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The Fight of Our Lives:
​AIDS in America
David Levithan and Gabriel Duckels

​Wednesday, April 22nd at 7pm

A thoughtful, poignant look at the AIDS crisis in the United States that includes primary source interviews, history, medical research, and cultural touchpoints.

The AIDS crisis in America is complex and composed of countless individual stories of grief, love, and advocacy. Its history shows the power of youth activism, how creativity and community can be vehicles for social change, and how bigotry and misinformation led to inequality in care.

The early days of the AIDS crisis saw LGBTQ+ and other marginalized communities making strides in the fight for equality. As many people in positions of power were slow to act or actively didn’t pay attention until their own communities were affected, the fight for equality turned into a fight for their lives. Grassroots efforts filled in gaps where mainstream medicine and politics failed, and over time, a cultural shift of awareness emerged, which led to more research and more treatments. And while the disease has transitioned from a death sentence to one that people can live full lives with, there are still people dying of HIV/AIDS today because they can’t access the care they need. The fight may have begun decades ago, but is not yet over.

Award-winning author David Levithan and University of Cambridge PhD Gabriel Duckels detail a brief history of the epidemic, touching on key moments and figures, such as Ryan White, ACT UP, Larry Kramer and Anthony Fauci, Pedro Zamora from MTV’s The Real World, and the Names Quilt. Threaded throughout are poems, essays, and other creative works, in addition to first-person interviews and narratives. The most important takeaway is that we must remember. We need to know what happened and why. Our voices are powerful, and they can make a difference.

CANCELLED :(
​
The Good Pornographer
Brian Bouldrey
Thursday, April 30th at 7pm

Hell in a Handbag
​Dynasty Handbag/Jibz Cameron

Wednesday, May 6th at 7pm

​The debut memoir from the unhinged queer genius known as Dynasty Handbag.

A freak’s freak, iconoclast performance artist Jibz Cameron is best known for her multimedia act Dynasty Handbag, an alter ego lampooning the tragic absurdity of heterosexuality, queerness, the female body, capitalism, depression, art making, and life itself. With her debut memoir Hell in a Handbag, Cameron traces her warped and inspired perspective from a childhood spent with hippie clowns on the broken-down commune scene of Northern California, to making morbid zines as a teen in the East Bay punk scene, to in-your-face experiences of misogyny in New York City’s avant-garde theater scene, to the grisly birth of Dynasty Handbag and her droll evisceration of contemporary life. An engrossing and swiftly paced story as candid as it is wise, Hell in a Handbag is an immersion in unhinged queer genius.

Beloved Disciples
Mario Elías
​in conversation with KM Soehnlein

Tuesday, May 26th at 7pm

A dazzling gay love story where devotion sparkles in memory, obsession dances on the edge of reality, and a young man discovers the power of first love.

Simón fell in love the first night he stepped into the only gay club in his unnamed coastal hometown. Albi fell too, despite Simón’s quirks—the way he blinks to capture a memory, the way his hands fly when he talks, his inescapable toomuchness. Their first kiss comes on the beach, beneath mango trees. Blink. A season on their secret shore. Blink. The hidden garden Albi tends behind the rectory. Blink. Candles on a coconut cake for his twenty-sixth birthday. Blink. Blink. Blink.

But when Albi dies unexpectedly, Simón is left wandering in memories that feel more alive than the present. Friends and family—his Tía Cachita, best friend Lenita, and estranged mother—come to pull him back. He must choose: remain faithful to a love that haunts him, or rebuild a world without Albi.

With prose “that reverberates with heartfelt intensity, blurring the line between the erotic and the tender, the dreamlike and the real” (Saleem Haddad, Guapa), Elías’ debut novel celebrates the intensity of first love, the endurance of devotion, and the search for found family.

Mario Elías is a multidisciplinary artist of Cuban and Syrian descent based in Chicago. His work spans fiction, nonfiction, photography, painting, and printmaking, often exploring themes of identity, memory, and cultural inheritance. His book Queering the Male Gaze reimagined masterpieces of the classical and modern canon through essays and self-portraiture, giving voice to the often-overlooked queer and female figures who shaped them. His visual work has been featured in Vogue, San Francisco Magazine, and Dazed, among others. His portrait collection, Perennial Beauty, was the inaugural show for Golden Gate University’s Social Impact Artist Series. He is the founder of The KindaSuper Project, a philanthropic initiative offering free photography and video services to underserved communities. The project has partnered with wildfire survivors, immigrant families, women-of-color-led small businesses, and wildlife rescue organizations.

K.M. Soehnlein has been honored with the Jim Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize from Lambda Literary. His published novels are Army of Lovers, recognized by the Independent Publisher Book Awards for the best LGBTQ Fiction; The World of Normal Boys, winner of the Lambda Award for Gay Fiction; You Can Say You Knew Me When; and Robin and Ruby. He teaches in the MFA In Writing Program at University of San Francisco.

Conversion Therapy Dropout
Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez
in conversation with Matt Nightengale

​Sunday, May 31st at 7pm

A gay Christian's behind-the-scenes account of evangelical megachurches and eight years in conversion therapy before finding wholeness and authenticity.

Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez was an invisible architect behind evangelical Christianity's digital empire, crafting messages of belonging for some of the most influential megachurches--Hillsong Church, Elevation Church, Willow Creek--all while secretly questioning his own place within the faith.

In a desperate attempt to "fix" himself, he turned to conversion therapy, spending eight years trying to pray the gay away. And he wasn't alone. More than 700,000 people in the US have undergone some form of conversion therapy. Even though Exodus International, the largest ex-gay organization, closed in 2013, the practice still thrives in many conservative religious communities. After years of this harmful "therapy," Schraeder Rodriguez's sexuality never changed. But his faith did.The more time he spent in evangelical Christianity, the more he witnessed the hypocrisy of institutions that claimed to love everyone while quietly pushing people like him into silence. But Schraeder Rodriguez wouldn't remain silent. Instead, he forged a new path, discovering a vibrant faith beyond the constraints of non-affirming theology and finding a community that embraced his whole self.
​
Conversion Therapy Dropout is a behind-the-scenes look at megachurch culture, the hidden harm of non-affirming Christian spaces, and the ongoing impact of conversion therapy on gay Christians. This isn't just a coming-out story--it's about what happens after. About rebuilding a life outside the only world you've ever known. And the radical act of stepping into the light after being told your whole life to stay in the shadows. Sometimes, the greatest act of faith isn't holding on--it's letting go.
If you want to schedule a reading or book release party, please fill out our event request form. 

Please note: we concentrate on LGBTQ+ titles, but do occasionally make exceptions. However, we do not do events for self-help books, academic titles or business books. All events must be scheduled at least 6 weeks in advance and (since we do not have a public restroom) readings should last no longer than 90 minutes.

We truly wish we could host everyone who wants to hold an event here. Alas, there are simply too many wonderful authors with wonderful books for us to accommodate all the requests we receive. Thanks for understanding!
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