Tell us what you’re doing at The Coast is Queer this year

I am speaking on a panel about Queer Publishing Day: Radical Queer (re)Publishing with Jack Thompson, Kaiya Waerea and Hannah Chukwu. I am very excited to connect with the audiences who attend TCIQ and shoot the queer publishing breeze with my other brilliant panelists.

Why is The Coast is Queer an important festival?

It’s a unique space where LGBTQIA+ readers, publishers, book workers and allies can come together and hold a critical mass dedicated to the creativity and resilience of queer writing and literature.

What is the queer book that inspired you as a writer?

As I am currently writing a biography of Carmen Callil and Norah Smallwood, I will say Francesca Wade’s wonderful bio of Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife.

What is the book you would add to the queer bookshelf for future readers?

As a publisher of rediscovered queer classics, I’ve got to say the whole of the Lurid Editions list. But if I had to choose one, A Jingle Jangle Song by Mariana Villa-Gilbert. First published in 1968, this wonderful, sensory novel about an intoxicating love affair between an androgynous folk star and the alluring Mrs Stanovich is a lost queer classic that should be read for ever more. We published the first new edition of this novel since the late 60s earlier this year.

D-M Withers will be speaking on the Radical Queer (re)Publishing panel on Friday’s Queer Publishing Day, alongside Jack Thompson, Kaiya Waerea, D-M Withers and Hannah Chukwu. The event is at 5:00PM in the Jane Attenborough Studio.