The Lavender Showcase

The Lavender Showcase is a blog dedicated to reblogging stories written by LGBT writers. The current goal of this blog is to create an archive of sorts and to act as a space for people to find LGBT authors. In the future, I hope to host events and build a directory through this blog.

If you would like to have your work reblogged, please read through these guidelines and the FAQ! It’s super simple to get reblogged so please make sure you’re following the guidelines correctly. The guidelines are there for readers to find your works.

I will not be publishing works on behalf of anyone. I am only reblogging already published stories.

If you’re looking for something specific to read, you can check out the tags page! And while you’re here, don’t forget to show writers some love! Reblog their works, send them a nice ask, give them a follow!

If you are a queer writer and would like to be part of our simple directory, you can look at that here. If you would like to check out the current directory, it is on this page.

Check out Call for Submissions to see if there are any current events or projects coming up that you can participate in.

We are also hosting a new online book club for lgbt reads! You can find information under Lavender Book Club.

Summer Suggested Reads!

July 19: I Leave it Up to You by Jinwoo Chong

A coma can change a man, but the world Jack Jr. awakens to is one he barely recognizes. His advertising job is history, his Manhattan apartment is gone, and the love of his life has left him behind. He’s been asleep for two years; with no one to turn to, he realizes it’s been ten years since he last saw his family. Lost and disoriented, he makes a reluctant homecoming back to the bustling Korean American enclave of Fort Lee, New Jersey; back into the waiting arms of his parents, who are operating under the illusion that he never left; and back to Joja, their ever-struggling sushi restaurant that he was set to inherit before he ran away from it all. As he steps back into the life he abandoned—learning his Appa’s life lessons over crates of tuna on bleary-eyed 4 a.m. fish runs, doling out amberjack behind the omakase counter while his Umma tallies the night’s pitiful number of customers, and sparring with his recovering alcoholic brother, James—he embraces new roles, too: that of romantic interest to the nurse who took care of him, and that of sage (but underqualified) uncle to his gangly teenage nephew. There is value in the joyous rhythms of this once-abandoned life. But second chances are an even messier business than running a restaurant, and the lure of a self-determined path might, once again, prove too hard to resist.

August 16: ¡Hola Papi! by John Paul Brammer

The first time someone called John Paul (JP) Brammer “Papi” was on the gay hookup app Grindr. At first, it was flattering; JP took this as white-guy speak for “hey, handsome.” But then it happened again and again…and again, leaving JP wondering: Who the hell is Papi? Soon, this racialized moniker became the inspiration for his now wildly popular advice column “¡Hola Papi!,” launching his career as the Cheryl Strayed for young queer people everywhere—and some straight people too. JP had his doubts at first—what advice could he really offer while he himself stumbled through his early twenties? Sometimes the best advice comes from looking within, which is what JP does in his column and book—and readers have flocked to him for honest, heartfelt wisdom, and more than a few laughs. In this hilarious, tenderhearted book, JP shares his story of growing up biracial and in the closet in America’s heartland, while attempting to answer some of life’s most challenging questions: How do I let go of the past? How do I become the person I want to be? Is there such a thing as being too gay? Should I hook up with my grade school bully now that he’s out of the closet? Questions we’ve all asked ourselves, surely.

September 20: How to Sleep at Night by Elizabeth Harris

Meet Ethan and Gabe. A devoted couple for years, they have successful careers, an adorable daughter, and a house in the New Jersey suburbs. Sure, they may have drifted to different ends of the political spectrum, but their marriage still has its spark. Then one night Ethan makes an announcement: he wants to run for Congress as a Republican—but only if he has progressive Gabe’s blessing. For weeks a slightly queasy Gabe struggles between supporting his husband and maintaining his own lefty ideals. He can feel himself slowly pulled under the tide of Ethan’s ambitions, even as he becomes widely known as a conservative spouse.   In a nearby town, suburban mom Nicole wonders what happened to her younger self—living in New York City, freely dating men and women, and on a path to a career in the art world. Nicole feels like an accessory in her husband’s life and like she’s given up on the goals she had for herself. Then an old flame re-enters her life unexpectedly. That woman is Ethan’s sister Kate. A political reporter at a major newspaper, Kate has reached the top of her profession. But the adrenaline rush of chasing a story has lost its thrill.  When Nicole—the woman who broke her heart—slides into her DMs just as her brother starts his controversial congressional run, Kate’s life is thrown into a tailspin that threatens to derail the success she’s worked so hard to achieve.

The Lavender Book Club is a casual, queer, online book club run through text chat on Discord and through this blog. If you’re interested in joining the server, the link is here*. Follow this blog for updates on the club and our other activities!

QUEER SUMMER BINGO 2026 | July-August!

It's Pride! And it's summer! So if you're looking for a reading challenge this year, look no further than Queer Summer Bingo!

This year, I'm actually really excited because we have a Grand Prize! If you get a bingo, you get put in a drawing for a $25(USD) gift card to Bookshop.org (if you live outside the US/UK and you win, we can work something else out!)

All submissions must be entered before September 1st (EST) in this Google Form. If you cannot access the Google Form for whatever reason, please DM me!

Here are the rules if you are submitting for the prize:

Get any Bingo in any direction

One book counts for only one square (i.e. if you read a classic novel by a lesbian author, you cannot mark both the lesbian square and the classic square. You must choose one.)

One card is good for one entry only. If you get bingo three different ways, your name is only placed in the drawing once.

Free Space means you can read a queer book of your choosing

All books you read must be queer

Only books finished between June 1st-August 31st may count

This is based on an honor system and your own interpretation of what these categories mean. You do not have to provide titles of the books that you read (though, if you'd like to share, I would love to see it!)

It's time for more book club suggestions!

We have book announcements for April-June for Lavender Book Club!

April 19: Loveless by Alice Oseman

May 17: The Deep by River Solomon

June 21: D'Vaugn & Kris Plan a Wedding by Chencia C. Higgins

The Lavender Book Club is a casual, queer, online book club run through text chat on Discord and through this blog. If you’re interested in joining the server, the link is here*. Follow this blog for updates on the club and our other activities!

February's suggested read is Maurice by E.M. Forster. Our February meeting will be February 15th.

Set in the elegant Edwardian world of Cambridge undergraduate life, this story by a master novelist introduces us to Maurice Hall when he is fourteen. We follow him through public school and Cambridge, and into his father's firm. In a highly structured society, Maurice is a conventional young man in almost every way―except that he is homosexual. Written during 1913 and 1914, immediately after Howards End, and not published until 1971, Maurice was ahead of its time in its theme and in its affirmation that love between men can be happy. "Happiness," Forster wrote, "is its keynote.…In Maurice I tried to create a character who was completely unlike myself or what I supposed myself to be: someone handsome, healthy, bodily attractive, mentally torpid, not a bad businessman and rather a snob. Into this mixture I dropped an ingredient that puzzles him, wakes him up, torments him and finally saves him."

March's suggested read is Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell. Our March meeting will be March 15th.

Shesheshen is a shapeshifter, who happily resides as an amorphous lump at the bottom of a ruined manor. When her rest is interrupted by impolite monster hunters, she constructs a body from the remains of past meals: a metal chain for a backbone, borrowed bones for limbs, and a bear trap as an extra mouth. Badly hurt by the hunters, Shesheshen’s nursed back to health by Homily, a warm-hearted human. Homily is kind and would make a great co-parent: an ideal place to lay Shesheshen’s eggs so their young can devour Homily from the inside out. But as they grow close, Shesheshen realizes that eating her girlfriend isn’t an option. Just as Shesheshen’s about to confess her identity, Homily reveals something else: she’s hunting a shapeshifting monster that supposedly cursed her family. Has Shesheshen seen it anywhere? Shesheshen didn’t curse anyone, so now she has to figure out why Homily’s twisted family thinks she did. As Shesheshen’s hunt for the monster becomes increasingly deadly, the bigger challenge remains: learning how to build a life with, rather than in, the woman she loves.

The Lavender Book Club is a chill, queer, online book club run through text chat on Discord and through this blog. If you’re interested in joining the server, the link is here*. Follow this blog for updates on the club and our other activities!

January's suggest read for book club is Young Mungo. Our next meeting will be January 18th. Join us next month to discuss this book or any other queer book you've been reading!

A national bestseller, acclaimed as one of the best books of the year by NPR, Kirkus Reviews, Time, and Amazon, and named a Top 10 Book of the Year by the Washington Post, Young Mungo is a brilliantly constructed and deeply moving story of queer love and working-class families by the Booker Prize–winning author of Shuggie Bain. Growing up in a housing estate in Glasgow, Mungo and James are born under different stars—Mungo a Protestant and James a Catholic—and they should be sworn enemies. Yet against all odds, they fall in love as they find sanctuary and dream of escape in the pigeon dovecote that James has built for his prize racing birds. But when Mungo’s mother sends him on a fishing trip to a remote loch with two strange men, he will need all his strength and courage to find his way back to a place where he and James might still have a future.

The Lavender Book Club is a chill, queer, online book club run through text chat on Discord and through this blog. If you’re interested in joining the server, the link is here*. Follow this blog for updates on the club and our other activities!

*If you have a problem with the link, DM or send in an ask for a new invite!

Our next meeting will be October 19th!

In Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. While her work has earned her comparisons to Karen Russell and Kelly Link, she has a voice that is all her own. In this electric and provocative debut, Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women's lives and the violence visited upon their bodies. A wife refuses her husband's entreaties to remove the green ribbon from around her neck. A woman recounts her sexual encounters as a plague slowly consumes humanity. A salesclerk in a mall makes a horrifying discovery within the seams of the store's prom dresses. One woman's surgery-induced weight loss results in an unwanted houseguest. And in the bravura novella Especially Heinous, Machado reimagines every episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a show we naively assumed had shown it all, generating a phantasmagoric police procedural full of doppelgangers, ghosts, and girls with bells for eyes. Earthy and otherworldly, antic and sexy, queer and caustic, comic and deadly serious, Her Body and Other Parties swings from horrific violence to the most exquisite sentiment. In their explosive originality, these stories enlarge the possibilities of contemporary fiction.

The Lavender Book Club is a chill, queer, online book club run through text chat on Discord and through this blog. If you’re interested in joining the server, the link is here*. Follow this blog for updates on the club and our other activities!