What would it feel like for other people to love me if they were to truly see me and truly know me as I am right now?

Today we meet Esmé and we’re talking about the queer book that saved their life: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. And Martha joins us for the conversation!

Esmé has been slinging radical books at Firestorm since 2019. They wear multiple hats including communications, event facilitation, and offsite sales. When she doesn't have her nose in a gay book, Esmé sings in a doom metal band and snuggles with the shop dog, an ancient dachshund named Julius Caesar Salad, as much as caninely possible.

Martha Wells has written many novels, including the bestselling and award-winning Murderbot Diaries series, which was adapted into an Apple Original TV series debuting May 16, 2025. She also authored Witch King, City of Bones, The Wizard Hunters, Wheel of the Infinite, and the Nebula-nominated The Death of the Necromancer, as well as YA fantasy novels, short stories, and nonfiction.

In All Systems Red, the first book in The Murderbot Diaries, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests on a distant planet, shadowed by their Company-supplied SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module. Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is. But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.

Special Limited Series

This episode is part of a special limited series of episodes featuring only guests who are owners or staff at LGBTQ bookstores. Airing April-June 2025, these episodes will feature six bookstores across the United States and United Kingdom.

Today's guest is a bookseller at Firestorm Books, a collectively-owned radical bookstore and not-for-profit event space in Asheville, North Carolina. Since 2008 Firestorm Books has supported grassroots movements in Southern Appalachia while developing a workplace on the basis of cooperation, empowerment and equity.

Connect with Esmé and Martha

website: firestorm.coop
instagram: @angelicadoom

website: marthawells.com
bluesky: @marthawells.com
instagram: @marthawellswriter

Become an Associate Producer!

Become an Associate Producer of our podcast through a $20/month sponsorship on Patreon! A professionally recognized credit, you can gain access to Associate Producer meetings to help guide our podcast into the future! Get started today: patreon.com/thisqueerbook

Credits

Host/Founder: John Parker (learn more about my name change)
Executive Producer: Jim Pounds
Associate Producers: Archie Arnold, K Jason Bryan and David Rephan, Bob Bush, Natalie Cruz, Jonathan Fried, Paul Kaefer, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, and Sean Smith
Patreon Subscribers: Stephen D., Terry D., Stephen Flamm, Ida Göteburg, Thomas Michna, and Gary Nygaard.
Creative and Accounting support provided by: Gordy Erickson

Quatrefoil Library

Quatrefoil has created a curated lending library made up of the books featured on our podcast! If you can’t buy t

Join us in helping Lambda Literary raise $20k for The Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices to ensure all writers can attend. Donate here: http://bit.ly/3RjW51a

Support the show

A new episode in our special limited series featuring owners/staff of LGBTQ bookstores drops next week on May 13th! In our off weeks, we air a recent episode of The Gaily Show which John hosts. The Gaily Show is one of the only daily LGBTQ news and talk shows in the country airing in Minneapolis (AM950-KTNF) and Chicago (WCPT 820).

Joining us today: Dr. Gwen Bass returns! We featured Gwen in an episode of 7 Minutes in Book Heaven a couple years back. Now, we had the chance to sit down for forty minutes to discuss her book Immaculate Misconception which charts how her lesbian parents found a doctor willing to perform an artificial insemination procedure in secret, using sperm from an anonymous donor. Her book explores: what happens when we’re born into an identity we didn't choose?
What does biology have to do with belonging? How do we all, in our own ways, suppress unique aspects of our identities in an effort to fit in and secure our safety? How do we unintentionally harm others by assuming they fit into our view of “normal”?

Connect with Dr. Bass here: https://www.drgwenbass.com/meet-gwen
Buy your copy of Immaculate Misconception here: https://bookshop.org/a/82376/9798889269526

Watch on YouTube

We're in video too! You can watch this episode at youtube.com/@thegailyshow

Credits

Host/Founder: John Parker (learn more about my name change)
Executive Producer: Jim Pounds
Production and Distribution Support: Brett Johnson, AM950
Marketing/Advertising Support: Chad Larson, Laura Hedlund, Jennifer Ogren, AM950
Accounting and Creative Support: Gordy Erickson

Join us in helping Lambda Literary raise $20k for The Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices to ensure all writers can attend. Donate here: http://bit.ly/3RjW51a

Support the show

What would it happen if I allowed my thoughts about my gender become known to me?

Today we meet Dr. Christina Neuwirth and we’re talking about the queer book that saved their life: Something That May Shock and Discredit You by Daniel M. Lavery. And Daniel joins us for the conversation!

Dr. Christina Neuwirth is a writer, researcher and bookseller based in Edinburgh. Their 2018 novella Amphibian was shortlisted for Scotland’s National Book Awards. Their writing has been published in Gutter Magazine and The Skinny. At Lighthouse Bookshop, Christina runs the Bread & Roses Prize for Radical Publishing.

Daniel M. Lavery is the “Dear Prudence” advice columnist at Slate, the cofounder of The Toast, and the New York Times bestselling author of Texts From Jane Eyre and The Merry Spinster. In 2024, he published his debut novel Women's Hotel.

From a thoughtful analysis of the beauty of William Shatner to a sinister reimagining of HGTV’s House Hunters, and featuring figures as varied as Anne of Green Gables, Columbo, and the cast of Mean Girls, Something That May Shock and Discredit You is a hilarious and emotionally exhilarating compendium that combines personal history with cultural history to make you see yourself and those around you entirely anew.

Special Limited Series

This episode is part of a special limited series of episodes featuring only guests who are owners or staff at LGBTQ bookstores. Airing April-June 2025, these episodes will feature six bookstores across the United States and United Kingdom.

Today's guest is a bookseller at Lighthouse Bookshop, a queer-owned and woman-led independent community bookshop. It is an unapologetically activist, intersectional, feminist, antiracist, lgbtq+ community space. In 2020 it was nominated Scotland’s Best Independent Bookshop.

Connect with Christina and Daniel

website: christinaneuwirth.com

website: danielmlavery.com
instagram: @daniel_m_lavery

Become an Associate Producer!

Become an Associate Producer of our podcast through a $20/month sponsorship on Patreon! A professionally recognized credit, you can gain access to Associate Producer meetings to help guide our podcast into the future! Get started today: patreon.com/thisqueerbook

Credits

Host/Founder: John Parker (learn more about my name change)
Executive Producer: Jim Pounds
Associate Producers: Archie Arnold, K Jason Bryan and David Rephan, Bob Bush, Natalie Cruz, Jonathan Fried, Paul Kaefer, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, and Sean Smith
Patreon Subscribers: Stephen D., Terry D., Stephen Flamm, Ida Göteburg, Thomas Michna, and Gary Nygaard.
Creative and Accounting support provided by: Gordy Erickson

Quatrefoil Library

Quatrefoil has created a curated lending library made up of the books featured on our podcast! If you can’t buy these books, then borrow them! Link: https://libbyapp.com/library/quatrefoil/curated-1404336/page-1

Join us in helping Lambda Literary raise $20k for The Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices to ensure all writers can attend. Donate here: http://bit.ly/3RjW51a

Support the show