Gays Reading

Host Jason Blitman is joined by debut novelist Tara Menon to talk about her new book, Under Water.

Conversation highlights include:
🍦 The food textures that Tara hates
🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒 Chosen family
🐦‍⬛ Venery nouns

Tara Menon was born in India, grew up in Singapore, spent a decade in New York, and now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts where she is an assistant professor of English at Harvard University. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, the Nation and the Paris Review.
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Host Jason Blitman is joined by Kate Schatz who lives out her Reading Rainbow fantasy by sharing some of her favorite books. Kate then shares the personal story behind writing her debut novel, Where the Girls Were.

Kate Schatz is a feminist author from California. She’s the New York Times bestselling author of Do the Work: An Anti-Racist Activity Book, with W. Kamau Bell, and the “Rad Women” book series (including Rad American Women A-Z, Rad Women Worldwide, and Rad American History A-Z). Her book of fiction, Rid of Me: A Story, was published as part of the cult-favorite 33 1/3 series.
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Host Jason Blitman is joined by T Kira Madden, author of the acclaimed memoir Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls, to discuss her debut novel, Whidbey.

Conversation highlights include:
⛴️ T Kira's trip to Whidbey Island
☀️ The trauma of growing up in Florida
📺 Favorite reality TV

T Kira Māhealani Madden is a diasporic Kanaka 'Ōiwi (Native Hawaiian) writer and author of the acclaimed memoir Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls, which was named a New York Times Editors' Choice, as well as a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, and the Lambda Literary Award. She is the Founding Editor of No Tokens, a magazine of literature and art, and has received fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, Hedgebrook, Tin House, MacDowell, and Yaddo. Winner of the 2021 Judith A. Markowitz Award, she is an assistant professor at Hamilton College in Creative Writing and Indigenous studies and served as the Distinguished Writer in Residence at University of Hawai'i at Mānoa.
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Jason Blitman talks with singer-songwriter and queer icon Ani DiFranco about her reading life and the story behind her new book, The Spirit of Ani.

ANI DiFRANCO is a Grammy Award–winning singer-songwriter and musician who has released twenty-three albums, traversing genres and addressing a range of autobiographical, political, and social issues. She is widely considered a feminist icon, and created her own record label, Righteous Babe Records, in 1990. She regularly releases new music, and continues her decades-long career as a major touring artist. DiFranco released a collection of poems and paintings titled Verses in 2007. Her memoir, No Walls and the Recurring Dream, was a New York Times bestseller, and she is the author of two children’s books, The Knowing and Show Up and Vote. In 2024, she completed a five-month run on Broadway in the role of Persephone in Hadestown.
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CONTACT! [email protected]
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Host Jason Blitman sits down with author Amy Jo Burns — who returns to Gays Reading after co-interviewing Abraham Verghese with Jason in summer 2024 — to discuss her latest novel, Wait for Me, the March pick for Read with Jenna's book club.

Conversation highlights include:
🎶 Amy Jo's relationship to (and the power of) music
🫂 Embracing your authentic self
🖼️ Commercialization of art

Amy Jo Burns is the author of the memoir Cinderland and the novel Shiner, which was a Barnes & Noble Discover pick and an NPR Best Book of the Year. Her novel Mercury was a Barnes & Noble Book Club pick, a Book of the Month selection, a People Magazine Book of the Week, and an Editor's Choice at The New York Times. A western Pennsylvania native, she lives in New Jersey with her family.
Sign up for the Gays Reading Book Club HERE
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CONTACT! [email protected]
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