Showing titles in Biographies & Memoirs

In this unconventional memoir, Jonathan Alexander addresses wry and affecting missives to a conflicted younger self. Focusing on three years—1989, 1993, and 1996—Dear Queer Self follows the author through the homophobic heights of the AIDS epidemic, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the election of Bill Clinton, and the steady advancements in gay rights that followed. With humor and wit afforded by hindsight, Alexander relives his closeted college years, his experiments with his sexuality in graduate school, his first marriage to a woman, and his budding career as a professor.

This is the true story of a male couple's quest for a life in the West...one is American, the other is Iraqi. The American learns about gays in the Middle East and human trafficking as he helps his partner escape from Turkey by raft, sneak their way into Athens, and seek asylum in Amsterdam.

In 2009, Juliet Patterson was recovering from a serious car accident when she learned her father had died by suicide. His death was part of a disturbing pattern in her family. Her father’s father had taken his own life; so had her mother’s. Over the weeks and months that followed, grieving and in physical pain, Patterson kept returning to one question: Why? Why had her family lost so many men, so many fathers, and what lay beneath the silence that had taken hold?

During her sophomore year at Middlebury College, Emily meets Max—“you” as she intimately refers to him in the book. Not exactly a tomboy, but not quite a girly girl either, Emily is intent on finding a masculine boyfriend to assuage a deeply rooted fear that she may not be quite feminine enough. Max—a boisterous class clown beloved by his many straight guy friends—has recently come out as gay and is embracing his newly claimed identity. Initially, Max and Emily dislike each other, but end up growing close after a make-out dare on Halloween.

This Boy and His Mother: Healing from Trauma as a Gay Latter-day Saint chronicles Preston Jenkins' journey back to faith and activity in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Speaking with authenticity, Preston offers gospel insights gleaned from his experiences involving same-sex attraction, sexual and emotional abuse, an early return from an LDS mission, mental illness, and the eventual completion of a mission. Hope, faith, and never-failing charity are strikingly displayed. So, too, is the sufficient grace of Jesus Christ to holistically heal all wounds.

Kodo Nishimura ist ein buddhistischer Mönch aus einer langen Linie japanischer Mönche. Und er ist LGBTQ+-Aktivist sowie international bekannter Makeup-Artist. Er verbringt sein Leben zwischen einem Kloster in Tokio und den Fashion-Shows dieser Welt. An einem Tag trägt er traditionelle Mönchsgewänder und am nächsten glitzernde High Heels. Er ist stolz auf seine buddhistischen Wurzeln, seine Sexualität und seine Leidenschaft für Mode und Make-Up. Doch das war nicht immer so. Nishimura versteckt sein wahres Selbst viele Jahre vor seinen Lehrer:innen und Freund:innen.

"I was caddywonked from the get-go." That’s how this memoir begins, as an embryonic Jeff Batton was whisked away to a home for unwed mothers in Savannah, Georgia. His new parents arrived in the form of the Battons, and his new home, a 700-acre peanut and tobacco farm. While the memoir has the South as its launching point, the narrative travels far and wide to New York City, Hong Kong, and beyond. Lovingly told, Grinnin’ Like a Jackass Eatin’ Briars is about uncovering our truth, looking at the world from a different angle, and finding the courage to embrace what we find.

Ink from the Pen is the story of an educated, HIV+ gay man whose decades-long walk on the wild side came crashing down in 2004, when he found himself facing nine months in prison for dealing the crystal meth he’d become addicted to during the worst of the AIDS epidemic. Olmsted soon discovered his love of words was precisely what would get him through the experience. With a keen eye for detail and an unerring capacity to deftly convey the poignancy and absurdities of incarceration, Mark learned that creativity is one of the most powerful survival tools there is.

Henry Gerber was the father of American gay liberation. Born in 1892 in Germany, Henry Gerber was expelled from school as a boy and lost several jobs as a young man because of his homosexual activities. He emigrated to the United States and enlisted in the army for employment. After his release, he explored Chicago’s gay subculture: cruising Bughouse Square, getting arrested for “disorderly conduct,” and falling in love.

In this unique and hilarious debut memoir, writer and comedian Greg Mania chronicles life as a "pariah prodigy." From inadvertently coming out to his Polish immigrant parents, to immersing himself in the world of New York City nightlife, and finding himself and his voice in comedy. Born to Be Public is a vulnerable and poignant exploration of identity (and the rediscovery of it), mental health, sex and relationships, all while pursuing a passion with victories and tragicomic blunders.

A woman, groomed to be a wife and mother, discovers through her clandestine interaction with a free-spirited foreigner that she has a right to determine her own destiny. Every step Elena takes toward personal liberation is considered treason by her society, driving her deeper and deeper underground and threatening her escape from Russia. Elena Vaytsel is one of the two women featured in BBC's Outlook Weekend: The Voyage of Meg and Elena, and NPR's Snap Judgment: Kismet, for their escape from Russia and yearlong planet-crossing run for their lives and freedom.

Part butch memoir, part ekphrastic travel diary, part queer family tree, Raquel Gutiérrez’s debut essay collection, Brown Neon, gleans insight from the sediment of land and relationships. For Gutiérrez, terrain is essential to understanding that no story, no matter how personal, is separate from the space where it unfolds.

A story of rough beginnings as I struggled to find gender and sexual identity in a small country town in North Carolina in the 1940s and '50s. I found my way to fame and fortune. My goal in sharing this is to help someone who may find themselves in a similar situation. You can survive.

The Wisdom of Guncles is about queer people and our relationship with family—however we choose to define it. Featuring a diverse pantheon of gay uncles (“guncles”) and other queer mentors, these stories offer unique perspectives about life, love, and personal empowerment. With each chapter, I examine what various LGBTQ+ experiences teach about disrupting norms, exploring identity, and creating chosen families that affirm one’s truth.

Growing up a Guyanese Indian immigrant in Central Florida, Rajiv Mohabir is fascinated by his family’s stifled Hindu history and the legacy of his ancestors, who were indentured laborers on British sugarcane plantations. In Toronto he sits at the feet of Aji, his unlettered grandmother, listening to stories and songs in her Caribbean Bhojpuri. By now Aji’s eleven children have immigrated to North America and busied themselves with ascension, Christianity, and the erasure of their heritage. But Rajiv wants to know more: where did he come from, and why does he feel so out of place?

Trans es la historia íntima de la enigmática fundadora de Against Me!, que entremezcla el recorrido musical de la banda con el personal de Grace, e incluye numerosas entradas del diario que la cantante cultivó y conservó durante años. Más que una autobiografía musical llena de sexo, drogas y rock and roll—que, por otro lado, tampoco faltan—Trans aborda uno de los episodios más extraordinarios de la historia del rock.

Esta es la crónica de la afortunada transformación de un hombre. Omar Ramos, como muchos gays en México, pasó de sufrir bullying a usar tacones con orgullo, de conocer a unos pocos hombres en la barra de un bar a coincidir con cientos en la pantalla de su teléfono, y de vivir con miedo al VIH a disfrutar plenamente su sexualidad.

Die Zeugen Jehovas sind Jolandas Zuhause. Gehorsam erfüllt sie alle Erwartungen, die an sie gerichtet werden, kommt ihren Diensten nach und stellt das Weltbild der Zeugen Jehovas nicht in Frage. Das ändert sich schlagartig, als Nicky auftaucht. Denn Nicky ist eine Frau - und Jolanda verliebt sich in sie. Von einem Tag auf den anderen ist nichts mehr, wie es war. Jolanda entscheidet sich, die Zeugen Jehovas zu verlassen und ein vollkommen neues Leben zu beginnen.

Why I Was Late fuses text with performance, bringing a transmasculine wisdom, humor, and experience to bear upon tailgates, spaceships, and wrestling rings. Fierce, tender, convention re-inventing—Petch works hard. And whether it’s as a film union lighting technician, a hospital bed allocator, a Toronto hot dog vendor, or a performer/player of the musical saw, the work is survival. Heroes are found in unexpected places, elevated by both large and small gestures of kindness, accountability and acceptance.

In her bittersweet memoir, Mary Fairhurst Breen sketches scenes from a life darkened by generations of mental illness and addiction. Despite the odds, Mary’s sense of humor and willingness to practice “radical acceptance” see her through the chaos to a life full of friends, art, and the joys of being a grandmother. Ultimately, she must face her greatest challenge of all when her daughter becomes one of the tens of thousands of people every year to die of opioid poisoning. This is a journey of awakening and activism, and a portrait of a life to be celebrated in all its complexity.