Come out to meet Mercury Stardust “The Trans Handy Ma’am” at Giovanni’s Room!
All are welcome to attend, but to guarantee a VIP place in line, purchase your copy of the book from Philly AIDS Thrift @Giovannis Room.
Mercury Stardust: Safe and Sound
Archives: Events
Alicia Roth Weigel’s Inverse Cowgirl
Come hear Alica Roth Weigel and Dr. Karen Tang Discuss Inverse Cowgirl
Alicia Roth Weigel is a writer and activist working to improve the political and
social landscape for marginalized populations in the South and worldwide
through her firm, Intrepida Strategy.
In INVERSE COWGIRL: A Memoir, Alicia boldly
speaks out about working as a change agent in a state that actively attempts to pass legislation that
would erase her existence, explores how we can reclaim bodily autonomy, and encourages us to amplify
our voices to be heard. Disarming, funny, charming, and powerful, this is a vital account of personal
accomplishment that will open eyes and change minds.
Martha Shelley
Shelley, who organized the first protest march in New York City after the 1969 Stonewall Riot and helped found the history-changing Gay Liberation Front, will read from her new memoir, We Set the Night on Fire. Discussion and book signing to follow.
You can purchase the book here!
Philly Book Crawl
The Philadelphia Bookstore Crawl is a yearly (at least, that’s the plan!) celebration of Philadelphia’s wildly vibrant and wonderful bookstore scene, the last Saturday of every August.
Clarity readings by Zeta Tarot ! & DJ King Paramore
Looking for clarity? Do you have a burning question that needs an answer ?? Come to PAT @ Giovanni Room’s (second floor) for Tarot Readings by Zeta !
Come hear DJ King Paramore from 12pm-4pm !
Giovanni’s Room 50 Years: Liberation Through Media
JOIN US!
Thursday, August 3rd (6pm-8pm) at @waygayphilly
for: Giovanni’s Room 50 Years: Liberation Through Literature Event.
Giovanni’s Room is the longest running LGBTQ+ bookstore in the US!
Meet the founders and pioneers who created and nurtured this important community hub.
There will be a wine and light fare reception, followed by a panel discussion with Giovanni’s Room folks, past and present: Tom Wilson Weinberg, PAT Hill, Arleen Olshan, Ed Hermance and, Leeb Owen. Peruse the historic archives of Giovanni’s Room 50 Years.
WXPN’s Producer and on-air host @djrobertdrake will lead and record the discussion, with time reserved audience questions. Be a part of history! Join us in honoring and celebrating this milestone in our community.
This is a FREE event and will be held in the Ballroom at William Way LGBTQ+ Community Center 1315 Spruce Street
In Conversation: talking about What I Do in the Dark and Computer Baby
Join Lindsay Hargrave & Noah David Roberts in conversation with Alejandro Santana as they discuss their new books, Computer Baby and What I Do in the Dark, what it means to be a poet, their writing processes, & how to go about releasing a book in today’s poetic landscape.
Bios:
Lindsay Hargrave is a poet, editor at Graphic Violence, and a copywriter for Temple University. Proceeds from their debut chapbook ROT (2022) benefit ARC Southeast. The follow-up, Computer Baby, is available now from Bottlecap Press. Read more at linktr.ee/Hargrave or follow @notporkroll on Twitter.
Noah David Roberts (they/them) is a non-binary poet and artist attending University of the Arts. Roberts is the author of four poetry collections: Us v. Them, Strips, Slime Thing [and other poems], Final Girl Mythos, and What I Do in the Dark. Roberts has poems published in Anti-Heroin Chic, Tribes Magazine, Horror Sleaze Trash, and more. Their instagram handle is @the.apocalypse.poet.
Alejandro Santana. A nobody looking for something who has done it all just to feel alive, because it is better to feel something than nothing at all. Alejandro was born in the Dominican Republic but has been living in Philadelphia for the past eight years, always following the American dream while looking for a taste of real life.
About the Books:
“What I do in the Dark along with its author, Noah David Roberts, are “incomplete poem[s] of humanity” channeling Keats and Baudelaire through streets soiled with raw emotions, patrolling nights that reject the dawn to chronicle the trauma of fellow dreamers. Open eyed and defiant, as honest as our nightmares are honest, the message here is love, love in an uncategorizable incarnation, love as a blunt object, love as flesh, love in the darkness.” – James Minnis, NDR’s mentor
Book description on the publisher’s website: “Computer Baby is not a book but a print screen of the author’s psyche. Like machine code, the software input looks completely different from the images projected on the screen. More literally, it’s a short chapbook consisting of a series of poetic experiments with word and thought.
Taking inspiration from the culture and tech environment of the 2000s, the author presents us with a brain rendered in grayscale. To create these poems, a network of memory entered the poet’s brain for processing, and what you are reading are the literary outputs of such experiments. In Computer Baby, what you see is never what you get.”
Philadelphia Queer Book Club: Paul Takes the Form of A Mortal Girl
The beautiful Philadelphia Queer Book Club is meeting at our store! At 6:00 we’ll be discussing Andrea Lawlor’s Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl.
Click here to join the Philly Queer Book Club!
Order through us and get 10% off your purchase! Click here to order online with the code MORTAL10 through August 3rd, or just mention that you’re part of the book club when you order in store.
Follow Philly Queer Book Club on on insta.
RESCHEDULED ~ Philadelphia Queer Book Club: Dancer from the Dance
The beautiful Philadelphia Queer Book Club is meeting at our store! At 6:00 we’ll be discussing Andrew Holleran’s Dancer from the Dance.
Click here to join the Philly Queer Book Club!
Order through us and get 10% off your purchase! Click here to order online with the code DANCE10 through August 3rd, or just mention that you’re part of the book club when you order in store.
Follow Philly Queer Book Club on on insta.
Philip Clark: Invisible History: The Collected Poems of Walta Borawski
Join us for a reading and conversation with Philip Clark, co-editor of Invisible History: The Collected Poems of Walta Borawski.
Winner of the 2023 Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry, the poems in Invisible History tell stories from the life of Walta Borawski, a widely published writer active in the Boston and national scenes from the 1970s until his death from AIDS in 1994. Sexy, funny, thoughtful, and passionate, Borawski is the poet for people who never thought they’d love a poetry reading, the man who proudly proclaimed, “Drag queens, flowers, and women / who sing are still the fulcrum / of my teeter-totter.”
Praise for the poems of Walta Borawski:
“The poems are truthful, snappy, plenty of low life & local detail, sparky mind of the young poet sassing & observing his environment, gay & grim, still romantic. Who doesn’t love romance? Lots of intelligence in the line, mindful measure of spoken speech music.” — Allen Ginsberg, author of “Howl”
“Whether he’s writing about household objects, love, cruising, or Barbra Streisand, Walta Borawski’s voice is fresh, commanding, irresistible. To read him is to appreciate a levity that is rooted in seriousness; like that of the torch singers he celebrates in his poetry, Borawski’s is the kind of charisma that emerges from real feeling.” — Jack Parlett, author of Fire Island: A Century in the Life of an American Paradise
“Walta Borawski could be as witty and sly as Frank O’Hara, but he was wiser, more passionate, naked and liberated. The poems he left behind are a gift.” — Christopher Bram, author of Gods & Monsters