What would it happen if I allowed my thoughts about my gender become known to me?

Today we meet Dr. Christina Neuwirth and we’re talking about the queer book that saved their life: Something That May Shock and Discredit You by Daniel M. Lavery. And Daniel joins us for the conversation!

Dr. Christina Neuwirth is a writer, researcher and bookseller based in Edinburgh. Their 2018 novella Amphibian was shortlisted for Scotland’s National Book Awards. Their writing has been published in Gutter Magazine and The Skinny. At Lighthouse Bookshop, Christina runs the Bread & Roses Prize for Radical Publishing.

Daniel M. Lavery is the “Dear Prudence” advice columnist at Slate, the cofounder of The Toast, and the New York Times bestselling author of Texts From Jane Eyre and The Merry Spinster. In 2024, he published his debut novel Women's Hotel.

From a thoughtful analysis of the beauty of William Shatner to a sinister reimagining of HGTV’s House Hunters, and featuring figures as varied as Anne of Green Gables, Columbo, and the cast of Mean Girls, Something That May Shock and Discredit You is a hilarious and emotionally exhilarating compendium that combines personal history with cultural history to make you see yourself and those around you entirely anew.

Special Limited Series

This episode is part of a special limited series of episodes featuring only guests who are owners or staff at LGBTQ bookstores. Airing April-June 2025, these episodes will feature six bookstores across the United States and United Kingdom.

Today's guest is a bookseller at Lighthouse Bookshop, a queer-owned and woman-led independent community bookshop. It is an unapologetically activist, intersectional, feminist, antiracist, lgbtq+ community space. In 2020 it was nominated Scotland’s Best Independent Bookshop.

Connect with Christina and Daniel

website: christinaneuwirth.com

website: danielmlavery.com
instagram: @daniel_m_lavery

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 (learn more about my name change)
Executive Producer: Jim Pounds
Associate Producers: Archie Arnold, K Jason Bryan and David Rephan, Bob Bush, Natalie Cruz, Jonathan Fried, Paul Kaefer, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, and Sean Smith
Patreon Subscribers: Stephen D., Terry D., Stephen Flamm, Ida Göteburg, Thomas Michna, 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

Join us in helping Lambda Literary raise $20k for The Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices to ensure all writers can attend. Donate here: http://bit.ly/3RjW51a

Support the show

A new episode in our special limited series featuring owners/staff of LGBTQ bookstores drops next week on April 29th! In our off weeks, we air a recent episode of The Gaily Show which John hosts for AM950 Radio. The Gaily Show is one of the only daily LGBTQ news and talk shows in the country.

Joining us today: Emmy winner Ross Mathews and Dr. Wellithon Garcia-Mathews’ new book Tio and Tio: The Ring Bearers came out April 15! Inspired by their wedding and their nephews' role in the wedding, it's a sweet story about love, family, responsibilities, and culture. Order it here: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9780593752586

Plus, Audie and Earphone award-winning narrator Natalie Naudus’ debut novel Gay the Pray Away comes out May 20, 2025. Natalie shares with us the gripping queer YA romance of an Asian American teen who longs to break free of the conservative cult she was raised in. Pre-order it here: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9781683695110.

Watch on YouTube

We're in video too! You can watch this episode at youtube.com/@thegailyshow

Credits

Host/Founder: John Parker (learn more about my name change)
Executive Producer: Jim Pounds
Production and Distribution Support: Brett Johnson, AM950
Marketing/Advertising Support: Chad Larson, Laura Hedlund, Jennifer Ogren, AM950
Accounting and Creative Support: Gordy Erickson

Join us in helping Lambda Literary raise $20k for The Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices to ensure all writers can attend. Donate here: http://bit.ly/3RjW51a

Support the show

I was 8,000 miles from home asking is it ok to be gay? That's when I wandered into a shop found this book.

Today we meet Stephanie Beardslee and we’re talking about the queer book that saved her life: Dare Truth or Promise by Paula Boock. And Paula joins us for the conversation!

Stephanie Beardslee is the owner of Wolf & Wyld’s Queer Bookstore, an online and pop-up bookstore based in Manitou Springs, Colorado. She is a Front Range (of Colorado) native that is really hacked off that the Pikes Peak Region doesn’t have a queer bookstore and is busy making the change she wants to see in the world. Her alter-ego slings books in the nearby Libraryland and has the pleasure of serving the county’s patrons via the bookmobile.

Paula Boock (she/her) is an award-winning New Zealand scriptwriter, producer and author. Her screen credits include story lining and writing on the The Strip, the internationally acclaimed drama series The Insiders Guide to Happiness and its 7-part prequel The Insiders Guide to Love. She won the 2003 AFTA Best Drama Script (with Kathryn Burnett) for The Strip. She has written five young adult novels and was a publisher and founding partner of Longacre Press.

In Dare Truth or Promise, self-assured Louie is gearing up for another successful year in high school. In the meantime Willa, who was kicked out of her last school, wants to be left alone. But each girl unexpectedly finds that plans mean nothing when it comes to love. Louie discovers acceptance, faith, and identity are not what they had seemed. And Willa finds herself suddenly willing to take another chance.

Special Limited Series

This episode is part of a special limited series of episodes featuring only guests who are owners or staff at LGBTQ bookstores. Airing April-June 2025, these episodes will feature six bookstores across the United States and United Kingdom.

Today's guest owns Wolf and Wyld's Queer Bookstore an independent online & pop-up bookstore based in Manitou Springs, Colorado. Wolf and Wyld's specializes in LGBTQ+ books. You can shop online at: wolfandwyld.com

Buy Paula's book at Wolf and Wyld's Queer Bookstore

Use this link: https://wolfandwyld.com/products/dare-truth-or-promise

Connect with Stephanie and Paula

website: wolfandwyld.com
bluesky: @wolfandwyldbooks.com

website: lippypictures.com/paula-boock

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 (learn more about my name change)
Executive Producer: Jim Pounds
Associate Producers: Archie Arnold, K Jason Bryan and David Rephan, Bob Bush, Natalie Cruz, Jonathan Fried, Paul Kaefer, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, and Sean Smith
Patreon Subscribers: Stephen D., Terry D., Stephen Flamm, Ida Göteburg, Thomas Michna, and Gary Nygaard.
Creative and Accounting support provided by: Gordy Erickson

Quatrefoil Library

If you can’t buy these books, then borrow them! Link:

Join us in helping Lambda Literary raise $20k for The Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices to ensure all writers can attend. Donate here: http://bit.ly/3RjW51a

Support the show

A new episode in our special limited series featuring owners/staff of LGBTQ bookstores drops next week on April 15th! In our off weeks, we air a recent episode of The Gaily Show which John hosts for AM950 Radio. The Gaily Show is one of the only daily LGBTQ news and talk shows in the country.

In this Thinking Clearly, Thinking Queerly episode, attorney Dr. Tim Jon Semmerling joins us to share his experiences in GTMO as a gay-American: death-penalty-defense, working with al-Qaeda defendants charged with the crimes of 9/11, and confronting the one of the most powerful institutions in the world -- the U.S. Department of Defense. His writing shows that the Lavender Scare may not be entirely extinguished, but rather homophobia remains among the government’s worst urges today.

Watch on YouTube

We're in video too! You can watch this episode at youtube.com/@thegailyshow

Credits

Host/Founder: John Parker (learn more about my name change)
Executive Producer: Jim Pounds
Production and Distribution Support: Brett Johnson, AM950
Marketing/Advertising Support: Chad Larson, Laura Hedlund, Jennifer Ogren, AM950
Accounting and Creative Support: Gordy Erickson

Join us in helping Lambda Literary raise $20k for The Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices to ensure all writers can attend. Donate here: http://bit.ly/3RjW51a

Support the show

How was I going to reshape my life into something new after this fundamental part of me had been buried?

Today we meet Casey Holland and we’re talking about the queer book that saved her life: Mostly Dead Things by Kristen Arnett. And Kristen joins us for the conversation!

Casey is one of the owners of Wayfaring Booksellers, a queer bookstore in MI. She's worked in bookstores for the last six years and is a lover of all things spooky and weird. When she's not slinging books, you can find her spending time with her cat, Nemo, whose hobbies include hunting Casey for sport.

Kristen Arnett is the queer Floridian author of With Teeth: A Novel which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and the bestselling novel Mostly Dead Things. She just published STOP ME IF YOU’VE HEARD THIS ONE, about a lesbian birthday party clown.

Mostly Dead Things tells the story of Jessa-Lynn Morton. In the wake of her father's suicide, Jessa has stepped up to manage his failing taxidermy business while the rest of the Morton family crumbles.

Special Limited Series

This episode is part of a special limited series of episodes featuring only guests who are owners or staff at LGBTQ bookstores. Airing April-June 2025, these episodes will feature six bookstores across the United States and United Kingdom.

Today's guest owns Wayfaring Booksellers, a queer/women-owned bookstore in Lansing, MI. Their mission is to celebrate and amplify queer books and stories while uplifting the LGBTQIA+ community. Visit them at 1023 S. Washington Avenue inside the REO Town Marketplace and at wayfaringbooksellers.com. Bluesky: @wayfaringbooks.bsky.social

Buy Kristen's books at Wayfaring Booksellers

Use this link: https://www.wayfaringbooksellers.com/s/search?q=Kristen%20Arnett

Connect with Casey and Kristen

website: wayfaringbooksellers.com
bluesky: @caseyholland.bsky.social

website: kristenarnettwriter.com
bluesky: @kristenarnett.bsky.social
instagram: @kristen__arnett

Become an Associate Producer!

A professionally recognized credit, gain access to Associate Producer meetings to guide our podcast into the future! patreon.com/thisqueerbook

Credits

Host/Founder: John Parker (learn more about my name change)
Executive Producer: Jim Pounds
Associate Producers: Archie Arnold, K Jason Bryan and David Rephan, Bob Bush, Natalie Cruz, Jonathan Fried, Paul Kaefer, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, and Sean Smith
Patreon Subscribers: Stephen D., Terry D., Stephen Flamm, Ida Göteburg, Thomas Michna, and Gary Nygaard.
Creative and Accounting support provided by: Gordy Erickson

Join us in helping Lambda Literary raise $20k for The Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices to ensure all writers can attend. Donate here: http://bit.ly/3RjW51a

Support the show

How do you get out of a spiral of shame and guilt and try to make the world a better place?

Today we meet Max Yeshaye Brumberg-Kraus and we’re talking about the queer book that saved their life: The Once and Future King by T.H. White.

Max studied classics and theatre at Beloit College, received their MA in Theology and the Arts from United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College. They are the author of The(y)ology: Mythopoetics for Queer/Trans Liberation with Punctum Press and the collection of poems Visions of Divine Love with AC Books, which brings together Julian of Norwich with Divine the Drag Queen. Their work explores memory, historiography, gender/sexuality, and myth through embodied practices.

Terence Hanbury "Tim" White was an English writer. He is best known for his Arthurian novels, which were published together in 1958 as The Once and Future King. One of his best known is the first of the series, The Sword in the Stone, which was published as a stand-alone book in 1938. Despite leading a single and very private life, Sylvia Townsend Warner argued in her definitive 1967 biography of white that he was gay.

The Once and Future King retells the saga of King Arthur, a fantasy classic as legendary as Excalibur and Camelot, and a poignant story of adventure, romance, and magic that has enchanted readers for generations.

Connect with Max

website: maxyeshaye.com
facebook: facebook.com/max.brumbergkraus
instagram: @cicadalamour

For ticket info for Incident at Peckerpah Ridge on March 21 and 22 head to: squirrelhausarts.com/events

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 own copy of The Once and Future King: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9780441627400

Buy The(y)ology: Mythopoetics for Queer/Trans Liberation: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9781685710866

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 (learn more about my name change)
Executive Producer: Jim Pounds
Associate Producers: Archie Arnold, K Jason Bryan and David Rephan, Bob Bush, Natalie Cruz, Jonathan Fried, Paul Kaefer, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, and Sean Smith
Patreon Subscribers: Stephen D., Terry D., Stephen Flamm, Ida Göteburg, Thomas Michna, 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/li

Join us in helping Lambda Literary raise $20k for The Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices to ensure all writers can attend. Donate here: http://bit.ly/3RjW51a

Support the show

When a queer book elevates our own expectations of ourselves and moves us to honor ourselves by saying: we deserve something more.

Today we meet Blair Fell and we’re talking about the queer book that saved his life: The Persian Boy by Mary Renault.

Blair Fell’s television work includes Queer as Folk, and the Emmy Award–winning California Connected. He’s written dozens of plays including the award-winning plays Naked Will and the downtown cult miniseries Burning Habits. He’s a two-time winner of the prestigious Doris Lippman Prize in Creative Writing from the City College of New York. His first novel The Sign For Home was long-listed by the Center For Fiction’s First Book Award. His upcoming novel Disco Witches of Fire Island comes out May 6, 2025.

Mary Renault was a British lesbian writer famed for her historically precise novels of the ancient world, including The Last of the Wine (1956), Fire From Heaven (1969), and The Persian Boy (1972). US publishers initially refused to publish her novel The Charioteer due to its positive portrayal of homosexuality and its happy ending. It was eventually published in 1959 and was a bestseller.

The Persian Boy traces the last years of Alexander’s life through the eyes of his lover, Bagoas. Abducted and gelded as a boy, Bagoas was sold as a courtesan to King Darius of Persia, but found freedom with Alexander after the Macedon army conquered his homeland. Their relationship sustains Alexander as he weathers assassination plots. After Alexander’s mysterious death, we are left wondering if this Persian boy understood the great warrior better than anyone.

Connect with Blair

website: blairfell.com
bluesky: @blairfell.bsky.social
instagram: @blair.fell

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 own copy of The Persian Boy: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9780394751016

Pre-order Disco Witches of Fire Island (arrives May 6, 2025): https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9798892420341

Buy The Sign For Home: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9781982175962

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, Jonathan Fried, Paul Kaefer, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, and Sean Smith
Patreon Subscribers: Stephen D., Terry D., Stephen Flamm, Ida Göteburg, Thomas Michna, 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 bo

Join us in helping Lambda Literary raise $20k for The Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices to ensure all writers can attend. Donate here: http://bit.ly/3RjW51a

Support the show

A new episode of This Queer Book Saved My Life drops next week on March 5! In our off weeks, we air a recent episode of The Gaily Show which J.P. hosts for AM950 Radio. The Gaily Show is one of the only daily LGBTQ news and talk shows in the country.

In this episode, author and teacher Belo Miguel Cipriani brings students from his writing courses at Metro State University in St. Paul, MN to read their work and talk about that queer writing life.

Watch on YouTube

We're in video too! You can watch this episode at youtube.com/@thegailyshow

Credits

Host/Founder: J.P. Der Boghossian
Executive Producer: Jim Pounds
Production and Distribution Support: Brett Johnson, AM950
Marketing/Advertising Support: Chad Larson, Laura Hedlund, Jennifer Ogren, AM950
Accounting and Creative Support: Gordy Erickson

Join us in helping Lambda Literary raise $20k for The Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices to ensure all writers can attend. Donate here: http://bit.ly/3RjW51a

Support the show