The Queer South: LGBTQ Writers on the American South

by Douglas Ray (Editor), Dorothy Allison, Shane Allison

In The Queer South, Douglas Ray has assembled over 60 queer-identified voices exploring their experiences of the American South in nonfiction and poetry. From hilarious to heartbreaking, anxious to angry, religious to reluctant, contemplative to celebratory, this anthology expands our ideas of what it means to be queer and what it means to represent the land south of the Mason-Dixon. Included are Dorothy Allison, Shane Allison, John Andrews, Derrick Austin, Jeffery Berg, Richard Blanco, Perry Brass, Dustin Brookshire, Jericho Brown, Joey Connelly, William Cordeiro, C. Cleo Creech, James Croteau, J.K. Daniels, Nick Dephtereos, David Eye, Jason K. Friedman, D. Gilson, Ellen Goldstein, Miriam Bird Greenberg, Elizabeth Gross, Johnathan Harper, Scott Hightower, Matthew Hittinger, Darrel Alejandro Holnes, Rex Leonowicz, Sassafras Lowrey, Tyler Lynn, Bo McGuire, Rangi McNeil, Kelly McQuain, M. Mack, Ed Madden, Jeff Mann, Randall Mann, Mary Meriam, Stephen S. Mills, Cameron Mitchell, Foster Noone, Joseph Osmundson, Eddie Outlaw, Seth Pennington, Evan J. Peterson, Kenneth Pobo, Brad Richard, Hannah Riddle, Laurence Ross, Liana Roux, Kevin Sessums, Del Shores, Erin Elizabeth Smith, Will Stockton, Dan Stone, Christine Stroud, Billie Tadros, TC Tolbert, Dan Vera, Annie Virginia, Valerie Wetlaufer, C.T. Whitley, Scott Wiggerman, Cristan Williams, and L. Lamar Wilson.

Genres: Poetry, Queer, Nonfiction, LGBT, Essays, Anthologies, Queer Lit

304 pages, Paperback

First published September 16, 2014

Reviews

[Zev]

Please count my three-star rating as petty. It's because there was so much poetry and prose in this, and somehow, despite it being clearly pointed out in the introduction, I thought this would be an anthology of essays with occasional poetry and prose. It was easily half the book, so I skipped over a lot. I read this book solely because I'm writing a character that grew up in Savannah, GA and goes back home to take care of a beloved family member. I thought this book would help shape her character better, and it helped me understand her background better. (I am from the North. The Pacific Northwest, at that. I shall seek out sensitivity readers when I finish the work.) So, because I was using this book as a research point, I was reading it in a very different way than I ordinarily would read a book. I am pouting, because whatever I expected to find, I did not really.

My own self-centeredness aside, I am so glad this book is out and so widely circulated. It's so important that books like these are written. Representation matters. I imagine that people who are newly out, or lonely for company, even through books, or just curious, or whatever, picked up this book and it filled something for them. Books that do that are important. I wrote some of the contributors' names down because I want to read more of their work. I hope everyone featured in this book keeps writing unapologetically (that is a word, and I have indeed spelled it correctly. Don't tell me I haven't, squiggly red line. Pouting over here).

[zane deann]

Thoroughly exhausting. Some of the pieces were lovely, but the ones I liked were few and far between. It may be a matter of personal taste - a lot of it felt very specific to gay men, and I just couldn't relate. The subject matter is heavy, of course, which doesn't help. I don't regret reading it for a few wonderful pieces, but it felt like a chore, and by the end, I was very tired.

[Jarod Lowe]

50/100

As another said, this is a fairly hit or miss collection of stories and poems. Some of the stories were quite impactful and thought provoking, others seemed a bit trite, uninspired, and/or boring. I wasn't a fan of the poetry either, though I rarely am.

[Kevin]

I really only picked this up because there are some poems by Ed Madden here, though I read a few other entries, skipping around a bit. I can't say I read enough to really comment on most of the work, but it's an interesting idea to insert some regionalism into an anthology and see if some prevailing themes emerge. And the Ed Madden poems? Disappointingly, there were only 3. But each a gem.

[John]

funny, sad, God fearing homophobia in the South... An eye opener...