While many individuals cannot afford the financial or time expense of traveling to an event like Saints and Sinners in person, interested people may refer to the program proceedings or the upcoming anthology to get a taste for queer writing across the country. It was also formed to bring the LGBT literary community together to celebrate the literary arts.”įestivals such as Saints and Sinners provide a platform from which LGBTQ+ people can meet one another and share their literature across the states. “The Saints and Sinners Literary Festival was founded in 2003 as a new initiative designed as an innovative way to reach the community with information about HIV/AIDS, particularly disseminating prevention messages via the writers, thinkers and spokes-people of the LGBT community. According to the Saints and Sinners website, the festival boasts a strong tradition as follows: The event brought national and international speakers to New Orleans to discuss LGBTQ+ writing. Women.: An Oral History, Timothy Stewart-Winter’s Queer Clout, and John Howard’s Men Like That,ĭata Disparities for LGBTQ+ MidwesternersĪ couple of weeks ago, the Saints and Sinners festival convened for its 16th annual meeting. For further reading, I suggest Jamie Harker’s The Lesbian South, Douglas Ray’s The Queer South, Ken Schneck’s LGBTQ Clevelandand LGBTQ Columbus, Michail Takach’s LGBTQ Milwaukee, Jeff Mann’s LGBTQ Fiction and Poetry from Appalachia, E. Patrick Johnson’s Black. In this news roundup, I highlight several opportunities for LGBTQ+ awareness, conferencing, and reading that promote a broader queer community.

We can look past Brokeback Mountain to promote other artistic and literary representations of being gay in the USA. Queerness isn’t limited to the geographical perimeter of our country, though. Some of us can relate to the popular stories about feeling repressed in an evangelical, conservative Southern neighborhood. Likewise, we read queer literature published out of the “ gay hubs” of California.

Many of us can recall seeing AIDS crisis-era awareness flyers, theater, and other cultural outlets from New York City. We find that the most popular narratives and imagery of queer Americana center either the East Coast, the West Coast, or the deep South. After all, certain indigenous traditions made queerness a stable of Early American life before Europeans colonized our land. The mayor’s campaign draws media awareness not only to LGBTQ+ identities and leadership but to the specific circumstances of queer folks in the midwest and other underrepresented regions. In his memoir Shortest Way Home, rising political star Pete Buttigieg posits queerness as an integral part of America’s future.

The Queer South by Douglas Ray