SGN May 17, 2024

RANDALL‘S TRAILBLAZING BID FOR CONGRESS

BY HANNAH SAUNDERS

SGN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

When Emily Randall first ran for the state Senate in 2018, she flipped the 26th Legislative District from red to blue. If elected in this year’s race for the 6th Congressional District against three Republicans, Sen. Randall would become the first LGBTQ+ Latina woman in Congress.

“I think people are seeing these attacks on the LGBTQ community and are excited when they hear that Washington state has the opportunity to elect our first LGBTQ member of Congress,” Randall told the SGN “It’s an exciting opportunity to make history, and it’s not just in Washington — it’s nationwide. I would be the firstever LGBTQ Latina congresswoman from anywhere in the country.”

BY MATT NAGLE

SGN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

BY MATT NAGLE SGN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

IN THIS ISSUE

Classifieds: Women seeking women, men seeking men

SEATTLE GAY NEWS VOLUME 13, ISSUE 20 MAY 16, 1986

WOMEN

Quiet, Conservative, and sensitive individual wants to meet same for friendship first; GWF, chemicalfree, independent, 32 years, and educated.

Goddess/Amazon Warrior

I’m looking for a goddess and Amazon warrior. I’m a lesbian surviving. I’m attractive, honest, sensitive, good lover, pure, serious. Even if we don’t get into bed, friends are what I need.

MEN

Motorcycles

Looking for someone to ride motorcycles with, over 30, masculine please. No drugs, bars or smokers.

Whipping Boy Wanted

Intelligent, mature professional wants man who needs and likes punishment and light S/M.

2 GWM Seeking 3rd

2 GWM with long term relationship — very caring people. Seek 3rd GM for long term friendship, good times & loving encounters. Prefer person in 20’s or 30’s. Sincere only reply.

Humanitarian

GWM, 26, student, humanitarian, follower of leftist-politics, seeks strongwilled, socially conscious, determined man for friendship. I also enjoy music, reading, & movies. Favorite singer: Cher. Favorite book(s): Chronicles of Narnia. Favorite movie: Victor/Victoria.

Seeks Younger Brother

GWM, 28, seeks younger brother for adventures and just spending time with.

Last Thursday Night

Walking up the stairs from you [sic] apartment you asked me, “What’s wrong?” “What?” “I thought you were crying.” “No.” Thank you for caring. I am now.

Tacoma/Puyallup Area

W/M, 39, new at this and want more. Like to watch guys J/O and help you J/O. Wish to receive Greek only. Not interested in giving Greek, giving or receiving French. Not looking for a relationship, just sex. No pain, ruff [sic] stuff or drugs. Young or old, come on over and show me what you’ve got.

Home Videos

Will pay money to take home video movies of younger in old bluejeans, who have slim builds and nice rounded asses, that show off good in real old, tight, faded and worn bluejeans; of your own, or some of mine, with a 27 to 28 inch waist size. Especially, the kind of jeans, that are real snug and faded around the ass, to where the back seam of the pants stick in and draw up into the crack of the ass. A full view photo appreciated.

Renton

Swingshift employee, 42, 6’1”, 180, has morning hours available for support group of other swingshift workers locally. Other possibilities are: sun-worship at local beaches, taking notes on breezes thru local foliage. The evolution of tenderness in gay

males as a response to AIDS. Only those with thinking caps need apply. Application via handwritten letter.

Central Washington

Are there any other GM in Wenatchee/ Leavenworth area? Let’s get together for fun, friendship, support, etc.

Sincere Professional

Well-established, sincere, professional GWM, 20, 6 ft., sandy blond, blue eyes, good build. Looking for honest, mature, professional, 25-40, who enjoys quiet romantic evenings, movies, friends, and concerts. If this sounds like your wants and desires, send sincere inquiry. This may sound like other ads but I am unique.

Patient Looking for Doctor

Medical man for all types of clinical examinations and treatments as needed.

Perfect Match

J/O - Hairy J/O buddy wanted by wellendowed gay male for intimacy, friendship, or possible relationship. I’m 6’2”, slightly husky, bearded, and into J/O alone or with one special partner. There’s got to be a perfect match for me out there.

This article was edited for length. To view the entire listings, visit https://bit. ly/4af5MEZ.

SEATTLE NEWS

Idaho Falls and back, putting his faithful yellow Labrador retriever Oke in a boarding facility and juggling his two jobs in Seattle all the while.

“He was born around 2:30 a.m., and I was on the 11 a.m. flight to Idaho Falls,” Orion recalled. He went back home and planned to return two days later but caught a bad cold, which prevented him from going into the NICU.

“That was a very difficult period. I was making calls every morning. The doctor on duty, all the nurses and people working in the NICU gathered around, and I was on speaker phone to get reports on how Wylie was doing and to ask questions.”

He is thankful that Wylie’s surrogate mother was there every day as she recovered from her C-section. A labor and delivery nurse, she is still engaged in Wylie’s life, as Orion became very close to her and her family. He wants his son to know everything about his birth, including his gestational carrier.

Orion soon recovered and as Wylie received care in the NICU, he traveled to

“When I was well enough to go back, I focused my visits [on] skin-to-skin contact,” he said, “bonding with him, changing his diapers, and feeding him. Babies born early take time to learn the basic mechanics of eating — suck, swallow, and breathe — and my time with him in the NICU was a crash course in his care that a lot of parents don’t get with a term baby. Once he figured it out, I took him home.”

That’s when the real fatherhood experience began — with bottle feedings every two hours of the day and night. Orion was lining up an au pair, but in the meantime, he wanted the first few weeks to be only him and Wylie.

“I just wanted to be able to focus on the care of my kid and to go through that fire of sleeplessness, exhaustion, and learning what he needs. I wanted to have that intensive experience.”

Until his au pair arrived a couple weeks

ago, his family and friends pitched in to help, as did a couple of temporary nannies.

“I’m so grateful that my village has shown up for me and Wylie. Support is crucial for a single parent and the child, too,” he said.

“Being a little older has helped me tap into the networks I’ve spent 30 years growing.”

Changing times Orion spoke of how he had always thought about having a family, but the ways and means weren’t there when he came out in 1990. There were no same-sex marriage role models, because marriage equality was still decades away, and having kids was not a part of LGBTQ culture. As he got older and times changed, his dream of fatherhood became more of a reality, like it has for our community across the country.

“I think the push for same-sex marriage really got people thinking about same-sex couples wanting the same things as oppositesex couples in terms of the ability to raise a family safely and to be allowed to come into the hospital and be treated exactly the same as an opposite-sex partner,” Orion said.

It was just in 2019 that new legislation legalized commercial surrogacy in Washington state, thanks to Sen. Jamie Pedersen, who sponsored the bill to amend the Uniform Parentage Act our state adopted in 1973. The pandemic disruption stalled development of a surrogacy network here, which is why Orion had to turn to Idaho, known as the “unofficial surrogacy capital” of the US.

Cost is another barrier for LGBTQ surrogacy or adoption, and this is not lost on Orion.

“I sit in a very privileged position to be able to afford to do this. Lots of people struggle to even imagine coming up with these exorbitant fees,” he said. “I wish that there were organizations that existed that could help provide funding for financially strapped individuals or couples who want to have kids either through adoption or the IVF process.”

And Orion says he is not done yet. “I am planning on having a second child next year or in 2026. Then that’s it for me.”

Love sets sail with Visit Seattle’s vow-renewal cruise

BY LINDSEY ANDERSON SGN STAFF WRITER

All aboard! Visit Seattle is getting ready to celebrate the 12th anniversary of marriage equality and kick off Seattle’s 50th Pride season with a romantic Queer cruise across the Puget Sound. On May 30, the Love For All Boat will set sail for a night to remember. Complete with local fine dining and wine, a secret goody bag for every guest, a celebrity appearance by Seattle’s iconic BenDeLaCreme, who will MC the festivities, and a special vow-renewal ceremony, this is an experience couples won’t want to miss.

Michael Woody, chief communications officer for Visit Seattle, is one of the leading organizers. “In Seattle, we celebrate the authenticity and the diversity of who we are as a community,” he said, “and this is another way that we can celebrate that and show that Seattle is such a welcoming place in so many ways.”

The cruise is also part of Visit Seattle’s initiative to help promote tourism to Seattle. For years, the city attracted LGBTQ+ visitors and residents with inclusive events, businesses, and legislation. In 2014, before nationwide marriage equality, Visit Seattle hosted a special event called “Marry Me in Seattle,” in which four lucky couples from around the country traveled to Washington for a legal ceremony. One of those four couples will return to renew their vows on the Love For All Boat.

To Woody, welcoming this couple back to Seattle is just as exciting as seeing BenDeLaCreme. “I’ll tell you about a couple that we’re going to call celebrities, because they were one of our first Marry Me in Seattle couples… ten years ago,” he said,” and they are coming back to do their vow renewal.”

Another exciting celebrity participant in the event is Justice Mary Yu, the first person to officiate a same-sex wedding in Washington state. “I mean, you could not have a better name to be someone who performs weddings,” Woody said. “We’re very excited because she has made this a special thing. She’s not only the first one but has done many [since]. She was part of our

‘Marry Me’ program ten years ago, so it’s special to have [her] with us for this event aboard the ship.”

The event’s emphasis is on celebrating a renewal of love. “We’re encouraging people who… want to renew their vows [to participate],” Woody said. “Vow renewals are a special time. It gives us a special opportunity to look back on that event, whatever it looked like for us — it could have been at a justice of the peace, it could have been in a traditional ceremony… — and think about the commitment you made to each other at the beginning of that journey… This is a great [chance] to do that in a special setting.”

A vow renewal can be especially meaningful for Queer couples if their original vows were in a rushed courtroom, included a deadname, or happened pre-transition. Woody is also looking forward to participating, as he will be one of the couples renewing their vows. “I think for both my husband and me, it’s just that opportunity to revisit the special moment,” Woody said. “You kind of forget the words you shared at that time, and to have a moment to renew those and say, ‘Hey, I told you this a couple of years ago, and I mean it even more today, so let’s celebrate that.’ For us, it’s [a chance] to take a moment to recognize that love and celebrate it with a bunch of other people who are in the same spot.”

The event has attracted couples from across the country, including Texas, Illinois, and California, but the Love For All Boat is not just for out-of-towners. “Of course, we also encourage [those wanting a] staycation,” Woody said.

Whether married for decades or only a year, interested participants can purchase tickets online at Visit Seattle’s website (https://visitseattle.org/loveforallboat), or buy a package at one of the 12 participating downtown hotels (https://visitseattle.org/ loveforallboat/#lfab_hotels), including the Pan Pacific, the Edgewater, the State Hotel, and the Inn at the Market. Each ticket is good for one couple. “We encourage people to stay at the hotels, even if they live here. It gives you a chance to have that moment last a little longer,” Woody said.

VISIT SEATTLE

ORION ARRIVED BACK FROM HIS FIRST VISIT TO SEE WYLIE JUST IN TIME FOR HIS BABY SHOWER.

WYLIE WAS BORN PREMATURELY AND SPENT TIME IN THE NICU, BUT NOW HE’S HAPPY AND FULL OF BABY GIGGLES.

ORION SAID HIS MOM AND DAD FULLY SUPPORT THEIR SON, BRINGING LOVE FROM BOTH HIS BIRTH AND CHOSEN FAMILIES. – COURTESY PHOTOS

As founder and executive director of the Pride ASIA collective, she and co-director Arnaldo Inocentes (aka Arnaldo! Drag Chanteuse) lead a talented and committed team to present a festival that doubles as a precursor to Pride Month in June but outside of the traditional Seattle locales.

Joining her will be two co-emcees: drag legend and former Miss Gay Washington Gaysha Starr and the reigning Miss Gay Seattle, Duchess Drew Nightshade; both will also perform. Duchess Drew, about to complete her law degree and passionate about Trans rights, will also be the keynote speaker.

The opening ceremony will showcase the Northwest Kung Fu Association, which has supported Pride ASIA Fest since its beginning with traditional martial arts, taiko drumming, and the “lion dance” to ward off bad spirits, as often seen at Lunar New Year festivals.

“They have little kids who are members, and it’s always nice to see young kids embracing the cultural heritage of their family. It’s so wonderful to see that, and we adore them,” Manila said.

Seven special performances are also lined up, with more no doubt to be added as the event draws near: drag queen extraordinaire and hilarity incarnate, Atasha Manila; the current Mr. Community, Ceasar Hart; the current Miss Community, Delyla Dalyte; Jack of Spades from the Imperial Sovereign Court of Seattle; musician, dancer, and singer Kince de Vera; the current Miss Bearded Queen of Washington State, Maya Mem Saab; and Sepanta

SEATTLE NEWS

SHARING A MOMENT ONSTAGE TOGETHER AT PRIDE ASIA 2023 (FROM LEFT) DUCHESS DREW NIGHTSHADE, LU YING, GAYSHA

Bahri, musician, singer, and Queer immigrant from Iran. Music will be provided by DJ Moist Towelette, an Chinese American DJ very popular around town.

That Pride ASIA Fest is held on Memorial Day weekend is significant as well. “Of course, we acknowledge Memorial Day being about our lost military servicepeople and to highlight the ones that were perhaps LGBTQ and had to serve our country in silence,” Manila said.

Multicultural diversity

Pride ASIA Fest was created by a group of close friends who decided it was time

to make themselves known outside of the traditional Pride scene. Its mission is to celebrate, empower, and nurture the multicultural diversity of LGBTQ+ communities through the Asian-Pacific Islander (API) lens in order for people to see the true diversity of these communities.

“It’s really looking at the intersectionality of our identities,” Manila said. “For people like us and many other multiple-identified people, we are more than just being Queer. But we’re also more than being API. It’s a celebration and acknowledgment of the rich and diverse identities that many communities hold.”

Manila pointed out that when people hear the word “Asia” or “Asian,” they often default to Southeast Asia, thinking of people with Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Thai, or Vietnamese heritage. But Asia also includes South Asia — Pakistanis, Indians, and Sri Lankans, for example.

“We are really intentional about bringing forth members of our communities in the Pacific region — not just Hawaii but Samoa, Guam, Austronesia — and Middle East Asian countries whenever possible and safe,” she said. “We recognize that there are different family ethnic traditions that might be conservative and perhaps LGBTQ+ members of their groups may not feel seen or safe, so we hope to provide them a sense of light and safety through our celebration.”

Manila encourages everyone attending Pride ASIA Fest to tour the Chinatown International District, have a meal at any of the mom-and-pop restaurants, and enjoy the mix of people that join in with the celebration.

She also shared one of her fondest Pride ASIA Fest memories when her drag daughter Tanya Manila Rachinee was performing: “She was lip-syncing to a Chinese opera, and a couple of API elders who live in the neighborhood were watching us and they were just in awe. You could see their smiles, the joy in their eyes. It was joyful and positive. That’s why it’s essential and critical that we continue the art form of drag, whether that means lip-syncing, singing live, or even down to reading a book.”

Visit https://PrideAsia.org to learn about Pride ASIA Fest and two more Pride ASIA events, Dim Sum Dialogues and Rice Ball.

MOHAI explores intersection of technology and Queer lives

BY AISHA MISBAH SGN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

On Wednesday, May 15, the Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI) hosted a talk called “History Café: Love and Modems,” highlighting the impact of technology on the LGBT community. Dr. Avery Dame-Griff, a women, gender, and sexuality studies lecturer at Gonzaga University who has been studying the LGBT community and technology for more than a decade, hosted the talk.

While the history of the LGBT community and technology is expansive, Dame-Griff focused on the bulletin board system (BBS) usage in Washington State from the 1980s to the 1990s. Before mainstream internet use, BBSs were the easiest platforms the average user could access, a private, noncorporate system (that is, not managed by a bigger body, such as Meta).

This worked as follows: a user with a computer could use a modem to dial a phone number specific to the BBS, and a modem on the other end would pick up the call and log the user into the server. The user could now access chat rooms, files, games, etc.

So what did the social aspect of this type of online community mean for the Queer community?

28 Barbary Lane

There were two prominent BBS in the Seattle area for the Queer community, 28 Barbary Lane (28BBL) and the Seattle AIDS Information BBS (SAIBBS). 28BBL was founded in 1985 by the system’s operator (or “sysop”), J.D. Brown, who was in the bar scene but soon tired of it, seeking other ways of connection for the Gay and Lesbian community. He learned about BBS and began to wonder if he could create one specifically for Gay and Lesbian people.

Brown advertised the BBS in the classifieds section of the Seattle Gay News. Soon enough, it became one of the most promi-

nent Queer BBSs in the Seattle metro area.

The name, 28 Barbary Lane, was a reference to a Queer book series, Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin.

“One important thing to know about bulletin board systems is that their users were often concentrated locally, because you’re using a landline,” Dame-Griff said.

“This was back in the time of long-distance calling. If you long-distance called into a BBS, you were looking at an astronomical phone bill a month later.”

People connected through 28BBL and began to have meetups, do fundraisers, organize politically, and connect through various forums. Many members made lifelong friends and even romantic connections.

28BBL had around a thousand members.

The SGN covered it several times in its issues, and the BBS joined the Pride parade in 1993. In 1990, it won the best BBS in

Washington state for the industry magazine Boardwatch

Seattle AIDS Information

The Seattle AIDS Information BBS was founded by Steve Brown, a person with AIDS (PWA), in 1989, allowing other PWAs in the Seattle area free access to treatment news, lists of local resources, and an anonymous forum.

SAIBBS was converted into a nonprofit organization early on. BBSs were never moneymaking enterprises, so they constantly tried to raise funds, such as by becoming subscription-based. 28BBL even organized a fundraiser for SAIBBS to keep it afloat so that PWAs still had access to essential resources.

In the early 1990s, AIDS was still a very taboo topic, and so SAIBBS was sometimes the only resource people had. SAIBBS

worked with nonprofits to donate computers to PWAs because, at the time, they were a considerable monetary investment.

Starting in 1995, the usage of BBSs began to dwindle, due to the creation of the World Wide Web, or the internet.

“On corporate platforms, their [Queer people’s] presence could be more contingent on how the platform felt about the presence of adult material,” Dame-Griff said. “This was especially pressing for Trans folk. BBSs allowed for these kinds of safe, niche community spaces.”

Dame-Griff explained that since the person who ran the BBS was local, you would likely see that person at a meetup once a month. Members could complain directly to the sysop instead of filing a complaint through email to a corporation only to just sometimes get a response back. A BBS was more personal and not managed by a large corporation that determined what you could and couldn’t post.

Dame-Griff discussed how we could see a non-corporate-run internet today; for some people, corporate platforms such as Facebook have always existed.

“This history tells us there’s this whole kind of thing where you have an internet, a digital community, [that’s] locally grounded,” Dame-Griff said. “I hope some folks, the next time they hear about one of these alternative networks, they’re not just like, ‘Well, why would I do that?’ and [instead] they’re like ‘Huh, maybe I should try it.’”

Dame-Griff ended the talk by asking people to open their minds to ways of using the internet that aren’t owned by giant corporations and instead seek ways to connect online with people locally and personally.

The professor is continuing his research into BBSs and the Queer community and seeks Queer community members that were part of 28BBL and SAIBBS in the 1980s and 1990s. His email is damegriffa@gonzaga.edu.

STARR, ATASHA MANILA, KINCE DE VERA, AND ALEKSA MANILA. – PHOTO BY MEL PONDER

AISHA MISBAH

REGIONAL NEWS

Vashon art exhibit spotlights the Queer community

BY ALICE BLOCH SGN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

A year ago, Vashon artist Pam Ingalls was approached by the mother of a Trans teenager, who suggested that Ingalls paint portraits of the island’s Queer youth. Ingalls had already painted several collections of portraits of Vashon subcommunities — Latinos, seniors, and heroes from the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic — and she readily agreed to take on the new project.

When she used a Facebook post to request volunteers, she discovered that although parents were eager to have their Queer children participate, most of the kids (including the child of the mother who’d approached Ingalls) weren’t ready to go public with their identities.

Ingalls then widened her search to include the entire Vashon Queer community, and many Gay men responded. “I had to beg my Lesbian friends to let me paint them,” Ingalls says.

She ended up with a collection of 47 oil portraits, all of which are on exhibit at Dig Deep Gardens’ Greenhouse Gallery on Vashon Highway.

Renowned for her ability to capture light falling on objects, scenes, and people, Ingalls worked her magic in creating these portraits. She videotaped each subject and then retreated to her studio for a month or so of intense work. “I paint quickly,” she said.

Indeed, her paintings always have a fresh, spontaneous feeling. Each portrait in her new exhibit, titled “Facing Our Queer Community,” transmits something essential about the person’s presence.

Two of the loveliest are those of a young

RANDALL

CONTINUED FROM COVER

When speaking with other Queer leaders across the nation, Randall noticed how they generally have a track record of being bridge builders, particularly for those who were raised in more rural areas.

“We’re being attacked in every red state legislature around the country, and even in Washington state, Republicans have introduced anti-LGBTQ [bills], but we also are living in this world right next door to neighbors of all gender identities and sexualities, and we need to be able to afford to live,” Randall said.

When speaking with members of the Queer community, Randall has come to find that housing affordability, childcare, and climate protections are top-of-mind concerns.

“Over and over I hear from neighbors about the need to protect abortion rights and reproductive healthcare. I think the Queer community knows particularly well what it means to be marginalized in our reproductive healthcare spaces,” Randall said. “It’s not just women who need abortion care services or uterine cancer treatment.”

Randall was encouraged to run for the state Senate, in part due to Trump’s election and seeing a need to make her community safer and healthier. With Trump and Biden back on the presidential ballot this year, Randall knew she could not sit back. She acknowledged that Washington is progressive but that it needs strong leaders at the federal level.

What motivates Randall is the ability to build on her experiences fighting for reproductive freedom and LGBTQ+ healthcare and winning tough races, as well as her 25-year-old ties to the community. She’s been a leader in expanding access to healthcare career pathways through affordable college, residency program support, and passing a bill that ensures that the healthcare education system — like medical schools and continuing medical education requirements — are antiracist and LGBTQ+ affirming.

couple, Jacoby (Jack) Robinson-D’Amore and Blye D’Amore-Robinson, who moved to Vashon together three years ago and now both work at Euphorium, a local cannabis dispensary. “I volunteered to be painted,” said Jack, laughing, “and dragged Blye along, and now he’s the face of the exhibit.”

In her description of the exhibit, Ingalls writes, “Getting to know and painting

young people who are exploring their sexual orientation, as well as Gay and Lesbian couples who’ve been together for decades, has been so interesting. I’ve learned a lot from these brave souls. I hope we always support and celebrate every kind of diversity — wherever we live. We are really lucky to have each other to learn from, be challenged by, and embrace.”

“Facing Our Queer Community” will be on exhibit at Dig Deep Gardens & Art, 19028 Vashon Highway SW, through May 28. The gallery is open Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings. To see photos of the portraits, visit https://pamingalls.com/ collections/205002.

“That’s the kind of work I’d be so honored and excited to be doing in DC — to make sure Washingtonians... know they have an advocate and an ally and an accomplice in the work to ensure our policies reflect their lived experiences, too.”

Randall said she hopes to continue to work hard to ensure that all voices are reflected in legislative agencies and policies. She noted how Queer leaders in Olympia have worked to invite more LGBTQ+ community members into policy making conversations, so a broader set of experi-

ences helps to pass strong legislation.

“That’s the kind of work I’d be so honored and excited to be doing in DC — to make sure Washingtonians from across the 6th District and across the state know they have an advocate and an ally and an accomplice in the work to ensure our poli-

cies reflect their lived experiences, too.” Randall said.

If elected, Randall said she would focus on passing the Equality Act, which includes crucial protections for the LGBTQ+ community, and getting it signed into law. The Equality Act was introduced in the Senate last June and would prohibit discrimination based on sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation in businesses, places of employment, housing, and federally funded programs, among others.

“We have a lot of work to do to make sure that it’s not just states like Washington, but that our neighbors are protected in states like Florida and Idaho and Missouri,” Randall said.

COURTESY PHOTO

PAM INGALLS. JACOBY. OIL,12 X 9

PAM INGALLS. BLYE. OIL,12 X 9

Pride artwork in Duvall returns, but concerns remain

BY KALI HERBST MININO SGN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Duvall’s Pride Wall, displayed near the city entrance, was taken down last year after the city received threats, combined with its lack of a sign and art policy.

Since then, a lot has changed. Axton Burton, executive director of Pride Across the Bridge and the artist who created the original piece, got to see their newly designed Pride art installed on the side of city hall by community members at Duvall’s first Pride event over last weekend.

Revised art policy and a renewed cultural commission

Duvall’s cultural commission, which had been defunct for multiple years due to a lack of staff, was reactivated by the city’s new community events coordinator. Amy Ockerlander, mayor of Duvall, said the old commission never had a full-time staff member to help get the work done.

“With a full-time staff person, this group is able to be creative and develop work plans, and has come up with some absolutely fantastic ideas for the future,” Ockerlander said.

One of the first items on the commission’s to-do list was updating the art policy, which requires that the artist be notified of public art removal via snail mail, and requires a deaccession report that includes documentation of communication with the artist. The city is also responsible for regular maintenance using a plan written by the artist.

Meanwhile, the city is attempting to fund the events coordinator position, which helped revamp the cultural commission and ran the Pride celebration. Currently, it is a temporary two-year position using FERPA money from COVID-19. Ockerlander’s goal is to make the position permanent. Without the position, she says most events would not happen, and the Cultural Commission would not be staffed.

“We recently had a community survey [in which] arts and culture [was] a very high priority for our residents, which is consistent [with] the entire time that I’ve been a resident here,” Ockerlander said. “I’m hoping that helps provide the basis to get council support and approval to make that position a full-time permanent position so that we can continue to provide cultural

events in our community and expand our public arts programs citywide.”

Community- or city-organized Pride?

After the piece was taken down last year, Burton created an event called the Duvall Pride Palette, which took place last November.

“Because the city was not at all transparent…, there was no reprieve for the Queer community that had been hurt,” Burton said. “I just wanted to create something that would be a bandage or an acknowledgment and offer some support during this time before the art installation got realized again.”

According to Burton, the city did not respond to requests to support the event.

“The mayor would say, ‘Just reach out and tell us what you need,’ but I would never hear back from any message,” Burton said.

Duvall Pride Palette happened around three blocks away from last weekend’s Pride in the Park but did not have food trucks or a dedicated stage like the cityorganized event.

Burton also worried about the latter’s location, Depot Park, because it is directly next to the city’s police department. Duvall police were involved in the early-morning removal of Burton’s original piece.

“That is not a space that I’m comfortable in. That’s a lot of physical and emotional work that I have to do in a space that should be healing for us,” Burton said.

Ockerlander did not choose the event location but said that the park is probably

the only appropriate place for it. Other parks, like Duvall’s ball fields, are heavily relied on by sports groups during weekends. Depot Park also has restrooms and is near the art installation.

“While we have many parks, there aren’t many that are suited for events,” Ockerlander said.

“There’s a lot of learning that the city will need to do” Burton said, “and I am hopeful that there is a post-event conversation with the two nonprofits that help serve the community in that area to talk about ‘we already have a Pride event in Duvall we put on.’ Instead of harming the community more and assuming what we want to see, maybe we could have your support with this community-driven event.”

Quick organization from a temporary position

Burton also expressed frustration about city communication with vendors and performers. According to Burton, the vendors were not told until April 24 that they had been approved to be at the main Pride happening on May 11.

“It’s disrespectful to the vendors. The performers still don’t have their timeline,” Burton said.

Burton attributed the time crunch to having a single person, the community events coordinator, be the planner.

“Because it’s all on one individual, I can understand logistically, it’s a lot of fucking work,” they said.

Not everyone had concerns, though.

Elizabeth Hill performed over the weekend with her band Elizabeth Hill and the Valley Folk. Given that it’s the city’s first Pride event, she feels they are trying to do a good job.

“They’re trying to get it done before the ribbon cutting [also on May 11], so the schedule’s been compressed. That would be the most fair thing to say,” Hill said. “I think it’s going to turn out to be a great event.”

Generally, the vendors the SGN interviewed were enthusiastic about the festivities. Some did not feel the time crunch Burton described.

“I feel like the city’s pretty prepared. All the communication that has gone back and forth between me and the city has been great,” drag performer Kenbie Enby said.

One pottery vendor, Joseph MaKing, said it was his first Pride celebration as a vendor. He was excited big brand names were not sponsoring it.

“When big-name sponsors started funding Pride events, it became less about the joy of being Gay and became all about ‘we gave you money for our event, drink our alcohol,’” MaKing said. “Small towns are going to be a lot less sponsored, so it’s going to be a lot more true to our community.”

For longtime residents like Hill, the day provided a sense of community.

“I’ve lived here for 37 years and it’s just been more of a quiet — I wouldn’t go as far to say closeted — but it’s been a quiet existence,” Hill said. “We have a network of people, but there’s been so many new people move here that we don’t all know each other.”

AXTON BURTON

National news highlights

BY TEDDY MACQUARRIE SGN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Target to cut Pride merchandise from half its stores

Target has cut Pride Month merchandise from some of its stores this year, according to Bloomberg. The retailer will only stock Pride products in about half of its stores, sources close to the situation told the news outlet. The company is still determining which stores will carry the merchandise, based on recent sales data. All products will still be available online, however.

The retailer has celebrated Pride Month every June for over a decade with a collection honoring the Queer community. Target began removing some Pride items in certain locations in May last year after threats were made to employees’ safety. Bloomberg’s recent report did not include mentions of those employee safety concerns, but rather cited the company as being motivated by the financial impact of the outrage. Target sales dropped 5% from April to June compared to the same time period the previous year, the company reported at the time.

Texas: Houston district elects first out Queer state senator in state’s history

Molly Cook has made history as the first out Queer state senator in Texas following her victory in a special election on May 4 to replace John Whitmire, who resigned to become the mayor of Houston.

An emergency room nurse, Cook won the election with 57% of the votes, defeating Democratic State Rep. Jarvis Johnson, who collected 43%. Saturday’s special

election victory secures Cook a temporary position representing Senate District 15 until the end of the year. She will face Johnson again in a highly anticipated Democratic primary runoff on May 28. This runoff will determine who will serve a full term starting in January 2025.

Senate District 15 includes key Houston neighborhoods known for their liberal leanings.

Cook’s campaign strategy involved intensive voter engagement and was marked by solid fundraising efforts, particularly after the March 5 primary, when she finished second to Johnson. Cook emphasized her deep roots in community

service and her professional experience dealing with public health crises, which she argued brought a critical perspective to the legislative process.

New York: Appeals court upholds Catholic school’s firing of Gay teacher

A federal appeals court on Wednesday sided with a Catholic high school that fired a Gay teacher over his plans to marry his partner, saying that the termination did not violate federal workplace protections for Queer workers. A three-judge panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals said the North Carolina school did not violate Lonnie Billard’s rights under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act

International news highlights

BY TEDDY MACQUARRIE SGN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Sweden: Eurovision crowns Queer contestant in historic first during politically charged contest

Swiss singer Nemo won the 68th Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday night with “The Code,” an operatic ode to the singer’s journey toward embracing their identity.

Their victory in the Swedish city of Malmö, the first for a Nonbinary person, followed a turbulent year for the pancontinental contest, which saw large street protests against the participation of Israel, tipping the feel-good musical celebration of Europe’s varied musical tastes — and forum for inclusiveness and diversity, with a huge Queer following — into a chaotic pressure cooker.

Hours before the final, Dutch competitor Joost Klein was expelled from the contest over a backstage threat he made to a female photographer.

Nemo bested finalists from 24 other countries, who all performed in front of a live audience of thousands and an estimated 180 million viewers around the world.

Ghana: Supreme Court suspends televised hearing on anti-Queer legislation

The Supreme Court of Ghana agreed to televise hearings on two challenges to the country’s proposed anti-Queer law, then promptly adjourned proceedings for a week, GhanaWeb reported.

The Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Act would outlaw all forms of same-sex sexual relations as well as those

between humans and animals, and calls for prison sentences for people identifying as Queer and those forming or funding Queer groups. Parliament passed the bill in February, but President Nana AkufoAddo has refused to sign it until the Court resolves the current legal challenges.

The lawsuits before the Court were filed by broadcaster and lawyer Richard Sky and concerned citizen D. Amanda Odoi, who claims the law is unconstitutional on multiple grounds. In addition to the claim that the law violates fundamental human rights enshrined in the constitution, the process by which the law was passed and the expenditure of public funds required to implement the law have been challenged.

Ghana is facing widespread international condemnation and potential finan-

of 1964, a federal anti-workplace discrimination law that protects against race, sex, and religious discrimination.

The ruling from the appeals court is a notable departure from previous rulings that have helped advance Queer rights in various areas of life, including a pair last month that said state health insurance plans in North Carolina and West Virginia unlawfully excluded coverage for gender-affirming care, and one in favor of a young Trans athlete in West Virginia who was barred from participating in school sports under a state law.

Texas: Queer advocacy group reports jump in reported anti-Queer hate crimes

Queer advocates in Texas reported a surge in reported hate crime incidents across the state in 2023, local NBC affiliate KXAN reported. Chloe Goodman, constituent service manager of the advocacy group Equality Texas, told KXAN that their organization fielded a little under 13 reported cases per month on average in 2022. The average jumped to 25.9 cases per month one year later. Even the progressive state capital of Austin was not immune to the uptick in reported hate crimes. The city went from a low of 12 in 2019 to a high of 51 in 2023. Goodman pointed to increased visibility during Pride Month, and recent legislative action that has resulted in an increase of incidents among students and educators in Texas schools. Texas Republican lawmakers filed a record 141 bills targeting the Queer community last year.

cial devastation over the bill, with US Vice President Kamala Harris notably supporting Queer rights while visiting Ghana in March 2023.

Argentina: Queer community sounds alarm on far-right president

In the wake of decades of Latin America’s most socially progressive measures, Argentina’s far-right president Javier Milei has alarmed the country’s Queer community with an agenda seen as hostile to their rights and safety.

Since taking office in December, Milei has jumped into Argentina’s culture wars with an “anti-woke” agenda, in which he has shut down the Ministry of Women, Gender, and Diversity, banned the government’s use of gender-inclusive language,

and closed the National Institute against Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Racism. Milei has also revoked a quota law that promotes the inclusion of Transgender people in the workforce.

Decrying what he calls “gender ideology,” Milei has prompted Argentina’s Queer community to take to the streets in protest, in opposition not only to his social agenda but his populist “shock doctrine,” entailing steep austerity measures, which they view as disproportionately affecting them.

Australia: New South Wales to formally apologize for historic criminalization of homosexuality

The New South Wales government will formally apologize to people convicted under laws criminalizing homosexuality in a move the premier hopes will bring closure to those who have been affected.

Coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the decriminalization of homosexuality, NSW will become the last Australian state to issue an apology after all five others did in the last decade. The apology will come months after a scathing report found that Gay hate bias was a likely factor in 25 of 32 suspected homicides between 1970 and 2010.

Announcing the apology on Saturday morning, the premier, Chris Minns, acknowledged that words can’t remedy the discrimination those affected were subject to.

Former premier Neville Wran decriminalized homosexuality in NSW in 1984. Victoria and South Australia formally apologized in 2016, while Tasmania, Western Australia, and Queensland did in 2017, and the Northern Territory followed suit in 2018.

GEORGE WALKER IV / AP

NEMO – CORINNE CUMMING / EBU

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Nymphia Wind and the growth of drag in Taiwan

BY MADISON JONES SPECIAL TO THE SGN

Not long after Taiwan had been struck by a once-in-a-generation 7.3-magnitude earthquake, another major historic event shook the foundations of the nations’s drag and LGBT community: Taiwanese contestant Nymphia Wind became the winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race season 16.

In her acceptance speech for the title of “America’s next drag superstar,” in front of a global audience of millions, Nymphia made a loving dedication to her home country and community: “Taiwan, this is for you.”

In honor of this momentous occasion, I had the privilege of witnessing up close Nymphia’s drag family, the Haus of Wind, and other performers hold an unbridled celebration of her victory, hosted by the city’s flagship Gay bar, Café Dalida, at the Riverside Live House in Taipei’s historically Queer district, Ximen. Their stellar drag performances were accompanied by a viewing of the season’s finale. On Nymphia’s win, the audience’s reception was nothing short of utterly ecstatic, and the venue released vibrant confetti and banners in her favorite color, yellow. Many people broke into tears, embracing one another in triumph.

“It’s so difficult to host drag queen events here in Taiwan… [with Nymphia’s win,] it feels like we finally won,” stated Alvin Chang, the owner of Café Dalida and host of that night’s event.

Chang has played a significant role in many Taipei-based drag queens’ lives, including that of Nymphia Wind. He has been an active member of the local Gay scene since his college DJing days in the mid-1990s and has slowly become one of the city’s most seminal Queer figures. And yet throughout the decades, one thing has remained the same: his love and passion for the art of drag.

Chang spoke with me in an interview about the history of Taipei’s drag scene and Nymphia Wind’s rise, as well as how RuPaul’s Drag Race helped to rehabilitate Taiwanese interest in the art form.

The evolution of the drag scene

The popularity and support of drag performers among Taiwan’s LGBT community has not always been consistent, Chang told me. When American gyms started cropping up across Taipei in the late 1990s, he noticed a shift among his Gay compatriots toward an obsession with masculinity and a corresponding stigmatization of femininity. “The Gay community here started to hate feminine men. All my drag queen friends stopped doing drag, and went to the gym,” he said.

This “femmephobia” in Taiwanese Gay culture is what prevented greater interest in drag from taking off at the time, Chang surmised. For over a decade, the demographic makeup of Taipei’s drag shows were predominantly foreign expats coming to watch foreign queens.

It was only in 2016, when RuPaul’s Drag Race became easily accessible to watch from home on Netflix Taiwan, that Chang once again began to notice more Taiwanese patrons frequenting the drag shows. It was also around that time that more Gay-oriented events, like the monthly “Werk!” party, started cropping up around the city. Café Dalida also started hosting a monthly party for drag queens called “Create Ur Mmmagic” (or C.U.M.), hosted by both Chang and his friend and veteran drag queen Bouncy Babs.

The initial C.U.M. lineup was composed of all foreign queens, but that was soon to change. In 2018, Werk! decided to hold a lip-synch competition in order to recruit more local talent, and the winners ended up being none other than Nymphia Wind and her good friend Chiangwei. Soon after this, Bouncy Babs decided to invite both of them to perform at C.U.M., which is how Chang coincidentally met Nymphia for the first time. When asked to recall his first impressions of her, Chang endearingly said he thought to himself: “Such a crazy bitch. I have to know her right away!” And the rest was Taiwanese drag history.

That same year, C.U.M. was also able to secure a pivotal visit from RuPaul Drag Race’s season 8 finalist Kimchi. This was the first time one of RuPaul’s contestants had come to Taipei to perform. According to Chang, the impact on the community of witnessing an internationally successful — and fellow Asian — drag queen perform live could not be overstated. “Many of my drag daughters said they started doing drag since that event,” he said. “So many in the audience joined the event in drag… [we] Taiwanese love her very much.”

Despite past wavering in local interest, these events provided the crucial turning points from which Taiwan’s homegrown drag artistry evolved into its current flourishing era.

Nymphia’s edge

Nymphia Wind, alongside the gigs at her “home bar” Café Dalida, would also go on to organize her own performances around Taipei over the years. Chang recounted several of them to me, but his favorite of the bunch was her 2019 show called “The Alien Experiment.” In it, Nymphia starts off in typical drag show fashion by playing a blonde bombshell while lip-syncing on the runway — but then subverts audience expectations by harshly interrupting it with screaming and an on-stage freakout. Two drag accomplices in scientific white lab coat getups then storm in to strip her down and probe her, alien-style. They forcibly pour liquid down her throat while also transforming her piece by piece into a dark alien costume with a spiderweb-like contraption.

“She is always willing to try something new. So much talent,” Chang told me.

No doubt these experimental drag shows in Taipei were the stomping grounds in which Nymphia was able to hone in her craft before embarking upon the US drag scene and RuPaul’s Drag Race

The rise and now victory of Nymphia Wind has only confirmed the strong support and love of the drag art form that has been built in Taiwan for almost a decade; it was certainly palpable during the Haus of Wind’s victory celebration party in April.

In response to one of my last questions of the interview, Chang shared with me his reasoning for why he believed Nymphia was able to take home the title: “She always takes care of the audience, not just performing her own thing on the stage… she did it at the final lip sync,” referring to the Drag Race season 16 finale performance. It was this attentiveness to her audience, which he has witnessed throughout her entire career, that allowed her to gain the edge and win.

The historical significance of Nymphia Wind’s victory, as well as her outspoken love for her home country in interviews, has not gone unnoticed by the highest echelons of Taiwanese society; outgoing President Tsai Ing-wen wrote a statement not long after the release of the finale on the official Drag Race Instagram congratulating Nymphia on her win, stating: “Taiwan thanks you for living fearlessly.”

Nymphia Wind will fly back to Taipei to perform alongside other season 16 show contestants Plane Jane and Mirage on May 25 for the You Better Werq tour. It’s safe to say that her triumph will mark Taipei on the map of drag excellence internationally for years to come.

NYMPHIA WIND – WORLD OF WONDER

VETERAN DRAG ARTIST BOUNCY BABS, NYMPHIA AND ALVIN TOGETHER, 2024 – COURTESY PHOTOS

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Kim Petras is out, Remi Wolf is in: What to expect at Capitol Hill Block Party 2024

BY LINDSEY ANDERSON SGN STAFF WRITER

Capitol Hill’s biggest event of the year is returning this summer with one of the Queerest lineups yet! Capitol Hill Block Party, a weekend-long music festival, is known for bringing the hottest up-and-comers in the music scene to the streets of Seattle’s coolest neighborhood, and this year’s lineup may just be the hottest yet. Past lineups have included some of the biggest names in indie, pop, and EDM music, including Lizzo, A$AP Rocky, and Lord Heron.

The event will shut down Pike Street from Broadway to 12th Avenue for three days; those living in residences entirely inside the grounds will have the opportunity to receive free tickets. This year’s festival will include 11 stages between Frames Central and Grims Restaurant and Bar. Some of the city’s most iconic Queer bars will host performances outside their venues, including Café Racer, Wildrose, Neumos, and the Schilling Cider House. Access to any of these spaces on the weekend of July 19 will be limited to people with Capitol Hill Block Party wristbands.

The party will continue all night, thanks to the nearly block-long Jameson Beer Garden, which will stretch from the Comet Tavern to Out of the Closet Thrift Store. For those with a more refined taste, the slightly smaller Juneshine Beer Garden will be found on the corner of Pike and 11th, just across the street from the merch tent.

This beer garden is VIP only but offers a great space to beat the heat while waiting for the next hot act to begin.

VIP tickets will also allow partygoers to skip the long general admission lines and obtain three free drink tickets a day, which can be used at any of the block party’s lounges, or for complimentary food and access to private bathrooms. VIP tickets are only available to participants over the age of 21; general admission tickets, however, are available to people of all ages. The Neumos and Barboza stages will only be accessible to guests 21 and over.

Lineup changes

While Capitol Hill Block Party is known for pulling incredible talent from around the world, this year’s event will also feature local DJs set up at the Schilling Cider House, Café Racer, and Chophouse Row, the last of which will be offering free entertainment to Capitol Hill Block Party ticket holders and the general public.

As of May 13, 2024, Capitol Hill Block Party has announced changes to the scheduled lineup. Though previously advertised as a headliner, Kim Petras will no longer participate. In April, the Grammy-winning artist announced her decision to pull out due to ongoing health issues. “My buns, I’m devastated to be writing this, but I’m going through some health issues, and under medical advice, I have had to make the hard decision to not perform at festivals this summer,” she said.

Instead, funk-soul pop sensation Remi Wolf will fill her place. The “Cinderella” singer has added the Block Party to her Big Ideas world tour. An up-and-comer on the scene, Wolf is currently opening for Olivia Rodrigo on the Guts tour and has previously worked with fellow headliner Still Woozy. She was a 2014 contestant on American Idol and has since gained a cult following online.

Additional headliners include Still Woozy on Saturday and Kaytranada on Sunday. (Tickets to Capitol Hill Block party are not refundable, and headliners are subject to change without notice.)

Chappell Roan, the iconic Lesbian pop princess of the Midwest, will also grace the

stage by kicking off the festivities with a Friday show. Roan, who has gone viral on TikTok for her new album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess and hit Queer anthems such as “HOT TO GO!,” “Casual,” and “Good Luck, Babe,” will make her first appearance in Seattle, as part of her latest tour. Last week, Roan announced an open call for local drag queens in the cities she’s visiting, as she would like to include them in her performances, since much of her act is inspired by drag.

Tickets are currently only on sale for all three days and start at $235. Additional single-day tickets are not on sale yet but will be available closer to the event.

Former Wizards of the Coast editor has “high hopes” for diversity in Dungeons & Dragons

BY DANIEL LINDSLEY SGN STAFF WRITER

For this piece, I wish I had been able to bring up studies about diversity in the tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) industry specifically. But that industry, despite its rising cultural influence, remains relatively small, and understudied as a result.

Even Wizards of the Coast, the creators of the latest three editions of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), the most popular TTRPG ever, is only about 1,500 people strong by some estimates — and the majority of that figure is likely dedicated to the Magic: The Gathering trading-card game, which brought in 75% of the company’s revenue last year.

All this is to say that few people have a direct hand in creating official content for D&D, and it’s not abundantly clear who they are or what that process looks like. Since Wizards is strict about what its employees are allowed to discuss with outsiders, the company’s demographics remain something of a black box, with the exception of anonymous employee ratings on company review sites like Glassdoor and Zippia.

To its credit, Wizards’ “rank and file” staff are consistently praised on those sites, and it scores a 9.5 out of 10 on diversity on Zippia specifically. Minus a few controversies over the last couple of years, the company’s recent products have shown a keener awareness of the harmful tropes the Western fantasy genre often takes for granted.

But the numbers on those review sites aren’t particularly reliable, and without a clearer notion of who is working on Dungeons & Dragons and how they go about it, consumers have no concrete way of checking whether Wizards of the Coast is living up to its public promises of diversity, equity, and inclusion — at least, not at the company level.

Lighting up the dungeon

Uncertainty has a way of provoking blanket accusations, and few events generate more uncertainty than a wave of layoffs. In December of last year, Hasbro, the parent company of Wizards of the Coast, announced it would be laying off 1,900 employees, about 20% of its workforce. That figure would include at least 20 members of Wizards. That’s obviously terrible for the people affected, and it was a baffling move considering that Wizards was the only profitable sector of Hasbro in 2023. Many fans have understandably been searching for someone to blame, some calling for a boycott of Wizards products, or of Hasbro more broadly, and others worrying about D&D’s future.

But a slim silver lining to this situation, if there is one, is that former employees have been able to speak more openly about their experiences with the company. To learn more about what’s Queer at Wizards, I spoke with Eytan Bernstein, who was a senior developmental editor for nearly two years before he was let go in December. Bernstein’s career writing and editing for TTRPGs hasn’t ended, though, and it goes back much further than 2022. He has worked with three different editions of D&D over the last 20 years, starting with an online magazine after college. The connections from that gig eventually led to freelance work with Wizards, and finally to a full-time job there.

“From what I could tell, more than half of my department was Queer,” Bernstein said. “And that’s just the people I knew of. I could be wrong, especially given that there’s not the same number of people that were there several months ago. But there were a lot of Queer folk in that department.”

Diversity and inclusion in the TTRPG scene overall has seen “tremendous improvement” since the early 2000s, he said, “and that includes Wizards as well.” Bernstein and the rest of the editorial team were constantly working to improve D&D’s language and themes regarding race, gender, and sexual orientation. Sensitivity readers are now a requirement for Wizards products, he said, and “people can still request either additional or specific review if they’re concerned about an issue related to a particular group or identity, for example. And I’ve never seen that turned down.”

Granted, there is still “tremendous room for improvement.” If Zippia’s numbers are anything to go by, Black and Indigenous people and women aren’t as well represented at Wizards as they might be. Bernstein said that, in addition to hiring for diversity, Wizards should be “hiring people with knowledge of inclusivity and sensitivity beyond simply what their role requires.”

Of his coworkers, Bernstein had only good things to say, praising his managing editor Judy Bauer and D&D designer Chris Perkins.

“I know people are frustrated about what was happening with Wizards and Hasbro, but I’d like to emphasize that, whatever you feel about that, it did not involve the people who are working there,” Bernstein said. “They’re still wonderful, brilliant, dedicated people who want to make good games.”

REMI WOLF – COURTESY PHOTO

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS – WIZARDS OF THE COAST

Seattle Opera’s 60th anniversary celebrated with a world-class concert

BY SHARON CUMBERLAND SGN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Seattle Opera 60th Anniversary Concert and Gala McCaw Hall, Seattle Center May 11, 2024

Anyone present at McCaw Hall on Saturday, May 11 enjoyed a concert so fabulous that it brought together the glories of opera at its very best. Seattle Opera well deserved the delightful 60th birthday party it threw itself, led by its wonderfully successful general director, Christina Scheppelmann.

A full house of elegantly dressed patrons and opera lovers were held spellbound by a selection of the world’s most memorable music: a beautifully designed progression of works by Wagner, Gershwin, Mozart, Verdi, Bizet, Bellini, Donizetti, Richard Rogers, Leoncavallo, and Tchaikovsky.

For aficionados, it was a dream come true. For first-timers, it was a magical introduction to the wonders of Seattle Opera. For the city of Seattle, it was a proud celebration of one of the world’s great opera companies.

Not only was the 50-member chorus present, but the full complement of the orchestra — 80 musicians led by conductor Kazem Abdullah — filled the pit to over flowing. An assembly of opera’s most talented and sparkling stars joined them to sing a hit parade of arias and ensembles, woven together with orchestral favorites and choral showpieces.

When the lights went down and the

orchestra played “Entry of the Guests” from Tannhauser, the chorus, dressed all in black, filed onto the colorful set from the company’s current production, The Barber of Seville — a rainbow picture frame that perfectly enhanced the impressive force of singers, who are the backbone of Seattle Opera productions and make up the scenic and musical support for the stars. What a joy it was to see them all together at the center of the stage!

During the next two hours, Seattle’s own favorites sang the arias that have earned them international renown: Sarah Coburn and Mary Elizabeth Williams, who got their starts as Seattle Opera Young Artists; and Greer Grimsley, whose Wotan personified Seattle’s beloved Ring Cycles. They were joined by international favorites Duke Kim,

Ginger Costa-Jackson, and Amitai Pati, as well as bass Adam Lau and baritone John Moore, who completed the compliment of star performers. Their voices and acting abilities — as well as fabulous costumes — brought every ensemble to life.

My personal favorite of the evening was Williams’s passionate rendition of “My Man’s Gone Now” from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. When she opened up her mighty voice halfway through the first part of the evening, it was as though the concert had begun anew. And when Grimsley sang “Wotan’s Farewell” from Die Walküre, I was right back in the golden age of the company’s Ring Cycle, when the world came to our doorstep to see the four great operas performed as only our big little company could do it. I felt both nostalgia and grati-

tude for our past directors: Glynn Ross, whose bold vision brought Seattle Opera to life, and Speight Jenkins, whose devotion to the Ring Cycle and to the company made McCaw Hall the beautiful, elegant, artistic showplace it is today.

It’s hard to believe that Seattle was once a moderate-sized town that surprised the world in 1959 when it won the chance to host the 1962 World’s Fair. That success brought the Civic Center to life, which became the Opera House and then McCaw Hall — and the home of Seattle Opera as well as Pacific Northwest Ballet and many other performing arts events. As the city continues to grow, and to find solutions to the challenges of any metropolis, we can be grateful to all the talented people who have made Seattle an opera town — that special category of city that has the talent, musicality, sophistication, and generosity to support the multiple arts that come together to make such a company.

US Rep. Pramila Jayapal capped an already wonderful evening by presenting a proclamation she had read into the Congressional Record praising Seattle Opera and General Director Scheppelmann for the company’s great contribution to the arts. And the Seattle City Council has declared May 2024 Seattle Opera Month in honor of this city’s rare accomplishment: the creation of an opera company that has lasted 60 years — and counting!

Happy 60th birthday, Seattle Opera — and may your grateful citizens have 60 more years of wonderful productions.

Don’t miss this Barber of Seville at Seattle Opera

BY SHARON CUMBERLAND & ALICE BLOCH

SGN CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

THE BARBER OF SEVILLE

Music by Gioachino Rossini Libretto by Cesare Sterbini

Seattle Opera

McCaw Hall, Seattle Center

Opening weekend (May 4 and 5)

Everyone is familiar with the main musical themes from Rossini’s comic opera The Barber of Seville. Many of us were introduced to opera by Bugs Bunny as “The Rabbit of Seville” or by Tom and Jerry, when Tom sings the iconic aria “Largo al factotum” (“Figaro! Figaro! Figaro!”). Now a cast of talented young singers gives audiences a chance to see the real-life opera that has inspired so much popular comedy. On opening weekend, it was more hilarious, more frantic, and more delightful than anything a cartoonist could dream up. The audience laughed and applauded its way through the first performances of this terrific production.

It’s the classic story of a beautiful girl, Rosina, being imprisoned by her elderly guardian, who wants to marry her for her money. In Rossini and Sterbini’s version, Rosina is being forced to marry ridiculous old Dr. Bartolo. Enter Count Almaviva, a handsome young aristocrat who has fallen in love with Rosina and followed her to Seville. He appeals for help from Figaro, the local barber and jack-of-all-trades, who comes up with a scheme to foil Bartolo’s plans. Since comedies always have happy endings, the audience knows that this silly plot will end in the triumph of love — but not before two acts of misdirection, deception, and slapstick shenanigans keep everybody guffawing.

A colorful, lively production

The kaleidoscopic set in this production, by stage designer Tracy Grant Lord, is a perfect celebration of sparkling primary colors. Rossini’s Seville is often represented by clichés of sunny Spain, but Grant Lord’s version gives the audience characters who pop in and out of psyche-

delic doors and windows that add athletic energy to their singing roles. Vibrant colors by lighting designer Matthew Marshall contribute to the fun, as do the gorgeous costumes that evoke a fantasy of Seville, where seducers get their comeuppance and lovers their heart’s desire.

On opening night, mezzo-soprano Megan Moore’s Rosina was in excellent voice and temper as the girl who refuses to be maneuvered into marriage with Bartolo (played with broad comic turns by bass Kevin Burdette). Tenor Duke Kim was athletic, romantic, and in excellent voice as Count Almaviva. The star of the show, of course, was the Barber of Seville himself, played by Sean Michael Plumb, a wonderful baritone with a gift for cocky slapstick humor.

The second cast was equally splendid, with mezzo-soprano Taylor Raven playing a spirited Rosina and César Cortés as Almaviva deploying an exceptionally sweet tenor voice. Although Burdette’s gift for physical comedy was not to be equaled,

bass Ashraf Sewailam excelled vocally; his voice was more suitable for the bombastic Bartolo. As Figaro, baritone Luke Sutliff acquitted himself well, although his acting was less impressive than Plumb’s.

In most productions, the roles of household servants Ambrogio and Berta are minor and forgettable, but in the hands of bass Marc Kenison (aka Waxie Moon, whose website describes him as “Seattle’s gender-blending Queer lady boylesque performance-art stripping sensation”) and mezzo-soprano Deanne Meek, these characters are quite memorable. Kenison is constantly in motion and at one point hangs by one leg from a chandelier! Meek admirably portrays a disgusted housemaid; her single aria gives voice to the discontents of the working class — a rarity in Rossini’s day.

Conductor Valentina Peleggi led members of Seattle Symphony (plus virtuoso guitarist Michael Partington) and the Seattle Opera Chorus through the lively score with finesse and aplomb. As always,

the chorus members established themselves as individual personalities, and their onstage antics were among the funniest parts of the show.

What are you waiting for?

Seattle Opera makes it easy and affordable to attend, with a Rush Pass program for seniors and service professionals (show up 30 minutes before curtain time and get discounted seats), as well as a Pay-What-YouWish performance and discount programs for families and children, military, educators, teens, and the ever-popular standing room. If you’ve never seen an opera before, this one’s a great starter. If you love comedy and popular music, The Barber of Seville is perfect for you. If you’re glad Seattle has its own opera company that enriches our lives as citizens, come to this show!

Performances continue through May 19. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit https://seattleopera.org.

SOPRANO MARY ELIZABETH WILLIAMS – PHILIP NEWTON

DUKE KIM AS COUNT ALMAVIVA AND MEGAN MOORE AS ROSINA IN THE BARBER OF SEVILLE AT SEATTLE OPERA – SUNNY MARTINI

FILM

2024 Travessias Brazilian Film Festival

Programmers Livia Lima and Calac Nogueira on taking over the Northwest Film Forum for their two-day festival

BY SARA MICHELLE FETTERS SGN STAFF WRITER

A relative newcomer to the Seattle cinema scene, the fourth annual Travessias Brazilian Film Festival kicks off two full days of programming at the Northwest Film Forum on May 24. Featuring an exciting program of features, documentaries, and shorts, including the LGBTQ+ coming-of-age drama Heartless, it is an electrifying explosion of moviegoing wonders focusing on works made by female, Black, and Indigenous filmmakers.

I had the opportunity to briefly chat with two of the programmers, Livia Lima and Calac Nogueira, about this year’s lineup and where they hope Travessias goes in the future. Here are the edited transcripts of our conversation:

Sara Michelle Fetters: The Travessias Brazilian Film Festival is still relatively new on the festival landscape in Seattle. Could you please tell me more about it and its genesis?

Calac Nogueira: The Travessias Brazilian Film Festival started in 2019 and is in its fourth edition. The festival focuses on independent contemporary Brazilian cinema, and we look for films that explore urgent themes and are aesthetically bold. We tend to privilege films about or made by women, Black, and Indigenous people.

The festival was conceived by Brazilian film researcher Emanuella Rodrigues de Moraes, who now lives in Rio de Janeiro. Since the third edition in 2022, Livia Lima and I joined her on the selection committee. We also count on the guidance of professors Jonathan Warren and Eduardo Vianna da Silva from the University of Washington. Travessias would also not have been possible without the support of Rana San, former artistic director of the Northwest Film Forum, who has supported the festival from its inception.

SMF: This festival comes immediately in the shadow of the much higher-profile Seattle International Film Festival. Do you worry at all people may be suffering from “festival fatigue” at this point?

Livia Lima: To be honest, we are more concerned with the warm weather and the hiking season. [laughs] Many people tend to prefer to be outdoors at this time of the year.

SMF: The festival is a collaborative endeavor that brings together multiple members of the community, from local businesses to the University of Washington to the folks at the Northwest Film Forum. What is the programming process like? I imagine, with only two days for the festival, a lot of difficult decisions had to be made.

CN: The programming process takes place over months, with many rounds of Zoom meetings between Emanuella and the two of us. Since we don’t work with an open call, we have to sort through the most interesting films that came out on the film festival circuit in the past year. It’s difficult to narrow down, but we have a good chemistry, and three curators is an excellent number, especially when there’s a tie.

LL: For us, the festival is also a great opportunity to keep up to date with the most exciting things being made in the Brazilian cinema right now. We’re always asking for recommendations from friends who are watching the movies firsthand.

SMF: Tell me about this year’s selections. Why were they chosen? What should audiences expect?

CN: We are extremely happy with this year’s selection. The opening night features the social thriller Property, a breathtaking film about a woman who, visiting her countryside estate, gets stuck in her armored

car due to a riot of her employees. It comes from Recife and is reminiscent of some other Brazilian recent films that mix genre elements with social content, such as 2012’s Neighboring Sounds and 2019’s Bacurau

The film screens with the short film Neon Phantom, a musical about delivery gig workers in Rio de Janeiro and which was awarded at the Locarno Film Festival.

The Invention of Other is a documentary about the efforts of FUNAI, the Brazilian state protection agency for indigenous rights, to reunite a group of Korubo to their original community. The Korubo are one of the few Indigenous populations to live completely isolated in the Amazon. It’s a very urgent film, especially because of the looming risks today over the Amazon, its people, and ecosystem. One of the main characters of the movie, the indigenist Bruno Pereira, was murdered on a mission to control illegal fishing in 2022. The film screens with a beautiful short film, Thuë Pihi Kuuwi: A Woman Thinking, made by Yanomami women filmmakers.

The closing program feature Heartless, a visually stunning coming-of-age movie about a group of Queer teenagers who hang out despite differences of class, race, and sexuality. The movie screens with the short animation The Enchanted One, codirected by an Indigenous filmmaker, which explores the Maxakali mythology.

SMF: How do you hope Travessias continues to grow and maybe expand in the coming years?

LL: We understand that the festival’s mission is, first and foremost, to present the best of contemporary Brazilian cinema to the Seattle audience. However, we also understand that it is part of our responsibility to build bridges between this cinema production and the viewer. The only way to make it happen is by nurturing a close relationship with the public.

In the coming years, we hope to grow our group of sponsors and supporters by having more film programs and gatherings, like workshops, Brazilian music concerts, and dance parties! Throughout that, we want to understand better what they want in Travessias and how Travessias can still delight and challenge them in surprising ways.

SMF: With the rise of streaming, why is the cinematic theatric experience still so valuable? Why are festivals like this one still so important?

CN: There are a couple of things here. First, most of the films we are showing aren’t available on streaming for American audiences. The vast majority of foreign

films don’t make it to streaming platforms. So streaming platforms actually offer a very narrow selection of movies.

Second, festivals like ours involve a careful selection process, led by passionate people.

Finally, it’s a great opportunity to see the movies on the big screen, with the best technical conditions possible and a sense of community!

SMF: What should people know about the Brazilian film community?

LL: People should know that Brazilian cinema is radical and experimental. Of course, there are some Brazilian blockbusters, especially comedies, but even the “classics” of modern Brazilian cinema were already formally daring and very politicized.

In contemporary times, we have been watching a rise in the number of voices coming from different regions, rather than the usual big cities like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. For example, we love the work of the filmmakers André Novais and Adirley Queirós, who live in and film the periphery of Belo Horizonte and Brasília. Also, despite calling these films independent, in the sense that they are produced outside the industrial mode, most of the features we showcase are only made possible with state support, through incentive laws that offer tax deductions to sponsoring companies.

Under Bolsonaro’s government, the film scene suffered a lot, and fewer films were released. Therefore, the wealth of democracy is crucial for the long life of Brazilian cinema — and everything else!

SMF: Could this festival exist without the support of organizations like the Northwest Film Forum? What part do they play in the Pacific Northwest cinema community?

CN: Since the beginning, hosting the festival in a movie theater and a dynamic neighborhood like Capitol Hill attracted the organizers. Coming from academia, we aim to connect our research to debates in the public sphere, fostering conversations on politics, race, gender, and sexuality through outstanding films.

Nonprofit movie theaters like the Northwest Film Forum, Beacon Cinema, and Grand Illusion are crucial to bringing diversity to the Pacific Northwest cinema community. If it weren’t for their programming and festivals featuring international and local films, Seattleites would watch on the big screen only commercial and wellbehaved cinema.

LL: Northwest Film Forum also plays a significant role in the professional devel-

opment of youth and newcomers to the cinema sphere. Local cinema production is growing and hopefully will get better tax deductions soon. The more that future filmmakers get access to different films, the more they will be able to experiment. The movies we showcase in Travessias are excellent examples of the wonders independent filmmakers can do.

SMF: For audiences, what do you hope they are talking about after this year’s festival? What do you hope they experience?

CN: While selecting the films for Travessias, we don’t work with a predetermined theme. We like to keep our possibilities as open and wild as possible. Only afterward we look at what we have selected to make sense out of the films. The spirit of the time is always there. It came already from the films, of course, but it is also highlighted by our aim to find some answers to the present challenges.

In this edition of the Travessias, we ended up selecting films that remind us to stay tuned to different forms of solidarity. We invite the public to support their union in the first film program. On the second, we urge everyone to advocate for Indigenous rights and land demarcation. On our third film programming, we reaffirm the revolutionary strength of staying true to our beliefs and backing our community members by showing a lovely film on a Queer youth group finding support on friendship and interspecies kinship to survive bumpy times. We hope the festival can give the public a strategic break to return stronger to their fights.

SMF: Finally, anything else you’d like to add or share?

LL: How about a little additional good news?

First, Travessias is offering free tickets for students this year! Just show up with your student IDs. Second, on our opening night, we are also having pães de queijo and coxinhas generously provided by our partner Kitanda. Third, we are growing a collaborative Spotify playlist with great Brazilian contemporary music: https://bit. ly/4bxZjGA. Check it out!

Lastly, cinema buffs out there, please stop by to say hello, watch a film or two, and chat about cinema with us! We love to hear from you.

For a full calendar of screenings and ticket information, please head over to https://nwfilmforum.org/calendar.

HEARTLESS – THE PARTY FILM SALES

Visionary I Saw the TV Glow cracks eggs and shatters all emotional expectations

BY SARA MICHELLE FETTERS SGN STAFF WRITER

I SAW THE TV GLOW Theaters

Visionary director Jane Schoenbrun’s

I Saw the TV Glow is one of the best films about identity I’ve ever seen. I admit that this effusive praise comes from a slightly biased perspective. Even so, there is a universality to many of this story’s core themes that transcend questions of race, gender, and social or economic mores. I would like to think that many — if not most — who encounter this strange, surrealistic drama will feel something similar.

Schoenbrun looks deep into the abyss of the human condition and refuses to flinch, and that in itself is no small thing. Yet their picture is also a decidedly piercing glimpse into the Transgender experience, specifically that period when one awakens to the possibility that something in their life is off in ways others either cannot see, do not want to process, or flatly refuse to understand. This aspect affected me deeply.

But I hope they do. This insightfully stirring, introspective nightmare is a master class in expressionistic, emotional chaos. It’s like Schoenbrun watched David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, David Cronenberg’s Videodrome, Doris Wishman’s

Let Me Die a Woman, Chantal Akerman’s entire filmography, and every episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Are You Afraid of the Dark? and thought, “How can I merge all of these influences into a single, 100-minute motion picture and still make it fun, spooky, exciting, and engaging for a modern audience?” I’ve never seen anything like it.

Everything revolves around a late-1990s television show geared toward a teenage — primarily female — audience, called The Pink Opaque (similarities to Buffy are obviously by design). When ninth-grader Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) first meets seventh-grader Owen (Ian Foreman), his interest in wanting to know more about the program is what sparks their somewhat unconventional friendship. Fast-forward a couple years, and Maddy has been secretly leaving Owen (now portrayed by Justice Smith) VHS recordings of the program so he can keep up with each week’s supernatural happenings.

The show itself focuses on two teenage girls who meet at “Sleepaway Camp” and discover they have a psychic connection that allows them to battle evil together, even though they live hundreds of miles apart and their only meeting happened during the pilot episode. Maddy is obsessed with every twist and turn, so much so that what she perceives as real life and the program’s fictional one begin to merge.

As for Owen, he doesn’t know why

he keeps watching, other than he too is drawn to the two female protagonists on an uncomfortably personal level. He also doesn’t want to lose Maddy. He needs her in his life, and as strange as some of her comments might be, the teenager can see the truth at the center of many of her rants. There’s something odd about the suburban nightmare they’re both residing within, and Owen can’t decide if he wants to solve that mystery, or instead fall down the same humdrum, stereotypical consumerist rabbit hole guys like him are supposed to willingly tumble into with a masculine smile.

Schoenbrun is working on multiple levels. The fourth wall gets broken, with Smith looking straight into the camera to explain aspects of what is going on and why Owen makes many of the decisions that he does. Or is he instead looking into a mirror? The line between Smith, Owen, and one of the primary characters in The Pink Opaque grows thinner as events progress. Who is who and what is what are continual questions. Is the actor playing the character, or is the character inhabiting the actor? Or is it a different person the audience has been watching this entire time without even noticing, mainly because the person telling the story doesn’t want to admit a frightening truth, even to themselves?

None of this is as imperceptibly heady as I’m making it sound. This isn’t just a psychoanalytical sojourn into the nature of identity.

Schoenbrun also wants to have some fun, and it is their film’s giddy, frequently goofy playfulness that allows it to resonate on an even deeper level. I laughed so much that my stomach ached. The tears I shed were justifiably earned and entirely genuine.

Save for one purposefully unsettling metal track that’s like something straight out of Kathryn Bigelow’s Strange Days, the remainder of the rich, mostly femaledriven alt-pop-rock soundtrack overflows in original songs that would have been at home on stage at Buffy Summers’s favorite afterschool hangout, The Bronze. The makeup effects, creature designs, and lighting style for The Pink Opaque are right out of a Nickelodeon Channel teen horror anthology that’s been crossed with Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Lundy-Paine and Smith are outstanding. Both actors inhabit their characters with such gracefully meditative specificity that their individual observations regarding who Maddy and Owen are and what they are dealing with hit with astonishing forcefulness. They make the furtive pain they are suffering through uncomfortably palpable, and I sat there, continually squirming, absolutely certain one or the other was going to strip their skin clean off their physical shells and reveal someone completely new at any moment.

Don’t expect quick or easy resolutions. Schoenbrun isn’t interested. This journey is about revelation. It is about understanding. It is about coming to that blink in the lifespan when a person realizes that they must become who they were always meant to be, otherwise all will be lost. For some, that moment comes early. For others, years, maybe even decades, tragically pass. It’s always different, and no two expeditions are alike.

But the egg will crack. Everyone who marveled at 2021’s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair already understands that Schoenbrun knows all of this, and Trans viewers will immediately get what the filmmaker is examining in such phantasmagoric detail. But, deep down inside, in that place sitting in the interior that makes the skin tingle and the gut hurt when futures are contemplated and the entirety of a single human life is put into some semblance of perspective, I like to think everyone else who has trod upon the the earth understands this as well.

Pink bleeds into blue, and violet reigns supreme, even as a bloody red hue spreads like a gruesome plague, hoping to blot out the fiery orange embers of an unmerciful sun, all the while the cold, white beams of a malevolent moon casually reveal unexpected truths, whether or not we’re ready to look into the mirror and face them. This is I Saw the TV Glow, and it is nothing short of glorious.

BOOKS

Ray Stoeve kicks off the summer with a new Queer, neurodivergent

BY LINDSEY ANDERSON SGN STAFF WRITER

Ray Stoeve is known for their brooding and angsty Queer YA books, but this summer, they’re treading into a brave new territory: romance.

“It’s funny, I’m a very romantic person,” they said. “I love love and romance and all that jazz, but I had somehow never gotten around to reading romance novels. I think I absorbed some of the snobbiness that’s out there [about] that genre.”

After publishing several successful YA books, Stoeve finally picked up a romance novel and was immediately hooked. “It was just so much fun, and it was also way deeper than I had been led to believe romance novels were,” they said. “That genre is very underrated and misunderstood, and because representation, in general, is very important to me in books — specifically, writing Queer and Trans characters in my own stories — it got me thinking about what I wasn’t seeing in that genre.”

Their latest book, The Summer Love Strategy, came to them as they continued to read YA romances and found something was missing.

“I realized that in Sapphic YA romance, I had never seen a Trans girl as the love interest, ever,” they said. “That just felt so wrong to me, but reading that book and being [engrossed] in that relationship, and always thinking about representation and who was telling what stories, and who was in those stories, that kind of came together and sparked my desire to write this book.”

More than just Seattle summer hijinks

The Summer Love Strategy is a fun romance full of tropes and plenty of summer hijinks on the surface. Readers who look deeper will find it’s also a book about the intersections of Queer, Trans, and neurodivergent identities that paints a picture of how the world should treat people. Stoeve says they wrote the book specifically for Queer and Trans readers: “That’s always who I am writing to and for and who I have in mind. I hope they will feel seen and enjoy it and feel fun and have a moment to escape, because the world is a really heavy place right now — for Queer and Trans teens in particular.”

Stoeve also wrote the book with neurodivergent people in mind. “I hope that it also reaches neurodivergent people of all ages. There are multiple characters in this book who are autistic or have ADHD or aren’t sure yet but think they might be neurodivergent, and that’s been a big part of my

romance

“[Queer and Trans readers are] who I am writing to and for and who I have in mind. I hope they will feel seen and enjoy it and feel fun and have a moment to escape, because the world is a really heavy place right now — for Queer and Trans teens in particular.”

journey,” Stoeve said. “It can be such a process to accept that about yourself and integrate it into who you are and work through the internalized ableism that comes with that, and I hope that neurodivergent people will feel the sense of value that they have and carry respect in the way the characters treat each other comes across as this is how you should be treated too, and what the relationship and the love and respect the characters have for each other.”

The book also emphasizes friendship and the meaningful bonds young women make with each other. “I love friendship so much. Friendship is so important to my life, and my friends mean so much to me,”

Stoeve said. “I think it’s beautiful to see how the love you have for someone can

change and grow and find new forms from where it started.”

Pacific Northwest readers may find

The Summer Love Strategy even more exciting, as the story is set right here in Seattle — and full of fun summertime Easter eggs for locals. “I set all of my books in Seattle, so I get to write what I most love about this place and the Queer community, and it just brings me a lot of joy to do that,” Stoeve said. “[My characters] go to the beach, the pool, the Pride Parade, a MUNA concert, and a party. It was fun to write these classic setups of Seattle summer fun.”

Book launch

Stoeve kicked off the summer adventures by holding their first-ever in-person

book launch event at Charlie’s Queer Books on Wednesday, May 8. “I love virtual events. I think they’re great, and they can be very accessible to me in ways that in-person events aren’t, but it feels really special to finally get to have a launch event in a bookstore where everyone I love can come, and I can sign everybody’s physical books and connect in that way,” they said. They were also excited to host their launch party in the store that has quickly become a staple of Seattle’s Queer community. “It’s been interesting to have grown up in Seattle and seen how Queer community and Queer spaces have shifted over time from when I was young,” Stoeve said. “To be at a point in the development of Seattle’s Queer community where there are spaces like Charlie’s Queer Books, where it’s a bookstore, but he’s hosting so many other Queer events — I’ve seen a D&D night, a crafting night, people are hosting their meetups there — it’s more than just what the founding point was for the business. It gives us places to connect, meet each other, and feel a sense of belonging and safety that we may or may not have in the rest of our lives and to see possibilities for our own life.”

Stoeve’s third book, The Summer Love Strategy, is out now and makes the best summer beach read. The novel is available at Charlie’s Queer Books, Third Place Books, and Madison Books.

RAY STOEVE – PHOTO BY JP MARTIN

ABRAMS