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Ed Madden's newest collection explores growing up queer in the fundamentalist South.

Selected by Timothy Liu for the Hilary Tham Capital Collection. Madden's mastery of the American lyric combines intellect, heart, and courage as he explores growing up queer in the rural fundamentalist South. The poems anatomize a society of shaming and shunning under the guise of love, fighting free to the theme of finding where we belong. The poems work deep into the linguistic textures of his subjects, from queer love to the loss of a parent. The figure of the pooka (or puca) haunts the pages, embodying both good and bad luck, sorrow and hope.

Poetry. Family & Relationships. LGBTQ+ Studies.

A Story of the City: Poems Occasional and Otherwise

When Ed Madden was named poet laureate for the City of Columbia, South Carolina, in 2015, he became the first city laureate in the state of South Carolina. During his two terms as city laureate, Madden documented the life and history of the city. He engaged the community by making poetry a public art, posting poems on city buses, sidewalks, movie screens, coffee sleeves, restaurant menus, and faux parking tickets distributed in downtown Columbia one bright and sunny April Fool's Day. While these poems are about a specific city, they ring true for almost any Southern city-maybe any city in America-with its ceremonial occasions and its natural disasters, its misleading public monuments and its protest marches, and its inevitably complex histories. His post officially began with a commemoration of the historic burning of Columbia during the American Civil War and ended with the selection of a new city flag. This collection spans either years of ceremony and controversy, an eclipse and a pandemic, welcomes and elegies, history and hope.

In 2014, eight years after the finale of “Favored Son,” Gill Yarborough settles into middle age and life seems calmer. Until his mother is arrested at a marriage equality rally. Until he learns she’s engaged in a controversial romance. Until his son is suspended from school. And until the cracks in his relationship with Johnny Ray Scott lead him to fear their time together may be at an end. Enter former circuit solicitor Marc Weldon, who prosecuted the man who tried to murder Gill and Johnny Ray nine years earlier. Can older, wiser Weldon help Gill transition into a happier phase of life as he and his friends await the US Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage equality?

Nicki Pappas experienced abuse as love from a young age. In As Familiar as Family, she explores and examines the ways in which she was groomed for unhealthy relationships and toxic religion.

This book chronicles her journey to find her voice — and a way out — which began once she understood how the spiritual abuse, power dynamics, narcissism, and emotional detachment in the church were as familiar as family.

By sharing her story, she hopes to empower others to leave anything toxic in their own lives.

14 Writers - 14 Stories - 14 Truths

The stories contained within this anthology were almost never written. Each contributing author dug deep to discover the one thing they’d avoided writing about and made the brave decision to speak their truth. But they didn’t stop there. Every essay in this collection also includes a companion piece, a “behind-the-scenes” look at what it took to move through the struggle, shame, self-doubt, fear, and more to put these words to the page.

Avoided No More reminds us that we all have stories buried within us, that there’s power in sharing our truth, and, perhaps most importantly, that none of us are truly alone on this journey.

Contributors:

Katie Boateng, Federica Bruniera, Becka Eppley, Serine Goodmond, Amanda Conley Hines, Jinx Malcolm, Kim Marsh, Lyda Michopoulou, Nicki Pappas, Tina Strawn, Therese Temitayo, Asha Unni, Laura Vegh and Maria Wade

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Published by Plymouth James Press, an imprint of The Open Book Company

Praise for Beaver Girl

"Clever, soulful, and charming!"

-Ben Goldfarb

"This book is the antidote we need in the face of climate change!"

-Mary Alice Monroe

"Beaver Girl is the novel 'beaver believers' have been waiting for."

-Alison Zak

"This is a book that I could easily read for fun or assign in one of the science classes I teach as an example of communicating science through story."

-Emily Fairfax

"Vivid and endearing!"

-Midge Raymond

"Both sobering and hopeful, Beaver Girl is a story for our times."

-Frances Backhouse

"There is no better time for this beautiful book."

-Kate Hopper

"A gripping read that explores survival and care."

-Julie R. Enszer

"This book is essential for our time."

-Amanda K. Jaros

The main character of Beaver Girl is Livia, a 19-year-old girl who has been through a pandemic and climate collapse. She wakes in her house to wildfires that are encroaching upon her neighborhood, and she goes into a nearby forest, Congaree National Park, to try to escape the wildfires. There she befriends a beaver family. The reader learns about beavers as a keystone species for our environment. For example, most of Texas and New Mexico, which we think of as desert areas now, were lush green forests before the Europeans got rid of all the beavers for the fur trade. Beavers create these wetland areas, and even after an individual family has moved on those beaver ponds become part of the water table, which can help us during times of drought in later years. The novel has elements of a morality tale that shows what we have done to help bring about climate disaster. It is also set in a post-apocalyptic time and shows what beavers and humans could do together to restore faith and strength and a sense of family and community.

In honor of the journey Nicki and Stephen Pappas have been on individually and together, they wrote Becoming Egalitarian. In Becoming Egalitarian, they examine their limited (and limiting) beliefs about marriage and gender roles. They begin with why they were drawn to complementarianism and explore how their theology shifted to egalitarianism.

Becoming Egalitarian is their story, but it’s not just their story. There are untold numbers of people who have been harmed by religious ideologies that prop up unhealthy power dynamics. Nicki and Stephen found that by actively dismantling the hierarchy in their relationship, they could become true partners. Becoming Egalitarian isn’t an answer book. Rather, it is a vulnerable and authentic exploration of how to find a healthier partnership when operating from a place of mutuality.

Tayler Simon is an activist and organizer who has been working in different social movements since she was 18. After obtaining her Master's in Social Work and working within the violence prevention and outreach world for five years, she decided to take those skills outside of institutions and back to organic community.

Reflecting on the roles of power, joy, despair, anger, and hope within the liberation movement, Black Madonna invites readers into an experience that sparks action from feelings-even in such trying times. Tayler's poems inspire readers to find hope when it feels impossible. This is an urgent, heartfelt, and eclectic collection of poetry. Haunting and beautiful, it will leave us curious about our role in community.

Brighton of the former glorified nation, Aerodom, is on the brink of collapse as the savage races conspire to enslave its inhabitants under the orcish kingdom. This tale weaves together the intimate lives of humans, elves and dwarves as they urgently fight for their freedom against all odds. Drawing the battlelines, Brighton Under Siege asks the where lies the three-faced god, Maot, when greedy city-states turn their back on the fallen. In bursts, we see the sheer determination of individuals who refuse to let themselves lapse into defeatism and find prevailing strength through unexpected fellowships. By the end, we come to terms with Rolf's reckoning that, "There'll be time. When Maot blesses it, it will be."

Nicki Pappas thought she was heterosexual when she married her evangelical sweetheart at the age of twenty. Coming of Age and Coming Out is her journey from repressed to reclaimed sexual desire.

Through a collection of stories, she authentically shares the raw truths about coming of age from childhood through adolescence and then coming out in her thirties as queer and non-monogamous.

By Baker A. Rogers, 2019 Paperback

This book explores Mississippi Christians’ beliefs about homosexuality and gay and lesbian civil rights and whether having a gay or lesbian friend or family member influences those beliefs. Beliefs about homosexuality and gay and lesbian rights vary widely based on religious affiliation. Despite having gay or lesbian friends or family members, evangelical Protestants believe homosexuality is sinful and oppose gay and lesbian rights. Mainline Protestants are largely supportive of gay and lesbian rights and become more supportive after getting to know gay and lesbian people. Catholics describe a greater degree of uncertainty and a conditional acceptance of gay and lesbian rights; clear differences between conservative and liberal Catholics are evident. Overall, conservative Christians, both evangelical Protestants and conservative Catholics, hold a religious identity that overshadows their relationships with gay and lesbian friends or family. Conservative religion acts as a deterrent to the positive benefits of relationships with gay and lesbian people. 

Not all love stories are the same.

Stanley, at nearly eight inches and a girth like a tin can, he was well above average. He had a slight curve, but it had only seemed to help him over the years and not hinder him. He was proud and carried himself as such when he was out and about. Stanley was attached to a man who just didn’t seem to understand the proper way to care for him—or at least Stanley hadn’t met the piece that would make him override his human.

Sherry was harder to measure but kept herself trimmed up and was tighter than she should have been at her age. She did like taking care of herself, though, and that really was the best way to stay in shape. She has a freckle that she finds adorably perfect for her, although rarely do men notice when they are down there. Not that she complains, but it would be nice to have someone look at her from time to time and appreciate her beauty; at least her human had taken notice and tries to show her off when she can.

Stanley and Sherry were attached to two people who didn’t know that their attraction to each other wasn’t their own. Cum Shots offers a snapshot of the love between Stanley and Sherry and how sometimes, no matter how much you love someone, you just have to walk away.

"Most people are afraid to love. That's the secret of all the world's problems ... ." - Jesse Knowles

In the late spring of 1990, 34-year-old Garry Mueller has reached an anxious personal nadir. His relationships with women have proved unfulfilling, yet he won't allow himself to act on his attractions to other men due to the toxic, homophobic enculturation he absorbed from his conservative Southern upbringing. Religion and psychotherapy have failed him in his attempts to achieve true heterosexuality, leaving him desperate for a solution. Then, upon joining the cast of a local stage production, he meets Jesse Knowles, a straight man with unique spiritual insights, who teaches him life-changing lessons in how to love himself and others.

This book is a prequel to Favored Son, in which Garry Mueller appears as an older and wiser friend to Gill Yarborough.

In these lyrical essays, Alexis Stratton invites us to join them as they trace the intersections of identity, grief, and belonging across four continents. Burned out by years of LGBTQ+ activism, at age 32, Stratton embarks on a multiyear journey through a dozen countries—from the stark Australian desert to the winding streets of Taipei—yearning to find healing in the movement between worlds. They revisit loved ones in South Korea, where they taught English in their twenties, and they summon the courage to come out. They talk of philosophy and loneliness with a New Delhi hotelier and share Taiwanese delicacies with a queer local who greets them like a long-lost friend. In Eating Turtle, Stratton finds, home is not a place but the body you carry, the stories you tell, and the people who welcome you in.