Just Queer Folks


Book Description

Most studies of lesbian and gay history focus on urban environments. Yet gender and sexual diversity were anything but rare in nonmetropolitan areas in the first half of the twentieth century. Just Queer Folks explores the seldom-discussed history of same-sex intimacy and gender nonconformity in rural and small-town America during a period when the now familiar concepts of heterosexuality and homosexuality were just beginning to take shape. Eschewing the notion that identity is always the best measure of what can be known about gender and sexuality, Colin R. Johnson argues instead for a queer historicist approach. In so doing, he uncovers a startlingly unruly rural past in which small-town eccentrics, "mannish" farm women, and cross-dressing Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees were often just queer folks so far as their neighbors were concerned. Written with wit and verve, Just Queer Folks upsets a whole host of contemporary commonplaces, including the notion that queer history is always urban history.




Queering the Countryside


Book Description

Choice Outstanding Academic Title of 2016 Rural queer experience is often hidden or ignored, and presumed to be alienating, lacking, and incomplete without connections to a gay culture that exists in an urban elsewhere. Queering the Countryside offers the first comprehensive look at queer desires found in rural America from a genuinely multi-disciplinary perspective. This collection of original essays confronts the assumption that queer desires depend upon urban life for meaning. By considering rural queer life, the contributors challenge readers to explore queer experiences in ways that give greater context and texture to modern practices of identity formation. The book’s focus on understudied rural spaces throws into relief the overemphasis of urban locations and structures in the current political and theoretical work on queer sexualities and genders. Queering the Countryside highlights the need to rethink notions of “the closet” and “coming out” and the characterizations of non-urban sexualities and genders as “isolated” and in need of “outreach.” Contributors focus on a range of topics—some obvious, some delightfully unexpected—from the legacy of Matthew Shepard, to how heterosexuality is reproduced at the 4-H Club, to a look at sexual encounters at a truck stop, to a queer reading of TheWizard of Oz. A journey into an unexplored slice of life in rural America, Queering the Countryside offers a unique perspective on queer experience in the modern United States and Canada.




ADHD 2.0


Book Description

A revolutionary new approach to ADD/ADHD featuring cutting-edge research and strategies to help readers thrive, by the bestselling authors of the seminal books Driven to Distraction and Delivered from Distraction “An inspired road map for living with a distractible brain . . . If you or your child suffer from ADHD, this book should be on your shelf. It will give you courage and hope.”—Michael Thompson, Ph.D., New York Times bestselling co-author of Raising Cain World-renowned authors Dr. Edward M. Hallowell and Dr. John J. Ratey literally “wrote the book” on ADD/ADHD more than two decades ago. Their bestseller, Driven to Distraction, largely introduced this diagnosis to the public and sold more than a million copies along the way. Now, most people have heard of ADHD and know someone who may have it. But lost in the discussion of both childhood and adult diagnosis of ADHD is the potential upside: Many hugely successful entrepreneurs and highly creative people attribute their achievements to ADHD. Also unknown to most are the recent research developments, including innovations that give a clearer understanding of the ADHD brain in action. In ADHD 2.0, Drs. Hallowell and Ratey, both of whom have this “variable attention trait,” draw on the latest science to provide both parents and adults with ADHD a plan for minimizing the downside and maximizing the benefits of ADHD at any age. They offer an arsenal of new strategies and lifestyle hacks for thriving with ADHD, including • Find the right kind of difficult. Use these behavior assessments to discover the work, activity, or creative outlet best suited to an individual’s unique strengths. • Reimagine environment. What specific elements to look for—at home, at school, or in the workplace—to enhance the creativity and entrepreneurial spirit inherent in the ADHD mind. • Embrace innate neurological tendencies. Take advantage of new findings about the brain’s default mode network and cerebellum, which confer major benefits for people with ADHD. • Tap into the healing power of connection. Tips for establishing and maintaining positive connection “the other Vitamind C” and the best antidote to the negativity that plagues so many people with ADHD. • Consider medication. Gets the facts about the underlying chemistry, side effects, and proven benefits of all the pharmaceutical options. As inspiring as it is practical, ADHD 2.0 will help you tap into the power of this mercurial condition and find the key that unlocks potential.




Queer, There, and Everywhere


Book Description

A New York Public Library Best Book of 2017 * A Chicago Public Library Best of the Best Book for Teens 2017 This first-ever LGBTQ history book of its kind for young adults will appeal to fans of fun, empowering pop-culture books like Rad American Women A-Z and Notorious RBG. Three starred reviews! World history has been made by countless lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals—and you’ve never heard of many of them. Queer author and activist Sarah Prager delves deep into the lives of 23 people who fought, created, and loved on their own terms. From high-profile figures like Abraham Lincoln and Eleanor Roosevelt to the trailblazing gender-ambiguous Queen of Sweden and a bisexual blues singer who didn’t make it into your history books, these astonishing true stories uncover a rich queer heritage that encompasses every culture, in every era. By turns hilarious and inspiring, the beautifully illustrated Queer, There, and Everywhere is for anyone who wants the real story of the queer rights movement. A Junior Library Guild Selection




Real Queer America


Book Description

LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FINALIST A transgender reporter's "powerful, profoundly moving" narrative tour through the surprisingly vibrant queer communities sprouting up in red states (New York Times Book Review), offering a vision of a stronger, more humane America. Ten years ago, Samantha Allen was a suit-and-tie-wearing Mormon missionary. Now she's a GLAAD Award-winning journalist happily married to another woman. A lot in her life has changed, but what hasn't changed is her deep love of Red State America, and of queer people who stay in so-called "flyover country" rather than moving to the liberal coasts. In Real Queer America, Allen takes us on a cross-country road-trip stretching all the way from Provo, Utah to the Rio Grande Valley to the Bible Belt to the Deep South. Her motto for the trip: "Something gay every day." Making pit stops at drag shows, political rallies, and hubs of queer life across the heartland, she introduces us to scores of extraordinary LGBT people working for change, from the first openly transgender mayor in Texas history to the manager of the only queer night club in Bloomington, Indiana, and many more. Capturing profound cultural shifts underway in unexpected places and revealing a national network of chosen family fighting for a better world, Real Queer America is a treasure trove of uplifting stories and a much-needed source of hope and inspiration in these divided times.




Queering the Redneck Riviera


Book Description

Queering the Redneck Riviera recovers the forgotten and erased history of gay men and lesbians in North Florida, a region often overlooked in the story of the LGBTQ experience in the United States. Jerry Watkins reveals both the challenges these men and women faced in the years following World War II and the essential role they played in making the Emerald Coast a major tourist destination. In a state dedicated to selling an image of itself as a “family-friendly” tropical paradise and in an era of increasing moral panic and repression, queer people were forced to negotiate their identities and their places in society. Watkins re-creates queer life during this period, drawing from sources including newspaper articles, advertising and public relations campaigns, oral history accounts, government documents, and interrogation transcripts from the state’s Johns Committee. He discovers that postwar improvements in transportation infrastructure made it easier for queer people to reach safe spaces to socialize. He uncovers stories of gay and lesbian beach parties, bars, and friendship networks that spanned the South. The book also includes rare photos from the Emma Jones Society, a Pensacola-based group that boldly hosted gatherings and conventions in public places. Illuminating a community that boosted Florida’s emerging tourist economy and helped establish a visible LGBTQ presence in the Sunshine State, Watkins offers new insights about the relationships between sexuality, capitalism, and conservative morality in the second half of the twentieth century.




Ministry Among God's Queer Folk


Book Description

This practical handbook, written by two self-described queer people of faith, covers the basic skills religious caregivers and ministry students need in order to be effective, enlightened, and supportive pastoral care providers to LGBTQ persons within as well as outside their congregations and communities.




God in Pink


Book Description

Lambda Literary Award winner, Best Gay Fiction A revelatory novel about being queer and Muslim, set in war-torn Iraq in 2003. Ramy is a young gay Iraqi struggling to find a balance between his sexuality, religion, and culture. Ammar is a sheikh whose guidance Ramy seeks, and whose tolerance is tested by his belief in the teachings of the Qur'an. Full of quiet moments of beauty and raw depictions of violence, God in Pink poignantly captures the anguish and the fortitude of Islamic life in Iraq. Hasan Namir was born in Iraq in 1987. God in Pink is his first novel. This publication meets the EPUB Accessibility requirements and it also meets the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG-AA). It is screen-reader friendly and is accessible to persons with disabilities. A Simple book with few images, which is defined with accessible structural markup. This book contains various accessibility features such as alternative text for images, table of contents, page-list, landmark, reading order and semantic structure.




If These Ovaries Could Talk


Book Description

If These Ovaries Could Talk: The Things We've Learned About Making An LGBTQ Family by JAIMIE KELTON and ROBIN HOPKINS is equal parts funny, serious, happy, sad, celebratory, cautionary, and powerful. You'll learn a lot and laugh even more along the way! Who knew making a baby could be this much fun?




The Book of (More) Delights


Book Description

From bestselling author of The Book of Delights and award-winning poet, a book of lyrical mini-essays celebrating the everyday that will inspire readers to rediscover the joys in the world around us. In Ross Gay’s new collection of small, daily wonders, again written over the course of a year, one of America’s most original voices continues his ongoing investigation of delight. For Gay, what delights us is what connects us, what gives us meaning, from the joy of hearing a nostalgic song blasting from a passing car to the pleasure of refusing the “nefarious” scannable QR code menus, from the tiny dog he fell hard for to his mother baking a dozen kinds of cookies for her grandchildren. As always, Gay revels in the natural world—sweet potatoes being harvested, a hummingbird carousing in the beebalm, a sunflower growing out of a wall around the cemetery, the shared bounty from a neighbor’s fig tree—and the trillion mysterious ways this glorious earth delights us. The Book of (More) Delights is a volume to savor and share.