Arts FIREBIRD filmmakers, Peeter Rebane and Tom Prior, launch campaign to publish memoirs of the real Sergey Fetisov The creative team behind FIREBIRD, 2022’s hit indie LGBTQ+ romance drama, announce Kickstarter campaign to release the never-before-seen English language translation of Firebird: The Story of Roman, the memoir by Sergey Fetisov that inspired the film. By Graham Robson • 3 min read
Arts Book REVIEW: Beneath the Streets by Adam MacQueen MacQueen’s first novel gives us an alternative history based around corrupt 1970’s England and the dark London underbelly of sex for sale and political intrigue By Eric Page • 2 min read
Arts Sarah Winman and Beatrice Hitchman @ Coast is Queer Sarah Winman and Beatrice Hitchman create beloved characters that will stay with us for years to come. Join these wonderful writers as they discuss their latest books, ‘Still Life’ and ‘All of You Every Single One’. By Eric Page • 1 min read
Arts Neil Bartlett and Okechukwu Nzelu @ Coast is Queer Coast is Queer, Brighton & Hove’s LGBTQ+ literary festival, presents an intriguing intergenerational conversation between two of the UK’s most exciting gay writers – Neil Bartlett and Okechukwu Nzelu – at Attenborough Centre for Creative Arts on Saturday, October 8 from 2pm. By Eric Page • 1 min read
Arts MICHAEL CASHMAN IN CONVERSATION @ Coast is Queer Michael Cashman – activist, politician, actor and biographer – talks about his lifelong campaigning for LGBTQ+ rights, taking tea with David Hockney, and sharing his life with Paul Cottingham for 31 years. By Eric Page • 1 min read
Arts BOOK REVIEW: Please Miss: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Penis by Grace Lavery Please Miss: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Penis Grace Lavery Grace Lavery is in their own words ‘a reformed druggie, an unreformed omnisexual chaos Muppet, and 100 percent, all-natural, synthetic female hormone monster’. In this meta surreal book she solves her “penis problem,” begins receivin By Eric Page • 3 min read
Arts DISRUPTING THE STATUS QUO : Coast is Queer panel event As part of the Coast is Queer festival, this exciting panel event looks at two new collections of life writing and short fiction salute the richness of queer life experience – This Arab is Queer celebrates the varied experiences of the queer diasporic community. By Eric Page • 1 min read
Arts Birmingham Literature Festival to celebrate queer writing Two of the UK’s “most exciting voices in queer writing” will come together during Birmingham Literature Festival to discuss “their novels, their writing and the LGBTQ+ writing scene, which is finally seeing the celebration it deserves.” By Catherine Muxworthy • 2 min read
Arts BOOK REVIEW: ‘A Working-Class Family Ages Badly’ by Juno Roche This is writing that takes us somewhere, sometimes through a shockingly forthright landscape. That’s a rare talent, one that they’re modest about. We’re offered up moments, captured in their minds eye, held up, turned in the light, reflections, refractions, thoughts playing off the shiny surfaces th By Eric Page • 3 min read
Arts The Coast Is Queer, Brighton & Hove’s festival of LGBTQ+ writing, to return in October Three days of accessible, lively literary conversations, panels, workshops and films celebrating some of the best and brightest LGBTQ+ writers By Graham Robson • 5 min read
Arts BOOK REVIEW: Queer Beyond London by Matt Cook & Alison Oram Part history, part dream, part political, part romance, part research but wholly celebratory. A book that tells Our story, by those that built and continue to build the spaces we choose to live in. The range of voices written in its pages reflects the diversity of our community back to us, but time By Eric Page • 3 min read
Arts BOOK REVIEW: Flamingo by Rachel Elliot Flamingo, at its dysfunctional heart, is a story of people learning to let go and grow, to accept and love people regardless of their flaws, to find a radical space in the heart for kindness to flow. It’s a book about chosen family, finding yourself and the way truly being seen is the safest place o By Eric Page • 3 min read
