For LGBTQI+ history month, Reader in Creative Writing at Birkbeck, Julia Bell, shares some of her top picks for books and stories about queer lives – some of which have come from Birkbeck alumni.
Elizabeth Lovatt – Thank You for Calling the Lesbian Line (Dialogue Books)
Thank You for Calling the Lesbian Line started work at Birkbeck on the MA in Creative & Critical Writing course, and has been released just this month.
Taken from the archives of the Lesbian Line – a lifesaving lesbian hotline where callers could ask anything from the details of a film screening to sharing illicit longings and difficult lovers – Lovatt imagines the lives of these callers braided with Lesbian history, and her own coming out story. A great read, and one that’s just received a great review in the Guardian!
Avi Ben-Zeev – Calling my Deadname Home: Trans Bear Diaries (Muswell Press)
Another Birkbeck alumni, this time from the MFA in Creative Writing. Calling my Deadname Home: Trans Bear Diaries is a fascinating and sensitive account of a transition.
Ben-Zeev’s journey to becoming a gay man takes many pit stops and twists, but the central realisation, that wholehearted living involves integrating both his new identity and his past self, is beautifully realised. Intelligent, and psychologically resonant, this book teaches us a lot about how to live fearlessly and become our true selves.
Jeremy Atherton Lin – Gay Bar: Why We Went Out (Granta)
I absolutely love this cultural history of gay nightlife which is both sexy and serious – from San Francisco leather bars to Popstarz at the Scala.
Gay Bar: Why We Went Out is a transnational book that visits all our old haunts and thinks deeply about hedonism and community in gay culture – it’s also a great read. Atherton Lin’s new book – Deep House – is forthcoming, and I can’t wait for it!
Karen McLeod – Lifting Off (Muswell Press)
Ever wondered what it was like to be trolley dolly? Wonder no more – Lifting Off is a fascinating insight into the world of flight attendants and of being a feme lesbian in a world of gay men.
This book is funny, insightful and at times heartbreaking. Also to be read next to the re-print of McLeod’s first novel, In Search of The Missing Eyelash, which has been a favourite of mine since it first came out.
Ed Matthew Bates, Julia Bell, Sarah and Kate Beal – Queer Life, Queer Love 2 (Muswell Press)
Why, yes, of course I’m going to recommend my own project! Queer Life, Queer Love 2 is a grab bag of fiction, poetry and non-fiction has some Birkbeck Creative Writing alumni between the covers. It’s also a fascinating testament to the richness and resilience of queer lives and vibrant and irrepressible creativity within the community. Libro Levi Bridgeman’s poem about becoming a Granddandy – which has also been made into a stop-motion film – is of particular note, as is Sharon Shaw’s piece on the complications of visiting Gaza as a queer woman before the war. Volume 3 is in the works, this time guest edited by Karen Mcleod.
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