Janet Anderton (Artist)
I’ve really enjoyed watching Shrill, based on the the book by Lindy West.
The main character, played brilliantly by Aidy Bryant, is making major life changes, her career, her love life, her relationship with her friends, and wonder of wonders, she’s doing all this in an unapologetically fat body. It’s a wonder to behold.
Jamie Ashbird (Writer)
I really enjoyed Sex Education on Netflix recently.
It’s wonderfully cartoony, and yet not. It’s sweet, and full of heart. Funny and sincere. I watched it and spent a lot of time thinking, “this would have been such an amazing show to have seen as a teenager”.
Identity and understanding and acceptance are the major themes. And just being okay with who you are and what you like. Also, boys kissing.
Atlin Merrick (Improbable Press' editor)
I've been researching upward of two dozen topics while I write the text for the book Lee Harper's dioramas will illustrate.
A biography I've just started is Linda Kearns: A Revolutionary Irish Woman by Proinnsíos Ó Duigneáin, about one of the women who played a vital role in the Irish Rising, Ireland's struggle for independence from Britain in the early 20th century.
Narrelle M Harris (Writer)
I read a fair bit of early queer history for book research and Kamp Melbourne: Australian Queer History was great for being about my home town.
It reinforces all the things I’m reading elsewhere: that life was not roses but not wall to wall misery for the gay, lesbian and trans communities. That those communities existed, whatever terminology they used about themselves, and that the mainstream based it’s very negative stereotypes on the few cases that ever reached court and were successfully prosecuted.
People found each other (sometimes as a result of those lurid cases, because then they knew they weren’t alone and also they could meet folks like them at particular beats).