This story was originally published in The Stranger’s 2026 Queer Issue.
In honor of Pride month—and in honor of highly complex queer dynamics that are at least one thing we can count on, from our relationships with each other to our relationships with this country—I’m bringing you a queer summer reading list which I hope will have you feeling deeply seen, entertained, and engaged.
We Had No Rules
by Corinne Manning
Ever lusted after a straight girl? Lost your dog in a break up? Been married at city hall in chaps? Then you’ll deeply identify with the propulsively readable stories in We Had No Rules, a collection by a Seattle queer icon—ever heard of indie lit journal The James Franco Review?—Corinne Manning. This local treasure of a book hasn’t gotten nearly enough hype, likely because it was released in spring of 2020, just as we were settling into our pandemic sweatpants, which is a travesty and an injustice. I read this book again and again.
Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson
And now, a classic from 1998. If you haven’t read Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson, I highly recommend doing so out loud with a bunch of friends and strangers as I did a couple of weeks ago at a friend’s house, because that’s how some people like to spend time together, okay? It’ll take about three hours to go on a roller coaster of embroiled, lustful, and dysfunctional gay love, toxic obsession, and no clean resolution whatsoever. A perfect take on the Greek myth of Geryon given timeless relevance by Carson—a poet and classicist who’s won many an award for making her own rules about how to retell ancient myths.
A Catalog of Future Mercies
by Serena Chopra
Next, we have a classics hero in our midst in this city, who in 2017, retold the story of Icarus in her collection Ic from 2017. This year, Serena Chopra gives us A Catalog of Future Mercies, set for release from Graywolf Press on June 23. In this memoir-in-poems told by a compelling voice shaped by both victims and perpetrators of historical, personal, and cultural violence, Chopra gives far more grace and complexity to her fellow humans than one can find on an average day lately. These poems rock across the page with a rhythm so sharp I heard drums reading them. The way she uses space on the page, and her timing and language, will break you open, make you tender in ways only a queer poet can.
ballast (and others) by Quenton Baker
Quenton Baker has been reading around Seattle often lately, and missing them means missing a voice made for telling stories into a microphone. Baker’s readings are unforgettable every time, and that’s to say nothing of their sneaker collection. Get your paws on ballast, Baker’s 2023 collection of primarily—but not exclusively—found poems made from US Senate documents that record the only successful revolt of 135 enslaved people on the ship Creole in 1841. If that’s not enough, which would be understandable, you could also check out their books we pilot the blood and This Glittering Republic. Baker is a profound talent—support their work, read their books, and break open your mind in so doing. Oh, and fair warning: They have a book coming out next year, the beast comes to you as smoke from Haymarket Books, that you might want to prepare yourself for.
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