Gays Reading

Host Jason Blitman talks to Ayelet Waldman about what she's been reading (spoiler alert: a lot of audiobooks while quilting!) and about her new book, A Perfect Hand. Come for the book recs, stay for the Heated Rivalry conversation.

Ayelet Waldman is the author of A Really Good Day, Love and Treasure, Red Hook Road, Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, Daughter’s Keeper, Bad Mother and the Mommy-Track Mystery series. She co-developed and was an Executive Producer on the Netflix series Unbelievable, which received a Peabody Award and Best Limited Series nominations at the Critics’ Choice Awards, the Golden Globes, and the Primetime Emmys in 2020. Waldman lives in Berkeley, California with her husband Michael Chabon.
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Host Jason Blitman is joined by debut novelist Paige Lewis to talk about their book, Canon.

Conversation highlights include:
⚠️ Perseverance in the face of danger
🐀 Animal fun facts
🦸 What makes a hero

Paige Lewis is the author of the poetry collection Space Struck and coeditor of Another Last Call: Poems on Addiction and Deliverance. Lewis teaches at the University of Iowa; Canon is their first novel.
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Host Jason Blitman talks to author Davin Malasarn about what he's been reading and the books that influenced his debut novel, The Outer Country.

Davin Malasarn was born and raised in Southern California. After completing his PhD in biology at the California Institute of Technology, he earned his MFA in creative writing from Bennington College and completed the Queens University of Charlotte Book Development Program. He was a PEN America Emerging Voices Fellow, a Plympton Writing Downtown Fellow, and a Bennington Alumni Fellow. He co-founded The Granum Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to supporting writers, and hosts The Artist’s Statement podcast.
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Host Jason Blitman is joined by debut author Portia Elan to talk about her book, Homebound, named May 2026's Good Morning America Book Club selection.

Highlights from this spoiler-free conversation:
💾 evolution of technology
🏳️‍🌈 history of the queer community
👍 how people experience different truths

Portia Elan studied history at Stanford University and earned an MFA from the University of Victoria, British Columbia, before returning to California, where she has worked as a teacher and public librarian. A former Lambda Literary Fellow, she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her wife and an abundance of cats. Homebound is her first novel.
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Host Jason Blitman talks to Pulitzer Prize-winner Elizabeth Strout about her latest novel, The Things We Never Say.

Conversation highlights include:
🧠 Thoughts on free will
🧐 Things we find interesting
✨ What it means to become a grown-up

Elizabeth Strout is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Lucy by the Sea; Oh William!, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Olive, Again; Anything Is Possible, winner of the Story Prize; My Name Is Lucy Barton; The Burgess Boys; Olive Kitteridge, winner of the Pulitzer Prize; Abide with Me; and Amy and Isabelle, winner of the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize. She has also been a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize in London. She lives in Maine.
Sign up for the Gays Reading Book Club HERE
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CONTACT! [email protected]
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