rephan, Bob Bush, Natalie Cruz, Troy Ford, Jonathan Fried, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, Sean Smith, and Karsten Vagner Patreon Subscribers: Stephen D., Stephen Flamm, Ida Göteburg, Thomas Michna, Sofia Nerman, and Gary Nygaard. Creative and Accounting support provided by: Gordy Erickson Quatrefoil Library Quatrefoil has created a curated lending library made up of the books featured on our podcast! If you can’t buy these books, then borrow them! Link: https://libbyapp.com/library/quatrefoil/curated-1404336/page-1 Support the show

This book raised something that was running subterranean in my system back up to the surface again. Today we meet J. Brooke and we’re talking about the queer book that saved their life: Transition: Becoming Who I Was Always Meant to Be by Chaz Bono. J’s full-length poetry book, I Can Tell You The Version That Will Make You Take My Side won the Editor’s Choice Prize at Driftwood Press. It is now available everywhere you get your books. J has received two Pushcart nominations, a 2025 Best of The Net nomination, and there were a Finalist for the 2025 Iowa Review Nonfiction Prize. Their autobiographical essay “HYBRID” won Columbia Journal’s 2020 Special Issue Nonfiction Award. Their work appears in Electric Lit, The Rumpus, Harvard Review and elsewhere. J is the Prose Book Reviews Editor at The Rumpus, Poetry Editor at Trans Poetics Archive, former Nonfiction Editor at Stonecoast Review. In Transition: Becoming Who I Was Always Meant to Be Chaz Bono shares his deeply moving and ultimately triumphant account of the physical and emotional process that brought him to a place of peace, and finally happiness. With a message to anyone who has ever felt that they couldn’t be who they really are, Transition is as inspirational as it is intimate. Chaz Bono is an LGBTQ rights advocate, acclaimed author, and the only child of famed entertainers Sonny and Cher. He has written three books, including Transition, his groundbreaking account of a forty-year struggle to match his gender identity with his physical body and his transformation from female to male. Connect with J. Brooke website: jbrookewrites.com bluesky: jbrookewrites.bsky.social instagram: @jbrooke_writes Our Bookshop Visit our Bookshop for new releases, current bestsellers, banned books, critically acclaimed LGBTQ books, or peruse the books featured on our podcasts: bookshop.org/shop/thisqueerbook Buy your copy of Transition: Becoming Who I Was Always Meant to Be https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9780452298002 Buy your copy of I Can Tell You the Version That Will Make You Take My Side: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9781949065435 Become an Associate Producer! Become an Associate Producer of our podcast through a $20/month sponsorship on Patreon! A professionally recognized credit, you can gain access to Associate Producer meetings to help guide our podcast into the future! Get started today: patreon.com/thisqueerbook Credits Host/Founder: John Parker Executive Producer: Jim Pounds Associate Producers: Archie Arnold, K Jason Bryan and David Rephan, Bob Bush, Natalie Cruz, Troy Ford, Jonathan Fried, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, Sean Smith, and Karsten Vagner Patreon Subscribers: Stephen D., Stephen Flamm, Ida Göteburg, Thomas Michna, Sofia Nerman, and Gary Nygaard. Creative and Accounting support provided by: Gordy Erickson Quatrefoil Library Quatrefoil has created a curated lending library made up of the books featured on our podcast! If you can’t buy these books, then borrow them! Link: https://libbyapp.com/library/quatrefoil/curated-1404336/page-1 Support the show

Why would I ever want to have a body and why should I allow it to want what it wants? Today we meet Jill Rosenberg and we’re talking about the queer book that saved her life: Sea of Tranquility by Paul Elliott Russell. And Paul joins us for the conversation! Jill is a graduate of Vassar College and the MFA Program at the University of Montana. Her fiction has been published by the Kenyon Review, Swamp Pink, Black Warrior Review, and other journals. Her collection of stories, Now I’m Photogenic and Other Stories I Tell Myself won the St. Lawrence Book Prize and is out now! Paul Elliott Russell is a four-time finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and two time winner of the Ferro-Grumley Award for Fiction. He is the author of seven novels and his upcoming novel The Angels Came to Sodom in the Evening will be out this fall. His 1995 nonfiction book, The Gay 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Gay Men and Lesbians, Past and Present has been translated into ten languages. He taught at Vassar College for 38 years till retirement in 2021. The Library of Homosexual Congress will publish his short story collection titled Desire in the Fall of 2027. Sea of Tranquility is the story of a splinted nuclear family - spanning from the optimistic time of the first moon shot to the bleak time of the early AIDS years. Connect with Jill and Paul Jill's website: jillrosenberg.me Paul's website: paulrussellwriter.com Our Bookshop Visit our Bookshop for new releases, current bestsellers, banned books, critically acclaimed LGBTQ books, or peruse the books featured on our podcasts: bookshop.org/shop/thisqueerbook Buy your copy of Sea of Tranquility here: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9780312303723 But your copy of Now I'm Photogenic and Other Stories I Tell Myself: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9781625572172 Pre-order The Angels Came To Sodom in the Evening: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9781917352161 Become an Associate Producer! Become an Associate Producer of our podcast through a $20/month sponsorship on Patreon! A professionally recognized credit, you can gain access to Associate Producer meetings to help guide our podcast into the future! Get started today: patreon.com/thisqueerbook Credits Host/Founder: John Parker Executive Producer: Jim Pounds Associate Producers: Archie Arnold, K Jason Bryan and David Rephan, Bob Bush, Natalie Cruz, Troy Ford, Jonathan Fried, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, Sean Smith, and Karsten Vagner Patreon Subscribers: Stephen D., Terry D., Stephen Flamm, Ida Göteburg, Thomas Michna, Sofia Nerman, and Gary Nygaard. Creative and Accounting support provided by: Gordy Erickson Quatrefoil Library Quatrefoil has created a curated lending library made up of the books featured on our podcast! If you can’t buy these books, then borrow them! Link: https://libbyapp.com/library/quatrefoil/curated-1404336/page-1 Support the show

I came out and needed to understand: what kind of gay am I? Today we meet Dr. Perry Zurn and we’re talking about the queer book that saved his life: Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg. Dr. Zurn is Provost Associate Professor of Philosophy at American University. He researches primarily in political philosophy, critical theory, and LGBTQ+ studies and has collaborated in psychology and network neuroscience. Dr. Zurn is the author or coauthor of 100+ additional publications in philosophy, political theory, LGBTQ+ studies, and network science and has given 250+ talks at local, national, and international venues. His work has been featured in over 50 media outlets, ranging from podcasts, to radio, television, and mainstream news outlets. His newest book Cisgender: Disorienting a Category comes out this July. Stone Butch Blues was Leslie Feinberg’s first novel published in 1993. The novel won the 1994 American Library Association Stonewall Book Award and 1994 Lambda Literary Award. Groundbreaking in its time for its exploration of gender, the novel established Feinberg as the first author to put forward a Marxist version of “transgender liberation.” The novel has sold hundreds of thousands of copies and has even been passed hand-to-hand inside prisons. The earnings from a translated version went to ASWAT Palestinian Gay Women. Leslie Feinberg identified as an anti-racist white, working-class, secular Jewish, transgender, lesbian, female, revolutionary communist. Feinberg was a journalist for Workers World and edited the "Political Prisoners" page for 15 years, ultimately serving as managing editor. Feinberg also wrote "Lavender & Red" for Workers World which was a 120-part series exploring the links between socialism and LGBT history. They also authored: Rainbow Solidarity in Defense of Cuba, Transgender Warriors: Making History and Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue, and the novel Drag King Dreams. Feinberg died on November 15, 2014 and hir last words were: “Remember me as a revolutionary communist.” Connect with Perry website: perryzurn.com bluesky: @perryzurn.bsky.social Our Bookshop Visit our Bookshop for new releases, current bestsellers, banned books, critically acclaimed LGBTQ books, or peruse the books featured on our podcasts: bookshop.org/shop/thisqueerbook How to get your copy of Stone Butch Blues: Print on Demand Paperback through LuluGet a free PDF copy of Stone Butch Blues here: https://www.lesliefeinberg.netAsk your local library or independent bookstore!Buy your copy of Cisgender: Disorienting a Category here: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9781478038771 Become an Associate Producer! Become an Associate Producer of our podcast through a $20/month sponsorship on Patreon! A professionally recognized credit, you can gain access to Associate Producer meetings to help guide our podcast into the future! Get started today: patreon.com/thisqueerbook Credits Host/Founder: John Parker Executive Producer: Jim Pounds Associate Producers: Archie Arnold, K Jason Bryan and David Rephan, Bob Bush, Natalie Cruz, Troy Ford, Jonathan Fried, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, Sean Smith, and Karsten Vagner Patreon Subscribers: Stephen D., Stephen Flamm, Ida Göteburg, Thomas Michna, Sofia Nerman, and Gary Nygaard. Creative and Accounting support provided by: Gordy Erickson Quatrefoil Library Quatrefoil has created a curated lending library made up of the books featured on our podcast! If you can’t buy these books, then borrow them! Link: https://libbyapp.com/library/quatrefoil/curated-1404336/page-1 Support the show

This book was a vivid portrayal of queer desire. It didn't have a happy ending, but it had a positive ending. Today we meet Lynette D'Amico and we’re talking about the queer book that saved her life: Carol by Patricia Highsmith. Lynette D'Amico is an essayist and fiction writer whose work has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, The Ocean State Review and at Brevity, Slag Glass City, Short Reads, and Guernica. Her memoir in essays Men I Hate, won the Gournay Nonfiction Prize and was published by Mad Creek Books in 2026. She holds an MFA from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. She makes her home in Rhode Island, but she has a prairie eye. Originally published as The Price of Salt, Carol is based on a true story plucked from Highsmith's own life. It tells the riveting drama of Therese Belivet, a stage designer trapped in a department-store day job, whose routine is forever shattered by a gorgeous epiphany--the appearance of Carol Aird, a customer who comes in to buy her daughter a Christmas toy. They fall in love and set out across the United States, ensnared by society's confines and the imminent disapproval of others, yet propelled by their infatuation. Patricia Highsmith was the author of more than twenty novels, including Strangers on a Train, The Price of Salt and The Talented Mr. Ripley, as well as numerous short stories. Connect with Lynette website: lynettedamico.com instagram: @sicilianblade2 substack: substack.com/@lynettedamico Our Bookshop Visit our Bookshop for new releases, current bestsellers, banned books, critically acclaimed LGBTQ books, or peruse the books featured on our podcasts: bookshop.org/shop/thisqueerbook Buy your copy of Carol here: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9780393325997 Buy your copy of Men I Hate: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9780814259696 Become an Associate Producer! Become an Associate Producer of our podcast through a $20/month sponsorship on Patreon! A professionally recognized credit, you can gain access to Associate Producer meetings to help guide our podcast into the future! Get started today: patreon.com/thisqueerbook Credits Host/Founder: John Parker Executive Producer: Jim Pounds Associate Producers: Archie Arnold, K Jason Bryan and David Rephan, Bob Bush, Natalie Cruz, Troy Ford, Jonathan Fried, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, Sean Smith, and Karsten Vagner Patreon Subscribers: Stephen D., Stephen Flamm, Ida Göteburg, Thomas Michna, Sofia Nerman, and Gary Nygaard. Creative and Accounting support provided by: Gordy Erickson Quatrefoil Library Quatrefoil has created a curated lending library made up of the books featured on our podcast! If you can’t buy these books, then borrow them! Link: https://libbyapp.com/library/quatrefoil/curated-1404336/page-1 Support the show

Between 50-75% of my friends died of AIDS. I was trying to figure out what had happened to our community. Today we meet Gabriel Rotello and we’re talking about the queer book that saved his life: Gay New York by George Chauncey. Gabriel Rotello is an Emmy-nominated and GLAAD Award-winning writer, director, producer, journalist and musician. He published his nonfiction book in 1997: Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men. In 1989 he launched OutWeek Magazine as its editor-in-chief. In 1993, he became the first openly gay op-ed columnist for a major American newspaper, New York Newsday. He was also a columnist for The Advocate. For almost three decades, Gabriel has written, directed and produced dozens of television documentaries for HBO, Netflix, National Geographic, and Comedy Central. Gay New York brilliantly shatters the myth that before the 1960s gay life existed in the closet, where all gay men were isolated, invisible, and ashamed. Based on years of research in diaries, letters, newspaper stories, and police reports, George Chauncey describes the saloons, speakeasies, and streets where queer men gathered; the intimate parties and immense drag balls where they celebrated; the highly visible residential enclaves they built in Greenwich Village, Harlem, and Times Square; and the complex prewar sexual culture they inhabited, which did not divide men into heterosexuals and homosexuals. George Chauncey is the DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University and previously taught at Yale and the University of Chicago. Connect with Gabriel website: gabrielrotello.com Our Bookshop Visit our Bookshop for new releases, current bestsellers, banned books, critically acclaimed LGBTQ books, or peruse the books featured on our podcasts: bookshop.org/shop/thisqueerbook Buy your copy of Gay New York here: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9781541699212 Buy your copy of The CBGB Conspiracy: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9798888249093 Become an Associate Producer! Become an Associate Producer of our podcast through a $20/month sponsorship on Patreon! A professionally recognized credit, you can gain access to Associate Producer meetings to help guide our podcast into the future! Get started today: patreon.com/thisqueerbook Credits Host/Founder: John Parker Executive Producer: Jim Pounds Associate Producers: Archie Arnold, K Jason Bryan and David Rephan, Bob Bush, Natalie Cruz, Troy Ford, Jonathan Fried, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, Sean Smith, and Karsten Vagner Patreon Subscribers: Stephen D., Stephen Flamm, Ida Göteburg, Thomas Michna, Sofia Nerman, and Gary Nygaard. Creative and Accounting support provided by: Gordy Erickson Quatrefoil Library Quatrefoil has created a curated lending library made up of the books featured on our podcast! If you can’t buy these books, then borrow them! Link: https://libbyapp.com/library/quatrefoil/curated-1404336/page-1 Support the show

This book helped me understand my brain and in particular the queer brain. Today we meet Max Hovey and we’re talking about the queer book that saved his life: The Velvet Rage by Alan Downs. Max Hovey is a London-based writer, creator, and queer advocate. He dedicates his platform to sparking discussions about and promoting body acceptance, sex positivity, mental health awareness, and other topics relating to LGBTQIA+ issues. His writing and work have been featured in the Independent, Attitude Magazine, GQ, Bustle, and other outlets. No Fats, No Fems: A Guide to Queer Empathy and Unpacking Prejudice is his first book (comes out May 19, 2026). Through brave individual stories and compassionate analysis, The Velvet Rage explores how shame is insidious, and can be traced back to childhood feelings of "otherness". Drawing on contemporary psychological research, The Velvet Rage offers a path to emotional well-being and an end to self-defeating behavior. Alan Downs, PhD is a clinical psychologist and the bestselling author of seven books. Connect with Max youtube: youtube.com/@climaxlgbtq instagram: @max_hovey tiktok: @maxhovey Our Bookshop Visit our Bookshop for new releases, current bestsellers, banned books, critically acclaimed LGBTQ books, or peruse the books featured on our podcasts: bookshop.org/shop/thisqueerbook Buy your copy of The Velvet Rage here: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9780802135223 Buy your copy of No Fats No Femmes: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9780063423466 Become an Associate Producer! Become an Associate Producer of our podcast through a $20/month sponsorship on Patreon! A professionally recognized credit, you can gain access to Associate Producer meetings to help guide our podcast into the future! Get started today: patreon.com/thisqueerbook Credits Host/Founder: John Parker Executive Producer: Jim Pounds Associate Producers: Archie Arnold, K Jason Bryan and David Rephan, Bob Bush, Natalie Cruz, Troy Ford, Jonathan Fried, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, Sean Smith, and Karsten Vagner Patreon Subscribers: Stephen D., Stephen Flamm, Ida Göteburg, Thomas Michna, Sofia Nerman, and Gary Nygaard. Creative and Accounting support provided by: Gordy Erickson Quatrefoil Library Quatrefoil has created a curated lending library made up of the books featured on our podcast! If you can’t buy these books, then borrow them! Link: https://libbyapp.com/library/quatrefoil/curated-1404336/page-1 Support the show

This book has a very fabulous determined, genderfluid, and Bi character. Reading her released something in me. Today we meet Sarah Stone and we’re talking about the queer book that saved their life: The Passion by Jeanette Winterson. Sarah Stone (she/they) is the author of Marriage to the Sea; Hungry Ghost Theater, a finalist for the 38th annual Northern California Book Awards; and The True Sources of the Nile, as well as co-author, with Ron Nyren, of Deepening Fiction: A Practical Guide for Intermediate and Advanced Writers. Sarah’s work has appeared in many publications, including Ploughshares, StoryQuarterly, Scoundrel Time, Alta Journal online for the California Book Club, and A Kite in the Wind: Fiction Writers on Their Craft. She has taught for UC Berkeley, the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers, and Stanford Continuing Studies, AND has written for Korean public television, reported on human rights in Burundi, AND looked after orphan chimpanzees at the Jane Goodall Institute. The Passion was a 1987 novel described as "arresting, elegant." Set in Napoleon's Europe, The Passion tells the intertwined stories of Henri, a young Frenchmen who serves as a cook in Napoleon's army, and Villanelle who is a red-haired (and web-footed!) Venetian. Jeanette Winterson's (CBE) first novel was Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. She has written thirteen novels, one memoir, and two collections of short stories. She has also written children's books, non-fiction and screenplays. She is Professor of New Writing at the University of Manchester. Connect with Sarah website: sarahstoneauthor.com instagram: @sarahstoneauthor Our Bookshop Visit our Bookshop for new releases, current bestsellers, banned books, critically acclaimed LGBTQ books, or peruse the books featured on our podcasts: bookshop.org/shop/thisqueerbook Buy your copy of The Passion here: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9780802135223 Buy your copy of Marriage to the Sea: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9781961897847 Become an Associate Producer! Become an Associate Producer of our podcast through a $20/month sponsorship on Patreon! A professionally recognized credit, you can gain access to Associate Producer meetings to help guide our podcast into the future! Get started today: patreon.com/thisqueerbook Credits Host/Founder: John Parker Executive Producer: Jim Pounds Associate Producers: Archie Arnold, K Jason Bryan and David Rephan, Bob Bush, Natalie Cruz, Troy Ford, Jonathan Fried, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, Sean Smith, and Karsten Vagner Patreon Subscribers: Stephen D., Terry D., Stephen Flamm, Ida Göteburg, Thomas Michna, Sofia Nerman, and Gary Nygaard. Creative and Accounting support provided by: Gordy Erickson Quatrefoil Library Quatrefoil has created a curated lending library made up of the books featured on our podcast! If you can’t buy these books, then borrow them! Link: https://libbyapp.com/library/quatrefoil/curated-1404336/page-1 Support the show