Showing titles in Biographies & Memoirs

Officer Clemmons: A Memoir details the incredible life story of François Clemmons, beginning with his early years in Alabama and Ohio, marked by family trauma and loss, through his studies as a music major at Oberlin College, where Clemmons began to investigate and embrace his homosexuality, to a chance encounter with Fred Rogers which changed the whole course of both men's lives, leading to a deep, spiritual friendship and mentorship spanning nearly forty years.

Becoming a Man is a “moving narrative [that] illuminates the joy, courage, necessity, and risk-taking of gender transition” (Kirkus Reviews). For 50 years, P. Carl lived as a girl and then as a queer woman, building a career, a life, and a loving marriage, yet still waiting to realize himself in full. As Carl embarks on his gender transition, he takes us inside the complex shifts and questions that arise throughout - the alternating moments of arrival and estrangement.

The real-life Alex Vause from the critically acclaimed, top-rated Netflix show Orange Is the New Black tells her story in her own words for the first time - a powerful, surprising memoir about crime and punishment, friendship and marriage, and a life caught in the ruinous drug trade and beyond.

At age 10, Vince Spinnato watched TV soaps with his grandmother and became enamored with the characters on The Young and the Restless, who owned a cosmetics firm. He vowed he would follow in their footsteps and chose a name - VS Vincenzo. In his unconventional memoir, Spinnato shares the inner workings of the multi-billion-dollar beauty industry.

In 1978, Harvey Milk asked Gilbert Baker to create a unifying symbol for the growing gay rights movement, and on June 25 of that year, Baker's Rainbow Flag debuted at San Francisco's Gay Liberation Day parade. Baker had no idea his creation would become an international emblem of freedom. Rainbow Warrior is Baker's passionate personal chronicle, from a repressive childhood in 1950s Kansas to a harrowing stint in the US Army, and finally his arrival in San Francisco, where he bloomed as both a visual artist and social justice activist.

A proud working-class woman, an "out" lesbian long before the Rainbow revolution, Joan Nestle has stood at the forefront of American freedom struggles from the McCarthy era to the present day. Featuring photographs and a new introduction by the author, this classic collection which intimately accounts the lesbian, feminist and civil rights movements through personal essays is available again for the first time in years.

In this third volume of his memoirs, following the critically acclaimed Palm Trees on the Hudson and his breakout best seller Taking Woodstock, Elliot Tiber chronicles his hilarious, madcap, and often heartbreaking adventures in the entertainment industry. Guided as much by chutzpah as by his creative drive, Tiber travels around the world always looking to grab the brass ring. And everywhere he goes, from Hollywood to Brussels, Tiber makes his indelible, irreverent, unique mark.

On the day of his sister’s funeral, while standing alone at her grave, Matt Bays tells the truth for the very first time: that he is gay. At 46 years old, and with a highly religious worldview, Matt sets out on a powerful journey to grapple with this new reality and find the part of himself that was buried in his youth. Together, Bays and his dead sister take to the open road, listening to ‘80s music and lying under the stars at the Grand Canyon. Her prevailing love had once given him the courage to come out.

In the first edition of Bloodroot, Warland traced how a mother’s shared gender with her daughter can shape the very anatomy of narrative itself. In her mother’s final year, Warland quietly discovered how to disentangle a crucial, concealed story that had rendered their relationship disconnected and fraught. The 2000 edition broke new ground in memoir form and uncharted storytelling. The 2020 edition includes a new essay by Warland that explores subsequent questions, insights, and tenderness only the passage of time can enable.

When Jill Nalder arrived at drama school in London in the early 1980s, she was ready for her life to begin. With her band of best friends—of which many were talented young gay men with big dreams of their own—she grabbed London by the horns: partying with drag queens at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, hosting cabarets at her glamorous flat, flitting across town to any jobs could get. But soon rumours were spreading from America about a frightening illness being dubbed the 'gay flu', and Jill and her friends found that their formerly carefree existence now under threat.

Before his success in public relations, his loving marriage and his storied writing career, Wade Rouse was simply Ted Rouse's son. A queer kid in a conservative Ozarks community, Wade struggled at a young age to garner his father's approval and find his voice. For his part, Ted was a hard-lined engineer, offering little emotional support or encouragement. But Wade and Ted had one thing in common: an undying love of the St. Louis Cardinals.

"Was, um Himmels willen, hat mich bloß ins gleißende Scheinwerferlicht getrieben, mitten unter die Showwölfe? Eigentlich bin ich doch mehr der gemütliche, tapsige Typ und überhaupt keine Rampensau. Warum wollte ich also bereits im zarten Kindesalter mit aller Macht "berühmt werden"? Und wieso hat das dann tatsächlich geklappt? Nun, vielleicht einfach deshalb, weil ich es meiner Oma als sechsjähriger Knirps genau so versprechen musste.

Patricia Highsmith, author of classics such as The Talented Mr. Ripley and Strangers on a Train, was a lesbian and a writer who defied simple categorization. Marijane Meaker is the author of more than 40 books. Meaker and Highsmith met in New York City, became lovers, and embarked on a romance amidst the bohemian set of Greenwich Village and the literary crowd of Fire Island. Written with wit and brassy candor, this is a revealing look at a controversial icon of popular American fiction.

When Jackson's son born through surrogacy came out to him at age 15, the successful producer, now in his 50s, was compelled to reflect on his experiences and share his wisdom on life for LGBTQ Americans over the past half-century. Gay Like Me is a celebration of gay identity and parenting, and a powerful warning for his son, other gay men, and the world. Jackson looks back at his own journey as a gay man coming of age through decades of political and cultural turmoil.

Krys Malcolm Belc has thought a lot about the interplay between parenthood and gender. As a nonbinary, transmasculine parent, giving birth to his son Samson clarified his gender identity. And yet, when his partner Anna adopted Samson, the legal documents listed Belc as "the natural mother of the child." The Natural Mother of the Child journeys both toward and through common perceptions of what it means to have a body and how that body can influence the perception of a family.

Transitioning is an alignment of the invisible and the physical. It is truth rising to the surface. It is one of the most fundamental aspects of the human condition—a part of our experience as a conscious being, no matter who we are. As time goes on, we all develop as people. None of us ever becomes someone else entirely—regardless of how we identify—but nor do we stay the same forever. We all transition. It's what binds us, not what separates us.

In Cooking as Fast as I Can, Cat Cora reveals, for the first time, coming-of-age experiences from early childhood sexual abuse to the realities of life as a lesbian in the Deep South. She shares how she found her passion in the kitchen and went on to attend the prestigious Culinary Institute of America and apprentice under Michelin-star chefs in France. After her big break as a cohost on the Food Network's Melting Pot, Cat broke barriers by becoming the first-ever female Iron Chef.

One Thing for Certain, Two Things for Sure reminds us that there are no mistakes or accidents in life - that everything happens as it should. Through the dissolution of a sordid affair with a married man, friendships, and personal setbacks, Stewart teaches us the art of letting go, and adapting to whatever comes our way. Stewart allows us, the listener, an intimate look into his personal life through stories that center on dating, love, fear, fate, and destiny.

A groundbreaking look at the history of transgender representation in TV and film, by an of-the-moment and in-demand culture reporter. Narrated by Tre'vell Anderson, WE SEE EACH OTHER is a personal history of trans visibility since the beginning of moving images. A literary reckoning, it unearths a transcestry that's long existed in plain sight and in the shadows of history's annals, and further contextualizes our present moment of increased representation.

In this raw yet enchanting collection of poems and essays, Tyler Gaca dreamily navigates themes of magic and queerness, offering readers an intimate look inside his mind and his worlds, real and imagined. The writings in Gentle Chaos reflect on growing up queer and in love with magic, discovering yourself and your place in the world, and daring to seek out love and hope. The result is a whimsical, vulnerable, and transporting journey into the gentle chaos within us all.