A special World Pride edition of Los Booki s Podcast recorded live in front of an audience\, featuring a roundtable d iscussion with queer Latine writers: Venessa Vida Kelley\, author of W hen the Tides Held the Moon and Edgar Gomez\, author of Alligator Tears: A Memoir in Essays.
\nVenessa Vida Kelley\, author\, is a Nuyo rican author\, illustrator\, and aspiring mermaid who writes fairy tales a bout the real world so they can draw them too. They hold a BA and MA in En glish literature with concentrations in film from the University of Delawa re and the George Washington University respectively\, and their illustrat ions have decorated LGBTQ+ books worldwide. Venessa lives in Washington\, DC\, with their spouse\, two sons\, and an overabundance of teacups and wa shi tape. \;
\nEdgar Gomez is a queer NicaRican writer born and raised in Florida. He is the author of the memoir High-Ri sk Homosexual\, winner of the American Book Award\, a Stonewall Israel-Fis hman Nonfiction Book Honor Award\, and the Lambda Literary Award. Their so phomore book\, Alligator Tears\, was released in February 2025 and was cal led "triumphant\, dazzling\, and unfailingly stylish" by Publisher's Weekl y. A graduate of the University of California&rsquo\;s MFA program\, Gomez has written for The LA Times\, Poets &\; Writers\, Lithub\, New York M agazine\, and beyond. He has received fellowships from The New York Founda tion for the Arts\, The National Endowment for the Arts\, and The Black Mo untain Institute. He lives between New York and Puerto Rico. Find him acro ss social media @OtroEdgarGomez and lear n more via his website. \;
\nAGG\, aka Adrian Gasto n Garcia\, podcaster\, is a queer Latine storyteller originally f rom Chicago. He is co-host and co-producer of Los Bookis Podcast and perfo rms with Washington Improv Theater. \; AGG was a Summer 2023 Resident of the DC Mayor&rsquo\;s 202Creates Initiative. His play &ldquo\;Joteria&r dquo\; premiered at the 2022 Intersections Festival and featured in the Mi nnesota Fringe Festival\, and he performed in Story District&rsquo\;s &ldq uo\;Out/Spoken&rdquo\; LGBTQ+ showcase in 2023.
\nSergio A. Lopez\, podcaster\, is a proud gay who bounces between Mexico Cit y\, San Antonio\, and Washington\, DC. He&rsquo\;s the founder of the lege ndary gay Latino bookclub\, &ldquo\;Los Bookis.&rdquo\; He&rsquo\;s a comm itted social justice advocate and has worked at The Leadership Conference on Civil &\; Human Rights\, Freedom to Marry\, and was the author of &l dquo\;El Chanclaso&rdquo\; \; for Voto Latino. He&rsquo\;s currently a contributing writer for GLAAD. \;
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\ nWhen the Tides Held the Moon
\nBenigno &ldquo\;Benny&rdquo\; Caldera knows an orphaned Boricua blacksmith in 1910s New York City can&rsquo\;t call himself an artist. But the ironwork tank he creates for famed Coney Island playground\, Luna Par k\, astounds everyone\, especially the eccentric side-show proprietor who commissioned it. Benny&rsquo\;s work earns him an invitation to join the s how&rsquo\;s eclectic crew of performers&mdash\;his first welcome in the c ity&mdash\;and share in their astonishing secret: the tank Benny built is a cage for their newest exhibit\, a living\, breathing\, in-the-flesh merm an stolen from the banks of the East River under a gleaming full moon.
\nThe merman is more than a mythic marvel\, though. Benny comes to know Rí\;o as a clever philosopher\, an observant traveler\, and a kindr ed spirit more beautiful and compassionate than any human he&rsquo\;s ever met. Despite their different worlds\, what begins as a friendship of nece ssity deepens to love\, leading Benny&rsquo\;s heart into uncharted waters where he can no longer ignore the agonizing truth of Rí\;o&rsquo\;s captivity&mdash\;and his own.
\nA cage is no place for a merman to survive. Though releasing Rí\;o means betraying his new family\, ban krupting their home\, and losing his soulmate forever\, Benny must look wi thin for the courage to do what&rsquo\;s right\, and find a love strong en ough to free them both.
\n"When the Tides Held the Moon is a beautif ully illustrated novel with artwork throughout by Venessa Vida Kelley\, kn own for her stunning romance and fantasy art. This novel includes two diff erent full-color endpapers for front and back\, fully-designed chapter hea ders\, and 27 pieces of detailed illustrations throughout\, using beautifu l two-color\, aqua blue and black inks.
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\nIn Florida\, one of the first things you&rsquo\;re taught as a child is that if you&rsquo\ ;re ever chased by a wild alligator\, the only way to save yourself is to run away in zigzags. It&rsquo\;s a lesson on survival that has guided much of Edgar Gomez&rsquo\;s life.
\nLike the night his mother had a str oke while he and his brother stood frozen at the foot of her bed\, afraid she&rsquo\;d be angry if they called for an ambulance they couldn&rsquo\;t afford. Gomez escaped into his mind\, where he could tell himself nothing was wrong with his family. Zig. Or years later\, as a broke college stude nt\, he got on his knees to put sandals on tourists&rsquo\; smelly\, swoll en feet for minimum wage at the Flip Flop Shop. After clocking out\, his c rew of working-class\, queer\, Latinx friends changed out of their uniform s in the passenger seats of each other&rsquo\;s cars\, speeding toward the relief they found at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Zag. From committing a l ittle bankruptcy fraud for the money for veneers to those days he paid his phone bill by giving massages to closeted men on vacation\, back when he and his friends would Venmo each other the same emergency twenty dollars o ver and over. Zig. Zag. Gomez survived this way as long as his legs would carry him.
\nAlligator Tears is a fiercely defiant memoir-in-essays charting Gomez&rsquo\;s quest to claw his family out of poverty by any mea ns necessary and exposing the archetype of the humble poor person for what it is: a scam that insists we remain quiet and servile while we wait for a prize that will always be out of reach. For those chasing the American D ream and those jaded by it\, Gomez&rsquo\;s unforgettable story is a testa ment to finding love\, purpose\, and community on your own terms\, smiling with all your fake teeth.
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\nA Day of Writi ng and Community at MLK Library Celebrating DC&rsquo\;s LGBTQ Writers.
\nFind Your Story...Writing with Pride \;will be a day of workshops\, pre sentations\, and author talks focused on DC&rsquo\;s writing community. Fo r World Pride the event will have special focus on LGBTQ writers in the DC area. The day will include panel discussions\, informal writing workshops \, and a dedicated poetry stage.
\nhttps://dclibrary.libnet.info/event/ 13666998 URL;VALUE=URI:https://dclibrary.libnet.info/event/13666998 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR