Meet Ayse, founder of Queer Girls Book Club, defender of the heated debate, and dyke of the people. In this live recording from the amazing Out and Wild festival, Ayse tells me about why running a queer book club is not just about putting LGBTQIA+ titles on your reading list, all the work she is doing to nurture her bookish community, and a why disagreeing is a good skill to have. To quote Joelle Taylor: That’s community, babe!   References  Out and Wild https://www.outandwild.co.uk/ Housmans Joelle Taylor’s The Night Alphabet Emily Witham Grace Flahive Polly Shute Gillian Anderson Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and Spent Gay on Wye Carol Ann Duffy’s Rapture and “Forest” Jackie Kay Lamya H’s Hijab Butch Blues Zoë Berryman   Questions you should be able to respond to after listening: -      Why did Ayse start Queer Girls Book Club? Have you ever thought about starting a group? What was/would have been your motivation? -      What does Ayse say about contributing to community? How do you feel about this? -      We speak about literature as being a protected space to practice debate and disagreement. Have you ever experienced this? Which example does Ayse give? -      How does Ayse speak about marginalised voices in the publishing industry? What can we as readers do to promote change? -      Are you coming to our next live recording?  

Coming to you live from the Spoken Word stage at Out and Wild, the UK’s biggest festival for lesbian, bi, trans and queer women and those who are non-binary! This conversation with the delightful Leilah King has everything you could hope for: laughing, rhyming, swooning, and a whole lot of poetry reading. Tune in to hear Leilah speak about gender nonconformity in football, her journey as a neurodivergent performance poet, and how being half-Iranian affects her experience as a queer woman. CW: mental health, manic state, gendered violence   References: Midnight Picnics in Tehran (2019) We Are Hungry for Androgyny (2023) Polari Press Mary Oliver Sam Kerr Audre Lorde’s Zami Travis Alabanza John Steinbeck’s East of Eden The Grapes of Wrath Charles Bukowski Ivan Coyote’s The Tomboy Survival Guide James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room John Betjeman Philip Larkin Soft Butch Time of the Month Gay on Wye   Questions you should be able to respond to after listening: -      Leilah reflects on being a writer as well as a performer. How does performance affect her writing? -      What was Leilah’s open mic night called and why did she set it up? -      Who are some of the writers that have inspired Leilah? Who inspires you? -      Leilah speaks about her intersecting experiences of being queer, neurodivergent and half-Iranian. How does your queerness relate to other parts of your identity?