Gays Reading

Host Jason Blitman talks to author Annie Summerlee about what she's been reading as she awaited the publication of her book: The Book of Blood and Roses. Annie Summerlee lives in Spain with her partner, two cats, and a rescue dog. Her short stories have been featured in 404 Ink, Litro, and So To Speak, as well as other magazines and anthologies. She also writes in Catalan and Spanish.

Announcing the February Gays Reading Book Club Pick...⭐️ MISSING SAM by Thrity Umrigar, the bestselling author of HONORAt first glance, MISSING SAM looks like a classic thriller: a woman goes missing after a morning run and her wife is left behind to search for answers. But very quickly, this book becomes something much deeper. The book is about what happens when grief collides with prejudice. About how quickly suspicion attaches itself to certain bodies. About love, marriage, and what it means to feel unsafe not just in the world, but inside your own community.New to the club? Get your first book for just $1!When you join the Gays Reading Book Club with Allstora, here’s what you get:A SIGNED copy of the book!30% off everything on Allstora’s websiteAccess to our Book Club chatEvery subscription donates a children’s book to an LGBTQIA+ youthA book club that exclusively supports LGBTQIA+ authorsAnd more along the wayThrity Umrigar is the bestselling author of nine previous novels, including Honor, which was a Reese’s Book Club Pick, as well as four picture books and a memoir. Her books have been published in over twenty countries and in several languages. A former journalist, she has contributed to the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the New York Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and other newspapers. She is a recipient of the Nieman Fellowship to Harvard, and winner of the Cleveland Arts Prize, the Seth Rosenberg prize and a Lambda Literary award. She is currently a Distinguished University Professor of English at Case Western Reserve University.

Host Jason Blitman chats with author Emily Austin about her latest novel, Is This a Cry for Help?Conversation highlights include:Emily’s habit of endlessly rewriting the pitch at the top of her manuscriptThe ethics of librarianship and why access to information mattersBug killing, sex dens, and everything in betweenEmily Austin is the author of We Could Be Rats, Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead, Interesting Facts About Space, and the poetry collection Gay Girl Prayers. She was born in Ontario, Canada, and received two writing grants from the Canadian Council for the Arts. She studied English literature and library science at Western University. She currently lives in Ottawa, in the territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation.

Host Jason Blitman sits down with Sarah Dickinson, creator and host of popular podcast Sarah’s Bookshelves Live, to talk about the books she’s most excited to read in 2026.Conversation highlights include:Anticipated book trends for the year aheadWhy first lines should be part of a book's marketing materialFeelings on classic books

Host Jason Blitman kicks off 2026 by revisiting some of the quiet yet impactful moments from Gays Reading episodes in 2025.Featured in this episode are conversations with:Rabih Alameddine Daniel BlackJennifer Finney BoylanKarissa ChenPrabal GurungDylin HardcastleRickey LaurentiisNathan H. Lents Sameer PandyaV.E. Schwab

In the final episode of 2025, host Jason Blitman sits down with author and critic Marion Winik for a wide-ranging, bookish conversation. Winik shares her top ten favorite fiction reads of the year and reflects on her memoir First Comes Love as it celebrates its 30th anniversary—plus the release of its new audiobook. Even more from this conversation, including top ten nonfiction books and exclusive critic talk, is available on the Gays Reading Substack. https://gaysreading.substack.com/Marion Winik is the author of nine books, including The Big Book of the Dead (Counterpoint, 2019) and First Comes Love (Pantheon, 1996). Her essays have been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Sun, and elsewhere; her column at BaltimoreFishbowl.com has been running since 2011. A professor at the University of Baltimore, she reviews books for The Washington Post, Oprah Daily, and People, among others, and hosts the NPR podcast The Weekly Reader. She was a commentator on All Things Considered for fifteen years. She is the recipient of the 2023 National Book Critics Circle Service Award.  

In this episode, host Jason Blitman sits down with Alex Snodgrass (aka The Defined Dish) to talk all things book club menus—how to plan them, why they matter, and how food can deepen the reading experience. Using Alex’s recent book club gathering for Conform as a case study, the conversation expands to include Conform author Ariel Sullivan, who joins to unpack the creative collaboration behind the menu and the meal. As part of our celebration of people doing interesting things with books, Ariel also shares a peek into her ambitious storytelling vision—including how her series isn’t just a trilogy, but a trilogy of trilogies.Alex's invite, menu, recipes, photos, and MORE conversation can be found over on the Gays Reading Substack. Alex Snodgrass is a food lover, health enthusiast, and founder of the popular blog and social media outlet The Defined Dish. She is a recipe developer and food stylist from Dallas, where she lives with her husband and two young daughters. She is a master at substituting clean ingredients to create bold flavors in the kitchen and her recipes are perfect for any level of home cook. In 2018, Alex won the "Most Inspired Weeknight Dinners" Saveur Blog Award, and she continues to share her love for creating special moments around the dinner table.Ariel Sullivan is the author of Conform and Beneath. She lives in Connecticut with her husband, two sons, and their two French bulldogs. Growing up a military brat, Ariel moved every two years as a perpetual new kid; Ariel often observed from the outskirts, where a deep love of reading was born. When she isn’t writing, Ariel loves to read everything from poetry to psychology, bake with her sons, listen to live music, and travel.

Host Jason Blitman sits down with Reginald Dwayne Betts—poet, lawyer, and founder of Freedom Reads—for an intimate conversation about transforming America's prison system one library at a time. In an extraordinary turn of events, Dwayne receives a live call from Jermaine, a friend currently incarcerated at Lawrenceville Correctional Facility. Jermaine joins the conversation to share how not having a Freedom Reads library has impacted his own journey, offering rare, unfiltered insight into what literature means inside the prison system. Reginald Dwayne Betts is a poet and lawyer. A 2021 MacArthur Fellow, he is the Executive Director of Freedom Reads, a not-for-profit organization that is radically transforming the access to literature in prisons through the installation of Freedom Libraries in prisons across this country.For more than twenty-years, he has used his poetry and essays to explore the world of prison and the effects of violence and incarceration on American society. The author of a memoir and three collections of poetry, he has transformed his latest collection of poetry, the American Book Award winning Felon, into a solo theater show that explores the post incarceration experience and lingering consequences of a criminal record through poetry, stories, and engaging with the timeless and transcendental art of paper-making. His book Doggerel: Poems is available now.In 2019, Betts won the National Magazine Award in the Essays and Criticism category for his NY Times Magazine essay that chronicles his journey from prison to becoming a licensed attorney. He has been awarded a Radcliffe Fellowship from Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Emerson Fellow at New America, and most recently a Civil Society Fellow at Aspen. Betts holds a J.D. from Yale Law School.