Showing titles in Biographies & Memoirs

Following in the footsteps of such category killers as Milk and Honey and Whiskey Words & a Shovel I, Fariha Róisín's poetry book is a collection of her thoughts as a young, queer, Muslim femme navigating the difficulties of her intersectionality. Simultaneously, this compilation unpacks the contentious relationship that exists between Róisín and her mother, her platonic and romantic heartbreaks, and the cognitive dissonance felt as a result of being so divided among her broad spectrum of identities.

Brought to you by Penguin. Lucy Sante has often felt like an outsider. Born in Belgium to conservative Catholic working-class parents, she was transplanted to the United States without ever entirely settling here. But a feeling of home finally arrived when she moved to New York City in the early...

Diligently sourced and researched, Boy with the Bullhorn provides both an intimate look into how activist strategies are developed and deployed, as well as a snapshot of life in New York City during the darkest days of the AIDS epidemic. He relies on his extensive archive of original ACT UP documents, news articles, and other published material, as well as activist videos and oral histories, to help flesh out actions, events, and the background stories of key activists.

It’s funny how life never pans out the way you’d expect. I always knew that something wasn’t right, that some part of my inside didn’t match my outside. What I didn’t know then is that I’m transgender, a realization that took a lifetime to fully unpack and understand. And to embrace. Growing up in Michigan I started off sheltered with no idea of what lay over the horizon, but serving in the navy opened my eyes to what possibilities might be within my grasp. I encountered many forks in the road, sometimes I made the right choice, sometimes my decisions were terribly wrong.

From the author of the award-winning novels Crossing the River and Scissors, Paper, Rock comes a powerful book about the transformative power of love. Fenton Johnson recounts the history of "how I feel in love how I came to be with someone else, how he came to death and how I helped." Johnson interweaves two stories: his own upbringing as the youngest of a Kentucky whiskey maker's nine children, and that of his lover Larry Rose, the only child of German Jews. survivors of the Holocaust.

A joyful celebration of the LGBTQ+ community’s development, history, and culture, packed with facts, trivia, timelines, and charts, and featuring 100 full color illustrations. Compiled and designed by queer power couple and illustrators extraordinaire, Ashley Molesso and Chessie Needham...

Meet Shane Jenek. Raised in the Brisbane suburbs by loving parents, Shane realises from a young age that he's not like all the other boys. At a performing arts agency he discovers his passion for song, dance and performance, and makes a promise to himself: to find a bigger stage. Meet Courtney Act.

One of nineteen children in a blended family, Hari Ziyad was raised by a Hindu Hare Kṛṣṇa mother and a Muslim father. Through reframing their own coming-of-age story, Ziyad takes listeners on a powerful journey of growing up queer and Black in Cleveland, Ohio, and of navigating the equally complex path toward finding their true self in New York City. Exploring childhood, gender, race, and the trust that is built, broken, and repaired through generations, Ziyad investigates what it means to live beyond the limited narratives Black children are given....

In this funny and poignant memoir and cultural history, the television personality, columnist, and author of Drag pays homage to Lou Reed’s groundbreaking album Transformer on its fiftieth anniversary and recalls its influence on his coming of age and coming out through glam rock. In November...

Patricia Highsmith, author of classics such as The Talented Mr. Ripley and Strangers on a Train, was a lesbian and a writer who defied simple categorization. Marijane Meaker is the author of more than 40 books. Meaker and Highsmith met in New York City, became lovers, and embarked on a romance amidst the bohemian set of Greenwich Village and the literary crowd of Fire Island. Written with wit and brassy candor, this is a revealing look at a controversial icon of popular American fiction.

Transland is a fiery and revealing memoir that delves into what happens when a non-binary person goes looking for self-worth and a sense of belonging in fetish subculture, only to find that fetish communities come with just as many problematic rules, expectations, and hierarchies as mainstream ones.

As a young child, in many ways, Shaley didn’t stand a chance. Growing up as a closeted lesbian in the 1970’s, in a dysfunctional family with an often mentally unstable mother, the only thing on her mind was survival. Turning to alcohol and drugs at an early age, she thought she’d found the perfect escape from the shame of being gay and her mother’s erratic emotional roller-coaster ride.

Since Mike was a child, his life was full of questions and confusion. Where was his dad? Why did he have two moms? Where was God in all of it? Throughout the fun, sad, frustrating, and uplifting experiences that weave together the story of Mike's life from his earliest childhood through marriage and having children of his own, he discovers his faith and learns that understanding begins with love.

In 2005, Dan Bucatinsky and his partner, Don Roos, found themselves in an L.A. delivery room, decked out in disposable scrubs from shower cap to booties, to welcome their adopted baby girl - launching their frantic yet memorable adventures into fatherhood. Two and a half years later, the same birth mother - a heroically generous, pack-a-day teen with a passion for Bridezilla marathons and Mountain Dew - delivered a son into the couple’s arms.

Gore Vidal: Sexually Speaking presents the author’s often provocative and always engaging thoughts on sexuality. Here, fourteen essays and three rare, vintage interviews published over the past four decades tackle hot-button topics such as gay American founding fathers, sex and the Catholic church, gay bashing and the U.S. Congress, and bedding Jack Kerouac.

Peggy Caserta, founder of the famous Haight-Ashbury hippie boutique Mnasidika and lover and girlfriend of Janis Joplin, was a Louisiana homecoming queen turned airsick stewardess who eventually landed in 1960s San Francisco and set up shop. Her store was a hang-out for The Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company; it was where Wes Wilson’s posters hung, where Bill Graham sold concert tickets, and where Owsley’s LSD was enjoyed. 

Of Floating Isles is a captivating collection of personal essays that unpack the mystifying and often intimate roles that video games play in our lives. Interweaving memoir with cultural critique, Kawika Guillermo explores the subtle yet transformative influences of video games in shaping them as a queer and mixed-race grandson of two preachers; as a traveller, immigrant, and games scholar; and as a father, caregiver, and mourner.

When Putsata Reang was eleven months old, her family fled war-torn Cambodia, spending twenty-three days on an overcrowded navy vessel before finding sanctuary at an American naval base in the Philippines. Holding what appeared to be a lifeless baby in her arms, Ma resisted the captain’s orders to throw her bundle overboard. Instead, on landing, Ma rushed her baby into the arms of American military nurses and doctors, who saved the child's life. “I had hope, just a little, you were still alive,” Ma would tell Put in an oft-repeated story that became family legend.

Upon moving to the Gulf States – where penalties for queer acts include deportation, imprisonment, torture and death – Gaar Adams wants to understand why LGBTQ+ migrants might choose to live amid such peril. From the UAE to Bahrain and Oman to Saudi Arabia – a region where four out of five residents are noncitizens – he begins riskily gathering interviews outside the tightly controlled state media, leading with what he thinks is a simple question:

*NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER *GOODREADS CHOICE AWARD WINNER FOR BEST MEMOIR/AUTOBIOGRAPHY *FORBES TOP 5 BREAKTHROUGH BOOK OF THE YEAR In this intimate memoir by YouTube creator Connor Franta, Connor shares the lessons he has learned on his journey from small-town boy to Internet sensation—so far...