2023

VOLUME 02

FEATURING
ANDREW RANNELLS
GABE COLE NOVOA
LUMA MUFLEH
CARLYN GREENWALD
BRANDON TAYLOR

WITH
DRAG STORY HOUR
QUEER BOOKSELLER RECS
2023 LGBTQ+ READING LIST
Table of
Contents
Introduction from the PRH LGBTQ+ Network 2

Excerpt from From Here by Luma Mufleh 4

Meet the Illustrator: Ry Macarayan 18

Excerpt from The Wicked Bargain by Gabe Cole Novoa 20

Reading with Royalty 30

Excerpt from The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor 38

Excerpt from Uncle of the Year by Andrew Rannells 46

Word of Mouth: Queer Bookseller Recs 58

Excerpt from Sizzle Reel by Carlyn Greenwald 62

2023 LGBTQ+ Reading List 76

INTRO-
DUCTION
BOOKS CHANGE PEOPLE. That’s why
they’re powerful. It’s also why they’re scary. It’s
why fascists want to ban and burn them. It’s
why we love to read them and publish them and
share them. Have you ever read a book and felt
completely seen? Have you ever picked up a book
and been delighted to find that someone else
had the same thought as you? Books offer
community, even when you’re alone. Books
can be allies and friends.
This zine is full of books and friends—including
excerpts of new titles from some award-
winning queer writers. These stories by Carlyn
Greenwald, Luma Mufleh, Gabe Cole Novoa,
WORDS Andrew Rannells, and Brandon Taylor represent
BY THE Penguin Random House. So do the readers who
PENGUIN find themselves in these pages. Publishing is
about providing thoughts and ideas to people.
RANDOM And sometimes a question is as powerful as an
HOUSE answer, like in Taylor’s The Late Americans that
LGBTQ+ asks: “How to make his own feelings understood?
NETWORK How to say, I see you, I love you […]?”
These writers are publishing
books in 2023, a time when we
are facing a crisis of anti-LGBTQ+
leads to dancing, to closeness,
to joy. We’re an international-
intergenerational community that
legislation and rhetoric. Trying spans the planet. HELLO. For
times aren’t new, especially for lack of a better term, let’s call
LGBTQ+ communities. So what that: US. The gender binary is
do books have to do with it? Why made up. So let’s keep making
is their power needed? Why are things up as we go. Change is
they targets of hate? Because the constant. What happens
culture is more powerful than any next is on us.
nation, let alone any faction. It
Happy Pride from all of us here
spills past borders, like water. And
at Penguin Random House.
everyone should wish, like Luma
Mufleh’s grandmother in From
Here: “That everyone in the world
could have clean drinking water.”
We are from the future as much
as we are from the past, and the
future is an open book. There is
hope for an equitable future. We
insist on it. Queer people can
change the world—we do it every
day. We do it every June, July,
January, and beyond. We riot in
the past, present, and future,
and it creates a chord—three
notes played at once, a harmony.
And everyone knows music
INTRODUCTION 3
 FROM
HERE
BY MY OTHER SET of grandparents also lived

LUMA in Jabal Amman, a short walk in the opposite

direction. The time we spent there looked
MUFLEH similar—backyard soccer games and large family
meals—but felt very different. Their house was
smaller in a cozy way, louder in a laid-back way.
For much of my childhood it was my favorite
place to be.

My grandmother’s name was Munawar, the

Arabic word for “illuminated” or “bright light.”
It was the perfect name for her. Her hazel eyes
shone, and her pink cheeks glowed, and she
seemed to emit a kind of warmth that I only ever
felt in her home, in her presence. Her siblings
called her Noura for short, and I called her
Taytay, Grandmother.

Taytay was pure affection. Her embraces were

Excerpted from From Here by
Luma Mufleh. All rights reserved.
No part of this excerpt may be
reproduced or reprinted without
permission in writing from
the publisher.
the full-body kind. She had a massive sectional
couch that snaked around her living room, big
enough for her six children and their children, too.
When you sat next to Taytay, she would rub your
back or scratch your head. This was very different
from family time at Jiddo Riyad’s house, where my
grandfather’s recliner presided over two rows of

4 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PRIDE IN YOUR WORDS EXCERPT FROM FROM HERE 5
 seating, almost like a king holding court. When Jiddo Riyad
was watching TV, no one dared to speak. When the TV was
on at Taytay’s house, you couldn’t hear it over the laughter.
Like Jiddo Riyad, Taytay was a devout Muslim, but she did
things her own way. She wore a hijab, the traditional head
covering for Muslim women, but also left a few strands of her
brown hair revealed. While many Muslim women shrouded
their entire bodies, Taytay wore her clothes to the elbow and
the knee. Sometimes I would ask her why she didn’t cover up
“Taytay wanted us
to remember our
past, even the hard
parts. Especially
the hard parts.”
head to toe like the others. She would laugh and remind me
that we lived in the desert. The Quran required us to be
modest, not stupid.
The Quran was very explicit that we should pray five times
a day, facing the holy city of Mecca, and performing salat,
dropping to our knees and putting our foreheads on the
ground. When my cousins warned me that I would have to
make up every prayer I missed on the floor of hell, I came
to Taytay upset and scared. I was a typical kid; I tried to
stick with it, but there was always something more fun or
interesting to do than pray. I had skipped so many prayers
that my forehead would be burnt to a crisp.
6 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PRIDE IN YOUR WORDS
“Do you think Allah would ever harm you like that?” she assured me.
“Allah is merciful and compassionate.”
Relieved, I thought of another one of my cousins’ threats. “What
about if we don’t finish our food? Will we have to eat it before we are
allowed in heaven?”
At this, she grinned. “Only the eggplant will follow you.” My hatred
of eggplant was an affront to Taytay, who baked it, pickled it, put it
in stews, and grilled it with garlic-yogurt sauce. Taytay’s Islam was
peaceful and kind—except when it came to eggplant.
I shared Taytay with my two younger brothers, Ali and Saeed, and
an ever-growing number of cousins. Sometimes, though, I got
very lucky and had her all to myself. I would help her in the garden,
where she grew a whole market’s worth of food: apricots and
grapes, tomatoes and big bunches of parsley. She even managed to
coax cherry and sour plum trees from the ground. Her flower beds
overflowed with the colors of her cherished Syria: red roses, white
jasmine, and purple wisteria.
Other times I would sit on the counter while she cooked, which
she did almost entirely by smell; there were no cup or tablespoon
measures in Taytay’s kitchen. Instead, she would lean over the pot,
scowling in concentration. When the right spice combination hit her
nostrils, she would raise her head and smile, nodding approvingly.
On the best afternoons, she made kibbeh, football-shaped
dumplings of ground lamb fried in a crispy shell of bulgur wheat.
“Like this, Lamloom,” she would say as she modeled how to mold
the wheat into a vessel for the meat. But it was no use; my clumsy
hands couldn’t make the same motions. My kibbeh balls were
always lopsided or torn. Instead of stuffing them with lamb, Taytay
would have me roll a little baton of wheat to accompany my empty
kibbeh, which she would fry until they were golden and crunchy, and
then present at dinner on their own plate. We called them duu do,
EXCERPT FROM FROM HERE 7
 Arabic for “knock knock,” because
of the way they looked like a
mortar and pestle. We had our
own language for lots of things.
When I was old enough to be
helpful, around eight or nine years
old, Taytay started taking me to
the market. On those days, we
would climb into the boxy green
Mercedes she kept parked under
the grape trellis. Despite the
shade the trellis provided, the
leather interior of the car was
always nuclear-hot, and I’d sit low
in my seat to avoid burning the
back of my thighs.
The markets were outside, with
rows of produce vendors lined
up along a narrow path of dusty
concrete. Around one corner was
the bakery where we bought our
fresh pita; around the other was
the butcher. There were bags
of rice as tall as me and bags of
spices rolled open to reveal their
vibrant colors and scents. Some
of the fruit stands were operated
by kids my age; most were run
by older men with serious faces.
They shouted over each other
as they restocked their shelves:
“Eggplants!” “Tomatoes!”
8 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PRIDE IN YOUR WORDS
“Lemons!” “Ten for a JD!” If you
didn’t speak Arabic, you would
think they were fighting.
If it was especially busy and no
one would come to the car to
assist us, Taytay would send me
into the market on my own and
I would use my small body to
weave through the throngs of
shoppers. Other times we would
walk together to our reliable
grocers, the men we could count
on to have the very best produce.
I loved watching Taytay barter and
charm, the way she knew when
to push and when to walk away.
The way she knew which vendors
hid the good stuff in the back—
Egyptian mangos, sugar apples,
and loquats. The way she would
use her magic nostrils to tell how
good the fruit was.
Once everything was loaded
into the cavernous trunk of the
Mercedes, we would head home,
keeping the sour green plums in
the front seat between us. We
always had the fruit man salt the
plums, our reward for getting the
shopping done.
OUR LIFE WAS good. Full of family and food and trips to the
beautiful places near our home. But it wasn’t always that way for
my mother and her parents. They weren’t Jordanian; they were from
Damascus, the capital of Syria.
In 1964, a decade before I was born, the Ba’ath Party had taken
control of the Syrian government, along with everything else in the
country: the military, the banks, the schools, and the factories. They
said that the government would take care of everyone equally. They
said that this was how Syria would achieve unity. But their version of
equality and unity was not optional—it was mandatory. Anyone who
didn’t comply was thrown in jail, tortured, or killed. The brutality of
the regime would change Syria forever.
As the owner of a clothing factory that employed hundreds of
people, my grandfather was targeted by the leaders of the new
regime. Soldiers waited for him at his work and at the mosque,
eager to jail him because he refused to hand over his factory to
the government.
Like many families in Damascus, my grandparents lived in a three-
story courtyard apartment building, full of uncles, aunts, and
cousins. To evade capture, Jiddo Suheil began spending each night
in a different unit with a different family member, rarely sleeping,
mostly praying and waiting for the knock on the door.
It was my grandmother who left first. Unwilling to live in harm’s way
any longer and six months pregnant, she loaded her five children into
the family car and drove 128 miles from their old life in Damascus—
their friends, family, and schools—to find safety in Amman. From
the front seat, my sixteen-year-old mother sobbed as the orchards
and pine groves of Syria gave way to the dusty hills of Jordan. They
were refugees. After two of his brothers were arrested and his
factory finally seized, Jiddo Suheil accepted that if he didn’t leave
his beloved country, he would certainly die there. The Syria he knew
was no more.
EXCERPT FROM FROM HERE 9
They lost so much. The brothers who were tortured and killed.
The factory and the life savings. Most of all, my grandparents lost
their country, their history, and their culture. The big things like
the family heirlooms and photographs, and the little things like the
smell of cherry trees, Friday night picnics, and family outings to the
mountains or the Mediterranean coast. A community they were a
part of and a sense of belonging that comes from being born in a
place and staying there. They no longer had a place to call home.

TAYTAY WANTED US to remember our past, even the hard

parts. Especially the hard parts. I think she saw her grandchildren
living comfortably, becoming spoiled, and she worried that we didn’t
appreciate all that we had been given. While Jiddo Riyad and his wife
gave me outrageous gifts—a piano I didn’t know how to play, a red
Mercedes long before I even had a license—Taytay gave us simple
treats. Chocolates or pistachio-rolled ice cream: small pleasures we
could enjoy together. And she went out of her way to remind us that
for lots of people, even a little thing like ice cream was a big luxury.

We used to play a game before birthdays and holidays. If I had one

wish, she would ask me, what would it be? I never had to think about
it—I wanted a bicycle, I wanted a soccer ball, I wanted a Walkman.
Then I would ask her what her wish would be. Her response was
always the same.

“That everyone in the world could have clean drinking water.”

“Not a new car?” I would goad her. “What about a pool?”

“I don’t need those things, but people need water.”

Many times I had rolled my eyes and wondered why she would
waste a wish on something like that.

EXCERPT FROM FROM HERE 11

 One afternoon when I was
eight, Taytay told me to get in
the car. She didn’t say where
we were going. At first, I was
quiet, wondering where she
might be taking me, but when
the neighborhoods
of Amman turned
into the tawny
hills of the
countryside, my
curiosity got
the best of me.
“We’re going to
see some people,”
she explained.
“Which people?”
“The people at the mukhayam.”
Literally translated, mukhayam
means “tent city.” Taytay was
taking me to a Palestinian
refugee camp, one that had been
set up decades before, when
Israel was created and hundreds
of thousands of Palestinians were
forced to leave their homes, many
with nowhere to go. The camps
were supposed to be temporary,
until the people there could find
a new place to live, but instead
they have become permanent
settlements. Tent cities. At the
12 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PRIDE IN YOUR WORDS
age of eight, however, I didn’t scooted across the ground, and children tore through the narrow
know much about that conflict alleyways of canvas, maybe playing tag or maybe simply chasing
or the camps. All I knew was one another; I couldn’t tell. Everything was coated in a thick film
what I heard from my dad’s of dust—the people included. It was chaos and filth. I had never
family—that Jordan needed to seen anything like it, not in real life and not on TV. Fear raged in my
stop letting Palestinians resettle stomach; I searched for Taytay’s hands, but she was holding on to a
in our country. That soon package she had brought with her. Instead, I held fast to her skirt as
they would outnumber we walked into the mayhem.
us; they would take
“Go play,” she said.
over everything.
Why would my
grandmother want
me to meet the
“Everything else around
people who wanted me was unfamiliar
and uncomfortable,
to take over Jordan?
but the dirt pitch and
It only took us thirty-
five minutes to get to the
camp. We parked in the dirt
near what looked to be the front
the well-loved soccer
entrance, and I hesitantly opened ball weren’t.”
my door against a gust of hot
desert wind. Before me, rows of
“I don’t want to play. I want to stay with you.” Who did she want me
tents—hundreds and hundreds
to play with, I wondered? These poor kids running around in their
of tents—fanned out toward
dirty clothes? She had lost her mind.
the horizon, each modified
in different, haphazard ways: Taytay knelt down beside me. “Don’t ever think people are beneath
extended with tarps or rugs, you.” She nodded toward a patch of land where a dozen kids were
propped up with old umbrellas playing soccer. “Imshi,” she said. Go.
or makeshift clotheslines. In
I did as I was told. I never wanted to disappoint my grandmother.
front of some there were groups
of women, sitting outside on As I approached the makeshift field, bounded by battered tents
tattered mattresses sewing or on all sides, the children looked all the same to me. They ranged in
visiting with each other. Trash age, but each wore the same uniform of ill-fitting hand-me-down
EXCERPT FROM FROM HERE 13
 clothes. Some of them were wearing plastic flip-flops, and car; she seemed distant. I wondered why she came here if it made
others were barefoot. I suddenly felt self-conscious about my her sad. But I knew the story of my grandparents leaving Syria, and
spotless polo shirt and sneakers. My anxiety eased a bit when I guessed she knew how easily it could have been our family in the
I saw the rocks they were using as goals—my cousins and I mukhayam. I thought, too, about how wrong my uncles had been
used rocks as goals, too, when we weren’t using tortoises. about Palestinians. How could they take over Jordan if they were
Maybe we had something in common after all. Everything stuck in these dirty camps? Shouldn’t we welcome them? Isn’t that
else around me was unfamiliar and uncomfortable, but the what Allah would want us to do?
dirt pitch and the well-loved soccer ball weren’t. And like the
“Haram,” I said to my grandmother. Poor them.
kids on that field, the field was also my escape, the ball my
security blanket. “Haram alayna,” she corrected me, using the word’s other meaning.
We are sinning. “Don’t feel sorry for them; believe in them.”
It didn’t take long for one of the kids to wave me in. At first,
I ran up and down the field, following the ball, figuring out We were mostly quiet on the way home from the camp, but if Taytay
who was on my team. When I felt confident enough, I began had asked me that day about my one wish, it sure wouldn’t have
to call for the ball by raising my arm and waving, and soon been a Walkman.
I was completely transported into the rhythm of the game.
It no longer mattered that they were Palestinian and I was
Jordanian, or maybe more Syrian than Jordanian. Or that
they lived in a camp with thousands of people and I lived in
a big house with my family. These kids were the same as
me—some of them, actually most of them, were even better
at soccer than I was.

We played for hours, hardly noticing the heat, the sun, our
thirst. The game eventually petered out after a couple kids
left and then a few more wandered off. The rest of us stood in
a circle and passed around a beat-up jug of water, holding it
above our lips and letting it splash into our mouths.

“I had so much fun!” I announced when I found Taytay nearby.

“They were good.”

Taytay’s hands were now empty as we walked toward the

14 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PRIDE IN YOUR WORDS EXCERPT FROM FROM HERE 15
Meet the
AUTHOR

MUFLEH
Name

LUMA
Pronouns

The seven words that describe me best

A book I re-read when I want to feel

seen or understood

Something that makes me proud is

The beverage I “need” while writing

FROM
HERE
The book I think everyone needs to read is

The weirdest thing I use as a bookmark

AUTHOR OF FROM HERE 17

 MACARAYAN

ILLUSTRATOR
MEET THE
ILLUSTRATOR
RY MACARAYAN IS an illustrator and designer
currently based in Seattle, WA. Originally from Hawaii,

RY
they decided to leave perpetual 80 degree weather to
attend the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. They
are strategic in their work, often using clean and minimal
forms, but are unafraid of bold colors, soft textures, and
refreshing compositions. Their style is a perfect example
of organic shapes living in a digital world.

We partnered with Ry on the incredible illustrations

found throughout this zine. Learn more about Ry’s
work and follow them on Instagram @rymakes.

18 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PRIDE IN YOUR WORDS MEET THE ILLUSTRATOR 19

 THE
WICKED
BARGAIN
BY “THIS STORM WILL kill us, you know.”
GABE Mar nearly chokes on the last of the rum trickling
COLE down their throat. “What?”
NOVOA Papá nods somberly and puts the bottle back on
the table—lightly, this time.

“Why would you say that?” Mar’s face goes hot.

It’s one thing to utter a curse like that on one’s
enemies—but on their own crew? In the middle of
a dangerous storm, no less? Does he want to die?
“Take it back.”

“I can’t take back the truth.” Papá pulls a chair

Excerpted from The Wicked
Bargain by Gabe Cole Novoa. away from the table and sinks into it, deflating
All rights reserved. No part of
like the life is leaking out of him. “I’ve known this
this excerpt may be reproduced
or reprinted without permission storm would come for sixteen years. But now the
in writing from the publisher.

20 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PRIDE IN YOUR WORDS EXCERPT FROM THE WICKED BARGAIN 21
 time is here and—” His voice cracks and Mar’s heart punches
their chest. Is Papá crying?
Mar’s magia hums intensely, gathering in their muscles
and hissing lightning into their ears. The magical warning
has only worsened since the storm started, and Papá’s
breakdown certainly isn’t helping.
Mar shakes out their prickling hands and pulls a nearby
chair over. They sit across from Papá, knees to knees, as
Mar reaches over and pulls Papá’s warm hands into theirs.
“Talk to me. Why are you so worried? This storm is bad, but I
don’t—It’s not the first storm we’ve weathered.”
“Papá opens his mouth
and a lightning strike
splits the air—so close,
the crash sends Mar’s
heart racing and they
taste the burned night.”
“My blood screams tonight,” Papá whispers, so softly that
Mar almost doesn’t hear him above the roar of wind and rain.
Mar shivers. Papá doesn’t have magic to warn him about
danger, not like Mar, but he is intuitive. Still, they won’t tell
Papá their blood has been screaming too. “This night fills me
with fear, but not for myself. I’ve known my time
was ending.”
His time ending? Mar scowls. Sure, pirates often don’t have
the longest lives, but this storm is hardly the most dangerous
22 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PRIDE IN YOUR WORDS
threat they’ve faced. It’s not like they’re fighting the entire Spanish
Armada at once out there.
This overblown lamenting isn’t like him at all, not even when he’s
drunk. And honestly, Mar’s quickly tiring of it. If the crew heard him
talking like this, they’d be furious.
“You should be spared.” Papá nods, and even though he’s looking
at nothing over Mar’s shoulder, they get the sense he’s seeing
something else, someone else. “He saved you—that was the deal.
You should be all right. I have to believe you’ll be all right.”
“Who are you talking about?” Mar asks. “You’re not making any
sense. Maybe you should get some—”
“El Diablo.” Now Papá looks right at them.
“El Diablo,” Mar says flatly. “Claro. Bueno, pues, Papá, te quiero, but
you need some rest. You’ve had too much to drink.”
Mar starts to stand, but Papá grabs their wrist too tightly. Mar
hisses and sits back down. “That hurts.”
But Papá doesn’t ease his grip. He leans forward, so close his nose
nearly touches Mar’s. “You have to listen to me,” he whispers into the
darkness. “I made a deal sixteen years ago. I was young and foolish
and desperate. Your mamá—”
“That’s enough.” Mar has heard this fantastical tale just about every
time Papá gets drunk. The night of Mar’s birth, young Juan Luis
León Rojas supposedly made a deal with the devil and asked for
two things: fifty years of prosperity and to save his legacy—Mar,
who was born not breathing. El Diablo offered him Mar and sixteen
prosperous years that would make him legendary. With infant Mar
turning blue in Papá’s arms, he was too desperate to barter for more.
Or to ask what would happen when the sixteen years was up. It’s
the perfect story to tell over rum and cards on dark nights when the
EXCERPT FROM THE WICKED BARGAIN 23
 wind sings canciones, but tonight
Mar doesn’t have the patience
for it.
They yank their arm out of Papá’s
burning grip. “You need to sleep
it off. Leo can handle the storm
tonight, and I’ll help, but you need
to be ready to go in the morning,
all right? I’ll tell everyone you’re
not well.”
“I tried,” Papá says. “I tried to get
us to Isla Mujeres before tonight,
but the winds were against us.”
He presses his palms to his
face. “So much gold, sugar,
and weapons at the bottom
of the ocean…”
“Will you stop that?” Mar snaps.
“Keep cursing us and it’ll
actually happen.”
“That haul is for the people—”
“And we’ll get it to them—”
“I won’t let el Diablo take you. I
won’t. I won’t. You’re my child,
mi tesoro. He can’t go back on a
deal—that’s the rule. I saved you
then; I’ll—”
“Papá,” Mar pleads. “Basta, por
favor. Everything will be fine.
You’re just drunk. You drank too
much, understand? Everything
24 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PRIDE IN YOUR WORDS
will look better in the morning, I
promise.” But even as Mar says it,
the words feel strangely hollow.
Maybe it’s the bite of static in the
air. Or the smell of rain and salt
water thick enough to drown in.
Maybe it’s the warning edge of
Mar’s magia, or the terrible echo
of Papá’s words, but tonight…
everything feels wrong.
“Just promise me you’ll survive.”
Papá grips Mar’s hand with both
of his. “That’s all I want. I don’t
care about the gold or the ship—
just promise me you’ll make it.
Please, Mar, my death will be
meaningless if you die too.”
Mar is breaths away from being
sick. How can Papá talk about
his own death like that—so
certainly? How can he doom the
ship, speaking of La Catalina like
she’s already at the bottom of the
ocean? It isn’t just bad luck—he’s
practically asking for the ship
to sink.
But maybe if Mar agrees, Papá
will relax. Maybe he’ll finally go to
bed, and Mar can forget this awful
conversation ever happened.
 “Fine,” Mar says. “I’ll survive. Now will
you please get some rest? For me?”
Papá opens his mouth and a lightning
strike splits the air—so close, the
crash sends Mar’s heart racing and
they taste the burned night. Acrid
Mar spins around, pistol out and pointed at—
A man. Gleaming, too-new polished boots; dark, unstained trousers; a
fine, deep green ruffled silk shirt beneath a fitted black tailcoat with gold
buttons. His trim black beard is the kind of perfect that takes meticulous
hours to shape, and his dark hair curls around his pitch-black eyes like
thorns. If a king were a pirate, this is what he would look like.

But it isn’t his lavish style that makes the hair on the back of Mar’s neck

“…his dark hair curls stand on end. It’s something much stranger.

around his pitch-black

He isn’t wet.

eyes like thorns. If a

king were a pirate,
this is what he
would look like.”
and bitter, like biting into packed
gunpowder. Mar takes a slow breath
to try to still their panicked heart.
Their magia prickles hotly down the
back of their neck and washes over
their back. Mar freezes. Their magia
only ever reacts like that when…

26 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PRIDE IN YOUR WORDS EXCERPT FROM THE WICKED BARGAIN 27
Meet the
AUTHOR

NOVOA
Name Pronouns

The seven words that describe me best

GABE
COLE

THE WICKED
A book I re-read when I want to feel seen or understood

Something that makes me proud is

BARGAIN
The beverage I “need” while writing

The book I think everyone needs to read is

The weirdest thing I use as a bookmark

AUTHOR OF THE WICKED BARGAIN 29


READING
ROYALTY
Jonathan Hamilt, Executive Director of Drag
Story Hour, on why books plus glitter create
a whole lot of magic.
Ona Louise (she/her), drag performer
and Executive Director of Drag Story
Hour (DSH), closes the book she’s
reading—No One Owns the Colors by
Gianna Davy and illustrated by Brenda
Rodriguez—and reminds the kids in her
audience to “remember that colors are
for everyone, and we live in a bright,
colorful world and you should show your
true colors no matter what.”
It’s the perfect ending for the video she
filmed for GLAAD’s celebration of Read
Across America Day in early March
2023 and encapsulates Drag Story
Hour’s mission, which is to give kids
“glamorous, positive, and unabashedly
queer role models… who defy gender
restrictions and promote a world
30 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PRIDE IN YOUR WORDS
with
BY
ABBE
WRIGHT
where everyone can be their
authentic selves.” All this is done
through—as the name suggests—
storytellers using the art of drag
to read books in libraries, schools,
and bookstores.
While Ona Louise is giving 1960s
Palm Springs housewife in her
Pucci-esque patterned dress,
white hoops, and long red wig
for GLAAD’s video, I spoke with
her mustachioed and T-shirt-clad
alter ego, Jonathan Hamilt, at his
home in New York City via Zoom.
Jonathan Hamilt (he/him)
joined Drag Story Hour as the
organization’s first Executive
Director in February 2020. Since then,
he’s given the group a makeover, taking
it from a loose collection of chapters
across a few states to a national 501(c)
(3) non-profit with a global network of
local organizations, each of which is
independently managed and funded.
Drag Story Hour was created in San
Francisco in 2015 by author Michelle
Tea, who was frustrated at the
heteronormativity of the events for kids
at her local library. Tea—along with
queer Colombian writer and performer
Julián Delgado Lopera, and author and
weight-based discrimination expert
Virgie Tovar—organized the first event.
It was held at the Eureka Valley/Harvey
Milk Memorial Branch Library in the
Castro neighborhood of San Francisco,
an area synonymous with queer culture
and history.
PENGUIN
RANDOM
HOUSE WILL DONATE
15% of
PRH.COM NET PROCEEDS FROM
JUNE 1 TO JUNE 30, 2023 (UP TO
$30K) TO DRAG STORY HOUR!
DEFEND DRAG
STORY HOUR
HERE ARE WAYS YOU CAN PROTECT
THE LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY AT
HOME AND AFAR.
BY MIKEY DUFFY
JOIN THE PARASOL PATROL
(PARASOLPATROL.ORG)
This organization uses rainbow
umbrellas to shield children at LGBTQ+
events from mobs of angry protestors.
GET INVOLVED WITH THE ANTI-VIOLENCE
PROJECT (AVP.ORG)
Join a local chapter of the AVP, which
works to provide LGBTQ+ communities
with education and support to thwart
attacks from opposing groups.
Recently, AVP has worked with local
Drag Story Hour organizers to create
safety protocols to handle violent
protests at events.
SUPPORT OR DONATE TO QUEER
ACTIVIST ORGANIZATIONS
Drag Story Hour (dragstoryhour.
org/donate) uses donations to help
“kids learn from LGBTQ+ stories
and experiences to love themselves,
celebrate the fabulous diversity in their
communities, and stand up for what
they believe in and each other.”
The Victory Fund (victoryfund.org) is a
non-profit committed to increasing the
number of LGBTQ+ elected officials in
all branches of the government to gain
representation in politics and advance
equality.
CenterLink (lgbtqcenters.org) works
to support LGBTQ+ community centers
that provide essential services to queer
people and foster connection
and fellowship.
 “Our first drag storytellers were
trans women of color who were
already doing drag in the Bay
Area,” says Hamilt. “We certainly
don’t own the intellectual
property to read in costume to
kids,” he jokes. “When we began,
there was an Indigenous Two-
Spirit Storytime happening in
Canada and we recently found
out The Sisters of Perpetual
Indulgence, a non-profit drag
troupe dressed as nuns, had
been reading to kids in libraries
beginning in 2006. As we learn
more about other groups who
have also been doing this, I try
to weave them into our origin
story—drag artists have been
doing this for years! But we’re the
ones who have really taken this
idea and made it a movement.”
And a movement it has become:
Hamilt, who co-founded the New
York City chapter in 2016, reports
that DSH has now mushroomed
to 50 chapters in 45 states in
the United States and over a
dozen international chapters.
“The majority of our chapters
are volunteer-based,” he says.
“All of our queer artists get paid
for their time and artistry when
32 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PRIDE IN YOUR WORDS
doing story hour, but a lot of
our performers are educators,
or social workers, or parents or
teachers—people who are doing
this in addition to whatever other
day job they have. It’s really
a labor of love and activism.”
Chapters can range from the
small, “one or two drag artists,
organizing events when they
can,” to the massive, like in New
York City, where the local chapter
hosted 67 in-person programs
and 141 virtual programs in 2021,
serving 863 children in person
and thousands more virtually. The
program also works with middle
and high schools, visiting drama
clubs and gay-straight alliance
clubs, and performs for adults,
from university students to
employees at corporate diversity
equity and inclusion events. “We
also work with senior citizens
and do sing-alongs, Bingo, and
makeup tutorials with them,”
Hamilt says, smiling. “New York
City also offers a neurodiverse
story hour specifically designed
for kids on the autism spectrum.”
Hamilt walks me through a typical
Drag Story Hour: “Our signature
programming is in public libraries
for kids three to eight. We read
about four children’s books with
songs or movement breaks in
between, then we’ll end with arts
and crafts and a closing song. It’s
just like any other library story
hour, except the reader is a little
more fabulous and probably has
bigger hair.”
The books the performers read
often touch on themes of diversity
and difference, though sometimes
drag performers reach for the
classics, “because it’s really about
the queer representation of who is
reading the book that is delivering
the message of celebrating
difference in themselves and
others,” Hamilt says. But not
every book is great for story time,
especially when you’re trying to
capture the attention of dozens
of squirming children. “Kids
love making animal sounds and
doing motions, so any book that
can implement extra audience
participation is a good one,” he
says. “With drag, you know, the
more characters and voices and
acting you can do is really just the
cherry on top of the wig!”
But Jonathan Hamilt’s work with
Drag Story Hour isn’t all wigs and
glitter: recently, the events have
attracted the ire of right-wing
conservatives—both parents and
politicians—who claim the story
hours aren’t safe for children.
GLAAD reports that there were
141 incidents of anti-LGBTQ+
protests and threats targeting
specific drag events in 2022,
several of which involved violence
or weapons and included white
supremacist extremist groups
like the Proud Boys, and Patriot
Front. At the time of this writing,
14 states, including Arizona,
North Carolina, Texas, and
Kentucky, have proposed anti-
drag legislation, and Tennessee
became the first state to explicitly
ban drag shows in public spaces,
though a federal judge has
temporarily blocked the law
from going into effect, claiming
the statute violates the First
Amendment.
“This is nothing new. This is just
the 2023 version of what’s been
going on for fifty years,” Hamilt
says, unruffled, even though he’s
just told me he gets daily death
threats and hate mail. “Remember
Anita Bryant’s 1977 anti-LGBTQ+
campaign ‘Save Our Children?’
READING WITH ROYALTY 33
 VERONIKA TRIXIE
ELECTRONIKA  MATTEL 
NASHVILLE, TN
ONA LOS ANGELES, CA VERONIKA
same
“I love reading the Se
tle Go lde n Bo ok LOUISE  “The book that has really ELECTRONIKA
Street Lit
d of shaped me is Watchmen by
  
ter at the En NEW YORK, NY NASHVILLE, TN
The Mons
by Jon Sto ne an d Alan Moore. It’s about the
This Book “One of my favorite “A book that has ma
by Mi ch ae l Sm oll in. books power of dressing up and de me
illustrated to read to kids is Ju feel seen and underst
d thi s on e at Dr ag lián Is a why people dress up. Nobody ood is
I love to rea Mermaid. Author an Harvey Fierstein’s Th
can d activist knows more about that than e Sissy
Story Hour because you Jessica Love, who se Duckling. I was a sis
y wi th it an d kid s of rves on a drag queen. It’s also a sy kid and
get so sill the Drag Story Hour while I had two paren
t love it! An d Gr over Board of teardown, or deconstruction, ts who
all ages jus Directors, really captu were present, I don’t
he’s my of America’s relationship to
is the main character— imagination and pla
res the
if they knew how to
know
to me as y of dress-up fame, violence, and power. take me
fave. My mom read it and the book acts as at times. This child
of a Ultimately, the differences in ren’s book
a child and I can’t think and door for the audie
a window
allowed me to share
y to fig ht mo ns ters!” nce to perceiving reality.” the story
better wa experience creativit of an outsider who
y as a turns into
joyous exploration.” the hero, and I love
that!”

KATYA
ZAMOLODCHIK
OVA  RAJA GEMINI 
LO S ANGELES, CA LOS ANGELES, CA
Shel
Sidewalk Ends by
Katya loves The Qu
eer Art of Failure by I adore “Where the el Sil ve rstein.
erything Sh
Halberstam, a book
that finds alternative
Jack Silverstein. I love ev d bo ok s that
first illustrate
conventional underst
andings of success
s to This was one of the illu strati on s,
ght. Inspiring
heteronormative, ca
pitalist society by ex
in a challenged my thou
imaginatio n.”
popular culture, avan
t-garde performance
am ining simple, and stirring
queer art. , and

34 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PRIDE IN YOUR WORDS READING WITH ROYALTY 35

 Sounds kind of familiar, doesn’t
it? Using children as a scapegoat
is a smoke-and-mirrors way to
chip away at gay rights and mask
the real issues at hand, which are
transphobia, trans misogyny, and
homophobia. It’s not about drag,
it’s not about children, it’s about
controlling people.”
Despite the protests of Drag
Story Hour, Hamilt also points to
a growing mainstream audience
for drag culture, perhaps ignited
by recent stories in the media
that bring drag into the national
conversation. “We’ve been doing
this work for seven years, but
in the last year or so, people are
acting like drag is new or trans
people are new. It’s like ‘Hate to
tell ya, honey, but we’ve been here
since the dawn of time!’”
While some adults are just
catching on to Drag Story Hour,
kids have always known it
was special. “Reading to kids,
promoting literacy and books is
so important,” Hamilt says. “And
in this age of screen time, I don’t
think kids experience enough live
performance and theater. Drag
is very theatrical, very over-the-
top, very outlandish, colorful,
36 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PRIDE IN YOUR WORDS
and fun. And there’s lots of energy
behind it. I think that’s why kids like it so
much because it’s like having a Disney
character up close and personal. And
then when we use that art of drag to
read books, it’s magical, because books
are mirrors and windows to different
worlds and different places. We really
want our audiences to see themselves
and see their communities in the books
we read,” Hamilt says, the passion for his
work evident in his excited monologue.
“When I was growing up, books looked
different but now there’s so much
amazing children’s literature out there.
When we read to kids, we choose books
that teach about diversity, inclusion,
and equity and that show an array
of characters who stand up for their
communities and become bright lights of
change for the future. I think the sooner
kids experience difference, they’re going
to grow up to be more well-adjusted, and
have more compassion. You don’t have to
comprehend everything about somebody
to have compassion for them. Drag Story
Hour—both the books we read and the
performers reading them—helps teach
kids that as they grow up and navigate
the diversity in the world, they can be at
peace with themselves and know that
it’s okay to be different. And it’s not a
threat to you if someone looks and acts
and believes different things than is acceptable in your community
you do.” when it comes to homophobia,
transphobia, and racism,”
Reflecting on Drag Story Hour’s
Hamilt says. “I think the average
impact thus far, Hamilt says,
heterosexual should know that
“The first kids that we started
when you uplift and include the
reading to at five are 13 now, and
most marginalized voices—trans
they’re totally unbothered by drag
voices, BIPOC voices, queer
queens and kings. It’s a part of
voices—it means we all get a seat
their childhood that’s almost rote
at the table, and we all feel equity
and boring to them now. I think it
in our community. That will lead
will lead to a culture shift as they
to a future where there are safe
grow older of drag being totally
spaces for anybody that doesn’t
normalized. They’ll know that
feel safe in the general public. And
drag is an important, integral part
if the drag queen has to lead that
of the queer community and the
safe space, then we’re going to
trans community. They’ll know
do it.”
without the trans community,
there would be no drag. They’ll
know the importance of lifting
and centering queer voices.
They’ll go to a drag show as an
adult and tip well!” he says with
a laugh.
Drag Story Hour is helping
to shape generations of well-
adjusted kids, who will grow into
well-adjusted adults, but what
can allies do to stand up for the
queer community today? “Get
involved in your community. Get
into local politics, join the school
board or PTA, and make your
voice known about what you think
READING WITH ROYALTY 37
 THE
LATE
AMERI-
CANS
BY IT WAS A little before eight when Timo left
BRANDON his office. He went downstairs, crossed over

TAYLOR Pentacrest, and took Johnson down by St. Mary’s.

The lights were in the high window beneath
the steeple, which rose and rose into the deep,
smooth vault of the sky. Across the street, the
parson’s house sat stubby and sincere. Never
was there a more Midwestern house. He peeked
through the screened porch as he passed and saw
two shadowy figures playing cards and sipping
from mugs. A space heater glowed in the dark.

At the end of Johnson, he jogged across the street

Excerpted from The Late
Americans by Brandon Taylor.
All rights reserved. No part of
this excerpt may be reproduced
or reprinted without permission
in writing from the publisher.
to Fyodor’s house. The broad front windows were
eerily gray. He climbed up the porch steps and
pushed into the front hall, which smelled like salt
and mold. Old shoes. He could hear the dancers
above them. A party of some kind.

38 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PRIDE IN YOUR WORDS EXCERPT FROM THE LATE AMERICANS 39
 Fyodor’s apartment seemed empty at first. But then, he
turned the corner into the kitchen and on the little table,
there was a cake with three candles burning. Fyodor was
sitting there with his head down, asleep.
“He felt a little like
crying then. Not
because he was
unhappy. But because
he felt, for the first
time in a long time,
like he had done
the right thing.”
Timo stood in the kitchen doorway, looking at him. This
sleeping man. This dumb cake he’d probably paid too much
money for at the co-op. He looked so peaceful. Timo sat at
the other end of the table and watched the candles melt.
They were those trick candles. But they had burned down
and down through themselves. The wax was perilously close
to the cake. He wet his fingers and pinched out the fire. The
little sizzle and burn against his fingertips.
Fyodor snored loudly and woke himself. He looked up blearily
and then jumped, startled by Timo’s presence. Once the
candles were out they were more fully enclosed in the
dark, but the blue light from the neighbor’s porch still
reached them.
40 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PRIDE IN YOUR WORDS
Fyodor wiped at his mouth with the back of his
hand.
“Happy birthday,” he said.
“Thank you,” Timo said.
“I didn’t know when you’d be back. I thought
earlier, but then. I don’t know. I think I fell
asleep.”
“You did.”
“Sorry.”
“It was nice.”
“That feels like a loaded comment,” Fyodor said warily. But then he got
up and turned on the light so that they could see each other.
It seemed really tawdry and cheap to apologize. Like something people
would do in a movie in the face of a kind gesture. But they weren’t
movie people. They weren’t little trains set on their track running
their preset courses. Free will had to enter into it somehow. Agency. A
tendency toward messy, mundane complication. He was sitting across
from Fyodor, whom he loved. Whom he knew. Fyodor, another living
person, breathing and thinking, feeling. How to make his own feelings
understood? How to say, I see you, I love you, I’m sorry? But sorry
was just a cheap, dirty little word. It presupposed an orderly world.
It presupposed that it was ever possible to make up for what had
come before.
Instead, Timo stood and took a knife from the rack. He cut a wedge of
cake. Carrot. Vegan. It was the co-op cake, thick and stodgy, but he cut
it and he set it on a plate, which he pushed in front of Fyodor. He cut his
own slice and sat, not back at his end of the table, but next to Fyodor.
They ate in silence, ate without looking at each other, and when they
were done Timo washed their plates. Then they moved over to Fyodor’s
EXCERPT FROM THE LATE AMERICANS 41
couch, and Timo read him a story by the writer Garshin, who Fyodor
had been reading lately, or trying to read as part of his trying. The
story was called “Officer and Soldier-Servant.” Fyodor lay with his
head on Timo’s lap, listening. He was asleep before the end of
the story.

Timo did not move. He did not get them into bed. He sat with
Fyodor’s sleeping weight on his lap, looking through the window at
the empty side yard. Over them, the dancers and their party went
on. He felt a little like crying then. Not because he was unhappy. But
because he felt, for the first time in a long time, like he had done the
right thing. That he had chosen to do something good. He had done
right by another person, not thinking of himself.

He looked down at Fyodor and marveled that it was possible that

someone could trust him enough to rest with their head on his lap,
not thinking he might harm them or do something monstrous to
them. That a person could trust him, even after all the dumb fighting
and arguing. It moved him. Most people would not have cared. Or
noticed. But Timo noticed. Timo cared. Fyodor, sleeping.

The apartment grew cold. But still Timo sat there with Fyodor’s
head on his lap. His own legs going to sleep, tingling and then
dropping off entirely. He rested his head against the back of the
couch and slept too.

Upstairs, the party went on.

EXCERPT FROM THE LATE AMERICANS 43

 BRANDON
TAYLOR

AMERICANS
BRANDON TAYLOR IS the author of the
novels The Late Americans and Real Life, which
was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the National
Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, and named a
New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and a

THE LATE
Science + Literature Selected Title by the National Book
Foundation. His collection Filthy Animals, a national
bestseller, was awarded The Story Prize and shortlisted
for the Dylan Thomas Prize. He is the 2022–2023 Mary
Ellen von der Heyden Fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B.
Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.

44 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PRIDE IN YOUR WORDS AUTHOR OF THE LATE AMERICANS 45
 UNCLE
OF THE
YEAR
BY I LIKE TO think of myself as a free spirit.
ANDREW Someone who goes with the flow of life. A real

RANNELLS “Yes, and” kind of guy. But the truth is I am not. I

like rules, I like instruction, I love a list of things to
do and a well-­thought-­out plan.

This tension deep inside me is best explained by

Excerpted from Uncle of the Year
by Andrew Rannells. All rights
reserved. No part of this excerpt
may be reproduced or reprinted
without permission in writing
from the publisher.
the movie Mystic Pizza. As a kid, I loved the film
and desperately wanted to be Julia Roberts’s
character, Daisy—­fun and spontaneous, with
wild hair and a propensity for outrageous (and
sometimes irrational) behavior and questionable
fashion choices. I turned out to be more like
Annabeth Gish’s character, Kat. A nerdy but
sexually ambitious astronomy student who
always shows up on time and is available to
cover your shift at the pizza joint at the last

46 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PRIDE IN YOUR WORDS EXCERPT FROM UNCLE OF THE YEAR 47
 minute. I mention this because A) I don’t think Mystic Pizza is referenced Gavin, Sean, and I started going One night, Gavin told us that
enough in the zeitgeist and B) I want to give you a little context as to out together to gay bars, parties, he’d heard about a bar in the
what my natural social instincts are. all the things that many gay men East Village called Opaline.
in big cities do in their twenties. The East Village seemed very
For most of my life, I have gravitated toward the comfortable friendship
We just hadn’t done them yet. edgy for three Hell’s Kitchen
of girls like Daisy and Kat. Maybe it’s because they represent the two
And once we started, we ­really theater gays, but we were up
sides of my personality. Maybe it’s because I have three sisters. Or
got started. for the adventure. It turned out
maybe it’s just too much Mystic Pizza. Either way, there is a safety in
to be worth the subway ride,
hanging out with girls that I learned about at a young age. When I was We visited all the gay bars in our
because we had a blast. It was
a little gay boy, girls were way less judgy about my desire to play with neighborhood of Hell’s Kitchen:
an incredibly fun, specifically gay
Barbies, and I never feared that they might beat me up unexpectedly. Therapy, Barrage, Posh—­we
dance club on Friday nights, and
They never asked me to play a sport, and they generally admired my wit hit them all! We ventured into
the three of us would dance to the
and knowledge of facts about the cast of Kids Incorporated. Chelsea and went to Splash, XL,
“Milkshake”/“Holiday” mash-­up,
and G Lounge. (If you are gay
As I got older though, I realized that I wanted to have gay friends, too. I make out with the occasional boy,
and lived in New York in the early
thought it might be helpful for my own development as a gay man and and give out a number here and
2000s, after reading those names
would help me feel part of a community in New York. I should be with there, but usually split a cab home
I’m sure you can smell the Acqua
my people! But where do I meet them? I wondered. How can I find at the end of the night.
di Gio.) All those places were
some gay friends?
great, and we had some fantastic At the time, Gavin and I lived
For me, the answer was easy: Ask a girl who does a lot of musical nights at each of them, but before in cramped side-­by-­side studio
theater! They usually have lots of gay friends! Lucky for me, I was long we’d had our fill of hanging apartments on the corner of
already friends with the perfect girl, Jenn. We had met doing summer out with hopeful chorus boys in 45th Street and Ninth Avenue.
stock in the Berkshires after my freshman year of college and become sleeveless Abercrombie ­T-­shirts. My place had a half refrigerator
close. Jenn’s issue was the opposite of mine; she was a gal who almost We decided we were ready to and barely any closet space, and
exclusively hung out with gay men. (She is a brassy belter; that’s break out of our comfort zone. I think it’s my favorite place I
probably why.) have ever lived. That’s another
thing Jenn gave us, that building.
Through Jenn I met many gay men who strangely also didn’t have a ton
I think she was the first to move
of other gay friends, and two, Sean and Gavin, quickly became constants
in, followed by Gavin and then
in my life. We all started spending a lot of time together, at first with
me. Sean was the only one who
Jenn and then eventually without Jenn. Truth be told, like something
never moved there, but he spent
out of an ’00s romcom, Jenn introduced us all as potential romantic
about every weekend in one of our
partners. Her thought was, “You’re gay! He’s gay! You should date!”
places anyway. Since most of us
Alas, gays, like snowflakes, are all unique, and you can’t just shove two
lived there, we would end or start
together and expect them to match, though she certainly tried.
most days at the Westway Diner
across the street. We called it

48 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PRIDE IN YOUR WORDS EXCERPT FROM UNCLE OF THE YEAR 49
 “the cafeteria,” and we would end up there nearly every night,
hatching our plans to try out new bars, new experiences.
(Zuzanna stayed with me there for several weeks while she
was on break from grad school, and she said it was like living
on a cruise ship: tiny rooms, same people, same dining room
every day, and a lot of booze.)
I am pretty certain it was Sean who found the Slide, which
was also in the East Village. The Slide was in a basement that
you could only access by one decrepit staircase that was lit
“I saw a beautiful
mix of people of all
races and sizes, all in
their underwear and
dancing wildly and
freely together.”
by red lightbulbs. It immediately smelled like sour bar fruit
and BO mixed with a hint of Brut deodorant. As we waited
for the doorman to check our IDs, I could see that the Slide
attracted a slightly different clientele from Opaline. There
were more tattoos, and everyone seemed like they were
some kind of “found object” art installer who had never been
above 14th Street. It was an intimidating crowd. They seemed
slightly dangerous, not in a “they might stab us” kind of way,
more like a “they might make fun of us if we don’t know what
every color of the hanky code means” kind of way. Keep in
mind that I still looked like a Precious Moments confirmation
cake topper. I wasn’t exactly blending in. The doorman gave
50 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PRIDE IN YOUR WORDS
us a quick up-­and-­down and was probably thinking I had gotten
lost on my way to a show choir conference. (Quick side note: The
doorman at this bar was none other than now-­famous actor and
all-­around dreamboat Murray Bartlett. Years later I would go on
to work with and befriend Murray, but at this point he was just an
aspirational hunk whom I desperately wanted to notice me. Spoiler:
He did not notice me.)
Once we were past the doorman, a guy near the front door handed
us small trash bags.
“What are these for?” I asked.
“They are for your clothes,” he said. “It’s Underwear Night.”
Panic streaked through me. I can’t do that. I was an altar boy! But
before I could protest, and without any conversation, Sean and
Gavin just started taking off their clothes. Are we r­ eally going to do
this? The answer was apparently yes. I was immediately sent into a
spiral of insecurity, but not wanting to spoil the adventure, I ignored
my instincts and off came the clothes. (Except for our shoes and
socks. There was still some level of civility.) We put our clothes in the
bag, the guy by the door wrote a “bag check” number on our arms,
and in we went. There was some concern about where to put my
wallet. I settled on my sock. That seemed responsible.
Once inside I was surprised to see it was pretty much business
as usual at the Slide, except everyone was in their underwear. It
was ­really weird seeing guys just standing around the bar in their
unmentionables, but I loved clocking the kinds of underwear people
had on, the colors, the shapes. They promised some insight into
what people’s personalities might be. Boxer briefs? Probably works
in finance and loves Dave Matthews. Briefs? More adventurous
and definitely has a share on Fire Island. A jockstrap? We get it,
girl. Since we hadn’t known what we were walking into that night,
I hadn’t had the luxury of plotting out what my underwear might be
EXCERPT FROM UNCLE OF THE YEAR 51
 saying about me. Luckily it was
2002, so I was wearing what
most guys wore then: black Calvin
Klein briefs. Basic, functional,
and, I convinced myself, sexually
vague in a good way.
We ordered our drinks and stood
around trying to act normal. And
you know what? Eventually, it
did seem normal. You sort of
forgot after a few minutes that
you didn’t have clothes on. It was
liberating actually! It felt like a
secret society, something slightly
shocking to be a part of. We
started talking to people, dancing,
laughing, ­really having a good
time. All these intimidating people
turned out to be fun and silly and
more like me than I’d imagined.
They were artists and creative
types who were all just trying to
have fun. I loosened up and let
my guard down. I leaned the fuck
in! I was in a slightly shady bar,
in my underwear, surrounded by
strangers, and I was loving it.
For anyone reading this who
might have actually been to the
Slide around 2002—­or a bar like
it—­you know that there was also
a lot of more risqué behavior
taking place in the darkest
52 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PRIDE IN YOUR WORDS
corners. It was shocking but
titillating and only added to the
spirit of freeness in the air. But
for the purpose of this story, we
are going to just keep it PG-­13
and plow right past those details!
The point is, we were having fun
and allowing ourselves to stray
way out of our comfort zones,
especially me.
It was getting late, and by that I
mean early, so Sean, Gavin, and I
made our way back to the clothes
check, where we started to get
dressed. “I had a good time!” I told
the boys. “I thought it was going
to be scary but it wasn’t! I would
totally come back!” As I was
buttoning up my H&M blouse, I
realized something… my wallet
was gone. It must have fallen out
of my sock! It had seemed like
such a secure location! Or worse,
someone had stolen it. All my joy
from seconds earlier evaporated
and was instantly replaced
by midwestern rage/aggressive
Catholic guilt. A powerful
combo platter of emotion! I
spiraled into a judgment-­filled
internal monologue:
Of course I got my wallet stolen
here! I’m surrounded by thieves
and whores. Why did I ever think that it would be safe to interact
with these people? Why did I even come to the East Village?! This is
my punishment for so carelessly leaving the safety of my midtown
neighborhood and willingly stripping down to my Calvins in the
entryway of a filthy bar where I probably got MRSA, most likely was
exposed to hantavirus, and definitely got my wallet stolen. It was
probably by that guy who spoke with a French accent but also said
he was from Michigan that I impulsively made out with when a remix
of “Creep” started playing. This lost wallet is a smackdown from
all my dead grandparents who are watching me in heaven saying,
“What has happened to Andy? He was such a good boy, and now
he’s wearing his underwear in public and getting drunk on vodka
cranberries purchased for him by a man who looks like Robert Sean
Leonard if he worked at a Renaissance fair!” Damn it, I’ve ­really done
it now. I should have listened to my gut and left the Underwear Party
at the Slide as soon as I walked in. It serves me right. This is what I
deserve for acting like such a dick.
(FYI, this rant of self-­flagellation took place silently and rather
quickly. I didn’t even tell Sean and Gavin I had lost my wallet. They
were talking about some guy with a chain that went from his nipple
piercings down to his Prince Albert or some bullshit while I was
privately checking myself into rehab and then a monastery.)
I was about to admit to my friends that something horrible had
happened, that it was all my fault for being so careless, and that
I was vowing to never come to the East Village again or attend
another underwear party—­and probably should just teach crafts in
a senior center for the rest of my life—­when someone tapped me on
the shoulder. I turned to find an Elijah Wood–­looking fella, covered
in sweat and glitter and wearing what looked like homemade fairy
wings. “I think this is yours,” he said with a smile. “I saw it fall out
of your sock when you were changing. You should keep it in your
underwear.” He told me this as he patted his crotch, where there
was clearly the shape of a wallet. Before I could thank this Good
EXCERPT FROM UNCLE OF THE YEAR 53
 Samaritan little fairy, he was back hide physically, and living in that
on the dance floor twirling away exact moment with unadulterated
to the Scissor Sisters. joy. And when you didn’t expect
it, they were looking out for one
I looked at my wallet. It was
another. It was a beautiful sight
indeed mine. I looked to see if my
and I was also a part of it, a part
cash and credit cards were still in
of that community. I felt the joy
there. They indeed were. And then
and freedom and responsibility
I felt a wave of embarrassment
that came with being with other
mixed with relief wash over me.
people who were like me.
I hadn’t been punished after all! I
had learned a lesson about wallet Gavin shouted to me over the
placement when you have no music, “You ready to go?”
pockets, and everything was okay
I smiled back.
in the end. My faith in humanity,
especially humanity in the East “Yeah. But when are we
Village, was restored. Maybe coming back?”
this was the gift from my dead
grandparents! They were telling
me, “You can go out and have fun,
but keep your shit tight and watch
yourself, Andy! This lesson is a
freebie on us!”

I finished getting dressed,

refreshed and invigorated by our
adventure. I took another look
at the dance floor and instantly
regretted what I’d been thinking
a minute before. I saw a beautiful
mix of people of all races and
sizes, all in their underwear and
dancing wildly and freely together.
Everyone was in their most basic
form (nearly), with nothing to

54 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PRIDE IN YOUR WORDS

 RANNELLS
Meet the
AUTHOR

ANDREW
Name

Pronouns

The seven words that describe me best

THE YEAR
UNCLE OF
A book I re-read when I want to feel
seen or understood

Something that makes me proud is

The beverage I “need” while writing

The book I think everyone needs to read is

The weirdest thing I use as a bookmark

AUTHOR OF UNCLE OF THE YEAR 57

 WORD OF
MOUTH
We asked queer booksellers from
across the country about their
must-read books, from favorite
re-reads to the picks they can’t
stop recommending.
MILO (they/them)
UNIVERSITY BOOK STORE,
WASHINGTON
UBOOKSTORE.COM
7 words that
describe me best
Genderqueer writer, worker’s
rights advocate, wannabe bard.
A book I re-read when
I want to feel seen or
understood
To experience the warm fuzzies,
Red, White, & Royal Blue
by Casey McQuiston. I book-
clubbed this with my best
friends in college, so every time
I pick it up I’m doubly reinfused
with community and joy. To
feel profoundly recognized
as a genderqueer person, the
58 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PRIDE IN YOUR WORDS
miraculous Endpapers by
Jennifer Savran Kelly.
Something that
makes me proud
Seeing in archives, pictures, and
books that throughout history,
against all odds, LGBTQIA+
people have found hope and
wonder in each other.
The book I want everyone
to read ASAP
Things We Found When The
Water Went Down by Tegan Nia
Swanson. It’s unlike anything
else. A ferocious yet dreamy ode
to both women and the earth as
survivors of systemic violence,
this is a book you don’t even so
much read as feel.
LEXI
BEACH (she/her)
ASTORIA BOOKSHOP,
NEW YORK
ASTORIABOOKSHOP.COM
7 words that
describe me best
New Yorker, dog person,
wife, Scorpio, coffee drinker,
introvert, reader.
The book I’d un-ban in
all schools and libraries,
right now (if I had to
pick just one)
All of them, but today, I choose
You Should See Me in a Crown
by Leah Johnson.
The weirdest thing I
use as a bookmark
This is a long list. My cell phone;
a paper napkin; another book; a
granola bar wrapper; a pen; one
of my dog’s chew toys; a note
from an author/publicist; no
bookmark just bend the book
inside out and shove it in your
bag; never ever one of the 3,000
bookmarks with my store’s logo
I have behind our register.
The book I want everyone
to read ASAP
The Princess Bride by William
Goldman. So many people
only know the movie and the
best parts of the book didn’t
make it onto the screen.
(ZOO OF DEATH!)
WORD OF MOUTH: QUEER BOOKSELLER RECS
CALVIN
CROSBY (he/him)
THE KING’S ENGLISH
BOOKSHOP, UTAH
KINGSENGLISH.COM
7 words that
describe me best
Queer, Cherokee, artist, reader,
bookseller, community-focused,
caffeinated.
A book I re-read when
I want to feel seen or
understood
Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich.
The weirdest thing I use
as a bookmark
A shoelace.
The book I’d un-ban in
all schools and libraries,
right now (if I had to pick
just one)
All books by Toni Morrison—she
was such a powerful writer,
denying any of her work is wrong.
If I had to pick just one, The
Bluest Eye would have to be
the one.
59
 SHANE
MULLEN (he/him)
LEFT BANK BOOKS, MISSOURI
LEFT-BANK.COM
7 words that
describe me best
Queer, drinkmaster,
“unputdownable”, joyful,
social-butterfly, electric,
“an unexpected delight.”
The book I want everyone
to read ASAP
Decent People by De’Shawn
Charles Winslow. This book is a
bit of everything and I cannot stop
thinking about it. It is a mystery, a
little romance, the most incredible
characters, and an off-the-charts
ending. It kept me on my toes,
and I literally read it in one sitting
because I could not put it down.
Something that makes
me proud
Seeing anyone confident in
themselves makes me proud.
I love being able to walk in my
world as an out queer person.
Being recognized and being able
to help younger queer people find
their pride is amazing.
The book I’d un-ban in
all schools and libraries,
right now (if I had to pick
just one)
All Boys Aren’t Blue by
George M. Johnson
60 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PRIDE IN YOUR WORDS
ERROL “E.R.”
ANDERSON (he/they)
CHARIS BOOKS AND MORE,
GEORGIA
CHARISBOOKSANDMORE.COM
7 words that
describe me best
I am Southern, trans/queer, and
a writer. People tell me I am
hospitable, unflappable, curious,
and loyal.
A book I re-read when
I want to feel seen or
understood
Stone Butch Blues by
Leslie Feinberg.
The weirdest thing I use
as a bookmark
Blood sugar testing strips from
my glucose monitor (I’m diabetic
and those things are worse than
glitter. They get everywhere!).
The book I want everyone
to read ASAP
Prophet by Helen Macdonald
and Sin Blaché. It’s both a
completely diverting spy novel
and a queer love story with a core
message about how nostalgia is
weaponized by the government
often to deadly ends in service of
state goals.
JEREMY
PATLEN (he/him)
TATTERED COVER BOOK
STORE, COLORADO
TATTEREDCOVER.COM
7 words that
describe me best
Running, hiking, reading,
sparkling and somewhat verbose.
A book I re-read when
I want to feel seen or
understood
Love in the Time of Cholera by
Gabriel García Márquez.
Something that makes
me proud
When the movers that took
our things from NYC to Denver
remarked, “Wow, you two sure
read a lot.”
The book I want everyone
to read ASAP
Just Kids by Patti Smith. It’s
one of the most beautiful books
I’ve ever encountered. It’s about
almost everything there is to
experience in life, but most
importantly the need for both
love and art.
WORD OF MOUTH: QUEER BOOKSELLER RECS
CAMDEN
AVERY (he/they)
THE BOOKSMITH, CALIFORNIA
BOOKSMITH.COM
7 words that
describe me best
Reader, maker, seeker, gardener,
lover, sibling, cook.
The book I want everyone
to read ASAP
August Blue by Deborah Levy
because nobody sees life right
now as clearly as her. When I
finished reading August Blue,
my pandemic was over.
The book I re-read when
I want to feel seen or
understood
At the Bottom of the River
by Jamaica Kincaid. Her
sentences feel like coming
home and she reminds me
of the extraordinary size of the
unknown and what’s possible.
Something that makes
me proud
Seeing people have fun in our
shop. Queers, freaks, hotties, con
artists, every color folx, tourists,
parents, pornographers—that’s
who the shop is for, that’s what
it’s meant to do.
61
 SIZZLE
REEL
BY AS I MAKE my hour-­long commute to work,
CARLYN I convince myself that the reason it was mildly
GREENWALD difficult to come out to my therapist is because
she looks like Rachel Brosnahan. Which, yeah,
doesn’t make much sense without context, and
who’s to say my brain’s working at seven in
the fucking morning as I inch along the slog of
Vermont Avenue, longing for the respite of the
equally-­as-­red stretch on Wilshire Boulevard? In
fact, I can confirm it is not. I’m not even really
listening to the Bechdel Cast podcast I clicked
on an hour ago.

Excerpted from Sizzle Reel by
Carlyn Greenwald. All rights
reserved. No part of this excerpt
may be reproduced or reprinted
without permission in writing
from the publisher.
Facts: Beverly Hills is seven miles from my
apartment. My therapist looks exactly like
Rachel Brosnahan. I’ve been officially
identifying as bisexual for four days.

62 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PRIDE IN YOUR WORDS EXCERPT FROM SIZZLE REEL 63
 Four days, and I’m already a bisexual disaster. Or, rather, I
became a bisexual disaster the moment I came out to Julia.
Imagine for a moment the bright lighting of a therapist’s office
a block from the beach, with sun spilling in from the east
because some clown didn’t put the windows in the office facing
the beach. We’re doing a P.O.V. shot; Julia’s perfectly centered
horizontally but shifted up a little vertically to suggest her slight
authority over me, a slight authority we don’t talk about.
“Facts: Beverly Hills
is seven miles from
my apartment. My
therapist looks exactly
like Rachel Brosnahan.
I’ve been officially
identifying as bisexual
for four days.”
I’m bisexual, I say. Camera tight on me, Julia off camera.
That’s great! she replies. When did you figure it out?
I reply with: While watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
We quick cut to Julia’s face and—­
Even running the story through my head, my cheeks still go
hot with the memory. I knock my air-­conditioning up a notch.
Everything’s fine. Coming out has been fine. The Julia–­Rachel
Brosnahan story is the kind of shit my best friends, Romy
64 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PRIDE IN YOUR WORDS
and Wyatt, will lap up like, well, like stressed-­out Hollywood
assistants lap up hard liquor after work. And yes, I can tell
them this specific story because they’re the next people
I’m going to come out to.
Just as I reach perfect homeostasis from the air-­conditioning
against the sizzling heat of Los Angeles in June, I’m tapping my
employee card against the reader in the parking garage and
locking away my freedom and sanity, along with an emergency
change of clothing. I take my daily last longing look at my
parked car, wishing I could crawl back to bed. But alas, I’m
twenty-­four, nearly two years out of college, and a Working
Professional. A true old Gen Z with a let death
take me aesthetic.
Slater Management is what Hollywood calls “boutique,” which
really just means we don’t have enough clients to take up a
whole building. We take up three levels: lobby/café/copy room,
literary managers, talent managers. We’re successful enough to
have perks like a café but small enough that I know the name of
every­one I pass as I walk through the floors.
I drop into my chair at 8:50 a.m., ten minutes before my boss,
Alice, will be in. Or expects to be in. She’s never on time. So, at
the very least, I’m given a few minutes to reassess the scene.
Slater has provided us with quickly declining Macs, headsets,
and ancient office phones that don’t even have caller I.D.—­the
Let’s Push My Blood Pressure Up to 181/121 Trio. I start my deep
breathing and do my standard morning routine: open up the
digital Rolodex, click open Alice’s call log, open email, headset
on. Alice has a client coming in today. His name’s John, and
he’s a director of midbudget films that people know of without
knowing his actual name.
“Jesus, Luna, you gotta stop doing coke every Sunday,” Wyatt
Rosenthal, one of the two people I’m going to come out to next,
EXCERPT FROM SIZZLE REEL 65
 says as he plops into his seat
beside me.
While the six talent managers
have their own offices separated
from us by wall-­to-­wall glass, the
assistants are all crunched on to
one communal pod desk. Great
for socializing, bad if you want
to cry without five other people
(and a straggling manager or two)
having to force themselves to look
away from you.
“Are you implying I look like shit?”
I reply, softening the jab with my
best attempt at a smile.
“Just tired.”
I resist the urge to look at
myself in my phone camera. I
keep makeup minimal for work
because like hell can I properly
put on liquid eyeliner at 6 a.m. But
apparently it’s not covering up the
bags under my eyes.
I give Wyatt a once-­over. He’s got
a Sigma Alpha Mu, Jewish pretty-­
boy look. Wavy honey-­brown hair,
full eyebrows, ears that stick out
just enough to be called cute,
orthodontics-­corrected teeth. The
type of boy my Jewish parents are
in loooove with. “I like to think I’d
66 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PRIDE IN YOUR WORDS
look worse if I were doing all “How was your weekend?” I ask. My eyelids are already
that cocaine.” growing heavy, and Alice isn’t even here yet. I’m gonna
need coffee stat. To think I didn’t even drink tea before
Wyatt chuckles. “I mean, around
this job.
here, I’m sure there’s someone
who does.”
“It’s possibly the
Our brief conversation jolts to an
only moment since
end with the shrill ring of Wyatt’s
phone. He picks it up in a perfect
swooping motion, like how
basketball players are taught to
I talked to Julia that
I’m reminded of how
make free throws. “Steven
excited I am to come
Wells’s office.”
Everyone in the pod has answered
each other’s phones at least out. At least to Romy.”
once because of everything from
sudden family emergencies to
Wyatt shrugs, readjusting a rolled-­up sleeve on
secret job interviews to having
his pink button-­down, the loudest piece of clothing he
to pee. So it was inevitable that
owns. “Eh, pretty boring. Went on another
I’d have covered Wyatt’s desk at
Hinge date.”
least once. And Wyatt’s boss…
is fine, I guess. He makes Wyatt It shouldn’t—­god, it shouldn’t—­but “Hinge” sends a snap
get him exactly eight chicken of panic through my stomach. As it has in the six months
sausages from the café every since Wyatt and I broke up after dating for a whopping
morning and once called Wyatt three weeks. My little brother, Noam, has joked that my
at 3 a.m. saying he was lost in parents mourned my and Wyatt’s relationship more than
the Charles de Gaulle Airport and I ever did, but the feeling in my gut isn’t encouraging.
needed Wyatt to navigate him to
“How’d it go?” I ask, not a single negative emotion
his gate.
in my voice.
“Can we return?” Wyatt asks.
I’m the one who broke up with him. We agreed to be
Once the phone’s hung up, he
friends in order to keep our trio together. No drama has
turns right back to me.
ensued since.
EXCERPT FROM SIZZLE REEL 67
Wyatt shrugs. “I don’t think I’ll see her again. There’s just never
anything interesting about these random girls.”

I’ve been mildly annoyed by Wyatt’s casualness in regard to his

dating life before, and yes, in my four days as a woman [who]
loves women (w.l.w.) I’ve become more offended by it. But,
again, he’s my friend. He’s just ignorant.

“Maybe if you went on more than two dates with these girls,
you’d give them time to open up.”

And in the perfect synchrony that is Alice Dadamo’s ability

to surprise me with her entrances when I’m about to initiate
substantial conversation, my boss flies through the assistant
pod in her Jimmy Choos. Her first words to me are “Go get
John at ten!”

I diligently roll through our owed calls, which is usually this

dozen-­name-­long list of executives/agents/clients who (1) called
the day before and (2) Alice didn’t want to talk to but (3) has to
talk to in order to maintain her reputation. We manage to make
it through three calls before Kiki from reception says John’s
here. I make sure my headset is still working and then dip down
the stairs and into the lobby.

John manspreads as far as a human possibly can in a T-­shirt

and shorts that may or may not have a hole in the crotch, but I
refuse to look back after one horrifying glimpse. He’s definitely
Alice’s grubbiest client, and she’ll be complaining about him to
me once he leaves. He’s flanked by two Chihuahua-­like college
kids in ill-­fitting suits who are clutching résumés and mouthing
answers to potential interview questions.

“Hi, John,” I say in my peppiest voice.

At least I’m not interviewing for internships or bottom-­of-­the-­

barrel substitution-­for-­the-­day assistant (coined “floater”) gigs.

EXCERPT FROM SIZZLE REEL 69

 “Hi, Lacy,” John replies. Romy looks up and smiles. The “What’re Caitlin and Jamie saying
perfect eyeliner around her green today?” she asks. We carpool to
I’ve lost the instinct to wince at this point.
eyes and her rose-­covered cupid’s work only about half the time,
“Would you like anything to drink?” I ask as we ascend our first lips just confirm what a different because her shifts often start
flight of stairs. Most clients ask for water, maybe the shitty job could do for me. If Wyatt is a (and end) long after (and before)
coffee we keep on our floor. Jewish frat boy and I’m a quirky mine.
aspiring filmmaker lady, Romy is
“I’ll get a latte from the café,” John says. “I’d say Shrek, but you’d know I
our slick and stylish nonbinary
wasn’t awake, so why bother,” I
Cool. accomplice, all ripped jeans,
reply as I lean against the counter.
patch-­covered jackets, ring-­
I exhale, lead John up to Alice, and jog back down to the café,
lined fingers, and sleeve-­peeking “A valid response. What was on
otherwise known as the chillest part of this stress machine of a
tattoos, with this hipster, volume-­ your mind instead?”
building. And bless, right now there isn’t even a line. Just Romy
up-­top, short-­on-­the-­sides dark
Fonseca, the last but best part of the Luna-­Wyatt-­Romy trio. Part of me wants to come out to
hair that makes men look like
her before Wyatt, but the guilt
Wyatt, Romy, and I all met freshman year at U.S.C. in Intro to douchebags but just makes her
won’t be worth it.
Cinema, this blanket requirement for my film production major look like she’ll steal your girlfriend.
and Wyatt’s business in cinematic arts minor, and an elective She has one streak up top that’s “Do you think it’s weird that I still
for Romy’s “multimedia narrative studies” major. Some asshole usually colored, but I guess she’s feel weird about Wyatt dating
was taunting her about how she dressed in section, saying she’d left it at bleached out. The lack of other girls?” I ask instead.
never attract men that way. I was emboldened from taking color is usually a sign she had to
“Is he being a shithead to girls
too much of an herbal antianxiety supplement, so I threw go to a relative’s birthday party
again? These Calabasas real
my arm around her and said she wasn’t trying to attract over the weekend—­both her
estate heiresses deserve at
guys. The asshole backed off within seconds and I lost my Barcelona side of the family and
least some basic respect.”
passionflower high within a few minutes, but our friendship her Waspy Boston-­transplant
remains unbreakable. side of the family have begged her Romy lovingly calls Wyatt “our
to dye it back to a natural color. fuckboy.” She stopped doing it
Romy has since become my roommate of five years, two of
only at one point in our six-­year
which have been spent in our own apartment that we had to
friendship: the three weeks
have our credit scores checked to nail down. We’re with each
I dated him.
other all the time, but seeing her familiar face is still one of the
best parts of working at this place. I slide up to the counter. “I don’t know. Probably. Do
you think I subconsciously
“John needs a latte,” I say.
still like him?”

70 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PRIDE IN YOUR WORDS EXCERPT FROM SIZZLE REEL 71
 Machines whir. I imagine Romy’s processing. She’s the thinker
in the group.
“I’d rather lean into the idea that, as someone with generalized
anxiety disorder, you’re just stressed at the idea of someone not
seeing you in a favorable light, even if you’re not actually that
interested in their attention itself.”
It sounds like something Julia would say, but from Romy it
packs more of a burn.
“Which family this weekend?” I ask.
She chuckles. “Damn, you’re good. Mom’s side. They refer to
this”—­she runs a couple of fingers through the natural dark
hair—­“as my dad’s ‘rich color.’ It’s as if they still haven’t realized
my dad’s side is white people who speak Spanish.”
I frown. “I’m sorry their learning curve still sucks.”
Romy shrugs. “I’ll just keep sending them articles and hope
for the best.”
As far as I know, Romy’s Bay Area–­based parents have been
pretty chill with her gender identity and will listen to her talk
about the woes of living in a world that’s on fire, but she still
sends her extended family a lot of articles. I’m not sure if they
actually read them.
as the cup is exchanged, making my stomach flip. God, these
coming-­out nerves are killer. “Yes. I’m stoked for shitty Long
Island Iced Tea Monday.” She mimes lifting a cup. “Before you
go. It’s a new flavor.”
Romy’s only a barista because she tried to work as an
assistant and quit in a week. Set screenwriting aside to pursue
playwriting. But she embraces this barista job like it’s her life
passion. I leave every interaction with her at work with the
energy to appreciate my job a little more.
I take a sip of the coffee. “It’s really good. What is it?”
“Café bombón. If you think it’s ready, I’ll add it to the
secret menu.”
Romy has one of those fluid, honeyed, Angelina Jolie–­type
voices, and I’m almost tempted to ask her to explain how she
made the new flavor just to hear it. But I’m at work. I’ll suggest
she start an audiobook-­narrator career later.
I take another tug, the caffeine a welcome relief. “Do it.”
I taste the words mixing with the sweetness and bite of
espresso: I’m bi. But I swallow them along with the coffee.
“See you later, Rom.”
“Later.”

She slides me two lattes, close enough to me that I can clearly Back to the wolves.
see the tattoo behind her ear: six dots arranged from red to
purple in a line. It’s possibly the only moment since I talked to
Julia that I’m reminded of how excited I am to come out. At least
to Romy. Thinking about that will be enough to get through
the day.

“We’re on for drinks after work today, right?” I ask.

She pushes one of the drinks closer to me. Our hands brush

72 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PRIDE IN YOUR WORDS EXCERPT FROM SIZZLE REEL 73
Meet the
AUTHOR

GREENWALD
Name

Pronouns

The seven words that describe me best

CARLYN
A book I re-read when I want to feel
seen or understood

Something that makes me proud is

SIZZLE
REEL
The beverage I “need” while writing

The book I think everyone needs to read is

The weirdest thing I use as a bookmark

AUTHOR OF SIZZLE REEL 75

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76
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published every day.

around for generations,
and there’s new work being
LGBTQ+ literature has been

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78
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PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PRIDE IN YOUR WORDS

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80
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PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE PRIDE IN YOUR WORDS

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2023 LGBTQ+ READING LIST
81
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