JUNE=PRIDE=LOVE
Happy Pride! Happy Juneteenth! Happy Father’s Day! Love is Love! Or as Spock would say:
Live long and prosper! Or, be like a Vulcan and practice IDIC - the Vulcan Philosophy which stands for Infinite Diversity-Infinite Combinations!
As I write from the dunes and the gay (literary) history that is Provincetown, gray skies have given way to blue and I’m reminded of how important it is to stay visible, legible, and clearly stated in a world hell bent on the erasure of our diverse human family.
June is Pride month and so here is our position on love—we’re for it .
This is one of the reasons our Book of the Month feature is Chloe Michelle Howarth’s Sunburn; it’s hot, it’s summer, and it’s small-town, rural-Ireland lesbian love. Yes, please. Like women’s sports, which we know everyone watches and if Heated Rivalry is any indication, and I think it is, everyone also wants to read gay fiction. What can I say, my mother was ahead of her time! Haha. You can check out her gay Star Trek slash zines, here:
https://lib.bgsu.edu/findingaids/repositories/2/resources/1072
Kirk/Spock; Uhuru; Alexander the Great; Fire in Heaven; Marguerite Yourcenour; Virginia Woolf; (that’s right I finished my book, even the End Notes phew!); “moments of being”; peace; love; language; and literature. That’s what you’ll find at the bookstore.
If you can, because I know there is A LOT going on in the Hudson Valley! include us in your plans:
6/7 Sunday afternoon at 4PM - please, join us in congratulating Rebecca Gopoian on her debut novel The First Rule of Fire. One of the reasons for opening our store was to offer support to new writers. I met Rebecca serendipitously in the shop and she mentioned that her novel references the Armenian genocide from 1914, (this has long been an interest of mine in other work), and so I was all in. I said, yes, please, come to our community to share this new work with us once you finish the book. And, now, here, she is! The First Rule of Fire follows interwoven narratives of three characters, as the novel moves from 1914’s Armenian genocide through two generations to 1980’s New Jersey. This history has so much to teach us, and this novel--the writing and its characters--will draw you in and keep you intellectually alert and engaged with its ideas long after you’ve come to the end.
6/13 Saturday 5PM – Did someone say Extra Credit?! Calling all middle-school and high-schoolers! And your teachers! Join us for a Tell Me Every Lie, re-boot! Ellen Hagen and David Flores are back and ready to discuss this story, a young adult romance that takes place during the summer at a luxury resort based on Mohonk Mountain House! Beginning with a web of lies the story explores themes of honesty, identity, and whether love can survive the lies we tell others and often ourselves. Join us, too, to learn about writing process and writing in the YA (young adult) genre.
6/18 Thursday, 6PM – Alas, we had to postpone Alison Kinney in conversation with Jenifer Kabat; Alison Kinney’s The United Stated of Rejection: A Story of Love, Hate, and Hope (May 2026) as the author was in an accident leading to the cancellation of her book tour. We wish Alison a speedy recovery! We do have copies of her excellent book, however, which offers a social critique of American culture with “disarming wit;” it’s spirited, smart, and original.
6/19 Friday, 9AM – 6PM, Juneteenth, we’ll be celebrating Black culture, history, and activism, and offering a 15% discount on all books related to Black history or books written by Black authors. Click on the Discount Code on the website for pick up in store or just come in and we’ll apply it to your purchase.
6/20 Saturday, 6PM, Celebrate Pride with us with a discussion of Susan Rukeysers’ two books, Bad Words & The Worst Kind of Girl. Susan will be in conversation with three other Hudson Valley authors, Nina Shengold, Tina Barry, and Jana Martin, all contributors to Rukeyser’s earlier anthology, Feckless Cunt.
Last, but not least, I want to share the lovely letter we received last month from Equality Kansas and the LGBTQ Foundation of Kansas for our donation to their organization, which was made possible by each of you and to all of our small businesses and artists in High Falls who so generously donated to the silent auction for trans visibility and rights:
Greetings,
I want to sincerely thank you for your generous donation. While we are still in the process of setting up a formal system for issuing donation receipts, it was important to me to personally reach out and express our gratitude.
Your support—especially from across the country—means more than words can fully capture. To know that you see us, care about us, and are willing to stand with Kansans from afar is incredibly powerful. It’s a reminder that we are not alone, and that community extends far beyond state lines.
Because of you, we are able to continue our work to keep LGBTQ+ individuals in Kansas safe, supported, and moving forward. Your contribution truly makes a difference.
Thank you again for standing with us.
--
Matthew Neumann
He/Him/His
Executive Director
LGBTQ Foundation of Kansas
Nox est perpetua una dormienda, so LFG and Happy Pride!
Jean