This Queer Book Saved My Life – Details, episodes & analysis

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This Queer Book Saved My Life

Keep It Queer Media

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Frequency: 1 episode/11d. Total Eps: 139

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.

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

Tuesday, June 23, 2026 • Duration 23:42

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!

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Transition with J. Brooke

Tuesday, June 16, 2026 • Duration 38:02

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 BookshopVisit our Bookshop for new releases, current bestsellers, banned books, critically acclaimed LGBTQ books, or peruse the books featured on our podcasts:

The Prince of Los Cocuyos with Karsten Vagner and Richard Blanco

Tuesday, February 10, 2026 • Duration 51:12

This question has followed me around my whole life: where do I come from?

Today we meet Karsten Vagner and we’re talking about the queer book that saved his life: The Prince of Los Cocuyos by Richard Blanco. And Richard joins us for the conversation!

Karsten Vagner was born in Bogotá, Colombia and grew up outside of New York City. He has worked in tech startups for the past 20 years, and has been awarded for his leadership, including for being a notable LGBTQ executive in New York. He has worked on community building projects with the New York City Council, was one of the first organizers with Swing Left after the 2016 election, and has been a volunteer at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center in New York City. Karsten lives with his husband and daughter in Greenwich, Connecticut, where he has held elected office and is an organizer of the town's annual Pride celebration.

Richard Blanco was the youngest and first Latinx, immigrant, and gay poet to serve as the fifth Presidential Inaugural Poet in US History as awarded by President Barrack Obama. Originally born in Madrid, to Cuban Exile parents, Richard was raised in Miami in a working-class family. His writing explores cultural identity, place, and belonging. He is the author of several poetry collections, including his most recent Homeland of My Body. He has written two memoirs, including The Prince of Los Cocuyos. He serves as Education Ambassador for The Academy of American Poets and is an Associate Professor at Florida International University. He has received numerous awards, including a Lambda Literary Award, and in 2023, President Biden awarded him the National Humanities Medal.

Connect with Karsten and Richard

Karsten's instagram: @gaysingreenwich

Richards's website: richard-blanco.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:

7 Minutes in Book Heaven with A.J. Bermudez and Stories No One Hopes Are About Them

Season 3 · Episode 10

Tuesday, May 9, 2023 • Duration 08:32

Meet A.J. Bermudez and her darkly playful (and Lambda Literary Award nominated!) story collection: Stories No One Hopes Are About Them.

These short stories explore characters who are ni de aquí, ni de allá—neither from here nor there—straddling competing worlds, disrupting paradigms, and transitioning from objects of other people’s stories to active subjects and protagonists of their own.

Big things happen in this collection. But it’s also a collection of small intimacies: misremembered names, chipped teeth, and private rituals; unexpected alliances and barely touched knees beneath uniform skirts; minutiae of the natural world; incidents that quietly, achingly, and delightfully transgress the familiar.

Buy Stories No One Hopes Are About Them
Head to our store at thisqueerbook.com/bookshop or click: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9781609388638

Connect with A.J. Bermudez
Twitter: @AmandaJBermudez
Instagram: @a.j.bermudez
Website: https://amandajbermudez.com

Check out this Lambda Literary award (Lammy) finalist:
We shout out Gods of Want by K-Ming Chang in the show. Here's where you can buy it: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9780593241585

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: CreditsHost/Founder: J.P. Der BoghossianExecutive Producer: Jim PoundsAssociate Producers: Archie Arnold, Natalie Cruz, Paul Kaefer, Nicole Olila, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, and Sean SmithPatreon Subscribers: Awen Briem, Stephen D., Thomas Michna, and Gary Nygaard.We're back live in May 2023!

Metes And Bounds with David Rephan and Jay Quinn

Season 3 · Episode 9

Tuesday, May 2, 2023 • Duration 35:42

To be queer, young, and surfing on the beach. Where's your queer true north?

Our guests today are attorney David Rephan and Lambda Literary Award finalist Jay Quinn!

David shares with us how Jay's novel Metes and Bounds saved his life and how David continues to return to the novel as a queer true north. This was Jay's first novel and he went on to write four more as well as a memoir.

Metes and Bounds follows 18-year surfer, Matt, as he leaves home after his high school graduation to work for his uncle, a land surveyor. It’s about Matt's story of claiming his place as a surfer and as a gay man in the small and large world of construction sites, fishing piers, and surf breaks.

Buy Metes and Bounds
AbeBooks has a variety of copies for you to peruse. Check them out here:
https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/metes-and-bounds/author/jay-quinn/

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: J.P. Der Boghossian
Executive Producer: Jim Pounds
Associate Producers: Archie Arnold, Natalie Cruz, Paul Kaefer, Nicole Olila, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, and Sean Smith
Patreon Subscribers: Awen Briem, Stephen D., Thomas Michna, and Gary Nygaard.

7 Minutes in Book Heaven with Joseph Plaster and Kids on the Street

Season 3 · Episode 8

Tuesday, April 25, 2023 • Duration 14:05

Meet Joseph Plaster and his new book Kids on the Street: Queer Kinship and Religion in San Francisco's Tenderloin. It's 7 Minutes in Book Heaven! Where we meet queer authors and talk with them about the new books they have coming out for us to love and cuddle up with.

What's Kids on the Street about? Joseph explores the informal support networks that enabled abandoned and runaway queer youth to survive in tenderloin districts across the United States. He shows how they collectively and creatively managed the social trauma they experienced, in part by building relationships with johns, bartenders, hotel managers, bouncers, and other vice district denizens. By highlighting a politics where the marginal position of street kids is the basis for a moral economy of reciprocity, Plaster excavates a history of queer life that has been overshadowed by major narratives of gay progress and pride.

Buy Kids on the Street
Visit Duke University Press: https://www.dukeupress.edu/kids-on-the-street

Connect with Joseph Plaster
Twitter: @Jplaster3
Facebook: Joey Plaster
Website: https://www.josephplaster.com

Check out the film Song of Love (Un Chant d'Amour) that we chatted about
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043084/

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: J.P. Der Boghossian
Executive Producer: Jim Pounds
Associate Producers: Archie Arnold, Natalie Cruz, Paul Kaefer, Nicole Olila, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, and Sean SmithPatreon Subscribers: Awen Briem, Stephen D., Thomas Michna, and Gary Nygaard.

Goodbye To Berlin with Allison Vincent

Season 3 · Episode 7

Tuesday, April 18, 2023 • Duration 45:18

Seriously, though. How DO we thread together all of our queer identities?

Our guest is writer, educator, and theater maker Allison Vincent and we talk about the queer book that saved her life: the novella Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood.

Goodbye to Berlin is a Queer classic. Our hero moves to Berlin where he meets the incomparable Sally Bowles. They become roommates as he explores Berlin and his sexuality. The novella was adapted into the award-winning theatrical production and film Cabaret.

For Allison, it not only saved her in writing her college thesis, but it also provided visibility to her as a Queer woman to see herself represented in history. We dive into all the queer meanings of the novella's most famous line: "I am a camera with a shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking" and threading together all of our different identities.

Buy Goodbye to Berlin
Visit thisqueerbook.com/bookshop to purchase Goodbye to Berlin and all the books we discuss on our podcasts.

Connect with Allison
Twitter: @allisonrvincent
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=13955074
Transatlantic Love Affair: https://www.transatlanticloveaffair.org

CreditsHost/Founder: J.P. Der BoghossianExecutive Producer: Jim PoundsAssociate Producers: Archie Arnold, Natalie Cruz, Paul Kaefer, Nicole Olila, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, and Sean SmithPatreon Subscribers: Awen Briem, Stephen D., Thomas Michna, and Gary Nygaard.

7 Minutes in Book Heaven with McKenzie Wark and Raving

Season 3 · Episode 6

Tuesday, April 11, 2023 • Duration 08:59

Meet McKenzie Wark and her new book Raving. It's 7 Minutes in Book Heaven! Where we meet queer authors and talk with them about the new books they have coming out for us to love and cuddle up with.

What's Raving about? McKenzie takes us into the undisclosed locations of New York's thriving underground queer and trans rave scene. Techno, first and always a Black music, invites fresh sonic and temporal possibilities for this era of diminishing futures. Raving to techno is an art and a technique at which queer and trans bodies might be particularly adept but which is for anyone who lets the beat seduce them. Extending the rave's sensations, situations, fog, lasers, drugs, and pounding sound systems onto the page, Wark invokes a trans practice of raving as a timely aesthetic for dancing in the ruins of this collapsing capital.

Buy Raving
Visit our Bookshop page at thisqueerbook.com/bookshop or at https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9781478019381

Connect with McKenzie
Twitter: @mckenziewark
Instagram: @mckenziewark3000

Credits
Host/Founder: J.P. Der Boghossian
Executive Producer: Jim Pounds
Associate Producers: Archie Arnold, Natalie Cruz, Paul Kaefer, Nicole Olila, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, and Sean Smith
Patreon Subscribers: Awen Briem, Stephen D., Thomas Michna, and Gary Nygaard.

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 and fill out the form on the homepage! Looking forward to hearing back from you!

The Bisexual Option with William Burleson

Season 3 · Episode 5

Tuesday, April 4, 2023 • Duration 38:28

Going from unseen to seen.

This episode is the recording of our live event at Lush Lounge and Theater. And we welcome back William Burleson! You remember him from Season One, when we discussed how his book Bi America was life-giving for our guest Neil Aasve. Now, William talks with me about the book that saved his life: The Bisexual Option by Fritz Klein, MD. He shares with us, "I have to say, coming out as Bi, at first to myself, and then later to other people, there is really an uphill climb to find community. It's better today. We have Google. But nonetheless, it's still difficult. So when I went into a bookstore and I found the book The Bisexual Option, that was revolutionary."

And....William went on to meet Fritz who wrote the forward to Bill's own book!

Buy the books we discuss on this episode!
Visit thisqueerbook.com/bookshop to purchase The Bisexual Option or at https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9780985871703.

You can also purchase William's books too!

Home: Anthology at https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9781733976329.

Bi America: Myths, Truths, and Struggles of an Invisible Community at https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9781560234791

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: J.P. Der Boghossian
Executive Producer: Jim Pounds
Associate Producers: Archie Arnold, Natalie Cruz, Paul Kaefer, Nicole Olila, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, and Sean SmithPatreon Subscribers: Awen Briem, Stephen D., Thomas Michna, and Gary Nygaard.

7 Minutes in Book Heaven with Gerardo Sámano Córdova and Monstrilio

Season 3 · Episode 4

Tuesday, March 28, 2023 • Duration 10:10

Welcome to our LGBT podcast 7 Minutes in Book Heaven – presented to you by This Queer Book Saved My Life! In this podcast, we spend 7 minutes in our virtual studio interviewing LGBTQ authors about their new and upcoming books for us to love and cuddle up with. Today, we meet Gerardo Sámano Córdova and his new novel Monstrilio.

What it's about? Grieving mother Magos cuts out a piece of her deceased eleven-year-old son Santiago’s lung. Acting on fierce maternal instinct and the dubious logic of an old folktale, she nurtures the lung until it gains sentience, growing into the carnivorous little Monstrilio she keeps hidden within the walls of her family’s decaying Mexico City estate. Eventually, Monstrilio begins to resemble the Santiago he once was, but his innate impulses—though curbed by his biological and chosen family’s communal care—threaten to destroy this fragile second chance at life.

Buy Monstrilio
Visit our Bookshop page at thisqueerbook.com/bookshop or at https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9781638930365

Connect with Gerardo
Website: gerardosamanocordova.com
Twitter: @samanito
Instagram: @samanito

Credits
Host/Founder: J.P. Der Boghossian
Executive Producer: Jim Pounds
Associate Producers: Archie Arnold, Natalie Cruz, Paul Kaefer, Nicole Olila, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, and Sean SmithPatreon Subscribers: Awen Briem, Stephen D., Thomas Michna, and Gary Nygaard.

This Queer Book Saved My Life – Details, episodes & analysis

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This Queer Book Saved My Life – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

Other99+

Bookshop99+

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RSS feed quality and score

Publication history

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Other99+

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