Cover design and endpapers for Queer: A Collection of LGBTQ Writing from Ancient Times to Yesterday (Paperback) chosen by Frank Wyne.
Since the dawn of literature, queer people have turned to writing to document their existence: to share great triumphs and deep despairs; to praise the virtues of their lover, extol their loneliness and proclaim their lust; to tell of their peculiarities and mundanities. For almost as long, they have been censored and bowdlerised, persecuted and relegated to the margins. No longer. Alive in these pages, readers will hear Homer's Achilles beat his chest in grief for the loss of his Patroclus and Paul Verlaine exalt the arsehole of his lover. They will see Alison Bechdel tiptoe then leap out of the closet and Juno Dawson come out again, but differently. They will bite and lick and groan in sweet surprise with Roz Kaveney, and fall in and out of love alongside Qiu Miaojin in Paris and Taiwan. They will recognise queer saints and icons - Audre Lorde, Larry Kramer, Virginia Woolf - and meet young queer, trans and non-binary writers - Keith Jarrett, Zhang Yueran and Niviaq
December 2022
