Great Queer Reads for (Year-Round) Pride
Pride month may be over, but there’s plenty of time to give your shelf its own parade. History and pop culture, futuristic and genre anthologies, rom-coms, graphic novels, and more — here’s a rainbow of great books for any desire.
Want more Pride events? Plenty of places have theirs after Seattle’s main event, including Tacoma (July 12) and Kitsap (July 19). See a big list of upcoming Seattle-area events here, plus a gold mine of gay stuff at Seattle Gay Scene.
Graphic Novels
Gaysians by Mike Curato. Out 6/3/2025, from Algonquin (Hachette).
Spent by Alison Bechdel. Out 5/20/2025, from Mariner (HarperCollins).
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Among the very best books of the year so far are two queer graphic novels, both of which take something of a fictionalized memoir approach. In Gaysians, Curato crafts a lovely coming-of-age arc, inspired by his early days in Seattle’s queer spaces and nightlife. It’s a special treat for us longtime Seattleites in particular, as streetscapes and old haunts (R Place and Re-Bar among them) are readily recognizable. His tale, centered on four characters, merits a careful read; but it’s the beautiful visuals accompanying them — lush imagery with bright color washes of pink and blue, and the occasional rainbow and dusting of gold — that make this an inviting volume to open again and again.
Spent, meanwhile, feels grittier, less nostalgic, an existential crisis in our current times — but still, somehow, a blast to read. The cartoonist behind the pioneering queer comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For and the graphic-memoir-turned-musical Fun Home returns, now grappling with increasingly dire headlines and trying to maintain a vibrant queer community (and some sanity); toying with artistic control and commercial success; and wrangling goats and cats. A treat for longtime fans, several of her DTWOF characters (here, called the Lesbian PETA Members to Watch Out For) make significant appearances throughout, stand-ins for the community Bechdel is adrift without.
Fiction & Lit
Palm Meridian by Grace Flahive. Out 6/10/2025, from Avid Reader Press (Simon & Schuster).
Four Squares by Bobby Finger. Out 6/18/2024 (6/10/2025 in paperback), from Putnam (Penguin Random House).
Side Notes From the Archivist by Anastacia-Reneé. Out 3/14/2023, from Amistad (HarperCollins).
The Complete Works of Pat Parker edited by Julie R. Enszer. Out 10/15/2016, from Sapphic Classics (Sinister Wisdom).
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Four books by queer authors hop nimbly across generations to show our present most clearly through the past and future states. New release Palm Meridian spirits us away to a retirement home for queer women in the year 2067, 40 years into the future; those old fogeys are us. Somewhere on the Florida coast of the future, which is much further inland than it used to be, these retirees meet the consequences of our current world. But this community has so much light and caring within it that Flahive’s imaginative debut novel is a hoot, even as it contends with a tense future.
In a similar vein, Four Squares finds a gay man facing severe loneliness in his golden years, although perhaps he was lonely all along. In a tale that hops back and forth from the AIDS crisis and the present, he finds surprising community once he drags himself out of his norm.
And two Black queer poets of different generations write not about queerness, specifically, but deliver powerful, vivid verse through that lens, as queer Black mothers, seers, visionaries, poets. Pat Parker’s writing is most easily found now in The Complete Works, a clear labor of love; though if you can find her original slimmer collections, they make for more approachable volumes. Parker was lost far too young, in 1989, but her voice still brings a stunning sense of urgency along with a powerful recall.
A generational voice still very much alive and writing, Anastacia-Reneé — past Seattle Civic Poet now living in New York — sees and distills the truths of place, of ages, of aging and growing, with remarkable clarity and a sneaky urgency. Her Side Notes From the Archivist is a faithful companion, full of tough love, memory, and compassion. And though it’s labeled “poems” on the cover, Side Notes defies categorization; memoir, verse, cultural catalog and historic critique, “the archivist” truly is a fitting title for what the award-winning poet embodies here.
History & Pop Culture
Dining Out by Erik Piepenburg. Out 6/3/2025, from Grand Central (Hachette).
Thank You for Calling the Lesbian Line by Elizabeth Lovatt. Out 5/27/2025, from Grand Central/Legacy Lit (Hachette).
Slapping Leather by Elyssa Ford & Rebecca Scofield. Out 1/9/2024, from University of Washington Press.
Beyond Ridiculous by Kenneth Elliott. Out 11/2/2023, from University of Iowa Press.
Hi Honey, I’m Homo! by Matt Baume. Out 5/23/2023, from Smart Pop (BenBella).
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Two fresh-out books look at two distinct ways queer people found community in the pre-digital days: through an anonymous phone line in London in the early ’90s, and in the many queer bars and restaurants, from New York to L.A. and in smaller locales in between, throughout the decades. Thank You for Calling the Lesbian Line takes a unique approach, beginning with scraps of entries from a phone log book, imagining expanded versions of those conversations, and using them to reflect on the author’s own experiences and on queer history more broadly. Dining Out resurrects vivid stories of long-gone queer spaces and still-here spots alike — from diners and late-night dives, to drag brunch and fine dining, to a “gay restaurant department store” in Atlanta. Both volumes speak to the sanctity of queer spaces, as beacons in less friendly times and as reminders of what’s lost when queer spaces depart, marked obsolete or exclusionary in the name of progress.
Hi Honey, I’m Homo! takes an outside-in approach, looking at queer portrayals (some obvious and open, some clandestine or inferred) to the popular gaze in the fictional worlds of sitcoms; that is, how queerness has been presented, usually by outsiders to outsiders. Those portrayals usually said less about queerness and more about the temperature of the rest of the country, both in what they were telling people and in what the networks and the viewers allowed them to tell. Though I could quibble with what’s included — surely Hot l Baltimore, the explosive and short-lived show based on Lanford Wilson’s play, merited more than a throw-away reference (and since it’s impossible to find, would have informed a lot, too) — this is a terrific collection.
Still approachable but with a decidedly more academic bent, two books from university presses look at some fringe areas: gay rodeo in Slapping Leather (where queer “cowfolx” make their own space on a hypermasculine circuit) and queer theatre in ’80s New York in Beyond Ridiculous (where the author/theatre director and playwright/drag artist Charles Busch exuberantly pushed the boundaries of the art amidst the AIDS crisis).
Wide ranging in topics and delivery style, together these five books inquire into community, queer subcultures, and portrayals over time, bringing a better understanding of the present by orienting us with the past.
Anthologies
Be Gay, Do Crime: 16 Stories of Queer Chaos edited by Molly Llewellyn & Kristel Buckley. Out 6/3/2025, from Dzanc Books.
Amplitudes: Stories of Queer and Trans Futurity edited by Lee Mandelo. Out 5/27/2025, from Erewhon Books.
Someplace Generous: A Romance Anthology edited by Elaina Ellis & Amber Flame. Out 5/28/2024, from Generous Press.
It Came From the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror edited by Joe Vallese. Out 10/4/2022, from The Feminist Press.
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Short stories have to do a lot in a short amount of space: orient you to the setting and the characters enough that you get them, and then get to the plot. Romance short stories in particular really have a tough job, because they have to drag it out for long enough to feel the desire before jumping in. The tales in Someplace Generous — which amply, but not exclusively, feature queer pairings — are exquisite, with humor and heat, settings commonplace and fantastical, some told in as little as a couple of pages, others woven in lush descriptions. Generous Press is a new press on the block, founded by Elaina Ellis and longtime Seattle writer-performer Amber Flame and publishing out of Bellingham. True to its name, Generous has an outsize hit with its first release, and two more out this year.
Whether you appreciate horror (especially) or not, there’s much to love in this collection of stories. It Came From the Closet features queer thoughts spun from horror films, including both social critiques of specific films and wide-ranging memories those films drum up in the writers. Tales cover the classics (The Exorcist), the modern (Get Out), the monsters (Godzilla), and and plenty more.
And two brand-new collections bring stories that feel just right for our times. Be Gay, Do Crime looks to the present-past, with could-be-now tales that somehow deliver on nostalgia too: from an amusingly awkward voyeur on the outside looking in, to a subpar artist with a disturbing chocolate rabbit, to a road trip with Dubble Bubble and regret. In contrast, Amplitudes feels a bit sci-fi with its future-present look, in a world that feels a lot like our times but sees things through to what comes next. It delivers in varying and unexpected ways — a road play of actors and magic; predictions on the future state of healthcare; a meditation on times of peace and a chronicle of war — and those make for a great daily companion, when you’ll need a break for a story but don’t know yet what kind of story you’ll need.
Rom-Coms
There’s a virtually endless list of queer romance novels you can check out, but it can be hard to find where to start. I lean toward the romantic comedy subset — usually wrapped in cartoonish covers that signal the lightness and brightness on the pages in between — but they’d better have good writing, fun setups, and characters who are easy to root for. Here are a few to start with.
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If descriptions of food turn you on as much as the steamy scenes, reach for these two. Both feature heated rivalries and couplings you can root for — and it all revolves around food.
Taste the Love by Karelia & Fay Stetz-Waters. Coming soon, out 7/15/2025, from Forever (Hachette).
Lavash at First Sight by Taleen Voskuni. Out 5/7/2024, from Berkley (Penguin Random House) (past pick; review here).
If your current mood is for sweet guys sorting themselves out, there’s a pretty extensive catalog, but here are three of my favorites:
Winging It With You by Chip Pons. Out 6/10/2025, from Putnam (Penguin Random House) (June pick; review here).
Showmance by Chad Beguelin. Out 10/1/2024, from Penguin Books (Penguin Random House).
We Could Be Heroes by Philip Ellis. Out 7/4/2024, from Putnam (Penguin Random House) (past pick; review here).
If happy chance encounters are your thing or you tend to reach for the latest big authors, try these new releases. Guillory’s, marking her gay romance debut, is more tentative and sweet; while Blake and Lee, who both typically write F/F pairings, each lend a wild-child character to their small-town series.
Dream On, Ramona Riley by Ashley Herring Blake. Out 5/13/2025, from Berkley (Penguin Random House).
Flirting Lessons by Jasmine Guillory. Out 4/8/2025, from Berkley (Penguin Random House).
The Relationship Mechanic by Karmen Lee. Out 1/21/2025, from Afterglow Books (Harlequin).
If you want something witty and sweet but aren’t really sure what yet, look at books by Alexis Hall, whose seemingly inexhaustible ideas have produced some of my favorite rom-com romps. Hall’s catalog covers a bewildering array of specificity and subgenres: baking and bisexual erasure (Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake); baking and neurosis (Paris Daillencourt is About to Crumble) (review here); hapless gay boys (10 Things That Never Happened, Boyfriend Material); Regency (Something Extraordinary); fantasy (Mortal Follies); steamy power plays (For Real) (review here); lonely recluse meets wrath of nature (Waiting for the Flood); and, soon, gamers (the upcoming Looking for Group).
Among the hot sequels out later this year, I’m most looking forward to the third in Hall’s bake-off series — but in the long wait ’til that December release, you’ve got plenty of options. Enjoy!
Chase D. Anderson is Editor & Producer of NWTheatre.org.