Former St. Louisan Steven Reigns (he graduated from Parkway South in 1994), now an LA-based poet and activist, is not afraid of spending time with life’s unavoidable finale – death. He founded the Gay Rub Project in 2011, a collection of rubbings of LGBTQ+ historical markers and monuments, including many gravestones. The Gay Rub Project…
Books
A “Quieter History”: Katie Batza’s AIDS in the Heartland
University of Kansas women’s, gender, and sexuality studies professor Katie Batza claimed some of the terrain of research into LGBTQ healthcare infrastructures and socio-medical responses to LGBTQ patients with her 2018 book Before AIDS: Gay Health Politics in the 1970s, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press. She’s annexed more of the territory of health…
Sunday at Left Bank Books: A Discussion With The Author of American Teenager, Nico Lang
This Sunday, August 24th, is a chance to hear from 2025 Stonewall Book Award Honoree and longtime LGBTQ+ journalist Nico Lang, the author of American Teenager: How Trans Kids are Surviving Hate and Finding Joy in a Turbulent Era. They will host a reading and conversation with LGBTQIA+ youth and their families at Left Bank…
Society Page: A Literary Salon at Geoff Story’s LaSalle Park Home
On Thursday evening, filmmaker Geoff Story and author Scott Alexander Hess hosted a vibrant queer literary salon at Story’s celebrated LaSalle Park home. The gathering, attended by an intergenerational mix of writers and readers, followed the New York-based Hess’s appearance at Left Bank Books, where he read from his latest novel, Drought. The evening’s lineup…
A Tender Reckoning with Queer Legacy: Drought by Scott Alexander Hess
In Drought, St. Louis native Scott Alexander Hess delivers a quietly lush and emotionally charged novel that explores queer longing, inheritance, and the hard-won tenderness that blooms between men in the margins. At once a ghost story, a pastoral memory play, and a queer coming-of-self, Drought offers a deeply felt portrait of an uncle and…
Keith Boykin’s Journey: How a Son of St. Louis Became a National Voice for Justice, Culture and Change
Long before Keith Boykin stood in the East Room of the White House helping orchestrate the first-ever meeting between a sitting U.S. president and LGBT leaders, he was just a kid growing up in St. Louis. It’s easy to forget that icons often start right next door. Boykin, who lived here until high school before…
How Author Jeff Copeland Reintroduced Andy Warhol Superstar Holly Woodlawn to the World
Author Jeff Copeland was not like the other boys growing up in exurban St. Louis in the 1970s. Rather than playing sports, he was fascinated by the glitz and glamour of Hollywood. Copeland decided early on that he wanted to write about celebrities, and with the help and encouragement of his resourceful mother, who came…
St. Louis County Library’s 2025 Community Autism Expo is This Saturday
The new Clark Family Branch plays host to St. Louis County Library’s 2025 Community Autism Expo, Saturday, April 5th from 11:00-2:00 p.m. Now in its sixth year, the expo provides the St. Louis area with one of the largest gatherings of organizations and resources for families with loved ones on the spectrum. This year’s expo…
Steven Louis Brawley’s Jackie Kennedy Research Cited in New York Times Bestselling Book
Most of us know of Steven Louis Brawley as being our resident St. Louis LGBTQIA+ historian, but did you know that he also is a nationally known Jackie Kennedy Onassis expert? “As a young child my family strongly encouraged my love of history. Especially Abraham Lincoln and John and Jackie Kennedy,” says Brawley. “That passion…
Arch Rival Roller Derby Is a Queer Sanctuary
When I joined St. Louis’ flat-track roller derby team in 2016, one of the first things I was told was, “Nobody joins roller derby if they have a perfectly happy life. Usually, they’re dealing with some shit.” That was certainly the case for me. I was 22, newly enrolled in graduate school at Washington University…
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