Am I in love with a woman or am I a woman who's in love with women?

Today we meet Lauren Sanders and we’re talking about the queer book that saved her life: Nightwood by Djuna Barnes.

Lauren Sanders (she/they) is the author of the novel Kamikaze Lust, which won a 2000 Lambda Literary Award and was reissued this fall in a 25th anniversary edition. Her other novels include With or Without You (a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award) and The Book of Love and Hate. Short fiction, reviews, rants, etc. have appeared in various publications. By day they run editorial and digital strategy for a national foundation working in education and the arts. Lauren lives in the nation of Brooklyn with her partner and staffie mix, Maverick.

Djuna Barnes (1892-1982) was born in Cornwall-on-Hudson, NY, and worked as a journalist in New York before leaving the country to spend many years in Paris and London. She returned to New York in 1941, and lived in Greenwich Village until her death.

Connect with Lauren

website: laurenisanders.com

instagram: @lisanders99

facebook: facebook.com/lauren.i.sanders
linkedin: linkedin.com/in/lauren-sanders-5345b67

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 Nightwood: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9780811216715

Buy Kamikaze Lust: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9781888451085

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, Paul Kaefer, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, and Sean Smith
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

A new episode of This Queer Book Saved My Life drops on November 4th! In our off weeks we play episodes of The Gaily Show which John hosts. The Gaily Show is the only daily LGBTQ progressive news and talk radio show in the country airing in Minneapolis (AM950-KTNF) and Chicago (WCPT 820).

In this episode, Theodor Seuss Geisel Award winner David LaRochelle is back with two new books: How To Draw A Tree and Mr Fox’s Game of “No!”. You can listen to David's episode on this podcast here!

Buy David’s books here:

Mr Fox’s Game of No! https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9781536229677

How to Draw a Tree: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9781681343211

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

Support the show

A lot of us get to our 30s and we don't know what the next step is. Sometimes you make a big pivot.

Today we meet Aj Writer and we’re talking about the queer book that saved his life: One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston.

Aj Writer is a nonbinary writer and general dumpster fire of a human being (editor's note: Aj's words!). After a decade in journalism and conversations with top creatives in their field, Aj opened FWDIO Studios, a creative content company, that focuses on making media that is representative of the diversity in LGBT and BIPOC populations. Aj's second book, Strip Me Down, came out in paperback this month and the company is busy working on its first pilot animation. They want to expand to comics and audiobooks next. "If we want to tell our stories, we have to do it ourselves."

Casey McQuiston is a #1 New York Times bestselling author of romantic comedies, including One Last Stop, I Kissed Shara Wheeler, and Red, White & Royal Blue, whose writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Bon Appetit. Born and raised in southern Louisiana, Casey now lives in New York City with a poodle mix named Pepper.

Connect with Aj

website: fwdiostudios.com

patreon: patreon.com/FWDIOStudios

tiktok: @ajwriter
bluesky: @ajwriter.bsky.social or @fwdio.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

Buy One Last Stop: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9781250244499

Buy Strip Me Down: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9798304331609

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, Paul Kaefer, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, and Sean Smith
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

This book flipped on a lot of switches in my head.

Today we meet Joel Freedman and we’re talking about the queer book that saved his life: Good Times/Bad Times by James Kirkwood.

Joel Freedman taught English at a college-prep high school in South L.A., where for most of his tenure, he was the only out gay instructor. He’s a retired writing instructor at L.A. Southwest College and a produced playwright. He published “Echoes of Silence: Empathy and Making Connections through Writing Process” in English Journal, which is a publication of the National Council of Teachers of English. As a member of his union, he contributed to the union’s paper United Teacher. He co-chaired the UCLA-WP’s LGBTQ Study Group and has three as-of-yet unpublished novels: 10 Months to Vermont, All Beneath the Sky, and Love Song. He has been married for 40 years to author-comic-producer Mike Player.

James Kirkwood was a Tony Award-winning author, actor, and playwright. During his career, he won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Connect with Joel

bluesky: joelmfreewriter.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

Buy Good Times/Bad Times: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9781476767536

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, Paul Kaefer, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, and Sean Smith
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

How do I move forward in life without any queer representation in my life?

Today we meet Troy Ford and we’re talking about the queer book that saved his life: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

Troy Ford is an author and editor, and the publisher of two popular newsletters: the writing-focused Ford Knows Books, and Qstack, an LGBTQIA+ Directory, Platform, and Community of newsletter writers and readers on Substack. His debut novel, Lamb, released in June 2025. Unsung, his short film with co-director Kimberly Warner of Unfixed Media, received the OurPride 2025 Innovative Storytelling Award. A native Californian, he grew up overseas in the Middle East and eventually settled in the San Francisco-Bay Area where he earned a B.A. in Rhetoric from UC Berkeley. Since 2019, he has lived in Sitges, Spain with his husband and AmStaff Terrier.

In The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely traveling any farther than his pantry or cellar. But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard Gandalf and a company of dwarves arrive on his doorstep one day to whisk him away on an adventure. They have launched a plot to raid the treasure hoard guarded by Smaug the Magnificent, a large and very dangerous dragon. Bilbo reluctantly joins their quest, unaware that on his journey to the Lonely Mountain he will encounter both a magic ring and a frightening creature known as Gollum.

J.R.R. Tolkien was a distinguished academic, though he is best known for writing The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion, plus other stories and essays. His books have been translated into over sixty languages and have sold many millions of copies worldwide.

Connect with Troy

substack: troyford.substack.com
website: troyfordauthor.com
bluesky: @mrtroyfordauthor.bsky.social
instagram: @mrtroyfordauthor

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 The Hobbit: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9780547928227

Buy Lamb: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9798992613810

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, Paul Kaefer, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, and Sean Smith
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

What this book showed me was how to balance pieces of myself that didn't fit together.

Today we meet Abdi Nazemian and we’re talking about the queer book that saved his life: Another Country by James Baldwin.

Abdi Nazemian spent his childhood in a series of exciting locations (Tehran, Paris, Toronto, New York), but could usually be found in his bedroom watching old movies and reading. His first novel, The Walk-In Closet, was awarded Best Debut at the Lambda Literary Awards. He has written three young adult novels: The Authentics, Like a Love Story, and The Chandler Legacies. As Head of Development for Water’s End Productions, Abdi has been an executive producer or associate producer on numerous films, including Call Me By Your Name, It Happened In L.A., The Price, The House of Tomorrow, and Little Woods.

Another Country, stunning for its emotional intensity and haunting sensuality, depicts men and women, blacks and whites, stripped of their masks of gender and race by love and hatred at the most elemental and sublime. It was nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read.

James Baldwin was born in 1924 and educated in New York. The author of over twenty works of fiction and non-fiction, Baldwin received numerous accolades, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Ford Foundation Grant.

Connect with Abdi

website: abdinazemian.com
instagram: @abdaddy

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 Another Country: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9780679744719

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, 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 was combating homophobia against one of the most powerful institutions in the world.

Today we meet Tim Jon Semmerling and we’re talking about the queer book that saved his life: The Deviant's War: The Homosexual vs. the United States of America by Eric Cervini.

Tim Jon Semmerling is an award-winning author, a respected mitigation expert, and an attorney in Illinois. His books and publications are held in over 900 libraries throughout the world and they are highly quoted in books, articles, and papers discussing the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, politics, post-colonialism, discrimination, racism, and visual culture. His written work has informed and inspired museum displays at the Mark Twain Boyhood Museum. Christie's Auctions cites Semmerling’s scholarship to value political and propaganda art for sale. Tim Jon holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures from Indiana University, an M.A. in Middle East Studies from the University of Texas at Austin, and a J.D. from DePaul University’s College of Law.

In The Deviant's War: The Homosexual vs. the United States of America, Eric Cervini tells the story of Frank Kameny, a rising astronomer working for the U.S. Defense Department. When President Eisenhower issues an Executive Order to fire all LGBTQ federal employees, the Pentagon investigates and then fires Kameny for his sexuality. But he fights back. He founds The Mattachine Society of Washington, the first organization to protest the systematic persecution of gay federal employees.

Eric Cervini is an award-winning historian of LGBTQ+ culture and politics. He received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Cambridge. He is also the creator and executive producer of The Book of Queer, which airs on Discovery+.

Connect with Tim Jon

website: themercuryendeavor.com
instagram: @timjonsemmerling

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 The Deviant's War: The Homosexual vs. the United States of America: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9781250798503

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, 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 we live radiantly when the world seems bent on our erasure?

Today we meet Caro De Robertis and we’re talking about the queer book that saved their life: Notes of a Crocodile by Qiu Miaojin, translated by Bonnie Huie.

Caro’s books best-selling books have Stonewall Book Awards and the Golden Poppy Octavia E. Butler Award; and, they have been finalists for the PEN/Faulkner Award, Lambda Literary Award, and the Kirkus Prize. These books include The Palace of Eros, The President and the Frog, Cantoras, The Gods of Tango, and Perla. Caro was the first openly nonbinary person to received the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature. A professor at San Francisco State University, Caro is co-curating Conjuring Power: the Roots & Futures of Queer & Trans Movements, for San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. It will open Spring 2026. Their newest book is So Many Stars: An Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and Two-Spirit People of Color.

Set in the post-martial-law era of late-1980s Taipei, Notes of a Crocodile is a coming-of-age story of queer misfits discovering love, friendship, and artistic affinity while hardly studying at Taiwan’s most prestigious university. Told through the eyes of an anonymous lesbian narrator nicknamed Lazi, this cult classic is a postmodern pastiche of diaries, vignettes, mash notes, aphorisms, exegesis, and satire by an incisive prose stylist and major countercultural figure.

Connect with Caro

website: caroderobertis.com
instagram: @caro_derobertis

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 Notes of a Crocodile: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9781681370767

Buy So Many Stars: An Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and Two-Spirit People of Color: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9781643756875

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, 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