This Queer Book Saved My Life

Keep It Queer Media
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Fans of On Being and Los Culturistas love this 2024 GLAAD Media Award nominee for Outstanding Podcast. Featuring Carmen Maria Machado, Alison Bechdel, Jennifer Finney Boylan, Greg Louganis, Becky Albertalli, and so many more, guests from across the rainbow tell these authors how their books helped them overcome alienation, gender dysphoria, familial homophobia, and being outed. Essayist and Lambda Literary Fellow John Parker hosts the conversations with a gentle and energetic style, standing in as conversational partner for posthumous authors. Stay tuned to off-weeks which features new episodes of 7 Minutes in Book Heaven and The Gaily Show.

  1. 5d ago

    The Gaily Show: Ilana Masad's Pride Month Book Recs

    Our next episode of This Queer Book Saved My Life drops June 30th! In our off weeks we air episodes from The Gaily Show. It's the only daily LGBTQ news and talk show in the US! John hosts it and it airs on AM950-KTNF (Minneapolis), WCPT 820 AM (Chicago), 92.7 FM WMDX (Madison, WI), plus weekly on NewsTalk WHMP (Amherst, MA) and Alternative Talk 1150AM KKNW (Seattle). In this episode, it’s the third Friday of the month and every third Friday of the month John welcomes author and critic Ilana Masad for her reviews and recommendations! Ilana Masad is a writer of fiction, nonfiction, and criticism. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, New York Times, LA Times, Washington Post, NPR, The Atlantic, StoryQuartlerly, Catapult, Buzzfeed, Joyland, The Account, and many more. She is the author of the novel All My Mother’s Lovers and the Lambda Literary Award winning novel Beings. Masad holds a PhD in English from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, has taught a wide variety of creative writing and literature courses, and also provides editorial services to authors. 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 Real quick: yes, you too can be a guest on our podcast! If you have a queer book that had a life-saving impact for you, then please visit thisqueerbook.com and fill out the form on the homepage! Looking forward to hearing back from you! Support the show

    24 min

  2. Jun 16

    Transition with J. Brooke

    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 Real quick: yes, you too can be a guest on our podcast! If you have a queer book that had a life-saving impact for you, then please visit thisqueerbook.com and fill out the form on the homepage! Looking forward to hearing back from you! Support the show

    38 min

  3. Jun 2

    Sea of Tranquility with Jill Rosenberg and Paul Russell

    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 Real quick: yes, you too can be a guest on our podcast! If you have a queer book that had a life-saving impact for you, then please visit thisqueerbook.com and fill out the form on the homepage! Looking forward to hearing back from you! Support the show

    57 min

  4. May 19

    Stone Butch Blues with Perry Zurn

    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 Real quick: yes, you too can be a guest on our podcast! If you have a queer book that had a life-saving impact for you, then please visit thisqueerbook.com and fill out the form on the homepage! Looking forward to hearing back from you! Support the show

    46 min

  5. May 5

    Carol with Lynette D'Amico

    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 Real quick: yes, you too can be a guest on our podcast! If you have a queer book that had a life-saving impact for you, then please visit thisqueerbook.com and fill out the form on the homepage! Looking forward to hearing back from you! Support the show

    46 min

  6. Apr 21

    Gay New York with Gabriel Rotello

    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 Real quick: yes, you too can be a guest on our podcast! If you have a queer book that had a life-saving impact for you, then please visit thisqueerbook.com and fill out the form on the homepage! Looking forward to hearing back from you! Support the show

    52 min

  7. Apr 7

    The Velvet Rage with Max Hovey

    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 Real quick: yes, you too can be a guest on our podcast! If you have a queer book that had a life-saving impact for you, then please visit thisqueerbook.com and fill out the form on the homepage! Looking forward to hearing back from you! Support the show

    45 min

  8. Mar 24

    The Passion with Sarah Stone

    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 Real quick: yes, you too can be a guest on our podcast! If you have a queer book that had a life-saving impact for you, then please visit thisqueerbook.com and fill out the form on the homepage! Looking forward to hearing back from you! Support the show

    38 min
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5
out of 5
44 Ratings

About

Fans of On Being and Los Culturistas love this 2024 GLAAD Media Award nominee for Outstanding Podcast. Featuring Carmen Maria Machado, Alison Bechdel, Jennifer Finney Boylan, Greg Louganis, Becky Albertalli, and so many more, guests from across the rainbow tell these authors how their books helped them overcome alienation, gender dysphoria, familial homophobia, and being outed. Essayist and Lambda Literary Fellow John Parker hosts the conversations with a gentle and energetic style, standing in as conversational partner for posthumous authors. Stay tuned to off-weeks which features new episodes of 7 Minutes in Book Heaven and The Gaily Show.

Information

  • Creator
    Keep It Queer Media
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    139
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 This Queer Book Productions, LLC
  • Show Website
    This Queer Book Saved My Life

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