A monthly LGBTQ+ book club featuring books by LGBTQ+ women and non-male authors
Originally launched in 2020, the Lavender Lit Book Club is a monthly book discussion series. Each month, we’ll be reading a new book by a queer woman or non-male-identified author to celebrate queer women and non-men in literature. Book discussions take place on the third Wednesday of every month, and most months also include a virtual conversation with the author.
All book discussions are hybrid, meaning they take place in-person at the Center as well as over Zoom, and author talks are streamed live on Facebook and YouTube. Click here to receive the Zoom link!
Want to suggest an author?
We always welcomes suggestions for books and authors to explore as part of this program. We strive to curate a diverse program featuring authors of different racial backgrounds, sexual orientations, and gender identities. Have a suggestion? Email us here.
Check Out Our YouTube Channel
Since the launch of the Lavender Lit Book Series, the Center has hosted virtual author talks with some of of our featured authors. We have compiled all of these programs in a virtual database on our YouTube Channel.
As we move into hybrid programming, the Center will continue to archive author talks in the Lavender Lit Book Series on our YouTube Channel.
Meet the Program Curator
Suyane Oliveira (she/they)
Women’s Program Curator
Questions? Contact her here
Thank You to Our Sponsors & Partners
Support local woman-owned bookstore Possible Futures Books! Use the promo code LAVENDERLIT when you check out to receive a 20% discount off your book club purchase!
2022 Lavender Lit Series
April 2022
Stone Butch Blues
by Leslie Feinberg
Stone Butch Blues is a historical fiction novel written by Leslie Feinberg about life as a butch lesbian in 1970s America. It is frequently discussed as a difficult yet essential work for LGBTQ+ communities, as it never shies away from portraying the challenges and hate that protagonist Jess Goldberg faced on a daily basis.
A hybrid book discussion will be held on Friday, April 8th @ 6:30p. at the New Haven Pride Center.
May 2022
Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens
by Tanya Boteju
Perpetually awkward Nima Kumara-Clark is bored with her insular community of Bridgeton, in love with her straight girlfriend, and trying to move past her mother’s unexpected departure.
There will be a hybrid book discussion on Wednesday, May 18th @ 6:30p. at the New Haven Pride Center and a virtual author talk with Tanya Boteju on Thursday, May 26th @ 6:30p.
June 2022
I’m a Wild Seed
by Sharon Lee De La Cruz
In this delightfully compelling full-color graphic memoir, De La Cruz shares her process of undoing the effects of a patriarchal, colonial society on her self-image, her sexuality, and her concept of freedom.
There will be a hybrid book discussion on Wednesday, June 15th @ 6:30p at the New Haven Pride Center and a virtual author talk with Sharon Lee De la Cruz on Thursday, June 23rd @ 6:30p.
July 2022
This Has Always Been a War
by Lori Fox
In essays that are both accessible and inspiring, Lori Fox examines their confrontations with the capitalist patriarchy through their experiences as a queer, non-binary, working-class farm hand, labourer, bartender, bush-worker, and road dog, exploring the ugly places where issues of gender, sexuality, class, and the environment intersect.
There will be a hybrid book discussion on Wednesday, July 20th @ 6:30p at the New Haven Pride Center and a virtual author talk with Lori Fox on Thursday, July 28th @ 6:30p.
August 2022
Mean
by Myriam Gurba
Myriam Gurba’s debut is the bold and hilarious tale of her coming of age as a queer, mixed-race Chicana. Blending radical formal fluidity and caustic humor, Mean turns what might be tragic into piercing, revealing comedy. This is a confident, funny, brassy book that takes the cost of sexual assault, racism, misogyny, and homophobia deadly seriously.
There will be a hybrid book discussion on Wednesday, August 17th @ 6:30p at the New Haven Pride Center and a virtual author talk with Myriam Gurba on Tuesday, August 30th @ 7:00p.
September 2022
Wild Seed
by Octavia Butler
Wild Seed is a science fiction novel that takes place over different centuries and continents, beginning in Africa in 1690 and ending in America just before the beginning of the Civil War. It features two main protagonists, Anyanwu and Doro, who share unnaturally long lives and a propensity for godlike superpowers. The action of the book deals with the ways in which the two interact with others of their own kind and foregrounds issues of race, culture, identity, and power.
There will be a hybrid book discussion on Wednesday, September 21st @ 6:30p.
October 2022
Crime Against Nature
by Minnie Bruce Pratt
Crime Against Nature is a composition of poetry and prose exploring the author’s experience of losing custody of her children in the 1970’s because she was an out lesbian.
There will be a hybrid book discussion on October 19th @ 6:30p.
November 2022
Gender Queer
by Maia Kobabe
Maia’s intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears. Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity–what it means and how to think about it–for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere.
There will be a hybrid book discussion on November 16th @ 6:30p.
December 2022
The Women’s House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison
by Hugh Ryan
Historian Hugh Ryan reconstructs the history of the Women’s House of Detention and the little-known lives of incarcerated New Yorkers, making a uniquely queer case for prison abolition—and demonstrating that by queering the Village, the House of D helped defined queerness for the rest of America. From the lesbian communities forged through the Women’s House of Detention to the turbulent prison riots that presaged Stonewall, this is the story of one building and much more: the people it caged, the neighborhood it changed, and the resistance it inspired.
There will be a hybrid book discussion on December 21st @ 6:30p.